Saturday, November 25, 2006

What A Week!

This has been a pretty amazing week.

I received a request to use this photo for a museum presentation. Something about comparing the structure of the JC Bridge to something else. They may or may not use it since the resolution is pretty low.

There were the Canadian Blog Awards. The blog received 72 votes in the Best Personal Blog category. That put it in 8th out of 112, 29 votes shy of the second round. My post on snow removal in Montreal received 50 votes putting it in 9th out of 38, 13 votes short of advancing. I really only expected 36 votes at most, but there were two things that started giving me delusions of grandeur. First the snow removal post got mentioned on the Montreal City Metroblog and secondly it got mentioned on the Skyscraper Pages. Between the two of them, my traffic quadrupled for a couple days. My traffic is still at twice the normal levels. I kinda wonder if I had mentioned the awards on the post if it would have gotten enough votes for the second round. Though that type of campaigning is more aggressive than is my style. I had quite the behind the scenes get out the vote campaigning going on with quite a few of my votes coming from back home. It was more successful that I had expected.

There have been a couple other items related to the increased exposure. I received a request from a freelance writer who wants to write a print article about snow removal post I had written. I haven't heard anything since my reply. I also received a call from Radio Canada requesting to interview me for their morning program regarding the snow removal post and the blog. That may happen later on after the snow arrives and the topic is more relevant.

And probably the biggest news was that the 70 person office that I work for has been bought out by a company twenty times our size. A very diverse company that is very successful in Quebec and has started to reach out beyond the borders into the rest of Canada and other places like the Caribbean, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Although I'm not a fan of huge companies, I have liked working for good sized ones in the past. They offer some things that a small firm cannot. As with any place, much will be determined by the management and their relation with the rest of the company. I've worked for a big firm with a family feel, but often times they can be very impersonnal. So we shall see what comes of this. I'm cautiously excited about it at the moment.

And life has been busy at home and at work. So less attention has been spent on these online endeavors. Though you probably haven't noticed since I've been eating up a backlog of posts written in the past. And things won't slowdown soon. Only three weeks left until we leave for vacation. Still much to do to prepare for that also. The vacation should be quite relaxing with nothing to do and no internet connection. Some time to read up on things and maybe recreate that backlog I'm using up. I always have a handful of ideas for posts floating through my head. Kinda frustrating not having the time to write them down.

And lastly we have been preparing to have a Thanksgiving style supper with some friends tonight. A great way to cap off a busy and eventful week. Appropriately enough there will be a couple friends from work and a couple friends from online.

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