I’ve been having a little fun with Mixwit in the past week or so. It’s pretty fun to search the site and make your own mix tapes, albeit virtual, but the quality isn’t half bad.
I figured I’d try sharing one because you can embed them in a blog post. This is a true mix, just seeing what I can find and putting this together. Check it out and enjoy this while you work.
If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard someone snicker when I say something about blogging, then you know that I could quit my day job and live a nice, wealthy life. That’s why the argument of blogging versus journalism tends to fall into areas of white noise to me, mostly because I’ve been taught, by journalism professors, to not care anymore.
Still, there are those days when it gets me thinking, and it is more to the fact when journalists are the ones who are raising a stink over the legitimacy of this new medium. Such is the case that you can get more details on from a post that Raul made a few days ago.
It takes me back to the short time where I was once a journalism student. Wavering in and out of studies that would give me a better grasp on an educational background in broadcasting, I found myself surrounded by professors who saw print as the only worthwhile medium that one should dedicate themselves to in the realm of media.
Now, before I start to say anything negative, there is absolute truth in the need to develop a solid background in writing, and working in radio for as long as I have, I can assure you that there are folks who have missed this step in their career ladder in broadcasting. Point number one in your journey into TV or radio should be to learn how to write, and then you can focus on looking or sounding good doing it. Some improv acting wouldn’t hurt as well, but I digress.
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I pass by the site for the Olympic Village for the Vancouver 2010 winter games on a near daily basis. The progress in the area has been interesting to watch, and everyone who rides the bus over the Cambie Bridge tends to crane their neck or look out the corner of their eye as the bus passes by. If anything, the shear amount of workers and machinery is impressive that you have to gander a little bit.
So to update on the last post I made about this, here’s a more recent photo from just the other day, followed by some from early months.
That’s a lot of concrete in nearly nine months. Only 533 days until the opening ceremonies for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
If there is one thing in Vancouver that beckons every visitor more than anything, it’s probably Grouse Mountain[wiki].
After nearly three years of living here, I have finally braved the gondola ride and the heavy tourist crowds to ascend to the top of the mountain. Well, at least we ventured around the lodge and a few of the nearby trails, but we finally made it up there for the first time. Yes, even Rebecca has never been up there.
The original intent of this visit was to enjoy a wonderful invitation by the folks who run Grouse Mountain to see what’s up there as well as take a ride on their newest attraction, ziplining.
As you can see, it was just a tad rainy on this past Sunday that we were there. Our thought at the bottom was that we would book our zipline time and hope for better weather up top, but our wishes didn’t come true. We’ll have to do a makeup trip another time, more so when you can see the end of the zipline or at least further than fifty feet ahead of you while traveling at 50km per hour.
One thing that this experience has done for me is drive my urge to do the Grouse Grind. I’ve wanted to do it since the day Rebecca told me all about it, but the intimidation of not knowing how to get there always prevented me. Truth be told, you can take a Seabus from Waterfront Station and hop a #236 Grouse Mountain bus on the other side to get there in about 45 minutes[googlemaps]. Hike up, take the mandatory gondola ride down for $15 $5!, and you’ve done the grind.
The lodge has a fair share of amenities at the top, and I’m told that the nachos are to die for. Not something I would be the most keen on after a hopeful 45 minute hustle up the side of a mountain, but they do intrigue me.
Probably the biggest highlight of the day for me were the grizzly bears. There are two, full sized bears in captivity within an easy walk from the lodge. Abandoned at birth, they are being cared for in a very respectable area, complete with a nice swimming hole and lots of trees.
Nature never seems to grow old in terms of my personal fascination. Grouse Mountain, even on a cold and wet day, was a thrilling experience. Water never hurts anyone, but I can’t wait to experience it when I can really take in the beauty on a clearer day.
The folks at CommonCraft have done it again. This time, they have made a quick video about one of my favorite tools for reading information on the web, Google Reader. I’ll let them explain it to you.
I currently have 253 subscriptions in Google Reader. I can’t say that I read each and everything that passes through, but there are certain RSS feeds that I do pay closer attention to than others.
Do you ever open up a newspaper and scan the headlines? Then perhaps you read the byline to get a little more behind the story, and only then do you decide to actually read the rest of it. There are many times when I use it in that capacity, especially when it comes to various feeds from news organizations that crank out a lot of items in just a few hours.
This is how I keep on top of things, even if it’s just a quick glance.
When the opening ceremonies kick off for the Olympics, I get excited. It doesn’t matter if it’s the summer or winter version of the games. I simply love the Olympics.
When the closing ceremonies come about, I get a little sad. Two weeks straight of competition seems to have gone by in a blur. It only lasts a few days until you realize that the next games will come about in two years, so it all works out in the end.
Perhaps there was something a little extra to these games in Beijing, but my level of interest has certainly gone up from previous games. I think it’s because of my realization of how incredible the human body can be in particular events.
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Henry sent me a link to this story, and I completely forgot about it until reading this. And when you read the entire article, you can make sense of why in terms of the time line of historical events.
Long story short, this is a great story of two kids who faced each other in the Little League World Series in August of 2001. Cerda was the smallest and youngest player for the losing team, and Almonte was the dominant and menacing pitcher for the winning team, only to be found guilty of breaking the most elemental rule of little league baseball. He was 14, two years beyond the allowed age limit of 12.
Like I said, I forgot about this until now, but what a rebound for Cerda, going to my Cubs no less. What a dream.
