JohnBollwitt.com

2007 Oct 042015 Jan 20

Trying to Raise A Reader

Yesterday morning, Rebecca and I ventured around downtown to see what Canucks players we could mug for a photo during the Raise A Reader event that the Vancouver Sun put on. For those unaware, this is an event in which you donate money to people giving away copies of that day’s edition of the Sun in hopes of helping the fight against illiteracy. A great cause for sure, and we’ve been planning on this day for about a month. Last year it caught us off guard, so we made sure to mark it down this time around.

Raise a Reader Day: Hank is going to kick your a$$!

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Basically, to get a picture or signature from the various players that were stationed around Metro Vancouver, you have to make a donation. A stellar idea, and we snagged a few. Hank was super nice, but a little stiff. In fact, I think he looks like a cardboard cutout here, but that’s cool. He can still play hockey better than I ever could. Also got a snap of Rebecca with Kevin “Boom Boom” Bieksa, but we bypassed Byron Ritchie and Rick Bowness. Nothing against them. We were just on the move.

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Still, the best image from the morning was this one that I snapped.

When I pulled out my camera, Fin saw me and gave me this great pose. I swear he must have had a liter of coffee before suiting up for the morning. How he does it, I’ll never know.

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

When my parent’s first visited Vancouver, we took a ride on one of those exact, same trolleys. Some dude dressed in an orca outfit with smoke spewing out the top of his head never found his way on our tour, and it makes me want our money back. I could only imagine those out of town folks, namely Americans, who had no clue who or what was jumping on board with them and going straight for the driver’s seat, proceeding to lay on the horn like there was no tomorrow.

We also walked by the Vancouver chief of police by the Hotel Vancouver. There were numerous police and fire personnel all over the place, and they are just as much as important as the hockey players around the city. They might not score as many goals, but they’re still important folks in my book. Overall, I think it was a pretty successful morning for the Raise A Reader campaign.

2007 Oct 042007 Oct 04

Vancouver Podcast Meetup: September 23, 2007 (follow-up)

It’s been a while since the Vancouver Podcast Meetup on September 23, 2007, but better late than never to post a few notes and pictures of the event, right?

Bottom line, it was a great night, and that’s aside from the round of beer that Mark bought in celebration of my birthday that was the next day. There weren’t too many who showed for the event, and everyone had familiar faces from the previous meetup in February. The boys from Foreskin Radio, DaveO, Rebecca, John Biehler, Mark Blevis, and myself.

There were a a variety of things that were discussed, namely an around the table mentioning of the podcasts that we each listen to. I stirred up some debate when I said that, yes, I still listen to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code, but that’s because I derive an element of satisfaction from his shenanigans and mindless dribble, even if he is a millionaire. In the end, as podcasters, isn’t that what we all hope that people enjoy about what we do? Minus the whole millionaire thing…

There are a lot of podcasts that I listen to when it comes down to it. I was even thinking of listing them all here, but seriously, that would just take too long to do. iTunes isn’t friendly in terms of exporting a list that is friendly to posting, but I will say that I do listen to anything Dave does, Clubside Breakfast Time, CBC Radio: BC This Week, Democracy Now!, Fitness Attack, Geek.Farm.Life, Island Podcasting, NPR: Hourly New Summary, The Onion Radio News, Podrunner, Spike O’Dell, Vanmega, and Kaflooey, just to name a few podcasts that I’d like to plug.

We’re really behind on producing an episode of RadioZoom, but The Crazy Canucks are pushing out content like there is no tomorrow. We’re ramping up for the season, so it’s time to get excited for sure. Don’t worry, the RZ fun will continue. Just stay tuned.

2007 Oct 03

The Crazy Canucks #44 – Interview with Colorado Avalanche bloggers Greg and Tapeleg

This was recorded about a week ago, but things have been too crazy to get everything edited and posted until now. I’m working furiously to get everything in life sorted out, but this did get posted today. Alanah has been doing some really great interviews with all sorts of folks from around the Northwest Division in lieu of the coming NHL 2007-2008 hockey season. Been a lot of fun to edit, but what is more interesting is the take on the Canucks from fans of our opponents. Good stuff.

The tour of the Northwest Division continues with Alanah taking on her nemesis, the Colorado Avalanche. In this episode, she grabbed a couple of her favorite Avs fan bloggers, Greg from “Hockey Rants” and Tapeleg of “Jerseys and Hockey Love”. Together, they take a look at the team as whole, looking back into the past and what they expect from the coming season. Oh, and you can’t forget some good ol’ trash talkin’.

39:40 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

2007 Oct 03

Launched a new Drupal site: knox-church.org

I’ve built a Drupal site for a church that contacted me some time ago about building them a website. The goal, originally, was to make something that would help Knox Church to not only publicize events at the church and provide information about it, but staff wanted a way to easily interact with the site. This meant updating it and getting some sort of events calendar on the site.

