As the last day of August comes to an end, and the rain continues to fall in Vancouver, I begin to reflect on the last days of summer.
The leaves are slowly beginning to change with the days becoming shorter and shorter. There really isn’t that much time left to enjoy the sunshine. Normally we would be hoping for warmer weather during the last month of summer, but I think it will be very short this time around.
When I lived out in Toronto, August would always be the warmest of the summer months with the heat and humidity playing a big role. This summer here on the west coast has been fairly pleasant and I’ve enjoyed the weather we’ve had.
We have a road trip planned to visit our good friend Tanya and Barry this coming weekend in Calgary and this might be our only big trip of the summer. We are excited about this trip as it’s always great to get away on this trips while we still can.
As I was walking Junior this afternoon along the seawall, I noticed how quiet the city became during this brief rain storm. It was a nice feeling, but at the same time it was sad as I knew that summer was coming to an end soon.
What do you have planned for the last few days of summer? Are you hoping for warmer weather or glad that it has become cooler out here in the west?
Yesterday at about 6pm Pacific Time, Paralympian Josh Dueck broke the previous Guinness World Record for the most high fives in a 24 hour period of 3131. Hell he broke it only after the first 5 hours, as part of Work Safe BC’s Raise Your Hand campaign which brings awareness to work safety issues for the youth. During the 24 hour period, Josh high fived 9307 different people while at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE).
What I found interesting was the process of recording each high five. To have the high five count, Josh had to have his hand over his head, no side slaps, no grabbing of the hand were allowed and it had to be a flat palm on palm. Each person who gave a high five was stamped to make sure they weren’t giving him another one later on. To make sure this was all official, there was an independent film crew with 2 cameras filming every high five, as well as to separate people with counters counting every single high five. Every 20 minutes or so, they would stop, record their time, record the video stop time, and the counters would compare their numbers. The videos would be later sent to Guinness where they would be watched and the high fives would be officially confirmed, a process that will take about a month.
Josh is truly inspiring and I was glad to have been apart of his world record. You can see more photos on my Flickr Set – Raise Your Hand
It always amazes me how quickly kids grow up. It seems like yesterday that he was in diapers, learning to walk, playing with his toys. Now this boy is growing up to be a young man, plays football, and is becoming such a playboy. Yeah you heard me right Justin, you’re a player
Since I can’t be there (as usual) for his birthday, I’m sending out good thoughts and great vibes to you. I hope you truly enjoy your day today and having an amazing time (within limits of course). Even though you’re a BlackBerry boy, I won’t hold that against you
It’s not often in ones life when you meet someone and completely click with them. Well that one person would be Russ for me and today is his birthday.
What makes this birthday more special is that fact that last year, just before his birthday, Russ was rushed to the hospital with an aneurysm near his spleen. This screwed up his system so bad, that doctors didn’t think he would make it past Christmas, yet make to his next birthday. Good news is he proved everyone wrong. He has bounced back and has made an incredible recovery.
So tonight we celebrate that accomplishment with his birthday dinner. This guy is being spoiled this time around with not only dinner out, but also he gets a birthday gift he’s been wanting for sometime (yeah I got the hints alright), and I’m also taking him to see Lady Gaga on Monday. How’s that for a gift!
So Russ, wishing you the best of best birthdays today. I know you will have an amazing time and I’m glad I can be there to share it with you.
This might be a shock to some people, but I have a secret crush on Lady Gaga. Yup you heard right a secret crush. I don’t know what it is about her, but I just find her so refreshing and new. At first I never liked her. I thought that her Poker Face song was way over board and it kept playing in my mind like an annoying song and thought nothing more would come out of her. I thought she would be a one hit wonder. As time went on, I started to like her other songs, Paparazzi, Just Dance, and others. I even liked her stint on Saturday Night Live and then thought this girl has some pipes on her.
A year or so ago she stopped by Vancouver and I wasn’t able to get tickets to her 3 sold out shows at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. I heard from a few people that she put on an amazing show and regretted not seeing her. Then a few months back she announced that she was coming back to Vancouver to support her The Fame Monster CD with the Monster Ball Tour. I recall trying to get some tickets for her show, but couldn’t get anything and thought nothing more of it. A week ago, I started thinking about her tour for some reason or another which I can’t remember, and got online to see if by chance there were some tickets available. To my surprise there were still some pretty good seats available. I asked Russ, who also thinks she is awesome, if he wanted to go. And just like that we got ourselves a couple of great seats to her show on August 23rd.
I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to see her. If any of her videos are any indication, she will put on an amazing show.
Looks like you can still get some tickets to both her August 23rd show and her August 24th through Ticketmaster. Don’t delay as this going to be a great show.
In just 2 weeks time from today, Paralympic medallist Josh Deuck will begin a world record attempt at “the most High Fives by an individual in 24 hours” to raise awareness for WorkSafeBC Raise Your Hand campaign. This campaign is an annual initiative to help young workers understand their safety rights and how to keep safe at work.
I got to meet Josh last year during International Paralympic Day event and found him to be a truly inspiring person. For those that do not know, Josh became paralyzed from the waist down during a workplace accident at age 23. He has since become a huge champion for paralympic sport and was a silver medalist during the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games held this past year in Vancouver.
Come out and help Josh break the record. Starting on August 27th at 6pm at Empire Stadium during the BC Lions Game and ending the next day on August 28th at Celebration Plaza PNE.
You can follow Raise Your Hand on Twitter @RYHmovement and RSVP to this event via Facebook
Some interesting young workers stats:
• Workers between the ages of 15 and 24 are classified as young workers.
• Young males comprise over 70 percent of all young worker injuries.
• More than half of all young worker injuries happen within the first six months of being on the job.