It is curious, isn’t it?
With that dig on bloggers, I thought that I would point out something that struck me funny about McCain, being the hockey fan that I am.
If the need arises and the range is close, Mark Salter will edit John McCain in midsentence. After 19 years at each other’s side, neither man gives it a second thought. When a writer for The New Yorker was interviewing them last year about their latest best-selling book, the talk turned to hockey and the Arizona senator’s admiration for Wayne Gretzky[wiki], who coaches the Phoenix Coyotes. “Wayne Gretzky is one of the all-time best American athletes!” McCain proclaimed. But even before his boss finished speaking, Salter had spotted a slip-up: the hockey legend is from Ontario. “Yes,” Salter interjected, “Gretzky is one of the best American athletes … from Canada!” [newsweek]
We’re in the home stretch for the 2008 U.S. presidential elections, and this will be my first time to vote in a federal election as a U.S. citizen and a permanent resident of Canada.
I’m trying to get everything in order to get my voting out of the country lined up so I don’t miss the boat. If you are one of these such people, be sure to check out the Federal Voting Assistance Program. The site is dedicated to folks like myself to get information about how to get your absentee ballet by the time the elections hit in November.
With Obama choosing Biden as his running mate, the end is in sight for this battle. And as a blogger, I hope I can put out the message to those U.S. citizens around the world to pickup on your opportunity to help shape the future of the world, no matter who it is that you would rather see win.
This would include third, fourth, or fifth parties. In fact, if you have someone you’d rather write in, I say go for it. I once had a buddy put down Trent Reznor[wiki] for president with Henry Rollins[wiki] as VP.
What a glorious world that would have been.
The point is that you have the right to vote. That power is your voice to say how you want things to be ran, and this applies to any country with some form of democracy. With the possibilities of a Canadian election on the horizon, this notion has greater baring than just my home country.
To go along with the spirit of the elections, CommonCraft produced another great video about the elections, putting the whole process into plain English of how the U.S. president gets elected.
Electing a US President in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.
There you have it. Now get out there and rock the vote.
This is a tough topic, and I even hesitate to mention anything about it. Still, it’s worth opening up a discussion because as I get deeper and deeper into my career that revolves around technology, whether it’s in radio, web design, podcasting, or content producing, this is something that similar people are running into.
What do you do when you can’t do what you love to do for free anymore? After all of those favors or helpful tips that you give out to other people are just too much for the amount of time that you have in a day where you have to ask for some compensation, what else can you do?
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Being that I work in the area near Southeast False Creek[wiki], my daily commute takes me through the heart of the Canada Line construction. Anyone who has seen that area on even a somewhat regular basis will tell you that it is a pain. Whether you are going on foot, transit, or your personal vehicle, you have to have patience to get through it all. That or wish for some good luck.
In the last couple of weeks, things are starting to resemble something normal again. There is a large amount of the streets being black topped, bus stops are shuffling a little bit, and there are more forms being put in place to build street curbs.
This is a big deal to me because there have been intersections that seemed to be dug up, work done, covered back up with black top, and the process repeats itself about three more times, in the exact same spots. The heavy machines come in and out to bust things up and repair it, almost like they are doing it for fun. Curbs seem to symbolize that something more permanent is on the horizon.
It just doesn’t stop with the Canada Line though. There are more condos and stores being developed in the same vicinity, so the extra trucks getting through the already congested and rerouted traffic is hopelessly frustrating. You know it’s going to be over soon, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Oh yeah, and there is also that Olympic village being built. Can’t forget all those workers flooding the area along with their trucks and equipment.
Even the Wendy’s in the area just shut down to renovate, and Subway is setting up shop next to a new RBC bank just around the corner. There’s already a second Starbucks in six months in the area between Broadway and the bridge, plus a coming London Drug and Whole Foods on the same stretch of street.
The area of the Olympic village is also slated to get a London Drug and Urban Fare, but I can’t be sure on those time lines being before or after the Olympics.
It looks like I’m not the only one getting anxious for Cambie Street to come back, but the most important thing for me is getting the transit system free of construction traffic. There’s nothing worse than feeling like your running way ahead of schedule to get to work and end up stuck on the bridge for 25 minutes while you creep slowly to the only stop on the other side at Broadway.
I picked up on this video from the Apple Gazette today and found it fascinating. It was a view of what computer networks, and the Internet, would be like in the future, all in that lovable style of informational movies from that era.
The best part is the way the husband looks when he has to deal with the bills that the wife is spending money on. Obviously they saw the future of the Internet, but there was a lack of innovation for gender roles.
Not too bad. The technology is off a little bit, but the concept is there.
Rebecca did something pretty spectacular about a month ago. We’ve been working pretty hard on some projects with sixty4media in the last few months, so she asked what she could do to make it up to me. Working a full time day job, the only time I can get to these projects is in between work and sleep. So, I said that a gym membership would be nice, but she one upped me.
We now have one year memberships to Fitness World in exchange for reports on her progress with getting back into shape and an ad on her sidebar for the duration of the membership. That isn’t bad at all, so I figure I might as well add a bit to the one year deal and provide some feedback on my experience with their facilities and services.
To begin, I thought I would explain more of where my inspiration to workout comes from and why I go to the gym or run in the morning.
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New media enthusiast in Vancouver, B.C. with many interests and passions. A blogger, podcaster, music lover, Canucks fan, Cubs fan, technology enthusiast, news junkie, Apple user, and general lover of feeding my brain.
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