Canadian Death Race 2010
I just interviewed someone from Prince George taking part in this. Good lord.
Canadian Death Race 2010 Brochure
AndrewKurjata.ca
I blog about radio, citizenship, social media and the city of Prince George. I also write about the ongoing saga of being a first-time homeowner with way too many pets. Enjoy! *Blog | About | Contact | Archives | Lifestream | Navigate | Subscribe
This American Life: 20 Acts in 60 Minutes
I don’t listen to a lot of radio from the States, but after seeing three recommendations for “This American Life” in three days, I decided to give it a go. I visited their website and clicked on “Favorites” and ultimately chose “20 Acts in 60 Minutes.” The gist is simple: in the hour-long show, they present 20 stories. The math is simple: 3 minutes a story, less, if you account for time the host uses and breaks.
It is brilliant.
Since I regularly put together 2 minute segments on Daybreak, I am even more in awe of how much they are able to convey in such short time. I often find it challenging cutting down a five-minute interview into a two-minute tape, so that they are taking full stories and distilling them to their bare essence is simply inspiring. Particularly great are the stories at the 8:15 mark about a local classifieds radio show in Tennessee and especially the one at 21:59 about the greatest dog name in the world. The thing about both of these is they are such simple stories– the second one, in particular, with two brothers aged 12 and 13 explaining how they named their dog– this could happen anywhere. And yet the story-telling is such that you are captivated by the narrative of this simple non-event that must happens hundreds of times every day around the world– the sort of thing that could easily be glossed over while looking for the next great news story, yet makes for the most memorable bits of radio.
I’m going to take this as my new gold standard for putting together radio packages. If you put the right amount of care into any story, it’s bound to be compelling so long as the person telling it finds it interesting, too.
You can bet I’ll be listening to more of this show on upcoming road trips, and I recommend you do, too: the episode I’m talking about is here, or in the audio player below.
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Neighbourhood Golf Course Plan Open House TONIGHT
Remember this? The open house on the issue is tonight:
It’s the 2nd Floor of the PG Golf and Curling Clubhouse, which is here.
If you can’t make it you can read about the plan here, fill in a comment form online here, or download the comment form right here and email it to kwatt@city.pg.bc.ca.
Other ways of submitting are dropping it off at Planning & Development, 2nd Floor City Hall, 1100 Patricia Boulevard, Prince George , B.C., V2L 3V9 or faxing (250) 561-7721.
With such a huge chunk of land at shape, there’s not really a good reason to not take a quick look at this and form some thoughts. Local governance sometimes seems like one of the few levels left where public input can actively affect policy, so hopefully this opportunity doesn’t go to waste. Oh, and I’ve embedded a copy of the plan right here, so you can read it without downloading.
Preliminary Draft Golf Course Pine Centre Neighbour Hood Plan
Weekend Update: Painting the House and Visiting the River
Interesting weather this weekend. Officially it was about 20-25 degrees, but with a strong wind coming and going and the hot July sun, it felt like it was fluctuating a lot more. On Saturday there was a giant river float in town with hundreds of people jumping on inflatable things and headed down. I didn’t take part– didn’t want to deal with the congestion, but Opinion250 has posted lots of pictures and it looks like that aside from some arrests for public drunkenness it was a good time, which is nice to see.
On Sunday, however, we made it out to Wilson Park which is a good place for smaller floats and berry picking– saskatoons are on the trail end of the season, and raspberries are on their way in.
We’re also in the process of painting our living room. We’re doing a dark red currant, but for the undercoat it was recommended that we do a lighter version of it rather than a straight white. The result is that for a short time we had a bubblegum pink wall. We’ve put on the first coat of red now, so you can get a better idea of what it’s going to look like.
I’m a fan of floating down the river, but I doubt I’ll be doing it today
“RCMP are anticipating thousands of people could turn up for a “tubing” event Saturday in the Miworth area.
“With the expected large number of participants, Liquor Control Board regulations will be strictly enforced with the issuing of fines and seizure of liquor. Open liquor and the consumption of liquor in a public place are among those offences being targeted. A police boat will be patrolling the river in order to keep the event safe and to assist with any emergencies. There will also be a number of road checks deployed throughout the Prince George area in order to detect and deter impaired driving.”
Nice to know police are prepped for this, but I’m not a fan of high-traffic areas out in nature. Still, a river float is a classic Prince George experience so if you’re looking to do it with a few thousand friends, you may want to check this out: 2nd Annual HUGE River Float on Facebook
New Funding for Community and Campus Radio
“The Community Radio Fund of Canada (CRFC) is pleased to announce that the campus and community radio sector will receive vital funding following the decision released today by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on the Review of the Campus and Community Radio Policies.
“The Commission approved part of the CRFC’s request for mandatory funding from the private broadcasting sector through contributions to the Canadian Content Development (CCD). Once in place, this will mean that the CRFC will likely receive $775,000 annually. This funding will then be distributed through the CRFC’s programs to more than 140 stations and their representative associations.”
Sounds like good news for CFUR, but I’ll have to look in to what, exactly, this means.
The BC Old Time Fiddler’s Association and Changing Attitudes About Prince George
One thing I love about working at CBC is having the onus to contact random people and talk to them about what they do. You never know what you might learn.
Take, for example, a story I just did on the 41st Annual BC Old Time Fiddler’s Competition here in Prince George. What sparked my interest in this was that it was number 41– meaning this competition dates back to the sixties. Based on the age and the name of the group “old time” I expected this to be a small group of older people carrying on their tradition.
Wrong.
As it turns out, the organization has anywhere between 140 to 160 members in Prince George alone. That’s a sizable force in a city of 80,000. There’s older members, yes, but every age group from under 10 to over 80 is represented. And while the BC Old Time Fiddler’s Association is a province-wide community, it turns out that Prince George is its historic headquarters:
The British Columbia Old Time Fiddlers’ Association was formed in 1969 in Prince George by a group of individuals dedicated to promoting and preserving the Canadian style of old time fiddling in British Columbia. By 1978 other fiddlers from throughout B.C. were interested in forming a provincial association and approached the Prince George group with the proposal to turn the name British Columbia Old Time Fiddlers’ Association over to the provincial body. After some discussion, it was agreed upon and Prince George became Branch #1.
via bcfiddlers.org
So here we have an organization founded in Prince George over forty years ago that has spread throughout the province and continues to have a strong presence in the city– but how many people in the city are more than vaguely aware of it?
Prince George has so many stories, yet you continuously run in to people who feel like there’s nothing here, there’s no history, and there’s no ability to have an effect beyond the city limits. The more I learn about what’s going on here and what’s come before, the more it becomes my goal to eradicate this attitude as much as possible.
Undergraduation
My sister recently completed her undergrad, and we marked the occasion with dinner and cake. Here’s the mandatory photoshoot– I went for a behind-the-scenes look.
Storyboard Meeting Notes
I keep a notebook with me most of the time to jot down ideas and notes. Here’s some I took yesterday during a storyboard meeting:
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For 80% of the work week, I'm the station manager of CFUR radio in Prince George, British Columbia. For the other 20%, I work on the CBC radio program Daybreak North. I play dodgeball and road hockey, and I have a lot of pets. Read more »
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