Restaurant review: Boneta (Gastown)

Not sure why this review was still on my drafts, but here it is now. 🙂

Phaedra had been raving for a good couple of months about how great this place was, so we decided to finally take the plunge and go there for lunch to celebrate a couple of weeks ago. Phaedra has been there many a time, and I know that Rebecca and Keira have gone down there for dinner and have also raved about it.

Since we were there for lunch and I rarely order shellfish when I dine out, I took the plunge with a spaghetti with mussels. Phaedra had a scrumptions beet salad (both shown below). The service was impeccable. We had some champagne since we were celebrating, and the owner came to talk to us several times throughout the lunch, making sure we were being given the best service possible.

I will have to come back for dinner at some point, but for now I can sincerely say that whatever my expectation was for Boneta, it was fulfilled. It is on the ‘upscale’ side of pricing, but also on the same side of service AND quality of food.

The owner of Boneta with Phaedra 🙂

Overall, it was a great afternoon. I always enjoy my time with Phaedra, and how often do you get to hang out and have a lunch date with one of Vancouver’s hottest bloggers (and newly-minted professional counselor!)? Not very often, so I am happy to seize the opportunity as soon as it presents itself!

World Environment Day 2008

You can tell when I am 100% swamped by my blog or my behavior on Twitter/MSN/GTalk: I simply don’t participate/write! This week has been busy due to my participation in Congress, writing a paper that I am co-authoring, and giving two talks. Thus, I had almost completely forgotten about today’s event: World Environment Day. While not as famous as Earth Day (I am not sure why), today marks the celebrations of all things environment. Originated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), this day serves as a reminder that we still need to do more on issues of climate change, water scarcity, desertification and deforestation, global pollution, to name but just a few. Happy belated World Environment Day!

Too much information meme – Raul’s answers

Always lovely and mindful of how busy I have been, Rebecca had decided not to tag me for the “Too Much Information” meme that she got tagged on (originally I think Larry also tagged Matt Collinge AND Jonathon Narvey, so technically, at least three of my friends have now been tagged). Nevertheless, I figured that it would only be fair to voluntarily self-tag and here are my answers 🙂

1. Who is your favorite musical artist?
I grew up in a household where the mother is a soprano, the father plays the guitar, and all five boys (e.g. us) play the piano. Therefore, I am very associated with classical music, and therefore Beethoven would be my favorite musical artist. Always the black sheep, I decided to switch to contemporary dance as my form of art, and from there, I went to salsa and tango. Thus, it is no wonder that some of the musical artists I like are Latin (please refrain from making the Ricky Martin/Enrique Iglesias joke – thank you). Finally, I *love* Canadian musicians – Matthew Good, Sarah McLachlan, Shania Twain, Chantal Kreviazuk, Avril Lavigne, and Jann Arden to mention just a few.

2. Who is your favorite artist?
I think that most respondents have referred to painters/sculptors in their responses. Following the same trend, I am a big fan of Renoir, Michelangelo, Van Gogh. Quite obviously given my heritage, I am also a big follower of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Finally, I consider acting as a form of art (I am trained as a theatre actor) and thus I am also a big fan of Meryl Streep and the late Heath Ledger.

3. Who is your favourite blogger?
TMI. No, I’m just kidding. I don’t think I have a favourite blogger. I make a point of reading *at least* all the blogs in my blogroll, and the majority of those people are friends of mine in real life now. While my blogroll definitely needs some updating (particularly since I’ve started reading the blogs of new Twitter friends, both followers and reciprocal follows), I am usually pretty damn good at reading (and commenting) when I think I can add to the conversation, and no, I don’t think I can prioritize anyone and say “this is my favourite blogger”.

4. If you could meet anyone (alive or dead), who would it be and what is the most interesting thing about them?
This may sound like a really dumb answer, but I really would like to have met Albert Einstein. He was supposedly an outcast and his IQ tests were miserable, according to some reports I have read. I just would like to know how he would see the world as I know it. As for living people – I think I’ve met some wonderful people (famous actors, writers, politicians). That being said, I wouldn’t mind meeting Michaelle Jean in person, if anything just to ask her what does it feel to be such an iconic figure for Canada AND an immigrant.

5. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Originally, I was going to be a doctor. I am now a doctor, but of a different kind, hehehe. My parents were incredibly patient with me. They put me through lessons for everything. I studied library science, criminology, interior design, chemistry, you name it. I think my financial debt to my parents for my education is ranging in the six figures realm now.

6. What is the most interesting piece of trivia you know?
Well, not sure if it is interesting to YOU but it is interesting to me. Did you know that the two major fears of every human (the only fears with which we are born) are the fear to loud noises and the fear of falling? Of course, you could add a third (the fear of making a loud noise when falling).

7. If you could live in any point in history when would it be and why?
My ex was a historian, so I always got asked this question, and my response is always the same: France in the late 1700s. Did you know that the Declaration of Rights was signed in 1789? What made the French people at the time decide that all men (and women) are all equal? (mind you, the actual wording seems to refer only to men – how inappropriate!)

8. What is the most interesting job you have ever held?
I will have to say that hands down, being a professor (instructor, teacher, however you want to call it). I witnessed my students grow with every class, their self-esteem and confidence in the command they were gaining of the material. Learning about local issues and national issues and analyzing them through different theoretical frameworks and using different research strategies was always fun. Although, truth be told, being a bartender really does bring out a whole other side of me 😉

Now, should I tag someone else? Nah – I’ll let you voluntarily self-tag. I am sure more than one of you will do it, sooner or later 😉

Not ignoring anyone, I swear! :-)

Yesterday I spent a substantial amount of time doing academic-related work, and thus even though I had GMail and GTalk open, I failed to initiate any conversations with my friends. Furthermore, I almost did not use Twitter at all during the day. That’s not because I don’t want to talk to you, it was just that I was really insanely busy (preparing two talks that I am giving in exactly one hour and a half). Just saying, for the record 🙂

Immersing myself back in the academic sphere

This week is the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ Annual Congress (sometimes called the Congress of the Learned Societies, a name I found extremely funny). I have a couple of long-term research colleagues coming from Ontario, so I am looking forward to seeing them. Furthermore, I happen to be lucky in that I found a way to sneak into the program, and I will be giving two talks.

One of the keynote speakers is Richard Florida, a scholar whom some people love to hate. I happen to like Florida’s research, and since I am someone who understands the field of urban sustainability and regional science, I think that there is merit to his work. I am not a fan of Florida, but I won’t be demeaning to him. As a scholar myself, I think that Florida should be receptive to criticism and I’d jump at the chance to come and see him speak and ask questions (tough but respectful). We’ll see if I manage to do that, since I am also presenting at Congress.

It feels somewhat strange to be back immersed in the academic realm, talking research strategies, etc. Blogging does give me a much needed respite from the heavy duties of academic research and writing, but at times, I also kind of need to do that again so that I remember why I did a PhD in the first place! And Congress is really fun. I enjoy schmoozing the academic-geeky way 😉

My growing dependency on transit in the Metro Vancouver region

This past month (May), for reasons that I will not get into here, I had to buy bus tickets and spent over $60 on tickets alone. Admittedly, if I had known that the bureaucratic issues were not going to be resolved by May 2nd, I would have bought a traditional bus pass. Unfortunately, I didn’t and ended up feeling trapped. Yes, trapped is the word. I had to ask my friends to come to my stomping grounds (the Main St./Mount Pleasant area).

Moreover, when I had to head downtown, I had to be very strategic about where I was going and how many events I attended in a day. Fortunately, the week that I attended Launch Party IV, VIDFEST, Convergence and Third Tuesday I also happened to be downtown, so it wasn’t all that bad. All this comes to just remind me how dependent I am now on my bus pass and on transit in general.

I fixed these issues last Thursday, and even though I am not attending lots of events, I have been feeling incredibly free. Just the mere fact that I can commute everywhere within the Metro Vancouver area without feeling trapped by the confines of my geographical area (as I was before, not having my bus pasS) has made me gain a new appreciation for the need for appropriate transit.

I rarely talk about transit or local politics or these kinds of issues as there are many other bloggers in the Metro Vancouver area who do it (of course, admittedly, I may disagree with many of these bloggers’ views, but I still think that we need them). But for example, some local bloggers who talk transit in a much better light than I do are Stephen Rees, Karen Fung and Paul Hillsdon (who by the way is running for council in Surrey).

