I took this shot on a patio at the Sound Academy in Toronto the week before last. We lucked out on some VIP access – highly recommended – for a Gaslight Anthem show and discovered the most pleasant outdoor bar area to have a drink on while the opening act played. It was lovely.

Cava owner Chris MacDonald

Could it have been any hotter this week?

The plus-40 humidex was a bit ill-timed, invited as I was to to two very fine parties this week, the first, a sherry-tasting event at Cava in downtown Toronto at Yonge and St. Clair, and a Toronto Life magazine party, held in celebration of its redesign. At the first, on Tuesday at Cava, I was pretty sure I had never been hotter indoors in my life – the sweat was literally rolling off me as I was politely introduced to Toronto gossip king Shinan Govani. Sadly, that proved to be just a warm up to the Toronto Life party, where not only was I trying to discreetly keep my sopping-wet hair off my neck while fanning out over the CBC’s Matt Galloway, I later got sprayed in oily cream sauce by a clumsy waitress.

However, despite the heat, it was a good week of wine learning. At the Cava event, arranged by owner Chris McDonald and Siren Group owner and founder Susan Willemsen, I found out that sherry is not a type of wine, as I had previously thought, but a region from whence it’s grown. And I also found out that sweeter sherry is not so bad – maybe it’ll be the next big thing to drink. The sherry was much aided by a truly delectable appetizer: cured-meat stuffed, deep fried olives.

Jason Collett performs at the Toronto Life party

And at the Toronto Life party, I had the pleasure of conversing with Toronto Life wine writer David Lawrason. A wine writer for over 25 years, Lawrason has seen wine go from obscurity in the 70s to its haute hipness today. If you’re a writer and ever wondering what “beat” to pick, consider this: Lawrason informed me that due to his in-demand status as a wine expert, he has to taste 900 wines in the next three months. Yep, 900. Right now, he’s tasting up to 60 wines a day. Crazy!

My turtle, Harold

We let Harold out to roam around the condo for the second time ever. For some reason, he celebrated by biting the “blankie” we used to wipe off all the dirt on his belly. Turtles. So weird.

Well, after 10 years of interviewing other people, I finally got to be interviewed myself. Here, one of my favourite lil’ ladies, the hard-working and talented Ilissa Maiatico, gets me to spill on my love for Matthew McConaughey and Clive Cussler novels.

Zoo Tube [Click here]

We went to the Toronto Zoo recently, and I thought it was the perfect time to hone my web-video skills. I used my cell phone camera (who knew it would be so crappy?) but it was fun trying to (poorly) edit it together. I’m also not quite savvy enough to embed this baby yet, so I’ll have to work on that. So, sorry for the poor quality, but here is Zoo Tube in all its low-res glory! (Even if you can’t really see the animals, I set it to a New Order song, so at least you’ll have something to listen to, haha.)

This July, I joined forces with Wolfpack Marketing, a new collaborative marketing agency based out of Montreal. It was founded by Guillaume Pare, whom I met about five years ago when he was the editor of SBC Wakeboard magazine. Guillaume has been on the up and up since then, becoming the marketing director for a major action-sports product distribution company and earning his MBA. Wolfpack is a full-service marketing agency meant to help bridge the gap for non-endemic brands who want to reach the finicky action sports market. I assisted the Wolfpack team in editing content for their English-language website, which you can check out here.

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Me and 23 other girls at Baldface Lodge, BC

When you write about wonderful things, especially travel, there is one downside: it’s usually done from your desk. Sure, there is the odd trip to spice things up and maybe it was even (mostly) free, thanks to the connections you’ve made over the years. But most of it comes from careful research and interviews with people in the know.

The reason I bring it up is that right now, I’m writing a directory on backcountry ski and ride operations in Canada for the SBC Ski & Snowboard Resort Guide. It’s a pretty dreamy topic, as these things go: endless peaks of powder, getting ferried up the hill in a snowcat or, gasp, a helicopter, which is possibly the coolest thing in the universe. I’ve gotten the opportunity to go catskiing once and it was truly epic–nothing you do on snow will ever quite compare again. So while I am writing about all of this from home, it is bringing all of those memories flooding back: the sheer exhilaration, the incredible feeling of weightlessness in powder, the high-fives at the bottom.

Although these trips can be vastly expensive, I think it’s something every serious skier or rider should try to do at least once in their lives. Catboarding is a more affordable alternative to heli-skiing, and although you don’t get to feel like a Delta Force commando being choppered into some sort of emergency situation, you do get all that sweet, sweet untouched pow just the same.

As I’ve posted on here before, I do an annual “best of” article for SAM magazine each May, listing what I think are the best resort ads in snowboard magazines for that year. Bear Mountain is always somewhere near the top of the list, thanks to the efforts of their creative agency, The Machine. Here’s a Transworld Business video interview with the principals of the firm, Jason Bump and Mark Hibdon, commenting on their win.

Here are the ads:

I meant to update this site with some of my more interesting assignments from my PR course, but unfortunately, the last few have been decidedly uninteresting. However, this week, we were charged with interviewing a PR professional about what an average day is like for them, and some of the challenges they face. Since I interview people for a living, the thought of doing one “for fun” was a bit uninspiring, until my boyfriend suggested I use the opportunity to speak with someone I already know and think has an interesting job. So that’s what I did, speaking with my friend and professional colleague Janice Nickloff, PR Manager with Burton Snowboards. I work with Janice quite often to secure interviews with Burton athletes and executives and knew she worked hard, but until now, didn’t know quite how much she juggles every day. That girl is busy! Between evaluating the hundreds of product requests that Burton is approached with all year round, she also coordinates in-store events and appearances at Burton flagships, works with stylists and approvals for product placements, and is the main media contact for all of North America.

It’s easy to think of a job such as Janice’s as super glamorous (heck, I certainly fantasize about having such a job), but that Burton PR team works hard. Like, really hard. Sure, the benefits are many and most people in the profession would love to have an industry leader like Burton on their resume, but they certainly, in ski-resort terms, earn their turns. It’s one of those things that can be easy to forget when you’re drumming off emails for a story, that someone like that probably has 50 similar requests a day. So it was definitely nice to touch base with Janice and get a sense of what it’s like on the other end of the phone, on any given day of the week.

If you’d like to learn more about Janice and her day-to-day, SBC Women’s Annual did an interview with her on the website here.

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to sense a bit of optimism floating around. It’s just a feeling. My phone, which has been dead for months, is suddenly ringing a bit again. My inbox isn’t (always) empty when I check it in the morning. There are bidding wars for homes in Pheonix. Wal-Mart was packed on the weekend. (Full disclosure: while I wouldn’t call myself a Wal-Mart shopper, whenever I go home to Belleville, I always go. Scores this time included $3.97 Mini Wheats, $3 for 24 double-rolls of recycled-fibre TP, and $9 slippers. What can I say? Those are good deals!) I’m not calling it a recovery yet, but maybe the desolation is lifting slightly.  Or people are just tired of being bummed out. Or, they’re simply stoked that it’s finally hot out. Now, if China would just stop hogging all the raw industrial materials…

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons