Today makes only 30 days left until the start of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Being in a position to blog as a Vancouverite during the upcoming games is kind of cool. Especially interesting is that these are going to be the most covered games of all time with every second of every event available either on TV or streaming online.
I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to participate at all after seven years of listening political blather about infinite subjects relating to this fast approaching event. All the negativity has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. However, the closer we get, the more I feel myself being drawn into it. After all, there are thousands of athletes who have worked basically their whole lives to come here to compete. I am looking forward to seeing that.
Without a doubt our day to day lives are going to be impacted. Things that we take for granted like commuting to work, going out for lunch, even shopping and picking up groceries are probably going to change. The sheer number of people coming to the city from all over the globe is going to put a massive strain on our infrastructure. Getting around Vancouver under normal conditions (like most cities) tends to have its moments of frustration for commuters. But this is going to be a gong show.
We’re being told to walk, bike or take transit into work during the games as there are going to be road closures around venues as well as lane closures specifically for Olympic vehicles, all starting on the 15th of January 2010, this Friday. Walking and biking are pretty much out for us as we live far enough in the burbs that transit is the only viable option, unless of course we want to get up and go three hours before we have to be at work. No thanks.
Transit? Yuck. It can have that third world I am a sardine in a can feel on a good day. I am looking at all of this as an adventure. I’m sure we will figure some kind of routine. It is only temporary after all. Maybe travelsmart2010.ca can help to put my mind at ease about the transit situation.
Finances are such that we won’t be attending the Men’s Gold Medal Hockey game (tickets are $2500+ per seat) or any other sporting event. We will most likely head downtown for a bit of fun on a Saturday or Sunday to watch celebrations and maybe meet some people. Carol will be more likely to get photos during the week as she will be sporadically heading to the downtown core to work.
I’ll be blogging during the lead up to and throughout the games as well as, I am sure a bit about the aftermath. There a strict guidelines for bloggers to follow according to VANOC and the IOC, but thankfully places like True North Media House have put a ton of work into providing detailed resources for people like myself who are interested in covering the games.
As mentioned in my last post I have been scanning photos and postcards from a very old album that was obtained by a friend of ours at a local estate sale. The album, it turns out, belonged to a woman from Vancouver named Jean M. Story. In 1938, she traveled with one or more people across Canada to Quebec and through Europe documenting her trip with photos and postcards. She saw pre World War II versions of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, Germany, France, England and Ireland.
It has been fascinating following along, but I wondered why, I of all people would be doing this project. Then I came across her photos of Winchester Cathedral in England. One photo immediately stood out. It is of a tombstone in the cemetery adjacent to the Cathedral. The text of the tombstone is as follows:
In Memory of Thomas Thetcher
a Grenadier in the North Regiment of Hants Militia, who died of a violent Fever contracted by drinking Small Beer when hot, the 12th of May 1764, Aged 26 Years.
In grateful remembrance of whose universal good will towards his Comrades, this Stone is placed here at their expence, as a finall testimony of their regard and concern.
Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier Who caught his death by drinking cold small Beer. Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall,
And when ye’re hot drink Strong or none at all.
This memorial being decayed was restored by the Officers of the Garrison A.D. 1781 An Honest Soldier never is forgot, Whether he die by Musket or by Pot.
The Stone was replaced by the North Hants Militia when disembodied at Winchester on 16th April, 1802 in consequence of the original Stone being destroyed.
This is a very significant find for me and many of my friends for personal reasons. Of note, this stone was once again replaced in 1966, making this photo even more meaningful. It would have been standing during World War I when a young American doughboy on furlough was so moved by it that he wrote about it years later in one of the most important books I have ever read.
I’ll tell you privately what it was if you want to ask, and will delete any comments that identify the book or it’s author. Sorry for the mystery but it is in keeping with tradition. It’s easy enough to find out if you are familiar with Google.
Thanks Jean M. Story, where ever you are. What a neat find.
Our friend Mark picked up an old photo album at an estate sale that he went to last year. For some reason he gave it to us. It has been sitting in Carol’s office gathering more dust for the past months. After a visit from another creative friend last week I felt inspired to deal with it.
