The Girl that Silenced the World for Five Minutes

In 1992, Severn Suzuki travelled from Vancouver, Canada to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to speak in front of the United Nations Earth Summit on behalf of ECO, the Environmental Children's Organization. Since not much has changed, her message is as strong today as it was nearly eighteen years ago.


Absolutely phenomenal...

National Geographic Quietly Puts Adventure on the Block

Another great magazine heads for the publishing chopping block. Life will be a little less extraordinary without you NGA. RIP.

National Geographic Quietly Puts Adventure on the Block - M and A and Finance @ FolioMag.com

31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover

Leave it to me to decide to do a major internet marketing makeover...


I came across Michelle's 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover last night somehow...I think it involved Twitter but as a Twitter newbie, I still tend to get information overload and can't remember how or where I found what information unless I hit the 'back' button a million times. That aside, I decided to give this makeover thing a try as it seemed rather fortuitous to come across it on day one.


Michelle MacPhearson looks like a cool chick who knows her stuff and she blows glass so that alone makes her formidable in this chick's eyes. Oh, and she wants to buy a Land Rover one day but is 'going to wait until the kids are older and less destructive'. That makes this Rover Chick very happy - both the LR part and the being sensible enough to let the kids destroy the Ford instead part. And no, that is not why I am recommending her 31 Day Internet Marketing Makeover...


Back to 31 Days: in this non-glass-blowing-super-hot-things-makes-her-nervous-unless-its-an-exhaust-manifold chick's opinion, you never quit learning. Most of my friends have heard me say at some point that if and when I ever stop being curious, kill me then and there. Life is about learning and growing and always getting better at, well, life. So, why not read 30 blog posts in 31 days about improving your internet marketing skills and potentially increasing your readership and search engine placement? Who is it going to hurt?


The other part that impresses me is Michelle discusses the 'crushing overwhelm' and 'bringing back conscious forward movement to your business'. Those are real words, not the hype and cocaine-induced hyper sales lingo that many such online courses throw at you. 'Overwhelm' is a word we have all dealt with in our businesses, online or otherwise, and 'conscious forward movement' just plain rocks! How many of us actually understand what it means to consciously make decisions and plan actions for our business instead of randomly following the path of what feels like it may make us some money?


Day two starts right now (oddly, the blog entry was posted as I was writing this post). It is about taking an inventory of your various sites and 'what you need to do to clear out the crap, the time wasters and money-suckers, you’ve got to know your inventory, how much each site makes, how much each site costs, and what you need to do to complete work on a site'.


Learn, grow, improve, and enjoy the end results!

Greg Mortenson & Three Cups of Tea

In our western world, I think we take for granted something that is an unheard of luxury in much of the rest of the world. Schools. Not education so much as there is room for improvement within our educational systems, but the actual physical building we call a school. At least our children have a roof over their head.

I am currently reading Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Greg Mortenson began the quest of building a school in one small, impoverished village in Pakistan after the people nurtured him back to health after a failed attempt at K2. I am only part way through the book - he is just about to start construction on the first school - and I am already gripped by this man’s struggle to fulfill a promise to the people of Korphe.

For anyone who has noticed, I have links to Amazon for a few choice products on this blog. There has always been the intention that any money earned would go to a charity that touched my heart in one way or another. Most people that know me would assume it would be an animal charity because of my deep love for our furry friends both wild and curled in their bed by the fireplace. I am very vocal and often step onto my soapbox about animal rights, abuse, misinformation, and anything else that happens to fuel my verbal ire at the time. Lord help anyone who is around me then!

However, there is something touching about this man’s work. Something quiet and contained with no need to debate, berate, or step on anything like a soapbox about education, literacy, and a school in every village. Who would argue back? What possible debate could there be? Would someone really take the stance that children do not deserve to have a solid roof over their head while they learn their letters?

Being both a writer and an avid reader, it seems to make some cosmic, bigger-then-me sense to give any money earned from this blog to Greg Mortenson’s cause, the Central Asia Institute.

Learn more about Greg’s work and ways of helping the children of remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan through Central Asia Institute’s community-based education and literacy programs.

And thank you Aunty Linnea for loaning me this wonderful book!

Joan Thirlaway & Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall is a fascination of mine so when I came across Joan's incredible year long odyssey of photographing the wall through the four seasons, I decided I had to feature her work at some point. Ms Thirlaway's bio says she lives in Gilsland, UK, which is one of the Hadrian's Wall villages. View her albums on JAlbum to see more of her year long work!

