Category: friends

Dana Brass goes “home”

On By Rick McIn friends, gymnasticsLeave a comment

Dana (Canada) and Fred (France), and their son … Maximum, I believe he’s called … have been living in Vegas for years working in the Circus biz.

When Fred was called away for 5 months by Cirque du Soleil, Dana opted to return home to Saskatchewan.

(If you can’t spell Saskatchewean, never mind you having been there, know that it’s just about the opposite of Vegas in every way.)

Dana posted the story with photos, just in time for Christmas, on her blog:

… So, here it is.

Do you ever wish that you could go home? I mean really home? Back to what feels comfortable, to the people you love and cherish, where you feel safe and secure? Well, this past year, I had that chance and for this I will be eternally grateful to those people who made it happen.

A little background – Fred was going to do the creation of Cirque du Soleil’s Viva Elvis, for 5 months in Montreal. Maxim and I could stay here in Vegas, without health insurance or perhaps we could go along with him. But fate intervened, and my old club, Marian, was in need of a coach for several months to replace the assistant head coach who would be going on maternity leave. The planets aligned and my world came together to make this happen. My dear friends Joan and Bill offered us a place to stay, our neighbours offered to take care of our house, my parents offered their car and to keep Oliver, and my brother came down to help me make the move. …

read the story – Dana Brass – The Gift of Home

Joan and Max

where is Kate?

On By Rick McIn friendsLeave a comment

Tai Pei, Taiwan next week, meeting with some of the performers who will be featured at Lunarfest, taking place in Vancouver January 22-Feb. 28 and coinciding with the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Among the performers are Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, Chai Found Music Workshop, U Theatre and LaFa & Artists Dance Company. Lanterns will be a big component of Lunarfest, whose presentations will be outdoors and free. It should be a spectacular festival that adds greatly to the city’s 2010 party atmosphere.

Perhaps she’ll stop in at Dhaka, Bangladesh to meet me for lunch.

new website for Tyler McGowan

On By Rick McIn friendsLeave a comment

Tyler is a recent graduate from the communication design certificate program—Design Essentials—at Emily Carr University and BCIT in Vancouver, Canada.

He’s also got a Bachelor of Kinesiology with a major in Outdoor Pursuits from University of Calgary. Tyler worked for Arc’teryx outdoor gear in Vancouver, as well.

Design and typography have always been passions, however only recently did I feed that enthusiasm with school. I still love the outdoors—backcountry skiing, rock climbing, riding my road bike, trail running—and the sight of good design or a fresh snowfall gets me excited.

check out his new website – TylerMcGowan.com

Barbecue Academyⓒ – team building through cooking

On By Rick McIn barbecue, food, friendsLeave a comment

From Rockin’

… It’s a day-long corporate teambuilding workshop that teaches participants about championship barbecue in a fun, relaxing atmosphere with plenty of room for socializing.

I think it’s the only event of its kind in the world. …

Barbecue Academy now booking into this fall!

barbecue-teamwork

His team won BEST BURGER IN THE UNIVERSE … or something like that. At Whistler recently.

baby Delaney 2wks old

On By Rick McIn friends, travelLeave a comment

I’m down in Idaho volunteering at Adventure Race Week (just ended) for Dave Adlard.

And volunteer coaching at Funtastics Gymnastics for his wife Lisa.

Those two have been slightly busy since Delaney arrived.

Charlie holding baby Delaney
Charlie holding baby Delaney

Microsoft ROCKS, Andy

On By Rick McIn Apple, friends, product endorsements1 Comment

Happy Birthday to my Adventure Racing buddy Andy, a mucky muck with Microsoft.

Happy Birthday Andy
Happy Birthday Andy

As a present, I’d like to highlight all the things the Evil Empire MS has done right lately, starting with their new search engine.

Bing
Bing

I tried Bing and found it nearly as good as Google. That’s a huge improvement over the old Live Search.

Microsoft is already seeing a Bing bump in market share.

Famously incompetent in advertising, Microsoft has hit a sore spot in their recent Laptop Hunters Apple bashing TV commercials.

Gamers are abuzz talking about the recently debuted MS technology, the badly named “Natal” Motion Control for Xbox 36. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

And I’m hearing great things about the next Zune, the MS iPod competitor.

I’m not yet hearing that “Microsoft is Cool”. But Andy is Cool.

Andy-Apple