Our Neighborhood Walk Score

A couple of months ago, I came across a web site that works with Google Maps to evaluate how pedestrian-friendly our address is. The more amenities (shops, restaurants, grocers, parks, libraries, fitness centers. etc.) that you can reach within a reasonable radius, the higher your ‘walk score’. Up until recently, there was a glitch in the system that kept it from doing an accurate plot of where addresses were in Canada, but after I alerted them, they’ve fixed the problem (it involved some incorrect conversion of kilometers to miles, an issue that has been known to crash Mars probes, among other things). Now, it’s spot on, and I was pleased to see that our address has a walk score of 88 out of a possible 100.

When I checked our old address, Lilac Court in Cambridge, MA, at Walk Score, we actually had a slightly higher score of 95 (again, out of 100), but that decrease by 7 points hardly feels very significant. When I lived at 2 Chester Street, also in Cambridge, the score was 91, and in undergraduate school, when I lived at 616 Straight Street in Cincinnati, my score was 72. I think my all-time low score (a 0, of course) must have been when I lived on Forest Lawn Road, just outside of Rochester, New York. The closest place to there, on foot, was a bar, well over a mile away along a road with no sidewalk.

As Walk Score points out, “Buying a house in a walkable neighborhood is good for your health and good for the environment.” It’s probably worth adding that these days, with the price of gas being what it is, that it’s clearly good for your wallet as well.

When we first moved here and didn’t have a car, I lost a lot of weight, mainly from the amount of walking we did. We walked everywhere, both for shopping and to get to know the area. Despite not getting to see as much of Vancouver as we might have, I certainly was healthier. After nearly a year of commuting (mostly by car) to IBM, I really put on the pounds, and it’s tough to get them back off again.

Try out their site, and see how your neighborhood fares. In most cases, you’ll probably be able to predict the score, but once or twice I was surprised by either how much lower or higher the score was from what I’d thought it would be.

Happy Birthday, Wordpress

I learned from the news feeds on the Dashboard for this software, that today is WordPress’s ‘official’ fifth Birthday (it was actually 5 years ago back in the beginning of the year). While that’s pretty young, in software years it’s probably all the way into somewhere in the early teens. The five year mark places the software’s birth in 2003 at some of the darkest times of the post-Internet bubble bursting. That such impressive and powerful software could come out of those times is comforting, in a way. No matter how poor the economic climate, new software can survive, and actually begin to grow in complexity (and user base).

At the most recent Northern Voice, the Annual blogging conference held here in Vancouver, the keynote speaker was Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress. I located his keynote (Thanks to At Large Media, who recorded it and posted it), and thought that on this occasion, it might be nice to include it here, so here it is:

So, I imagine that at the moment, the champagne corks are popping in New York City (there is a party planned for 9PM in San Francisco, so we can raise a glass here to them then, as well). Happy Birthday, WordPress, and congratulations to Matt Mullenweg all of the other folks who worked on it.

A Busy Saturday

9:45 AM - Apple Store Opening

We got to Pacific Centre Mall at about 9:30. There were about 50 people ahead of us in line. I found out later from John Biehler that the first guy in line had gotten there at 5:45 AM. After about 20 minutes, the line grew behind us to the end of the corner of Granville and West Georgia. After another few minutes, we moved in to the vestibule (before you get into the Mall, and waited another half our or so. Periodically, the Apple Store Staff, most of the young and about 75% of them guys, would come out and take pictures of the crowd, video them, (interview them in a few cases), and high-five them as they ran out. Finally, at right about 10:05, we were let in:

The staff were now in the store, and a line of them screamed and high-fived us as walked in the store, which was already packed. We each were given T-Shirts (very attractive black ones with Pacific Centre and the Apple Logo in small letters on the front). By comparison, the at the Apple Store opening in Boston years ago, the far more restrained East Coast New England staff merely applauded as we entered; there was no screaming or high-fiving.

We looked around and saw a lot of nice merchandise (nothing particularly extraordinary, though), talked to a few people in the crowds, and then headed out. It was fun to be part of the opening, but really, it was another Apple Store, and would certainly be a place that I visit many times in the future, so there was no need to purchase something in the throngs of people there. Sometimes the best part of an event is being able to say you were there. Besides, we had our next event to go to!

11:00 AM - Eat! Vancouver at BC Place

These photos are of the Barbecue Teams outside BC Place. Inside, we walked the aisles of the biggest food show in Canada. Your entrance fee is more than made up for in free samples to eat and take home, coupons, recipe books, bags and other goodies. Suffice it to say that we didn’t need to get lunch, and probably will have a light dinner as well. We also got lots of other free stuff, including razors, toothpaste, and tote bags. I always have fun at this show, and this year was no exception. Last year, the big product-type that everyone was pushing were all sorts of beverages. While there was still a lot of that this year, I’d have to say the big new addition was a lot more curries. Coconut curry was all the rage, and we must have tasted it at 3 or 4 different booths. Given the rising population of Asian immigrants in this town, it’s not all that surprising, but it’s making a good show even better, with more travel booths, more small family booths selling sauces and spice collections, and quite a few new vendors from Alberta and Manitoba. Canada’s ‘Queen of Maple’, Tracy Moore from Ontario was there, providing samples of some of the 77 products that she had created. (check out everythingmaple.com to see some of them).

We’re home now (and pooped!) Rather than hear Dame Evelyn Glennie (the famous deaf percussionist - yes, you read that right) play with the VSO tonight, I think we’ll try and go on Monday night.

