You’re Sitting In A Chair In The Sky

Posted by on March 3, 2009 3 comments

“Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy”
Courtesy of this YouTube User (and NBC, Conan O’Brien) and to Cinci who first showed me and Hil who reminded me that it’s worth spreading around.

Help Me Climb 48 Storeys For Clean Air

Posted by on February 16, 2009 No comments

The BC Lung Association is holding their 8th annual Climb The Wall: StairClimb For Clean Air next week and I need donations to be able to participate. Please help me get there – I only need $100, but it would be fantastic to help raise money for this organization that does so much tireless work to help us all live a healthier, cleaner life.

DONATE HERE. It’s very easy, just a few clicks away: name, address and credit card and your receipt (for taxes) gets delivered right to you.

I am also thinking of recording it, maybe. The climb itself should take about 10 minutes, or so I’ve been told… Could be a painfully tedious video, but wouldn’t you like to see someone climb a staircase for 48 floors? Compelling content.

Thanks for your help and support for helping me get to the top of Vancouver, and thanks for helping all of those people who need support in medical research, asthma education, clean air initiatives, and programs to help young people live tobacco free.

Update: I ran it in 8:18. (under Mallen not Cole for the record) Wasn’t that bad, even after all of that red wine…

2008 Highlights and Revelations Leads To 2009 Master List

Posted by on January 15, 2009 2 comments

I write this and put it out there because then I’ve written it and it’s out there.

Personal Highlights in 2008:

  • In life, I married the most amazing man on the planet, and get to laugh with him every day.
  • In work, I tried some new concepts and participated in some new ventures and cool experiments. I established new working relationships and continue to better understand my business. This is good. :p
  • Two nights before my wedding I got to experience Torquil from one of my favourite bands “The Stars” give the official word at 2am NL time that “Barack Obama is the next President of the United States of America!!”. Where were you?
  • I saw a ton of great music.
  • I did a really fun hour-long webcast on ustream with Jim Louderback from Revision3 at nextMEDIA in Banff. Dodgy Internet though. (pics)
  • I had a fun interview with Dr. Richard Florida, “Who’s Your City?” in Banff.
  • I finally made it to France. It is heaven on earth.
  • I got sick too often. Not really a highlight, but definitely worth highlighting. In December, three times alone. I think I take pretty good care of myself, but clearly not good enough – I need to see someone about that. Any suggestions?

2008 Revelations:

  • As a woman, you are nothing without inspiring, trustworthy women in your life. I am forever grateful to mine.
  • There is such a thing as social media fatigue. I purposefully took somewhat of a backseat or an incognito position in 2008 to a degree. I was really selective about my participation and took more offline time. My revelation: I needed that, and it’s forced me to focus on what is important.
  • I will try not to use “these marks” so “much”.
  • Getting married puts you and your mate on some sort of next level of peace. It also puts you in a place where you are completely committed to working your arse off giving it all you’ve got.
  • Twitter is just easier and far more immediate than blogging: fact. I like that.

Those items listed above got me thinking at the turn of the year on January 1st, and into my official another-year-older on January 9th, and have led me to my Master List of 2009, in no particular order or relevance to the above. Call it resolutions, goals, whatever your fancy. I just like to have a list of positive reminders heading into another year. And, like the French, I’ll revise and review again in the *actual* new year that begins in September.

1. The small, insignificant things don’t matter. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for, move along.
2. Have compassion, don’t judge.
3. Accept people’s short-comings and move on.
4. Continue Laughing.
5. Work hard. No wanker policy.
6. Play guitar again.
7. Play piano again.
8. Go to bed EARLY, wake up EARLY.
9. Be good to my body: run, yoga? and potentially a naturopathic Doc…
10. Read.
11. Write.
12. Italian!
13. More wine studies.
14. Moisturize.
15. Floss. That’s a tough one.