Despite the fact that my blog is pretty personal, I think it is important for me to highlight some issues that are of relevance (at least, to my personal life!) – and one of these is the need for good transit. I have become very dependent on a good transit system, and I am pretty good at navigating it. The other day, JT and I were roaming around Vancouver and Burnaby, and I was the one giving directions. Why? Because I’ve used the system for so long and so frequently that now I know many of my routes.

I do wish that we had a better system, including (but not limited to)
– that Translink got their act together with a line that goes through 16th Avenue,
– that Cambie hadn’t been decimated the way it was,
– that the board was more transparent and accountable,
– that the rest of the Metro Vancouver was as well covered as some of the downtown areas,
– that the fares weren’t as high (I dare Metro Vancouver and Translink to offer such low fares as those offered in the Mexican transit system),
-….

Now, the question goes to YOU. What things are in your wish-list for the Metro Vancouver transit system and for Translink?

Ellen Page on ReGenesis – what a surprise!

As you can imagine, I’m a fan of Ellen Page. Her talent has made her one of the youngest Best Actress in a Leading Role nominees (if it wasn’t because I was vying for Julie Christie for Away from Her, I probably would have wanted her to win). Besides, she is Canadian. That fact alone wins her lots of brownie points from me.

While watching TV today, I saw a scene from the Canadian show ReGenesis. Surprisingly, I saw Page playing the daughter of the main character of ReGenesis… even more surprising, Julie Stewart (of Cold Squad fame) plays the mother! Full of pleasant surprises, this show.

Here’s the intro credits video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF-L7TaQR4A&hl=en]

First experiments with Flip video

I recently entered a contest organized by Reachd and TechVibes, where I won a Flip camera. Last week, I attended the training session on how to use the Flip. It was really fun, the instructor was really good and I learned a lot. One of the things that struck me as interesting (and Matt Collinge had already mentioned it over Twitter) is that the Flip camera is a good tool for real estate agents.

I had NO idea that realtors had to learn so much about SEO, Google Adwords, etc. Steve mentioned that it was because they (the realtors) needed to be found and reached. Very true. I hadn’t even thought about that. Below you can find my first video. Please note that it is 100% raw (unedited).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH6Wo9xUeac&hl=en]

On that note, Steve told me that he is organizing a seminar with renowned Gary Vaynerchuk (from the Wine Library), one of the most renowned vloggers out there. Check it out, sounds like fun! I am not going to be able to attend myself, but I think it’s very much worth it. Even as a someone who does not monetize his blog, I gained a lot from attending the seminar. I can imagine that Gary’s participation in the seminar will enhance it so much more.

Academia can be dangerous for your health :)

I just read Dr. Beth Snow’s most recent blog post where she was indicating that she had been working on a grant for way too long (I won’t spoil the fun, go and read it and then come back). I have had similar things happen to me at some point, but Beth’s does take the cake. I do know that I spoil people’s breakfast by responding to my friends’ comments with an academic overtone.

Neighbour – “You cough once a minute while you type on your desk.”
Raul – “No, I don’t”.
Neighbour – “Yes, you do”.
Raul – “Do you have any empirical evidence to that?”
Neighbour – *Shows page with scribbled notes*
Raul – “Hmmm… that’s not a large enough N to warrant statistical reliability”
Neighbour – “….”

I know, I’m a dork. An academic dork, at that. And a geek-in-training too 🙂

This is what the weather should look like in Vancouver!

Just a reminder to the weather gods of what Vancouver should be looking like :). Photo credit – the photo is mine, but you can link it with proper attribution 🙂

The tea we should have for this weather.

The tea we should all consume for this weather. Photo credit: Me.

Bar review – Stella’s (Commercial Drive)

Lately, I’ve been a bit more of a hermit. I fainted recently and that was an alarm signal for me. My energy levels are usually through the roof and I’m never one to say “no” to any invitations. However, this past Sunday I had to miss an invitation to a Tweetup organized by Colleen Coplick to meet Tris Hussey. That was on Sunday evening, which was unfortunate as I had some personal matters to tend to. But on Saturday, I did manage to get myself out of the house and meet with my friend AF.

We tend to be more kind of “fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” whenever we hang out, so we settled for a leisurely walk on Saturday afternoon around Trout Lake, followed by a couple of drinks at Stella’s on Commercial Drive. I had heard mixed reviews about Stella’s, but after having had a drink and some Belgian fries there, I am not going to complain.

