Trip to Vancouver - Friday & Saturday

Friday & Saturday were scheduled around Northern Voice, the social media conference we were attending.  I had been to the conference 2 years ago, when it was at the UBC campus, but this year had seen a location change to the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre and Museum of Vancouver. It was a beautiful location, even though the giant crab statue kind of freaked me out by simultaneously reminding me of Transformers and the alien bugs from Starship Troopers.

The view from the rear of the building was just as captivating as the art in the front was.

There were a couple of cool indoor exhibits as well which made for some great photography opportunities.

I was impressed with the presenters at the sessions I chose to attend.  My three favourites were Arjun Singh speaking on Civility and Citizenship: Talking About Community Issues Online; Darren Barefoot's Why We Live the Quantified Life (which I missed most of because we were late that day, but what I did hear was fantastic.); and Brad Ovenell-Carter's presentation on Twitter as a Note Taking Tool.

Brad is a teacher, and by the end of his presentation I daresay there wasn't a person in the room who didn't wish they could go back in time to be in his grade 11 "Theory of Knowledge" class.  I can only hope that my daughters have a teacher in their school-careers who challenges them as much as Brad does his students.  I wish his talk was available online so that I could watch it again, that is how good it was.

Sometimes a session will teach you something you weren't expecting.  I attended one session which made me realize the kind of blogger I want to be, by showing me what I don't want to be.  It was off-putting enough to send me home to my computer to remove the last little bits of advertising that I still had on my blog. I'm very conflicted about product endorsement and sponsored blog posts and have yet to figure out how to balance my desire to promote local community without moving into what I perceive to be a gray area (for me) of fee/freebies for services rendered.

I also found that a huge topic of discussion, both in sessions and during coffee breaks, was privacy, which if you are very active online like I am, is something that feels like a constant tightrope act.  How much do you reveal? Does privacy even matter anymore?

On Friday there was a party after the conference in the Space Exhibit Cosmic Courtyard.  By the time we got back to Jeanette's, we were beat, so we had some yummy East Indian take-out from a place on Commercial Drive and called it a night.

Saturday was jam packed with activities. After the conference we went to The Red Wagon for supper.  I was excited to try their Pulled Pork Pancakes since I had seen them on Diners, Drive-in's and Dives.  They were delicious.

After that we went downtown again for an appointment Jeanette had, then on to Chinatown for the Chinese Night Market.  There was a beautiful garden in Chinatown, unfortunately it was closed, so we took pictures through the gate.  At the market I bought a couple of trinkets for the girls, then we walked down to Gastown to see the sites before heading home to bed.

 

 

Trip to Vancouver - Wednesday & Thursday

I gave a fair amount of thought to how I would post all the stories and some of the pictures from my recent 5 day trip to Vancouver to visit my best friend Jeanette, (a travel blogger/photographer), as well as to attend a social media conference.  I considered doing topical posts, but concluded that a breakdown of each day would work better.

Wednesday I flew out from Medicine Hat.  I love that I could leave from the Hat and didn't have to stress over driving to Calgary and figure out parking while I was away.  My husband was at work, so my mom and the girls took me to catch the plane.

My 8 year old daughter had some sadness about me going away in the days leading up to me leaving, but my 5 year old had been fine, just asking questions about where I was going to sleep and what I was going to be doing while I was there.  That all changed as I passed through the gate to board.  Both the girls started crying.  My mom took them for milkshakes to try to cheer them up, but after stopping to pick up the mail, she came out to the vehicle to find both of them wailing away. I called from Calgary between flights - still crying.  I called from Vancouver after landing - still crying.  My youngest continued crying for 5 hours. The next morning my husband found her weeping in her bed and asked her why she hadn't come to get him and she said, "I wanted to cry for mommy in private."  Later that day he took her to the store and told her he would buy her a toy if she would try to stop crying.  She pushed the doll she had picked out back at him and said, "Take it back, I want to cry about mommy."  That is some serious dedication to crying.

Anyways, back to my adventure.  After picking me up at the airport, Jeanette & I went downtown for some Korean barbecue.  When I told Mike that we cooked the meat on a grill in our table he said, "If you wanted to cook you could've stayed home.  Are they going to make you wash dishes too?"

 

 

 

Thursday morning after breakfast we headed back downtown for some sightseeing and shopping.  Lunch was the famous Japadog (I had the beef Terimayo) eaten with a view of the water.  Vancouver is truly a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach.  The combination of urban landscape fully blended with the stunning natural surroundings makes for a sometimes overwhelming experience.  There is so much to see that I frequently referred to myself as a "rubber-necker", my head twisting in every direction so as to not miss a single thing.  You'd think I'd never been there before, when in fact this was my fourth trip to Vancouver.

A few shots of the city.

