On this day when the greeting card, florists and confectionery companies (and society in general) tell us we should be together and happy – many of us are probably alone. However, when my friends tell me they are lonely – I usually tell them to go outside – there are six billion people out there. However, the video (above) showed me that I’m wrong – we don’t need to go outside because we are never alone.
Even though I live more than 3000 km from where I did three months ago; I still phone, text, email, skype, facebook, blog, twitter, yelp, IM or [insert your technology of choice] with my friends from my former hometown more than daily. It’s like I never left.
When I’m skiing, (I do this almost daily) I meet and speak to someone new on an hourly basis. They are a captive audience for about 10 to 20 minutes when we ride the gondola, chairlift or t-bar. People in ski resorts are generally very happy and glad to be there (regardless of the weather) and most are glad to talk. Sometimes I’m their captive audience. Occasionally, we end up skiing a run or two and even end up at the pub for après.
Personal interaction is so much better than any technology could try to emulate. I’m not sure what these technologies are achieving; but it make me yearn to be alone.
Instead of going outside to avoid being loney – maybe we need to go outside to be together.
The first month of the year is done and the winner is the smoothie. I managed to consume more than one per day. Close behind was salad and then oranges was a distant third.
All I seemed to be doing in January was skiing, eating and sleeping – three very important events. I noticed that started craving(?) and eating pasta again because I felt hungrier than normal – probably attributed to the amount of skiing that I did.
The breakdown of what I ate:
39 smoothies (24 chocolate, 12 fruit, 3 green )
32 servings* of salad (mostly kale salads)
16 oranges
12 grapefruit
10 servings of pasta
6 bags of chips (2 bags of tortilla chips)
5 bowls of popcorn
4 visits to Corner Tandoori for Inidian
2 bowls of noodle and soup
2 burritos from Red Burrito
2 subs
2 energy bars
1 visit to a Malaysian/Thai restaurant
1 pizza
1 piece of birthday cake (Anf’s)
lots of trail mix
…and surprisingly, no french fries!
Included in all of this also included countless bananas, strawberries, avocados and almonds.
The thing I enjoyed most was the chocolate smoothies and the least enjoyable thing was the barbecue and dill flavoured chips. Close behind was the iceberg/romaine lettuce salad at Boston Pizza. But at least the salad might have had some nutrition in it.
* When I say servings, it is generally two or more because I tend to eat more than most people. Unless I am in a restaurant, I will generally eat more than one serving of whatever I’m eating. The 32 servings was probably consumed in 16 or less meals.
Here’s the flickr set of what I ate in January. To see all of the photos at once, click through to the set by clicking here. Otherwise you can click on the large image below to advance to the next image.
A familiar pose. Riding the Revelstoke gondola. Photo by Jae from South Korea.
The number refers to how many days I want to spend on the mountain this season – on skis. I’d also like to take photos. Maybe self-portraits or maybe just of the scenery. I take photos everyday anyway so hopefully this won’t be a bother for me.
The season has gotten off to a slow start so far. The weather has been a bit unusual in the past month. First it was too warm and not enough snow. Then it became too cold when there was an arctic flow of cold air. This caused the temperature to dip to -25c at the peak of Whistler mountain on some days. It was also about -13c in the village on some days. The weather is starting to return to normal now. It’s snowing more frequently and the temperature is almost normal – which should be in the range of zero to -10c on the mountain.
My ski days for December will only be six – not much considering I’ve been in the mountains for the greater part of three weeks. The weather has been a factor – if it had not, my count would probably be 20 by now. I look forward to January and the rest of the season!
My daily photos from the album 100 days on flickr. Click the image to advance to the next image.
I recently went to a Vietnamese restaurant, Au Petit Cafe, with some Couchsurfers. Before I arrived, I knew there was nothing vegetarian on the menu, but I knew it was easy enough to make something vegetarian by omitting the animal products.
What I received was a vegetable banh mi, a Vietnamese baguette sandwich (see above photo above). The vegetables were pedestrian enough, however, the bread was fantastic. It was the best French baguette that I’ve had outside of France. What makes the bread so good is that it is baked on premises at Au Petit – the way it should be done – just like all the neighbourhood bakeries in France.
The sandwich brought me back to the time I spent in Nice, France eating the pan bagnat – a sandwich loosely based on the salade Niçoise. For years afterward, I used to make these sandwiches myself but the bread was always lacking. Unfortunately, the pan bagnat is not vegetarian; however, I may try to create my own vegetarian version with some of these amazing baguettes.
Whistler is comprised of four groups of people, rich tourists, ski bums, foreign workers and the locals that put up with all of them. The bulk of the people that keep the resort running are usually a combination of the ski bums and foreigners from around the world – some on their first trip outside of their country. One thing they like to do is party – and they party hard.
Part of the culture here is drugs – mostly marijuana – aka BC Bud; the other is alcohol. I wonder how many have purchased root beer thinking it was real beer. Maybe it was after some BC Bud.
This was the first thing I saw when I arrived yesterday morning in Whistler – a bare mountain. It was 8c and raining.
