Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

Back to Mainland with BC Ferries

This time on BC Ferries was not as eventful as the first time, and the first time wasn’t even that eventful. Upon waiting in the ship yard for a good hour to board the ferry we ended up parking at the back of the boat, which was fine, it didn’t make a different.

As we were on our way up the levels with the hords of people we saw that “hidden” buffet. It was not really hidden, but not a lot of other people were heading that way, so we did. The Buffet runs all day and is about $24.00 a person at the very back of the boat. We reluctantly paid to get in and where happy with what we saw.

A nice setting as a restaurant with windows all around the back of the boat, so were could see everything and a buffet worth eating – I’m going to have another post of the buffet shortly. We thought this was great, we could eat supper and then sit in comfortable chairs at a table and use our computers. We ended up sitting there the whole time and then just walking quickly back to our vehicle when the time came.

The buffet room was only half full of people, at supper time. I’m assuming that the majority of people don’t want to spend the extra money after paying to get on the boat or go back and forth so often it does’t appeal to them anymore.

Riding with BC Ferries

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First time on BC Ferry

I don’t know if I have mentioned this yet or not, but this is my first time on “The Island” and no I’m not talking about the island in Lost, although that might be fun too. The island I’m talking about is Vancouver Island. This was is my first time in Vancouver and Victoria. Yes, they finally let me out of the north.

Well to get to the island I had to take the ferry over. This was my first time on a BC Ferry. I have taken ferries in Ontario and in Alaska, and of course the ferry crossing the MacKenzie River on the way to and from Yellowknife.

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I have heard many people talk about BC Ferry on Twitter and not all good things, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Truthfully, because of the people I have met through twitter I was a little worried.

When I boarded the ferry though, I was pleasantly surprised. The ferry was clean, timely and accommodating. As I climbed the levels to the main decks, I found a lot of seating for all the passengers. It appeared there were more seats than passengers, so that is always good to see and the seats were relatively comfortable. Having been slightly sick earlier that morning and hungry I wanted to get something to eat. So we found the food area and got some food. Ferry Food as someone called it, wasn’t the greatest around. I would compare the burger I had to one that was left until the end of the day at McDonald’s. It was dried and shriveled.

As I toured around the ferry, I learned that they offered free WiFi, although it was slooooow. You do seem to keep cell service for the majority of the ride though, so tethering saved me from boredom. I also found a kids area and a private area, for those who wish to pay more. I made my way out onto the front deck, which was right under the bridge and I could see the captain. I was somewhat surprised we saw land for most of the trip, then again I didn’t know what to expect.

Getting on and off the ferry was actually a fairly fluid process. We drive on, park, rest and then drive off.

My BC Ferry Ride

My BC Ferry Ride

My BC Ferry Ride

My BC Ferry Ride

 

 

Welcome to Vancouver during Rain and Playoffs

My first mistake was not thinking more about getting a hotel room for the night. I mean who knew there was a Canucks game, the first of the final series of the playoffs, happing in Vancouver. You think they would have told me before hand.

I kid of course, I did know of the game and was a little concerned about getting a hotel coming into the City. We weren’t sure though if we were going to stay in Downtown Vancity or outside and Skytrain in. Well at 4pm we didn’t have much choice. So after about 15 minutes of Googling available hotels in the area, while screaming through the windy roads of BC we found a place in Burnaby. It was a class place, lodge like. Actually the smell reminded me of the rooms at Bathurst Inlet Lodge. Nevertheless, it was a room and bed for the night.

So once we were settled and ready to go downtown I encountered my second mistake. Underestimating the rain. People have told me about the Vancouver rain. It is heavy and full, comes down in buckets. I thought I would be ready for it, but I wasn’t. I brought my rain jacket, but that wasn’t enough for me. Just walking 5 minutes to the Skytrain station, my legs got soaked.

Of course I go soaking wet walking to the Skytrain, but then when we got into downtown it had stopped and everything was great, except for the fact I was wet. I guess the saying “If you don’t like the weather in Canada, wait five minutes” rains true in Vancouver. Next time I see an umbrella in my hand.

This has just been a quick trip through Vancouver and I don’t think I have experienced it enough to make a call as to whether I like it or not. It is a City to me right now, like any other.

Next in our journey is the Ferry to the Island for Social Media Camp Victoria. By the way you can expect a post on Prince George to Burnaby and one on Hell’s Gate.

Rain in Chinatownphoto © 2010 Qantas Travel Insider | more info (via: Wylio)

My Mind is Racing with Ideas

I feel like my mind is racing so fast that I can’t take the time to stop and blog about it. So I am going to try really hard here right at this moment to stay focused on writing this.

Couple things that I have been pondering and watching this morning are the development of YkOnline and the Blogathon that is happening in Vancouver as well as all over the world over the next 24 hours.

I will start this with YkOnline. It has yet to be written in stone as to what I want the site to be, although it does seem to be something. I have been watching several other “community” blogs trying to taken in how they are built and maintained. Ones such as BlogTO and Beyond Robson which are Fresh Daily blogs, Torontoist and The Coast. These are all well established sites, run by several people and catered to 100x more people than Yellowknife’s population. But I believe that someday soon with some dedication I can get the site to become not only a great site for locals but also a resourceful site for people researching about moving to Yellowknife. I’m facing some challenges as I have to leave the north for 8 months for school but I know in the long run it is a good thing and will only help with the site but in the mean time I don’t want it to die. I will have more details about YkOnline soon.

As for the Blogathon, this has got me excited. I absolutely love the idea. I’m watching a lot of Vancouver bloggers do it right now. Check it out at Blogathon.org and consider donating. What is happing, is several bloggers have gotten together (you don’t have to, but they have chosen to this time around) and will be blogging for 24 hours straight. They will each publish a post every 30 minutes about what ever they like. Each blogger has their own charities they are getting pledges for. Some of the bloggers are writing about their charities and why they are blogging for them, while others have themes to go off of.

My mind is flying with ideas and possibilities for a Yellowknife Blogathon. I am just imagining all the local bloggers getting together at Javaroma or some other local for 24 hours of blogging. Now I’m not sure if Yellowknife’s Bloggers get enough recognition but I still think it would be fun and worth it for the charities.

Got a comment or suggestion about either of these things. I would love to know.

Yesterday had its excitment while I slept

Yesterday was full of 2 interesting findings, even though I slept all day.

The one thing I go excited about was some national recognition YkOnline received. Here is what happened. At about 6pm I got up and opened up my MacBook as I always do and checked my stats for both websites. When I saw that YkOnline had almost tripled the amount of hits it was normally gets I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was weird as the only post I had published in 5 days was about Yellowknife’s Twitter community and didn’t think it would get very much recognition and well I was right. As I scrolled down to see where the hits were being referred from I saw that most of them were coming from Miss604.com. If you don’t know about Miss604, you should check it out. Rebecca Bollwitt blogs about Vancouver and has become very famous do it, needless to say she is an idol of mine. So when I saw all these hits coming from her site, I quickly scrambled over there. I was delightfully surprised to read in one of her latest posts she linked back to YkOnline. Not only that she explained that we (as in Yellowknifers) have TweetUps and have a directory of all the Tweeps. I was so happy to see that not only YkOnline was getting recognized but also our Twitter community.

The other interesting thing about yesterday was what I found on my truck tires. Orange lines, could they be markings done by By-Law Officers. Read my post of YkOnline about what I think.

There you have it.