Tag: edmonton

That's How Refineries Roll

Gas prices here in Edmonton are about $1.05 right now, and they were $1.18 in Vancouver on the weekend. Most people generally expect the prices to keep going up, perhaps quite dramatically in the near future. What would you do if you were an extremely profitable oil company faced with that reality?

Petro-Canada Refinery

If you guessed “burn excess gas and pollute the environment”, you’d be right!

That bright orange spot is from the flames atop one of the “flares” as they are called (I think) at a refinery near Edmonton. I believe most refineries will tell you that burning off excess gas is a common practice, though the flames I saw tonight were unusually large. They were burning at 6:30 PM when I drove by heading north, and they were still going at around 9:45 PM when I took these.

These photos are from the Petro-Canada refinery on the southeast side of the city. According to the company’s website, the site processes 135,000 barrels of crude oil per day (switching this year to 135,000 barrels of oil sands feedstock per day).

Petro-Canada Refinery Petro-Canada Refinery Petro-Canada Refinery Petro-Canada Refinery Petro-Canada Refinery

H.M.S. Pinafore

On Thursday evening Sharon and I went to the Edmonton Opera’s production of H.M.S. Pinafore. The two act comic opera is a famous one by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. I’d never been to the opera before, so it was definitely a new experience for me. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I have to say I’m incredibly grateful that there were subtitles. Here’s the Edmonton Opera’s teaser:

Renowned Edmonton playwright Stewart Lemoine teams up with Edmonton Opera to create a brand-new production with a brand-new take on Gilbert and Sullivan. Join Little Buttercup, Ralph, Josephine, Sir Joseph and the sailors of the high seas in a comedy that sings the songs of love and silliness, and pokes fun at society too: British satire at its best!

haslam in pinafore
Jeff Haslam as Sir Joseph Porter

Sharon is an Explorer’s Club member which means that first and foremost, our tickets were cheaper! We also got free pizza and beer during the intermission. Before the show we went to a thirty minute “introduction to the opera” session where we learned a little about the plot in Pinafore and some of the history behind it. That was really helpful, and definitely interesting.

Only one cast member, Monica Huisman who played Josephine, was what I would call “over the top opera.” I couldn’t understand a word she was singing, and her voice was incredibly shrill. My favorite was definitely Jeff Haslam who played the crazy Sir Joseph Porter. I’ve seen Haslam act many times here in Edmonton, and he was excellent again in the opera. He stole the show, without a doubt.

I’m sure opera afficionados would gasp at the idea of subtitles, pizza, and beer, but it made the experience much more enjoyable for a first-timer like myself. Opera is kind of like a musical that you can’t understand, and I’m not such a fan of musicals in the first place.

I never would have guessed that the experience would be educational, but it was. Not only did I learn a bit more about opera in general, but I never quite realized the impact it has on our culture. Heck, there’s an entire Wikipedia entry dedicated to the cultural influence of Gilbert and Sullivan. And I learned this popular exchange:

“What, never?”
“No, never!”
“What, never?”
“Well, hardly ever!”

Just as funny now as it was a hundred years ago! That’s probably why Pinafore is still popular – it’s timeless entertainment all around.

Daryl Katz wants a new arena in Edmonton

rexallDaryl Katz, founder of the Rexall pharmacy company, announced yesterday that he had acquired 100% of the outstanding shares in the Edmonton Investors Group (EIG), making him the new owner of the Edmonton Oilers (pending league approval which is widely expected to come without any problems). Here’s what the somewhat reclusive Katz said in yesterday’s statement:

“Like the EIG and all Edmontonians, I want what is best for the team, the
community and the city. I want to help secure a world-class building and
continue the EIG’s legacy by bringing the Cup back to Edmonton.”

Today he held a press conference with select members of the media, which I listened to on 630ched. It was the first time since he started pursuing the Oilers last March that we’ve heard him speak about his motivations. I found most of his answers to be fairly simplistic, without much meat behind them. He said “I can’t comment on that” quite a few times.

One thing he did make clear, however, is that he is eager to see a new arena built in the heart of downtown. He wants the Oilers to play at the centre of the community.

Katz has suggested he’d be willing to commit $100 million towards the construction of a new arena. With estimates for the project ranging from $250 million to over $500 million (and possibly as high as $1 billion depending on the scope), there’s a lot of funding that will need to come from somewhere else. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe it should come from taxpayers. All Katz said today was that “there are lots of ways to fund real estate.”

I’m glad Katz is the new owner of the Oilers. Almost everyone associated with the team seems to like him, and I don’t think there’s any question that he’s got Edmonton’s best interests at heart. He also seems fairly level-headed about things, making clear today that he wants to read a pending report on the feasibility of a new arena before making any decisions.

That said, I hope his eagerness to build a new rink in Edmonton’s downtown does not turn into blind determination. Katz needs to be able to say no if it becomes clear that a new arena will only happen with significant public funding, at the expense of other, more important public projects.

