elicitconcepts : the freelance mind of lyndsey mcdonald

Brian Hunt Covers the Toronto BMX Jam

July 4th, 2008

Brian Hunt just posted this awesome video from the Toronto BMX Jam that went down a couple of months ago as part of the Toronto International Bike Show. Check it out!

2008 Toronto Internation Bicycle show BMX Jam from brian hunt on Vimeo.

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Go Station Lieing About Parking Lot Thefts

June 25th, 2008

Last week and article appeared in the Toronto Star about Catalytic Converters being stolen out of SUV trucks in GO station parking lots around the GTA. Which, as you can imagine, would be a very big problem for the owner of that vehicle. A GO Station Security Guard was interviewed anonymously, and stated that it was a fact that many vehicles are the victim of theft everyday at GO Station Parking lots across the Toronto Area. A GO PR-type person then stated that the security guard was misinforming people, and that the number of thefts is actually very very small. (I am not going to get into to much detail here and quote numbers, as it is all outlined in the article linked below.)

To people who had had their vehicle broken into, stolen, or vandalized at a GO Station Parking lot, this is like a slap in the face. GO Transit’s stance is to pretend like its not happening, and lie to the public, to make the lots seem safe. My boyfriend Dave’s vehicle(s) has been stolen once, second time broken into, stereo stole, and vehicle damaged so badly it was a write off, and then third time, his brand new vehicle had it’s window smashed out, only for the would-be thieves to find there was nothing inside. All 3 of these incidents happened within about a years time.

Well, Dave decided not to let the first article go unnoticed, as did a few other people. Within a few days, The Star had emails, Dave’s included, and phone calls from angry citizens demanding GO Transit to take a harder look at security at GO Transit parking lots. In response, The Star published a second article with responses from these concerned citizens, and encouraged victims of GO Transit parking lot theft to come forward and the the real numbers become apparent. I urge you to do the same! If we do not speak up, and put some pressure on GO Transit to fix the problem, they will just keep pretending it’s not real.

Read the article and find contact information here:
http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Fixer/article/445821

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Get ready Eastern Canada - Metro Jam BMX is back!

June 10th, 2008

Metro Jam BMX 2008
Two days ago I ran into Jay Miron and heard the most exciting news of the summer! But, sadly, had to keep my mouth shut until the official press release dropped sometime yesterday. So now, without further delay, I can officially yell with joy- METRO JAM IS BACK!!!!

After a 2 year hiatus, Metro Jam, one of the biggest BMX contests Canada has ever seen, is back! Hosted by Ten Pack BMX (Jay Miron), this years event will be bigger and better than ever! Metro Jam 2008 will take place officially in Kingston, ON, over 2 days, August 30-31. With a series of qualifying events taking place in cities across Ontario leading up to the big event.

Metro Jam has always been a showcase of the best BMX riders from all over the world, and this year will not disappoint. Check out the official Metro Jam website for more details, and check back here often for updates!

Posted in BMX | 1 Comment »

Save the Tim DaSilva BMX Track

April 29th, 2008

In 2006, Tim DaSilva lost his life building his dream. Tim was a Champion BMX racer, headed for the Olympics. His passion was selfless though; it seems every kid who met Tim, now talks about how he helped them, or how he touched their life and really made a difference. This passion, and his eagerness to help others in the sport he loved, led to designing and building the ultimate BMX track in Halton, ON. Sadly, during the building of his dream, a tragic accident occurred, and Tim passed away. Tim’s friends and family could not let that dream fade though, and with over 300 people helping, the track was completed and opened up last year.

So the track was open, Tim’s dream was a live, and Tim’s friends and family could take comfort in knowing that their son was continuing to make a difference in the lives of young people, and the sport he loved would continue to thrive and progress in Ontario.

Towards the end of last season though, there was some trouble. The land that the track was on, is privately owned but is a part of the Niagara escarpment and because of that the track was forced to close until further notice.

