So Vancouver’s Olympic party is almost over, but this afternoon Vancouver and Canada celebrates a successful Winter Games.  The closing ceremonies are about to start, but the whole Country came to a halt as Canada played the US for the last Gold to be awarded in Men’s Hockey.

By now, you will all know the result – Sidney Crosby scored an overtime winner for Canada to take the Gold, and a nation breathed a sigh of relief.  For those of you who may not understand the place of hockey in this country – this was like a European or South American country winning football’s World Cup.

Canada wins gold – Sidney Crosby and Scott Niedermayer celebrate

Now, with the games winding down its time to reflect on the last two weeks, and what it has meant for Canada and Vancouver, in particular.

At the beginning of the Games there was quite a bit of criticism from the world (especially British) press about the tragic death of the Georgian Luger, as well as transit and weather issues, but over the last two weeks the view has changed dramatically as everyone has enjoyed the party in this city.  The BBC even asked the question today if this wasn’t the “Best Winter Games Ever?”

It certainly was Canada’s best Winter Games.  By the reckoning of most of the world, Canada sits at the top of the medal table, with 14 gold – an Olympic record.  Even when counting on the basis of total medals as is the tradition in North America, we placed third with our highest medal haul - 26 (including both summer and winter Games).

For two glorious weeks the spotlight was on my city – Vancouver – and it makes me proud to be a Vancouverite and Canadian.

Last weekend when the sun was out and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky the whole world got to see why we think this is the best place on earth, and why after living here for over 30 yrs since emigrating from England, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

You Gotta Be Here !!!

On Saturday we all went into Vancouver to soak up the Olympic Spirit and to watch a women’s hockey game.  Notice the lack of the word “ice” – for Canadian’s “Ice Hockey” is just plain Hockey.

The West Coast Express is running special trains for the Olympics.  Normally its just a commuter rush-hour service, but there are 4 trains a day each way every day of the Olympics, so we drove across the new Golden Ears bridge to Maple Meadows station to catch the 12:53 train into Vancouver.

Figure 1 – The Olympic Cauldron, next to the Broadcast Centre

Our first stop was the Olympic Cauldron.  The area is surrounded by a chain link fence, but I was able to get up to the fence and poke my camera through to take the picture above.

Next stop, and the main reason for the trip, we headed to Canada Hockey Place (known to Vancouverites as GM Place, but Olympic rules don’t allow the use of sponsors in the names of venues), home of the hometown NHL team – Vancouver Canucks, for the opening game for Canada’s women’s hockey team.  We were told to arrive 2 hrs before the scheduled start to ensure everybody could get through the airport style security.

Figure 2 – Canada v Slovakia - Pre Game Skate

The game was a rout, 18-0 to Canada, an Olympic Record, but it was still fun to soak up the atmosphere, and everybody was having a great time.

Figure 3 – Canada v Slovakia – Canada Scores

After the game we headed back to the West Coast Express for our train home. 

All told an experience that we will never forget – an opportunity to go to the Olympic Games in our home town.  This was the only event we had tickets for, but next weekend we will probably go into Vancouver again and visit some of the country “Houses”.

A Happy New Year to friends, family and all the readers of my weblog.

Looking Back - 2009

After a difficult start to the year as a result of the lingering financial crisis, 2009 has been a year of moderate recovery.  While many who are retired or close to retirement age are still concerned about their pensions, the situation has improved for most people, as we slowly crawl out of recession.

For me 2009 was another good year.  My employer, DNN Corp grew in leaps and bounds, from 6 employees at the end of 2008 to about 30 employees (or contractors) at the end of December.  At the end of 2008 we obtained Series “A” investment capital, and our investors August Capital and Sierra Ventures must be quite pleased with our success last year - in a difficult climate for startup companies - as we achieved all of our business targets for the year.

On January 1st 2009, I received notice that I was being renewed as a Microsoft ASP.Net MVP (my third year) and in Spring of 2009 I attended my 3rd MVP summit in Seattle, where I was able to network with all my peers.  While these summits are important for Microsoft to get feedback from the MVPs, for me the networking opportunities are the real reward.

In June, Andrew our son graduated from Simon Fraser University (right), and as proud parents we attended a wonderful ceremony on Burnaby Mountain.  In October he moved to Seattle to start his career at Microsoft as an SDE (Software Development Engineer) in the ASP.NET team.  It is strange not having him around at home, but it is time for him to establish his own life.

During the summer our daughter Jen worked for DNN Corp at our Abbotsford Engineering office as an intern – its great when the kids both follow in your footsteps. :)

In August we all went to England to visit my parents and sister.  While we were there we spent a week on the continent (3 days in Paris and 3 days in Amsterdam).

With the financial stability that the investment brought to DNN Corp, we decided to get a new car – actually we are leasing – when the lease on our 2005 Honda Accord matured in March.  After much fun test driving cars we decided on the Lexus IS 250 (see below).

Looking Forward – 2010

This morning I received an email from Microsoft with a renewal of my MVP for 2010 – that’s four years now.  I feel tremendously honoured to be an MVP. Now I can start to plan seriously for the annual summit in February.

In February the Olympics will be in Vancouver.  It is a great honour for our city but its going to be crazy for those two weeks.

I didn’t blog as much as I would have liked in 2009, so one of my New Year’s resolutions is to increase my blogging frequency – especially in DotNetNuke related blogs.  DotNetNuke has been great for my career, and I need to give back my experience and knowledge to the community.  So the plan is to blog once a week at least.

I also made a resolution to speak at conferences and user groups more this year.  So in January I will be speaking at the Seattle DotNetNuke User Group on Module Development and in March I will be speaking at the .NET BC User Group about Windows Azure development.  And of course I hope to be able to attend the two Open Force conferences in Holland and Vegas in the fall.

We haven’t made any travel plans yet for 2010, but I expect we will spend a week or two in Atlantic Canada and/or New England in June.  My wife Eileen was elected as a delegate to the 2010 Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod being held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in early June so it makes sense to take advantage of that to spend some vacation time in that part of the world. 

I have visited all the provinces from Quebec west (Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and of course my home province British Columbia), but I have not visited any of the Atlantic provinces, so I am hoping to at least visit New Brunswick and PEI in addition to Nova Scotia this June – any DotNetNuke User Group in that area want me to speak??

To conclude, I wish everybody a Happy New Year.  If 2009 was bad for you, I hope 2010 will be better.  If 2009 was good for you, I hope 2009 will continue that trend.