Gus Digital

As some of you have known, I had cancelled my Rogers contract a month ago to get my iPhone.  At the time it was the only way for a new and current client of Rogers to get an iPhone, before waiting for their “upgrade window” to come (usually 12 months).  A week after my cancellation and move over to Fido (to keep my current number), Rogers changed their policy to allow current clients with a good standing record after 3 months to upgrade their phone.

I wasn’t too pleased with them, yet again, and filed a complain with the Better Business Bureau.  I had thought nothing would come of this.

On Friday I received a call from Rogers regarding my complain. Rogers, being them, played dumb and asked me why I should get my money back when I “signed a contract”.  I quickly let “Rosie” know that the reason I was wanting my money back was because they changed the rules a week after I cancelled.  Rosie of course was saying that I had already a subsidized phone and thus was responsible for the $400 cancellation fee.  I told her Rogers themselves said the only way for me to get the iPhone was to cancel my contract. She asked me for proof of this. I wasn’t sure I had the email still from Rogers that told me to do just that, so she offered to return $200 back to me to satisfy the complaint.

I have found the email which stated:

In your recent email, you have informed us that you are disappointed
that you cannot upgrade your current cell phone to the new iPhone.

We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

You would be able to upgrade to the iPhone after 12 months of your
current contract as we allow an upgrade once a year if needed.

The iPhone 3G pricing is competitive and as you’ve read, it’s a heavily
subsidized model:

The maximum early cancellation fee is $400, the 8GB model is $199,
that’s $600. To compare, that’s the original price of iPhone 2G and this
one is twice as fast.

$600 is also well within the range of a variety of our unsubsidized
smartphones today (BB Curve $549.99; Nokia N95 is $689.99).

Gotcha!

I think I’ll have my full $400 back please and thank you! I’ll be calling Rosie on Monday and send her the lovely email.

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For the longest time I never had any interest of heading to Las Vegas.  The main reason is that I’m not a gambler.  The most money I spend at a casino is $20 and it usually is lost within an hour.  Lately I’ve been more interested in going just for the sites and sounds of the city more than the gambling.

I was going to head down during Blog World Expo in 2 weeks and I was on the verge of booking everything, but alas Russ had his vacation time mixed up and he actually has the week after off.  Alas I won’t be attending any of Blog World Expo this year and I won’t be hanging out with some good pals from Vancouver who are heading down during that time.

Since I’m planning on heading down the week after BWE, I’m also missing BarCamp in Vancouver.

I’m kinda torn.  Should I stay for BarCamp and then head to Vegas the next day, or go to Vegas for the weekend and miss BarCamp.  I also don’t want to take more days off work then I need to as I’m planning a bigger trip in January.

To all my friends that will be attending BWE and BarCamp, have a great time! I know I will be checking in your blogs to see what is going on!

UPDATE:

Ok I’m now booked and will be staying at Treasure Island and looks like a few good shows are happening at the resort itself!  I’m so excited now!!! wOOt!!!

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Today is BlogDay.

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.
With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.

I was trying to find some blogs that I read and thought I share:

The Boy Genius Report: If you want to know what is coming out before the official announcement, this is the best place to go. Focusing on the cell phone market, they manage to be informative and yet have a sense of humour.

Digital Shot: Awesome blog about photography as well as reviews on some cameras.  Love the tutorials on specific photo subjects.

Underexposed: from CNet, this blog deals with specifics of photography; whether it be about cameras, software, or just techniques, this is a good read for the photo enthusiast.

Drinks After Dark: A blog about cocktails, wines, liquor and all things in between.  A good friend of mine writes for them and I have gain some great knowledge to some of the tasty treats available.

Ruminations from Paul Dryer: Paul Dryer is a former co-worker from another office and he has some great postings on all things PR and Social Media base. You might not always agree with him, but he engages a conversation.

Enjoy the read and Happy BlogDay everyone!

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Now that summer seems to have gone past (if this weather is any indication), we begin to look forward to the Fall which brings us a few events throughout Vancouver for both the PR Professional and the Teckie Professional.  The following is just  a short list of some of the events coming up in September.

The Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) of Vancouver has 2 events coming up.  The first is the Stretching Out Summer - Season Kick Off Social being held on September 9th at George Ultra Lounge in Yaletown at 5pm. I’m actually excited about attending this and checking out venue. This event is free of charge.

Secondly on September 25th at 7:30am CPRS has their Speaker Series Breakfast (sponsored by my employer, Marketwire and Cision).  This breakfast will have Cathy Allen speak about Public Relations in American Politics. The event will be held at the Metropolitan Hotel.