Winter Sucks (in this circumstance)

Posted by on December 22, 2008 1 comment

arcalife.com: A New Family Community To Store and Share Your Family Experiences

Posted by on December 19, 2008 1 comment

arcalife is a new online family community where you can store all of your life’s greatest memories, photos, videos, events and moments, while connecting with your family, searching your family genealogy and creating a recorded history for future generations.

arcalife.com is currently in Beta and has a long list of new features, additions and improvements coming very soon. Some of the highlights of the arcalife experience come in a few dynamic ways to showcase your life in several really creative features. One of the coolest tools is called “Time Capsule”. As a member you can store, or “lock away”, memories, wisdom, or anything at all for someone of a future generation to discover. Another neat item is the multi-media “Life Cube”: load up your favourite photos or a specific time line of life photos and view the 3-dimensional animation. (You know that whole Sesame Street segment, “This is the story of your life”? A HUGE fan favourite. “Life Cube” entertains and gives you that same warm and fuzzy feeling.)

arcalife is the brain-child of Vancouver-based entrepreneur, Paul Taylor, and is pieced together by his savvy development team who cranked out what you see now in mere months – there’s plenty more greatness down the road.

Why is arcalife a step well beyond some of its currently more known competitors?

  • The Integration piece enables users to pull content from favourite networks online, making content creation easy and seamless. You can import photos from your Facebook collection into arcalife – importing content from Flickr, YouTube and mySpace is soon to follow.
  • Engaging Unique Features: ‘Time Capsule’ and ‘Life Cube’ bring your memories to life… even after you’re long gone!
  • A secure family community network that brings genealogy into the mainstream – you can search your family history and create a dynamic family tree to share with your loved ones.
  • It’s completely free! But if you need to access more storage space or require greater flexibility there are different levels of paid membership to suit your needs.


A quick and easy pop-up exemplifying ways to use arcalife.

Check out arcalife.com and read more about arcalife on Killer Start-ups.

arcalife would like to meet you online and hear about your experiences. Join the arcalife Facebook Fan Page to show your support and start a Discussion Topic to pass along your valuable feedback.

My $199.99 Pan Flute

Posted by on December 12, 2008 No comments

Now THIS is the kind of business start-ups should be up to:

Barack Obama: Renewing Our Information Highway

Posted by on December 7, 2008 No comments

Read ReadWrite’s latest on Change.gov

Paris, je t’aime a cinq heures

Posted by on December 2, 2008 2 comments

PJ and I were so jet-lagged and wonky in our first few days in Paris from the journey, and more accurately, from the 5-day wedding extravaganza in Newfoundland just prior to, that we were wide awake at the oddest and darkest times. One morning at 5am we took to the streets and explored the city at dawn, alone. If I had to pick one favourite moment, tough to do, but this 2.5 hour lovely walk would rank high. We were the only 2 people in the world strolling the grounds of the Louvre that morning. It was magical.
Honeymoon In France

We told our French friend Fred about our morning and he sent me this:

From Honeymooning To The CBC

Posted by on November 20, 2008 3 comments

I just got married. In Newfoundland, with 34 people in total on hand for 4 days, family and best friends, in an Inn in a remote outport. There was a ton of love, fun, and a lot of drinking. I can’t get into it because I could never do it justice in a blog post. It was the most amazing experience, and not just because PJ and I wed and could not be happier – I think I speak for everyone who was there: it was magical. I am happy. Very. I am jet-lagged and exhausted with bliss, and trying my damndest to get back into the swing of it all and all things I love about the Internet, which I did miss incidentally, but not enough to stop drinking fine wines and packing on the post wedding 10 L-B’s with the best food on the planet. Merci Beaune. Merci Paris. Here are some of brother-in-law Weston’s pics… I have not ventured to get mine going just yet, but I will eventually…

Back to reality:
Tomorrow I am heading into the CBC here in Vancouver to talk about the thing I love most about my job: social networks taking over the Internet. I am thrilled that the CBC’s Craig Lederhouse has put this together (using google sites, nice.) and opening up the channels to flow more knowledge at the fine folks who bring me my happy place each day, all day, my obsession and favourite Canadian Institution, the CBC. Kris Krug writes on this CBC milestone a lot more eloquently than I currently am managing to muster, and he will of course be a major player in the day. In addition to Krug, they are also fortunate to have a few other savvy social networkers in the room: John Dickerson, Roz Allen, Alfred Hermida, Susan Ormiston, and John Paolozzi. There are a lot of these “types” here in Vancouver, so let this be the first of many at the CBC and get more of Techcouver involved down the road.

Follow along, contribute through the day if you feel so inclined, and I’ll do the same along the way, most certainly, you’ll catch anything here.

Gin The Dancing Dog

Posted by on November 1, 2008 No comments