Beer Pong beats tradtional sports in survey done at Mount Royal College

the results of the survey are in. We asked mount royal students to pick there favoritive alternative sports that currently were not offered at the college. It appears that Mount Royal students may have a bit of a drinking problems because the top 3 consisted of 1.) Beer Pong, 2.) Party Club and the bronze medal Paintball. So what is it about these alchol induced activities that give it such an advantage over tradtional sports such as football and soccer. Should there be room in a college for an organized beer pong league? is it even a real sport? Poker is considered a sport and there is no physical activity involved. To me Beer Pong is more of a sport than poker because it at least involves the motion of throwing a ball. To introduce a team into the college environment however could be risky. Our group put beer pong on the list as a bit of a joke but surprisingly it came out on top. I don't think its possible to make an organized community of beer drinker within the campus, the legal issue and liabilities alone would prevent the organization from ever being created. We can dream though... we can dream....

Community Development Vs. The Strawberry Pop-Tart

Just to prove you can relate anything to community development I am going to relate community development to my favourite meal for breakfast, a strawberry pop tart. The pop tart is sweet, convenient, relatively inexpensive and if you look at the overall shape of a pop-tart you will see that it is rectangular in shape, has finely defined edges, these edges possible cut by a machine or as I like to think a highly trained ,rapturous in spirit, culinary or pastry professor named Susan, but this doesn’t matter. What is important is the connection, the relationship, the cohesion, the romantic fusion of the pop tart and the idea of community development….. Ok this is actually a lot harder than I had first thought. I honestly thought I could get something out of this and it is possible I can. Community development is far more complex than the delicious convenient pastry known as a strawberry pop-tart and even more complex than the blue-berry. Perhaps community development would have a more accurate and promising relationship with a more complex edible food, maybe something with layers, something sophisticated, something foreign, hard on the outside but soft and sweet on the inside……. a Danish?!!..

Note to self: do not write on blog after forgetting to eat breakfast

Mighty Neighbourly, Mighty Neighbourly

I was thinking the other day about how organized and structured Canadian and North American communities have become in the last century. Now if my mind is accurate, which I believe is, I travelled to Asia for 6 month back in 2005 and the community lifestyle was a little peculiar to me. Walking down the busy streets of Kuala Lumpur I entered a shop which comprised of tacky western rip-off clothing and over priced souvenirs ( I say over priced because in Asia everything is over-priced until you start bargaining and you learn from experience never to pay asking price). I started browsing the store because I was bored and felt like spending money on random rubbish to entertain myself before my flight next day to Indonesia ( I once bought 2 high voltage tazers for under 10 US dollars), needless to say you can find some pretty interesting things in the run down street vendors. I found nothing, the shop keeper keep on asking “what size are you?! What size are you?!” and I simply ignored him and let stereotypical pompous western mentality work its charm in the highly populated Muslim community. What I found so interesting about this shop and the hundreds of others akin is after the salesmen recognizes that the customer is not interested in any of his knock-off apparel over-priced miscellaneous items he will attempt to take you to his competitors shop to buy his merchandise. In Canada this practice of supporting your competitor would be frowned upon by the even the most novice businessmen and in no way would be taught in a public/private institution.
That being said it is possible it was all a trick or a scam like many things in Southern Asia… TUK-TUKs my god what a frustrating way to get back to your hotel, who knows, maybe they have an alliance with other shops keepers or maybe its family run and he was simple trying to take me to his cousins shop and after they would split the profit, but the idea of supporting your neighbour is a nice thought, right?

People don't appreciate what they have

People don't appreciate what they have. Every day I thank... well i don't thank God, but I thank science and chance for not only making me human, a creature able to comprehend its own existence, but put in the top percentile in terms of wealth. 20% of the population having 80% of the wealth... does that seem fair? well no it doesn't but because of this we have lots of extra time to sit about and write in blogs all day.. But WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO? complain... complain complain complain... ah this traffic is terrible! oh look that person didnt wash their hands(haha)! our political system is terribly corrupt! It seems that no matter what situation we are in we complain that we don't have enough... ok, ok i'm starting to rant but this is tantamount to the issue of community development i promise. So here it is. When does a communtiy decide it has enough resources, enough abilities and enough facilities? Can a community ever been sustainable? I understand the idea behind community sustainable, to create a community that is a constant cycle of growth, well not growth... but nurture.. nurture so it does not rot and turn to ash.. but i also believe that in order to have a sustainable community the community and the individuals that reside within the community need to look at what they really need.. and im talking about NEEDS here not WANTS. Do we really need a $5,000,000 hockey when the number of schools in are community is at an all time low? Communities are stuck in idealogy that they need to be in a constant process of development in order to be looked at as successful to other communities and this leads to inappropiorate spendings on non-effective resources and facilities. Why not hold on to that money until you actually need it?