• Sectors with the highest time-loss injuries for young workers are general construction; accommodation, food and
leisure service; and retail.
• Young workers experience the greatest number of time-loss claims due to being struck by objects, overexertion,
and falls.
I’ve never been a Scrabble player in my life. I never got the game to begin with, but a couple of months ago I thought I would try Words With Friends Free iPhone App. This game is a Scrabble like game where you play on your iPhone with other users.
I have yet to actually win a game with the friends I’m playing with as I think everyone is just that much smarter than I am. One day I’m sure I will be able to beat someone as I’m learning new words along the way and thus this game has become an addiction for me. I can’t get enough of it and trying to come up with words based on my letters is always a challenge.
I do think my weakness in the game is that most of my words are always 3 letters long and I need to strive to change that. I don’t have a technique yet, but I know some of friends always go for the huge word score counts or try to make sure that I’m not able to place any letters on the higher score areas.
Now since I am playing the free version of the game, it does get annoying to suffer through the ads after each and every move you make. If you can’t bare this, you can purchase the ad free game at $2.99.
So if we are not playing, hook me up. You can find me by searching for GusF.
About a week ago, the day after the iPhone 4 was launched in Canada, I decided to line up outside the Apple Store to see if I could get my hands on the coveted smart phone. I got to the store at about 8:45am and there was already a line up of about 50 people and I thought I would stake my claim in line. Of course by this time I had already tweeted that I was in line and Lesley Chang came by to join me in line and get her own iPhone 4.
The Apple Store staff were amazing as we waited in line. They came by and offered us all drinks and some food to eat prior to the store opening. When the store finally opened they came by everyone in line to see if we wanted the 16 gb or the 32 gb version of the iPhone 4. When we asked the staff member if this meant they had iPhones in stock, they said it meant we were guaranteed one.
Of course the night before, on launch day, they couldn’t activate everyone’s phone that were in line, so they were given a card to use on the Saturday and were given priority access. Also if you were in line wanting to get yourself the unlocked version of the iPhone 4, you were allowed to skip the line and go directly into the store. That said after 4 hours of waiting, I finally got in and got my iPhone 4. Since I wasn’t changing anything on my plan, the process was quick and within 1/2 hour I was out the door the lovely phone.
First Impressions
I’ve only been playing with my iPhone for about a week now and only have the iPhone 3G to compare it to. With that said the difference is amazing.
The phone feels slightly heavier even though it is thinner than the iPhone 3G and 3GS. I’m not sure if it’s just because it’s flatter than its predecessors, or if it’s because of the new aluminosilicate glass. This also makes the phone feel so much slicker in my opinion.
The picture quality is outstanding. Everything is much crisper and brighter thanks due to the Retina Display. Websites are displayed amazingly.
The 5 megapixel camera with flash finally brings the iPhone up to standard. There is no longer a need for a point and shoot camera. The quality is great and the LED flash allows you to take photos in low light.
The front facing camera is also nice and even though I haven’t tried out the Face-to-Face feature, I have taken photos with the front camera. The quality isn’t anything great as it’s not 5 megapixel quality.
Having the ability to take 720 dpi video is also great. The only problem I’ve found with the video is that when you upload to YouTube directly from the iPhone, the HD quality is lost. Hopefully they will be able to fix this soon. In the interim I’ve been using the Flickr App as it allows you to upload the HD quality of the video.
The battery is also amazing. I can go 2 days without recharging my phone. I wouldn’t last 24 hours on my iPhone 3G recently and this is a welcome change to say the least.
As for Antennagate, I haven’t experienced any drop calls nor experienced loosing bars while holding the phone.
The only problem that I have experienced so far is during a speakerphone call. People seem to have a problem hearing me and I have to really put the mic very close to my mouth which I think defeats the purpose of the speakerphone. Granted I haven’t tried Face-to-Face yet to see if this is also a problem. Hopefully I can test that theory out soon with someone.
This past weekend I attended the wedding of a good friend Tris Hussey to Sheila Christie.
I’ve met Tris over 3 years ago at a Third Tuesday Vancouver event and being the geeky/gadget guy that I am, we connected. After all he’s helped me with a few computer issues in the past as well as helped me get this new blog up and running and looking the way it does.
I was lucky enough to have been one of the first few people in Tris’ life to have met Sheila. Sheila is part of the chorus in the Vancouver Opera, and I have had the great honour of hearing her sing in a few productions this past year.
Their wedding was gorgeous and filled with music both sung and instrumental. It was also filled with some great people and friends.
Thank you both for inviting both Russ and I to your special day! Wishing you all the happiness and love in the world!
With everything that has been going on with my professional life lately, I forgot to write up a post on my fourth year blogiversary. Yes that is right folks, I’ve been blogging now for four years.
I have to thank Rebecca Bollwitt (aka Miss 604) for getting me started on blogging. She showed me how it easy it was to get started and showed me how to find my own voice online, and for that Rebecca, I thank you!
At first I wasn’t sure what to call myself. I knew my blog would just be for a select few people, but mainly it was for my family. I wanted to share what was going on in my life and show them what I was up to. Moving from Toronto to Vancouver, they had no real idea what I was doing. This was to be my digital realm, my digital voice.
These past four years I have met some great people from the blogger community, from Raul Pacheco, to Tanya Desrosiers, to Monica Hamburg, to John Bielher, to Tris Hussey, to Tyler Ingram and many more (see my blog roll on the side of this page). You have all been so influential to me and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
I can’t wait to continue to grow my audience and continue to grow as a blogger. These past four years have been amazing and I wouldn’t change my experience on here for anything! You’ve all experienced my trips across the world, my family gatherings, my events I’ve attended, and my photos along the way.
So what was my first blog post? Well here it is folks, my very first blog post – The Beginning
