One year ago today, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic games came to a close, but what a close it was. With the Canadian team in the gold medal hockey game against the US, everyone’s eyes where on this game. I’m not a big hockey watcher, but when it comes to the Olympics or tournament games, I love watching Canada play. And what a wonderful game they gave us all, right to the final goal.

Living in Yaletown, we were just a couple of blocks from the Live City Yaletown which were broadcasting the big game. When Canada won, you could hear the roar of everyone. The city came alive with the wonders and excitement of the victory.  Russ and I even ventured out and enjoyed the party goers along Granville Street.

What a great end to what was one of the finest moments for me. I was proud to be a Canadian, and I was even more proud of Vancouver for hosting a great event and bringing all Canadians across the country together.

Photo by Tyler Ingram

With the hundreds of thousands people coming into the downtown core each and everyday one would expect to see trash everywhere in this city, but you’d be surprised how clean Vancouver looks. Not only are the people in town doing their job and placing garbage where they should, but we have dedicated people walking around our city making sure that all trash that is left behind is picked up.

We also have some great trash areas through-out the city that are being filled up nicely and helping to keep our city clean.

To all the city employees that are cleaning our streets, you truly deserve a gold medal for your performance. This city has never looked so good. Thank you all for making sure Vancouver shines like never before during the Winter Games.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympics are well underway now and the excitement throughout the city has been amazing.

With the amount of people that are constantly in the downtown core and all the free venues, pavilions and concerts, line ups have become the new Olympic event. Some line ups can last a short 10 minutes, while others can last as long as an hour plus.

This week I waited in line with Russ at the LiveCity Downtown venue for about 15 minutes to into the venue. Once in LiveCity, we lined up 3o minutes to enter the Canada Pavilion. Once finally inside, there was another line up to have your photo taken with the Olympic torch. WOW. I of course didn’t line up for this, but was fascinated by the people that were.

The restaurants themselves have line ups as well and you can wait anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour at peak times to be seated.

All in all, the people waiting in line have been greatly patient. No arguments have happen, everyone seems to be in great spirits!

So go for the gold and wait in line!

From February 4 – 28 between dusk to dawn, 20 robotic spotlight will create a canopy of lights over English Bay known as Vectorial Elevation. The art work was created by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer from Montreal for the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

Vectorial Elevation is an interactive artwork that allows participants to transform the sky over Vancouver, Canada. Using a three-dimensional interface, this web site lets you design huge light sculptures by directing 20 robotic searchlights located around English Bay. A web page is made for each participant with photos of their design from four cameras located around the city.

The other day I got to test this out and created my own design which was quickly displayed for all to see.

The designs change every 12 seconds and if you can’t make it to Vancouver, you can see live streaming video of the designs from 4 cameras positioned around the area.

If you’d like to see more photos, please check out my Flickr set on some of the designs I captured the other day.

Today while reading some news sites, I came across this wonderful video featuring our lovely city Vancouver as it gets ready to host the world for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. What is fasinating about the video is it is shot in timelapse HD. The pictures are truly amazing and it captures the mystery and beauty of our city.

“Vancouver City” video is a collaboration between Innerlife Project and TimeLapseHD.  Vocals are by Linda Ganzini. For more information and music downloads go to www.innerlifeproject.com.

Great Job guys, very cool and awesome video!

As most of my friends on Twitter know by now, my Vancouver 2010 Ceremonies audition didn’t pan out.

I wrote over a week ago that I hadn’t heard back from VANOC about my volunteer placement nor about my ceremonies audition. I was to hear from them by September and this past week I got my email confirming that I wouldn’t be apart of the Vancouver 2010 Ceremonies. At this point I had already given up that I would part of the cast, and the email didn’t hit me hard at all. I guess this means that everyone is lucky enough not see me run around BC Stadium in spandex, heck I feel lucky enough that I myself won’t be wearing any spandex

Now this doesn’t mean that my volunteer dreams are dead in the water yet, as I still have the chance of being a local volunteer for the games events. Time will tell to see if that will happen, but at this point in time I’ll be ok if they don’t accept me. I do wish all my friends (who have gotten their assignments already) all the best!!! It will be alot of work, but it will be LOTS of fun I’m sure.

For those that are curious, here is my rejection letter:

Almost 10 months ago I had my first interview to be a potential Vancouver 2010 Olympic Volunteer. I did know that I had over 14 months before the games would land in Vancouver, but I was excited and happy to just be a part of this world event.  I was hoping to get some pre-volunteer experience with them during the months of February and March, but alas, they never choose me for that.

Back in May I had my dance audition for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and even though I was scared as hell, I went through the whole process and enjoyed my time auditioning.

Last month a good friend of mine Laura, who went through her Olympic volunteer process after I did, got an offer to be a volunteer for the hockey events. I was extatic for her, but at the same time extremely jealous that I haven’t even gotten any offer yet.

