Victoria Spring 2011 - Tofino sunset or sunrise on great coffee · Wednesday April 27, 2011 by colin newell
My wife and I have been visiting Tofino and Ucluelet on Vancouver Island for well over 10 years since we were married.
And in a decade some things have changed and some other things have remained absolutely and irritatingly the same.
Food: For all intents and purposes, Tofino has come a nice distance in the last decade. There was a time, 20 years or so ago, that there was little to pick from apart from some questionable burger joints and some really questionable seafood places…
Which is an atrocity when you consider that Tofino and Ucluelet are sea food meccas. For goodness sakes, there are fishing fleets based in these two magical little towns.
In 2011, Tofino and Ucluelet cuisine has moved forward big time — for the cuisine that is. You can still get some horrifyingly appalling fish and chips, burgers and hot dogs… ironically at mom and pop joints… because… wait for it, there are no chains or franchise fast food operations in Tofino or Ucluelet… Because heavens knows that a Taco Bell or McDonald’s could not possibly get down to the junk level of some of the joints up here on the coast. OK. Enough picking on that front.
A notch or two up are the deli’s that I have encountered – the ones that charge $10 for a fancy grilled cheese sandwich, that when you order it to eat in, takes 25 minutes to make and is handed to you wrapped in plastic, tinfoil and or paper. No name, but the one deli we visited on this last weekend kept me in stitches after witnessing one order mess up after another… only to have my order screwed up – where we waited almost an hour to get a cheese sandwich made properly. No apology either. Not a word. No sorry for the wait. Nor a nod. Because this is Tofino.
Tofino – all attitude and no substance. None at all.
At the cuisine level it is another matter. When fresh fish or local meat and produce are being prepared in Tofino, they are generally as good as the big city. Pricing tends to be slightly higher than other major centers – but what the heck, Tofino is a tourist town and a bit of a food trap. That said, there is a lot of competition and competition in close quarters is good for you and me.
Coffee: – There are no qualms about it. The coffee culture in Tofino is nearly hopeless. This is starting to change – thank heavens. A notable and sometimes irritating deli, Breakers, has just picked up a Fernwood Coffee contract – they have good equipment and raw materials… so with a little training from the fabulous people at Fernwood, there is hope. Let’s all cross our fingers.
The interesting observation I get about Tofino coffee culture is that it is all attitude and no production. And I want to be contradicted on this – in 20+ visits over the last decade plus, the coffee groove has remained sad.
A colleague of mine quipped the other day, “Remember Colin, Tofino is surf culture, not coffee culture…”
Huh? Why can it not be both? Victoria is coffee culture, tea culture, food culture and tourist culture?
Could it be that Tofino is not capable of doing anything but hippie chill out and surf? Maybe. I hope not. A community like that cannot survive on one trick pony.
Summary: – I would be remiss in not acknowledging the great people that live and work in Tofino and Ucluelet. Yes, the food and tourism culture is there for our comfort and amusement – much like my little city of Victoria – but there are other sides to the culture of community. Victoria is no different.
But if you are going to do coffee and offer a chunk of espresso culture, try and deliver the goods – even if you are pretending.
For now, if you are visiting Tofino or Ucluelet, I beg of you: Bring your own coffee!
We stay at the Middle Beach Lodge and the drip coffee they serve in the Lodge is very good. I know, I drink too much of it.
If I was anywhere else, I would have brought a Press or the Aero and a hand grinder.
To do anything else would be risky.
Espresso in Tofino? Forget about it…
For now.
Colin Newell lives, eats and drinks Vancouver Island food culture – and can often be found between the pages of EAT Magazine or hovering over a cup of Joe at one of many fine Victoria cafes.
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Victoria Spring 2011 - Our Work Place Glee Music Therapy · Tuesday April 19, 2011 by colin newell
For most people, music in the work place comes out of a back ground music system or off of someones bleeding iPod. It’s not like anyone has a radio playing at their work station anymore – So it may come as something of a surprise to find a lab in a local University that has its own built in jam space for lunch time guitar and bass throw downs.
Seems odd to me – even though I got the ball rolling – And I am sure this is more common than I think it is – or perhaps it is a well kept secret elsewhere.
Because for some reason, my employer (a local University) seems to be a hot bed of musical talent… and trust me folks, I am not self identifying here or anything – any money I have ever made in the music biz has gone directly to charity. Not talented. At all. But I can pretend. Sometimes quite effectively.
But I do plays the guitar a bit. A bit. A bit of guitar. A bit of bass. A bit of voice and a bit of piano. All in good fun. And for whatever reason, it all feels good.
Yours truly has been playing on and off since a long time ago – first Piano since the age of 6 and guitar since I was 13. And although I am no prodigy (too old), I can read a chart or two and turn a page of lyrics into something that passes as entertainment and vaguely familiar.
Imagine the delight to realize the amount of raw talent all around me.
For my space it started as innocently as showing up at work with an acoustic guitar. Strapping it on over coffee break and busking around the lab. Before you know it, people are joining in or watching appreciatively. From there, another guitar was added… and a bass… and another vocalist or two… and more music.
We are not the cast of Glee by any stretch. But we are having an amount of fun that was completely unanticipated. Additionally, there are several other similar groups on campus doing exactly the same thing – and ironically, we all may have an offer on the table to play our music at a Summer Festival… which, for me, makes no sense at all. I am not deaf, but I cannot hear Journey or Celine Dion in much of what we are doing… at least from the regular line up. We do have a student who sits in from time to time that sings like an angel… but she is leaving town.
