I think I’ve had maybe 3 pedicures in my life, most recently at Element in Yaletown with Keira just before her birthday back in December. It was lovely and I particularly loved sitting in massage chairs, getting the royal treatment from the knee down and spending some down time with a friend.
The pedicure experience is one that I think everyone should witness first hand (man or woman) at some point in their life. Your feet get to be cleansed, exfoliated, and happy while you get lovely massages up to your calf. People underestimate the power of a good foot rub sometimes, it can lift your spirits (and even your back pain) whenever something is ailing you. Also, they don’t have to be uber expensive at a fancy spa either, there are some great places around town that can offer a pleasant experience leaving your tootsie feeling rejuvenated at low cost.
However, before work this morning I was watching the news on TV (yeah, how old school is that, I know) and an infomercial came on screen. Now, I’m actually a huge fan of the infomercial and no one can sell me something like that Ron Popeil, “just set it and forget it!” so I didn’t channel surf away. Luckily this one was brief, like the “Head On, apply directly to the forehead!” ads but it left me shaking my head and thinking… ick! Have a look below:
I think my favourite part is when they empty all the shaved foot skin into the garbage pail as though they are paper clippings from a hole punch. I know “do it yourself” is really big right now, and sure, maybe the product even works, but PedEgg just leaves me with the sort of “no” feeling that only comes from watching a product slice off your dead skin sells followed a demo of it zesting an orange.
You can view a review on this news channel, although warning: diabetics are not supposed to use this product.
Recently malls have offered lounge areas in their corridors where you’ll find a throw rug, leather arm chairs, maybe a couch, and a handful of husbands camping out until their wives resurface with the credit cards at which time they become porters, carrying all goods purchased out to the vehicle.
I for one know that I get tired when shopping and I usually like to have a game plan, but it also helps to have a partner who works at the same pace.
John and I have been told, “those who blog together, stay together,” but could the same be said for shopping?
I actually enjoy strolling through the halls of commerce with John as a) he’ll tell me when something looks darn good b) he’ll also tell me when it looks horrible and in turn I offer him the same brutal honesty when it comes to his purchase decisions.
This is how our partnership works and I think that all of these elements combined make the addition of an Apple Store next to an H&M in Pacific Centre (downtown Vancouver) ingenious. It’s the modern, hip, geekoid version of putting a Linens n’ Things right next to a Home Depot.
Apple Store Vancouver: Opening day August 19, 2008 (source)
Update: Apple Store Opening May 24th, 2008! (source)
H&M Vancouver: Opening day May 22, 2008 @ 12:00pm (source)
John’s been an Apple fanboy since birth (you can even read about it last year’s Vancouver View Magazine) and after my inaugeral iPod mini purchase four years ago I’ve been a slowly yet and steadily converting. I’d say with a Powerbook, MacBook, iMac, iPod Mini (x2), iPod Nano, iPhone and my Mac Mini at work, that I’d done a pretty good job on the conversion so far.
Putting the Apple Store next to H&M might be like setting up a mid-mall lounge for tired partners, offering a buffer zone for each person with a mission (albeit one of the missions is usually to rest tired feet… or a tired pocketbook). You might even expect to see two people enter the mall and immediately split off, one person turning 90 degrees and heading to the Apple Store, “see you in an hour honey!” and the other making a b-line to H&M. However when it comes to the Vancouver Bollwitts, I think we’re both equally interested in each of these retail meccas.
New York, London, Toronto, Boston, and Coquitlam, BC are all locations of H&M at which I have had the pleasure of handing over cold hard cash to take home piles of great-fitting, stylish finds. With Apple, I’ve only been to the store in Cambridge, MA and Lynnwood, Washington but I can’t wait to add Vancouver to both of those lists and to visit both stores with my partner(s) in crime.
[Hat tip: Keira and Victoria for posting the opening date of the H&M in Pacific Centre and Paul for writing about the Apple Store.]
Ambleside Park is the best know attraction in West Vancouver that is not a shopping mall or a ferry terminal. West Vancouver’s citizens gather at Ambleside to socialize, engage in either organized or pickup sports, to exercise themselves and their canine friends or just to enjoy the sea air.
Metrics The park is bounded on the East by the Capilano River. On the west by 13th Street and Hollyburn Sailing Club. On the North by Marine Drive. On the South by the northern shore waters of English Bay. Ambleside is bisected by the Canadian National rail line.
