Category: Canada

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Vancouver Blogger March Meetup

Running into David Drucker at the Massive Tech Show on Wednesday, he clued me into the March Vancouver Blogger Meetup that was taking place that night. I gathered Rebecca kind of last minute and we made our way out to The Whip for our first venture with this group, but this isn’t the first time that we’ve heard of these meetups. It was about time that we crashed the party though.

Vancouver Blogger Meetup
Photo credit: Rebecca on Flickr

There were a number of familiar faces, and this will completely sound like a Wizard of Oz moment. There was David and MJ, who we met at our first meetup ever in Vancouver, but that was for podcasting. And Pete was there, Tanya from NetChick.ca, Nancy, Jonathon, and Jan was there, too!

It’s always fun to bridge that gap between people you know through their postings, and this meetup allowed me to do that a little bit more. Rebecca has a nice follow-up on this, and Jan did the same in as well as posting a review of The Whip itself. I’ll echo his thoughts and say that it was a pretty swanky place, being my first time there. I hear it has changed, and they might see me there again if I’m ever in the area. Yam fries are tasty, and the beer selection is… Well, it’s good, but I just hadn’t heard of nearly all the things they had on tap. Don’t think anyone complained though.

All in all, a really good time with lots of great conversation. I think it’s natural when people of the like mind get together like that, it’s hard to not talk, especially at great lengths, about the things you are passionate about. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be there, right? It’s those reasons that encourages me to go to meetups like this.

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Venturing around the Massive Tech Show 2007

20070328(004).jpg I’m just back from the Massive Technology Show at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre, and it’s safe to say that this was indeed a massive show. There might be others that beg to differ, but when you think that the previous two years had this thing crammed into Science World, this location seems seemingly brainless for such an event.

Not being all too familiar with what the MTS was or is, I wasn’t all too sure what to expect. To me, it was a total melting pot of various technologies, holding true to the show’s name. I ran across a variety of vendors looking to sell their products, ranging from IP routers, telephones, VoIP, and all forms of web presence. Hardware, software, mobile technology, and so on, not to mention fun gadget stuff like segways, electric scooters, and gaming. There was also a fair amount of online education booths as well.

Oddly enough, for an event of this scale, there were a fair amount of empty booths, probably one or two in every other row. As successful as this event has been, it makes me fairly curious if some exhibitors decided to not show up, but they missed a fairly good opportunity to have some tiptop exposure.

20070328(001).jpgPersonally, I had a good time discovering various bandwidth providers in and around Vancouver. These companies tend to specialize in small business, but they prevent some nice alternatives to the standard cable provider that we have at home now. Worthy of a replacement service? I’m not too sure yet, but when I find out that their field techs will show up to your location at a specified time, instead of an anytime within a five hour time window, then I am very interested. Oh yeah, and the bandwidth they offer is noteworthy as well, but I’m not going to give out free advertising just yet.

I didn’t make my way into the conference area, but the presentations that were listed did not strike me as noteworthy. Chances are, I might have missed out on some good topics being presented upstairs, but the reason might come from the way the sessions were marketed. Call it a matter of personal preference, but there wasn’t much that struck me as something to not miss.

20070328(002).jpg I do feel for anyone who tried to watch any of the presentations on the main stage though. I’m not sure that the PA was loud enough to hear the speaker over the crowd on the main floor, which was just mere feet away from the back row of seats to watch these things. Two projection screens at each side of the stage were showing slides, but even I had a hard time seeing exactly what was up there. Of course, I didn’t watch too many of these, but the one I caught about ten minutes of was the experience that I just described.

Bottom line, there is good stuff at the MTS. This is the first time in this location, and it is bound to get better and better. According to David Drucker, this year is very evident of that. I would hope that they would continue to be in a location like this in the future, but imagine what the new expansion of the convention centre might hold for a show like this once it is completed. MTS might be developing a tech show with wide reaching appeal if they play their cards right.

20070328.jpg One last note, I am bothered by the MTS blog, especially the fact that it hasn’t been updated since the end of February. For a tech show, this seems near sacrilege, especially with the amount of web identity and marketing companies that were there today. There should be someone live blogging the event, posting live pictures, or some form of interaction with its website, especially on the day of the event. Something tells me that it might not be “that type of conference”, but it should be.

Uber final note, big shout out to the Bryght crew. Roland’s first question out of his mouth was if I have found a job yet, and the answer is that I’m trying. 🙂

Update: Big thanks to Jeremy Latham for catching a “typo” on this post, and I also wanted to point out this review by John Chow. He says some things that I was thinking, but in a much better way. Also makes me wish I would have played with the segways a little bit.

