Archives For 2014

After the Beep

September 20, 2014 — Leave a comment

I find this recording fascinating for a few reasons:

  1. It shows just how significantly different it was in the ’90s to contact friends or organize a night out. We take for granted how easy and immediate it is to reach people now via text or mobile messaging apps.
  2. It shows how we’ve basically lost the dynamic and inherent personality (or banality) of spoken messages. Who leaves voicemail anymore?
  3. It threads together such a curious and fragmented narrative about these people, and especially about the multi-dimensional and mysterious recipient of these messages. A cool, piecemeal way for a story to unfold.
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Pic or It Didn’t Happen

September 13, 2014 — 1 Comment

A couple weeks ago I caught the Fujiya & Miyagi show at La Vitrola. Four or five years ago I licensed a couple of their tracks for background on the overview videos for Cinemin Swivel and Slice, (just a warm-up for their “Uh” appearance soon after in Breaking Bad) and have loosely kept in touch since. Great musicians, great guys! I chatted with David and Matt after the show and, despite being a fan, I left without asking for a group photo. Partly I forgot, but partly I’m just not into the starstruck fan thing. But a memento would have been nice – oh well.

Likewise, a few weeks ago I hosted a casual patio happy hour with some old colleagues from my time several years ago at Airborne Entertainment/Mobile (loved that team!). It was a smaller group than years past but it was nonetheless a nice visit. Alas, none of us remembered to take a picture.

Then yesterday at Montreal ComicCon I was within a few metres of Hulk Hogan. I’m not really a fan, and they were discouraging renegade snapshots, but I suppose I should have captured proof of my proximity. Right? That’s the internet thing to do, yeah?

Anyways, these “incidents” reminded me of how bad I can be at the whole “pic or it didn’t happen” game.

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Herding Cats – Ascend

September 9, 2014 — Leave a comment

SH-CPRS-Ascend-2014

Last fall, for RallyEngine, I commissioned market research company Ipsos to survey large (100+ people) downtown Calgary organizations to find out how prepared for and communicated during the massive flooding in May 2013. One of the insights we gleaned from that study’s report was that many companies relied more on ad hoc reactions than on their prepared Emergency Response Plans. This was interesting and it got me curious about an arena of comedy that I’ve always enjoyed but never looked at seriously: improv.

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Thinking About ThreeHouse

August 30, 2014 — Leave a comment

The_Three_Sisters

Idea

So here’s an idea I’ve been pondering for a long time, at least since college. I’ve called it my stretch venture; the kind of project that I’d begin to seriously pursue in the second half of my life when I am wiser, wealthier, and better connected. Because it’s the sort of idea that would indeed be an ambitious undertaking requiring lots of smarts, money, and people from a wide range of disciplines.

I’m tentatively calling this idea ThreeHouse.

  • ThreeHouse is a place – a unique physical multi-functional residential facility.
  • ThreeHouse is a confluence – a deliberate intersection for human and humane interactions.
  • ThreeHouse is an improvement – a redefining of at least three unnecessarily silo’d industries.

So what exactly is it? Well, ThreeHouse is one-part seniors home, one-part daycare/kindergarten, and one-part animal shelter. It’s a specially-designed building and yard that mixes elders, young children, and animals together in a way that improves the well-being and life enjoyment of all three groups.

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Ode to a Tree

August 29, 2014 — Leave a comment

I have a fondness for trees. They’re beautiful, stoic, generous. They provide scenery, nests, shade, rustling, colour, and metaphors.

Fall 2013

Fall 2013

Everyday this week my (urban) neighbourhood has been abuzz with the sounds of chainsaws and a woodchipper. One block over they’ve been systematically dismantling a giant tree that towered over the area. It was a truly huge tree – at least 12 storeys – and it looked healthy and full, with a lush green canopy broadly covering numerous buildings, yards, and other trees. Perhaps it was a risk for a limb to crash down during strong winds or a heavy snowstorm, perhaps it had become diseased and was rotting from within, or perhaps some low-scruples entrepreneur simply oversold his cutting services. At first I thought they were just doing some pre-winter trimming but by the end of the week the whole thing was gone.

It’s sad. There stood this huge, strong, calm, vibrant, enduring presence and now there’s nothing but sky. Someone looking there now wouldn’t even know that something so mighty and beautiful once stood there for so long, giving life to so much else.

Late Summer 2014

Late Summer 2014 – just before it disappeared forever

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Nature Boy

June 30, 2014 — 1 Comment

There are so many covers of this great song (written by Eden Ahbez in 1947) but this one by Nat King Cole is surely the best. My favourite.

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Various RallyEngine Posts

June 27, 2014 — Leave a comment

rickrolled-radio-600w

I occasionally write posts for the RallyEngine blog and figured I’d highlight here a few of the more interesting ones…

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