Check out all the fabulous links and the great work Barb from The Love Blog and Rebecca -our own Miss 604 are doing to push this great event.

Rebecca has taken on a huge job of organizing this event….thank you for being so ‘together’ with the VANCOUVER LOVIN!

If you cannot participate, please donate or pledge the people taking on this challenge.

And support the Vancouver Bloggers who are participating.

Blogging is going strong in our neck of the woods and it is awesome to see stuff like this going on.

Whoot

I will not be participating as trying to bang out ONE post is hard enough with this family..plus am still recovering from BlogHer.

Cheers..

The other night, I went to a townhall meeting with TransLink where they presented their Transport 2040 strategy.

Now, at the risk of sounding forgiving, you have to realize that they’ve been given a nearly impossible task. On January 1, 2008, some new legislation kicked in that said they had to have a plan of some sort by August 1, 2008. That’s an awfully short time to develop a comprehensive, 30 year plan. So what you’ll see on this link is a strategic plan - broad brush strokes that point the way to some future.

That being said, after the meeting (and there were a LOT of angry people there - more on that later), and I said to some guy that I thought the whole plan was a load of horseshit.

I live in an area that’s not well-served by public transit. There’s the WestCoast Express which runs only during peak hours. The result of that is this morning was a mad dash in time for last train to get me downtown. I’d planned to go into work late and I did - I got there at 9:15am. There’s the 701 to Coquitlam Station which is an “express” bus - with 30 stops. There are numerous community shuttles - which are unreliable. One 16 year old at the meeting told a story of how she waited for 45 minutes for a shuttle - late at night that never came.

There is little transit east of 200th Street. And Maple Ridge is supposed to be a city centre.

There were a lot of angry people at that meeting. TransLink wasn’t even going to come to Maple Ridge (probably because they knew there was nothing in that plan for Maple Ridge) until the Mayor asked them to come. They looked sufficiently chastised, especially when they were asked no more than 4 times if they’d taken transit out to the meeting (of course not? are you crazy? THEY IS HI POWERED EXECUATIVES!)

But none of that really fazed me - its part of the reality of living here. And I love this town.

What got me what what the accountant guy said:

To me, this isn’t a plan, because its not financially sustainable.

Well, no shit, Sherlock. And yet you want to keep increasing my property and fuel taxes, and we don’t get any benefit from it?

Other highlights:

• investing $24M in cycling and $29M in WestCoast Express over the next 10 years (do YOU see a discrepancy here?)
• West Van has half the population of Maple Ridge and twice the bus service to downtown Vancouver (I guess that’s what money can buy you)
• people out here want to take transit but can’t; its offensive that TransLink believes all that’s needed is a behavioural shift (FOR SHAME. It goes without saying that in order for people to change their behaviour, you have to give them the resources to do so)
• for what it costs to build one kilometer of underground skytrain (an oxymoron, really), you can build a line of light rail from Maple Ridge to Mission.

Did you know that there’s no bus service from Maple Ridge to Mission? And that people in Abbotsford have to go to Mission, then the WestCoast Express to get downtown?

So kudos to Mayor Robson for getting TransLink out here. And more kudos to him for wanting to get Maple Ridge out of TransLink. I can tell you which Mayoral candidate out here will get my vote in November.

Oh and a couple of days later, I found out another interesting thing: TransLink didn’t ask any municipalities for input until the strategy had been created - they weren’t considered stakeholders.

Nicole also rants over at Resolving Timeline Issues (this is a crossposting)

…To San Fransisco…BlogHer that is.

I am not taking my clunky old laptop with me….I had HOPED that ASUS were going to sort of ’sponsor’ me and provide one for the conference, but I haven’t heard back after a sort of yes and it hasn’t arrived yet…I leave the house at 1!

Anyway..this means, I don’t know what sort of access I will have to post….which suck because I would love to report about all the bloggy fun down there.

We shall see.

So have fun…..and I will try to keep you all in the loop

…if you are totallly nuts.

We took the kids to the Greater Vancouver Zoo. They have not had a lot of good press between Eagles being eaten and neglected Hippos…..they don’t have a good  track record.

