My friend Rebecca is doing some Olympic coverage for News 1130 and went for a quick tour today….I tagged along with my camera:
I’m kind of a news nerd…my clock radio wakes me up with News 1130 and I listen to it a lot while commuting. It was pretty cool to meet some of the voices I hear on a daily basis today.
I was even literally sitting in the middle of the meeting for the afternoon drive news lineup.
Inspired by kk’s bag photo, I thought I’d document ‘most’ of what I’ll be carrying around with me during the Olympic Games at any given time.
I’ll most likely change things up depending on where I’m going to be on a given day but this stuff won’t be far from me at all times.
Click through to Flickr to get the full gear run down.
I was invited to check out two prototype models of Chevy’s upcoming Volt plug-in electric vehicle today. I can safely say nobody has ever offered to let me drive a pre-production vehicle before so I jumped at the chance.
These cars were handmade in at GM’s design factory and are in town during the Olympics (GM is a vehicle sponsor). The fit and finish (and even some of the tech) wasn’t final yet as they are still tweaking the designs at this point.
It’s the first fully electric, plug-in vehicle and it was a lot of fun to drive. We were in a parking lot with a little track made out of cones around it and were able to get it going at a pretty good clip. Definitely ‘peppier’ than I was expecting.
I really like the idea of being able to simply plug the car into a normal wall outlet (you actually plug it into a box that plugs into the wall). It can currently go approximately 64 kms per charge running in practically silent electric mode. It will cost just under a $1 a day to charge the vehicle.
The driver’s dashboard:
The centre console:
This is what happens when you get the Volt up over 88 mph:
They even have an iPhone app that allows to you monitor many aspects of the vehicle as well as unlock/lock, start and charge it all remotely.
It’s all tied into the OnStar system. A free demo version of the Volt ‘Experience’ app is already on the (US) App Store if you want to check it out yourself…search for “OnStar Experience”.
I was also able to attach a camera to the windshield to get some driving video. Because it was a prototype, with a custom paint job, the engineers didn’t want me to attach the camera to any painted surfaces. I didn’t want to be the guy that damages a very expensive prototype either.
Here’s the resulting video with a cheeky soundtrack I added by Basement Jaxx that I think GM should licence for the Volt’s promotion:
It was a pretty cool opportunity to check out this pre-production vehicle, chat with a couple of the engineers who designed it and for the chance to drive it. I’ll be curious to see what changes get made when they finally put it into production next year. It’s supposed to hit the Canadian market in mid-2011.
You can view the rest of my photos on Flickr.
Thanks to GM Canada for letting me drive their prototype…I didn’t crash it either!
Bridges on Granville Island has been taken over and become the House of Switzerland during the Games. I attended their open house and got a preview of some of the things they have planned.
The lineup was around the building:
The place was PACKED!
One neat feature of the House of Switzerland is the in-house tv studio up top on the media level where they will be reporting on Swiss events and interviewing their athletes with Vancouver as their backdrop.
They’ll also be showing Swiss Television coverage of the games, commercial free, non-stop during the Games. This will definitely be a unique place to view some events.
This morning, Gordon Campbell, Premier of British Columbia opened the BC International Media Centre and took the first ‘official’ ride on the zipline over Robson Square:
I said ‘official’ because ZipTrek staff have apparently been riding it for a few days testing it all out…after seeing the Premier on it today, I can’t wait for my chance!
One of the cooler benefits the Olympic Games brings to the host city is all kinds of side events. The Cultural Olympiad is one of them and tonight was the preview for the Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition (CODE).
Located at a number of locations around Vancouver, this post will cover some of the current installations at the Great Northern Way Campus which is a huge facility with massive rooms of different art installations – most are fully interactive with the artists that created them on hand to talk about them.
Check out this fun light installation called Dune 4.0 inside a shipping container near the entrance:
Did I mention it’s a free event? Check the website for event locations and hours.
Today I paid a visit to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre to find out more about their current exhibition, “More than Just Games”, which focuses on Canada’s involvement with the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany.
It’s a fascinating, yet haunting look at the games that occurred over 74 years ago just before World War II broke out.
I got to meet Joan McLagan, who was just 13 years old when she went to Berlin in 1936 to represent Canada as an Olympic Swimmer.
Here she is with her original team jacket which she wore during the opening ceremonies:
She discussed a number of topics related to her experiences including politics in Nazi-era Germany, how the Olympics have evolved since then and her uniform:
Also on hand today was Karen James, a Canadian Olympic Swimmer who went to Munich for the 1972 Games:
Karen describes her delimma of being a 2010 torch bearer and her close proximity to the hostage taking and subsequent murders that took place in 1972:
Here’s a photoset I took at the exhibition:
If you’re interested in finding out more about Canada’s involvement in previous Olympic games, the exhibition is on now until June 2010. Admission is by donation.
My thanks to Anita Webster and Frieda Miller for inviting me down to the exhibit today.
UPDATE: Looks like VANOC has pulled the torch run origins video that Karen James had mentioned she was concerned about.
