At the Art Show

Tonight my wife and I went to our son's one-man art show at the Downtown Eastside Gallery. This is a very small eclectic gallery whose sole reason is to show art in whatever fashion to those whose interest is art. Period. No politics or seeing what is in vogue or "in". It is a labour of love by 3 individuals who own the gallery and just want to see art and all of its benefits presented to the public at large. One of the co-owners said she pours money into it because to her it is important. When you meet people who are ardent in what they do and believe what they do is important you realize you have come to the right place.

Now who would attend a small gallery on the edge of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on Powell and Victoria Drive? Young unpretenious people who make viewing art part of their social life. They want to be together and share. There is a vibrancy in what they see, in what they discuss and their lack of inhibition in discussing art. This is the new generation that is becoming part of the world of many. They are not leaving the culture we live in but in many way creating it in a fashion that at times is foreign to us who are children of the 60's. In some small way it does remind you of that time. But the war we saw and heard about (Vietnam) is now invisible and unknown. It is the quiet world of the powerful that they want to be different from. They show a concern for all and not a concern for a few. It was an interesting and refreshing experience.

Telephone banking...

This week we finally finnished installing the new telephone banking product. To the project team go all the thanks. They pulled it off without any major hitches. And the programmers at SmartSolution and TelTek were great. We just kept plowing through the bits and pieces that needed small fixes. The product is much easier to use and managing the system is simple with a lot of options.

The first option, and probably the most difficult, was implementing bill payments via voice. Once you get to that sub-menu of paying bills you can do everything via voice. No more buttons. It is really strange to pay Telus just by speaking to a telephone handset. The next step is to have all the menus activated by and chosen by voice.

And now we begin implementing a new internet banking system, compliments of Credit Union Central of B.C. We basically clone our current system and then work at developing various products and services i.e. electronic bill presentment with payment, delivery and archiving our monthly statements in PDF format, secure messaging, and the list goes on. Our major goal is to develop products that gives the user the ability to choose delivery and product variables through the internet banking product. For example if you don't want your statement mailed then you should be able to choose to turn that function off. You should be able to choose an electronic delivery method instead. And you should be able to do that anytime. Want to be notified when your payroll deposit comes into your account via e-mail or text messaging? (We have our MemberNote doing that now but just for ATM and Interac transactions). Again you should be able to choose that through an internet banking program. We hope in some small way we can begin to develop some creative ways of banking. And with today's technology, why not?

Election Day tomorrow

So we get out and vote tomorrow. And the question most of us have in our mind -- Who to vote for? Liberal - do they deserve a vote given the scandals. Conservative - who knows what Harper is going to do. NDP - they won't get elected in but are they to become the king makers. I haven't heard anything from any of them other than the typical election promises which in 6 months are so conveniently forgotten.
So we vote and wait. Maybe it will all be decided by the rest of Canada. The election could be over by 8:01 p.m. Monday night. So what else is new?

Rain?

Who really wants to be around for a new record of consecutive days raining? Only the locals!

Apple released there new Intel based powerbook this last week. Looks like a new cycle of upgrades for both software and hardware. The Classic operating system is unofficially dead.

Bad manners. It would seem to me that much of what we encounter on any given day can only be attributed to bad manners. If you try to figure out why a person has done something you can only end up confused. Never mind trying to understand their actions. In the final analysis it was just bad manners = rudeness.

Northern Voice published their speakers list. Julie Leung, Nancy White, Tim Bray will interview Technorati founder/CEO David Sifry, exploring the current state of the blogosphere and what might be next on the Net's agenda, etc. etc. Mt. Lehman Credit Union is one of the sponsors this year. The ideas and discussions at this blogging gathering are unbelievable.

Meetings uh?

Today I had to go to a meeting. It was a day off and there was a meeting to go to. Luckily it was raining, raining very hard.

It was a good meeting as meetings go. There was an agenda, someone was taking minutes, the coffee and cookies were pretty good and there was a time when the meeting should end. The discussions were pretty lively and we came to some conclusions by consensus.

But for the life of me I don't know what number the meeting would be if all meetings attended had been given a number. 2,500? more? So what is the deal with meetings anyway. Sometimes we have to realize that we are social animals. We live in the world of digital and analogue communications. Today the meeting was with real people and sometimes that is what we really need — seeing, communicating and laughing with a group of people. That is what life is about at times, not feeling alone and part of a group of people. Not a bad outcome of any meeting.

The order of interesting sites

CBC Radio3 - Very interesting radio. Just when you thought that there was no "new" music this radio broadcast starts bringing Canadian bands to light.

CBC Radio1 - From this site you can choose which part of the country you are in. Then listen. For everyone in Vancouver you can listen to programs up to 3 hours before they air here.

PigPog - An interesting site with the title line "PigPog is all about being creative - anywhere - and sharing what you create with others." It is filled with interesting links about something we can all use.

D*I*Y Planner - Paper, productivity & passion - A site dedicated to people who see the value of paper as a medium for planning, productivity, creative expression, and exploring ideas. This is the home of the D*I*Y Planner kit. It brings a fresh perspective into the question "Does everything have to be digital?"

Moleskinerie - One of my favourite sites. Everything and anything to do with the little journal called a Moleskine. If you aren't aware of these little books this will tell you a bit about them and what people are using them for.

To be continued...

New Years

So an end to another year. Does this mean another list of resolutions that have a feint hope of being realized? This year's list did not seem minished. Such a personal list rarely is shared and usually forgotten.
After resolutions we have the futurists who describe in some convoluted manner something either preposterous or something we already know. These are usually funny.
And finally the "previous year at a glance". This is sometimes photographs, always headline news stories, obituaries (which usually bring on the thought "I didn't know he/she died!") and the best of books/CDs/DVDs/whatever.
Years change but our process of closing a year and beginning a new one is usually the same.

Hey - have a happy new year!