So while I have been putting of going…the kids LOVED it.

Even in the heat that  Great Vancouver experienced today…they loved it.

The Raptor show was awesome…to get THAT close to Falcons and Owls was a treat.

We watched the Lions get their lunch too!

All the animals were a HUGE hit with the kids.

I liked it because they let you in with picnic stuff and have lovely picnic areas to relax.

They even let people ride bikes and so forth.  You could also rent these pedal cars that just about killed us, but stopped the kids from complaining about walking.

It is a tad expensive..but I can only imagine the overhead needed to maintain these gorgeous animals.  It is $18 for an adult.   $60 for a family of four.

But we spent 5 hours there….so I suppose it was worth it.

Twitter is all a flutter about the bloody iPhone.

First everyone was in agony because it was only available in the US.

Now it is here. In Canada.

But Rogers got the deal and people were FREAKING over the price.

It has not stopped people lining up at the stores to buy theirs and to twitter about their excitement about it not being activated fast enough.

People. It is a phone.

A phone with gadgets that looks pretty.

And sure…if it was affordable and I didn’t have to line up, MAYBE I would consider buying one.

Maybe…but to line up….really????

I love NEW SHINY THINGS as much as the next person..but I have always been more than happy to wait for it….

I think the last thing I lined up for was the first Batman movie and well, I won’t line up anymore for movies, thanks.

Unless it is a line for food and we are starving..you probably won’t see me in it.

It has nothing to do with ‘not getting it’…..I don’t WANT to be part of it….if lining up for gadgets makes you ‘cutting edge’ keep me out of it.

I will wait…..patiently.

Marketing is so easy these days….positive or negative publicity is so easy to spread thank to the net and things like Twitter.

And this proves how powerful APPLE’s marketing magic really is. They make pretty toys…that cannot be denied.

They must be to have people pay all that money and sell their souls to Rogers for the opportunity to show off their new toys at the all the Yaletown bars and coffee shops.

Snob?

Maybe….

But you won’t catch me lining up overnight for the Boxing Day sales or the latest toy that only the parents think their kids need…..

I was doing a quick surf around some other ‘community’ sites and seeing how much was going on in the blogging and tech side of life. There is lot’s. Meetups, and Conferences and Socials..you name it.

Twitter has been awesome in opening my eyes to all the activity too.

Vancouver has a HUGE amount of events too….I am just not able to check most of them out - being the parental shut in that I am!

Which means we THANK people like Miss 604 for being the busy social networker and for writing about it all too!

This Meetup (with Rebecca Live Blogging) is a great example of the sort of things that are CONSTANTLY happening around Vancouver.

Meetup Vancouver has an INSANE list of groups of ALL types in Vancouver.

There is a Vancouver Blogger Group too..that I have joined online, but have yet to attend any of their functions.

I WILL be at the Fraser Valley WordPress Camp...am very excited about that…..

I guess, the point is, that BLOGGING IS HUGE..here and everywhere else.

The mainstream media around Vancouver is slowly starting to notice and recognize this more and more.

Bloggers are a force to be reckoned with here and everywhere.

Marketers and advertisers are slowly ‘getting’ this too….the power of positive online reviews can make or break a product these days.

Jenny down at Seattle Mom’s Blog wrote a great bit about meeting bloggers IRL!

Seattle also has a huge and thriving blog community. Hellooo down there!

When I started blogging, it was because of a local friend who was already a blogging queen…I was impressed.

However, I found myself visiting and linking to bloggers from all over and far away WAY before I really focused on what was going on in my own back yard.

Locally, I feel like a total newb….I am in awe of what is going on around here and the people who are at the centre of it all.

Hopefully, I will meet more local bloggers IRL….I do hope to do another Wet Coast Women meet up…..let me know if people wanna do that…..and I do feel bad that I don’t get out there as much as other people do. For me and many ‘mom’ bloggers…being a mommy comes first and blogging second!

However…I cannot wait to share my adventures down at BlogHer ‘08...I will be heading to San Fran the day after the WordPress Camp….and will be away from my family for the first time ever…for TWO DAYS!!

I can’t wait to meet all those amazing women and sit in on all the great sessions….

