This week my long and arduous job search came to an end. I applied for a job with Shaw Cablesystems. I’ve been a customer for many years using their digital television and internet services. I have always had good experiences dealing with the company and its representatives so when I found out that Technical Service Representative (TSR) jobs were available there I pounced on the opportunity.

I received a link to the job by a friend. The link had an online questionnaire around my technical knowledge and an “apply now” button at the bottom. On the next page I set up my account for the Shaw careers database filling out all of my information and copied and pasted a plain text version of my resumé into the form provided.

On the same day I got a phone call about coming in to Shaw Tower for a screening interview with a Talent Supply Coordinator from the HR department after which I scheduled for back for a second interview the next day with two supervisors from the Technical Service department.

I had to bring my passport (which I seem to have lost on the way home) and my driver’s licence so a credit and criminal record check could be done on me.

After the second interview, which I thought went well, my interviewers told me that I should to wait for a call one way or the other.

The phone call with a job offer came a day later. It included an amazing benefits package that starts right away, not the least of which is an employee discount on the old cable bill. Nice! Every bit helps.

The whole hiring experience was extremely pleasant, professionally executed and efficient. At no time was I made to feel I was just a number.

The offices in Shaw Tower are beautiful and modern. The people I met were all friendly and accommodating. That’s a corporate culture I can get used to.

I start training on Monday. I am looking forward to this new adventure.

If you’re in Vancouver and might like a career at Shaw you can attend the Shaw Tower Open House tomorrow. Here are the details —

We have three questions for you:

• Are you customer service driven?
• Do you have a passion for sales?
• Do you love technology and innovation?

If the answer is YES, then come to our open house and bring a friend!

Shaw Tower is opening its doors on Saturday, July 24th from 2 to 4 p.m. and we are looking for enthusiastic people to join our Customer Service and Technical Service teams.

There’s never been a better time to join the Shaw family as we continue to grow and expand our business.

So, if you know anyone who would be interested in applying, please pass along the information below.

Details

• When: Saturday, July 24
• Time: 2 to 4 p.m.
• Where: Shaw Tower, 1067 West Cordova Street, Vancouver
• Open Positions: Customer Service and Technical Service Representatives
• What to bring: Your resume
• What to expect: Be prepared to have an on-site interview with one of our Customer Care Supervisors

IMPORTANT: These jobs are all PART-TIME and only guarantee 20 hours per week. Our call centre operates 7 days a week from 7 AM – 11:30 PM. All candidates must be available to work anytime within these hours.

Carol, always pursuing the next great pin, and me on a quest for an official Vancouver 2010 mug a former teacher braved the crowds and traffic and headed downtown in to the Olympics related madness. It took over an hour to get to the parking spot Carol had for us in the building where she works. As soon as we walked out of the building onto Granville Street, this is what we saw:

There were buskers busking, clowns clowning and men in pink underpants putting on shows all along the usually traffic laden Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. There was a different type of traffic today. No cars. Just a mass of humanity aimlessly milling about watching the mass of humanity aimlessly milling about.

Here’s another shot:

I’ll do a post tomorrow about Carol’s pin mission and my quest for the mug. For more you can read Carol’s post about our day out and about.

I’m pooped, but what a load of fun.

I have been working at DOXA Documentary Film Festival as the Social Media Coordinator / Blogger for the past two months. The office is on Commercial Drive, one of the funkiest neighbourhoods in Vancouver. One of my favourite things about this block is the number of fantastic coffee shops I have to choose from.

Yes, I can go to the most recognized, corporate shop with the green awning and mermaid in the logo if I wish, and often do. This morning rather than heading there for my usual latté and an apple fritter I was introduced to Fratelli’s bakery by my co-worker Desirée.

While I was eating two ham and cheese croissants and drinking a dark roast coffee at my desk I got to thinking. I realized that some folks, perhaps in town for the 2010 Olympics, may be looking for a more authentic Vancouver coffee experience. So, here I am dioing a quick post about Fratelli’s and the other two fabulous coffee shops nearby Continental Coffee and Café Calabria.

