The Massive Tech Show at the Vancouver Convention Centre is in full swing. If you can look past the three setups of Guitar Hero, the Dance Dance Revolution and the mechanical bull ride, it’s been pretty informative so far.

Tech companies, network solutions and content management specialists are all represented with a few “green” companies in attendance as well. My speaker badge was just a clip on, so I thought I wouldn’t be able to add to my growing lanyard collection at home until I spotted the ReturnIt booth. I was given a free lanyard, as long as I promised I would recycle. Also, printed along its side it reads, “I used to be a Soda Bottle.”

The folks at BC.Net handed me a lovely thermos, and the .ca folks loaded me up with some swag. After one lap around the tradeshow floor and about 30 minutes, my arms all full of stickers, pens, and buttons.

I also ran into my former colleague, Gus, and Gary of Blue Fur (aka Yellow Fur har har) along with David and then Mark.

It’s kind of strange to see my face plastered all over the event, on banners, slideshows, posters and in the booklet, but it feels pretty good. I think I was the only “speaker” wandering around the tradeshow (from what I saw) because I’m probably the only one foolish enough to arrive 4 hours ahead of my panel.

I’m going to walk around a bit and try to find some wifi, as I sit here outside the meeting room trying to avoid paying $9.95/day for hotel guest internet access.

Okay technically, they are not in Vancouver but after posting some photos from Mount Seymour recently I was asked about the North Shore Mountains. The Lions fit in the middle somewhere, but those not from around here (or maybe even some locals) might not know just exactly where they are and what they’re called.

Here’s a quick rundown courtesy of wikipedia.

Cypress Group

Photo Credit: Richard Eriksson on Flickr

Grouse Area

Photo Credit: Stephen Rees on Flickr

Cathedral/Lynn Range

Fannin Range

Lions Area

Photo credit: penmachine on Flickr

So the next time you’re cruising down the Horizon run up at Cypress, you’ll know you’re actually on Mt Strachan, and if you’re snowshoeing the Discovery Loop up Grouse, you’d actually be on Dam Mountain.

I’d really like to explore more of the local mountains, especially with some hiking in the summertime. Maybe I’d finally be a tourist in my hometown start with the Grouse Grind. Good times.

Update: I can no longer attend BlogHer and am looking to transfer my full conference pass to someone else (for a discount). Please contact me if you are interested.

Last year I wanted to attend BlogHer in Chicago, however since we were still pretty much a single income household at that time (and my passport had expired) it just wasn’t in the cards so I settled for simply being listed on their site. Good new though, this year the conference is taking place a little closer to home on the West Coast.

What: “BlogHer’s annual conference is like no other — it is the thrilling diversity of the blogosphere come to life! Featuring technical labs, educational workshops, intense discussion sessions, relevant sponsors, speakers from every corner of the blogosphere, established and new, and plenty of opportunities to network and socialize.” [BlogHer Conference]
When: July 18-20, 2008 (starting with a first-timers conference on day one, the full conference on day two, and a more loosely scheduled unconference on day three)
Where: San Francisco, California

Highlights this year include a session with Heather Armstrong of Dooce, “Living the Truman Show”, who also has a book that is being released this spring. This is the 4th annual BlogHer and they now also have a business specific event, happening in New York over the next week.

I’ve been designated as a volunteer (with a bloghership), so on top of my live blogs I’ll also be capturing audio at the sessions, perhaps some interviews and some great soundseeing. I’m looking forward to networking, chatting, and blogging alongside so many great female bloggers from across the continent.

Register now for the conference to get in on the early bird pricing (which ends tonight!). You can also pick which days and events you’d like to attend, which are broken up in the fee schedule. Also, if any Vancouver companies would like to sponsor my trip I’d be happy to include lots of link love in my blog posts, contact me for more details.

Continuing the Vancouver Blogger Profile series of bloggers who don’t necessarily have to be from Vancouver, I contacted Barbara Doduk (Flickr) (Website) who has been publishing content online for the last decade and is responsible for numerous projects around the web.

Barbara Doduk on Flickr

Barbara first came on my radar a few years ago and more specifically during Blogathon 2006, who along with my friend Alanah, inpired me to take on Blogathon in 2007. Here’s more info about Barbara:

Who are you? The question of all questions. Unfortunately the answer is a life-long ever-evolving answer. At the most basic level, the answer is I am human. This means I was born, do live and will die, and during my life I will experience all that life has to teach me. On the complicated end of things, the answer is I am B, and everything that comes along with being uniquely me.

Where do you blog (which sites)? I started a web site in 1997 originally called Gator Jaw (I like alligators, and like to talk) but not long after I came up with the title wiredSecret, and own the URL for it. I used the site to house my creative writing, poetry, photography and my journal, but now it is primarily my poetry blog.

Over the years I evolved with the currents of the web, and came up with the idea of The Love Blog as my personal blog in 2005, moving all my journal content there. However in 2006 I did a massive Spring cleaning of The Love Blog as I began a new life.

In 2006 I finally launched a project I brainstormed in 2001, called The Unity Project. Which in conjunction with a Flickr group showcases photos of Unity from around the world.

More recently I was asked to join the United World Bloggers, and I have been a blogging member of a lovely local web site called Wet Coast Women, and we are planning a little gathering in the next month. Finally just this month I have joined the Vancouver Metblogs.