Draw the Dog

 

Want to see your dog's antics come to cartoon life? 
Bruce Kasanoff contacted me a month or so ago in regards to Draw the Dog getting a mention on The Good Dog Blog - my daily blog about improving dog behavior. Normally these requests do not make it very far with me but in the case of Draw the Dog, I give them full marks on capturing the canine comedian in action!
The drawings are done by ex-Disney cartoonist Jim George and based on stories sent in by followers of the site. 
So why wait until today to write about Draw the Dog? Well, my heart always lies with the rescue dogs and the organizations that go above and beyond the howl of duty to provide these animals with safe, loving forever homes. Today's cartoon is simple but captures the essence of rescue beautifully! Enjoy and let me know if any of you send in a story about your four legged friend so we can all enjoy it!

Nelson Dewey and CARzy

I am the third generation of tomboys in my family. My mom won over my father when she was fourteen years old by helping him work on his 1956 MGA and although her mother rarely wore anything but a dress, she was quite content to be knee deep in garden mud, shovel in hand, and freshly harvested potatoes spread in all directions. It has been over a decade, when, at the age of ninety-two, she decided it better be her last season of planting the entire garden, but I can still picture her in her blue housekeeping dress, flowered gloves, and Wellies.

This being said, I grew up doing the same things as my brother - fishing, camping, sailing, helping dad build boats, and work on the cars. Never thought anything about it really and kind of wondered why my friends were always content to play with dolls. Really, how can you be content to play with dolls after catching and cleaning your first twenty-five pound salmon? Or how much pleasure can you derive from watching summer reruns after spending three weeks sailing around the Gulf Islands?

Which takes me to a chance meeting a couple of weeks ago that flung me back thirty odd years to when I was this happy girl child who knew far too much about cars, fishing, camping, sailing, and all things 'boy'. And no, not much has changed much there. 
Two weeks ago, I attended my first WordCamp (and yes, I know I am still on Blogger...) and was introduced to Nelson Dewey, a local professional cartoonist with a career spanning over fifty years. I didn't realize at the time how much Nelson's illustrations were a part of my childhood education but when I asked my father if he knew of his work, out came a half dozen books and a stack of comics that I had devoured as a child. Nelson, literally, illustrated my childhood!
Obviously I knew him best for his CARtoons comic books but also spent many hours reading books Nelson illustrated for local fisherman and icon Charlie White. However, not only did he produce a wide variety of his own comic books titles, he also worked as a cartoonist for several newspapers including the New York Times and the Victoria Times-Colonist. He was a writer and illustrator for a bunch of magazines including Hot Rod and Motor Trend and, in the last decade or so, has worked on Scary Movie 3 and 4, the animated children's show Arthur, and worked for several video game producers. 
Nelson is now in the process of writing his own blog that features his work and tossing around the idea of getting back into cartooning after spending time in the movie business drawing storyboards. CARzy, his daily blog that features a strip from his old comic books are entertaining for anyone interested in hot rods, motorcycles, and cars from the 50's through 80's. For a glimpse of this man's incredibly vast career of cartooning and illustrations, visit his website  and please pardon the virtual dust, he is in the process of updating some of the layout.  

Leave it to Weaver

Enjoy people that tell it like it is? Enjoy great photography with an edge?
I stumbled upon Andrew Weaver's blog a month or so ago and have become a fan of both his easy, no nonsense style and his eye for dramatic, cutting edge images.  
There will be more then a few people who will relate to Andrew's blog entry for today - even the name may get the heart pounding. He is correct though, leadership is not about how well you handle a crisis, but how well you prevent a crisis from happening in the first place. Solid leadership is about keeping the drama to a minimum and providing a stable ground for your best team members to excel. 
Leadership = action versus reaction.  

Tweetsgiving and Gratitude

What are you grateful for?
I don’t Tweet, even though I probably should and probably will now that I see some of the amazing good that can come out of all those short little posts that normally make me feel somewhat dizzy if I read them for too long.
What changed my mind? Tweetsgiving and Epic Change.
From November 24 to 26^th, Tweetsgiving is using the internet and the power of social media to raise money in order to build new schools in Tanzania. This is the second annual Tweetsgiving, with last year’s event raising over $11,000 in two days through Twitter and the collective voice of social media.
Epic Change is a non-profit organization that ‘amplifies the voices and impact of grassroots change makers and social entrepreneurs’. Started by Sanjay Patel and Stacey Monk, Epic Change is about using the power of social media to produce long lasting and powerful growth to areas of the world that are rarely connected to this ‘world wide web’ thing that the rest of us take completely for granted.
Last year, Tweetsgiving raised enough money to help build a school in Arusha, Tanzania. In October, the 350 students at Shepherds Junior School were finally able to connect to the internet.
Follow the tweets from the TwitterKids to learn what gratitude truly is and why those of us fortunate enough to be able to take things such as school and readily available access to the internet have so much to be grateful for in our lives. 
Time to give back and say 'thank you'-  donate to Tweetsgiving.

