A Photo from My Mom

I was helping my mom out with her camera and got to D/L her existing photos. This one was particularly excellent. She shot it last October.

Dreadful Customer Service

ViewSonic has the WORST Technical Support I've EVER dealt with! I think they build good technology but dealing with their tech support has been a trial in patience. I carefully outlined the problem and can only assume that they put my words through about 7 different language translators to draw the conclusions they did. Or perhaps I've been dealing with a team of illiterate robots!

The Gold Medal Ceremony for Alexandre Bilodeau

On this special night at BC Place, the awards ceremonies featured the presentation of the Gold Medal to Alexandre Bilodeau. This was the first Olympic Gold Medal ever won by Canada on its own soil. It was a very special night indeed!

2010 Winter Olympics: 4-Man Bobsleigh Final

Vancouver at Night (Day 3 of the Olympics)

Paralympics Torch Relay

West Broadway Magnolias

Ole Einar Bjoerndalen at Whistler

The [New] Hockey Song

A Personal Salute to All Members of Team 2010

Tom Brokaw Offers an Excellent Primer on Canada

Traces of Eves: "Don't Get Caught"

Two Very Different American Views of the 2010 Olympics

The Best Part of the Olympics were the Canadian People

Why comparing Canadians to Nazis is asking for trouble

Regarding the dreadful article, which is referenced in the 2nd link above, may I add that EVERY foreign visitor I met (and there were hundreds) felt VERY inclusive here in Canada amongst all the red & white maple leafs; and this includes Americans too!

Jamaican Bobsled to Dogsled

Here's an absolutely wonderful story about a Jamaican dogsled team.

Ryan Miller Gets Hero's Welcome in Buffalo

Dennis Miller Shares His Thoughts on the 2010 Winter Olympics

Dear World, Here's What Our Police Look Like

Day 17 of the Olympics

Here's my collection of photos from this very joyous day in Canada.

Men's Gold Medal Hockey Game

Published with permission from my friend, Sharon Klassen:

Interviewed by Roy Green

Day 16 of the Olympics

I set my own one day Olympics record! Up at Whistler today I took 358 photographs and 59 videos totaling over 19 minutes of footage. Verdict: I need to buy more memory cards!!!

Here's Part 1 and here's Part 2.

    This photo, taken by Carine, was somewhat staged, but I still like it!

Day 15 of the Olympics

You can view the best of my photos from this day here.

So We're Not Perfect!

Sent from a friend:

We never claimed to be perfect.
That means we’ve learned to be humble.
We say "Excuse Me" and "I'm sorry" ... as well as "Please" and "Thanks".
Even when its not our fault, we apologize.

Sure one arm of the torch didn't rise, but when the earthquake struck Haiti, Canadians raised their hands to say … "we'll help".

And yeah, there is a fence around the Torch.  But you can walk right up and shake hands with our prime minister and most famous Canadians.

We put Gretzky in the back of a pick up, in the rain, not surrounded by police ... and he was okay
And by the way ... the great one is Canadian ... and HE wasn’t complaining!

We do have security at the Games, of course, but most people don't even have a gun they have to leave at home.

The medals ARE under lock and key but our doors and our hearts are open to the world.

It has been pointed out that some buses broke down last week ... but let’s not overlook the fact that our banking system didn't.

We didn't get the "green ice maker" right this time ... but we will, eventually.

Just like we did when we invented the Zamboni.

Citius altius fortius

If you don't reach higher how do you get faster and stronger.

Was the first quad jump perfect? 

Should we not have given snowboarding to the world "in case" it didn’t take off?

So big deal…one out of four torch arms didn't rise.  Good thing we had 3 more!  It's called contingency planning!

But remember … the Canadarm works every time … in outerspace … and insulin turned out to be okay

We don't have the tax base of the US or the power of the Chinese but, per capita, we ponied up for some pretty kick-ass venues in the worst global recession ever.

Sure, some folks couldn't afford tickets but our health care is universal.

We have shown the world that we can raise our voices in celebration and song but moments later stand in silence to respect a tragic event ... together ... spontaneously ... and unrehearsed.

What's more,  we don't need permission from anyone to have a slam poet, fiddlers w piercings and a lesbian singer tell our story to the world while our multilingual female Haitian-born, black head of state shares a box with her First Nations equals.

We’ve shown the world that it doesn’t always rain in Vancouver, that you can strive for excellence but not get hung up on perfection.

And we’ve learned what it feels like to be picked on by some no name newspaper guy and we don’t have to take it lying down!

So the point is not the snow, or the hydraulics or a couple guys being 5 minutes late to a ceremony.

We know we’re lucky that these are the biggest problems we had to deal with in the last couple weeks.

So take your cheap shots … Guardian newspaper and cynics of the world.

We're bigger and better than that.

What's more we're finally starting to believe it!

Do you believe?

A Very "Canadian" Moment

While coming home on the bus this evening I excitedly mentioned to a few people near me that Canada was leading Slovakia 2-0 in the Men's Hockey. I guess the word "Canada" was mentioned a few times. Suddenly from the front of the bus a tiny little voice started singing the O'Canada anthem. But when I looked I couldn't see precisely where it was coming from. The song continued and then only when the father spun around a dark blue baby stroller did we all saw the little singer. We all applauded!

Day 14 of the Olympics

You can view my best photos of this day here.

Day 13 of the Olympics

You can view my best photos of this day here.

Unexpected Olympic Occurrence

A fellow just proposed to his girlfriend at the Richmond Oval. She accepted!!!

The Pair of Special Loonies

Today I purchased 50 x $1.00 special Loonies from the Royal Bank branch set up at the Royal Bank.  There are actually two different versions, as shown above.

Day 12 of the Olympics

You can view the best of my photos from this day here.

Canadians Breathe a Sigh of Relief

Day 11 of the Olympics

All of my daily photos can be seen here.

Vectorial Elevation

Here's my first attempt to use Vectorial Elevation.

The Torch Cauldron at Night

Sadness Overtakes Vancouver

Days 9 & 10 of the 2010 Winter Olympics

Here are photos from Day 9 and Day 10.

Good Advice on Buying Olympic Tickets

From fellow CouchSurfer, Ashish Bajaj:

My family & I got back from Vancouver a few days ago and I wanted to share lessons we learned about how to buy tickets.

Tickets are released by each country's Olympic committee each day. There are at least 3 ticket centers in Vancouver that sell them. The earlier you get there the better. The central office always has a long line but it moves. The line at the office near the outdoor torch is short but it barely moved when I was there. There are representatives from tickets.com walking around the line who have a list of available events.

If you have a Visa debit or credit card and are a Canadian resident, you can also buy the tickets online. You will still have to stand in one of the lines to pick them up or you can pick them up within two hours of the event at the venue. The number is 800 842-5387.

The fan-to-fan website is another official way I know of to get tickets. Tickets for events Mon-Fri seem to be less marked up than weekend events. That website doesn't seem to work for same day tickets (they don't appear on the site).

The US vendor, CoSport, adds new tickets to their site every morning. They are significantly marked up.

Other than that, there are people selling tickets on the street. We found that the scalpers are much more willing to sell tickets at face value the day before (or day of) the event - no surprise there. There's a chance that they're selling a ticket that will be no good because someone could have sold that same ticket on the fan-to-fan site. VANOC has built in some disincentives to keep people from doing that, but you never know.

Anyway, I hope this helps someone. If I said anything incorrect, I apologize - if you know more, please feel free to add to or amend my suggestions.

Day 8 of the Olympics

You can view my best photos of the day here.