Here it is in all its antique glory:
I have decided to scan the photos and postcards within to try and determine who the creator was, what their lives were like, where they traveled and perhaps learn a little bit. Oddly enough there are many pages with no photos or photos missing. I presume this is where the photos of people used to live as there are not many faces in this album. It sort of adds to the mystique. [click to continue…]
On January 18, 2010 it will be exactly 12 years since I quit smoking. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but to me, and my family, it’s a really big deal. I had tried to quit many times and always went back to it. I was smoking over a pack a day at the end and sometimes even go up in the middle of the night to smoke.
It certainly sucked being chained to something like that, but no more. I am grateful everyday that I don’t smoke anymore. I think that’s a part of what has helped me to stay stopped. I had plenty of my own reasons to quit smoking, health being the most obvious. But, I couldn’t quit for good until I decided that what I really wanted for me and no one else. Sorry Mom.
Anyway quitnow.ca, along with the BC Lung Association, is running a little contest that may give you that extra little push toward quitting yourself:
Quitting smoking is easier with support from on-line contest
November 23, 2009 – QuitNow & WIN, the contest that successfully convinced more than 7,000 British Columbians to sign up to quit smoking last year, is back.
The contest encourages smokers to turn to a buddy for encouragement, register online for support, and have the chance to win prizes totaling more than $20,000, provided by corporate sponsor McNeil Consumer Healthcare Canada.
As we use only Mac here at DOXA I have, thankfully, been able to leave my PC alone for a while. Yesterday, I was editing blog posts and our hosting went down leaving me only with a text version of the post I had been working on.
This got me thinking about offline blog editors. Some nice folk gave me some great suggestions.
I have ScribeFire, a Firefox extension installed and it works great, but it is dependent on my browser being open and I don’t like being chained to Firefox. I would rather have something standalone so I went searching and saw a lot of chatter about MarsEdit.
What a beautifully intuitive interface for offline blog posting. The fact that it has a live preview window is nice as well. I can see my ramblings appear on my second monitor as I type.
I like that I can save a draft of my post with out the worry about a sketchy hosting service losing all of my hard work in the ether. I’ll keep tinkering with this until the 30 day trial is up, but am fairly sure I’ll pay the $29.95 USD to keep using it.
That said, there are a couple of others I want to try, ecto for example, before I make a final decision.
I love HootSuite. Since their most recent update that included support for Facebook and other social media networks, like Ping.fm and LinkedIn, as well as beta support for twitter lists, it has been my application of choice for updating my status across all of my social media profiles.
There was only one thing missing — mobile support. I have been using atebits’ Tweetie 2, TweetDeck for iPhone and SimplyTweet, but have not really committed to any of them. Hopefully, that is about to come to an end with the upcoming release of the HootSuite iPhone application as announced via email this morning:
Coming Soon to an App Store Near You
Our HootSuite iPhone app is coming soon! Once it is released, you will be able to schedule your tweets, check stats and manage multiple accounts from the palm of your hand.
You’ll have to salivate a little while longer, but don’t worry, we’ll let you know as soon as it is available.
Follow HootSuite for all the latest info: Twitter | Facebook
I am looking forward to the app for sure. The was no mention what the cost was going to be for the application in the email. I will look into it further and update this post with what I learn.
Also, Facebook fanpage integration has also been added to HootSuite as of this morning according to their latest twitter update:
UPDATE Hootsuite dev team pushed Facebook FanPage integration. To add your FanPage go to Settings > Social Networks (FanPage) and add. [source]
I have had enough of this itchy thing on my face. Just in time as today is the last day of Movember. Yes, the moustache comes off tomorrow. My upper lip will probably be a little chilly as it won’t be wearing a fur coat anymore.
All jokes aside, I am glad that I participated in Movember. I got to meet some really cool people and both Carol and I had tons of fun. Taking part gave me a reason to blog more on this site again as well.
I need to find another cause now. I’ve already been approached about one thing that I will definitely do a post or two about.
Anyway, here’s the last Movember video. It’s about something I will not be shaving in the morning.
Rather than see another boring-ass picture of me and my stupid moustache, seeing as today is the day the winner got chosen for the set of Movember cuff links from Arbitrage Clothing Inc., why not see a picture announcing who the prize goes to.
