on the Grid - Renovating the Waterfront: Kelowna, Canada’s Downtown Parks Plan

As a waterfront city, Kelowna, Canada is heavily reliant on its shoreline. Okanagan Lake provides many things for the city, though the limited points of access pose a complex question when it comes to the provision of space. Competing for use of the shore are the tourism industry, public parks, boat launches, marinas, a logging mill, and the natural riparian environment.

Read the full post on the Grid.

on the Grid - Kelowna’s Rails With Trails Active Transportation Project Stopped in its Tracks

As people continue to flock to cities, urban planners and property developers are increasingly pressed to come up with novel land use solutions to everyday problems. One problem that affects nearly every aspect of city life is transportation, with transportation networks strained by the pressures of increased usage and the sustainable agenda. Thankfully, creative solutions meet these multiple challenges head on.

Read the full post on the Grid.

on the Grid - Master Planning for a LEED Certified Neighbourhood in Kelowna

The site of the former Kelowna High School sits vacant only blocks from the downtown waterfront. The city of Kelowna, Canada, has grandiose plans for this piece of property: a mixed-use neighbourhood anchored by a large public park. The project is aptly titled Central Green.

Read the full post on the Grid.

One of these Things is Not Like the Others

Click photos to enlarge

Originally I was planning on writing a post about how different my present location is from my location one year ago, but then I started thinking about all the other places I've lived. The photos above are arranged in the order of date lived in: Victoria, BC; Kelowna, BC; Singapore; Banff, AB. I'm not gonna say anything more, let's let the pictures do the talking this time around, eh?

photos (cc) me

Music Monday - Hare Ram in the Rockies

Well, I've made it safely to my new home in Banff. It's still a little surreal, walking to work and seeing the giant Rocky Mountains all around and the most emerald water in the Bow River running under the bridge. I'm not sure whether I'll ever be fully accustomed to it, really.

So I wrote something. Those of you on Protagonize might have caught a little something called Rocky Mountain Sūrya Namaskāra the other night. It's not as exotic as it sounds, but it's full of foreign words that even I have trouble reading. If you practice Hatha yoga, you might recognize some of the phrases. And if you do, then you'll actually know exactly what's going on!

The soundtrack and inspiration for this particular piece is Krisha Das' "Hare Rame (God is Real)." I was introduced to the song by an instructor at the Hot Box yoga studio back in Kelowna, where I quickly fell in love with both the practice of hot yoga and the diverse soundtracks selected by the various instructors. Some stuck to more "traditional" yogi music: forest sounds, Hindu chants, wind chimes. Sometimes I heard Florence + the Machine, or Sia, or Passion Pit. I loved the variety, but this one song stands out.

Take a listen below, or pop over to Protagonize to listen to it while reading my short scene.
 

photo (cc) Claude Robillard

on the Grid - Xeriscaping and Landscape Design Challenges in Canada’s Desert

Canada is often imagined as a country of towering mountains, vast prairies, frozen lakes, and lush forests. However, tucked between two mountain ranges is the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, a semi-arid swath of land containing the country’s sole desert.

Kelowna, Canada, is the largest city in this region, and is subject to the many challenges of developing in an arid valley. Most obvious in these summer months is the dry heat, which makes the upkeep of traditional Kentucky bluegrass landscapes difficult without excessive watering.

Read the full post on the Grid

Music Monday: Another Girl from Ipanema

This was my last weekend in the Okanagan, and the weather gods saw it fit to bless Kelowna with an absolute scorcher: 35 degrees Celsius most days, and the rest of the week looks the same. I've got it in my mind to bask in the heat as much as possible before heading into the mountains of Alberta, where I'll be subjected to a winter like I've never experienced.

Sad panda.

In the meantime, I've been doing such summery activities as beach volleyball, naps in the sun with Favourite Cat, and enjoying drinks on rooftop patios. Of course, I've also had a summer playlist on almost non stop, and I've become absolutely addicted to one of the recent additions to my music library: Amy Winehouse's posthumous album, Lioness: Hidden Treasures. I've got a few favourites on the album, but her cover of "The Girl from Ipanema" stands out. It just screams summer, and is such a different take on the classic made famous by Astrud Gilberto. Judging by the comments on YouTube it's a little controversial, but when is Amy ever not? I particularly love the drum bits, but I've always been addicted to bass.

