Tag: toronto

Arrived at Mesh

Post ImageJust arrived here in the auditorium for Mesh 06, and I’m ready to go! I’ve got my Oilers jersey on, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst all the khakis and dress shirts, but that’s cool. I’ll have lots of pictures to post throughout the day, so check out Flickr. There’s lots of people here already, with more and more coming in.

I haven’t seen as many people I know as I did in Vancouver yet, but that’s to be expected, as most of the attendees here are probably east coasters.

It wasn’t looking good last night after I went to sleep – I woke up coughing and ended up being seriously ill. Fortunately it only lasted for about an hour. I felt fine before, and I felt fine afterward, so maybe it was something I ate? In any case, I’m back to normal.

Off to Mesh in Toronto

Post ImageDickson and I are off for Mesh in Toronto in a few hours. The conference is Canada’s first ever dedicated to Web 2.0, so I am really looking forward to it. As per usual, conference related posts will have the picture shown to the right, allowing you to skip right over them if you want! We should arrive in Toronto just before the start of the Oiler game tonight, so hopefully we won’t miss too much of it.

The conference runs Monday and Tuesday. We’re going to see The Lord of The Rings Broadway show on Wednesday, but aside from that, we’ve kept our schedules open. If you want to get together in TO, give me call (780.619.3864). If you need to get a hold of me for non-urgent things, email will work best.

Next post will likely be from Toronto!

Coke Coffee

Post ImageI am the first person to admit that I am a brand whore. I know it, and I don’t really care. A brand I have a particular allegiance to is Coke. As a bit of a Coca Cola addict, I tend to love all things Coke. The whole New Coke fiasco? I prefer to believe it was brilliantly planned and executed, whether it was or not. I also love Starbucks, both coffee and brand. So when I heard that Coke was going to be testing the coffee beverage waters, I was a little excited and a little torn between the two. The news is actually a little old I guess, but here’s the story from Forbes:

It’s a small deal that could pack a big pop, or just a little fizz. Coca-Cola has quietly leased a 4,000-square-foot retail space in Toronto. While it’s just a storefront, it foreshadows what insiders say is the beverage giant’s dreams of dunking Starbucks in its own brew.

They have trademarked the name FarCoast for this hot beverage experiment, which launched in Toronto at the same time as Coca-Cola Blak, described as a “Coca-Cola Classic-based beverage that finishes with a rich essence of coffee.” Here’s an old press release on Blak that I was able to find. I seem to recall hearing about it, but it seems much further along now.

I’m going to be in Toronto in May, so I will definitely have to check this place out if its up and running.

Read: Forbes

In Toronto

We drove down to Toronto today after leaving Ottawa around 10 AM. We didn’t realize there was an extra drop charge on the car rental, but it still worked out to about the same or slightly cheaper than a flight. It didn’t take too long to get to the city, and the drive was actually pretty nice, but it took longer to find the place we were going! Thank goodness for MapPoint. We had a meeting with a colocation facility (Frontline) which went very well (they were nice enough to meet with us on Saturday). After the meeting, we called our good friend Ashish Patel!

Ashish was nice enough to take us on a tour of the IBM Toronto Software Lab where he works. I took a few pictures, but told him I wouldn’t post them (no need to find out if they have a blogging policy the hard way!). The place is pretty neat and is a world class IBM facility where WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli, Lotus and other software products are created (including the compiler for the upcoming PS3). It was very cool to see where Ashish works, and he has our Podbot picture proudly displayed at his desk!

After the tour we took Ashish for dinner (he chose Boston Pizza which was fine by me) and then we just hung out at his place for a while. Was kind of nice to relax for a couple of days here. We drove to the airport tonight and got a room at the Sheraton so that we don’t have to get up so early to leave tomorrow.

We considered extending our trip and going to New York, but decided maybe next time! We’ll be back in Edmonton tomorrow at 2:30 PM.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention, it rained almost all day, both in Ottawa when we left and in Toronto! Sure beats the snow though 😉