Chosen at random here he is:
It’s not the picture you sent me Marc, but this one from your website, marcmcpherson.ca, is much more amusing and truly captures the spirit of Movember. Marc wrote a great post, well worth reading, on his site about why he participates in Movember. Donate to Marc on his Movember page if you like.
As soon as Arbitrage gets those cuff links to me I will mail them off to you Marc. Congratulations!
A couple of honourable mentions
Stacey B, from Sacramento, CA for her wedding day mo’:
Aw! Isn’t that cute? That’s the spirit Stacey. Check out Stacey’s web site Pill’s Place.
Thanks to everyone who participated. There were some great entries. I wish everyone could have gotten a prize. Hopefully I will have more prizes to dole out next year!
Last night was the Movember Gala Parté at the Fortune Sound Club in the Chinatown district of downtown Vancouver. We were frisked quit thoroughly on the way in. They made me feel like some sort of terrorist. Perhaps it was profiling of some sort.
Not every arab is a terrorist you know.
The ghutra (or keffiyeh) I was sporting is the real deal as Carol used to live in Saudi Arabia. I wish I had a thawb to go along with it to allow the boys to have some air. Good for the prostate.
Movember is going well for our team. Last night, thanks to LG Electronics, our Movember teammate John Biehler won a whopping $5000 to put toward the cause. Here’s a photo that Carol took of him with the novelty cheque.
Very Happy Gilmore. Way to go John. That’s fantastic!
The reason the picture didn’t get posted yesterday is because Carol fell asleep as soon as we got home. She was pooped, so two pictures today.
I start my new gig on Monday. I jumped through all the hoops I had to. I am pretty grinny today.
In case you haven’t heard, augmented reality applications for your smart phone and other devices are the next big thing.
What the heck is augmented reality?
Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view. [source]
Augmented reality applications are another reason, besides the ability to shoot video, that I really want to buy an iPhone 3GS. As my current iPhone 3G does not have a built in magnetometer which allows for the use of a “compass” and augmented reality apps. There are already a number of apps in the Apple App Store like the Layar browser, wikitude and Yelp! that are using the iPhone’s GPS and magnetometer functionality to offer augmented reality.
Rocketboom, one of my favorite video podcasts, did a recent show about augmented reality. It highlights a particularly useful app for Lodoners with AR capable iPhones stumbling home after a night of debauchery in a strange neighborhood and needing to find a tube station. It’s called Nearest Tube from acrossair.
Sounds fun right?
How big is it going to be?
A new report from Juniper Research has found that the market for mobile augmented reality (AR) services is expected to reach $732 million by 2014, with revenues derived from a combination of paid-for app downloads, subscription based services and advertising.
The Mobile Augmented Reality report found that annual revenues from AR are unlikely to exceed even $2 million during 2010, due to the fact that only a small minority of smartphones will be AR-enabled. However, this proportion will rise dramatically in the medium term, the result of increasing adoption of Android handsets and iPhones, along with greater deployment of AR enablers such as digital compasses and accelerometers by other leading vendors. [more at source]
The applications seem endless. Imagine applications that will allow you to stalk your twitter and facebook friends in real time. They’re coming. This is going to be interesting.
If you want to hunt ghosts and have an iPhone 3GS, you can snag ARGH (Augmented Reailty Ghost Hunter) for the iPhone now. You are surrounded by otherworldly entities where ever you are. Boo!
Without a doubt our day to day lives are going to be impacted. Things that we take for granted like commuting to work, going out for lunch, even shopping and picking up groceries are probably going to change. The sheer number of people coming to the city from all over the globe is going to put a massive strain on our infrastructure. Getting around Vancouver under normal conditions (like most cities) tends to have its moments of frustration for commuters. But this is going to be a gong show.
In Memory of Thomas Thetcher
November 23, 2009 – QuitNow & WIN, the contest that successfully convinced more than 7,000 British Columbians to sign up to quit smoking last year, is back.
I have 
Our HootSuite iPhone app is coming soon! Once it is released, you will be able to schedule your tweets, check stats and manage multiple accounts from the palm of your hand.
