In honour of Keira heading to her hometown today on Vancouver Island (and Alanah who we want to import for the hockey season) I thought I would post about this little tid bit that we should all be proud of.
Travel + Leisure’s 2007 readers survey identified Vancouver Island as the best island in Canada and the continental U.S. That puts us on a par with such exceptional island destinations as Maui, Kauai, Galapagos and Bali. [Nanaimo Bulletin]
It gets even better, over on the official Travel + Leisure website in their ‘best of 2007‘ section you can see their selection for world’s best island destinations, and Van Isle comes in at #6, beating out Phuket, Thailand and Hawaii. Wowsa.
As Vancouver is usually the top-ranked place in these parts it’s nice to see the Island getting some recognition. Hiking, forests, history, beaches as far as the eye and see, surfing, snowboarding, fishing… the list goes on and on. I find the Island represents what Vancouver used to be all about before we got a little too wrapped up in the hype of being on the world’s stage. It’s not plastic, it’s not pretentious, and it is world class.
Over the next week there are a couple of events happening mid-Island that Keira will be covering on her blog, such as the Filberg Festival and an international bike competition at Mount Washington. Safe travels hot stuff!
I never log into my hotmail account anymore, not even through MSN messenger (after getting gmail 3 years ago, really). Since getting a Mac I just use Adium as my chat client at home and at work I log in through web-based Meebo. Apparently it’s been a while since I actually checked my hotmail email because I went to do so today and my account was shut down.
I mean, no one sends me hotmail anymore except maybe an old friend from over 2 years ago that doesn’t know I have a gmail account or something. So I go to log into my hotmail and it tells me that “this account has been reserved for you!”. I re-activate it and log into my inbox. My personal folders are all there still but everything is gone. It purged my past, cleaned my slate and I just don’t ever want to log into that service anymore… ever. I have emails from my sister that she sent when I was in Boston, my niece’s 1st birthday invitation, my mom’s first ever email to me, and just a huge archive of ghosts and memories from my past. But it’s okay hotmail, I’m over you and you’re 90s ways. I don’t need your email archives. I have photos and memories and real people to remind me of things. So there.
Side note, my butt was in the LAist today. We were taking the photo above while it was taken… from behind.
As an added incentive for pledging my Blogathon efforts for the Surrey Food Bank from Saturday to Sunday, I decided to give away some tickets to the Vancouver Canadians game on August 4th (Mexico Night!) Watch the YouTube video below to see whose name was picked from the hat. Thanks again everyone!
*Also, you can still pledge for Blogathon until July 31st – if you have or do pledge in the post-Blogathon days, I have a secondary prize to give away, which I’ll draw for on Wednesday August 1st*
This weekend has turned out to be entirely consumed by blogging. On Friday night we had some pre-blogstock action at Steamworks and due to prior commitments starting early yesterday morning, I missed out on meeting other local bloggers such as: rilah, Pat Zaph, Carmen, Chad, Danielle, JaG, nome, Jennifer, and Foxxy (whom we met Wednesday), who all got together later that night. (List scooped from Corinna’s post about the event).
Saturday morning, as you probably know by now, I started my Blogathon including an entry every 30 minutes for 24 hours. It was a HUGE success, raising over $400 for the Surrey Food Bank. I went to bed at 6:00 am and laid there next to my husband, who was so warm and I was so cold I didn’t dare put my icy cold blogathon’ed legs near his. My mind was racing, I was thinking that I forgot to give a nod to Buzz who publicized my efforts on Wednesday in the 24 Hours newspaper, and many other blog-related things that made me toss and turn. Yes, I know, I’m a nerd. I don’t know what time it was but I finally passed out, then emerged from my room around 4:00 pm.
A hockey blogger from up north and who we’ve interviewed on The Crazy Canucks (Sean from ‘Waiting for Stanley‘), was passing through town this evening with his lovely wife so we went out to meet them for dinner. John called up J.J. who came along with Tracy and we had a mini hockey blogger meetup. It was a really great time and I realized that without blogging, I wouldn’t know so many of these great people I’ve come to admire.
A very successful weekend indeed, and I think even though I slept in so late today, I will still be able to completely pass out tonight.
WOWSA! That was above and beyond any expectation I had folks, that’s truly fantastic.
If you don’t want to wait for an informational email from Blogathon, or if you haven’t done so already, feel free to go directly to the ‘donate online‘ page whenever you’re able to fulfill your pledge to the Food Bank.
Thanks so much to everyone who linked my blog, contributed, pledged, blogathoned along-side me, donated and offered kind words to keep me going.
I will be doing the draw for Canadians tickets on Monday. I also think I’ll start a Facebook group tomorrow night called “I am going through Blogathon withdrawl“, cause I’m sure it will happen.
For now though, I need to get some sleep and be away from the computer for a while. It’s been fun folks, you’re the best – good night!