Literally two doors down from Fratelli’s is Café Calabria where if it’s authentic Italian coffee, cuisine, atmosphere and service you want, this is the place to go.

Years before the airing of The Sopranos series on HBO, my wife Carol and I had an argument about the existence of the Italian mafia while drinking coffee and eating paninis at Café Calabria. She has since become a believer. The argument had nothing to d with the family that owns and runs Calabria who happen to be very nice folks, it just took place there.

Finally, kitty-corner to Fratelli’s is Continental Coffee. I am drinking a latté from there right now. It’s pretty tasty, but they are best known for their amazing café mochas made with with real chocolate and lots of freshly whipped cream.

In the above photo you can see the aforementioned green awning of the evil corporate giant directly across the street. As well, is the fine young gentleman who, upon seeing me taking photos along the Drive, called me an “Olympic rat-bag”. That’s him in the red baseball cap with a skateboard at his feet drinking water in front of the shop. I am unsure what would have set him off other than my camera as I am not wearing anything even remotely Olympic. And if you look at me lately athletics are clearly not something I’ve been participating in.

They can’t all be winners.

Tonight the mo’ felt like snarling a bit. Billy Idol would be proud. If you’re too young to know who he is, that’s what google is for. I’ll wait.

The month is drawing to an end. Finally. I will soon be able to shave the mess off my face someone’s prostate may be saved from cancer and all will be right with the world again.

Tomorrow night is the Movember Vancouver Gala Parté. We’re going to party like it’s 1979! Here are the details:

Fortune Sound Club
147 East Pender
Vancouver
British Columbia V6C 2V6
November 26th
Start 8:00pm
End 2:00am
Judging: 10:00pm

If you want to buy tickets you can do so on movember.com. Come on along and watch people make fools of themselves. I’ll be the cool guy…

Speaking of off putting and angry men with hockey moustaches:

Yeesh. What is that, an ad for a prison hockey league?

More information and how to donate to Movember: Movember 2009 Info

While perusing the feeds of local websites that I have in my google reader (an easy way to get all of you content in one place) in the vancouverisawesome.com feed I came across a little blurb and video about an event on Monday December 7th at 7:30 pm at VIFC called The Found Film Festival:

The Found Footage Festival is a live comedy show featuring clips from videos found at thrift stores and garage sales across the country. This is a small sampling of some of the footage on display in Volume 4, coming to your city in 2009-2010.

If for some weird reason you can’t see the video go here to view it.

You guessed it. Carol and I have tickets already and will be there with bells on to see all the cheesy video goodness. You can buy tickets directly via this link at the VIFF.org site.

Looks like it will be a good time. If you’re unable to get to Vancouver, worry not, we are but one stop on the tour.

Still not convinced? We’ll send Pretty Boy Floyd along to talk you into it:

In this instructional video, entitled “Secrets of Pool Hustling,” professional pool shark Pretty Boy Floyd espouses his opinions on just about everything except pool hustling. More Pretty Boy Floyd is featured on the Found Footage Festival Vol. 3 DVD.

As well as bookmarking their website you can follow Found Film Festival on twitter, become a fan on Facebook or watch more videos on their YouTube channel.

See you there!

Let’s keep this as simple as possible.

Gratitude Week Vancouver is happening from October 12-19, 2009.

What is Gratitude Week?

Gratitude Week is a vehicle for ordinary people in Vancouver to make something happen to end homelessness now. It is a way to enable individual citizens to do something tangible in the fight against homelessness. Our Provincial Government and the City are making enormous strides in providing long-term solutions to the problem. A number of non-governmental agencies and charitable organizations are also doing amazing work towards the same goal. We commend them for their work and support their efforts.

The missing piece has been the involvement of the entire community, rather than the committed few who have been doing wonderful work for so long with limited resources. Each one of us can do something today to end homelessness now. [source]

A sign of the times:

We all have something to be grateful for. Why not share? I’ve given, have you?

Carlo, Dan and I went on another lunch excursion today. This time it was a block away for sushi at Aoki Sushi, 1888 W. Broadway St, Vancouver. We’ve been there a few times and there’s always great food and excellent authentically Japanese hospitality right down to the automated voice that thanks you, in Japanese of course, when you walk through the door.