Enjoy!

on the Grid - Is Human Scale Important to Cities Without Skyscrapers?

Cities are built for a variety of reasons, but are ultimately places for people to live, work, and play. As such, architects and urban planners need to keep in mind the concept of human scale, or designing buildings and spaces for human use. This impacts everything from the height of buildings to the size of street furniture.

Read the full post on the Grid

on the Grid - Smart Growth Incorporated in Rutland Town Centre’s Community Plan: Kelowna, Canada

With one of the fastest growing populations in Canada, Kelowna has been investing considerable time and effort into long-range planning. The city’s most recent Official Community Plan (OCP), revised in 2011, imagines Kelowna in 2030. Key aspects of this plan include social, environmental, cultural, and economic sustainability. Smart growth is the driving ideology in many of the policies.

 Read the full post on the Grid

photo (c) by South Pandosy BIA

on the Grid - What is the Purpose of a Park?

Summer has arrived in Canada’s Okanagan valley, and with the warmer weather, people are venturing outside to enjoy the many parks in Kelowna. Among these is Mission Creek Regional Park and Greenway, arguably the most visited park in the city. It includes an educational centre, salmon spawning channel, picnic areas, and a playground. The greenway offers a lengthy trail system that traverses through several of Kelowna’s iconic landscapes.  

 Read the full post on the Grid

photo by jamica1 (c) All Rights Reserved

Chillin' with the Ogopogo

It's summer! And, oddly enough, summer always tends to be a busy time of year for me. True, I do have plenty of time to fall asleep on the beach and become sunburnt, but I never fail to fill my schedule with other things. This time around? Work, beach volleyball league, blogging for the Grid, scoping out jobs for the fall and winter, and then whatever it is I do over on Protagonize. That will include the Summer Poetry Tournament, and then if I can get the Prose Competition off the ground that will be yet another hat to wear.

Definitely not complaining, though. I enjoy being busy, and being busy with work means the bills will get paid. Whoo! This whole "being an adult" thing isn't too different than what I was doing before, really. The only major difference I can identify so far is that I can't claim student benefits on anything. No student bus pass, no student price rate, no student bank account, no student internships. I'm just a regular person now. Whoo?

One thing will never change, though: I'll still ride any noble steeds I come across in my travels. Such as my buddy the Ogopogo up there. We talk on Twitter sometimes, we're cool like that.

a Photoblog: Views from Knox Mountain Park

 photos by me

That University I Attended

It's been such an important part of my lift these last four years, so I thought I might as well share it with you all. I talk about UBCO quite a bit, and a lot of the people I know have never even seen the place. So here's a video that UBC made to promote the Okanagan campus. It shows a bit of the city and region I live in, too, which is always interesting. Now, if only they would tell me what to do now that I have that degree. Hmm.

Snow Days

Mother Nature has apparently decided that the West Coast hasn't had enough winter loving in the last few years. My hometown of Victoria has been hit with a considerable dump of snow apparently, as has Vancouver, and the weather conditions in Seattle, WA, have been granted an appearance on CNN.

Here in Kelowna, I'm sat at a chilly -20, though it "feels like" more when wind chill is taken into account. This might be one of the most hilarious parts of weather reports during the winter: on top they'll give the actual air temperature, and then below (usually in italics or a different colour font) will be the "feels like" temperature. Hilarious, but depressing.

All in all, though, I'm glad to be in Kelowna. Yes, it's a temperature difference of over fifty degrees from Singapore (aieah!), but people in this city know how to deal with winter. Victoria? Not so much. Cancel ALL THE THINGS.

Really, that's all I want to say. Doing that thing where I procrastinate from writing again. Heheh.

photo by me.

Music Monday: Uummannaq Song

Music Monday didn't get the jump on me this week, and in fact the most difficult part of compiling this post was figuring out which song I wanted to feature. There were a lot, trust me.