The beach within Ambleside is a combination of rip wrap stones and sand beach. The sand is 600 meters long and located at the west end of the park. There is 1.2 km of seawall which hugs the shoreline from Park Royal to 13th Street. The park includes 6 sports fields, 2 artificial, 2 grass and 2 all weather (that means gravel). Typical configuration in spring is a baseball diamond, softball diamond, and field hockey. In winter rugby, soccer and football are all played in Ambleside.
Between the CN Rail bridge over the Capilano River and the Ambleside Pitch n Putt there is a modest fitness circuit. The park also includes a skateboard area, 3 basketball courts and 3 tennis courts.
The Pitch n Putt is a small Par 3 course with 1189 yards of total length. The 7th hole is longest at 114 yards and the 45 yard 17th is the shortest. Golfers of all ages and skills harmoniously enjoy leisurely paced golf at Ambleside. Cost is Adults $10 Seniors $8 children $6.
The park has a picnic shelter, total of 18 picnic tables and three barbeque pits. While you’d enjoy a summer day, packed picnic, there is no need no bring your own food as there is a concession and several good near by restaurants. The concession building also houses large change rooms and a life guard station.
Near the concession building there is a play area with swings and other play apparatus suited to children under the age of ten.
The Park is home to the West Vancouver Youth Center and the West Van SPCA kennel.
Locals refer to the large off leash area east of the end Argyle Ave as Dog Beach. This area is extremely popular with north shore dog owners.
How to get there There are actually three accesses to Ambleside Park. Other than savvy West Van residents, the majority of use comes from the access off the foot of 13th Street in West Vancouver. Make your way to Park Royal mall and continue west to make a left at 13th Street and you are there. There is parking immediately to the left on either side of the rail tracks or in slots along Argyle facing the beach. Get off the 250 Blue Bus at 13th Street and you are within a few steps of the park entrance.
The other popular entry point to the park is from south of the Park Royal shopping mall. There is a gravel trail that skirts the west shore of the Capilano River and arrives at the Dog Beach portion of Ambleside. Many dog owners use this entrance as there is good parking and never a need to leash fido.
Finally, when you are traveling eastward on Marine Drive there is an access road between the western extent of Park Royal Village and the eastern most artificial turf field. This road is the access to the West Van Youth Center and the SPCA. There are a number of parking spots that are often used by those involved in organized sports.
Park Use I find it hard to say which of many activities is more popular in Ambleside Park. Just to walk on the seawall seems to be a simplistic approach to a park with so much to offer. But for many that is Ambleside park: a portion of the North Shore sea wall that run west to Dundrave pier.
Upon closer investigation you will often find a variety of uses and users.
Young, and not so young, new moms and dads tend to their children in the play area. Older folkes lounge on the benches. People of all ages swim or use the summer volleyball nets.
Young guys gather in the skate board park or in pickup basketball games on the courts daily. The slightly older dudes park their ‘mercs and beamers along the beach. They gather in small groups to discuss, often in Farsi, the things guys of that age discuss. The counterpart girls are often clutched together on the logs arranged on the sand beach or enjoying a frozen treat from the concession.
Uber power mom’s armoured with latest Lulu Lemon wear purposely stride in pairs along the sea walk making their way to or from their next engagement. Toned metro-sexuals jog at a brisk yet polite pace.
Retired exec’s and their wives stroll in pairs. Often the overheard conversation is of kids in university or the merits of a Lexus over the Land Rover.
Down the east end at Dog Beach the pooches rule. An increased level of activity fills the air. Dogs chase their grotty old tennis balls or a stick flung into the ocean. Owners call after their barking dogs. Children noisily interact with their canine best friends.
Across the rail tracks, over at the organized sports fields, the kids compete while the into it moms hang on the chain link fence shouting encouragement. The more laid back parents line the bleachers in their designer shades sipping the Venti sized paper tumblers of fancy coffee drinks.
Clearly Ambleside is the focal meeting place of West Vancouver. Regardless of age, original culture or current socio-economic status our park by the sea has something to offer everyone.
History Ambleside was originally a garbage dump and log sort. A near by ferry terminal at the foot of 14th Street made the area popular with locals. Park status was given in 1912. While ferries ran to Vancouver beginning in 1868 this site became the ferry terminal in 1914. The Lions Gate Bridge which towers over the east end of the park opened in 1938. Yes, in West Vancouver we do refer to it as the bridge over the moat.
What you might not know. Green Heron nest in the duck pond at Ambleside Park. This is the only known nesting site, for these birds, on the North Shore.
In addition to ducks and swans there are turtles in the duck pond.
The best time to see cruise ships power out of Vancouver harbour towards Alaska, and the setting sun, is at 5:00PM on Sundays.
