Editorial

The great thing about working on a blog like Commercial Drive – Live!, which is focused on a real place, is that it connects me with my community so well. I get to know lots of local people and find out what they do, if only by reputation.

In my marketing class, one of the first things I talk about is the importance of pictures in an individual’s marketing material. I’ve been proven right on more than one occasion, the most dramatic being when some one picked me out of a crowd of 10,000 at a parade because she’d seen my picture on my business card.

Recently I was at Turk’s and was approached by Susan Main, of Susan’s Super Citizen Showcase who was out with her son Toby. She recognised me from my pic here on the blog. Very cool.

Stories like this are what make CD-L! such a rewarding project to work on and really bring home the fact that this is truly a “community” blog driven by and about real people.

Back on April 6^th I mentioned that I’m delving into podcasting. Some of you may or may not know I’ve been doing a weekly radio show on Coop radio called Wax Poetic with co-hosts RC Weslowski and Diane Laloge for almost 8 years. Before that, way back in high school, I used to do a cheesy cable access Doug and Bob McKenzie ripoff (complete with snowshoes and toques). I’m really looking forward to getting back into the medium and the Drive seems like the perfect place to do it. Those of you may remember when Shaw used to have a community office here and although ICTV is doing it’s part to try and supply community programming, the cable conglomerate doesn’t give them much airtime. With CD-L! the podcast, I hope to spotlight personalities who make the Drive their home (and a few who come to here play).

My first attempt is an audio interview with Lorena Gale, who played Priest Elosha on Battlestar Galactica and has been a Drive resident for nearly 20 years. I’ll have it up soon, I promise.

You regular readers might have noticed the pizza poll is gone. I’ll post the results soon and we’ll have a new poll up as well. You will have also noticed that I’ve replaced it with an Amazon link. The book featured is by fabulous local poet Bud Osborn. I’ve also set up a little bookstore on Amazon, with various personal favourites as well as works by and of interest to local folk. Pop in and browse around.

By the way, sometime Sunday, April 8^th, this blog will have had its 3000^th visitor since I started posting January 8th. That feels great! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Here’s a little tidbit of information someone sent me:
A company called Mercer Human Resource Consulting has published the results of a Quality of Living survey.

The top five cities in the Americas were:

• Vancouver (3rd)
• Toronto (15th)
• Ottawa (tied for 18th)
• Montreal (22nd)
• Calgary (24th)

You might be surprised to learn that a Cost of Living survey conducted by the same firm doesn’t even rank Vancouver in the top 50. Maybe it’s not as expensive to live here as we think!

Anyway, until next week. Keep up the good work and stay in touch!