After a hearty breakfast at Ricky’s we’re now chilling at Blenz in Central City / SFU Surrey. So far this morning the traffic has been horrendous so after this we’ll head straight to Gastown for the 1:00pm meetup.

The kiss event (one of the only events mentioned this morning in one of the local papers) will be starting at 11:30 (right now!) although please check out my NDMD08 posts I have been updating for the last few months for more activities that have been arranged for the rest of today.

If you are able to meet up with us, please bring donations (non-perishable food items) for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank and we’ll swing by there later with our contributions from National Digital Media Day.

Our travels today are made possibly by Zipcar. If you would like to sign up today, please use this special Miss604 reader discount link where you will receive an annual membership for just $30.

It’s here! Today is National Digital Media Day and I’m going to be embarking on a tour of Metro Vancouver, stopping at various points to live blog and promote digital media in our region. Why am I doing this you may ask?

… As you may know, there is wide speculation that the federal government may not renew the $14.5 million Canada New Media Fund (CNMF) when it’s current contract expires on March 31, 2009. You may have read about this issue on the front page of Saturday’s Globe and Mail.

The annual $14 million CNMF, administered by Telefilm, supports new media and Internet-based content creation and marketing activities. The loss of this fund has far-reaching implications for New Media BC’s membership and the BC Digital Media industry as a whole…

… It is of the utmost importance that the Canadian government supports domestic creators of Digital Media content so that our exciting industry may continue to flourish in a province rich with innovation, new ideas, and intellectual property. New Media BC and the CIAIC will continue work on your behalf to ensure our collective concerns are heard. [Ning]

I’ll be picking up Raul and then heading to Ricky’s at Central City in Surrey for some hearty breakfast. If you’re in the vicinity and would like to join us feel free to stop by around 9:00am.

We’ll be collecting items for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank all day, which we’ll be dropping off this afternoon so please help us load up the Zipcar with donations. Rumour has it Buck Pierce and the Grey Cup will also be at the Vancouver Food Bank today at 2:30pm in preparation for Tackle Hunger this weekend.

From there we’ll head to Burnaby for some coffee (location to be determined, check the live blog once it’s going.)

There is also a “Kiss” event taking place at a secret location, meet up at the Art Gallery at 11:30am to find out where to be for this national smooch.

We’ll the be at Salt in Gastown for lunch at 1:00pm. Farmstead Wines will be there with some tasty samples.

After downtown we’re going to cruise over to Richmond (location suggestions are still open!) and wrap it up back over on the North Shore (do you think Waves would be the best pit stop there?).

We’ll then head to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank to drop off donations, then I’ll take Raul to the Vancouver Blogger Meetup before heading to my live blog for the Keall Foundation. Please join us along our route today, either in person or on the blog.

Our travels today are made possibly by Zipcar. If you would like to sign up today, please use this special Miss604 reader discount link where you will receive an annual membership for just $30.

The official snaps won’t be in the Vancouver Sun until tomorrow morning however earlier today I had the pleasure of traipsing around downtown with John, Jeff, and Alanah and meeting all kinds of Canucks thanks to Raise a Reader Day.

“The Canwest Raise-a-Reader program has excellent momentum and this year, on the morning of Wednesday, September 24th, newspapers in 28 communities will host Raise-a-Reader Day activities on city streets from Victoria to St. John’s. Thousands of volunteers and local celebrities will exchange special Raise-a-Reader edition newspapers for donations to literacy… …Through the volunteer efforts of people across Canada, Raise-a-Reader is able to provide the necessary funding and resources to family literacy programs, libraries and school libraries in the greatest need.”

Alanah and me with Mason Raymond of the Canucks (and How I Met Your Mother fame)

Each year I have a blast walking around and meeting players and organization members. It’s such a casual atmosphere, everyone is in high spirits and thinking the best for the season ahead.

One of the best ways to get your day going is by getting a hug from Ryan Kesler.

Legendary (first ever) captain of the Vancouver Canucks, Orland Kurtenbach. Such a nice man who was excited to hear about our podcast (and possible bus ads).

My meeting with Stan “The Steamer” Smyl, who led Vancouver for his entire career until retiring in 1991. His number 12 hangs in the rafters and will soon by joined by number 16.

You can also catch photos on John’s Flickrstream from our adventures at the Canucks game last night where they were kind enough to have a penthouse suite as a token of their appreciation for online content creators like The Crazy Canucks.

I figured it may be best to speak about this before it happens so that I can get my readers to tune in, if they weren’t already inclined to do so. I will be doing a guest spot on Radio 1410 this afternoon (formerly known as CFUN) and will be sharing some thoughts and insights about the blogosphere. I’ll be interviewed by Val Cole and Patrick Maliha (who do the Afternoon Buzz 2pm to 6pm weekdays) and will post my show notes later today.

If you do catch the spot today, please feel free to drop me a line with feedback or any neat blogs or websites I should plug in upcoming segments.

As a side note, I may also be a guest speaker at SFU again this fall for Michelle Kim’s journalism course. Registration is still open and you can sign up for “Basics in Journalism: How to Break In” on the SFU site.

Update: Links mentioned on the show include Flickr for photo sharing, UrbanSpoon for restaurant reviews, and Delicious for social bookmarking. I’ll be back again next Wednesday between 2:45 and 3:15pm with more internetty goodness.

When John and I were separated by thousands of kilometers before he made the move to Canada we used to send each other video postcards. One evening when driving back to the city from his parents’ house he put his camera on the dashboard of his car and spoke to me while cruising through the rolling countryside. In the background was Couches in Alleys by Styrofoam featuring Ben Gibbard [YouTube] and when John finished his message he turned the camera out, facing the road, and captured a fiery amber sunset falling gracefully from the sky as though slowly and peacefully embracing the earth.

Since then, I’ve enjoyed being able to travel and explore highways across this continent with him. Driving home from Osoyoos along the Crowsnest the other weekend I had tears come to my eyes several times. We were carefree, meandering along a well-traveled highway nestled between mountain ranges and valleys while the tunes on the radio made us both sing along whenever we felt like joining the chorus. There are few places on this planet that make me wish I could freeze time and soak in their majesty, and for some reason my thoughts always come back to Iowa.

I had never been to the Midwest before I met John and during our whirlwind tour for Thanksgiving last year, passing the signs for the famous covered bridges of Madison County and the birthplace of John Wayne, the beauty of the landscape won me over yet again.

I have a sneaking suspicion that these warm feelings, thoughts and memories are not so much about the locations themselves, but the people I was with – in particular, the person who shared these travels with me. I’ve been very lucky in my life to experience such places and to have met people whose hospitality and generosity can only be shadowed by the goodness of their hearts.

If there is one place that I could remain for the rest of my life, however, that would be in the arms of my husband, who is celebrating his 30th birthday today. “He’s not North, my South, my East and West,” and I look forward to exploring the ends of the earth with someone so full of life and spirit that it humbles me each morning when I get to be held in his arms.

The title of this post is from a Ben Folds song