Tag: edmonton

University of Alberta to buy Bay building

Post ImageThe University of Alberta is gearing up to buy the ancient Hudson’s Bay building in downtown Edmonton. The purchase would solve two major problems – what to do with the aging building in the heart of our downtown, and how to deal with the space crunch for the ever growing university.

If the deal goes through, as many as 1,000 continuing education students would take both day and night classes in the building as early as September 2006.

The university’s research transition facility and its more than 90 academics would also set up shop in the building. They would be joined by 30 workers from TEC Edmonton, a joint partnership between the city and the university, which is associated with the research operation.

I really hope this goes through, and it seems quite likely now. Mayor Mandel has long supported such a deal, and new university president Indira Samarasekera has also placed her support behind the purchase. And the good news is that the university has no plans to make CHUM (which owns A-Channel, and The Bounce) to move out.

I really like the idea – it makes a lot of sense. The LRT directly connects the building to the current university campus, and having a downtown presence will definitely help both businesses and the university. Thank goodness the proposals to turn the building into a parkade were turned down – a downtown University of Alberta location sounds much better for our city.

Read: Edmonton Journal

Edmonton Podcasters Meetup

Post ImageIf you’re into podcasting already or if you want to learn more about it, and you live in Edmonton or nearby, you have to come to the first ever Edmonton Podcasters Meetup! This event is the latest in Tod Maffin’s series of Canadian podcaster roadshows.

It will be Saturday, June 18th at 2:00 PM in the Confederation Lounge of the Fairmont Hotel MacDonald. Bring your favourite podcasting gear and questions. I’ll be talking a bit about how you can participate in The Feed. Please spread the word in your blog or podcast! 🙂

You can bet that Paramagnus will be there, and hopefully we’ll have some goodies to bring along too! We’d be happy to hang out with you if you’re coming – we can show you the office, some Edmonton highlights if you’re new to the city, or whatever you want! Leave a comment or drop me an email.

What are you waiting for? Go RSVP for the event now!

Read: Edmonton Podcasters Meetup

Calgary Tech

Post ImageAs you’re probably aware, I live in Edmonton, so I know all about the infamous and never-ending Battle of Alberta. And yes it totally sucked watching the Flames make it to the finals. While the battle between Edmonton and Calgary is usually thought of in terms of sports, I think it applies to other industries as well, like technology.

Why does Calgary seem so much more favorable to tech firms than Edmonton? Is it really that much closer to the States? Not really, so there must be another reason. While searching for electronics and robotics stuff today, Andrew and I discovered that there are far more related stores in Calgary than here in Edmonton. Heck even the Western Canadian Robot Games were held in Calgary at SAIT this year.

There is other stuff too! Like the programming competition that Dickson and I won back in January – that took place in Calgary, not Edmonton. A search on Google for Calgary gives 23,900,000 results while a similar search for Edmonton returns only 16,300,000 results. Google’s satellite maps show street level detail for Calgary, but not for Edmonton. Techvibes has 3 pages of technology companies for Edmonton, but 6 for Calgary!

I don’t know why, but we’re currently losing the technology battle of Alberta!

Edmonton's Historic Streetcar

Post ImageIt’s amazing how long you can live in a city, and still not explore everything it has to offer. Today was one of those “wow, didn’t realize that existed” days for me. The adult learning class I volunteer for (the students are from the inner-city and learn reading but mostly writing) was taking a field trip today, on Edmonton’s historic streetcar. I had never been on the streetcar before, and actually, I don’t even remember seeing it. I guess that was what amazed me most, that I could be so oblivious.

Mother nature didn’t really want to cooperate, with brief showers every now and then. As soon as we’d go inside, it would be sunny, and yet when we went back out, it would rain again! Our group is a positive bunch though, and the rain didn’t dampen our spirits. My job was to take pictures of the trip, so I ended up with about seventy. Thank goodness for digital!

The streetcar itself was rather interesting! I spoke with the conductor for a while, and he was explaining some of the history. You can read a little about it at the Edmonton Transit site. I found the ride quite short though, I expected it to last longer. It was rather neat to go across the top of the high level bridge, which I cross many times a week by car. The conductor even stopped halfway across so I could snap a few photos. Apparently it is the tallest streetcar bridge in the world.