The initial creation of the site was in WordPress. I did a lot to separate the site into categories that would manipulate how the page was displayed to those who surfed into the site. The only problem was the training that took place to bring the staff up to speed on how the site operates. WordPress is intuitive, but the average, intermediate to beginner user might have a difficult time grasping the technology. The various plugins I found and used for listing events were effective, but there was a lot more to be desired from what was available at that time.

Since building the first site, I’ve been doing more and more development with Drupal, and the potential has really hit me in the past few months. I have to give a lot of credit to some conversations that I’ve had with Boris Mann about a couple of projects, including this one, that I’ve been working on. Being a guy on the forefront of Drupal development on a global scale, he has really helped to give me ideas on the possible things I can do. Getting from point A to about point G or P takes a little work some times, but when you reach Z, it’s like a lightning bolt hitting you in the face. In other words, yes, Drupal has elements in it that makes changing the world quite possible.

Well, in this case, it’s going to make it easier for Knox Church staff to interact with the site, not to mention an actual events calendar, which is incredibly cool. There is even iCal integration and a slew of other things that I can do that I don’t know about or how to do, but it’s all possible. It’s just a matter of having the time to sort it out.

What I do know is starting to not only make a lot of sense, but it’s going to streamline interaction for those on the site. As events come up, they can be added from any computer from anywhere and at anytime. As information changes, it can be edited and kept up to date on the website. That goes a long way when you make a typo on the church bulletin that forces everyone to show up at the wrong place and/or the wrong time, not to mention an easy way to post cancellations of events.

There is still a learning process to undertake with the staff. You can build all you want and have lots of cool things, but it’s the content that’s key. This is the next step, and the excitement is starting from those who know about the impending transition to a new content management system.

2007 Oct 032007 Oct 03

Some days, it’s like this

Photo courtesy of the Sock Monkey Army group on Facebook

Recently getting Montelban for my birthday from Adam and Corinna, I’ve been plotting my way to take more pictures like this. I’m still trying to figure out how, where, and when, but we’ll get there. Still, this picture sums up what some days on the job can be like. It’s not all that bad, but at the end of the day, it’s all about pushing buttons and knobs.

2007 Oct 02

The Crazy Canucks #43 – Interview with Andy and Matt from The Battle of Alberta

Recorded on September 20, 2007, and posted today.

Alanah takes the helm on this episode and scores an interview with the authors of The Battle of Alberta, Matt and Andy. They are, respectively, fans of the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers who have been writing about their favorite team since 2005. You wouldn’t think that a Flames and Oilers fan could get along on one blog, but this interview shows that these guys love to talk hockey. Plus, you ever wonder what die hard fans of the Albertan teams think about the Canucks? Alanah digs deep to find out.

44:44 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

2007 Sep 29

Drinking beer on the Whidbey Island ferry

I’ve been slow to get some of the pictures up from the trip that we took down to Whidbey Island a few weeks back. Every time I look at the pictures of the ferry we took, I can’t get beyond the fact that you can drink beer on this twenty minute ride to the other side. Sure enough, there were a few people drinking while in route, and there was one guy double fisting a pair of suds. He was only half way through one by the time that we decided that the port on the other side was close enough that we should get back to the car.

The other crazy thing was the driving around the island that we did. There were numerous signs asking you to not drink and drive. Underneath each of those signs was a sign in remembrance of someone who most likely died from a drinking and driving accident. Getting into Oak Harbor, it struck me odd that the Applebee’s there had happy hour from 3-6 and 9-11. I guess that makes them happy hours.

We also recorded a bunch of audio on this trip for an upcoming episode of RadioZoom. Just need to get to editing that.

2007 Sep 262007 Sep 26

Replacing the home network with the Linksys WRT150N

I’ve been making comments here and there about our home network for the past few weeks, and it all came to a head about a week ago. At first, I was quick to blame Shaw about their service and lack thereof. I know for a fact that there was one day where it was their fault that we had no access for nearly a day, but the problems continued after a quick phone call about the problem.

For the past few years, I’ve been using an Asante FriendlyNET FR3004 router (circa 2002) and an Apple Airport Express to create a wired and wireless LAN. Not even a year after buying that Asante of an eye sore, it was discontinued, and the firmware updates stopped not long after. The UI for setting up the thing was never my favorite, but it worked. Well, it worked until about a week or so ago, and the Apple Airport Express has always worked well, now a very handy, travel-sizable WiFi device.

During a recent recording of The Crazy Canucks that ended up being a hodge-podge selection of material due to technical problems, our network went into meltdown. Skype wasn’t working, and the entire bandwidth ground to a halt after that. This was prefaced with slow performance in the days leading up. It wasn’t until that I bypassed the router and went straight into the iMac that the Asante was medically discharged from service.

