Blog

A SkyTrain Unconference and the NextUP Verdict

September 25, 2008 20:22 +0000  |  Activism Transit Vancouver 2

Translink is organising it's own unconference probably in much the same form as Toronto's Transit Camp. This one coming up will be based around security, but I imagine that it will be a good place to meet smart activist types and learn more about how transit works and what it needs in Vancouver.

I've you've got the time, I encourage you to register on the SkyTrain Security Unconference website. I've managed to schedule it into my day just before my interview with NextUP as they've accepted my application (yay!), and I was just invited to an interview with them on the same day at 3pm.

NextUp

September 19, 2008 03:55 +0000  |  Activism Why I'm Here 0

A short time ago, my grandmother told me about this leadership program running here in Vancouver thinking that I'd be interested. I looked into it and she was right: this kind of thing is right up my alley.

I decided to apply, which was a rather complicated process. It involved a reference letter, a resumé, and a series of open-ended questions, so I've had my work cut out for me in my off hours lately.

The real problem for me is that while I already have a long list of reference letters and an extensive resumé, neither of these are really geared toward a program like this. Thankfully, Stephen came through with a wonderful reference letter, and a few hours with Open Office saw me through updating my resume.

The fun part was the series of questions. I had the option to choose from a list, and I thought I'd share this one:

Q: Is there anybody that has had a particular influence on your way of working and thinking? Who and why?

A: When I was roughly ten years old, my mother asked me: "If you could have either power or influence, which one would you choose?" It was a difficult question for a young child, but it didn't take long for me to realise that while power is transitory, influence has lasting effects, becoming part of the cultural fabric.

It's with the above thinking in mind that I chose Gene Roddenberry in answer to this question. He painted a picture of humanity's future, and his hard work had considerable influence on my development. I came to understand the importance of diversity in a society, and embraced the idea that we can learn to direct our energies toward bettering ourselves rather than exploiting others for personal gain. This is all Gene's fault, and I intend to thank him by doing everything I can to get us all closer to his vision.

That's right, I picked Gene Roddenberry :-P Who better to inspire you?

I'll let you know if I'm accepted.

The Dream Vancouver Survey

September 09, 2008 06:07 +0000  |  Activism Dream Vancouver Vancouver 0

I've recently started looking into helping out with Dream Vancouver an activist group here in the city that focuses on things like affordable housing, transportation and citizen engagement. They seem like cool people with some solid goals for the city, so I'm interested.

Anyway, the reason that I'm posting about them here is that one of their big projects right now is to collect all sorts of data on the what people want in this town. To that end, they've developed a survey and I thought that some of you may want to take it. I don't like all of the questions, but it's a start.

Click here to take the Dream Vancouver survey.

City For Sale

August 20, 2008 22:47 +0000  |  Activism Politics Public Space The Toronto Public Space Committee Toronto Transit 13

In 2006, Jane Pitfield, one of Toronto's mayoral candidates had mentioned the possibility of selling naming rights to subway stations as a way to help fund the system. As insane as it may sound to some, this idea did gain traction among some supporters in council and the media. At the time, I'd toyed with the idea of creating a corporate-sponsored subway map to raise some awareness around this woman's position, but as it became clear that she was unlikely to win, my interest faded.

However, the idea didn't die with Pitfield's campaign. Toronto City Hall has continued to toy with the idea of selling off the naming rights of public spaces to corporations, so Jayme Turney and Jonathan Goldsbie from the Toronto Public Space Committee started work on a campaign called City for Sale -- an advocacy campaign to raise awareness about the result of this line of thinking as well as push council on considering other options. When I heard about this, I contacted Jonathan to let him know that I had a fun idea in mind that might help them out, and after roughly a week of off-hours toying with Inkscape, and lots of help from the City For Sale volunteers with logo acquisition, "The Wrong Way" was born:

A Good Day in Pictures

June 28, 2008 04:30 +0000  |  Activism Cycling Vancouver 0

Admittedly, there is scientific evidence that beautiful weather does good things to your mood, so perhaps all of this happy-mooding is simply endorphins caused by UV radiation, but frankly, I just don't care enough to worry about such things. The weather today was gorgeous -- a perfect setting for June's Critical Mass ride.

Here are a series of pictures I took throughout our ride while I listened to groovy tunage coming off the back of one guy's ride and checked out the hot girl on rollerblades dancing along side him. Some other fun stuff I saw today:

One of the cyclists waving a peace sign at some of the onlooking pedestrians

The wind in my hair as I cruised in high gear down Georgia St at rush hour.

