Prince Street School Spring Fling

The network really came through in response to my request for translation help for a flier for the Prince Street School Spring Fling and I ended up with translations in French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Russian and Persian. You can download a PDF of the flier and we’d really appreciate if you’d print a few copies and stick them up around your office or school or neighbourhood.

And, of course, I encourage you to come out to the Spring Fling yourself: it’s this Friday, June 5, 2009 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Prince Street School, 60 Upper Prince Street in Charlottetown. And even if you can’t make it out in person, you can still bid online in our silent auction until Noon on Friday.

Here’s what the final version of the flier looks like:

Prince Street School Spring Fling Flier

Thank you to Philip Brown, PEI Association for Newcomers to Canada, Launa Gauthier, Clark MacLeod, Rob Lantz, Olga Erasova, Mike Brychuk, Svetlana Tenetko, Josephine Sahely, Liane Khoury, Anne Putnam and Mehrnoosh Aghdassi for translation help.

10 years of Reinvented

Today is both my 10th year of blogging and the 10th anniversary of Reinvented Inc..

Reinvented is the butterfly the emerged from the chrysalis of digital island, the company I founded in 1995 to take on the task of working with the Province of Prince Edward Island on their nascent website. On May 31, 1999 digital island became Reinvented as the digital island name was ceded to Digital Island Inc., a Honolulu-based company about to launch an IPO.

Interestingly, the domain name digitalisland.com is now controlled by SAVVIS, Inc., a Missouri-based IT company. Presumably SAVVIS acquired the domain when they acquired the assets of Cable & Wireless America in 2004, Cable & Wireless having purchased Digital Island in 2001. What a tangled web we weave.

On May 31, 1999 Reinvented HQ was in the spare bedroom of our house out on the Kingston Road, Reinvented was just me, and I spent most of my time concerned with the minutiae of Island life.

On May 31, 2009 Reinvented HQ is on the first floor of 84 Fitzroy Street in downtown Charlottetown, Reinvented has tripled in size (from “me” to “me plus brother Johnny and partner Catherine”), and I spend most of my time concerned with the minutiae of the cosmos.

Back in the middle of the winter I had grand plans for fireworks and brass bands to help us celebrate this milestone, but the day-to-day deadlines of current projects were enough to distract me from the goal. As a result I’m left to simply thank Catherine for many years of support (and putting up with late night kernel panics), Johnny for many years of hard work (and putting up with working for his scatter-brained brother), our longtime client Yankee Publishing for many years of challenging projects and, more importantly, for the friendships that came with that work, and my former colleagues in the Province of PEI for getting me started at a time when there was still a lot of doubt that this “information superhighway” thing would take off.

10 Year Blogaversary

Starbucks comes to Charlottetown

I was walking down the street yesterday when a man, obviously a tourist, asked me where to find Starbucks. When I told him we didn’t have a Starbucks he look aghast, as though he’d taken a right turn in Borden and ended up on the Moon.

It seems this is about to change. Speculation has been swirling that the old Tweel’s store at the corner of Kent and University, recently under heavy renovation and shrouded in construction cladding, is being renovated into the Island’s first Starbucks.

While there’s been no confirmation of this as the new location, the fact that Starbucks is currently advertising for a Store Manager for Prince Edward Island would seem to suggest that the rumours are at least partially true.

Spring Fling Multi-language Invite 1.0

Thanks to the kind assistance of many blog readers and radio listeners, I’ve received several of the language translations I needed for the Prince Street School “Spring Fling” invitation. While I’m still waiting for a few more languages to come in at the last minute, I’ve prepared a first draft of the invite with hopes that others might take a look and point out any spelling, formatting or other errors.

Updated: right-justified the Arabic.

Updated: changed Chinese to use LiHei Pro font, changed Russian “мероприятие” to “празднество”.

My Brilliant Son

Actual conversation with [[Oliver]] on the way to school earlier this week:

Oliver: Catherine’s getting her hair cut today at her barber Blue Note.
Me: Blue Note is really more of a “hair dresser.”
Oliver: Why?
Me: Well, places where women get their hair cut tend to be called “hair dresser” instead of “barber.”
Oliver: Why?
Me: I don’t know. Although some people I know who are men get their hair cut at Blue Note.
Oliver: Who?
Me: People at [[silverorange]] like Steven and Isaac.
Oliver: There’s an Isak at my school.
Me: Yes, he spells his name differently though.
Oliver: Oh, that’s a homophone.
Me: A homophone?
Oliver: Spelled different, sounds the same.

I looked it up. He’s right. I thought it was a homonym, but it isn’t. I’ve a feeling this is the start of a long slow slide into the intellectual shadow of my son.

Kerry, Claire, Ian, and Barry

Distressing news in the Island mediasphere this morning: among the six positions “made redundant” in the CBC cuts announced yesterday are four people I’ve had the pleasure of working with: reporter and erstwhile radio host Kerry Campbell, [[Compass]] assignment editor Claire Nantes, [[Compass]] reporter Ian Petrie, and radio studio director and technician Barry Vessey.