The beer was somewhat on the side of expensive, but since this seemed to be gourmet beer, and AF seemed to like it, I won’t complain. My drink, I think was a Choc O9 Late (Absolut Vodka, White Cacao, Belgian Chocolate) but with amaretto. The drink (a double per my request) was lovely and I got a great buzz. We shared a cone of Belgian fries. The patio is nice although not much of a view (I was looking at the back side of the Grandview Park).

As usual, the company was what made the drinks taste better. I really enjoy “impromptu” hanging out opportunities with friends (when I have the time and can attend!). The thing is, I’m slowly learning to just do the things I have the physical energy, the time, money and resources to attend.

Movie review – Sex and the City (The Movie)

I’ll have to confess that I am in the minority of the male population who actually will want to see this movie. I rarely watched Sex and the City, but all my female friends did, and it soon became a topic of conversation. Louis Vuitton, stylettos, and closet sizes soon became part of our chats. The interesting bit is that the demographics that I expected were totally fulfilled when I saw the movie earlier this week:

– % of males in the audience – close to 10%
– % of females talking loudly in the audience – close to 85%
– Number of times I had to “SHHHHH” loudly to have someone shut up – 25
– Number of times I heard someone sob loudly – 10
[EDIT – Number of times I felt bad about said person sobbing loudly – 10]
– Number of times I shed tears – 4
– Number of times I said “OUCH” – 1
– % of the overall content of the soundtrack that I loved – 99%
– Songs I particularly liked
– Flash (by Ciara)
– The Look of Love (Nina Simone remixed)
– Labels or Love (Fergie)

You can read better reviews of the movie, by Rebecca, Keira-Anne, Jennifer, as I am not really a SATC follower.

One thing I did notice is that there was a lot of intimate scenes. Now, I am not a prude by any measure, but I thought that these were… not exactly needed, if I may say so. But my overall feeling of the movie was that it was a story of love, redemption, and more than anything, one of the most profound and glowing forms of love I have been witness to: friendship.

Finally, the movie made me reflect about love in general, and one person in particular who lives far away from Canada. I am not sure this person has been able to find love (even though this person is already married) but one thing I can sure say is “good riddance!” 🙂 I’ll find love with someone else. I deserve to find the love of my life and I am sure I will find it some day.

Here are the three YouTube videos I found for the three songs I really liked.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_8laPFP0B0&hl=en]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs2frnOcXtM&hl=en]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke3JOAXD1F8&hl=en]

Meld’s last gig

I met Daniel and a few of his friends, including Anya and Alex at WordCamp Vancouver 2008 and we’ve kept in touch ever since. Since Daniel is going away for a year, his band (Meld) played one last time at Myles on Beans (near Edmonds Skytrain station – awesome place, by the way). Daniel invited me to his last gig, and I was happy I did attend.

So who are Meld?

MELD is a family rock band that plays mostly soft rock, classic rock, and folk but enjoys the occasional diversion into celtic music and psychedelic math metal. We’re Michael on guitar/vox, Esmie behind the scenes, Leanne on bass/keys?/vox, and Daniel on drums.[MELD]

I haven’t finished uploading all the photos from the gig, nor the videos, but here is a shot that I think captured the evening. The rest are on my Flickr set for this particular evening. After the gig, we came back to the McLaren’s for some Rock Band. As I’ve previously stated, I am HORRIBLE at Rock Band, but I love to play. I will upload the videos to YouTube at some point this week.

It was a very nice and enjoyable evening, and I kind of regret not having seen some of their other gigs, particularly since they played twice in my neighbourhood (Cottage Bistro and Purple Crab) last year. But I’m sure I’ll get to see them when Daniel is back.

As I mentioned to the McLaren’s (Michael and Esmie), in many ways, I saw my life very much re-enacted last night. My parents and I have sang together (my Mom is a soprano, my Dad plays the guitar, we all brothers play the piano) and they never pushed me to do anything. On the contrary, they always encouraged me to do the best I could. That’s what also made it very enjoyable to see another family do the same (Daniel is off to Europe for a year, and his parents have been very encouraging to him). Good times, all around.

The Apple Store in Vancouver has done it right, I think

This will be a series of posts, as I can’t really recap my weekend all in one single post. Had the pleasure of meeting Duane, Rebecca and Chad for lunch at Wings (although I wasn’t really feeling in the mood for wings so I just had a little bit of a glass of beer). The conversation revolved a lot around McLuhan, a topic that will be revisited down the road.

