This past weekend was fantastic! I am finally starting to feel like myself again. We went snowboarding at Cypress, saw Alice in Wonderland, did a ton of house cleaning, and booked up all our Greenpoint campsites for the entire year early this morning at 7 AM for surfing in Tofino this summer. I think I pretty much kicked my cold too, FINALLY.

Cypress was amazing. It was turn after turn in deep powder.

It was a little foggy, so we rode trees all day. Felt so good to get back in the snow again.

In other news, the costume design by Colleen Atwood in Alice and Wonderland is absolutely incredible.

I quickly decided that I am going to be sewing a dress from the movie for Halloween this year. The question is… which one?

The dresses are rich, lavish with tons of layering and detail. This “Alice Red Court” dress is stunning.

As much as I love the Red Court dress, I think the one I absolutely have to sew is either this “Blue Scrap” dress…

… or this off the shoulder piece. I can’t decide! They are both beautiful. Can’t wait till they release proper stills for the movie.

Believe it or not, I’m actually no stranger to sewing my own dresses and clothes. It’s true, they aren’t to the level of Colleen Atwood’s designs, but they were still fun projects to work on and wear!

I sewed this layered casual shirt and bow for a New Year’s house party one year.

Here’s a silk draped dress that I made in 10th grade in high school.

Yes, there were some fashion faux-pas that I unfortunately made in university for formals. Haha. But hey, I still sewed it!

But probably the most challenging project I’ve ever done was my graduation dress for the end of high school. We had no money to buy a proper grad dress, so I scrimped and saved and put together the dress of my dreams!

It took several months to sew all the tulle layers underneath the dress and drape all the satin.

It turned out though! And it held together for the event as well, which I was crossing my fingers for.

I still have it, and I am so glad that I did.

So, I’m really looking forward to getting back into sewing and putting together an “Alice” dress for Halloween… the only question is… which one?

I’m super stoked on a couple new gadgets I’ve picked up recently, and I thought now would be a great time to do a product review with some photos!

First up, the Amazon Kindle. This device has singlehandedly rekindled (ha ha) my love of reading. Yes, I realize there is an Apple iPad coming out. I’m not concerned. The reason why I chose the Amazon Kindle is for one purpose: reading books.

The e-ink is amazing, and it is EXACTLY like reading a book. It looks exactly like ink on paper, but with a thin protective cover over it. This is why I will not be using an iPad for reading. Yes, I may use it for web surfing, but not for reading. I do not want to read on a backlit screen when I have to sit at work all day looking at a computer screen.

The device itself is gorgeous. It’s extremely light… lighter than a paperback book. Unlike a normal book where you need two hands to hold the pages open, I can read my Kindle with one hand. After reading for 8 hours straight, this is a huge benefit. I love the design of the Kindle.

The back is also really pretty, with brushed metal and a little bit of rubber for non-slip. I should note that this is the 2nd Generation Kindle, but it is not the Kindle DX. The Kindle DX is bigger and harder to hold in one hand… it’s better used for magazine/newspaper reading. Also — the Kindle is hooked up to 3G Wireless in Canada, so you can buy a book wirelessly no matter where you are. There is no data plan or package you have to buy… simply load up the Amazon store on the device and buy a book, and be reading within 30 seconds!

Since I purchased my Kindle a couple months ago, I’ve read 16 books and read over 13,000 pages (yes, the Wheel of Time series is long and took up a lot of that page count). The Kindle is also VERY thin. I bought a Flexstand Bookstand from M-Edge (pictured here) so that I can read it in bed or while eating without having to hold it up. I highly recommend this accessory.

Here’s a photo of all the accessories I have for my Kindle. I bought a pink leather sleeve for protection, a New Yorker leather cover for traveling or when out or about (it hooks into the Kindle deftly so it can’t fall out), and the Flexstand Bookstand. All from M-Edge Accessories.

Needless to say, I’m in LOVE with my Kindle. If you’re a book reader, I would say it is a MUST buy at only $250. After buying 10 books, you will have saved yourself back the cost of your device since e-books are only $5-10 compared to $10-30 for physical books. You. Will. Love. It.

