Helleborus “Pink Frost”, with Campanula and Acorus in the background. Image credit: Meredith Brehaut
I garden the boulevard strip between our front fence and the city sidewalk. Doing so presents challenges. Dogs are involved. Taller plant selections attract p-mail communications; smaller ones endure trampling. After a few years of trial and error, here’s the situation out there: read more »
Two weeks ago we had a discussion about cyclists riding on arterial roads instead of the City of Vancouver designated bike routes. Coincidentally, later that week ICBC released their statistics on reported bike/car crashes from 2006 to 2010. Shortly after releasing those statistics, a Vancouver programmer, Eric Promislow, created an online interactive map showing those collisions. The map is pretty interesting. Among other things, it highlights just how dangerous the Burrard St Bridge remains.
In light of our discussion about riding on arterials, I took the stats and looked at how many collisions occurred on the arterial roads in Kits, and how many occurred on the bike routes.
Get the hard numbers on bike routes vs. arterials after the jump.
We’re excited to announce that Kitsilano.ca has been nominated for the 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards in the Placeblog category.
The 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards are a juried competition with nominations open in 37 categories between January 1st and October 31st, 2011. The nominees shortlist was announced on December 1st and the winners will be announced on January 1, 2012.
Last year Kitsilano.ca was chosen as a top five finalist for the Placeblog category and in 2008 we were named the 4th Best Local Blog in Canada. Maybe this year is our year.
Just like the annual Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center in New York City, you can be part of Vancouver Westside first Christmas tree lighting and festivities at the Boathouse Restaurant on Kits Beach.
On Saturday, December 10th join the Kitsilano Chamber of Commerce and the Boathouse Restaurant for appetizers, refreshments and family activities as they light a 30 foot Christmas Tree.
The event runs from 5:00pm to 10:oopm but the tree lighting is at 6:00pm.
This is a guest post by Suzanne Ahearne, a multi-media journalist, digital storytelling instructor and Master of Journalism student at UBC. Suzanne recently covered senior homelessness and the election for UBC’s Thunderbird. Suzanne interviewed 64-year-old Kenneth (photographed by Suzanne to the right), who journeys from Alberta to Vancouver by Greyhound every winter, and often stays in Kitsilano.
I met Kenneth early one Sunday morning in Kitsilano a few weeks ago. It was a week or so after Remembrance Day. He was pushing his shopping cart along the sidewalk and stopped to pick up a poppy. He pulled out the pin and dropped it in a nearby garbage can. Then he took out a plastic bag from his pocket and put the poppy in it. I noticed that the bag was full of poppies. I couldn’t help asking . . . why? This is the story he told.
The text below is a transcription of part of the conversation (more of an impromptu interview really) I recorded on Broadway. I hope today is the beginning of a better season for Kenneth. read more »
The Globe and Mail named Lululemon’s Christine Day CEO of the year. Day has been CEO since 2008. She came to Lululemon after 20 years at Starbucks, where she was president of the Asia Pacific Group of Starbucks Coffee International.
Day lives in Vancouver with her husband and the youngest of her three children. Befitting her role, she does yoga and lives the Vancouver lifestyle: hiking and biking and walking the seawall.
The Globe reports that Lululemon stock climbed to almost $60 this fall, up over 280% from when Day joined the company, and a whopping 250% gain year over year.
Read the full story here.
The Ridge Theatre; Showtimes for the week of Nov 25 to Dec 1
Daily at: 4:00, 7:00, 9:10 Plus: Saturday & Sunday at 1:45
Note: I saw this before the official launch date and I enjoyed it immensely. I’d love to hear what you think.
Synopsis:
In 1956, 23-year-old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant for six months on the set of “The Prince and the Showgirl.” The film famously united Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), who was at the same time, on a honeymoon with her new husband, playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott).
When Arthur Miller left England, Colin had the opportunity to introduce Marilyn to some of the pleasures of British life; an idyllic week in which he escorted a celebrity desperate to get away from her retinue of Hollywood hangers-on and the pressures of work. Based on Clark’s memoir book, My Week with Marilyn.
Director: Simon Curtis
It’s a situation you see more and more often: an adult heading along the bike-way with one or more kids along for the ride. Getting the kids to school, daycare, or the babysitter’s by bike is becoming a more frequent activity for many. The introduction of the dedicated bike lanes downtown has led at least one person I know to sell their car, and she now takes her child to daycare via bike.
There are several options to get your kids from point A to point B with a bike. There are additional seats you can attach to your bike, front-mounted or rear-mounted, there are trailers, and finally there are so-called “tag-alongs.” read more »
Reported by Global BC – A local non-partisan group is encouraging people to “exercise” their right to vote by offering free bike rides to polling stations on November 19.
Adrian Sinclair with “Get Your Vote On” (GYVO), a volunteer-run organization that targets younger voters, says they came up with the idea of #bike2ballots after a successful pilot run during the federal election in May.
This time around, a fleet of tandem bikes will pick people up from stops in Davie Village, Commercial Drive, Main & 49th and Kitsilano, and drop them off at polling stations. A limited number of voters will be picked up from their homes.
To get a free ride to the polls, voters can sign up on GYVO’s website. You can even choose a time slot that is most convenient for you.
On Saturday, Nov. 19, Vancouver (along with every other BC municipality) goes to the polls. Cycling in Vancouver is a surprisingly hot-button issue in local politics, which is great because it raises the awareness of cycling in the city. It helps that, in general, Vancouver politicians are reasonably cycling-friendly and quite progressive in their approaches to cycling.
The two mainstream candidates for mayor, incumbent Gregor Robertson (Vision Vancouver) and Suzanne Anton (NPA), are both committed cyclists. Ms. Anton has completed a number of long-distance rides including the Vancouver-Whistler GranFondo. Mayor Robertson is well-known for commuting around the city by bicycle, often with city staff and Councillors in tow. read more »
My Week With Marilyn