In the meantime, try to keep us Wet Coasters up to date on what is going on in YOUR part of the coast…..

We love to hear all about it.

Oh and on a side note…since WCW is a constantly evolving site…..if anyone wants to be a full on (for free) contributing editor with all the glory and fame that title would bestow upon you…AND you have ideas for the site, let me know!

I would love to have people from up and down the coast REGULARLY let us know what’s going on in THEIR blogging world, and I PROMISE to try harder too!

Anyway…go think about it.

Hi ladies –

I’m new … I had a friend introduce me to the site last year but I didn’t take advantage of what was offered or spend time to see what was going on.

Tips, tricks, or comments are welcome.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Canada Day and that summer is treating you right so far

Kris

have been reading a few blocks bemoaning the total lack of humanity that seems to be around us these days…this is one small example.…there are a million others.

I thought about this the other day when we came upon the detrious of a car accident.

One car had t-boned another. Sadly, a fairly common occurence in my town.

This had occured on a clear day, in a wide open stretch of road.

The only way that this accident could have happened was speed and or a total lack of reaction and ‘anticipation’ about what was going on around the drivers seconds before they hit.

Anticipation….watching the road ahead AND behind you. Watching the drivers ahead…trying to ‘anticipate’ what they might do next.

This skill is obvioulsy no longer taught in drivers ed anymore.

And no wonder…if the teachers of driving are now younger than me…we are dealing with Gen Y and so on…..generations who seem to have missed out on a lot of things that seemed like good old fashioned common sense and gee COURTESY FOR THE WORLD AROUND YOU?

Forget horrors like people NOT rushing to help a man hit by a car.

How about just the everyday occurence of people walking right in front of you - stopping right in front of you - doing the same on the ROAD…..we are dealing with people so cocooned by their cell phones and iPod’s and their own teeny tiny worlds…that they travel through life completely unaware.

One day, I was driving to pick up Adam at school, as I turned in, I glanced up. There at the top of the tallest pine tree was a beautiful Bald Eagle. Just sitting there..right by a very busy main road. NOBODY saw him. Nobody was aware of him. Just me.

Humanity needs to start looking up more….before something REALLY big and heavy lands on it’s collective head.

cross posted at the AntHill

There were no doodles for Canada Day on Google.ca this year…something that all the Canucks noticed.

It’s long been a Google tradition, a wink to Canucks: A Canada Day version of the website’s logo, illustrated with Maple Leaves, a loon and even a beaver.

But yesterday? Nothing but the usual primary-coloured letters.

Asked for comment about the snub, a spokesperson offered little comfort in an e-mail.

“We enjoy celebrating holidays at Google and are sorry we missed one that’s special to you. As you may imagine, it’s difficult for us to choose which events to celebrate on our site. We have a long list of holidays that we’d like to celebrate in the future. We have to balance this rotating calendar with the need to maintain the consistency of the Google homepage.”

I can’t wait to see what they do for Fourth of July.

Must type in quick post before I melt…waaay too hot in my computer corner!

I was just wondering what everyone is doing for Canada Day?

I have a feeling we will probably be just BBQ’ing and chillaxing..but you never know.

The Vancouver Sun has a good guide for what is going on in our neck of the woods..but I am sure many other parts of BC are celebrating too.

I have done the Granville Island thing for a couple of years..but the kids found it sort of boring…we are thinking on checking out Queens Park in New Westminster this year.

Please share what is going on with you on Canada Day.

Oh…and…do you want this shirt?

I ordered one ‘test’ one ..but the XL is a wee bitty tight for me….( I will SAY they fit SMALL!)

Anyway..I needed to see how it looked.

Soooo if you want it and it will fit you…..

POST!

YOU…POST ON WET COAST WOMEN!

TALK ABOUT BEING A WET COAT WOMAN…NETWORK..BOAST ABOUT YOUR SITE….SOMETHING…..

LINK TO SITES YOU LOVE….GIVE ME SOME LOVE!

YOU GET THE PICTURE!

I will then pick the winner on July 16….

It is a nice shirt…good quality cotton.

I will be away to order a (ahem) BIGGER size for me.