The sea wall walk passes under the rail road tracks at the Capilano River. The bed of the rail line is no more than three meters from the ground. Depending on how tall or brave you are, with the luck of timing, you may get far closer to the underbelly of a train than you may care.
Sometimes Auntie Becky can get wrapped up in work, blogging, and social media events that no matter how fun they are, they still run her down and make her forget really important things. She’s feeling really, really bad today that she missed your birthday yesterday Ethan because you’re such a great little guy and she loves you very much.
You’re smart, caring, considerate, and won’t hesitate to tell the ladies how beautiful they are. With a spirit that’s emotional, philosophical, and poetic you have such an energy about you that makes folks question if you’re really just six years old.
Happy Birthday Ethan! Be prepared for BIG HUGS on Sunday, followed by some fun Photobooth time.
Luckily for this busy Auntie, Sunday is reserved family time. It was also Booth’s birthday yesterday (he’s my equally adorable step-nephew, who turned 4) and it’s my mother’s birthday on Saturday so we’ll be celebrating them all at once (I’m just hoping there’s three cakes and not just one with 66 candles on it).
Tonight’s WordCamp Vancouver has received the stamp of approval by the WordPress overlords and has been listed on WordCamp Central, the official WordCamp site.
WordPress is build on PHP and a backend MySQL database. In plain English it’s what millions of people (including Miss604.com) use as a blogging and content management system. Here’s the official description: “WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.” [WordPress.org]
Note: The Network Hub is a great place for meetings and such but I’m afraid it’s way too tiny for the abundance of WordPress newbies, gurus and enthusiasts who expect to attend tonight. Make sure you show up early to grab a spot as I’m certain it will be ‘standing room only’ within a few minutes.
Update: Live blog to begin around 5:00pm PT on this post/at this URL.
Update: Rastin is doing an introduction and thanking the sponsors (big thanks to Automattic) NOTE the after Camp drinks are taking place at FLUX Bistro in Gastown (no longer Steamworks). This place is getting packed, with folks sitting on the floor in front of the presentation area it truly is like a camp fire.
Update: First up is Jeff Kee from Synchronous a company the specializes in custom WordPress theming. He’ll be covering: custom templates, custom front pages, php/html, template tags, plugins, and modifying widget.php source. What a mouthful! Glad he’s covering these things, I tinker with templates and themes on a daily basis and it’s really helpful for those who want to go beyond the standard WP themes that are available.
Jeff just made an important note: the front page of your WordPress site does not necessarily have to be your blog page. This is customizable in your Dashboard > Options >Reading. You could have a welcome screen then a page called “blog” that your posts will be published to.
He also touches on loops, custom templates and call tags. Although this may be over the heads of some of those in the room (especially if you’re just on WordPress.com) I think this is important information. Folks need to know that you can pretty much do anything in terms of customizing your WordPress site.
Plugins are great because anyone is free to create and mix with the functionalities of WordPress. You can add design elements or simply make your blogging life easier with the usage of plugins (… especially spam-blocking ones like Akismet). Jeff also mentioned the cforms plugin, which I also use, it’s really intuitive and customizable. I realize I’m saying the word “customize” a lot but it just fits.
Update:Monica Hamburg is up next and she’ll be addressing some basics of blogging: how to write those interesting posts, then how to use social media to promote them. She’s listing off various blogs that she likes as they all have personality, humour, and the authors are specialists in their fields ie. MyNameisKate.ca.
Keep in mind, the web is visual, break posts into shorter paragraphs and remember the short attention span generation. Basically, make things easy to read, truncate longer posts or have a series of posts, “check back next week for the next installment”. Tip: RSS feed or a “subscribe now” button should be clearly visible. Tip: Use categories! People can search for these elements and it’s also a good indicator of what the post would be about (not to mention the added SEO). Tip: Irresistible titles! Be specific, be engaging, grab people with your first line… which is always the title. Sample: “where are my pants?”. I can’t capture all of the hilarious examples that Monica is listing off but I’ve been giggling for the last 3 minutes.
Remember supply and demand when it comes to post content. Create a conversation, leave it open to comments, have a voice and allow others to have a voice. Example: NetChick’s ability to get dozens of comments on a blog post because she states her piece, informs, creates content etc. and then opens the floor for discussion. Also, remember to comment tactfully note: CommentLuv adds a link to the commenter’s latest post on their own site. Use Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon etc. to promote your entries – make your posts “bookmark..able”.