During my dance audition they let us know that by September they would begin to notify people. We are half way through the month and my application still says “Processing” for both the Olympic Ceremonies and Event s, yet for the Paralympics it states “Under Review” (I’m still trying to figure out exactly what the difference is).

I know it would be a great experience, but I have to say at this point in time I’m beginning to think that I won’t be a volunteer at all for the winter games.

So Olympic organizers, I’m here and willing to be apart of the games as a volunteer. I speak Spanish, am enthusiastic, love watching the games, and it’s been a dream of mine for many, many years!

This past week I was invited to attend a event called “Sport in the Sky” to celebrate with Canadian Paralympic athletes International Paralympic Day. I was fortunate enough to go along with two other Vancouver bloggers Raul and Beth and experience the skills of some of our top Paralympic athletes.

With the Vancouver Winter Olympic games just a few short months away, it was great to chat with some of our Winter Paralympic athletes and share in their excitement of having the games come to Vancouver. We chatted with Sonia Gaudet, from the Canadian Curling team, on how the paralympics work in curling, as well as how excited she is to be participating on such a world class level.

Raul and I both commented on how these athletes have that winning drive and are very competetive. There is no second place with them. They are there to win, but at the same time you can see they are truly enjoying the sport.

Canada has been involved with the Paralympics since 1968 and has brought home 404 gold, 338 silver, and 355 bronze medals.

The following were some of the great athletes in attendance:

Paralympians

Carla Qualtrough (Swimmer, Canadian Paralympic Committee President)
Jaimie Borisoff (Wheelchair basketball)
Patrick Anderson (Wheelchair basketball)
Robert (Bo) Hedges (Wheelchair basketball)
Marni Abbott-Peter (Wheelchair basketball)
Karolina Wisniewska (Para-alpine skiing)
Sonia Gaudet (Wheelchair curling)
Kai Schrameyer (Wheelchair tennis)
Sarah Hunter (Wheelchair tennis)

2010 Paralympic hopefuls

Josh Dueck (Para-alpine skiing)
Darryl Neighbour (Wheelchair curling)

Want to keep up to date on the goings on of the Canadian Paralympic Committee? Check them out on:

• Facebook
• Flickr

Thanks again to the Canadian Paralympic Committee for inviting us!

Well I did it. I auditioned for a dancing role for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

I admit this morning when I woke up, I was very nervous. I was at the point of not even attending the audition since I was starting to feel ill, but Russ gave me a pep talk.  He let me know that I have been talking about this for over 8 years. I’ve been wanting to play a part in the opening ceremonies for as long as I can remember. I’ve wanted to experience being apart of history and welcoming the world. This was my one chance to living that dream.

My audition was scheduled to begin at 5:30pm so I arrived early. I quickly began to scan the group to see who my competition would be. As more and more people began to arrive I started to notice that I was probably the oldest person there and I was definitely not the fittest person in the bunch. This didn’t help my nerves in the least.

As we began to enter the audition area and get our “number”, some people in the line began to chat up and noticed that a few of them had come from some form of dance training background. What was I doing?

I entered in the auditorium and was given my number, measured from head to toe, had a face photo taken, and had a full body photo taken. We then sat down and watched some video of opening ceremonies of the past. Once everyone had their measurements taken we were taken into another room where we would begin our audition (though from what people have told me, we were on audition since the moment we arrived).

I didn’t know what kind of dancing we would have to do, but when I found out it was a Hip-Hop routine I began to get nervous again. We were given a dance routine to learn and divided into groups to “perfect” the routine. I have to admit the routine wasn’t too bad and was fun to learn and perform in front of the Opening and Closing organizers. All this was done while we were being filmed for them to review and make notes.

After our routine was completed we were taught a different routine. This routine was more complex than the first one and gave me trouble after beat 8. yeah we had 24 beats to memorize. I got to perform this routine 4 times and had a great time trying to get in all the steps, but I didn’t “nail” it as others were doing it, but I kept on smiling and give them all my energy.

There was some other items that were done during the audition, but I am not liberty to say since I’ve signed a “confidentiality agreement”.

I won’t find out if I made it until sometime in September with the first rehearsals beginning in November.

At any rate I had a great time and I’m glad I was part of something, even if I don’t make it to the opening ceremonies.

Last November I wrote about my experience at being interviewed to volunteer during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.  As I didn’t hear back from them in sometime, last month I decided to put my hat into appearing in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Today I received a call saying I have an audition at the end of this month. Based on this CBC footage I just found, it looks like it will involve  some dance routine numbers I’ll have to memorize and lots of enthusiasm.

I’ve always wanted to participate in the Opening Ceremonies and I have always joked around with fellow friends and family that I wanted to be a black dot forming the Olympic Rings. I’m not sure how good I’ll look in lycra, but I’m eager to give it a go just to have a camera run up and down the field and highlight my smiling face!

Wish me luck!