Vancouver is a magnificent city! Weather-wise, I think a conspiracy is on to convince me to relocate (someday) to the Pacific northwest. When I attended NECC 2003 in Seattle, for 3 of my 4 days in town the weather was equally perfect as it was today in Vancouver. I have posted some photos of my walk and horse drawn carriage ride tour today of Stanley Park to Flickr. Mount Baker, which lies 100 miles to the south of Vancouver, was visible in all its glory today. Evidently this is not common: it is a sight visible only a day or two per month, depending on the season. The fall leaves today were gorgeous, the air was cool and crisp: in short a stupendous day, one that will doubtless be long remembered.
Contrast can often be an instructive teacher. Put another way, the juxtaposition of contradicting ideas can produce cognitive dissonance that leads to critical thinking. That was the case today, when I arrived in Vancouver’s international airport. Filling out the Canadian customs form on the plane, I noted that (although I am NOT transporting any alchohol or tobacco products) my legal limit for exempt importation of beer is twenty-four 12 ounce cans and 200 cigarettes or 50 cigars. Interesting to note that while I am limited in the number of malt beverages and tobacco products I can legally bring into the country without paying a customs duty, there is not a commiserate duty or even spot inspection on ideas.
While waiting in line to clear customs in Vancouver, I opened my laptop and immediately connected to the free airport wireless Internet service. No logging on, no authentication, no multi-paragraph disclaimer like the Lubbock airport. I opened my file transfer program, and with a couple clicks published my new podcast to the web, as well as the blog entry I had written on the airplane with the podcast shownotes. So before clearing customs, I had added a new 20 minute podcast to the blogosphere from Canada– without any interference (indeed with the assistance of freely provided Internet access) by national port authorities.
Interesting. Ours is a global village. Amazing how many Internet cafes I saw today (advertised in many different languages) here in Vancouver. This is a great town! 🙂
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On this day..
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- Project Management Tools, Tips and Tricks (Oct 2013) – 2013
- At the Eastern Edge of our Continent: Wells Reserve at Laudholm (Maine) – 2012
- Annotate, Correct and Edit Documents on Your iPad – 2011
- The Joys of Microfiche Scanning – 2010
- Gage, Oklahoma Schools roll out iPod Touches for Grades 3-12 – 2009
- Talking blogs – 2006
- Wii is going to reinvent the gaming experience – 2006
- Persuasion Map – 2006
- Monitoring the blog pulse – 2006