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Why I will never have an alarm system for a car

Somewhere in a block radius of home, there is a car that has an uber-sensitive alarm. At this point, when I hear a heavy truck, maybe a semi or garbage truck, roll down the street, I pause. Wait for it… wait for it…

There are two outcomes. One is some beeping that is that early warning part of the system that says, “stay away from this car because it has really annoying sounds that will start blaring if you don’t step back.” The other is all of that before plus the really annoying sounds that go off for about a minute or two.

It’s been like this for the past two days. It’s almost a game, making bets if the car alarm will go off or not. And where is this person who owns this car? It’s like they just use it as a system of telling themselves, “Oh hey, I can hear my car outside. It’s still there!” At this point, I think the battery might drain itself because it has gone off so many times. And if I could find the source, I’d report it. For all I know, it’s missing a stereo system by now.

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Massive Tech Show 2006

I know there hasn’t been much for updates as of late, but it’s been a hectic time. A combination of job searching and projects has kept my mind pretty awash in the last week.

I will be hitting the Massive Tech Show tomorrow in downtown Vancouver, thanks to some free, all access passes. To tell the truth, I’m not all too sure what to expect. There’s a conference plus trade show and exhibition. I imagine that means that I’m going to come home with a bunch of pamphlets, pens, and other promotional goodies that will clutter up my work space after their novelty wears off. Then I can say, “I got that from the Massive Tech Show.” Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

This will also be a great opportunity to search for potential employment opportunities. How and what and where, I can’t really tell you. I just like doing geeky things, and someone should totally be paying me to do those sorts of things for them. Watch for on location posts, but no promises.

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Canada Post owes me money

I’ve made my best effort to first spread the news to my family about my immigration status here in Canada. The good news is that my permanent residence application has gone through, and that has allowed me to apply for my open work permit. Alas, I will finally be able to have an income from within Canada, not that I was able to do much for myself from my homeland back in the states.

The thing is, applying for my open work permit was not as easy as we hoped. A small fee (small in terms of being less than a few hundred dollars compared to much of everything else that comes with this process) and an “Xpresspost” with Canada Post was all it takes to get that little piece of paper saying I can now be employed. Piece of cake, right?

Open Work Permit! Wrong. Checking that tracking number a few days after it was sent, the package, according to the Canada Post website, was still sitting at the post office in which we sent it from. The guarantee says that it was to be delivered two days after it was handed it to the nice lady who slapped the stickers on it for the mail truck to come take it away. Being three days later, it was time to call the mammoth.

To be honest, Canada Post was really pleasant on the phone. Very helpful, but had no clue as to where my parcel was. Yes, the parcel with fairly pertinent details of both of our lives. Crap! So what do we do? Open a trace. I’m not sure what that really accomplishes, but they gave me a reference number and said to call back to check on what they find in 7-15 business days.

Business days??? By that time, someone could take that parcel and become me in some foreign land somewhere. I’d say that they could live like a king, but the bank account wasn’t detailed, nor does it have a lot of kingly qualities to it right now. To say that we were a little concerned about this is a tad of an understatement, not to mention that the end of this month sees my ticket to stay in the country expire unless that permit comes through.

I called them about a week (in business days) later to find things still in a SNAFU. They found it “highly unusual” and would get back to me as soon as they found something out. If I didn’t hear anything within three days, then contact should be made to resolve the matter. Yeah, that makes me feel oh so confident.

Immigration PaybackThen a crazy thing happened. Checking the mailbox last week, there was my work permit, just sitting inside. I come into the apartment and hand it to Rebecca nonchalantly. Checking the tracking number earlier that afternoon on the website, Canada Post said it was still sitting in that same post office in Vancouver. Rebecca jumping up and down said otherwise.

Fast forward to today, and there is another letter in the mailbox that finalizes this chapter of the process. Canada Post sent me a check for the parcel they have seemingly lost. I’m sure it’s in their agreement of some sort, but they paid us back for the cost of sending the package. $15 isn’t going to get you much, maybe a box of wine, but it’s a funny conclusion to the whole thing.

Next time, we’ll entrust our life to someone else other than Canada Post, but they sure are swell to pay us back for the cost of sending something they have no idea how, where, or when the holy hell it got there. With a big thumb up, I say thanks Canada Post.

Edit: Ok, this story popped up this morning in regards to Canada Post and was just too precious to not pass on.

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Making my way up to Prospect Point

I figure that it’s about time that I do another Stanley Park update. As a quick recap, you can read this post, but the basic jest of the story is that a horrible storm damaged a large portion of the park back in December 2006. I’m doing my best to post updates of what I’m seeing as the park cleans up and opens more portions back up to the public. After all, it’s one of my favorite places to go running.

Last week, I tried going into areas of the park that I’ve mentioned previously, but they were still closed to the public the last time I did this, at least officially. It was very easy to go around these orange and white barricades that had caution tape tied from it, spanning to nearby trees in almost spiderweb like fashion. This time around, the trails were not blocked off, seemingly open for business.