Next up… my new Blackberry Bold 9700. I’ve tried so many different phones, from Nokia to different Blackberries and yes, even the iPhone. But Blackberry just does it right. Everything about a Blackberry is perfect for the type of user that I am. I am completely in love with this phone.

It’s fast, the new trackpad is great compared to the trackball, and the new OS is incredible. I love the new features. The new Blackberry Messenger is much improved, and since 60% of all my friends have Blackberries, it’s the perfect and quick way to communicate with most of my friends.

It’s really small and light. The new grippy back is a nice feature as well. I upgraded from my Curve 8900 to the 9700, and it’s not a huge difference. The 3G is a really great upgrade, and the new OS is too.

There are now tons of apps for the Blackberry, and Blackberry World is very slick. From budget software to games, I haven’t found anything lacking on the Blackberry that I’ve wished for that was on the iPhone. And the keyboard is a big plus. I can type faster than any iPhone user and much, much more accurately. Yes! I challenge you to a type-off. But seriously, I find typing on my phone an absolute pleasure. Everything I’ve ever wanted in a phone, is in my new Blackberry Bold.

So that’s it folks! My new gadgets. Feel free to leave any questions or comments below!

Sorry for the long delay in posts, folks! I know this one was a long time coming. This post covers the last few days of the Olympics. Although I was sick halfway through the Olympics, I decided to honour the rest of my commitments and go to all the events that I said I would. As a result, I continued to get even more and more sick. But hey, it was fun while it lasted, right? It’s a once in a lifetime experience and in retrospect, I can say I definitely enjoyed the Olympics to the fullest extent!

The last Thursday and Saturday nights of the Olympics were the Club Bud parties… the main Budweiser one and the Lululemon party. At the Lululemon party, it was so crazy that the VIP athlete/celebrity line was MAXED and lined up around the block, let alone the normal lineup! Crazy!

We got to see a number of athletes and celebrities including Mayor Gregor Robertson, Torah Bright, Mark Valley, and well… of course the sexy Budweiser girls.

I was also super stoked to see Canadian medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Jessica Gregg, Marianne St. Gelais, and more. Also honourable mention to the Danish curling team… yes, the captain Madeleine Dupont is very famous for her appearance in a certain “calendar”. Take a look on Google.

The inside of the Lululemon party was super cool… they had a number of dancers and acrobats suspended from the sky. I brought my best friends Kim and Anna to the party. Kim actually owns a yoga studio in Vancouver and a number of her students and friends were the dancers on the ceiling!

Here’s me, Kim and Anna having an awesome time.

A huge number of my friends from business school in university flew into town to experience the Olympics. I can’t tell you how rad it was to see about 12 of my friends from school that I never get to see since they are all working in Toronto, New York, LA, etc. One of my best friends Erik was staying at our apartment, and so I inevitably got dragged along to party with him and the rest of our school friends. One of the nights we headed to Gossip nightclub to see Calvin Harris.

I’m not a huge DJ person, but the music was great and I also bumped into a couple of Allan’s friends there. Great atmosphere.

My friends of course managed to get a VIP booth which I happily tagged along and enjoyed!

So great to see everyone!

Afterwards Erik and I took a Pedi Cab home… that was fun.

On Saturday after the Lululemon party, Kim and Anna and I joined a couple more of my university friends at Barcelona Ultra Lounge where yes… they also had another VIP booth. Yeesh! These people know how to roll!

Here’s Robb, me and Erik. Thanks for having us guys! I was stone sober the entire night and it was pretty crazy to see them get kicked out multiple times, only somehow to get back to their booth. Note to self: Show up earlier.

The last day of the Olympics, Allan and I headed to the Hockey House to watch the Gold Medal game. We had tickets way in advance so thank goodness we weren’t paying the ridiculous amounts of money that people were paying to get tickets to that. We also managed to get there super early and so we got one of the 5 tables in the “non-VIP” area! Woohoo! We saw a number of Canadian athletes honoured for their medals…

… we saw Wide Mouth Mason perform…

… and the Odds, with so many guests!

