Sandbox

Making more interesting buttons

I posted a slideshow from game 2 of the Rangers series with the Soo. For Rangers slideshows we have been using the same boring button.

It is the same for each slideshow, so the buttons don't differentiate the content. It is the the visual equivalent of linking the word "here" (not a good thing).

I tried making a button unique to this slideshow using on of the photos in the show.

It still could be improved, but now you'll be able to tell the media apart by the picture. THis one is the one with Spaling attempting a wraparound.

Regional spelling bee victory like sweet clover — melilot, that is

wickerwork, lotion, zebra, gemology, ellipse, helix, melilot, rorqual, clavate

Those were the words students needed to know to place in the Waterloo Regional Spelling Bee last Saturday.

Raveena wrote a story:

Language skills help build strong spellers 14 Apr 2008

Learning a second language was common among spelling bee participants. And for many, English is not the only language spoken in their homes.

That doesn't surprise Madhu Kathuria.

A spelling bee judge and mother of two boys who competed in the spelling bee, she says most immigrants push their children to perfect English.

"I've seen that if English is not the parents' first language, they want their kids to absolutely master it," said Kathuria. "They are more serious about it and put in more effort."

I made a video:

Spelling Bee video

Peter was there and took photos. The kids had a lot of weird expressions. Here is one of them:

There was also a little girl who spun around when she was ready to spell (you can see it in the video). There was also a kids doing a crazy dance when I was interviewing Oliver, but I ended up cutting that part for time.

And in case you don't want to search for them here are what the interweb has to say about some of those words.

Melilot is sweet clover. Rorqual is a class of balleen whales. Clavate is a club-like shape.

Different The Record

by Ryan Chen-Wing

People around here tell me this happens fairly frequently.

I got an e-mail passed to me that said:

I can't find this article that was in today's paper on your web site.  Can you tell me why it's not there??

I searched around for it and I couldn't find it either. So I e-mailed the person back and asked for more details.

Where did you see the story in the newspaper? Could tell me what section and page and who wrote it? That information would help me figure out where it is or should be.

The person replied and gave me the particulars. Then it became obvious.

I searched with that information and up came The Record, but not our organization formerly known as The Record now called Waterloo Region Record, the one in Bergen County, New Jersey, USA.

People might think that that The Record has the website TheRecord.com, but no. Their website is at NorthJersey.com. I e-mailed him back and he responded good-naturedly.

Boy! Did I goof up.  Thanks for setting me straight.

 

Making maple syrup by University Avenue

by Ryan Chen-Wing

Before I went up to check out the festival, I stopped by a house at Kaufman Flats. The owner of the house, Bari, had e-mailed us to tell us about.

She told us about the fireman who a few years earlier had asked whether he could tap the sugar maple and black maple trees on their property.

He has a boiler and the blue buckets hanging from the trees down the Grand River banks. It's an enchanting sight. And it's right smack in the City.

So I climbed down the slope through the trees and met Earl and his daughter who were collecting the sap, tending the boiler, and making sweet maple syrup.

He told me the story of how he met Bari and her husband and how he started making maple syrup there.

I wrote about it for the newspaper:

Urban sugar bush creates syrup in the city 5 Apr 2008

I also made two videos of my time talking to Earl. The day I was there I missed flipping a switch on the video camera and didn't get any sound, so I went back two days later to film more video. You can see how much the snow melted in only two days.

Urban Sugar Bush video Part 1

Urban Sugar Bush video Part 2

Later, Bari sent me photos of the finished product.

It was pretty lucky to find out about the story then, because the sap stopped running that week.

Update on street suds mystery

A week ago we got an e-mail from Dan who sent in photos and a tip about "suds" coming up out of the drain at King and Fountain Streets.

I posted it here at the Sandbox blog and got a few comments.

We had a story on Friday about Cambridge city staff speculating about the source.

• City crews try to solve bubbly sewer mystery 11 Apr 2008

They said it was probably detergent in sewage coming down from the slope above.

Here is a overhead photo from Google Maps. You can see the river on the right and on the left of the red roofed building is a pretty steep slope.

Stories about publisher leaving

by Ryan Chen-Wing

Yesterday we received and reported the news that Record and Guelph Mercury publisher would be returning to the Hamilton Spectator to be publisher there. Before he came here he was Editor-in-Chief there.

Since this news directly affects three newspapers, there were stories on each organization's website. I linked to the other two from our story.

• Local: Publisher Dana Robbins leaving Waterloo Region Record newspaper Waterloo Region Record 10 Apr 2008
  
• Mercury publisher takes helm of Spectator Guelph Mercury 10 Apr 2008
  
• Dana Robbins named Publisher of the Hamilton Spectator Hamilton Spectator 10 Apr 2008
  

It was interesting to see over the day that 32 people followed the link to the Mercury story and 69 followed the link to the Spectator story.