The trails were cleaned up more than the last time I was in the area around Beaver Lake, so I decided to try my chances and head over the foot bridge to the other side of the causeway. Everything on that side looks really good, but heading down the Tatlow Trail ran me into a huge, fallen down tree that is about 50% from being fully removed. There is no easy way around it other than climbing, not hopping or straddling, over the trunk that is about half my height.
Continue reading “Making my way up to Prospect Point”

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A very Vancouver weekend

20070311(002) Rain. So many people are going to be talking about it, but this has been a stereotypical weekend in Vancouver. Not the gentle mist or light rain that is more common place. Instead, nice, steady drops of water, seemingly never ending as they fall to the earth.

We made ventures downtown to find massive puddles in the intersections, proof that even the sewer drains were struggling to keep up with the amounts. Just trying to navigate through the crowds of people was enough to drive one a bit mad. It never fails that you run into that one group of about six folks who are walking along the sidewalk at a snail’s pace, taking up the whole width of the walkway. Give them all umbrellas and ye’ abandon all hope of getting ahead of them.

Riding the SeaBus to meet up with our friends for yet another Canucks PPV game(three in one week is just slightly annoying), I told Rebecca that this is a very, upper northwest day.

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SkyTour seems kinda lame

SkyTour markings at Waterfront SkyTrain stationI know that sounds harsh to say, but this marking on the platform at Waterfront Station caught my eye last night while heading to meet some friends for the Canucks game last night. I had heard of it before, but it inspired me to check into it a bit more today.

You can check out more about SkyTour youself, but the basic story is that you pay for this audio tour that takes you around Vancouver via SkyTrain, telling you various things about the city. There are also walking tours included, but I’m really unsure if other forms of mass transit are required as well.

The one thing that gets me is that you really want to make sure that if you are planning on taking this tour, then make sure you have a nice, sunny day to do it. The audio sample on their website has you looking out the windows of the SkyTrain to see The Lions[wiki] among the north shore mountains. On a rainy day, which we have a few of those here occasionally, you’re hard pressed to see those twin peaks.

At the same time, you better hope for a non-crowded day on the train as well. Trying to listen to an audio tour while trying to peak through the group of kids talking at the top of their lungs, in whatever international language it is that they speak, just screams like a good ol’ time. Ahh, money well spent.

We offer to take friends and family around the city all the time, and I think that the only way to experience any place is with locals. Even though Rebecca has lived here all her life, there’s many places I’ve made her go that she’d otherwise never had explored unless my curiosity didn’t drag us there. It goes both ways.

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What do you want to be when you grow up?

In about a month, give or take one to five because the Canadian government is just that awesome with paperwork, I’ll have my green light to be fully employable. We haven’t had the bash to celebrate because this whole process has been a long story of hurry up and wait. It’s a multi-stage process where you’re happy to hear good news when you just start to abandon all hope. Then there is a wave of elation, followed by the reality of more paperwork that you have to send in to start the waiting process once again.

The biggest dilemma is the question that I’ve been fielding quite often lately, and Northern Voice was the worst places of all to have this come to be a moment of clarity. What do I want to do once I’m able to, legally, work?

That’s a lot harder for me to answer with a simple, concise, non-lengthy explanation. I have seven years experience in radio, a combination of on-air talent, production, producing, I.T. and engineering(not uncommon for people in radio these days to wear many hats). There’s the fact that I’m interested in all things new media, especially the world of podcasting and blogging.

I’ve been doing designing of websites since I was 16, wavering in and out of doing a lot of it. For a time, I worked for my parents where we had a side project doing this for local businesses in the town I grew up in, a different time and era for sure. Blogging has really brightened my understanding of PHP, SQL, and CSS a whole lot, and I’m in the middle of a couple of projects, unrelated to my current ones, that are using these skills in full force.

So when someone asks me this question of what do I want to do, it’s tough. Would I like to get into the radio market of Vancouver? Absolutely, and I’ve actually interviewed with a lot of the major players since first coming here in 2005, CKNW and Team1040 being a few prominent ones to mention. All those ventures came up short when they get to that part about having the necessary status that makes you legit for getting a paycheck.

I’m gearing up to start the hunt when the time comes, but there is no simple answer to the question. I’ve had the past year and a half to think about it, and during that time, I’ve watched a lot of opportunity pass me by, if not slip through my fingers. That’s bound to change, and Rebecca can’t wait until she can have me out of the apartment more often. Quite frankly, I can’t either.

Trust me, everything I have done in life has been an earnest effort of tackling it with persistence. More than a few people in Vancouver have mentioned that about me, and I hope that was a compliment.