Category Archives: News

The First 500,000

It’s funny how squirrelly I get when I don’t write anything for two months. Lately, I’ve even been thinking in poems. POEMS! I thought I gave that nonsense up years ago. Poetry is the worst.

I miss writing, a lot. But I’ve also been doing quite a bit of thinking about what the heck I am doing here on Bailing Bucket. Well, I’d like to move in two directions:

  1. Share more links and neat stuff
  2. Create prepared, well written and bitchin’ stories

Sharing is caring

Let’s just get this out of the way—I am way cooler/nerdier than almost everyone who reads this blog. By that I mean, when you share a funny video on Facebook I probably saw it a week before. Don’t let it get you down. It’s not really that cool to be part of the internet 31337 (elite). The sad part is, I’m not even in the upper echelons of the web. Those are the Digg kids and no one wants to be a Digg kid. But I figure I am in the first 500,000 to see most neat stuff online. It’s rare that I miss something.

In any case, in order to help you be web cool and because the web is all about sharing, I’m going to share more fun stuff.

Writing thoughtfully

I’d like to move towards producing solid, well-crafted stories. My time at NETELLER, as a copywriter, was great to get me back into working on writing. Now, working for up!, it’s taught me a lot about editing and developing ideas. I think this blog could easily just be a place where I come and recite my day, but I think in order to be successful it’s not necessarily frequency but quality. My goal is to write one solid story a week and actively grow readers as possible (that’s where I’ll need your help (if you like what you’re reading)).

That’s all for now. More to come. Also, I’ll try and finish that SXSW Live Blog.

Announcements: A Terrible Death to Die

We used to sing this song at camp, every day at lunch, when we had announcements.

Announcements, Announcements, Announcements *clap, clap*
Announcements, Announcements, Announcements *clap, clap*
A terrible death to die, a terrible death to die
A terrible death to talk to death, a terrible death to die
Announcements, Announcements, Announcements *clap, clap*
Announcements, Announcements, Announcements *clap, clap*

*Repeat until your ears are bleeding*

What a bizarre song. I have no idea where it came from or why it was remotely appropriate for a Baptist camp. However, to this day, I can still hear that horrible song. Well, today, I have some announcements. First, I apologize for my disappearing act, but I will explain why it had to happen below. Second, welcome to 2010. I hope it’s going alright for you so far.

Re-launch of up! magazine

As you know, I am the Web Editor of WestJet’s up! magazine. I took on this job and title last August. Well, I have been hard at work to make this a more usable and enjoyable website. At the beginning of January we re-launched this site with a new design and functionality. This was a massive undertaking that was months of work and that work was only starting with the re-launch in January. I’m hoping I’ll return a more sane work schedule in the coming months.

A large part of my disappearing act in January was because of the new site. I was so worn out at the end of every work day that I didn’t blog. In any case, going forward, I should be a little more regular. I am also happy to report that the new website is performing well and I’m well on my way to producing a very successful website.

I hope you take some time to enter the contests we run every month and if you’re travelling check it out. There’s over 2000 articles on all the WestJet destinations. Lots of good ideas to take advantage of while your travelling.

Today for Lunch

My good friend Brendan and I have just launched a new blog called Today for Lunch. It’s an idea that Brendan stole from another friend of his. That’s what good writers do, right? Steal. It’s fun.

The premise is a letter-style blog regarding what we had for lunch. We’ve just started, but I think it’s going to be interesting. Plus, presuming we eat, we’ll always have something to write about. Brendan and I had started doing this on Facebook and we’ve decided to move it into a blog format. Also, my posts on Facebook went missing (Brendan deleted them, I suspect), so it looks like Brendan has written a lot more than me. He has, but not that much.

Bookmark it today or grab the RSS feed. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

What to expect in 2010

I don’t know, but it’s going to be awesome.

Comments welcome and appreciated.

Can I ask a favour?

Hey, look another News post! Two in two weeks. How exciting.

I would like to ask you a favour. One of the troubles with blogging is that, once and a while, I write something relatively brilliant (that might be too much hyperbole) and it only lasts for a couple days and then I write something else. But that relatively brilliant article might be worth a second read later on or it might be a great read for the first time for someone new. So I want to make a couple lists of reader recommended posts.

The favour

So, what are your favourite posts? New or old. Funny or sad or anything in between. Any post from the last three years of blogging. If you can find the post and leave a link to it that is easiest. But if you can even leave the name or what it was about I’ll try to find it.

You want something for your work, don’t you?

I will award a prize to one person. I can’t make you do a little work without a prize, can I? I am not entirely sure what the prize will be yet, but I have an idea. It just depends on when I get it. If not, I’ll think of something else. So there is a prize to be won and it’s worth is uncertain currently. But it will be awesome and unusual.

I really appreciate your help. Please leave comments below or feel free to use the contact form to let me know.

UPDATE: Apparently, WordPress will block you from even putting a couple links. It won’t even let you get to my spam catching plugins. If you have links, please use the contact form. Thanks.

Interviewed in the Wall Street Journal: Couple Dating

I can’t honestly remember when I made this “News” category or why. I presume I must have had some news that wasn’t really a blog article but something I wanted to share. Probably, if I looked through the archives, I would know. But I am lazy. Anyway, being interviewed by a news agency seems like a good time to put a post in my News category.

Remember that hilarious blog article I wrote on Couple Dating? Well, Adam saw on a website/email (or something that he follows) that a reporter wanted help with an article she was writing about couple dating. Adam forwarded me the info and I sent a quick email to Elizabeth Bernstein from the WALL STREET JOURNAL! She got back to me, after reading my blog post, and interviewed me for an hour or so.

And from that interview, Elizabeth created Couples Dating: When Four Play the Dating Game which features me (somewhat briefly). So that’s my claim to fame for today.

This brings up some thoughts on journalism and journalists in general, but I think I will save that for another post. But, for those counting, I believe this is now the second time I’ve been in the news for blogging. The first time was a couple years ago when I was on BBC Radio (not sure which number anymore) and now I am in the Wall Street Journal. Not too bad.

Extreme Poverty Bailout Package

Yesterday I published a post on ChristmasFuture’s site titled the Extreme Poverty Bailout Package, which I think is a pretty clever post. I would really like to get CF any exposure that I can during the holiday season. If you think this post is worth sharing or anything on their site is worth sharing, I would really appreciate it. Give it a stumble or a digg or whatever you do.

Changing Designs… yet again

Alright. Just a quick note. I have changed the theme again. Not because I didn’t completely enjoy the one I just had, but because we (Lee and I) are using it on Epiblogger. So I switched. This theme was developed by WooThemes. I bought one of their themes for soveran.ca. This one was free. There design is great, the code is solid and it’s doesn’t need a lot of tweaking.

I am not changing themes again. I promise. At least not for a long time. This is such a headache to change on a regular basis. So I am done. I am going back to writing. I have also removed my “creative” posts for now. It’s not necessarily because I didn’t like them (I didn’t), but because all my posts are creative on this blog. Some more than others.