This was my first visit where I did not ski – for an obvious reason. It was still a good day for other reasons. I’ll cross my fingers that there will be snow on my next visit!
I recently read some articles about the imperative for businesses to become green. It still seems that being green is still a fad among most people and that short term benefits and cost is a major factor – despite the potential savings over the long term.
Being green has been always been a focus for a small segment of the population because of the inherent desire to consume only when necessary, not be wasteful and ultimately save money. If all consumers had these ideals in mind when consuming, we likely would not be in the predicament we find our planet in today.
Lack of Awareness – people claim they do not have enough information
Negative Perceptions – green products are less effective
Distrust – people do not trust the message of government and business
High Prices – people do not understand the long-term benefits
Low Availability – business do not really want to sell these products
It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg game. However, the Internet is a wealth of knowledge and consumers can find the information with some effort. Consumers must also decide on their own what is right for them rather than wait for the market to decide what is right for them. Otherwise consumers will be at the whim of marketers – the very ones that help put us in the position we find ourselves.
Businesses that take a leadership role in such areas will be rewarded by loyal customers and not have to catch up when the mainstream realizes that being green is better (and essential). Whole Foods Market did this in the 1990s by stocking organic and local produce as well as other environmentally-friendly products. They are now a leader in the grocery business with strong growth by attracting informed customers.
I’ve worked in the retail business for more than 15 years (almost all of my working life) and I’ve seen what attracts customers. In North America, consumers are addicted to cheap stuff – period. We are intent on obtaining the best deal and not necessarily the best value or product. That’s why Wal-Mart is so popular.
Europeans are more concerned with obtaining the best value or product and not necessarily the lowest price. The North American strategy does not retain customers as they will flee once prices are not the lowest. However, the European method retains customers because of the value delivered through a superior product.
Unfortunately, marketers have created this problem because of the short-term pressures. Hopefully they can dig us out of this problem without more consumption. The actual answer is through reduced consumption.
A McKinsey & Company chart that illustrates that perception is very different that what is effective in reality. A surprising point at the first position is driving a more fuel-efficient car; driving less is at the fourth position. However, the biggest and most surprising gap is with eating beef – consuming less is the third most effective action people can take – vegetarians have know this all along.
For World Vegetarian Day, the Toronto Vegetarian Association held a baking contest – the Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-off in Grange park in downtown Toronto.
Some of my friends suggested that I enter one of my chocolate cakes or pies in the contest. However, I’m not big on contests or being judged so I didn’t really think about it much at first. However, when I thought more about it, I thought that a pumpkin pie would be good for the time of year. And so I decided to enter a raw pumpkin pie into the contest. I still had my doubts about the contest though. I didn’t decide to go through with it until three days before the event.
I’m still not sure why I entered it – maybe I just wanted strangers to try my creations to see if they liked it – and find out if my friends were telling the truth or just being polite.
The contest was judged by some vegan cooks from Toronto. They were judging on taste, texture, creativity and presentation. When I showed up at the event, I was pretty sure I was going to fail miserably. All of the other desserts looked – fabulous. My pie looks very plain. There was but five pumpkin seeds on top of the pie. I was left with taste, texture and creativity.
Miraculously, my pie was the first runner-up in the pie category. Here’s a slice of a pumpkin pie – but not the pie I entered into the contest. I actually did not take a picture of my pie – but they all look the same.
Here is a selection of the desserts at the Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-off from my flickr. Click on the large image to advance to the next one.
I sold my D-SLR last week and then purchased a new D-SLR to replace it. However, the purchase that was most notable for me was the purchase of medium format camera at a camera show over the weekend.
Following up on my last post where I spoke about my affinity for square images; I purchased a vintage Yashica A. For the price of a moderately expensive meal, I got the Yashica, a vintage leather case and 10 rolls of film.
It will be interesting to see how the first images turn out. I’m excited about the possibilities!
I notice recently that I’ve been cropping some of my images to a square or 4×5 format. I find that the 3×2 format of 35mm and D-SLR cameras don’t always work for what I’m shooting. I never used to crop my photos because I was framing the subject to fit in the camera viewfinder but it did not work when I viewed it on paper or on the screen.
However, I noticed that when I cropped some of them, it gave them a new life and changed the perspective of the photo. I’m sure I learned why in school, but my brain is like a sieve and I usually forget such minute technical details. I normally would shoot, process the levels and then post – maybe I could not be bothered to crop photos before.
Now that I think about it, why isn’t all film/digital in a more square format? Lenses are round and if film is not, there’s a lot of wasted space. I will guess that it started with some film manufacturing executive fitting into the manufacturing process or something like that. I’m going to a camera show on the weekend so I’m sure some people can let me in on the secret.
Enough talk, here are some pictures. Two of my favorite images, one square, one 4×5. Ironically, both from NY – maybe that’s what changed. Click on either image to jump to my flickr set.
Slideshows of the sets; click on the larger image to advance to the next one.
100 days, Blogroll, Contents of My Fridge - Quote, Couchsurfing, Culture, Skiing, Technology, Uncategorized, Video, Whistler | Garry February 14, 2009 | 
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