Fast forward to today: the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC) is forcing the family to flatten their son’s dream in 60 days (from the end of April 2008) or the owner of the private land (Halton Place) will face stiff penalties. It seems somewhat unclear what the NEC’s real motives are, but there has been some muttled quotes about permits and farming. This seems completely ridiculous. In the society we live in today, with so much polution and litter, and condos going up every 5 seconds, these people have nothing better to do then tear down the dreams of some BMX riders? We aren’t building waste processing plants here, we are talking about a dirt track for kids to get out and ride their bikes on and be active!

I invite you, in fact, challenge you, to join the facebook group here, and more importantly, sign the petition here. You don’t have to be from the area, you don’t have to race BMX bikes, but if you have anything in life you are passionate about, and/or have ever lost a loved one, you can understand.

Finally, I leave you with this video by Brian Hunt. Take 5 minutes and watch it, its remarkable.

Help Safe Tim DaSilva’s BMX track from brian hunt on Vimeo.

Posted in BMX | 5 Comments »

Open-Contents

April 27th, 2008

Lately I’ve been really into looking all over the place for inspiration and creativity. Today I came across this unique art endevour and thought I would share…

Open-Contents is a project by Toronto based glass artist Brad Turner. It is an attempt to link the physical world of arts and craft with the voluntary electronic community. As an installation of 26 hand made bottles, collectively representing the letters on a keyboard, participants are encouraged to submit their own message, via website, to the character of their choosing.

You can write anything you want: a few words, a story, a letter, a secret, or confession, a text-message, an observation, whatever moves you.

For every electronic submission, the message will be printed and kept within the corresponding bottle. As the bottles fill up, the grouping ceases to be a collection of glass, but rather a collection of personal gestures. Reflecting the nature of online participation, these gestures are recorded and archived, while only a few will be discovered.

It’s really just a fun piece of art that anyone can participate in. There are more details on the site, check it out!

Posted in Design & Technology | No Comments »

Listening to The History of Hip Hop

April 14th, 2008

I was recently listening to The History of Hip Hop, on The Rub. This is one of the most complete collections showing the evolution of hip hop, year by year, from 1979, ending 20 years later at 1999 (which I think, not-so-coincidentally, is pretty close to the time that Hip Hop died).

This collection is one of the best I have ever heard and will take you back to a time when Hip Hop was full of talent, thoughtful lyrics, and some meaning, unlike this less than innovative trend we’ve been seeing over the past 8-10 years where 90% of hip hop is about bling, hoes, and Diddy-fied commercialism, not to mention that every other new hip hop song sounds exactly the same, and the art of “sampling” has turned into “borrowing” entire songs/tracks. But I digress…

If you haven’t already, check out The Rub, and The History of Hip Hop. My personal favourites are 1997 (it was a good year for the WU!) and ‘94, but really all the surrounding years take me back! (hey, I’m not all that old what can I say) The late 80’s leave me with fewer songs I remember, but definitely worth a listen as you can really see the evolution of hip hop and when a song does come on that you know, nothing beat jamming to the real old school flava! (yes I said flava)

I also found 2 interesting articles that are worth a read, and answer the question, is Hip Hop dead?

Is Hip Hop Really Dead? By DaveyD, San Jose Mercury News
Is Hip Hop Dead? By Walter Dawkins

Posted in Rants, Daily Life | No Comments »

Passage Tattoo

March 30th, 2008

It recently came to my attention that my favourite place to get tattooed started their own blog. I’ve been tattooed by Brian (who has moved) and Dave has been tattooed by Lizzie, and my friend Alison has had work done by Tyson. It’s safe to say that any of the artsits at Passage are awesome and they all do great work. If you are thinking of getting a tattoo I suggest you check them out! Check out the new blog: http://passagetattoo.blogspot.com/

My cover up by Brian-

Lizzie’s work on Dave- His first tattoo-

Tyson’s work on Alison-

Posted in Daily Life | 1 Comment »

HDR effect with Adobe Plug-IN - ReDynaMix HDR

March 11th, 2008

I came across a really great plug-in for photoshop today. It’s the ReDynaMix HDR plug-in for photoshop, by Media Chance. It enhances your photos like you wouldn’t believe and also comes with Orton and Black and White Filters that will make even the most drab and boring photos look amazing.