Kerry Campbell is one of those “jack of all media trades” people who seems equally comfortable as a TV reporter, radio reporter, radio features producer and radio host. He is arguably one of the better radio hosts ever to grace the Island radio dial, and if his “redundancy” means that we’ll no longer hear him in that capacity we will all be the worse for it.

Claire Nantes’ job as “assignment editor” is a behind-the-scenes roles that few people know exists but that is integral to production of a daily television newscast. Think of Claire as both the conductor of the symphony of reporters and camera operators, a liaison between the news-generating public and what gets covered, and someone who always needs her ear to the ground. I’ve no idea how you make a newscast — especially one that’s soon to expand to 90 minutes — without an assignment editor, especially one with Claire’s considerable talents.

Ian Petrie and Barry Vessey are in the slightly better position of not having had this all sprung on them, as they choose to make themselves redundant. But this doesn’t mean their absence will be felt any less.

I think it’s safe to say that Ian is the best television news reporter the Island has ever seen, someone with a great depth of understanding for his beat, the resource sector, and a talent for telling complicated stories and asking hard questions without needing to be confrontational or sensational. I’ve worked with Ian on several stories over the years, and it’s always been a joy; more importantly I look forward every evening to his reporting on [[Compass]] and I’m not quite sure I’ll properly be able to understand the Island without his nightly interpretation of it.

While Barry Vessey has a higher profile than Claire, as he squeaks out onto the air from time to time, his role as technician and studio director is, like Claire’s, a role that the public knows little about. I know Barry best from my days working with Wayne Collins on Island Morning: I would show up dark and early every week to do a live technology segment with Wayne on [[Island Morning]] and Barry would my first point of contact… he’d buzz me in the front door, greet when I made my way to the control room, and get me set up in the studio. Most importantly his steady demeanor was exactly what was needed to calm my frazzled pre-air nerves. A few years later, as a result of a bizarre double-booking, I found myself in a field at UPEI appearing on Morningside with Barry running the complicated-seeming gear that somehow beamed my voice to Toronto; again, having Barry behind the scenes, technically and otherwise, made it possible. In recent years as the CBC has scraped away more and more positions, and “synergized” others, Barry’s role has only grown in complexity and importance to the point where, for practical purposes, he’s “running the show.” I’m not sure how they’ll do it without him.

It’s one thing to hear about anonymous “redundancies” at the CBC and benignly imagine them away as “cutting the morning show in Moose Jaw.” It’s another thing entirely to know that when a position is “made redundant” there are smart, skilled people vital to the public broadcasting enterprise who are being sent away with it. Not only is a personal loss for those affected, but it’s a siphoning off of skilled interpreters at a time when the world needs people like this more than ever.

While I trust that all affected will land on their feet, and even return to the CBC in another guise, let’s all just take a moment to recognize them for the debt we owe them for their public service.

Spring Fling Silent Auction

If you’re interested in getting a jump on the bidding for items at the Prince Street School Spring Fling Silent Auction, online bidding just opened.

Need quick translation help...

I’m helping to promote the annual Spring Fling fundraiser at Prince Street School next week, and we want to prepare a flyer to send home to students in all the languages that our school families use. Here’s the paragraph:

Family, friends, and neighbors of Prince Street School students are invited to attend the ‘Spring Fling’ event at Prince Street School on June 5 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. There will be food, games, and other fun activities. Money raised is used to support school activities.

Looking to you multi-lingual in the readership to help get this translated into Farsi, Arabic, Turkish, Karen, Somali, Chinese, French, and Russian. Would really appreciate it, if you’re able: email it to me. Thanks.

The Secret Korean Grocery

If you are anything like me, the question “I wonder where the secret Korean grocery store in North River is” has never occurred to you. This is likely because the notion of their actually being a secret Korean grocery store in North River never occurred to you.

If this is the case, Receipt from Han Gook Convenience Market in North Riverthen prepare to be amazed and delighted as I lead you to the door: from Charlottetown drive as if you were going to Cornwall on the Trans-Canada Highway. Head over the North River Causeway and before you get to the PetroCan gasoline station on your right you’ll see, on the left, a white plaster horse with it’s right leg raised. Turn left at the horse and into the parking lot for Winfield Motel. On the left-hand side of the parking lot you’ll see a new building that looks like it’s not yet in use. Drive to the end of the building and park. Go to the last door on the building, the one with the Post-It note with Korean writing. If the door is locked, go around to the office of Winfield Motel and ask the woman behind the desk about for help (warning: she does not speak English) and help will appear.

Once you are admitted you will find a bright, modern grocery filled to the brim with the culinary wonders of Korea, everything from silkworm pupae to kimchi to dumplings to bottled squid to tiny table-top gas-fired grills for making bulgogi.

If there was any doubt as to Charlottetown becoming a culturally more diverse place of late, surely this all the evidence needed to prove the case. It’s not an exaggeration to say that when we arrived in Charlottetown 16 years ago if you’d told me the city would boast a Korean grocery I would have laughed you out of town: back then, outside of the always rich Lebanese menu, and with the notable exception of The Noodle House, “pizza” was about as “international” as food got in the city.

We live in exciting times.

Horse at Winfield Motel Han Gook Convenience Market
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Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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