Here are some of the plugins I mentioned in my talk: Flickr Photo Album: As seen in my screencast – easily insert your Flickr photos (any size and with links) into your blog post. Flickr RSS: Displays a badge of your Flickr photos on your site. You can chose to display only certain tags, most recent, and chose the number of thumbnails to display. This also works with Duane and Dale’s WPtouch plugin. Add Quicktags: Add custom “quick tags” that will appear when you’re composing a post ie. one that will insert the div tags, line breaks, or template links back to Flickr photos. You will have to code the properties for the div tags in your CSS (regarding alignment and caption properties etc.)
Update: Okay hopefully I was somewhat informative – Duane is up next, mostly talking about his Brave New Code work and mobile blogging. If you haven’t heard about WPtouch yet, I suggest you check it out!
Update: After the quick break Kulpreet is up next talking about WordPress as a Content Management System. Custom field GUI, custom write panel, Enzyme and Get Custom and blogroll.
The custom fields option at the bottom of your post is often neglected but in the case of a plugin or mashup you can populate these fields to create grids or custom wording at the bottom of a post.
Here’s an example I can give – if you have Duane’s WordTwit app installed, look at the bottom of a published post and you’ll see: “has_been_twittered” which should equal “yes” if already published.
Kulpreet also addresses Custom Write Panels so you can select the type of post you’re writing ie. check write an event, write a review etc. and that post will be customized. Then for that post type, fields will appear that will help you fill in the information you’d like to supply for that type of post.
A plugin he also introduces is Enzyme, which allows you to include custom field posts and pages. You can take custom fields of one post and refer to them in another. So how do these custom fields appear in your post? Use another plugin called “Get Custom Fields” which you can get at Coffee2Code.
Update: When it comes to a blogroll, every entry in your blogroll contains specific information that you can pull from and call up using various customizations or plugins. Show the linked bloggers’ photos, latest posts, excerpts etc. just by using the fields available and the “get_bookmarks” string in the backend of your hosted WordPress site. I really didn’t know that you could do so much with custom fields.
Update: “Bloggers should just get over themselves,” okay kind of kidding but Bruce is now here to talk about the value of blogging – not necessarily monetary value but… first off, why do you blog? If you don’t have an audience can you really be called a writer? Bruce has views that are similar to Dave’s “F stats, make art.” He doesn’t write for stats or to please the numbers. Side note: he used to be a composition instructor at a university. Another side note: Bruce was recently converted to blogging and now admits, he’s addicted. “Writing is a skill like any other skill that you need to practice to be good at.”
Writing is a way to work with yourself and find your own thoughts and blogging is a fairly easy-to-use creative outlet. Enjoy it, just go out and write!
Update: I think Pete Quily just coined the term of the evening, “there’s a plugin for that”.
Update: Now there is an open discussion about the philosophies of blogging and commenting so just to tie that in – is anyone reading this live blog?
Update: Duane just discovered the WayBack machine, apparently his site in 2003 was duane.servebeer.com.
Update: John Chow is up next, “how many people think making money off blogging is evil?” while Bruce (the previous presenter) waves his hand in the air in jest. John started his blog in 2005 with a goal of part time blogging for full time money. He’s currently generating $30,000 a month off the blog. Yep, that’s a month. If you want to learn about making money off a blog, that’s his business. There are two elements to his blog, optimizing the ads and generating traffic, the two often work hand in hand. What about the content you ask? Well that just happens.
John now gets into Google Ads, something I still haven’t really figured out. Personally I don’t think after 1 year I’ve even reached the $100 mark. John gets $117 for every 1,000 page views. This is where he shows us Adsense Deluxe, a plugin that helps you optimize your d placements. John even brings up his copy cat’s site (JohnCow.com), which is a parody on him and he makes about $3,000/month.
WOW a great way to get people to purchase ads on your site is with the OLOPublishing plugin. It allows people to purchase an ad, upload a photo, you can approve it and bam, it’s up on your site. A key note is to monetize but do not compromise your content, you still need something read-worthy to get those visits and clicks. If you want to monetize your blog, advertising is NOT subtle – don’t tip toe through it, go all-in with ads to make money.
Update: Sorry followers, we have about 10 minutes left but my battery power is at 13% so I might drop out here. Anything missed will be filled in later and Raul will be adding his note from my session. We’re all heading to Flux on Water Street in Gastown in about 20-30 minutes so if you’re in the area stop on by.
Update: In the spirit of knowledge sharing and giving a shout out, I have uploaded one of my first screencasts about Flickr to WordPress (FTW!) to the competitive video sharing site Strutta as a Game. Head over to upload your screencast WordPress demos or tips, join the game, get votes, and um just try to beat me.