Afterwards, Duane suggested to mosey over to the Apple store in Pacific Centre. I have to say that, given that I am not an Apple/Mac user, it is kind of hard for me to understand the hype. However, since I have lots of geeky Mac friends, I wanted to check it out. Pleasantly impressed with the knowledge of the staff. This particular customer service representative spent a solid 30 minutes talking to us about Mac, and he seemed very knowledgeable. How would I know that? Well, because Duane (who IS very knowledgeable) and this guy chatted about all sorts of geeky stuff. I listened intently and learned a lot from this conversation.

Admittedly, if you are in it for the hottie factor, yes, the customer representatives are pretty hot… but they’re also very geeky… which only comes to demonstrate that geek is chic 😉

Photo credit: John Biehler on Flickr. John has a great post on the Apple Store here.

Homelessness in Vancouver and sustainability: Researching the issue

As it turns out, I have been thinking for a while about ways in which I can write more Vancouver-centric stuff. I want to write a well-researched, cogent article on the fact that we need to look at homelessness and sustainability through a more cogent, holistic perspective, not all the “wishy-washy”, “yeah we do care about homeless people, see… we’re buying new buildings”, yadda yadda yadda. However, as an academic and with my research training I feel that I can’t just write whatever comes out of my brain. I need data, I need numbers, I need background reading and I need people to talk to who are knowledgeable in the area of homelessness (I have training in urban sustainability, so I can take care of that side of the equation). All leads much appreciated. Please leave a comment on my blog. Thanks! I’ll save your contact details and get back to you once I’ve done enough research to write a very cogent, solid post. Thanks.

Natural beauty, friends and short updates

This past couple of weeks, the weather in Vancouver has been fairly decent, and I’ve managed to take a few photos. With my recent scare (e.g. fainting spell), I just came to realize that I haven’t had a relaxed week/weekend in a long while. Thus, I figured I’d just use this short post to show you some pretty pictures I took from the very rare occasions when I have taken relaxing, leisurely walks around Vancouver.

The first set is from brunch at Deep Cove’s Arm Reach Bistro with JT.

The view from the parking lot of Panorama. Photo credit: JT.

Martinis @ Arms Reach Bistro, FTW! Photo credit: JT.

The second set is from brunch at The Nice Cafe and a long walk around the False Creek seawall, from the bridge crossing into Charleson Park to Granville Island and back (a walk I did with C and B).

The view of Yaletown from False Creek. Photo credit: Me.

I rarely use the visual editor because I find it annoying, but I wanted to see if I could adjust the code for photo alignment and size. And yes, I’m doing much better (physically and in the process of geekification). Going to take it easy this weekend anyways.

EDIT – Hat tips to Andy for fixing the code. I’m such a non geek 🙂

Just a note on blog reads

This probably should be a Tweet instead of a full blog post and I feel guilty I am making you lose about one minute of your time, but just thought I’d say that even if I don’t comment on your blog every time I visit, you can rest assured I still read it 🙂 I am *usually* up to speed almost on every one of the blogs on my blogroll. Well, sometimes if you’re way too productive and you’ve been blogging up a storm, I *might* not catch up. But generally speaking, I’m pretty much on the ball. Oh and I am trying to add all the blogs that I have been neglecting to add to my blogroll lately. It just takes some time. Anyhow, just a quick note. Ok, thx bye.

Fainting, migraines and other stuff – An unusual evening for me

I have only fainted once before in my life. It was when I was playing high-level competitive volleyball and it was at the National Junior Volleyball Championships. Right before the semi-finals, I remember talking to my Mom about a particular strategy I was going to follow. The next thing I remember was my parents holding me in their arms and me lying on the ground.

This evening, I Twittered that I wanted to go for coffee as I was already downtown for the Reachd.com training session. However, since nobody responded, I went home right after to prepare myself for dinner, as I had promised Karen that I’d meet her, Richard and a few other friends of hers for dinner really close to my place.

Admittedly I was going to arrive fashionably late (7.15 pm is decent for a 7.00 pm dinner appointment) but things went awry when I was sending my last tweet, and putting on my jacket to head out for dinner (if my Twitter history is correct, that was around 7.02pm). All I recall is that everything went black, and I woke up lying on my bed, face down. I looked at my wrist-watch and saw that it was 8.25pm. I checked myself in the mirror and noticed I had yet another bruise in my nose, right where my glasses sit.