Next week when the group meets, we’ll write about today’s experience on the streetcar, so I am looking forward to what everyone has to say! If you live in Edmonton and haven’t yet been on the streetcar, why not go for a quick ride? You might even learn something!

Read: Edmonton Radial Railway Society

There can only be one #1, can't there?

In Edmonton, like any other city, we have a number of different radio stations. In the last two years, we’ve had quite a few format changes for both AM and FM stations, and at least two new FM stations have appeared. One of the new stations is The Bounce, at 91.7 on the dial. Their main competition is 96X at 96.3, one of the old stations. It is these two stations I want to take a look at.

As you can see from the Bounce website, the station advertises itself as “Your New #1.” That seems logical I suppose, considering they are new, but are they really #1? Their arch rival, 96X, advertises itself as “Edmonton’s #1 Hit Music Station.” How can they both be #1? Sounds like one of the two stations has to be wrong!

The two radio stations are making a claim about their position in the radio market in Edmonton. According to the Competition Bureau here in Canada, a misleading representation about market position is prohibited:

Representations about the nature, size and market position of a business…fall within section 52(1)(a), which prohibits representations that are false or misleading in a material respect. Words such as “only” or similar claims of the exclusivity or superiority of a supplier should not be used if the result is to deceive or mislead.

I think it is quite intuitive that two stations cannot be #1 at the same time, so one of the stations must be making a misleading representation! Unfortunately, I do not have any data on listeners, but I would assume that 96X has the largest part of the market, especially considering The Bounce is so new. Now I suppose by saying “YOUR New #1” and not “EDMONTON’s New #1”, The Bounce may be on safe footing, despite the fact that by “your” they probably mean “edmonton’s” anyway.

In the grand scheme of things, they could both advertise using the same words and it wouldn’t affect my life in the slightest (especially thanks to my Zen Touch). I’ll still flip between stations when the commercials start. I just think it’s interesting to be aware of how these companies market themselves.

Velvet Revolver Rocks Edmonton!

Just got back from the big Velvet Revolver concert here in Edmonton. Megan and I decided a while back that this would be one show we’d regret not going to if we didn’t get tickets and boy were we right. It was awesome! The Bear (local rock station) had people calling in after, and one guy said “that’s the way a rock show is supposed to be done.” I couldn’t agree more.

First things first – I absolutely love Scott Weiland. That guy was born to perform. And I don’t know why people get so excited about Usher and his moves, Scott is pretty damn unique himself. You can’t help but watch him and because he has so much energy on stage it just drains you! He swings and twirls and sings his heart out, the way it should be done.

What can you say about Slash? The guy is a crowd pleaser. And he saved the hat until the very end, which was kinda cool actually. He brings the catchy sounds to the music, and well, you gotta love Slash! The other “main” guy, as I would call them, is Duff McKagen, also formerly of GNR and he too looks, walks and talks like a rock star. Slash, Duff and Scott all bounce all over the stage, but at one point they played side by side. At that moment it was like “wow, this is the real deal!” Not to take anything away from Matt Sorum and Dave Kushner, but when I think Velvet Revolver, I think Slash, Scott and Duff, and they delivered.

The stage was quite impressive, and the lights must have cost a fortune. I am quite young, and I haven’t been to many concerts, but I’d say that me seeing VR must have been like the first time people saw KISS on stage. Just totally different than anything you’ve seen before. I’ve never seen such lights and energy! They had two big screens on either side of the stage that alternated between cameras taping the stage and some stock footage, most of it either the VR girl, or DNA, which was kinda odd – haven’t figured out why they’d show the double helix at a hardcore rock and roll concert.

And of course, there were all the other crazy antics you’d expect from a rock concert. Lots of noise, drunk people, hot girls, girls flashing the entire crowd, security guards chasing people, you name it. They were even searching people at the door, pat downs and everything. The one thing I was surprised to see was so many young people. Three Days Grace opened, so that might have something to do with it, but I expected to see a mostly older crowd out to see Slash and the boys.

Regardless, it was an awesome show! I’ve had their album Contraband for a while now, but I am very glad we went to see them live tonight, it was intense!