Joe Dysart
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Archive for November, 2009
Social media sites like FaceBook & Twitter have a dark & dangerous side
Friday, November 6th, 2009Mexico brings transparent financing, title ins & Canadian Lenders & now it is much easier to buy a property
Friday, November 6th, 2009Frank O’Brien
Other
Ackles-supported centre for disadvantaged kids officially opens
Friday, November 6th, 2009Larry Pynn
Sun
The YMCA’s Susan Low (centre), with children at the new Bob and Kay Ackles YMCA Nanook House. Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun
The Bob and Kay Ackles YMCA Nanook House officially opens today to help disadvantaged children living in the Mount Pleasant community.
Ackles, the late B.C. Lions president and chief executive officer who served on the YMCA’s board of directors, and his wife Kay raised $2.2 million toward the $3.8-million goal. Ackles died of a heart attack on July 6, 2008, at age 69.
Nanook House opened in 1979 in a 1,500-square-foot portable building capable of handling 25 preschoolers. The fundraising campaign has allowed for construction of a new 5,600-square-foot building plus two outdoor play fields capable of handling 12 more children and providing additional programs for parents.
Susan Low, vice-president and general manager of YMCA child care, said in an interview that Ackles, once an east-end kid himself, took a genuine interest in the program.
“He came down on a regular basis, he’d play football with the kids,” she said. “He brought a bus down many times and took them to the football games. He really connected with them.”
Nanook House, at 1255 East 10th Ave., is a child care and family development centre for children aged 18 months to five years. The program involves nutrition, physical activity, communication skills, and literacy aimed at preparing children for success in school.
Programs are also offered for parents, who may be impoverished, suffering from mental illness, raising children on their own, or victims of abusive relationships.
According to Human Early Learning Partnership, a collaboration of six universities, Mount Pleasant is among the Lower Mainland’s most vulnerable areas, with 34 to 66 per cent of children developmentally vulnerable. The YMCA still needs $315,000 to finish Nanook House as well as $100,000 to operate it each year. To donate, visit www.vanymca.org or call 604-681-9622.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Hearty and down home — Japanese-style
Thursday, November 5th, 2009Burnaby eatery within the Nikkei Heritage Centre is worth the wait for daily specials
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Manager Miyuki Azuma shows off some of the great homestyle Japanese food from Hi Genki. Photograph by: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun
HI GENKI
6680 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby. 604-777-0533.
www.fujiya.ca. Public hours: 11:30 to 3 p.m.; and 6 to 8:30 p.m.
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Hi Genki is an oddity. But in a good way. For one, it’s in the nine-year-old Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre in Burnaby, which also provides housing for seniors.
The restaurant serves meals to the residents but is also open to the public — dining hours for the two groups are staggered so it’s not like you’ve stumbled into a seniors’ mess hall.
If you go on the weekend, prepare to wait. The allure of a home-style Japanese meal for under $10 is stronger than the impulse to depart.
My partner and I waited 25 minutes with my poor mom, who leaned on her walker as there aren’t enough chairs to accommodate those waiting. I can’t believe no one offered a little ol‘ lady like my mom a chair.
You won’t find the usual suspects of sushi or izakaya style dishes here — it’s hearty, homestyle food. The kitchen serves up a menu-load of specials every day, a lot of them donburi style (rice bowl). There’s a rotating roster of specials and on the day I called, the menu included salmon katsu (breaded); salmon with egg on rice; prawn with egg on rice; chikara udon (a rice cake in udon; the word means ‘strong’ for how you’ll feel after you eat it); oden is a spicy hot pot with fishcakes, vegetables and egg.
My mother happened to have lost her bottom dentures and they were nowhere to be found. At the restaurant, I cut up all her food into baby pieces but she got to some Japanese pickles before I could cut it up. She liked it and would not let go; I envisioned her swallowing the daikon pickle whole, requiring me to jump into Heimlich action. Taking my mom out is always an adventure.
She liked her ebi katsu don (breaded and deep-fried prawns) with egg and rice and I, my sukiyaki don (veggies and eggs with a sukiyaki sauce over rice).
My husband had a deluxe bento with tempura, salmon teriyaki, tuna and rice. On the side, we had agedashi nasu (deep-fried eggplant served in a ponzu-like sauce).
The restaurant is run by the same folks who run Fujiya, the Japanese store and takeout with locations in Vancouver, Richmond and Victoria.
The chef previously ran Haru restaurant on Thurlow Street.
Manager Miyuki Azuma says weekends are busy, especially at lunch and if you want to avoid a wait, you might aim for an 11:30 a.m. or 2 p.m. meal, since you can’t make reservations.
A good plan would be to take in an event at the centre and do lunch or dinner.
For example, on Nov. 28, there’s a sale of vintage kimonos and other clothing, jewelry, scarves, washi paper lamps, wall tapestries and other items. (Check www.nikkeiplace.org.)
When I was there, I just missed a Japanese Farmers’ Market where Japanese vegetables, cooked foods and crafts had sold out quickly.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
VANOC’s Furlong handed key to athletes’ village
Thursday, November 5th, 2009All ready for 3,000 athletes to call home for two weeks
Sam Cooper
Province
A happy John Furlong gets the key to the Olympic Village from smiling Mayor Gregor Robertson. Photograph by: Wayne Leidenfrost, The Province
VANOC boss John Furlong looked relieved as he accepted the giant key to Vancouver’s Olympic Village from Mayor Gregor Robertson on Wednesday.
At the official handover ceremony in the cavernous Salt Building — with construction crews still working outside to finish the $1-billion-plus, eight-block development — Robertson quipped about delays, saying, “I know you’ve been waiting for this — welcome to your new digs John.”
Furlong called the facility a “platinum-level performer” and waxed poetic in a speech before a throng of media and officials, saying “the atmosphere of these Games will be lifted so much by this village.
“To get up and look across False Creek to the skyline and the mountains will propel athletes to the performance of their careers,” Furlong said.
Later, Furlong said Vancouver’s Olympic Village is head and shoulders above any other in the world.
He noted that other countries are already studying the facility.
In February and March 2010, more than 3,000 of the world’s top winter athletes and team officials will make the village their home, with access to extensive amenities and services. The Salt Building, a refurbished barn-like heritage structure with exposed wooden beams and a towering ceiling, is where athletes will meet and mingle.
Following the Games, unsold Millennium Water condo units valued at $600,000-plus each will be put on sale as part of marketer Bob Rennie’s revised strategy.
As developer Millennium ran into financing problems in the middle of 2008’s world financial crisis, the city was forced to take over the project and has had difficulty selling pricey units in a real-estate downturn.
Robertson pushed the “exceptional value” of the project’s green features, predicting the village will propel Vancouver to the goal of being the world’s leading “green city.”
“It’s hard to imagine we are standing on what was once the industrial heartland of the city, and now it’s our vision of a more sustainable future,” he said.
The mixed-use, mixed-income neighbourhood will have 1,100 residential units, incorporating sustainable infrastructure, high-performance green buildings and easy transit access, the city says.
© Copyright (c) The Province