The Coolest Computer Bag Ever!

I have to admit it, I am a bag lady! I love bags like some women love shoes. It seems I am always in search of the perfect bag - computer bag, camera bag, expedition bag - it doesn't really matter. And rarely do I find a bag that fits my needs, utterly functional, looks totally cool, and exceeds my expectations when it comes to the environmental and fair trade ethical stuff that makes frivolous consumerism so bloody difficult these days. 
And yes, I have a serious bag problem... 

Because I have this problem, I have a concern about what exactly it may do to my carbon footprint. I know, sounds nuts from someone who drives a Range Rover but, well, that is a post for another day. However, I worry that even though I give my old bags to the Salvation Army, I fear they may end up in a landfill somewhere one day. Does this stop my search of the perfect bag? No, but it does slow me down a bit. That was until I found the Osprey Resource Astro Courier Bag:
The Osprey Resource Astro Courier Bag is made from 72% recycled material. Brilliant! Osprey makes an entire line of these Resource bags, all made from recycled material and with the same attention to detail that they show in their regular bags. 
On top of improving a bag ladies carbon footprint, Osprey also gives all their bags a lifetime warranty. This means that if stitches come undone, zippers blow, or the little plastic bits fall apart, they will replace them free of charge. This, in theory at least, should mean that this bag will remain the coolest computer bag for many, many years as there will be no need to replace it when it gets shabby! Better for the environment yet again!
Lastly, all Osprey bags are made in the US meaning less fossil fuels are used to transport the finished product half way around the word. Absolutely stellar news! 
As computer bags go, the Osprey Resource Astro Courier bag is a solid, well-designed, and very functional carrier. It has multiple pockets, an adjustable shoulder strap, and a basic hip belt to keep it from swinging around a ton when you walk or ride. 
With the amount of travel time I put in, a sturdy computer bag is vital to protect my MacBook Pro. Thanks to Adam Spiker from Off-Roving, I have a Pelican Laptop Case - brilliant for when I want to really protect the laptop but a little overkill for walking to the local coffee shop when I need a change of scenery. 
I seriously belive my new Osprey Astro is going to be in my collection for many years...at least I can only hope...!

WordCamp Victoria

As you can see, I do not use WordPress - yet! It is pretty freakin' cool though so it might be worth switching when I have a minute or two. However, I have clients that use WordPress for their sites so I have had to become an expert in this fabulous content management system in order to help them develop their sites to their full potential. 
My self-imposed continuing education meant attending WordCamp Victoria today - an intense, two-stream, all day WP class. Hosted by Paul Holmes, President of IdeaZone.ca, who decided that Victoria needed a WordCamp after attending one in Surrey, BC. As the story goes, I guess he thought twenty people may show up so when nearly a hundred of us signed up, he was a bit surprised!  
All the attendees left with the same impression - when are we doing this again! With internationally recognized and insanely knowledgeable speakers such as Tris Hussey, Funeral Futurist (not kidding here!) Robin Heppell, and Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega, it was destined to be a hit. 
A few things I learned:
1). Never stop learning or asking questions. This is kind my life philosophy anyways but it was evident in the room that due to the incredible evolution of social media and CMS  technology, even the experts don't know all the answers. Keep learning! Always ask questions and always stay open to new things and new opportunities! 
2.) Give back! One of the things that may have changed in the last couple of years is people commenting on each others blogs versus commenting on Facebook, Tweets, etc. Commenting and back linking is one of best way to give back or pay it forward, depending on whether your glass is half full or not. 
3). Social media is about people! Everyone has something to teach and a room full of knowledge is better then one person beating their head against a dim computer screen. All day questions came up that presenters could not answer yet often someone in the room would have a solution. Brilliant way to problem solve!
4). Read books! Books often give you an insider's knowledge to technology that is not found, or at least better explained, then on the net. Read books! Books are your friends. Try Tris Hussey's Create your Own Blog: 6 Easy Steps to Start Blogging Like a Pro on for size or Create your Own Photo Blog by Catherine Jamieson if you are a creative sort. 
Paul is planning more WordCamp Victoria sessions for 2010. Keep an eye out for dates and make sure you attend the next one to learn, to grow, and to share your knowledge!

Fall Sun at Galey's Farm Corn Maze

Last November I had the amazing opportunity to spend Thanksgiving in Iowa with my boyfriend’s family. This was my first introduction to Jon’s family as well as my first American Thanksgiving. His family was amazing! They made me feel at home right from the start and although similar to a Canadian Thanksgiving with ample turkey, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, gravy, and, of course, family, there is something to be said for spending my first American Thanksgiving on a farm during the latter part of the harvest.