Freezing Cold & Lots of Snow

Temperatures have been icy cold today here in Edmonton. When I went to work it was minus 30, with a wind chill of minus 46. And it got worse during the day! I had to shovel my way from the house to my car, thanks to the crazy snow drifts.

This graph shows the temperature here in Edmonton since midnight. Nasty isn’t it?

The Edmonton Journal is reporting that there were 106 crashes causing property damage today. There were only 4 collisions causing injury however, compared with 8 a week ago.

109th Street Outside the office Where I usually park

We weren’t the only ones experiencing the cold today. Calgary hit minus 49 with the wind chill this morning, and indeed most of Alberta experienced similar temperatures. I heard that St. Albert was minus 62 with the wind chill this morning. Even Yellowknife, where my parents live, was colder than normal today with temperatures of around minus 40 and closer to minus 50 with the wind chill.

I’m working from home tomorrow. It took forever to get to work today, and when I did I almost got stuck! My co-workers ended up turning around and going home. I don’t expect conditions will improve much overnight. City officials claim it’ll be more of the same until later this week. For everyone using transit, officials say buses are running up to 30 minutes late, which means prepare for an hour. Express buses are making more stops than normal, however. Garbage collection is also going to be delayed, apparently.

For everyone in the Edmonton area, here are some sites you may want to keep an eye on:

Stay warm and drive safe!

Bon Jovi Rocked!

Bon Jovi!Last night I went to the Bon Jovi concert here in Edmonton with Megan, Riva, and Ken. My parents flew down from Yellowknife for the concert too, which was pretty sweet. Megan saw Bon Jovi in Calgary during the summer, and she said last night’s show was probably better. I have to say, I was really impressed!

There was a really wide range of ages in the audience. If you couldn’t tell by looking at faces, you certainly could by the high number of lighters in the crowd! At JT it was almost 100% cell phones, but not so last night. Hedley opened the show, but I think the young people were still there for Bon Jovi.

Megan was the photographer for most of my photos, as she has steadier hands than I do. My new camera worked pretty darn well, I have to say, even zoomed in 15x.

It was the most expensive concert I’ve ever been to (~ $160) but it was well worth it.

So long 712!

Brand New BroomAs you may know, for the last few weeks Dickson and I have been moving out of the office. It was early 2005 that we decided we needed a central place to setup shop and started looking around for one. We ended up at the Empire Building on 101st Street and Jasper Avenue, a building I had been in before. We moved into Suite 712 in late April. There were lots of reasons we chose this particular building – among other things, it is secure, renovated, and well-connected (can get any kind of Internet connection in there).

The biggest positive about the location is also the biggest negative – you can’t get more central than the Empire Building.

I loved being right smack dab in the middle of downtown Edmonton. The Jasper Avenue address looks good on marketing materials, for one thing. It feels like the place a business should be. More importantly, it is easy to get to from pretty much anywhere in the city. The office was more than a place for Dickson and I to code…it became a meeting place for us and our friends. Going to the hockey game? Let’s meet at the office and take the train. Out for dinner? Meet at the office and then we’ll go. It was quite handy!

But being so central has it’s drawbacks too. Parking is pretty much nonexistent…I don’t want to think about how much gas I wasted driving around looking for a meter. There’s also the issue of Edmonton’s street people – not a major problem, but sometimes an annoyance. And the biggest drawback of all – cost.

That’s the main reason we decided to bid farewell to the office. We’ve changed quite a bit in the last two and a half years, and we just couldn’t justify the cost any longer. Our servers are in a data center now, and we’ve been working remotely more and more frequently. As an Internet+software company, we don’t really have visitors in meatspace.

That said, I still think there is value in having an office, and we may find a new one before long. Being in the same room usually can’t be beat when you’re working to solve a problem. We certainly accomplished a lot in 712 over the years. A new office will certainly be somewhere else though, with a smaller monthly bill and lots of free parking 🙂

Moving is hard work. It feels like we have been moving out of the office for months! Tonight I finally handed over the keys and access cards, making it official. The broom in the picture above was one of the last things we moved out. It’s kind of funny, because neither of us remembers buying it, and it clearly hasn’t been used (the building had a cleaning staff). Moving is definitely a good opportunity to clean house.

Now it’s finally finished. Nothing left to move, and we’re officially a virtual company again. So long 712!

Make elections greener – Internet voting!

Today is election day here in Edmonton. Today is also Blog Action Day. Better together? Let’s find out! It should be pretty clear that election day means we’re voting for our city mayor, councillors, and school board trustees, but what is Blog Action Day all about? From the website:

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

This is my entry for Blog Action Day, and as you may have guessed by now, I am going to talk about the election in relation to the environment. I just heard on the news that the turnout for this election is expected to be an abysmal 20%. Are people really not interested, or is it just too difficult to vote? Maybe a bit of both, but the process can certainly be made simpler. Not to mention more environmentally friendly or green.