The tricked out harley-esque bikes and other fun mods, like a bubble machine or speakers mounted on the back.

Girls in fairy wings.

Friendly motorists who were kind enough to wait for us to pass.

This was the biggest CM I've seen so far -- due in part no doubt to the wonderful weather conditions. There were easily a few thousand on the road today. It's a hell of a sight.

It's really an amazing ride. You should try it!

I'm 29 Today

June 26, 2008 04:47 +0000  |  Activism Family Work [at] Play 6

No, really.

This is the one birthday when everyone tends to think that you're lying about your age. For some reason, everyone wants to be 29, but not 30. I suppose I'll understand this more next year, but at the moment, it just seems silly.

First of all, I'd like to say thanks to all the people who wished me a happy birthday today. Facebook is especially scary, with no less than 54 posts to my wall. Corinne sent me a text message at 12amEST which was pretty cool, and Theresa even called me from London! It's so nice to know that I have so many friends all over the place.

I'm sitting here on the SeaWall watching boats in English Bay and evesdropping on the conversations of passersby while I write out this blog post to be uploaded later. Sadly, despite the symphony of wireless networks floating around me, not one of them is unencrypted and of a reasonable strength to connect. I suppose I could try hacking into the stronger WEP connections, but that takes too much time and I just want to blog.

So a quick update on what's happening in my life lately. I have a new roomate. Well not so much a roomate as family staying with me for a few months. My brother, aka "Butthead" has had some trouble with the girlfriend of late and so he's crashing with me for a few months so he can get his life in order. To be honest, I'm less than thrilled at the prospect of having anyone live with me (I dig the solitude) but when family needs you, you go... or in this case I guess you just give them a key.

On the work front, everything came to a head today. We deployed a big hunk of code that's almost completely dependent on some very cool kung-foo I wrote. Unfortunately, I missed a very minor detail and the whole project blew up for about 3 hours today until I found it, fixt it, and thanked the other teams involved for being patient with me. That was less than cool, but it's working now and the hiccup was documented. I really don't know how the Brass at the company feel about my work of late though -- there's an odd feeling I get when I walk into the office these past few days. My review is tomorrow though, so I guess I'll find out then.

My activism has taken a back seat to my day job over the past few months, but I intend to remedy that soon. The VPSN mapping group I'm in needs a bunch of stuff done and they need it soon, so I've promised them a working model by the 15th. Time to get my ass in gear.

On top of that, I have a new Big Idea that Melanie has convinced me to actually move on. I've documented most of how it would (theoretically) work, but I still need to do some research on practical implementation. I'll post the details soon.

As for my actual birthday, I've decided to take the evening and do close to nothing. I suppose that I should be at choir rehearsal right now, but I just don't want to socialise today. Vancouver's really quite nice when you want to "get away" actually. There are lots of places just to ride your bike to sit for a bit and enjoy the scenery. Maybe I'll go to Stanley Park later, or the Planetarium... I dunno. Does anyone else do the solo thing on their birthday? Is this odd?

Alright, sun's going down. I shall hop back on Syria and see where she takes me.

Critical Mass

April 26, 2008 19:52 +0000  |  Activism Vancouver 9

The weather is warming up and as part of my enjoyment of it and in recognition that the climate here is so very accommodating to outdoor exercise, I've been spending more time on my bike. I ride to work almost every day now and so, it seemed only logical that I participate in the monthly Critical Mass ride yesterday.

From the top of the Second Narrows

For the uninitiated, here's the nuts and bolts of it: a bunch of cyclists from all over the city (and by "bunch" in this case, I mean roughly 500) gather in front of the Art Gallery, explain the rules and then, under banner "We're not blocking traffic, we are traffic!", we go for a ride. The route is typically down major arteries, the ones we as cyclists are usually terrified to use due to the scads of car traffic. Volunteers from the group stop at intersections to block traffic from entering the stream (we call them "corkers") and the rest of the group move through the city like on big bus. We ignore stop lights because for safety, we have to stay as a unit -- hence the corkers.

It was a most amazing experience really. Imagine a city with no noise. The vast majority of agitation within a city rests with cars. Remove that component and suddenly, all seems quiet. You can hear the birds for a change. For a moment, I was taken back to Amsterdam: so peaceful... but with mountains, beaches and the ocean nearby.

We went over three of the four major arteries in and out of the city: the Granville Bridge, Burrard Bridge and the Second Narrows. In each case, we stopped at the peak and paused a moment to take in the view. It doesn't take much to remind me why I live here, but damn... that was awesome.

