Tag Archives: cbc

From Honeymooning To The CBC

I just got married. In Newfoundland, with 34 people in total on hand for 4 days, family and best friends, in an Inn in a remote outport. There was a ton of love, fun, and a lot of drinking. I can’t get into it because I could never do it justice in a blog post. It was the most amazing experience, and not just because PJ and I wed and could not be happier – I think I speak for everyone who was there: it was magical. I am happy. Very. I am jet-lagged and exhausted with bliss, and trying my damndest to get back into the swing of it all and all things I love about the Internet, which I did miss incidentally, but not enough to stop drinking fine wines and packing on the post wedding 10 L-B’s with the best food on the planet. Merci Beaune. Merci Paris. Here are some of brother-in-law Weston’s pics… I have not ventured to get mine going just yet, but I will eventually…

Back to reality:
Tomorrow I am heading into the CBC here in Vancouver to talk about the thing I love most about my job: social networks taking over the Internet. I am thrilled that the CBC’s Craig Lederhouse has put this together (using google sites, nice.) and opening up the channels to flow more knowledge at the fine folks who bring me my happy place each day, all day, my obsession and favourite Canadian Institution, the CBC. Kris Krug writes on this CBC milestone a lot more eloquently than I currently am managing to muster, and he will of course be a major player in the day. In addition to Krug, they are also fortunate to have a few other savvy social networkers in the room: John Dickerson, Roz Allen, Alfred Hermida, Susan Ormiston, and John Paolozzi. There are a lot of these “types” here in Vancouver, so let this be the first of many at the CBC and get more of Techcouver involved down the road.

Follow along, contribute through the day if you feel so inclined, and I’ll do the same along the way, most certainly, you’ll catch anything here.

Shop ’til you drop!

Ah… how ironic: I find myself nestled in the serene beauty of snow-covered Alps, towering over a vast valley that is the city of Torino; a city that is becoming more energetic and alive each hour as the sports world descends upon it. The sky for my first two days in Torino has been a brilliant blue, sunny, about 10 degrees. The local Italian volunteers and polizia greeting you at all entrance security checks are all smiles and typically charming. Warm, understanding smiles are shared with other foreign media people as you pass by.

Where is this irony, you ask? Ah, well, my first day on the job (with three hours sleep over the past 24 hours – I was awake, lying in my hotel bed at 1:30am WIDE awake until 6am rolled around and I decided to just get up and start the day, even though my first hadn’t quite ended, which still feels like, 2 days later, that “this morning” I awoke in Vancouver. Strange.) – the IRONY is this:
I spent the entire day with my lovely and charming young Italian driver-boy, Davide, in and out of shopping malls, hunting for thermoses and coolers for the likes of Peter Mansbridge and Brian Williams – a riot! And let me say this: simply because this shopping mall is in Italy, and the image one may conjure up is one of Louis Vuitton bags and fine leather boots, a mall is a mall is a mall. Noisy, crowded, fluorescent lighting, whining children, overweight families. The romance of touching down in the mountains of northern Italy evaporated as we entered the blocked solid parking lot of IKEA….

The International Broadcast Centre is an impressive site – a construction in what once was a Fiat factory, where organization and order are essential and well executed. The CBC folks I am working with are all lovely. Most of them are french and I have been pleasantly surprised how quickly and readily available my poor, very mediocre french returned. The chaos is likely to ensue as more personnel arrive and the stress of getting on the air successfully for the Opening Ceremonies set in.

I hope to attach photos soon of the bowels of this broadcast centre, along with the first of many Olympic shots. For now, alas, ’tis all about the malls.

meet me in paris

So much for getting a mere glimpse of Paris… Charles de Gaulle is socked in ten times worse than Torbay on a bad day, if you can believe it. Had a pain au chocolat for you mum! Paris will have to wait – another trip for another time je pense.

T-Minus 41 Hrs…

Ciao bella! Off to Torino, Italy in a matter of hours. Haven’t done a stitch of laundry, haven’t thought of what to pack, have a list as long as my arm of things to get done (my arms are really, really long), and yet I will be watching the Canucks game at 6pm PST and heading off to take in some Jeff Tweedy late-night. Hell – I’ll have a whole day of sleeping on a plane to catch up! See you in Turin. Ciao.