Wonderful. Dinner with friends and I’m looking awfully bad. Changed band-aids and ran out the door muttering to myself “what the heck just happened“. Managed to get to the restaurant on time to meet Karen, Richard and their friends for dessert (gelato) and a quick trip to Happy Bats Cinema.

Overall, I am kind of worried. This week I’ve been feeling sort of disengaged and not too connected, in a way. Kind of not exactly in the place where I usually am. I had intermittent migraines over the weekend, which made me miss previous commitments with Jonathon, Ianiv and Arieanna, John Biehler, and a few other folks. These things normally do not happen to me, so I really have to look into what happened. I have the theory that I have been pushing myself too hard lately. We’ll see what I can do the rest of this week. I’m planning not to make any big social commitments (sorry, but another week like this past week with seven events in three days will probably just be insane.

Flip Camera Video Training

Not quite a live-blog, but I plan to report back on the training session (I just read on Twitter that this training session was SOLD OUT! Congrats to Reachd.com!) wher I will learn how to use the Flip camera I won 🙂 Check back soon. Also, I now have accounts with Vimeo and YouTube.

UPDATE 3:00pm – We had a short break at the seminar, had a chance to chat briefly with Rob Lewis from TechVibes and with Stephen Jagger from Reachd. Rodney is a really good presenter AND he knows his stuff inside out. We are about to start playing with the cameras.

UPDATE 4.20pm – We are over 2/3 of the session. It has been incredibly useful. The Flip camera is super easy to use. The seminar itself has taught me a lot about YouTube, AdWords, the whole SEO world. Very useful tips were provided on how to disseminate your video, really get it out to a lot of places.

Quick notes
– Important to do social networking and social bookmarking.
– Make your video short, good content, valuable to the viewer.
– Learn how to use Digg, Reddit, Delicious.
– You can use Facebook for videos (seems strange, but true!)

I will be uploading a quick video I did of the session using the Flip camera. It was my first attempt so please be kind. It will be uploaded to YouTube and then embedded here.

COMMENTS ON THE VENUE

I was very pleasantly surprised that even though Ceili’s Irish Pub is a rather large venue, the third-floor meeting room was quite private and comfortable.

Living to the fullest, Raul’s style

I had a very pleasant discussion a few nights ago with a very close friend of mine where he was saying “I admire your zest for life. You can live to the fullest, and that’s something not everybody can do“. I was flattered but also kept wondering… can you teach someone how to live his/her life to the fullest? I am not 100% sure I was taught how to do it, but I know for sure that a part of me rationally has made the decision to be intense about everything in my life, particularly after learning what I learned a few years ago about my birth.

My late Grandma was a registered nurse and midwife, and she was there for two of my brother’s births (she basically brought them to this world). When my Mom was pregnant with me, my Grandma thought she was capable of helping my Mom give birth. However, after a few hours of labour, she realized that there might be something wrong, so she called my Dad.

My Dad and my Grandma took my Mom to the hospital, where (after analyzing the situation) one of my Mom’s best friends (and a great gyn-ob specialist) told Mom and Dad “actually the baby is breech, and he has the umbilical cord around his neck — so unless we get him out quickly, he might start suffering and/or die“. Of course, you can imagine my parents freaked out. However, this doctor and his team were phenomenal and managed to get me out just in time (and while they used forceps, they managed to avoid hurting me or my Mom). And so I was born, healthy and in one piece.

Fast-forward a couple of decades. The second-to-last last time I went to Mexico (2006), my parents and I went out for dinner before they drove me to the airport (I was flying back to Vancouver). While we were eating dinner, I was telling my Dad that a lot of people in Canada seemed to be quite surprised by my emotional intensity and at how hard I’ve worked at everything I’ve done and he answered quite openly “well, maybe the fact is that you fought so hard to be alive when you were just about to be born that maybe you’ve decided since then to just live to the fullest – to make the best of the chance you were given – at least, that’s my theory“.

When I first heard his response, I was a bit shocked, but my Dad’s theory does make sense. After having that conversation with my parents I have wondered if my parents have imbued this sense of urgency in me (given that they were the ones who witnessed how close I had been to dying). I have always felt a sense of urgency, and that’s why I have dabbled in so many things and tried so much stuff through the years (that is the rational part of me).