In the end, I decided to go with "Uummannaq Song" by KT Tunstall. Why? Because it's snowing again, and that makes all the difference.

The song title references the Greenlandic town of Uummannaq, and the lyrical content is much what you would expect from a song about Greenland (that's the icy one, remember. Iceland is the green one. I blame the vikings). The chorus in particular grabs me: "I could live in this town / Five cold years before I / ... / Before I head for home."

Hey! That's what I'm doing! Well, sort of. I've been living up in the Okanagan on and off since 2008, so that puts me at about four-ish years in this cold town now. And if all goes well, I'll be living here another year, bringing the count to five cold years before I head for home.

I also chose to feature this 'cause it's all around awesome. I've had a soft spot for KT Tunstall since forever, but I only just recently got my mittened hands on her 2010 album Tiger Suit. Below I've got a live video, just to prove how rad this woman is. I like the studio version a lot better, but live videos demonstrate the skill of an artist in a more pure form. That's enough out of me. Have a good week!

Music Monday: Snow in the City

Kelowna is again proving itself to be a temperamental city. Right now it could easily be one of the first days of spring, if not for the relative cold. Really, today is a warm day at five above! That wasn't the case Saturday afternoon, where the first snow of the new year started to fall. It blanketed the city in white, about two inches of the soft stuff.

Now, I know that I complain about the cold a lot. That's because I'm an Island boy: it's expected of me. But I'll be the first to admit that there's something pretty and different about the first fresh snow. I actually don't mind it or the cold for that first day or so. After that, I'm like the rest of the populace and will be overjoyed when it melts.

Which it did, the next day.

So to celebrate the first snowfall of the year (and the mercifully short visit it made) here's a track by Snow Patrol. They're the Glasgow-based band of "Chasing Cars" fame, I've sure you've heard of them if you ever listened to the radio between 2006 and 2007. If not, then here's your introduction!

I've chosen the first single from their 2009 release A Hundred Million Suns, "Take Back the City." Why? First off, I like it. And that's a perfectly valid reason. Second, I spent the weekend finally getting back into the swing of living in Kelowna. Went to a cowboy/country bar (against my will, I must add), ate waffles at the Jammery, finally realized how terrible Rose's really is, and was reminded how much I love O'Flannigans. Oh, and I crashed on a few couches, 'cause why not?

Anyway, enough about me. Here's Snow Patrol, as promised.

Music Monday: Back to the Cold

Monday has caught me off-guard, it was completely unexpected. As was last Monday (hence the lack of MM post), likely because of the whole holiday-on-a-Sunday thing. That, and I moved for the second time in as many weeks.

This time I went from Victoria to Kelowna, which, despite the significantly shorter distance and travel time, was much harder than Singapore to Victoria. I was only five months in Singapore, and the overseas travel really limited what I could take. No such luck with Kelowna, I'm not even sure when I'm moving back to Victoria. So a lot of stuff had to make the move.

As such, I'm pretty much choosing a song at random to feature today. Well, not completely at random, there was some method to its choosing. It's a track by the Delgados, a now defunct Scottish band that was one of my faves back in high school. I still like them now, but I don't listen to their music often. The song? "Coming in From the Cold," which I'll be doing a lot of now that I'm in the Okanagan. As usual, there's a video below. Enjoy, and happy New Year! Oh, and P.S., the album the song is off of is called Hate, I'm not angsty, hah.

Music Monday: Home at last, right?

After a hectic week and a confusing travel day (arriving before I leave? Sure, I guess that's cool) I'm finally back in Victoria. I'm home. Or at least that's what it's supposed to feel like.

Yesterday night I caught myself referring to Singapore as home, as if my time in Vic is just a quick vacation before I head back to my dorm in the tropics. And it is just a quick vacation; in two weeks I'll be packed up and ready to move to Kelowna. Really, I'm not sure where "home" is right now. Part of the confusion of being in a in-between period, I guess.