There are two major problems with the way we vote now:

  1. So much paper is wasted. There are forms to organize the volunteers. There are forms to register you. The ballot you fill out. The second ballot you fill out because you screwed up on the first one. The documents with results. You get the idea. Voting today is really not an environmentally friendly thing to do. And don’t forget the campaigns either – thousands and thousands of flyers, posters, signs, etc.
  2. It’s too difficult. I worked from 9 to 5 today, and it took me until 6 PM to get back to the area of the city I live in to vote. So I didn’t have much time at all considering the polls close at 8 PM. Not only that, but once you get to the voting station you have to deal with three dinosaurs before you even get a ballot. Seriously, why do three individuals have to look at my drivers license in order to let me vote? Isn’t one person good enough? I’m not kidding about the dinosaurs part either. I was easily the youngest person in the room by about 35 years. It’s great that they are helping out, but they move slowly, have to squint at the fine print on the drivers license, and worst of all they look at me like they’ve never seen someone under 40 going to vote (and of course they must comment on that too). Just let me get in and get out!

It doesn’t have to be this way! We could make elections more environmentally friendly and efficient by getting rid of the archaic system we use now and adopting Internet voting. There are of course examples of successes with Internet voting and concern over potential problems that may arise. I won’t get into any of that here, but you can read the very complete Wikipedia entry if you’re interested. I simply look at it this way:

  • Is the Internet good enough for Revenue Canada and the banks? Yes.
  • Would voting over the Internet have a positive impact on the environment? Yes.
  • Would voting over the Internet be faster and easier for voters than the current process? Yes.

Good enough for me. I think it’s time we moved one of our society’s most important institutions into the 21st century. I think it’s time we started voting over the Internet!

realDEVELOPMENT_07 Edmonton

Post ImageMSDN is touring the country again, this time to talk about strategies for today’s web application development. They’ll be in Edmonton at SilverCity in WestEd (actually I guess it’s Scotiabank Theatre now) on October 25th:

If you are a Canadian Web developer, this free event is for you. We will look at common challenges such as security, accessibility & usability, AJAX, Javascript debugging, using patterns to improve your development process and working with external services. In a nutshell, this is a two-part tips, tricks and tools presentation.

It will be focused primarily on Microsoft technologies (like ASP.NET), however if you develop on other platforms, you can get a lot of value from the event in terms of techniques and free tools for debugging your client side code to load testing your websites. This event is sponsored by MSDN Canada.

I like that they mention right on the details page that tools like Fiddler and the Developer Toolbar will be demonstrated. The page also mentions HTML and Javascript by name! It’s not your typical MS-marketing-speak event, that’s for sure.

I was on the community conference call where Microsoft solicited feedback on their web-related developer events, and the key point was to go beyond Visual Studio and ASP.NET proper. It definitely looks like they listened!

Read: MSDN

Bid on an Oilers jersey signed by the entire team!

Post ImageTomorrow evening is the 2nd Annual RestorAction Charity Gala, presented by the Youth Restorative Action Project (YRAP) and the Elizabeth Fry Society of Edmonton (EFRY). In addition to comedy, live music, and dancing, the event features a silent auction. One of the big ticket items in the auction is an Edmonton Oilers jersey.

This isn’t just any Oilers jersey though – it is signed by the entire team! If that doesn’t make you drool hockey fans, nothing will.

Here’s the best part: you can make a bid even if you aren’t attending the gala tomorrow! To do so:

  1. Come up with your maximum bid amount.
  2. Email it to me at mastermaq@gmail.com no later than 3:45 PM tomorrow, October 13th, 2007.

Everyone attending the gala will have the final opportunity to bid, between 6:30 PM and 9:30 PM tomorrow. There are still a few tickets available ($70) if you’d like to attend.

Happy bidding!

UPDATE: The jersey ended up going for $675! Thanks everyone!

Read: RestorAction

Electronic Arts acquires Edmonton's BioWare

Post ImageElectronic Arts today announced that they have acquired Edmonton’s very own BioWare Corp. in a deal that could be worth $860 million USD. More accurately, EA is buying VG Holding, the parent company of both BioWare and Pandemic Studios. From GameSpot:

VG Holding Corp. was formed in late 2005 when esteemed Canadian role-playing game studio BioWare formed the aforementioned “superdeveloper” with Californian shop Pandemic Studios. The union was funded by Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm with rock star Bono on its board, and brokered by then-Elevation board member John Riccitiello, who became BioWare/Pandemic’s CEO.

A number of articles today have mentioned the fact that John Riccitiello left Elevation in February to become the CEO of Electronic Arts. So essentially, he has purchased BioWare and Pandemic twice. He must really like their games!

This is a great move for Electronic Arts. I’m sure fans of both BioWare’s and Pandemic’s games will have some reservations about the deal though. Will EA cause the studios to lose their mojo? I guess we’ll find out. Both companies will become part of the EA Games division, but Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka will continue to run BioWare, and Andrew Goldman, Josh Resnick, and Greg Borrud will stay in charge of Pandemic, according to GameSpot. At least for the time being.

The official BioWare press release is here (PDF).

Read: GameSpot