Lips of Unity – by Barbara Doduk on Flickr

Why do you blog? Since I could put a pen to paper, I have been writing. I have diaries and journals going back to my teens collecting dust in my closet. I have been writing short stories and poetry since I was in elementary school. I had a computer in the 80s and used it to print out binders full of my words. In 1996 I took I a creative writing class with a local writer and was a part of a group of writers (from the class) that would met every month. I was banging my head against the wall attempting to get my stories published in local lit magazines like Event, Prism and Grain. Since I had been online since 1995, being a total geek, I dug into the idea of how to host a free site to showcase my creative work that way. I snatched up a free geocities web site in 1997, taught myself web coding, and so began my journey into the wild web (read more of my web history).

What’s your favourite thing to write about? Life. Humanity provides everything one needs to be inspired to write. My life has been a fairly open book in that regard. I have taken many a criticism from various people over the years for being too open and personal, but that is just who I am and I will not stop being that way. I know my family and friends have often cringed about topics I have revealed that they themselves may have felt shouldn’t be talked about publicly.

Yet I stand by my statement, I am human. We all are human, and we should always be allowed to fail and to be able to revel in that failure and then rejoice over the lessons we obtained from our faults and failures and our spectacular mistakes, just the same as we would and should revel in our successes, and boast about our accomplishments.

What is the BEST part of blogging… or if you prefer, the worst? The best part of blogging is the connections it allows me to make with other people all over the world. I have some fantastic friends from all my years being online, many of them I have met in person and I love them dearly. I love it when someone I don’t even know is “touched” by something I have shared about my life, and can relate and reaches out to me to express how much I unknowingly helped them in a time when they needed a little restoration. There is a great sense of satisfaction from knowing I have spread love.

The worst part would have to be that people think they know me because of what I write and share, and they psychologically analyze me thinking that they have any idea of who I am in reality. The pieces of me you see online, are exactly just that, pieces, just parts of a much larger puzzle that most people will never see.

Do you write for yourself, your readers, for Google, for a living? As I explained in the previous question, I have always been writing, so first and foremost I write for myself. Secondly, of course, I write for my readers. I think about what I feel like typing about, I write it, and then I think would people find what I just wrote interesting too. Sometimes I don’t even think about the readers, and just hit publish. Sometimes I don’t hit the publish button, sometimes something will sit for a while and I will come back to it a few times to polish my thoughts. It all really depends on the subject.

I don’t write for a living, but one day I know I will publish a book (or more than one). It is a goal of mine, but I don’t want to force it to happen, when the story is ripened to perfection within me, it will come out and it will be. Until that time, I am content to keep doing this, and see where it leads me.

Would you ever censor yourself/Do you feel the need to censor yourself? I do censored myself. I think in life we all do, as a form of self protection, or to protect those we love. I have lived through a great many things that have never been written about in the journals over the last 11 years. It may have been eluded to, or written about in a removed way, through poems or stories, but there is so much that I actually do keep private. I know a lot of people might find that hard to believe because I am so open about so much of my life, but I have kept a lot off the web.

PC, Mac or Speak n’ Spell? As I said I’ve had a computer since the 80s. I switched to Mac in 2000, and haven’t looked back, but I do use Windows too. To me, Apple is just more high end, and so far virus-free, where as with Windows I was always fighting problems using it online. If you keep Windows offline, the system is good. I still use pen and paper too.

Mimzie’s blog theme by Barbara Doduk

Blogs you read or would recommend: There are so many great blogs out there, and surely I haven’t even seen them all, but some of the ones I like best are: 1MillionLoveMessages – Mauro has taken on a massive project to collect 1 Million Messages of Love… I had the privilege of being 1st, and have added many more and continue to, but I think everyone out there could send one in.

My friend Mimzie in NY always has something on her blog that makes me laugh. She has a fab sense of humour which shines through in her “Ask Mimzie” posts.

Mimi Lenox has a great project called Peace Globes that everyone can get behind. This woman is unstoppable. Olga the Traveling Bra – is priceless. Pearlz of Creativity – This lovely lady June has a great blog, but she also does a project which I would like people to support called Gumboots4Peace. Finally, of course I recommend you read all of mine!

One conference for women in business, another that bridged all realms of traditional and digital media, and a concert at the Commodore. You could say it’s been a pretty full weekend so far over here but it didn’t end with that.

I headed up Mount Seymour this afternoon and despite forgetting to wear my goggles and getting whipped in the face with all their fresh powder, it was an really great time. Lines were short, the snow was crisp, and I was pretty much given the rockstar treatment – I even ended up getting a great tshirt all because of this here blog.

Three hours in I was also treated to a snowmobile ride up to Mystery Peak and I gotta say, it was fast, bumpy, slightly scary, and amazingly fun. I’ve been going to Seymour for over 10 years because it’s inexpensive, not too overcrowded, and the views are breathtaking. Not only can you see downtown and over to Vancouver Island, but you also get an eastward view clear across the Fraser Valley.

Mount Seymour fast facts:

Having this scenery close off my weekend is something I could really get used to (along with the Canucks beating Calgary 6-2). The snowboarding season in Metro Vancouver is far from over so check out Seymour’s spring skiing schedule.