A bunch of geezer music players worthy of entertaining a crowd? Don’t know. Who am I to judge modern music? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, in the corner of one of our labs is a 300 Watt P.A. system, microphones and a rack of musical instruments. If you listen real closely over lunch at the University, you might just hear our noise.
Victoria Spring 2011 - Ham Radio in the 21st Century · Monday April 18, 2011 by colin newell
As much as I wonder, some times, what I did before the internet (and I am not alone on the sentiment obviously…) – I often wonder what I did before radio was a big part of my life.
Because it was at the age of 12 that a boy friend of my older sister handed me a multiband radio to play with for a few days. It had AM. It had FM. And something called “SW”. And Police Band. Double whammy there. Never heard of SW really – and that I could listen to Police and Fire calls on a radio kind of blew my mind.
Photo above right – The ICOM 703+ All Mode Transceiver keeps me in touch with the world…
Those first few sounds on the “SW” dial are forever etched in my mind – other Worldly, mysterious, cryptic… and the languages; English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese.
I was aware that my pocket sized AM radio was capable of picking up Los Angeles and Denver from my perch on Vancouver Island… but foreign languages? This was wild – and it was one of those moments that I knew would change the way I saw things… forever.
Within a few months my Dad bought be an RCA radio from the late 30’s – that had tubes in it – and SW bands – that worked as well or better than the cheap transistor radio that I had been introduced to. Before long I learned the importance of an outdoor antenna – even if it was a random piece of wire or series of coat hangers strapped together with bailing wire – it all worked. That old radio was pressed into pretty hard service for an antique that had probably anticipated a quiet retirement. And I kind of ran it into the ground with constant listening.
After it died, I built a new radio from a kit from Radio Shack – it allowed me to pick up all the regulars, the Short wave broadcasters that I came to rely on for wildly dissimilar views of my own – Like Radio Beijing and Radio Moscow – but now something called “Ham Radio” – a special circuit in this radio receiver afforded several modes of reception that were heretofore unavailable; Morse code and strange sounding “Single Sideband” reception — an odd off frequency duck sounding chatter that only became intelligible when the dial was adjusted just so.
30 plus years later and I am in the digital age with the Transceiver unit shown above – a product from the company Icom that covers most frequencies of interest and all modes of transmission from SSB (Single Side Band) to AM and FM and Morse code — and more beyond that.
It has a transmitter power of 10 watts – which does not seem like much (and It isn’t) but I have direct conversations from other “Hams” all around North and South America, the Pacific (Tahiti) and New Zealand. Amazing considering that radio energy leaves my balcony mounted radio antennas, bounces around the atmosphere a few times (hitting something 75 to 150 miles up called the Ionosphere) and lands where it lands… thousands of miles away. Amazing.
This weekend I spoke with a Boy Scout troop leader and his charges of young cub adventurers near San Capistrano at their camp site, the U.S.S. Wisconsin Amateur radio club in Virginia celebrating their battleships 67th birthday and a variety of radio operators all around North America.
You might say that Ham Radio is the Worlds first modern form of social networking – and the reality is, you never know exactly what is going to happen or who you are going to talk to when you switch the radio on. Yes, it is an interesting hobby, but it also serves as a valuable public service. In the event of a national disaster or regional crisis, Ham radio serves as a back up grid for the internet, cell phone and traditional telephone communications.
This afternoon I explained some of the principles of Amateur Radio to a young lady that works in my lab at UVic – I think I gave some good answers because she fired some really good questions at me and did not fall asleep listening to the replies.
Yea, it is complicated – but it is not outrageously so that it is out of reach of anyone enthusiastic enough to tackle it – An amateur radio license requires an exam from a certified government examiner; an exam that is as much about technical procedures as it is about some basic electronics. You can do it – yes you can… and be a part of a fascinating hobby and public service.
Colin Newell lives and works in Victoria B.C. Canada – holds the Amateur radio call sign VA7WWV
Victoria Spring 2011 - Good bye to the Salmon Kings · Wednesday April 6, 2011 by colin newell
Here is how my post read six months ago…
But through a strange twist of hockey club management, my favorite Captain… Wes Goldie, has been replaced with, by the looks of it, a guy who spends more time in the penalty box – than on the ice or on the bench…
Say hello to the new captain of the Victoria Salmon Kings – Pete Vandermeer – third on the all-time American Hockey League penalty minutes list.
“Our barn, Save-on-Foods Memorial will not be a place other teams will want to return to,” threatened Vandermeer…
“Even if the other guys leave with a win, it’s important they leave missing some blood and teeth when limping out of here.”
OK. The Salmon Kings management started to screw up at the beginning of the 2010-2011 Season with the hire of this Vandermeer thug – who only lasted about a half season before he vanished. We gave up Wes Goldie who turned out to be the high scorer for the entire season… for the Alaska Aces.
And now the Kings may leave Victoria – or be dissolved.., and their place taken by a Junior team – of teenagers… the former Chilliwack Bruins… to become the Victoria Bruins… how imaginative.
So get this. People are unhappy in Chilliwack, B.C. and we are unhappy in Victoria B.C. – The owners of the Kings have totally misread their audience and are marching blithely into yet another screw up with these changes.
Yes, it is a business.
But I am a customer. And I am not buying it.
