Saturday, February 25, 2006

We're Next!



4 years and counting down!

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Musings

Heard the other day: Ben Stiller and Dick van Dyke partying up the street on 4th avenue over the weekend (Night at the Museum wrap party). The canadian women's hockey team scoring gold!!

Seen down on 4th Avenue two weeks ago: Gael Garcia Bernal (what a beautiful young thing).

Seen 10 minutes ago on Trafalgar and 6th: coyote spotting number 2.

Robin Williams is back in Vancouver filming (more Tuesday night appearances at the Urban Well stand-up comedy?). Actually, Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Mickey Rooney, and Dick van Dyke are all in Night at the Museum together).

The Olympics Men's hockey team are on their way home. How sad an ending, especially with the Women's team doing so wonderfully well. Ad and I are taking in as much Olympics as we can, what with being underemployed and all.

Closing ceremonies already this weekend! The Olympic flag will be passed on to our mayor, Sam Sullivan. Avril Lavigne will perform during the Vancouver 2010 segment. There will be a huge party downtown this Sunday with large screen set up to watch the ceremonies, along with a multitude of activities.

I'll post photos soon!

Ariane C

Sunday, February 19, 2006

A Laff a Minute

Heard last night at the LaffRiot Girls stand up comedy competition:

Three women are sitting in a sauna: a German, a Japanese and a hillbilly.

All of a sudden, there's a beep heard in sauna. The German woman puts her hand to her head and tells the other two "I have an implant that tells me when I've received an email".

Soon after, there's another beep, this time coming from the Japanese woman's hand. She holds her hand to her ear and declares "I've a voice mail message coming in".

The poor hillbilly, feeling left out, heads to the bathroom and comes out a few moments later with four sheets of toilet paper sticking out of her ass. As she heads back into the sauna, she tells the other two women "I think I have a fax coming in".

… to add a little perspective here, the joke was told by a professional comedienne on the night of her 73rd birthday, at the Comedy Competition.

The next round at Zesty's is on Feb. 25th. If you have a chance to see this comedienne, don't miss her act!

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Cypress Heaven



Indeed a wonderful new tradition we started, spending Valentine's Day snowshoeing in the gorgeous nature! We headed up with a rental car to Cypress Mountain and had a great but tiring day, trying our hands at the shoe experience! I've got a pair of blisters, but Ad seems to be OK. This afternoon, I walked around Stanley Park and back into town, enjoying the brisk but clear air. We've a cold snap that seems to get colder and colder by the day. Tomorrow we'll have -2 C during the day, but with wind chill factor, about -15 C! We're now convinced that we've made the right decision by moving to Vancouver, and not say, to Calgary, Edmonton or Toronto!

I'll be volunteering again next weekend at the Weekend to End Breast Cancer booth, this time at the Home and Garden Show at BC Place.






…and a glorious sunset taken from our balcony on Tuesday.
Signing off,

Ariane C

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Every Day a Meeting, Every Day a New Contact

It's meeting whirlwind time, for both Ad and I. I've been breaking down the gatekeepers of all the big design and ad shops in town, and getting to meet Creative Director after Creative Director. Of course it helps when they don't think I'm looking for a job, however those I've met have been really insightful in learning more about the tiny Vancouver design market. I now know that it's about 1/8 the size of Toronto, amongst other things!

Just when I thought that I'd exhausted my list of contacts culled from the web and Yellow Pages, Ad came home with a stack of New Media Directory listings pulled from a job resource centre we've been attending workshops at. December 2005's list has come out, and although I'd already contacted at least 65% of the companies on the list, there were still more unknown to me left to contact and meet!! My list of networks is growing expotentially. My new buzz phrase: Networking knows no bounds!

Besides my work hunt going into full swing, I've been volunteering for the Graphic Designers Society of Canada, Vancouver chapter and the Weekend to End Breast Cancer, a huge 60 km walk spread out over a weekend this coming August in Van. If I can raise 2,000 dollars CDN, I can enter the race! For now, I'm considering volunteering during the course of the weekend, but the thought of actually DOING this, along with about 2,000 others, is starting to look attractive! The 75 dollar sign-up fee includes a trainer, all forms of preparation for the event, sleeping arrangements, all food and activity for the 2 days, plus a t-shirt. In any case, obviously all for a good cause. The GDC has a great posh event coming up end of March called Graphex '06 Gala Awards Night, that I've signed up to volunteer for. Should be a smashing evening, at the prestigous Vancouver Club downtown.

The weather is just superb: 12 C and SUNSHINE with strong winds, making my jogs along the beach/seawall filled with exhilarating ocean smells and beautiful dark blue water featuring white peaks on their larger-than-usual waves. We just feel like we've stepped into heaven here. Just about every day I'm out there jogging/walking, I meet up with at least one pug; they're great and feisty little creatures that I'd love to own one of in the future. For now we're in non-smoking/no pets rental land, and living in Kits as a homeowner, just can't see that happening short of winning a lottery, and LEAVING Kits doesn't seem like it could be possible, given our location, home and proximity to just about everything!

The Wired Monk is doing great business here at the corner. On Feb. 25th, they'll have an official opening party with face painting for the kidz, live music, goodies and free java, just the sort of community feeling that Kitsilano is so well known for.

So off I go, to meet another potential client.

Beste Moeder en Daddy C: het is hier zo verschrikkelijke mooi buiten, jammer dat jullie niet voor een paar dagen even deze gebeid kunnen bekijjken zonder het lange reis hoor! Wij wensen jullie een fijn reis naar Egypte, maak er veel foto's daarvan - ! Liefs van Ariane en Ad

Signing off,

Ariane C

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Crocuses in February

Well, with the record-breaking rains came a few days of gorgeous sunshine, just enough to bring out the daffodils and crocuses in February?!! We've had such a mild winter here so far that the Spring flowers are popping up now instead.

Ad and I are getting more responses to our networking efforts. This morning, we attended a two hour workshop on the hidden job market. Much of the information given wasn't anything we didn't already know, however we did get a few great tips here and there. Today was a big day as I picked up our business cards from the printer and we're quite happy to have full-colour cards to go with our networking! Hurray for digital printing!

The Canucks are coming back with a few wins while on the road. Tomorrow and Saturday they'll play two big rivals in Alberta, The Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers, neither of which they've beat so far this season. Oilers are by far my favourite team to hate, biggest rivals to the Canucks, bar the Leafs!

This coming Saturday, I'll be volunteering at the Health and Wellness Show down at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre. I'll be at the Endcancer.ca booth giving out info.

Oh yeah, my hand-made rings are now on consignment at a cool little store on Broadway, called Shine. Hopefully they'll get some attention there! And, we've a new café right on the corner: The Wired Monk.

Off like a dirty shirt,

Ariane C