After some research, Rebecca and I settled on getting a new router. Like my father raised me, I didn’t want to get something that would work as much as it would be a suitable replacement for at least the next three years. Looking at the specs for the WRT150N, it had a few key things that I wanted; four 100/1000 Base-T ports on the back, WPA wireless encryption, and 802.11n capabilities that would support Rebecca’s MacBook.

There were some folks recommending other versions of Linksys routers, namely Duane and Gregg, and those were very much appreciated. For the price and the performance that I’m getting now compared to what I had is very noticeable and quite loved though, and it makes me very happy. I used to think that my PowerBook’s performance over wireless was poor due to it’s age, but it was obviously the poor operation of the old router translating traffic to the Apple Airport Express. It’s nearly a new world, and Rebecca has noticed it as well.

So far, I’m really impressed with the Linksys WRT150N. I spent some time setting it up to allow better functionality with certain programs like iChat or Skype, and the wired connection for the iMac has an increase in performance when loading websites or downloading podcasts. Here’s hoping for the long term, but knowing the interesting things I could do with other Linksys models makes me wonder what other, geeky things I could do with it. I’d just have to brave to try.

2007 Sep 252007 Sep 25

And now it’s sooner still

Better late than never to make a birthday post, but I’ll do this in a photo and video mix.

It all started with a surprise opportunity to catch the Canucks game at GM Place against the Calgary Flames last Wednesday. Thanks to the day job, we were able to sit in the Visions Lounge, all the way up in the 400 level. Cool seats, 4-0 win over the Flames, and Rebecca got to meet a lot of awesome folks that I work with.

Photo credit: matthewgood on Flickr

Thursday, found us at the Matthew Good show at The Centre downtown. Absolutely amazing. Matt put on one hell of a performance. He snapped this picture from the stage during the performance, and you can almost see Rebecca and I in the back.

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Friday was a good night for us to settle in on the couch to get caught up on our (downloaded) TV viewing, but Saturday was a heck of a gathering at our place for my birthday.

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

So much food, and thanks to John, David, Pam, Keira, Corinna, Adam, Jenny, Sean, James, Tanya, Bourton, Jennie, Amber, and Dan for coming over. I feel like there are names I’m forgetting, but you were more than awesome to come by if I have.

Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Corinna and Adam have officially made us apart of the Sock Monkey Army, but I call it a new addition to the family, Montalban Esplendido.

Sunday we had a family celebration out in Surrey, and I got this wicked new messenger bag from my mother-in-law. She also got me the third cake of the weekend, which was outstanding as well.

Photo credit: Mark Blevis on Flickr

Sunday was the Vancouver Podcast Meetup at Steamworks in Gastown. Mark Blevis was visiting on business, and a few of us gathered to hang out for the night. Of course Rebecca was there, but so was John and Dave. I’ll make a longer post about the meetup later, but Mark graciously bought me a round in celebration of my birthday.

My mom sent me the above video yesterday. It’s a very traditional song to hear on your birthday, at least in my family.

Photo credit: Keira Anne on Flickr

This last picture has no relevance to the wonderful dinner that Rebecca and I had at Hapa Izakaya last night, but it is entertaining to me. We’re also embarrassed that we’ve waited this long to try that place out. The food is just as awesome as the feeling you get when you walk in the front door of the place and all the wait staff and cooks yell hello to you in various phrases of Japanese that I half recognize and half have no clue what they’re saying.

And then we had another small gather of folks over last night to eat the extra cake that was leftover from the weekend. It was hardly leftover though. The chocolate cake from Capers was pretty fantastic, as was the red wine from Golden Beaver. Good times, great people.

Also, all the Facebook well wishers has been amazing. If there is one thing that site is always good for, it’s coordinating gatherings and keeping track of everyone’s birthday.

None of this would have been half as good as it was without Rebecca helping to pull it all off. I have to say that I’ve been pretty lucky to have a great birthday (week) if it wasn’t for her. And in all actuality, it won’t be completely over until tonight when we get to see They Might Be Giants at The Commodore. My fifth or sixth time seeing them, and I can’t wait to share the experience with Rebecca.

With that, here’s the TMBG song, “Older”. Seems fitting.

2007 Sep 25

The Crazy Canucks #42 – Special Report: DaveO on the 2007 Super Series

This episode was a lot of fun for me to edit together. Without spending a ton of time fretting over the details, the recording that Dave did in the living room of the apartment with the mobile recorder gave me some inspiration to play with the final product. Interesting to note, Dave did this all in one shot with minimal notes. He’s just that good.

A special report for this short episode of TCC, DaveO chimes in with an editorial about the 2007 Super Series between Canada and Russia. He goes through a brief history of the 1972 Summit Series and relates it to the recent series, telling you why the hockey world should have payed more attention.

9:13 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

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