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Vancouver will be holding their Annual September Kick-Off: Fall into Autumn with Professional Communicators being held on September 23rd at Steamworks Brewing Company in Gastown beginning at 5:30pm.

I always enjoy the IABC Events, so I’m looking forward to attending this one and running into some familiar faces.

For the Teckies a few more events are happening this month.

Launch Party Vancouver 5 is coming September 18th and will be held at Unwine’d.  For all those not familiar with Launch Party,

Launch Party Vancouver is a lively mixer for the city’s brightest entrepreneurs, tech junkies, and bloggers, who are doing it, have done it or want to make their ideas happen here. The goal of the event is to connect BC’s growing community of Internet and new media leaders with investors and other trailblazers across Canada and abroad.

You can register for the event via Eventbrite.

Of course we can’t forget BarCamp which will held September 27-28 most likely being held on Granville Island.  Based on their Wikipedia site;

BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

Currently the event is “sold out”, and you can register for their waiting list.  I’m currently on their waiting list, though I have been told I should be able to get into the event.  You can find out more on their wiki site. I’m excited about participating in the WordCamp and Photo sessions.

Of course there will be the usual Third Tuesday Vancouver and Vancouver Blogger Meetup scheduled in September as well.  This is looking like a busy month and I’m sure just the start of things for the remaining of the year.

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These past couple of months I saw a few of my fellow bloggers join together to help support charity.  Many participated in the Blogathon, where they posted 1 blog post per 1/2 hour for 24 hours (a truly amazing task).  Even though I didn’t participate I did contribute to a few of the causes out there.

Recently my friend Raul has posted a recap of some of the people that are still participating in some charity event and using the blogosphere to get their message out and help raise some funds.

I thought I would highlight some:

Tanya Davis has joined Buzz Bishop’s 95 Crave Team Diabetes.  You can read her post here and her donation page is here. (I have supported both as I recently lost an Uncle to diabetes).

British Columbia SPCA has a Paws for a Cause walk coming up on September 14th.  As I feel that I’m too late to really campaign myself for this event, I thought I would spread the word.  I’m sure next year I will participate with Junior.  If you can’t participate, but wish to donate, you can do so here.  (Note the website seems not to work on FireFox 3 for some reason).

The Terry Fox Run will also take place on September 14th with locations across Canada.  You can find the BC locations here.

The Scotiabank AIDS Walk takes place a week later on September 21st in Vancouver.  You can sign up here.

UPDATE:

The Dr. Peter Centre is also having a charity event coming up on September 14th called Passions to support the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation.

Chefs from 18 of Vancouver’s best restaurants will vie for your tastebuds attention.

If anyone else has some charity events they would like me to post, please comment below or send me an email.

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I wanted to take this opportunity to wish my nephew - Justin Brum, an awesome birthday!!

It feels like it wasn’t so long ago that he was in diapers and causing all sorts of trouble with his sister.  He has quickly grown up and I can safely say I’m proud to be his uncle.  Like many guys his age, he loves his video games, he collects comic books, and now has started dating girls.

So Justin, have an amazing day!  Your card would have gotten to you earlier, but it was returned to me for lack of postage! It should be there this week.

I think I’m a great uncle and I hope my neices and nephews can say that about me

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This year I have been reflecting a lot on family.  I may not have blogged about it, but it has always been on my thoughts.

I have always been close with my family. We have always been there for each other, through thick and thin, and since I’ve moved from Toronto to Vancouver I have started to feel a little disconnected from them.  Yes I talk to them via the phone, through emails, and even Facebook, but it doesn’t come close to the actually face to face connection.  My parents, my niece Samantha, and my sister Gladys have all come to Vancouver for a visit and it has always been great to see them.  I have even trekked back to Toronto for a family visit this past summer which I truly enjoyed.

Lately I have been thinking of heading back to Argentina and have a grand visit (hopefully in January 2009).  The last time I was in Argentina, 12 years ago, my Grandmother fell and broke her hip and most of my trip was spent with some relatives that lived in Buenos Aires.  I never got to visit my other cousins, aunts and uncle that lived away from the city.  This past month, one of my uncles passed away and I started to think that I will never see him again.  The last time I saw him I was 11 years old.  It will be sad not to be able to see him, but at the same time it will be great to see other members of my family.