While I’m not sure that I was taught how to live my life to the fullest, I have to wonder if I was sub-consciously trained to be intense. Did my parents’ said something to me while I was asleep or half-asleep that simply has clicked in my brain? I am not about to call them and ask them, so I guess the question will always be there, but at the same time, I feel somewhat helpless in that I don’t know how to teach my loved ones how to live so intensely. And truth of the matter is, maybe they don’t even want to!

Anyway, just thinking out loud here. I am happy with who I am and I am very grateful for having reached the point that I am at. I’ve come close to dying a few times, and I’m still here, so there must be a reason, and while I may not know what this reason is, I’m just going to keep working hard at doing the best I can with what I’ve got while I am on this planet. I do know what makes me happy, and that’s a great gift. I’m not perfect by any measure, but I’m very, very happy with who I am. Maybe that’s part of being fulfilled. Maybe that’s part of “living to the fullest”…

Movie review – Cutting Edge 3: Chasing The Dream

I am into sappy movies, anybody who reads my blog knows that. However, this one is definitely one that I could predict three seconds into the movie. There were some plots and twists to Cutting Edge 3: Chasing the Dream, but overall, it was really predictable. Admittedly, I watched it for the eye candy, and because it is a movie about figure skating, a sport that I absolutely love (even though I am sure that, at my age, I will never be able to do a triple salchow – or a double, for that matter).

Long story made short – Handsome, rich, sweet, nice guy Zach is a great figure pairs skater who loses his skating partner to an injury. He needs to find a new partner and thus launches a search. Outsider, hockey-player Alejandra wants to figure skate and Zach is the key to a new world. Sparks fly, trouble ensues and in the end, the world is alright because they… well, of course, I am not going to tell you how it ends. It’s a rental, and I did exactly that (rented it). Good movie for a Sunday evening at home and sushi take-out.

Somebody had the good idea of putting videos of the movie together with the song that really stuck in my head (Apologize by One Republic feat. Timbaland) and create a YouTube video. Said video is shown below. That way, I can hit two birds with one stone – music AND movie review 🙂

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA0U3mxP6dA&hl=en]

Restaurant review: The Locus (Main Street)

Even though I live very close to The Locus, it is rare that I eat at this place. I had dinner there once and was utterly unimpressed. But this week, I had a celebratory lunch and thus had to find something around the neighbourhood. Surprisingly, no restaurant was open. Niether Zipang, nor Crave. So we settled for The Locus. I am glad we did. I had a venison burger with a side of chorizo gumbo (soup) and it was simply outstanding.

So, what is the Locus?

Located at Vancouver’s busy and thriving trendy Main Street neighborhood, the Locus Restaurant offers an eclectic fusion of modern and classic favourites. The staff sources the best local and seasonal ingredients to create innovative dishes and delicious daily specials.
[The Locus website]

The decor would turn off someone like me, who does not thrive in kind of gothy, dark, red light kind of decor. However, admittedly, the food is simply excellent, so I am not going to complain about that. What I really wanted was to consume good, well prepared food, which is the highlight of the Locus. I would come back during the day. At night I think I’d be a little bit creeped out. But the place is so popular, I can understand how some people might like their unique and eclectic decor.

I have heard that it’s also a great place for brunch though I’ve never tried it. They have a great patio, so maybe it’d be a good place for some beers and brunch. We’ll see.

Making your posts searchable with unique categories

I am usually REALLY bad at coming up with categories. I never saw the purpose to them, until Rebecca actually taught me to differentiate between Tags and Categories. Then Rastin asked me to tag my posts for WordCamp Vancouver 2008. On Tuesday night (at the Vancouver Metbloggers drinks @ Library Square) Rebecca and I were talking about how much we hate it when people don’t tag their photos or posts.

I try to tag all my photos on Flickr with my first name (raul) or my nickname (hummingbird604). I do the same for all other bloggers (e.g. Rebecca with miss604, Corinna with gusgreeper, Tanya with netchick, John with johnbiehler or johnbollwitt as the case may be, Nancy with moneycoach, MJ with urbanista, to give a few examples). With the posts, I haven’t really created very unique categories. But I’ll have to say that Meg Fowler and Beth Snow probably take the cake for degree of uniqueness with their categories. While some of us use “blogosphere” or “random thoughts”, Meg for example tells you which posts she thinks are “not a super crucial topic“. Beth’s “rampant consumerism” is also fairly unique (although someone else also has that tag now). I’ll say both really try for unique categories.

