Moon Song’s swan song

Clara, one of my roommates who’s lived here for a year, moved out last week. She was easily one of the best roommates I’ve ever had. Equal parts hilarious, brilliant and chilled out. I will never forget how awesome it was living with her and knowing her.

It’s pretty unreal when you can put out an ad on a service like Craigslist or Kijiji and wind up meeting someone who isn’t a terrifying sociopath. When Scott and I needed a third person to move in — after our previous roommate Julie moved out to go travelling — we knew several things: our roommate had to be a girl, she had to be very patient, she had to like staying up late, and she had to be able to dish out the sarcasm and snide remarks that so constantly get floated about in this house. Turns out she was the perfect choice.

In favour of closing YXD

Below is a letter I wrote to my city councillors regarding the vote to close or maintain the status quo for Edmonton’s City Centre Airport. I have rather strong feelings about the issue, and though they aren’t fleshed out too much in the letter below, I thought I wold share with the internets all the same… A great run-down of reports on the City Centre Airport can be found here. And Councillor Don Iveson shares his thoughts on YXD here.

Good Afternoon Councillors,

My name is Adam Rozenhart. I’m a Ward 4 constituent living in the picturesque neighbourhood of Riverdale. I’m writing you today concerning the hearings on what to do with Edmonton’s Downtown Airport. I implore you to vote in favour of closing its doors and redeveloping those lands for residential and commercial in-fill.

I’ve been listening to the discussion over the web the last three days, and I fear (as Scott McKeen pointed out in this recent column in the Journal) the pro-airport speakers have unduly influenced councillors with dire forecasts of medevac failures and the bleeding of businesses down south to Calgary.

Forgive me, but I call bullshit.

The casting of pods

I had the opportunity a few months ago to reconnect with former colleague Scott C. Bourgeois at a tweetup in Edmonton. We chatted, we drank, we discussed the various experiences we’ve had driving past — and indeed creating — roadkill. And certainly that was most of the discussion of the evening. That, and survival horror videogames.

Our paths didn’t cross so much between then and now, but Scott and I managed to meet up a few times to discuss launching a podcast. We didn’t know what we were going to call it, we didn’t know what it was going to be about, but we knew we were going to do it. If it killed us or drained us financially (I doubt it will do either, but what’s a good yarn without poverty and death?).

Edmonton’s non-pirate radio

I had a few wonderful conversations this evening, involving some wonderful people who are so replete with wonderful ideas that it’s hard to believe the planet isn’t a better place JUST BECAUSE OF THEIR EXISTENCE. Yeah, they both smell great.

I spoke with my dear friend @andrealown over Skype tonight about the re-purposing of a blog we created last fall in Toronto, this time with a sharpened focus and eventually visual identity and branding. But that’s not what I want to talk about in this post, because I also met with @scottybomb at Next Act for a beer and a discussion about the creation of a loosely-Edmonton-focused podcast which would feature local guests, and topics that we enjoy and think others will too.

The irony of an oft-used phrase

Pal ‘o mine and blogosphere titan Dave Cournoyer was once told to govern [himself] accordingly when he was rather hastily threatened with all kinds of legal mumbo jumbo over the fact that he owned the domain name edstelmach.ca (read about the controversy here and here). It’s a phrase that gets kicked around hilariously still, every now and then, and one I used the other night on Twitter to chide the Alberta Legislature during the third reading of the much-publicized Bill 44.

Online game experimentation

Working for Ignition Media’s been really exciting and extremely eye-opening. I started in January with the title Account Manager. However, it’s a small shop — only five employees plus the owner — so we all sort of wind up doing a bit of everyone. I’ve been trying to carve out my niche in new business and social media.

We’re trying to find innovative new ways to increase brand impressions for current clients, as we cultivate new ones. Of course, this has meant a lot of research into using Twitter, Facebook, and online games to try and increase traffic and enhance the overall user experience for client websites. We’re looking into the creation of interactive microsites for some clients, and just additional features on current sites for others.