We of course saw Canada win Gold, which was pretty much the greatest moment of my life. I bawled my eyes out for about 20 minutes straight. It was a proud moment. I will never forget it.

And best of all, we got to see Roberto Luongo after winning the Gold Medal with his beautiful daughter!

How cute is that little Luongo jersey?

Thanks for being so patient with me. I have lots more coming up to post over the next couple weeks including a couple of overdue snowboarding movies! We now resume our normal blogging… West coast, surfing, snowboarding, golf, Canucks, food, etc…. you know how it goes!

Hi everyone, I just sat down at my computer for the first time in 3 days to tell you that yes, I am incredibly sick and haven’t had the chance to post any updates. I really apologize for this… I have so much to post from the last few days of the Olympics!

Sadly, I knew my body was getting sick about halfway through the Olympics but persisted with working full time and going to events, etc. The crazy thing is, I only drank 2 days of the 17 days and only stayed out late past midnight three times! I’ve been trying so hard to stay healthy. Still, it’s my own fault — I should have rested when my body told me to. Adrenaline got me through it but now that it’s gone, my body got really sick and I found out that I have pneumonia.

Unfortunately antibiotics is not an option for me from past reactions, so I’ve been spending entire days in bed and cannot seem to stop my coughing or fevers just yet. Not to mention some strange sharp lower back/joint paint that seems to be related to the virus. It hurts too much to sit even upright so not even watching TV or reading books are an option. It’s so sad! I’ve been stuck in bed with only my phone to have any sort of connection with the rest of the world. I am hoping that I get better soon.

Again, apologies for the lack of content this week… I hope to be healthy again soon and have more posts, contests, and photos soon. Sorry to complain so much! Thanks for understanding!

On Monday we watched the Men’s Canada-USA Curling game at the Olympic Curling Centre.  It was an intense game.

Of course, no curling blog post would be complete without a photo of the famous Norway curling pants. They have two different variations… these red ones and also the white ones with blue/red checkers. Awesome.

We had a blast. I honestly think that it’s almost more fun to watching curling live than hockey. *gasp* Yep, I said it.

It was great watching Kevin Martin and his team beat the US, especially after losing the hockey game the previous night to the US team.

Afterwards we headed over to the Hockey House where we spent the entire day with a group of 9 friends.

We managed to take tons of group photos, including this one with the hosts of the Hockey House. Awesome white suits. P.S. Check out my awesome 2010 commemorative hockey stick (I got it signed by a ton of people!)…

Cam Neely was also there… what a legend!

We spent most of the afternoon watching the on-stage entertainment and wandering around the pavilion taking photos of everything.

Oh, and lots of bubble hockey was played.

We made sure to get clappers, and took this group photo…

… which we loved so much that we got them made into 9 souvenir pins! Haha.

I loved getting a photo with the sexy Hockey House babes.

It was so much fun to watch the women’s Canada-Finland semifinal there… we won handily, but every goal was a huge celebration.

And the main event… we got to watch the Triple Gold Club celebration on stage. The Triple Gold Club presentation is for the 22 players who have achieved the three most important accomplishments in hockey… winning the Stanley Cup, winning Olympic gold, and winning the IIHF world championships. As you can imagine, this is an extremely prestigious award and very, very few players ever win this.

I love this photo of Vladislav Tretiak, Rene Fasel, and Gary Bettman. It’s kind of ominous… but cool. They did the presentation to all the players.

Peter Forsberg was there..

… and Alexander Mogilny…

And Joe Sakic!

Sakic is one of my faves. My old bedroom at home still has his posters plastered all over the place.

Rob Blake too..

Here’s Brendan Shanahan, Joe Sakic, and Rob Blake on stage.

Allan and I posed inside of the hockey mask…

At the end of the night, the band Five Alarm Funk took the stage and they seriously blew the roof off the place. They were a lot of run.

We made sure to take lots of photos with them when they came off the stage and partied with us.

DJ Skratch Bastid closed off the night and he was really good. He was great at reading the crowd and reacting accordingly.

The view of our group from the stage.

Yeah, we had a ridiculously good time.