There are plenty of other Kings of Convenience songs that I would feature before this one, but "Homesick" resonates with me at the moment. Listening to the Kings has been a part of my efforts to acquaint myself with autumn before arriving home. It didn't work. The fall weather, the short days, the Christmas saturation... it was all very overwhelming. But oh well.

I don't really have the time, or the frame of mind, to say much more, so here's a video of the boys performing live. It's a funny coincidence that the performance is from Singapore, eh? Anyway, enjoy! I promise to have some travel photos up before Christmas.

Cut for the Cure, 2011

As promised, here are the before & after photos from yesterday's Cut for the Cure fundraising event. The last number I heard was $11,395 but that will be climbing upward still. We've got a truck full of bottles that still need to be cashed in and some cash donations to count up. You can also still donate online here. So, here they are:

Not as long as it would have been, because I trimmed it up before going to Mexico. Didn't want to have a tan line across my right eye, y'know?

At this point my boss was yelling at me to get up and run so that I could save what remained of my fauxhawk. This was my reaction face.

C'est fini! And terribly cold. Threw on a toque almost immediately after this photo and didn't take it off for most of the day. Wind chill is killer without hair, y'know?

my Year in Review

First off, this idea (and title?) was stolen from a friend of mine. I like to swipe things like that. Here's what I got up to the last 12 months.

Is there an equivalent to Wednesdays in university degrees? As of January, I was officially at the hump-day of my degree program: 5 terms down, 5 to go. I'm not sure whether I was relieved or even more stressed because of it.

February brought Olympic good times as I spent part of my reading break up in Whistler with some friends. Mittens were worn, events were watched, beers were consumes, and I was hassled over and over about where I managed to pick up my Team Canada hoodie.

Did anything happen in March? Anything at all? The only thing I can think of is that I ate copious amounts of phở, but I do that every month. Well, did that until the phở place became blacklisted. I'm not bitter. Not bitter at all.

This picture isn't exactly accurate, but in April the hard drive in my laptop decided to die (finally?) after four years of service. However, it chose to die in the middle of exams and term papers, and in Kel where my XP boot disks were not. Long story short, I'm now an Ubuntu convert with extreme loyalty to Western Digital.

Even though my school year had only just ended, in May I began looking at the opportunities that I would have this year. And what should catch my eye but an exchange program to NUS. I've been obsessing over it since.

The Canadian group Thunderheist broke up in June, and I had the privilege of attending their last show in Vancouver. Honestly, it was one of the best performances I have seen, and I am so sad that they won't be touring or even making music anymore. Oh, and I turned 21. Minor detail.

Although I go to school in the Okanagan, I had never been there in the summer, when it is at the peak of awesome. In July I flew out to Kel and went camping with a bunch of friends and was finally able to experience an Okanagan summer. Rad.

August brought many of my RA friends back together, after four extremely long months apart (besides the ones I saw in July, heh). More rad people, more rad camping, and rad memories to boot. Mad rad.

I got my first tattoo shortly after I turned 19, and a week later I decided that I hated it. After many years mulling designs, I settled on a Russian firebird to cover the terrible tattoo up. I started the tattoo in September, accomplishing 3.5 hours of work in a single sitting.

October, of course, brought Halloween. I had a posse. Initially, I was a dragon. Then I was a dinosaur. By the end of the weekend, I was the Ogopogo. There were no costume changes. I'm just that awesome. We're just that awesome.

The most terrible month in the history of terrible months was November 2010. I had a very brief post about it, sharing the musicians who helped me through it all. I'm still not quite over what happened that month, but hopefully this new year will bring some healing.

I was finished with exams quite early in the month, so December became the month of movies. In theatres I saw Burlesque, Tron:Legacy, and Black Swan. Many others were screened from the comfort of my living room, or as movie marathons at friends' places. I really needed the down time after this year.




Garfield (c) Jim Davis, Whistler photo by me, phở photo by m0nyet, Thunderheist photo by wagepeace, Okanagan photo by trainboysd40, laser tag photo by a friend, tattoo design by laludia, costume photo by a friend, Chris Corner portrait by lora8, Black Swan poster (c) Fox Searchlight Pictures