On the Friday evening, Jon and I went to help his brother and nephews with ‘chiseling’, the post harvest chopping up of the hard ground, corn shafts, and root balls that remain after combining. It was beyond black that night and about 16 degrees Fahrenheit – a beautiful night! After a couple of hours, Jon let me take over the controls and I had the time of my life driving a giant Case tractor through a real Iowa corn field. That kind of torque and four wheel drive action is an off-roader's dream!

Remembering that feeling, I decided to go in search of a harvest here in Victoria to photograph. Not many people believe me when I say Victoria grows some of the best sweet corn in the world but I swear, it does! Sweet corn is a new term for me, taught during the trip to Iowa where we were actually harvesting feed corn a.k.a. Cornflakes™ that has a longer growing season. Of course, all the sweet corn was also harvested long before I made it back to Victoria but the Corn Maze at Galey’s Farm is not grown for human consumption, only human fun.

Galey’s is an odd combination of farming, theater, and activities within a few kilometers of downtown Victoria. It is part of the ‘green belt’, a strip of land running from Victoria up the Peninsula that is zoned agricultural and safe from development. In 2000, Galey Farms became one of the first local farms to jump on the agri-tourism hay wagon, a perfect expansion for a tourist city.

Worth a visit, Galey’s run a Petting Zoo, Western Town, Haunted House, Pumpkin Festival, Fall Hay rides, and a Farm Train. However, expect a few strange attractions such as the forty foot tall Sphinx built for the Egyptian exhibit at the BC Provincial Museum. It is tall enough to be seen in all directions and a strange enough site to stop traffic!


I did get the chance to photograph a bit of fall corn in the maze but spent more time looking then shooting I'm afraid. Enjoy the pics here!

Solihull National Rally 2009 - Leadville, Colorado

Every year, the Solihull Society based out of Denver, Colorado hosts the National Land Rover Rally. This year the event took place in Leadville, Colorado - the highest incorporated town in North America. 

As usual, the event was superb - click here to see the pics! 
Next year, the event is back in Moab and there is no way I missing it again! Every second year the National Rally is in Moab and it is always the more popular location. 


Dates are Oct 19 to 23rd, 2010 - watch the Solihull site for more information!


Read my article in the December issue of Land Rover World on the 2009 National Land Rover Rally for more information. 

Overland Expo 2009

The sleepy, historic town of Prescott, Arizona hosted the first Overland Expo over the April 24^th to 26^th weekend. For the first time in North America, expedition ready vehicles, gear, participants, and world travelers came together in one spot to educate, to learn, to experience, and to celebrate the art of vehicle dependent travel. As expected, Land Rover was well represented by participants, exhibitors, and instructors.

Roseann Hanson of ConserVentures LLC organized Overland Expo 2009 and sponsors included Overland Journal, Overland Training and Expedition Portal as well as many other companies and organization directly linked to the overland community in North America. 

A highlight for the Land Rover community was the opportunity to meet and learn off-road driving techniques from North America’s LR legend, Tom Collins. Tom’s background in off-highway driving includes organizing and leading the Great Divide Expedition in 1989, U.S. Team Coordinator for the US Camel Trophy team from 1990 to 1998 and as one the 1987 team members. He currently consults for Land Rover and is an integral part of their off-highway instructional team. His easy manner, quiet wit, and obvious knowledge and skill quickly made participants feel at ease behind wheel in front of this North American legend.

A ‘must see’ for LR enthusiasts was Christian and Saskia Holzknecht’s 2006 Defender 110. Christian is a professional photographer from Europe and the pair are traveling around the world with their German Shepherd in the Rover. Stopping at the OV Expo as both exhibitors and participants, their 110 was a showstopper. Tricked out by Ex-Tec, the hydraulic lift pop top roof caught everyone’s attention while the built in interior modifications including a port potty, table, bench, water storage, tool cabinet and full galley were all ingeniously designed and fully constructed out of aluminum and surprisingly roomy considering the size of the overall vehicle.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the Overland Expedition Flag presentation held at the banquet the final night. This unique opportunity was open to all participants undertaking a unique trip prior to OVExpo ‘10 and included support from sponsors, gift certificates for equipment, an article in Overland Journal and free attendance to next year’s Expo where they would present the flag to the 2010 winners. This year’s winner was Holt Webb of Vanishing America. Holt is a professional photographer who is “traveling across America on veggie oil, capturing the unique aspects of our country and culture that are in danger of disappearing within the next few generations”. Part of his vegetable running entourage is The Greasy Beast, his Defender 90 fully converted to run on used, filtered ‘chip oil’. Everyone at the banquet agreed that Holt and his monumental project deserved to win the flag and maybe next year he will be the keynote speaker, presenting his worthwhile project to participants.

Want to see some pics of the OV Expo '09? Click here! And click here for information on next year’s Overland Expo.