Yesterday was a good day to be a Canadian, but beyond that, it was a good day to be a Canadian artist.
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Up by my bootstraps
Posted By Alida on May 7th, 2010
Do you ever feel like you have to pull yourself out of a sense of inertia? In this case, it’s the intertia of not posting for nearly three months (!). I don’t think I’ve gone three months at one time without blogging since I started in 2001! There’s no particular reason, aside from the usual — busy life, wedding plans, new house, contract work, yadda yadda. I’m going to touch on all of that in the next few entries, but first…
Just a few housekeeping details before I get going with some new content.
First, I’m testing out a new comment system. It’s quite powerful, and you can leave comments with one of a number of profiles. Click on the “Add another site” button, and you can choose the profile to link to — or, you can post from multiple profiles at once. Also, you can share your comments and the link to each post with your social networks, by clicking on the “Share” button. You can also follow the replies to an individual entry, as well as add pictures to your comments. (And, as always, if you click on the “share” button at the bottom of the entry (as opposed to the one in the comments), you can send your favorite articles along via any of 200+ services.)
Second, I’m (at least temporarily) disabling the Facebook integration via Networked Blogs, since there’s no way to integrate Facebook comments with the Wordpress comments. More people than not were leaving comments on Facebook, which means that the great conversations sparked by various blog entries never made it to the blog itself. It’s all stuck on Facebook, and I’d rather see it all take place over here, where it can be archived with the entries. So, I’m changing my Facebook notifications to direct people to this site, instead of showing up within a Facebook app.
Please, even though you’re not commenting via Facebook anymore, keep on talking! There have been some interesting discussions, and I want to see those continue! The conversation is always open; I’m just here to facilitate it. (And with this new comment system, you can still choose to be notified of replies to your comments, just like the Facebook notifications allowed for, so you can follow the conversation on any entry that you find interesting.)
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And now, for a slight change of pace…
Posted By Alida on October 3rd, 2009
This doesn’t have much to do with most of what I typically write about, but it’s interesting, I think.
This week, Mashable posted a poll asking people what their favorite Firefox extensions are. And since everyone knows that the best thing about Firefox is its ability to be customized, I thought I’d share my list of favorite extensions: (more…)
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Resurfacing
Posted By Alida on September 28th, 2009
Well, these last two weeks have been a rather unintentional mini-hiatus — I suppose I just wasn’t quite as on-the-ball as I should have been about getting entries ready for what I knew would be a busy few weeks! (more…)
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The best thing about WorldSkills
Posted By Alida on September 6th, 2009
The 40th WorldSkills competition has been held in Calgary this past week — basically, it’s like the Olympics of the trades. Over 900 competitors from over 45 countries competing in 45 categories, ranging from plumbing to cooking; confectionaries to floral design; robotics to landscaping; cabinet-making to HVAC; interior design to web design; health and beauty services to fashion design. We spent a few hours wandering through, and it was a very cool experience (even though we were there for the last 3 hours of the last of 4 competition days, so we only caught the tail end of competition or finished products on display, rather than seeing the competition in full swing).
It’s the largest non-Stampede event ever held at Stampede Park; the largest event that Calgary has hosted since the ’88 Winter Olympics, with 2/3 the total number of Olympic competitors in ‘88; the largest international competition after the Olympics; and quite groundbreaking for the WorldSkills competition itself, with a rather long list of “firsts” happening this year.
And the thing I was most grateful for this week?
Good weather.
I want Calgary to be recognized as the world-class, internationally-renowned city that it can be, and unseasonally cold weather can overshadow those elements to the detriment of the city’s reputation. I feel like I’m the parent of a misbehaving child when guests come to Calgary and the stereotypes about cold Canadian weather (at least, cold weather that’s not, y’know, in winter) are confirmed. But this week, all the children have behaved, and instead of having 10-degree (Celsius, of course) weather or, worse yet, frost or skiffs of snow during the first week of September, we’ve had 30-degree weather and sunny skies all week. (And this weekend, it’s cooled off a bit, so it’s more seasonal, but still nowhere near the unseasonal early-September frost and/or snow that we sometimes get.)
Because isn’t it nice that the world can go back home saying, among all the other raves and accolades about Calgary that are sure to be shared, that — hey, guess what? — Canada isn’t always cold!
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Pictures and other such fun
Posted By Alida on July 29th, 2009
We’re heading out of town bright and early tomorrow morning, off to Colorado for my cousin’s wedding and to see family that I haven’t seen since the last family vacation I went on in high school. Colin and I, my sister and brother-in-law, my parents, and my brother will be piling into two cars and spending a long weekend on the road together, and it should be a grand ol’ time, especially since this is both Colin and Justin’s first time meeting that side of the family (and Colin gets to meet them with pink hair!).
I’ll be back next week with some posts that have more substance than talking about my pink hair, but in the meantime, you should check out the photo album and see the pink hair for yourself!
Enjoy your long weekend — if you’re in Canada, that is. See you on the other side…
The five of us at the end of the walk.
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Things you should see
Posted By Alida on June 8th, 2009
Two quick things to direct your attention to, while I whip up a brand-new post full of chewy goodness for you to think on:
1) I’ve finally added a blogroll. Check out the “Great Blogs” link at the top of the page for some great reading. It’s not nearly finished, and as I continue to discover bloggers and sites that are worth sharing, I’ll add them, so check that page regularly! In the meantime, it’s off to a great start, so go give my blogging friends some love!
2) I’m now a member of YYC Blogs, a community of bloggers in Calgary, talking about the city and everything else under the sun. I’m just starting to discover what else is in there, and you should wander over, too, and take a look.
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