I am trying to create unique tags and categories for myself, so I think the very first that is really super unique is “geekifying myself“. I guess I should really create a category for this type of post that should read something like “you really shouldn’t have clicked on this blog post”. 😀

Monday Link Love – No Time Edition

Just had a scrumptious breakfast and I’m on cup # 2 of my daily coffee intake, and even though I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to blog this morning because I already have A LOT of content queued, I have been getting so many heads up, pointers and have so much stuff going on that I just figured “heck, why not”. Besides, I really couldn’t care less about Google Page Rank (which is calculated amongst other things through the ratio of who links to you vis-a-vis who you link). I am a firm believer of the idea that bloggers should support and link to each other (a view that many of my blogger friends share).

So here are some quick pointers for your daily read dose.

APPLE STORE OPENS
– John Biehler, Ianiv and Arieanna, David Drucker and Pam, Lisa and a bunch of other geeks went to the Apple Store’s opening day. I was having migraines all Saturday morning (which also prevented me from Eat Vancouver and made me miss a coffee appointment with Jonathon Narvey), so I was not at the opening but I know there’s a lot of people who went and/or have previewed it (like Derek, and Duane for example). Hat tips to Miss604 (Rebecca) who has a stellar roundup of links to blogs who have talked about the Apple Store opening. Because she’s awesome like that 🙂

FOOD IS GOOD – WINNING IS BETTER!

– Via Rob (Kitsilano.ca) I learned about a contest that his blog is sponsoring. Win a package of Spanish lessons! To win, all you have to do is drop a comment on his blog. Since Spanish is my native language (hehehe surprised? Please don’t ask me why I blog in English), I really wouldn’t need to participate. But as a bonus, I’ll throw in a couple of coffee appointments with me to the winner so that he/she can practice his/her newfound knowledge of Spanish. How’s that?

– I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Degan has started her own food reviews blog (particularly focused on ethnic food). We might disagree (in the future) on some restaurants, but for the most part, Degan and I have agreed on every restaurant she’s reviewed so far (link is to her Salsa and Agave review)!

– On that note, Andrew Morrison from Urban Diner and I frequently disagree on restaurants we both have reviewed BUT I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Andrew and I have both agreed on at least one: Boneta – AWESOME PLACE. Finally! (Although we seem to also agree that Tequila Kitchen and Salsa and Agave are good). Boneta’s review forthcoming.

WHILE WE’RE ON THE WINNING SUBJECT

– I won a Flip Video Camera! In a contest sponsored by Reachd.com, I was the lucky winner of a Flip camera, so I’ll be heading over to learn how to use it this Wednesday. WOWZA!

– Congratulations to MemeLabs for winning the PopVox Awards! More coverage of the VIDFest 2008 will be forthcoming soon

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES – JUST ‘CAUSE, WELL – IT’S WHAT I DO!

– Erika Rathje is joining the 350 Challenge (350 bloggers in an attempt to offset about 122,000 pounds of carbon). Worthy cause, so consider joining and putting the badge on your blog. I’ll see if WordPress.com allows me to do that.

– SO IS THAT PHOTO YOURS? OOPSIES

– Outstanding blog posts on the non-attribution of Flickr photos by CTV Toronto, posts written by John Bollwitt, and Keith Murray. (I am pretty sure I read a third local blog that talked about the issue but it’s not coming to me now). I wanted to ask Michael Geist (whom I live-blogged a couple months ago) about this issue, but never got around to it. BUT you’d be surprised to read that apparently Canada’s copyright protection is amongst the best in the world. WOW. If that’s the case, then why on Earth do Flickr photos keep being lifted without proper credit?

PHEW. That was a long link-love listing. Back to work for me.

[SIDE NOTE – I love the neighbourhood-centric blogs, the tech-geeky-centric blogs, the transportation-focused blogs, the enviro-blogs as well as the food-centric blogs. Sometimes I wish my blog had more of a theme, but since it is a personal blog and I write about my random thoughts, well, I will just have to live with it].