I’ve had a chance to play around with it a bit tongiht and it was really cool easy to use. Just like the website claims, it takes the ordinary, to the extraordinary! You can use the presets, or make your own custom settings. A free trial (watermarks your images) is available, as well as the full version for only like $16. Check it out here. The .exe is a link at the bottom of the page.
Here is a sample of what I did tonight:
BEFORE

AFTER

And here is a sample showing some colour, taken from the website:

Posted in Design & Technology | No Comments »

ASC presents Hang 20″

February 24th, 2008

The Action Sports Coalition will be hosting an art exhibit at the Gladstone Hotel during the International Bike Show, March 7-9. I will be exhibiting *something* at the show, along with many friends from the BMX community. It’s a great opportunity for amature artists to exhibit some of their work, and it’s coming together really well and I think the collection of BMX and Bike focused works will be interesting and worth a look. Here’s the poster, let me know if you are thinking of coming by!

ASC's Hang 20

Posted in Photos, BMX | No Comments »

The things I loved about Kissing Bridge… and a couple I didn’t

February 24th, 2008

Last weekend, Dave and I took a trip Down to the Buffalo area for some snowboarding to celebrate Canada’s first Family Day Long Weekend. We started out doing a night ride on Saturday at Kissing Bridge in Colden, NY (about a half hour from Buffalo). Sunday we headed down to Holiday Valley, Ellicottville, NY (about an hour south of Buffalo) but unfortunately it was pouring rain, without much sign of letting up, so we decided we would come back another time.

Even though Kissing Bridge was the smaller of the 2 resorts, we really liked it. It was better than anywhere we’ve ridden in Ontario, and even though I was just getting over the flu, we had a blast! Here is my review of Kissing Bridge:

1. The Hill was practically empty. This was the best part for us. There was no waiting in lift lines, no worrying about some punk ass kids wizzing by within a foot of you just to show how cool they are, in fact, not much of a worry of anyone coming within 20 feet of you most of the time. We just loved that during most runs down, we had what felt like the whole hill to ourselves. We attribute this to the fact that we chose to go night riding. One of the slight drawbacks to this resort was that many of the runs had areas that were pretty poorly lit. I have bronze lenses on my googles, and most night rides I can get away with wearing them, but not on some of the runs at this hill. However, the free reign on the runs far outweighed the bad lighting conditions for us.

2. The price for a night ride was excellent. For $30US, we got to ride from 4pm - 9:30 pm (they may be open til 10) on about 22-24 runs. Compare that to Glen Eden, when I have to pay $30 and cant go on the hill til 5:30, and can ride all of about 8 runs; Or to Blue Mountain, where I can get on the hill at 4:30, but have to pay $44.

3. The runs. I loved the runs here. My preference is for long and steady runs, and Kissing Bridge had many great long runs. They were fast enough that Dave could take off and go as fast as he wanted, yet gradual enough that I was comfortable going at my own pace down them. There were also some great windy trails through trees that we also enjoyed. We stuck mostly to the greens and blues, but did go down one Black. Our only complaint about the runs, was that we found it a little difficult getting from the north side to the south side and back again. There are 2 runs that run across the top of the hill, the north shuttle and the south shuttle, but we found that they were just a little too flat and we kept getting stuck. We had to do A LOT of hopping. My legs were tired the next day, not from the snowboarding, but from all that damn hopping. It’s possible that because it was our first time there we didn’t know the best ways to get from one side to the other, but the shuttle needs some work.

Kissing Bridge Trail Map

4. The lifts. Some of these lifts are quite old, but after getting over that, they actually ran pretty well. Rarely did we stop, which is a lot more than you can say for most lifts I’ve been on in Ontario.

Overall I really liked Kissing Bridge. Any downsides to this resort were far outweighed by the good things. It was without a doubt the best $30 Ive spent on snowboarding this year! It’s only about a 2-2.5 hour drive (give or take for border crossing) from Mississauga, and given the choice, I think I would choose Kissing Bridge over Blue Mountain any day. We hope to get back down to the area before the end of this season to ride Holiday Valley, preferably when it’s not pouring rain!

Posted in Snowboarding | No Comments »