The Record story didn't mention the other position changes in Metroland and only the Spectator told us what's happening to Murray Skinner. He's retiring, which I also found out from an old Record story (Spectator publisher appointed Metroland Media president 16 Nov 2007).

Here are the print edition stories on the topic.

• Robbins named publisher of The Hamilton Spectator Waterloo Region Record 11 Apr 2008
• Merc story not yet posted to web
• Robbins returns as Spectator publisher Hamilton Spectator 11 Apr 2008

Visiting Elmira for the maple syrup festival

by Ryan Chen-Wing

I was in Elmira Saturday for the Maple Syrup Festival. It is always difficult to try to find something new or interesting about something that happens every year.

I expected that my first draft would get rejected:

Syrup festival offers taste of spring
Ryan Chen-Wing, Record staff
It was like last year but sunnier.

So, I wrote a bit of a longer story:

• Syrup festival offers taste of spring (print edition) 7 Apr 2007
• Thousands crowd Elmira for maple syrup festival (web version) 5 Apr 2008

I also shot video of the festival, but when I got the footage back to the office, I found out that no audio had recorded (it was a different, more complex, camera than I normally use). "Luckily" the battery had run out and I shot some video on my own compact camera.

I made a video from that lower quality footage:

Touring the Sugar Bush 5 Apr 2008

And here are some pictures I took.

Visible minorities and the census

by Ryan Chen-Wing

Last week Stat Can released census information about visible minorities.

It is interesting because as the makeup of ethnic, cultural and national origins of Canada change and mix, we will face new challenges as a nation. One is the term "visible minorities," which seems to mean "non-whites." But those who are not visible minorities aren't invisible and — as we are seeing — not a majority in many cases.

It is interesting to see the words "pasty white" referring to skin colour in an article where corresponding terms for other skin colours might not be used.

He doesn't fit the pasty white profile of "Joe'' from the famous Molson Canadian ad that promoted a cool new brand of patriotism, but Victor Wong has a similar message -- with a twist to match the new, more colourful face of Canada.
— Defining 'Canadian'

While attitudes have changed around differences between people, we still have to learn and grow more as our society changes.

I put the demographic information for our area in web table at this page: Ethnic diversity in Waterloo Region from 2006 census

Here are some articles from last week.

 

• The changing face of Canada April 5, 2008— Canada is not the country it was just one or two generations ago. As the latest data from the national census shows, Canada is becoming, increasingly, a multicultural mosaic and Canadians are people whose skin comes in every shade and colour, from a breathtakingly wide variety of backgrounds.
• Census shows Canada's changing face April 3, 2008 — For the first time in Canada's history, visible minorities have surpassed the five million mark as a new wave of immigrants from Asia is changing the face of Canada at a staggering rate, according to new census data released yesterday by Statistics Canada.
• Defining 'Canadian' April 1, 2008 — He doesn't fit the pasty white profile of "Joe'' from the famous Molson Canadian ad that promoted a cool new brand of patriotism, but Victor Wong has a similar message -- with a twist to match the new, more colourful face of Canada.
• Mixed marriages forming at an unprecedented rate March 30, 2008 — Canada's multicultural society is increasingly showing signs that love is colour blind.
• 1 in 7 March 28, 2008 — The face of Waterloo Region is changing. Locally, the visible minority population has risen to 13.8 per cent from 10.7 per cent in 2001, according to a report Statistics Canada released yesterday.
• Some key numbers from the 2006 census on visible minorities, ethnic origins and commuting March 26, 2008

Suds spewed out of storm drain in Cambridge

Dan Black e-mailed in photos of white foam spewing out of a drain into the intersection of King and Fountain Streets.

Dan wrote:

Suds or something were flooding this intersection as cars were doing what every they could to avoid it but at the same time slowing down to see the odd showing suds.

Look at the photos below. Comment to let us know whether you saw the suds too or whether you know where they came from.

Beaver Creek blog thanks me

by Ryan Chen-Wing

They turned things around on me. Usually I am writing about others but Jonathan at the Beaver Creek Housing Co-op  blog referred to me in an Earth hour post.

Special thanks to Candlepower for donating the candle supplies, to Ryan Chen-Wing from The Record for covering the event, and to all of the members who helped out or attended this event.
— 2008 Earth Hour Wrap-up 31 Mar 2008

I had been there to shoot a video for TheRecord.com about their candlemaking and community walk.

They also have a photo gallery of their Earth Hour event.