RIP Cory Monteith

Shocked and saddened to read about the death of TV series "Glee"'s Cory Monteith in Vancouver (BC) where he had been staying at the Fairmont Pacific Rim.

After the Vancouver Great Fire photo, June 1886

Vancouver Sun journalist John Mackie published another article highlighting a couple of historical photographs he found in the newspaper's files. One is a painted version of the famous "Vancouver after fire" photo by J.A. Brock & Co. (H.T. Devine), the other photo being a vintage, original print. He quotes yours truly at the end of the article and gives a plug to my monograph Eyes of a City published by the City of Vancouver Archives in 1986, the centennial of the city.

There are obvious factual errors in the article when I looked at it on June 12, 2011 and I've alerted him to those issues in case they can be corrected in the online edition.

"Carrall Street, when it was wood", about rare Bailey & Neelands photos at Vancouver Sun

"Carrall Street, when it was wood" (April 2, 2011)

This is an article by John Mackie about a couple of rare Bailey & Neelands photos he found in the Vancouver Sun's morgue. He quotes a BC historic photo expert by the name of David Mattison.

Happy 25th anniversary Expo 86

May 2, 2011 marks the 25th opening day anniversary of Expo 86, the little-big international exposition that changed the face of Vancouver. I have fond memories of wandering the grounds, not in a daze except for the time I came down with food poisoning, visiting every pavilion I could and filling my Expo 86 Passport with as many pavilion stamps as I could.

What memories do you have of Expo 86?

Will any public body be commemorating the 25th anniversary of Expo 86? People I used to work with may recall that I unsuccessfully tried promoting a virtual exhibit for the 20th anniversary. All the surviving archival records of the Expo 86 Corporation are preserved by the BC Archive at the Royal BC Museum. You can view the description of those records.

Happy 125th City of Vancouver!

The City of Vancouver celebrates its 125th anniversary today, April 6, 2011. I'd like to wish all Vancouverites a very happy celebration.

Final Vancouver Police Museum t-shirt contest entry (third of three submitted)

I completed and entered my final Vancouver Police Museum t-shirt contest entry. There's only a day or two left to vote.

Designed by David Mattison

Another Vancouver Police Museum t-shirt contest design entry (second of three to be submitted)

Here is my second Vancouver Police Museum t-shirt contest design entry, the second of three I'll be submitting.

Designed by David Mattison

Vote for my Vancouver Police Museum t-shirt contest design (one of three to be submitted)

Hey, don't you just love a good t-shirt contest? Having failed to enter the one for the Victoria Symphony Splash, I heard about one the Vancouver Police Museum is running until July 30. I submitted one entry so far, "Don't Get Caught Speeding [stop sign] To the Vancouver Police Museum." You can see all the entries on the contest Web site at http://contest.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/. Don't forget to vote for my entries!

Designed by David Mattison

A weekend on the Lower Mainland

I recently spent a weekend on the Lower Mainland. I was most impressed with the new Canada Line portion of Metro Vancouver's light-rail transit system called SkyTrain. The Canada Line runs between Richmond and the Vancouver Waterfront station with a spur line to the Vancouver International Airport. The Canada Line was busy so it is evidently a hit with commuters. The only dissatisfaction I had with it is that the ticket system only allows you 1.5 hours to reach the last leg of your destination. I was traveling from Richmond to North Vancouver and back again and it took one hour in the morning just to get from Richmond to the Waterfront Station. Then I caught the SeaBus passenger-only ferry that runs from there to Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver and from there a bus to my final destination. I think I ultimately had about 15 minutes to spare by the time I reached the North Vancouver bus. I was lucky because there was a SeaBus already docked and almost ready to load when I arrived in the morning. The return trip in the afternoon was a little less stressful except that it was standing room only in the Canada Line car because it was the start of rush hour for commuters.

I wandered around Steveston a couple of times, a popular destination with local families and visitors from elsewhere in the Lower Mainland and beyond, and took some photos, a few of which I've posted on Flickr.

Here's one of them of a concrete and steel fishboat sculpture near the start of a waterfront walkway that leads to the Britannia Shipyard. The original is color but I enhanced it to look like black and white infrared film.

Happy 124th anniversary City of Vancouver, BC, Canada

Today is the 124th anniversary of the incorporation by provincial legislation of the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Chuck Davis' The History of Metropolitan Vancouver is a great place to discover more about the history of this amazing place.

World's ugliest casino building to ruin Vancouver skyline?

Listening to a CBC Radio discussion about the proposed new casino building to be constructed next to BC Place in Vancouver reminded me that I wanted to comment on exactly how ugly and poorly designed the structure is. Is this the best that we can come up with? Come on, let's at least have a structure that will be as much of an iconic visual landmark as BC Place and Canada Place themselves.

You can judge for yourself by looking at the conceptual artwork through this CBC News story.