I Agree: Some Words are Off Limits During a Campaign

Even from our vantage point here, outside the US, it’s still hard to ignore how ugly and sordid the campaign for the Democratic Nomination has become. However, I don’t think we ever heard anything as ghoulish as what was reported this morning. Apparently, Hillary Clinton said this during a recent interview:

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it…

I was only eight years old when Bobby Kennedy, the younger brother of JFK, was assassinated. I later learned in school that his campaign was notable partly because of the number of young people who were working for him, and that he was trying very hard to heal and unify a stricken US, disillusioned and fearful (by the trauma of his brother’s recent murder) and involved in a war they did not support. Sound familiar?

The idea that a young leader — a leader who has even been compared to Bobby Kennedy—will soon find a bullet heading for him in late summer, isn’t something we should be forced to contemplate, or discuss, or even hear mumblings about. It’s certainly not what I expected the ‘Talking Heads’ to be chattering about this week. Leaving the thought hanging out there, that ‘Assassinations tend to happen in June, so I better stick around’ (as if the month were like some kind of hurricane season), is bad enough. But to invoke that particular kind of horrible event during an interview while running for President is just sick.

Whenever I talk to Canadians about the US, the subject of violence, in particular gun violence comes up. The US is seen as a violent place, where violent people have easy access to guns, and Americans are perfectly OK with that. Often, this observation is delivered with nervous laughter, as if the country to our South were just some crazy Aunt we hope stays in the cellar, and that some day she won’t come barreling up the stairs with a rifle, doing that slaughtering thing she does from time to time.

What I’ve often felt was the worst thing about America, was the fact that so many Presidents (and presidential candidates) have been either targeted for death or killed. Hillary’s offhanded reference reminds me that I’ve frequently had to mull over the thought that Obama’s running mate had better be someone I trust in the White House, because by golly, he’s going to get shot, sooner or later. I agree with Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. We all must acknowledge that assassination is (for lack of a better word) a loaded word.

Here’s his response (in 2 parts). For those who don’t want to watch the video, I’ll try and find a transcript. Nevertheless, I don’t think it will communicate just how outraged he is, and I am.

Update: It looks like Dick Morris. a former adviser to the Clintons has a similar, if not identical opinion:

Everybody who has thought seriously about the Obama candidacy, including me and probably including the Senator himself, have reflected on the horrible possibility that he would be assassinated. One cannot think about Obama, the Kennedy-esque candidate without worrying about his safety. But we all observe the discipline of not raising the issue in public. We all worry that to do so would be to encourage some maniac to take a shot. Now Hillary has violated this unstated but heretofore universal taboo and brought up the possibility. That is not to say that she is hoping for a murder. But it is to say that the possibility is uppermost in her mind and a significant part of her rationale for staying in the race. And, by raising it, she has made it more possible.

(From dickmorris.com )

I Get To Attend an Opening…Again

Ah yes, I remember it well: The long lines in the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall, the T-Shirts for those nearer to the front of the line, the excitement as the doors finally opened… The Apple Store opening in Cambridge, Massachusetts was one of the first ones that Apple had. We were used to the fact that although we weren’t Cupertino (or even San Francisco), Cambridge was one of the East Coast centres for Apple’s presence. After all, in the early days of Macworld Expo (and I doubt if many people who own an Apple product know this at this point), there was a West Coast Macworld Expo in San Francisco in January and an East Coast Macworld Expo in Boston, usually during the hottest week in August. It wasn’t until that fateful day when Bill Gates’s 20-foot face appeared on the screen behind Steve Jobs during his keynote (and it was hissed by the crowd) that Steve made sure that there would be no more MacWorlds in Boston.

I know, I know, there were probably other reasons, but Jobs’s annoyance at the disagreement of the Boston crowd with his strategy of having Microsoft invest in Apple during their darkest hour probably didn’t help the show. In the following year, Jobs refused to give the keynote, and the show moved to New York City. It continued on a few years there at the Javitts Center, but attendance at that venue quickly petered out. As many have pointed out, the Internet can now disperse information about products far faster and farther than any show floor could. There is now only one MacWorld Expo, each January, and it remains a San Francisco tradition.

When we moved to Vancouver, I missed that sense of being on Apple’s radar. Despite the fact that many here use the Mac (in fact, in recent years it’s increased), I found the local Certified Apple Dealers a bit ramshackle, with relatively small variety of peripherals and messy, poorly maintained display areas. My first job was working for someone who hated the Mac, and he was relieved when I didn’t insist that I use one in his small office (I would have been the only Mac user in the shop). At IBM, we all were assigned Thinkpads, of course. The consultants from Victoria often had Macs. At Blogger and smaller business events, the Mac was predominant. Nevertheless, the absence of the iPhone in Canada, the higher prices for products, and constantly hearing the rumors that Apple Hated Canada didn’t help matters.

Our days of living in a relatively less important spot in the Apple universe are about to end. On this coming Saturday morning, I hope to be in line for the opening of the first Apple store in Vancouver. We’ve been waiting for this for some time. Its going to be in the heart of downtown, at the Pacific Centre Mall (actually the previous location of Holt Renfrew, a high end Department Store, who have moved into new digs nearby). I believe that it’s only the fifth store in Canada, with the other three in Toronto and one in Laval.

To put things in a bit of perspective, another Apple store opened in Boston (across the river from Cambridge, but certainly near our old home) last week. It’s the largest Apple Store in the world, taking up three floors and sporting an all glass facade, on Boylston Street. Oh well, I guess Boston still looms larger in Apple’s realm, but at least we’re no longer off the map.