Most people know how “fun” it is to drive around the Lower Mainland. Sometimes I think it was a great move to sell my car in 2005, especially on weekends like this. Between festivals, the Sun Run on Sunday and the usual road work, the city is going to be pretty painful to maneuver around over the next couple of days. Here are a couple events of note (including road closures).
The Vaisahki Festival kicked off last weekend with events in several cities, but today and tomorrow festivities ramp up with parades taking place in Surrey and Vancouver [Channel M] [Surrey Events]
With a record 50,000+ people participating in the Sun Run tomorrow, you know there are going to be road closures. From Georgia, Stanley Park, Pacific Blvd, the Burrard and Cambie bridges, you might want to avoid driving downtown all together.
Later today we’ll be heading to the airport to pick up my in-laws for their second trip to Vancouver. It’ll be a whirlwind tour once again but at least we’ll have more time than last year surrounding the wedding. The first step though, is getting to the airport on time. Oak street was a nightmare yesterday as was Granville, all thanks to trolley bus lines. Not to mention Cambie is a complete write off, which is evident by going to the Canada Line website and watching the bright red Traffic Alerts flow on in. Right now there’s Cambie Village, Cambie Bridge, West Pender and Broadway warnings.
It’s fantastic to see the city coming alive, especially now that it’s 8am on a Saturday and the sun is shining through the curtains and glaring out my laptop screen. Once we get John’s parents from YVR it’ll be smooth sailing the rest of the week.
On a side note, to catch Sun Runners in action tomorrow check out the KatKam – also try the course map above to find a good vantage point. I’m assuming the Granville Bridge would be right in the middle of the action but then again, it’ll be the only traffic artery in and out of downtown on that side. Good luck runners! (…and drivers!)
Open up today’s Province and you’ll see my mug, complete with my Fin puppet on page A4.
I’m the Canucks Fan of the Day and you can be too (ooh!) The Province is going absolutely nuts, just like the rest of this city. You can get your player poster in the paper every day and email your crazy fan stories and maybe win cool things or have your tale published as well.
Send your answer to “Vancouver will beat Dallas because…” to [email protected].
Update: Two episodes of The Crazy Canucks have been released over the last couple of days. Episode #28 is our traditional roundtable and Episode #29 features JJ and Alanah on a phone call after the MARATHON 4 OT win at GM Place last night. Head over to The Crazy Canucks podcast website to check’em out.
Update: Just letting this ride into the weekend, The Crazy Canucks podcast will be on CTV news on Monday night. Will keep everyone posted and let you know when you can expect to see John, JJ, Dave, Alanah (via webcam) and yours truly on the little screen.
The camera man just called the producer and said, “I’m sitting here with a bunch of donuts and a nice lady,” the person on the other end of the phone replied “what a nice combination.” The CBC contacted me a few days ago about a post I had written, it just so happens that it’s about donuts.
As I’m sitting here, there’s a CBC camera in my face and a donut in my mouth. John’s going to kill me for typing and eating at the same time, but it’s all in the name of “donuts”; more importantly, donut blogging. My fingers are getting sticky but I’m actually learning quite a bit about donut nutrition- no matter how silly I may look. I have to hold a donut in my mouth while I’m typing this and I think I’m starting to drool. I am feeling SO attractive right now.
John is being a great PA and getting me a moist dish towel so I can wipe my hands between each take. I am continuing to type while they take shots of the keyboard. I cracked a comment about how I wish we could do this with beer next time. I think I could handle about 20 takes of beer drinking better than I can all these donuts. Mmmm maple deliciousness dripping from my hands. (I just typed that line 8 times, deleted, then typed it again). After the last take John comments “Yay, you’re going to be stock footage!” The camera man Randy assures me that’s quite the possibility.
I don’t know when this will be up and when I can share my lovely donut story on the CBC National news, but I will be sure to keep everyone posted. It’s been really fun, silly and sugar-loaded, plus I get to have my blog shown on TV. The fact that I had to cram baked goods in my mouth repeatedly for close up shots isn’t the most comforting but… it’s all for the good of the blog, eh.
*Interesting side note: The interview was conducted remotely, so I had an ear piece to listen to the questions being directed my way. When the camera man was hooking me up to all the microphones and audio thingie ma bobs he passed an ear bud over to me then casually mentioned something about its cleanliness. He noted under his breath that the last person to have this bud in their ear was our Premier, Gordon Campbell. Aside from drinking lots of water after the shoot, I made good use of a couple of Q Tips as well.
Update: This segment will air on the National, tomorrow – Thursday April 12, 2007. Check local listings, due to the playoffs (god bless’em) time slots could be outta whack.
Update: I was on for about… 15 seconds, I was “token blogger” and Miss604.com or my name was never mentioned. Oh well. I think they wanted me to sound a little more shocked about the unhealthy badness of donuts, maybe my “I’ll eat a freakin donut if I wanna donut” approach didn’t suit the story :-P.
This it is folks, the fabled audio from the Open Practice is now up for your listening pleasure in Episode 27.
It includes all of us (IN PERSON) in roundtable chat, various remarks and comments on the actual practice, the season in review and for a special treat, we have the story behind Cowan the Brabarian’s claim to fame this season. We interview the event host that was in charge of the section from whence the bra was tossed onto the ice. It’s an action-packed episode for sure!
Check it out on The Crazy Canucks website, you can listen, subscribe, download the mp3, leave us a comment and visit some links we have posted in the show notes.
After making a post about the Bowmac sign [mbv], I knew there was more that I wanted to say, but with a slightly different and more personal twist. It all has to do with the Fred Herzog exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which has been the talk of the town for several months.
[Herzog] has produced a substantial body of photographs, taking urban life in Vancouver second-hand shops, vacant lots, neon signage and the crowds of people who have populated the city’s streets over the past fifty years-as his primary subject [VAG]
After looking at a bunch of Herzog photos, I recalled a picture I had seen of my Opa (Grandfather) that sits in my mother’s room on her dresser. It’s definitely a photo of him walking down Granville Street, you can see the neon “Studio” sign in the background, the Vogue’s marquee, and a bus stop for the #17 Oak and #19 Kingsway.
On the back of the picture, there was a stamp that said “Foncies Photo 872 Granville Street, Vancouver 2, BC”. My dad told me about a man who would stand on Granville and take pictures of passersby, then give them a ticket to come back and claim their photograph. After getting my paws on the photo of my Opa, I did some Googling and I found a Flickr Group dedicated entirely to ‘Foncie’s Fotos’.
Street photographer Foncie Pulice must have shot over a million people walking along Granville Street in Vancouver between 1946 and 1979. He’d hand you a ticket as you passed which you could redeem for your picture after 24 hours. There must be tens of thousands of these photos kicking around in albums, scrapbooks, etc. [Flickr Group: Foncies]
Foncie is famous for his unique, everyday shots of Vancouverites in his own right. There’s a great interview with him posted on Chuck Davis’ site.
People even made appointments for street pictures! “Oh, yes. They’d phone ahead and tell us what time they’d be walking down Granville. Dr. Peter Bell-Irving had members of his family photographed every year. I have shots showing one little tyke in that family growing all the way up to six-foot-five.” [Interview with Foncie Pulice: Chuck Davis.ca]
If you have your own Foncies photos kicking around, feel free to upload to the group or share your story. Although it doesn’t go back extremely far, it’s fun to uncover and rediscover little glimpses into Vancouver’s urban past.
