Ice in April at the Creelman Rink

It stayed so consistently cold in the "Spring" of 2013 that on Sunday, April 14 we were able to have a game of shinny at the Creelman Community Complex.

Yeah, we got to play hockey in April because it was still that cold. You can hate on the weather, but that's pretty cool. Haha.. Cool..

Now, this is a big deal because the ice at the Creelman Rink isn't artificial, it's real, pure, honest to goodness, natural ice. Sure, everyone was probably sick of the weather in Saskatchewan, but it was pretty great to be able to say we played hockey in the middle of April in Creelman.

But we've had our fun, so it can get warmer any day now for the farmers to start seeding..

Life is Good.

Liking & Following for Charity

I decided to make a video yesterday.

It's about how some businesses and individuals try to turn giving to charity into a personal gain for them in the form of likes, followers, etc.

And it got some feedback.

It also got the guys behind the project scrambling to get me to understand how it is such a positive thing for the businesses involved while not benefiting them as much as I think it does.

SPOILER ALERT: It involves you liking their Facebook Page before you can see the other companies involved who are actually doing the donating.


See for yourself:

(Or click here)

Here's some of the feedback:

Social Media and The 2012 Regina Municipal Election

*DISCLAIMER: Look, I'm not here to tell to you who to vote for, that's your decision. This is my opinion on how a few of the top candidates for Mayor of Regina in the 2012 Municipal Election are using social media.*

Let's look at some platform comparisons.
Oh no, dear reader, not those platforms, I'm talking about social platforms..

PLATFORM COMPARISONS

 

FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK PAGE	LIKES
Meka 2012	859
Team Marian Donnelly for Mayor 2012	779
CreelmanKid*	81
Michael Fougere	71
Dr. Liz Brass	20

TWITTER

NAME	HANDLE	FOLLOWERS	FOLLOWING	TWEETS
Marian Donnelly	@mariandonnelly	833	899	708
Meka2012.ca	@meka4mayor	774	554	1160
Michael Fougere	@fougere4mayor	752	185	193
Marian4Mayor	@Marian4Mayor	506	455	310
David Carnegie*	@CreelmanKid	455	196	9277
Liz Brass 4 Mayor	@LizBrass	254	180	308

*I threw myself in there just for comparison. I'm not running. Yet... #Carnegie2020

Not bad, but there's more to social media than just the numbers. I mean hey, the account could be run by a team and not just the candidate, their followers could all be bots, who knows? Let's take a closer look at how each of the candidates uses social media...

VanArts Life Drawing Term 3

Here's my Life Drawing work from Term 3 at VanArts.

Facial Expressions

VanArts Aquarium Adventure

Final sketches from my day at the Vancouver Aquarium field trip with VanArts.

Click for more..

Oliebollen with Oma

At the end of each year, my Oma (Dutch for Grandma) makes Oliebollen for all of her children and grandchildren. It's a tradition from Holland to have them every year on the 31st of December.

So.. What is it exactly? Well, it's like a doughnut, deep fried and topped with icing sugar.

Wikipedia puts it this way..

"An oliebol (plural oliebollen pronunciation) is a traditional Dutch food. Oliebollen (literally oil balls) are traditionally eaten on New Year's Eve and at funfairs. They are also called smoutebollen (literally lard balls) in Belgium. In English they are more commonly known as Dutch Doughnuts.
Oliebollen are a variety of dumpling made by using an ice-scooper or two spoons to scoop a certain amount of dough and dropping the dough into a deep fryer filled with hot oil. In this way, a sphere-shaped oliebol emerges.
The dough is made from flour, eggs, yeast, some salt, milk, baking powder and usually sultanas, currants, raisins and sometimes zest or succade. A notable variety is the appelbeignet, which contains a slice of apple. The dough needs time to rise for at least an hour. Oliebollen are usually served with powdered sugar."

Because it has been a New Year's Eve tradition, I always wanted to get it on camera, just because I thought it was a cool process and didn't want to take it for granted. I finally filmed her making them this past year (2011) and this is what I came up with.

Happy New Year.

2010 Olympic Torch Relay

I was lucky enough to be one of the 12,000 people, selected out of an estimated 1,000,000 applicants, to carry the Olympic Flame on its way to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

It was an awesome experience, but so were the Olympics in general; following Team Canada on their quest to Own the Podium. Need a reminder? Check out Stephen Brunt's Video Essay at the end of this post.

Here are some pictures, videos and highlights on "Vancouver 2010".

(Today is the 2 year anniversary of the day I carried the torch. I just wanted to repost this on Blogger, as I am no longer using the site this was originally posted on. Thanks for checking it out.)

Canadian Internet

When I heard this story on CBC Radio's news program This is That, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Apparently there is a group out there, the Association of Canadian Content, who wants to make only Canadian sites available to people surfing the Internet in Canada. A Canadian Only Internet.

I was hoping this was a joke but I'm even more worried about this now that these previews of Canadian only sites have surfaced online.

Hill BSS Poster Boy

In the 2010 Fall Semester at the University of Regina I joined (well, I guess I was accepted or "made the cut" so to speak) the Paul J. Hill School of Business Students' Society, the Hill BSS.

My job? Poster Designer. Not the most prestigious position, heck I think I was the last name listed on the BSS Depth Chart, but it was definitely the most fun. I got to work with pretty much everyone on the BSS at least once to design posters, flyers, tickets, and web banners for various events and activities.

Looking back, it was just a lot of fun to get involved, in my second year at the U of R, with an awesome group of people who will no doubt dominate in the near future.

One of the posters that I happened to get a lot of positive feedback from, which was also one of my favourite posters to create, was for the Halloween "Moster Mash Bash." So, since it's that time of year, I thought I'd use Halloween as an excuse to showcase some of my work with the BSS.


Check them out and let me know what you think.

Google+ Album
or
Facebook Album
and
Hill BSS

Follow my Year at VanArts

On September 6th, 2011 I started the 1 year 3D Character Animation program at VanArts (Vancouver Institute of Media Arts) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

If you want to see what my life is like in the "big city" and what I'm up to at VanArts you can keep up to date by following me on my various social media sites.

YouTube
(Videos! Check out my VanArts Vlog playlist here
and my Animation Project playlist here)

Twitter
(Tweet me! @CreelmanKid)

Tumblr
(Thoughts and pictures, mainly pictures)

Google+
(You can send me an email from here)

Facebook
(Great if you're on the Facebooks)

If you're not into that sort of thing, but still want to know what I'm up too, don't worry!
Just check out the VanArts Page here on my Blogger blog for a weekly digest.

Here's my first vlog, check out the YouTube Playlist to see all of the videos.