Good time so far…

Well, Vancouver has been a blast so far.  I’ve been meeting a lot of people in my industry, which is a good thing.  I’ve also been able to facilitate three discussions that look to be pretty fruitful, and have had the chance to network with some folks I’ve met in the past but haven’t really talked with to any extent. 

I’ve also had a chance to explore some of Vancouver, which is always a bonus.  On Monday, I rented walked the sea wall walk from the street that my hotel is on through the marina and over to Stanley Park.  Near there, I rented a bike and rode around the park a couple of times.  It’s a little over five miles around the park once.  I stopped a lot on the first loop to look at things and take some pictures.  The second loop was pretty much just for the fun of it.  I also took an alternate path at the end to explore some more of the park.  It is a pretty extensive park, and I only had a chance to view some of it.  It was good fun, though.  On my way back up to the hotel, I found a small market and picked up some fruit.  I also found an awesome Korean place, so I had a great lunch. 

I explored some of the other areas of the city with others from our group on Monday evening, checking out an area called Gastown.  This area was named after a guy whose nickname was "gassy".  Yeah, that’s probably not a nickname one wants to actually have.  Anyway, most all of the shops in the area were closed by the time we were finished with dinner.  We stopped first at the "Vancouver View" tower, which is a short version of the CN Tower.  When I say a short version, I mean that there are now taller buildings in the city than the tower.  Actually, most of the new buildings in the city are as tall or taller than the tower.  🙂  It was pretty funny.  On our way through the neighborhood after dinner, we heard a clock playing the Westminster melody on something that sounded vaguely like a caliope.  As we walked down the street, we encountered what is called "the steam clock".  This is a clock powered partially by steam, and it also uses the steam to play a set of pipes at the top of its case.  Highly awesome is all I have to say about that. 

Tuesday was a busy day.  I unfortunately missed a trip to English Bay to watch the sunset with some of our group, as I was busy with a required meeting at the end of the day, and everyone had already departed by the time I got in touch with them.  I ended up finding this Thai place that was highly recommended in a number of different books.  More awesome food.  Yum. 

Wednesday was a few more events to attend, including the evening social banquet.  This was good fun.  It was a wine tasting dinner, with a local Canadian wine celebrity talking us through the meal.  I don’t often have duck, and even when I do, it is only rarely something about which I’d write anything good.  This duck was absolutely perfect.  This was another good evening, and was occasion to facilitate a few good conversations between folks who had never met but who work through us. 

Today was the big voting meeting that I had to be here to attend.  After that was a special dinner for some of the sponsors.  It was held at a great place in Stanley Park.  I understand that people wait four months for reservations at this place.  The wine flowed quite freely, and hte food was great.  The wait staff was really eager to make sure that our wine glasses never fell below a certain level.  I don’t know how many bottles we finally polished-off, but there was a good pile of them that I saw towards the end.  We were all ferried to and from the place in stretch limos.  It was a great time. 

Now I’m tired.  I have a presentation that I need to spend some time finishing tomorrow for Sunday.  There are a few conference events tomorrow, but I likely won’t make it to any of them–we’ll have to see.  I absolutely need to bust-out the rest of that presentation.  I also have to finish processing the pictures from earlier this week.  Now I probably need to get some sleep.  🙂 

jonathan