I had the pacific salmon sashimi in a cool shaped ice bowl:

It’s made by my favourite sushi chef on the planet:

He wears the funny plastic hair hat every day and always greets with a smile. One day while sitting at the counter across from him as he worked, seeing as I’m brave enough to go for sashimi, he offered me some fresh sea urchin and fatty tuna to test the culinary lengths I was willing to venture to. Although I didn’t bite he took it in stride and teased me for the rest of our visit.

In short, I like Aoki Sushi.

Check out the dinhere.ca reviews and the 2006 article from The Vancouver Courier for more about Aoki Sushi.

Last weekend I went to a course put on by the DGC. It was called Introduction to Internet Marketing for DGC Members and was facilitated by Film and TV Director, Creative Consultant, TV Producer and 1st A.D. Peter D. Marshall. You can subscribe to Peter’s excellent filmmaking newsletter over at his site actioncutprint.com.

Peter talked about everything from the more technical such as meta tags and SEO to utilizing web 2.0 sites like faceook and LinkedIn

Basically what I have is all the weapons to market both myself and any of my films or other media products already in my arsenal, but have yet to focus them. It’s like having the best power drill on the planet and drilling at thin air. I’ll be making some changes to my online presence, not the least of which will be to this blog.

Colleen Nystedt came in to speak to us about her site, movieset.com. I was extremely impressed with Coleen and her pitch. Movieset.com is going to revolutionize film marketing and the back-end tools bringing productions truly online (and for free) are of huge interest to me as a filmmaker. I had ideas about doing what movieset.com is doing myself, so it’s a very easy product to get behind.

Here’s Colleen on In the Lab with Leo Laporte:

Go behind-the-scenes with MovieSet™
Colleen Nystedt, Founder & CEO, MovieSet™

1. MovieSet™ represents a paradigm shift that advances the marketing of movies to the beginning of the production process.
2. Every movie has a core audience and the internet is the most sophisticated tool for identifying, targeting and engaging those fans.
3. MovieSet’s toolkit brings film production online creating efficiencies in scheduling and communications, and as a by-product allows fans a abbreviated view of the process.
4. As an aggregator, MovieSet™ enables producers to earn advertising and other ecommerce revenue creating new business models.
5. MovieSet™ is also developing its utilities for television, documentaries and games.

www.movieset.com

[source In the Lab with Leo: episode 79]

As well we hear from Trilby Jeeves who spoke about her experience with marketing film related services on the web, specifically her site buffooneryworkshops.com. I’m kind of a buffoon already, but I’m considering taking Trilby’s next course:

“The Buffoonery Acting Workshop” will be two fun-filled days of discovering how to find authentic, believable and committed performances. It’s going to be held in Vancouver, on April 26 & 27, 2008 at the Tooba Physical Theatre.

This workshop is available to no more than 10 actors. Registrations will be on a first come basis. As soon as 10 spots have been taken, this link will be closed.

Register Now.

Coming from the background and experience in this area that I already have I wasn’t sure how much I’d learn, but I’m glad I went. I learned a lot in only a few hours. Thanks again Peter.

Ya-freakin’ hoo! Cowan the Brabarian scores two goals in two games and this one’s the game winner in 2nd OT! After an abysmal performance on Wednesday night the the Canucks come back with lots of heart to win game two against the awesome Anaheim Ducks. The series now comes back to Vancouver and GM Place with the series knotted at one goal each. Sunday ought to be a doozy!

Trevor Linden sure is the man in the playoffs. What a great pass…

Tomorrow’s the big day. Yep, it’s the beginning if the NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs. It’s the best darned tournament in sports and we here in Vancouver get to have our team in it this year. After a rocky start to the season the Canucks kicked some serious ass after Christmas finishing the season on top of their division with home-ice advantage in the first round! I believe in blue. Do you?

Canucks fans are encouraged to ‘Believe in Blue’ and wear blue to all Canucks playoff games. Authentix, the Official Team Store of the Vancouver Canucks is the only place to get your official 2006.07 Canucks ‘Believe in Blue’ playoff merchandise!