We cruised through Stanley Park, down Davie, Denman, Pacific, Robson, Granvile, Howe, Georgia... you name it, we were on it. A most wonderful ride.

For the Toronto folk, I thought that I might mention that there were two key differences here that made this ride considerably more successful than the one I went on out East:

  1. The rules were explained before we left. In the Toronto case, there was no structure at all. Some people stopped at lights while others blocked traffic "for fun". It was chaotic and not much fun.
  2. Vancouver had a police escort. There were numerous cycle cops with us on the ride to smooth over tensions with pissy drivers (seriously, you can't wait 10minutes? Get over yourselves!) and keep everyone safe. On top of that, some motorcycle cops were bringing up the rear just to make sure that the stragglers didn't get run over by afore-mentioned drivers. Having that kind of support from the community goes a long way.

So yeah. Lots of fun. You should try it. If you drive, maybe try getting out of your car for a bit, maybe even to join the CM. You never know, you might just like the quiet.

How Very Un-Free is this City?

March 31, 2008 23:36 +0000  |  Activism Vancouver 2

I found this post on Upcoming.org. Most interesting is not so much that the event is happening, but how it's happening, in order to get around a battery of rules restricting gatherings in the city:

Apr 1, 2008: Protest on CBC Offices in Vancouver at CBC TV

This event is to protest the CBC's disbanding of the CBC Radio Orchestra, a 70-year old institution and the last of its kind in North America, as well as the removal of most Classical Music programming from Radio 2. This means there will be no virtually classical music in the airwaves in Vancouver from now on.

Please be advised that it has come to our attention that the present rules and regulations surrounding public gatherings in Vancouver have developed extremely stringent requirements with regard to public gatherings which include permit applications to the City with a minimum of 14 days to process. In addition, the current regulations demand host individuals or organizations acquire insurance to cover possible litigation arising from the gathering. Under these restrictions it is impossible to host a spontaneous protest on current or pressing matters.

With the above in mind, the Protest of the elimination of the CBC Orchestra has been changed in the following manner:

  • It will not be an organized protest.
  • Anyone arriving should be aware that their participation is on an individual basis and is not being requested by any individual or organization.
  • We will be not be meeting at the CBC building.
  • We will going to the fountain at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Hamilton Street in Vancouver for a rest at 10 am, and a picnic lunch.
  • It would be nice if you happened to be there
  • We may happen to be carrying a sign that day which expresses our opinion

YVR Tazer Victim's Family Needs Help

March 13, 2008 15:45 +0000  |  Activism Charity 0

I heard on the CBC this morning that the mother of the guy who was tazered and killed by the police at Vancouver International Airport can't afford to take the cops to court over the death of her son. The BC government has refused to pay her legal fees and so we're all vividly reminded that justice is for the rich alone.

We can help though. A trust has been setup in her name to help her afford the legal fees required. If you're interested, here are the details:

Send a cheque to:

205-174 St. Paul's Street
Kamploops, BC
V2C 2H9

Or for more information you can email walterk@te-law.com.

The Urban Playground

March 06, 2008 18:45 +0000  |  Activism Public Space 14

I was riding the bus into work today, cruising through the lifeless downtown core in Vancouver and something occurred to me that I want to flesh out here: We need to start treating the city more like our home and less like the place in which we work. We keep expecting the government to legislate fun into our city, but that's not their job. Their job is to keep things working, which doesn't exactly cover "fun", but it's obviously important to making a city an enjoyable place.

For those who aren't familiar with the structure of Vancouver, it's like most major cities in North America: the interesting things happen outside of the centre and when the 6pm rolls around, the whole core becomes more or less a no-man's land. For the Toronto folk, think King & Bay at 7pm, but spread over a 4block radius.

The problem here isn't just that the city is poorly designed here (though that obviously contributes) but that there's no social interest in making this area liveable. People work here, but live elsewhere. Without social interest, the restaurants have no reason to stay open, the developers have no reason to build housing etc. The only things that thrive are the dodgy night clubs and strip clubs up on Granville which, while still being part of living in an urban centre, hardly reflect the interests of the people who live and work there.

We should be hanging rope swings from public art, hammocks from lamp posts and hosting garage sales in public squares. Make the downtown core somewhere where you want to be outside the hours of 9-5... Only then can we expect the government to make that area more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. We have to take the first step, not the other way around -- ground up vs. top down and all that.

Any ideas or suggestions?