A few years ago my father decided to research his family history a little more.  His father came from Italy and after finding a landed immigration he flew to Rome Italy to trace his roots. It was interesting to hear him talk about it, how he researched church records, how he found out our family name is spelled incorrectly, how he might have found some old cousins he never new he had.

All in all family has always been important to me.  We might not always get alone, but we love them unconditionally no matter what!

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Last night was a fairly informal Third Tuesday, as it was held on a Wednesday night and we had no speaker, yet as always it managed to bring out a lot of people.  Since it was held at Steamworks in Gastown, we had a cap of 35 people.  I’m sure if we didn’t have a cap, more would have attended.

It was great to see the usual faces, Tanya, Monica, Colleen, Arieanna & Ianvi, Tris, John & his wife, David to name a few, a few faces were missing, Raul, Rebecca. I also got to meet some new people and chat with people face to face that I’ve only chatted with online.  I also got to meet Joesph Thornley who started Third Tuesday and was in town for the meet up.

I have to say the change of format was refreshing.  It allowed for more interaction and networking than the usual events.  Granted the set up of the tables prevented from seeing others in the group as I had my back to 2/3 of the group. All in all, hats off to Tanya on organizing a great event as usual.  I’m looking forward to more in the coming months and proud to be a part of such a great group of people!

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I didn’t want this day to go without wishing Russ a Happy Birthday.

Even though he doesn’t like people making a fuss over his birthday, I think I did well in giving him a gift that he enjoyed this past weekend.

So once again Russ, all the best to you on your birthday and I hope you have a fantastic day!

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VinoCamp 2008 has come and gone, and what a great success it was.

This was part of my birthday present to Russ.  It was a combination of wine tasting and education with a splash of geekiness thrown in.

Getting to the event proved to be harder than I had thought, and even my trusty GPS on the iPhone failed me to find my location.  I was glad that I was at least able to get online and find a map of the UBC campus to get me to the UBC Botanical Gardens before the 10am start.  Luckily we weren’t the only ones that were lost as the even was about 1/2 hour late in begining.

Thankfully when we arrived I had spotted Colleen who was live blogging the event over at Drinks After Dark.

The morning began with an opening address from Dr. Hennie JJ van Vuuren, Founding Director of the UBC Wine Research Center.  In his address he discussed how UBC was isolating specific genes of the yeast to help in wine production.  Most of it was fairly technical and even with my biochemistry background it was hard to keep up.  I think it was also hard to hear him though he was only 2 tables in front of us.

We then had a great discussion of the BC Wine Regions by Kathy Malone of Township 7.  She went through the specific regions in BC which produced wine and which specific grapes they grew. Of course most was centered around the Okanogan area as they produce over 60% of BC wines.

Our next speaker was Brad Cooper, also of Township 7, and discussed better ways of making homemade wine. He discussed how a new start up company, Crushpad, has elevated the premium homemade wine industry.  Crushpad allows you to to create your own distinct wine.  You have access to a variety of grapes, as well as access to their own specialized winemakers.  All this allows you to create your own specific wine which you can then market and sell to restaurants or other sellers, all without having to have your own production facility. Truly awesome!!

Our next presenters were Michelle Bouffard and Michaela Morris of House Wine.  They discussed how you pairing of wine with foods is important.  They let everyone know that when having a very hearty and heavy meal, you should pair the meal with a more flavourful and robust wine.  These two will always compliment each other.  This was a perfect gateway to what was next, our lunch.

During lunch we had the opportunity to try specific wines with each portion of our meal.  Although I didn’t try out the wines during lunch, Russ said the combination of the food with the requested wine was actually very refreshing.

After lunch we were treated to what I would say was one of my highlights of the event.  David Sanders of Riedel Crystal, discussed how the glass shape actually affects the taste of the wine.  Of course I was very skeptical of this, but as we tried wines and then tried them again with different shapes, you actually noticed a difference.  The main reason David said was that the wine glass is meant to help target the specific taste buds in the mouth. Colleen has a better write up on this.

We were then treated to Bal Arneson, how showed us that even through Indian Food you can always pair a specific wine to go with your meal. Anthony Nicalo discussed about Organic and Sustainable Winemaking and closing off Kelly Robson who writed a wine blog called Full Bodied.  She started this blog as a hobby which caught the attention of Chatelaine Magazine, who she now writes for.

I couldn’t believe all the wine that we got try, who knew that drinking wine starting at 10am would be so much fun!

My hats go off to the organizers, Boris, Lori, Megan, Lauren, Colleen, Tanya, Degan and Cyprien for a fantastic event.

I can’t wait for VinoCamp 2009!!!

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