Carts Of Darkness

I recently watched a documentary film called “Carts of Darkness”. Murray Siple's feature-length documentary follows a group of homeless men who have combined bottle picking with the extreme sport of racing shopping carts down the steep hills of North Vancouver. This subculture depicts street life as much more than the stereotypes portrayed in mainstream media. The film takes a deep look into the lives of the men who race carts, the adversity they face and the appeal of cart racing despite the risk.
Although this activity is illegal and condemned by the city of Vancouver it is obviously a release for members involved and encourages friendship and comradery between people in the homeless community. These people can’t afford a skateboard or a ski pass to the mountains and rely on what is free to create leisure. What do you think about this? Below I have provide a link to the movie, (it’s really entertaining, so watch and comment on it if you have the time)
It’s pretty entertaining to watch these guys go straight down the hills of North Vancouver. I would honestly pay money to watch a bunch of them race…. Perhaps a homeless cart racing league could be very interesting.

copy and paste the link below into your browser if you want to watch the movie


http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/carts-of-darkness/

Professional Sports Teams and Community Sustainability

Community sustainability can greatly be improved by introducing a professional sports team to the infrastructure of a city. A sports franchise can bring a sense pride, cohesion, and spirit into a community. I enjoy looking at the Winnipeg Jets to reflect this issue. The Jets folded in 1996 due to the high price tag of a NHL players. Even to this day people in Winnipeg are so patriotic and full of joy when they talk about the Winnipeg Jets, one might think that they might of won the Stanley Cup, but this is not the case at all. One can almost say that the jets have formed an underground secret NHL ghost franchise that still exists in the eyes of winnipeger’s. Winnipeger’s still believe in the Jets and celebrate them on their coffee mugs and t-shirts even though they have been out of action for 14 years and the Winnipeg area no longer exist the spirit of the old team still brings people together into a community.

Mixed Income Housing

Mixed Income Housing can be very beneficial to a community. It can provide many opportunities for many disadvantaged and financial unstable families and allows them to have a relatively normal life without the deprivations of limited resources and opportunities from living in a ghetto. The problem with mixed housing is that not everybody is on board for the idea. The rich or middle class fear mixed income housing because they attribute poor people with crime or a decreased in equity to their homes. It’s true that a poor neighbourhood is more dangerous than a middleclass neighbourhood, but that is only because they lack opportunity. If the poor had the chance to change their lives I believe that they would. The idea of mixed income housing sounds like an utopia way of thinking, but it is one thing to agree with the idea of it and another to have it in your backyard. I don’t believe the middleclass people would be in favour of this idea based on the prejudice and stereotypes of poor communities.
Would you be in favour of a mixed incoming housing project in your community?

Communities Reflection of Individual Personality

I’m sure everybody reading this is part of a community, but how do you determine whether a community is successful or if it requires additional work to reach its potential? Should a community celebrate that fact that they are a community. For example community A celebrates with parades, organized group events, community BBQ’s and they are extremely open with each other which they believe creates a better, stronger more attractive community than community B, which consist of home dwellers or a community that’s makeup consists of a more relax and not so“in your face” mentality. The only time Community B talks to other members are when the rainy season is upon them and the grass grows as high as the wheat fields and they are forced to cart the rusty old manual mower to cut down the grassy deviation, bandaging the rocky agreement of reciprocity and comradery between neighbours. Community A and community B have the same rate of crime, same level of satisfaction, and same middle range housing. Which community would you want to live in?

This is interesting because the decision distinctly represents your personality, if you are an out-going, extroverted people person you will most likely pick community A but if you are more of an introverted person you will pick community B and if you fall in the middle chances are the community itself will almost mould your personality into that of the community you live in. Kind of a scary thought, but if you live in a community dominated by gang violence and crime you are more likely to commit a crime than somebody that lives in community A. If community reflects individual personality, and individual personality reflects community, one could almost treat a community as a individual living entity.

Technology and Community

Technology is rapidly expanding to every corner of the world and with this technology comes new innovations, advancements in the way we live and more importantly in the way we communicate.
The internet has only been since 1993, but its effects on today society are colossal and to say that internet does not play role our lives in North America and even the world could be nothing further from the truth. The internet brings many useful applications, for example we know longer need to look at or purchase road maps, instead we can just "google map" are destination and receive step by step accurate instructions from point A to point B (free of charge of course). The internet helps people stay in touch, hotmail, g-mail, facebook, instant messaging are the most popular of their kind and millions take in the resources offered by these applications. I do agree the internet is a highly advances and useful device but is it a threat to a traditional community (a community that operates on a physically social networking of communication and organization). One could argue that facebook is a "road block" to community development limiting the amount of social networking within a community, but one could also argue that facebook itself is a community.

just wondering what others think on this issue?

Community development and Zoning Restrictions

Should calgary stop focusing on building more suburbs and focus more on a mixed zoning system.

The reason a city makes suburbs is because it is cheaper and less risky for the builder. Builders do not want to take the risk of creating a mixed-used project that blends businesses and residential areas together because the government will not subsidize them if they fail at making a profit. This is an issue of government laws working against a city trying to develop an adequate Infrastructure.
It only takes a year to build a home and after that we have to live with that structure for years and years; so it only makes sense to think about an appropriate place to build. Strategically thinking about a communities zoning laws can allow us to design inspiring communities that we as citizen can get exciting about.
Mixed zoning laws will also encourage a more active community.

Does the government need to subsidize failed projects from building taking on the risk of mixed zoning?