After people-watching on Commercial Drive while sipping some fantastic iced coffee, we headed home for a quick supper of roasted chicken with a delicious summer salad of Jeanette's creation: tomatoes, mango, cilantro, purple onion and a vinaigrette dressing, before heading out to the pre-conference tweet-up at a pub in the Olympic Athlete Village on False Creek.  We were out on the balcony where we were able to enjoy the transition from evening to night and watch the city light up.

 

 

Alberta Government Cuts to Persons with Developmental Disabilities

There are rallies going on today all over the province to protest the cuts to programs for persons with developmental disabilities (PDD).  I am not going to talk about the logistics of how much and where and when.  What I am going to talk about is the morality of these decisions.

It has become more and more obvious as time goes on that this government has decided that unless they can affix a monetary value to something, it has no value.  As they bowl over Albertan's rights, for the sake of "the economy" and their own agendas, they reveal their lack of concern with the humanity of our society.  I hate to break it to them, but not everything is about economics.

And I'm not just pointing at the Conservatives.  In the last election Danielle Smith, leader of the Wildrose Party called the government "a corporation".  I'm sorry, but it is not.  I am not a customer of the government.  A corporation's mandate is to make money for it's shareholders.  At best, a government should hope to break even in order to provide services to it's citizens; lining their pockets with profits should never be their goal.

Throughout my life I have come in contact with many people with developmental disabilities, both through work and relationships with friends.  It is both a personal affront to those individuals and a disservice to the people that work with them to suggest that they are not already contributing to our society and economy, and to suggest that the only way they can is to close their day and respite programs and move them into the workforce.

Sometimes a person's contribution is the opportunity they give society to sacrifice and serve them.

Service to those in need of help teaches our society empathy and builds character, and that should be value enough.

The Best Movies About Marriage

It's our wedding anniversary today.  We've been married 15 years which seems unbelievable to me. We've spent a significant portion of our lives together.  I jokingly tell people that I could never get divorced because I don't want to have to explain the backstories of everything to a new spouse.

The title of this post is misleading, it should probably be "Movies with the most accurate depiction of marriage", but that doesn't have as good of search engine optimization ;).  A few of these movies aren't directly about marriage either, but they reveal some fundamental truth about marriage that leaves an impression.  These aren't necessarily movies that portray marriage in a positive light, but as all of us that are married know, it's not all sunshine and roses.

Some of these contain nudity and content that some people may find offensive or disturbing.  They are in no particular order.


Revolutionary Road
Starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of a suburban housewife who has become disillusioned with her life and her marriage.  This movie is as the Thoreau quote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

The Family Man
Nicolas Cage plays a wealthy, self absorbed investment banker who gets the opportunity to see what his life would be like if he had made different choices. Mike and I love this movie and end up watching it anytime we come across it on tv.

The Notebook
The most romantic movie ever.

Away From Her
I cried through most of this movie and was sad for a full three days after.  It is powerful.
Sarah Polley was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of this affecting movie. 
"It was the opposite kind of love than we usually celebrate in films, which is new love without knowledge and without hardship. It's the whole idea of love after life has had its way with you, and after you have kind of failed each other and things have gone off the rails. Yet love still somehow exists between them" - Sarah Polley.

This Is 40
Mike and I laughed so hard during this movie.  It seemed to mirror our own lives in so many ways (minus all the money and giant house).  Maybe it was because we have 2 daughters as well, we could see a lot of similarities.

 

Little Children
This movie has a very disturbing sub-plot (and I'm not talking about the affair), but it also demonstrates how strong the bonds of marriage and children are.

Another Year
I found the couple in this movie to be a bit smug, but I do think that it portrays the easy familiarity and routine that comes with many years spent together.

Julie & Julia
Although this movie is not about marriage, it shows the supportive nature of both Julia & Julia's husbands as their wives pursue their dreams.  Disappointingly, in real life, Julie goes on to have an affair and eventually leaves her husband.

Here are a few movies that I haven't seen yet, but that I know reflect on aspects of marriage in their storylines:

Amour

Blue Valentine

Hope Springs

Do you have any other suggestion that I should add to my list?

Do they teach you that in school?

Conversation yesterday, as I was driving my 8 year old daughter home from gymnastics.

8 yr old - "Can we go to the park after supper?"

Me - "That's up to your dad because I have to go to a parent council meeting after supper.  You'll have to ask him."

8 yr old - "I know what to do, just do something that Daddy really wants to do and then after, when he's happy, ask him for what you want!"

Me - laughing uproariously "Where did you learn that?!"

8 yr old - "I don't know, tv maybe?"

Me - "Well, you're right, that works with men."

8 yr old - "But don't they know that you're doing that?"

Me - "They know about it, but it doesn't seem to matter to them."

8 yr old - "Do they teach you how to do that in school?"

Me - "No, it's just something you learn how to do as you get older."