And the games are done, long may they run to the final frontier

Loved Neil Young performance of "Long May You Run" as one of the closing songs of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. And Captain (William Shatner) James T. Kirk giving his I Am Canadian (We Dream Big) monologue. And Catharine O'Hara on "I'm Sorry" and Michael J. Fox letting everyone know that "We Claim You."

One more song with Michael Buble dressed as a singing Mountie and a purposeful costume malfunction where he turns into a lounge singer complete with big band backup.

Giant Mounties and hockey players, dancing maple leafs and voyageurs complete with canoes, and huge balloon beavers and moose capped off a great closing ceremony!

Post-closing ceremonies saw musical performances by some great Canadian bands and singers.

CTV commercial breaks during 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremonies

Wasn't that less than classy of CTV to interrupt the 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremonies with commercial breaks? They were running filler prior to the start of the closing ceremonies, why couldn't they have put all their commercials into that half hour?

A modest proposal: ban any and everything worldwide, including words, that violates the International Olympic Committee brand value

As a result of yet another news story about the Canadian Olympic Committee's (COC) pressure tactics against a small business owner in Vancouver that I blogged about in What, no flames allowed at the Vancouver Winter Olympics?, I've come up with a modest proposal.

I propose that any and everything that violates the International Olympic Committee's brand value be henceforth and irrevocably banned worldwide. This would include not just existing registered trade marks such as Toasterz and Eaterz, the very trademarks that the COC objected to, but also more famous ones such as the Calgary Flames name and logo, Ronson’s Lighter Fuel logo and any pizza joint worldwide that uses the word Olympic in its names, as well as words such as torch for flashlight in Great Britain and the Olympic Mountains in Washington State.

Since an Olympic event is held every two years, with the next one after the Vancouver Winter Olympics being the London Summer Olympics in 2012, and the IOC has demonstrated over the years that it is like the UN of the sports world, why don't we just avoid all the legal hassle of doing battle with them, bite the Olympic, er, sporting bullet, and take the opportunity to stretch our creative muscles.

How about a new nickname for Vancouver?

[polldaddy poll=2748944]

Lost and not claimed, lots of mobility aids at the 2010 Winter Olympics

A bizarre report in the Times-Colonist (online, February 20, 2010; hardcopy, February 21, 2010) that lots of mobility aids, including artificial limbs, have been left behind by 2010 Winter Olympics visitors using Greater Vancouver's public transit system operated by Translink.

As Todd Coyne wrote,

TransLink’s lost property storage centre has a whole area devoted to the dozens of crutches, canes, walkers and artificial limbs left by those who apparently boarded transit needing mobility aids and then somehow waltzed off without them.

If you've recently been part of the Olympic crowds in the Lower Mainland and can't find something you might have left behind on the Translink system, here's their Lost and Found contact information.

Vancouver 2010 medal winnings widget (not really)

View the vancouver2010.com medals' table.

WordPress.com doesn't allow HTML widgets, so when I tried to insert this widget it got converted into a straight link.

What, no flames allowed at the Vancouver Winter Olympics?

Global BC TV News Hour ran a great story on January 21, 2010 in its "Beyond the Podium" series as part of its coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. According to the story, Will Tamasky, owner of the BC business Toasterz that sells products that feature a flame as part of each product's name was sent a cease and desist or pay us $5,000 compensation by the Canadian Olympic Committee's (COC) legal counsel.

I find this really funny because there are all kinds of other products and organizations that feature a flame as part of the brand, to name just two that spring to mind:

• Ronson's Lighter Fuel and similar products from that company



• Calgary Flames hockey team logo -- and the Olympic Torch Relay just passed through Calgary in the last day or two

I wonder if it will be illegal during the Vancouver Winter Olympics to advertise a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show by illustrating the ad with a Bic lighter's flame?

In fact, given the prominence of the Olympic Torch and the flame, I think all flames, representations of flames and sources of flames should be banned. This would include clothing depicting the Human Torch character from the Marvel Comics series the Fantastic Four.

Psst, wanna buy Whistler Resort during the Vancouver Winter Olympics February 2010?

Whistler Resort is in a credit crunch and may be up for auction during the Vancouver Winter Olympics in February 2010. Have we got a deal for you!

What is up with these electric power explosions?

Two electric power explosions with almost the same set of circumstances and outcome less than a month apart in two widely varying locations are really freaky. The first happened in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, on December 23, 2009 ("WorkSafeBC investigates Vancouver hydro explosion", CBC News, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/12/24/bc-hydro-explosion-worksafe-investigation.html). This one sent three BC Hydro workers who were working in the underground power vault to hospital. Photographs of the aftermath of the explosion are found on this NowPublic page. The second explosion happened in downtown Honolulu, Hawaii, on January 14, 2010 and sent the two Hawaiian Electric Company employees who were working in the underground power vault to hospital. The Honolulu explosion also knocked out power to over a thousand customers according to this KITV.com report ("Power Restored After Downtown Explosion", January 14, 2010, http://www.kitv.com/news/22238764/detail.html).