Here’s a nice historical photo of the Port of Charlottetown my friend G. found in a pictorial book from 1984. The photo was taken after Harbourside was constructed, but before the Delta Prince Edward hotel, and well before the oil tanks were replaced by Confederation Landing Park. When we arrived in Charlottetown in the winter of 1993, the port looked more like this than how it looks today; there’s no arguing that there’s been a dramatic improvement in this area over the last 17 years.
Here’s a contemporary photo for comparison (thanks to Dale for sending this along, and to the City of Charlottetown for permission to use it here):
Charlottetown Vision Centre has a nifty new gizmo that takes high-resolution photos of patients’ eyes. It costs $18 to have done, but that’s a small price to pay for a photo that, in essence, “looks the other way” at the eye. Indeed, trying to think about the fact that the eyes in the photos are the eyes that are looking at the photos is hurting my brain.
My Left Eye
My Right Eye
If you’re at all interested in customer service, new media, body image, or just simple humanity, you owe it to yourself to listen to SModcast #106. Especially if you’ve only followed the “Southwest Airlines affair” from stories like this. If you have delicate sensibilities you will likely be horrified by the experience, but bear with it, as the underlying ideas are profound. Although far less entertaining, Southwest Airlines’ part of the conversation is also a worthy read.
Regular readers will recall a series of photos taken at the annual New Year’s Day Levee with Pat Binns, then-Premier of Prince Edward Island. Well, the tradition continues: I received my photo with now-Premier Robert Ghiz in the mail last week (another miracle of Prince Edward Island-ness: I never gave anyone my mailing address – they just figure it out somehow). Here it is, with photos of me and Pat Binns below for comparison.
I think you’ll agree that, although it was completely be accident, I scored a colour-coordination win this year. Notice as well that every year I seem to be getting a little closer to the Premier in the photo (in 2004 I appear not to notice that he’s standing beside me).
2010
2006
2005
2004
Esse quam videri means “to be, rather than to seem to be” and that’s how Bruce MacNaughton started off this week’s “Conversations with Bruce” taping.
With a somewhat distracting Michael Buble album playing in the background at Casa Mia Café, this weeks conversation was more wide-ranging than in previous weeks, but we circled around the same general subject matter: what’s the best way to engage the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company community in the digital realm.
Our conversation starts off with a drawn-out question from me prompted by an advertisement for Dauphin Kaffee in a recent issue of Monocle. The ad led readers to this landing page to register (or perhaps “apply”) for a free sample of their high-grade coffee. I was intrigued by the notion of replacing “everyone in the world” as a potential audience with “only a select few” and using the filter of “having visited the Preserve Company in New Glasgow” as a filter.
From there we jumped off to conversations about shipping rates, strawberry supplies, webcams on farms, the scenery in New Glasgow, an email from Sue in Australia, and “social media.”
Apologies for overuse of the word engage, the annoying buzz that kicks in at 03:30 (it was a cooler across from us, I think). And apologies to Bruce for using the goofy hands-at-ears thumbnail for the video, but I couldn’t resist.
Last week I accidentally set up our phone system here at Reinvented HQ up in a way that has accidentally worked out quite well.
We have a main business number that’s a regular old analog telephone line. It’s listed in the phone book, and is the main point of contact for our business. As a result, I get a combination of distracting “can I speak to the person responsible for your telecommunications services” spam calls, calls reminding me of physiotherapy appointments, and calls reminding me to come home for dinner … the kinds of calls I can either safely ignore, or at least get back to later.
We also have another number that I set up a few years ago for the convenience of our colleagues at Yankee Publishing. This line, which is a virtual VOIP line, is a local number in Dublin, New Hampshire.
My “accidental” configuration change was to shunt all calls to the main business number to voicemail, but to route all calls to our New Hampshire number directly to the phone on my desk.
The result: much less distraction from the background noise of everyday regular telephone communication, but instant access for our client when they need to talk to me.
It’s working out quite well.
Catherine and Oliver saw the Google Street View car last year while walking down University Avenue. And the Google Street View car saw them.
Oliver’s childhood has been blessed by the presence of the excellent local toy store Owl’s Hollow in his life. Owl’s Hollow is the sort of toy store you want to have in your life: broad and eclectic selection, friendly and helpful staff, and the kinds of toys and games you just won’t find stacked up at Walmart.
The store has always had a tiny books section at the back of the upper level; last year this expanded significantly and got a new place in the store just behind the cash. And over the last few months the selection of books has expanded even more.
So now in addition to Dr. Seuss and Goodnight Moon you will find everything ever written by David Sedaris, the Moosewood Cookbook, books about parenting, a chocolate exposé, a good selection of books on “children from other lands” and a nice cross-section of the sort of “middle school fiction” that Oliver’s just starting to get interested in.
I’ve slowly come to the realization that what I need in my life is not a bigger selection of books (or music, or movies, or …), but a smaller and better-curated selection.
That’s what the Owl’s Hollow book section is: packed into less than 100 square feet a rich, well-tended collection of books that means I emerge having purchased two or three every time I visit.
It’s all over the ‘net this morning here on Prince Edward Island that Google has finally turned on the Street View images on Google Maps that they shot last summer. There seems to be coverage of almost the entire Island, except for West Prince, which was left out for some reason (blue roads on the map are Street View-enabled):
What sets Prince Edward Island apart from, well, the rest of the world, is that there is some truly stunning imagery in their collection:
The Google Car’s tour of downtown Charlottetown seems to have happened on a particular resplendent summer day, and our house at 100 Prince Street is captured in all its glory, complete with Catherine’s gardens in full bloom.
After our tour of the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company building on Wednesday afternoon, Bruce MacNaughton and I retired to his office in the top corner of the old New Glasgow butter factory to talk more about his business, his business online, and whether it’s possible to approximate online the experience of visiting the Preserve Company in person.
About This Blog
I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
To learn more about me, read my /now, look at my bio, listen to audio I’ve posted, read presentations and speeches I’ve written, or get in touch (peter@rukavina.net is the quickest way).
I have been writing here since May 1999: you can explore the 25+ years of blog posts in the archive.
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