For every dollar the Chip’s Not Dead Yet charity run raises, Chip Wilson will match that amount up to $150,000! “When sick kids get better they run, play, and most of all they appreciate the fact that they’re alive. What if we all did that?”

A couple of months ago, Ianiv & I had a chance to tour the BC Children’s Hospital and to learn how charity dollars are put to work. It was an eye-opening experience. A hospital for kids has to be prepared for premature babies as well as adult-sized 18-year-old kids… that takes a lot of equipment and a lot of specialized knowledge and care. Imagine buying not just one bed size (like in a regular hospital), but many sizes. Same goes for all the equipment – just look at the various sizes of blood pressure cuffs pictured to the right! So, though BC Children’s Hospital may fund-raise a lot, and may do well in those efforts, consider that the Hospital is more than 3 times as costly to run than a regular hospital!

I had honestly never thought of all of the complexities involved in treating sick kids. The hospital staff – who were amazing! – have to know how to not only treat these sick kids, but also to care for their emotional and developmental needs as well. That changes with each age group. The BC Children’s Hospital shared with us how important it is to have parents involved with their child’s care, although the ICU had no room for parents to sleep with their children. The hospital is far too small for the needs of the entire province. A new hospital is being developed, but it’s a few years away.

One of the things that shocked me most was to learn that doctors who specialize in treating kids actually get paid less, on average, than those who treat adults. Obviously, with so many more adults in the world, it’s more “profitable” to treat them – though treating kids takes a great deal more specialized training. This fact isn’t really related to the Hospital’s charity needs, but it stuck with me.

If you haven’t yet signed up for the Chip’s Not Dead Yet charity event, you can do so here! There are also some great prizes to win, as well as a fun-day filled with music (Daniel Wesley, A Current Swell, Armchair Cynics, and Run GMC.) and more! Don’t want to run? Try the Couch Potato Wave!

Ianiv & I sadly won’t be in town for the event – we’ll be in Victoria – but it should be a great event if you can go!

Check out the full set here.

Tonight Rebecca (miss604) and I are sitting up in the press booth for online media with a bird’s eye view of the performance at GM place. We’ll both be liveblogging – me here in this post, and Rebecca here. The eTalk red carpet event has already started and the stadium is slowly filling up. CTV will be broadcasting the event live in BC starting at 5pm and one-hour delayed across the country.

Performances tonight include Sarah McLachlan, Bryan Adams, Serena Ryder and more. Stay tuned for updates!

4:54PM – The crowd is getting psyched for the Junos The stadium is almost full.

5:00pm – Nickelback kicks off the Junos with a bang. Literally. The place fills with fireworks, smoke and a bang as they begin singing “Something in Your Mouth”. The crowd goes wild, the place just alive with camera flashes. And the set ends with a swash of flame.

5:05pm – host Russell Peters takes the stage doing a couple of dance numbers, including some awkward break dancing.

“Seriously folks, I know this is Vancouver. But what’s with the grow op on stage?”

It’s true, the stage is a mix of industrial with the lush greenery in trippy colors, a hint to Vancouver’s “other” reputation. Russell takes some time to greet some of the stars, from Bryan Adams to Divine Brown, whom he gropes over a bit.

5:10 – KD Lang and Buffy Sainte-Marie present the award for Songwriter of the Year. And the winner is… Dallas Green! His thanks go out to everyone “who has ever tried to write their own song.”

5:15 – Sam Roberts Band, winners last night of Rock Album of the Year, take the stage to perform “Them Kids.” Video:

5:20 – Hedley take the stage to present for Group of the Year. And the award goes to Nickelback! Too bad for Great Big Sea, but I’m glad they took the time to thank the fans and thank Vancouver. ;)

5:25 – There’s a brief about the Gala Night winners, then we move on to presenters Deborah Cox, Sarah Slean and Kreesha Turner who are presenting Rap Recording of the Year. The winners are Kardinal Offishall, who also won Single of the Year last night.

5:30 – Sarah McLachlan takes the stage to sing “U Want Me 2″ and looks phenomenal! Just stunning in her cascading dress. Fantastic.

Check out the video of Sarah:

5:40 – Russell Peters and Michael Buble have a cute comedy sketch back stage. But it’s a pretense to introduce the Honourable James Moore, Elise Estrada and Aaron Pritchett who are presenting New Artist of the Year. And the Juno goes to – Lights!!

“I didn’t get into this to win awards. I got into this to write music… it’s really great to be recognized on such a massive scale.”

5:45 – The Stills are performing “Being Here”. It’s a performance without too much in the way of showy things, but it was a strong set.

5:52 – after another look at some of the winners from the Gala Awards Night, we move on to another performance by City and Color (Juno Winner Dallas Green) and Gord Downie. They’re performing “Sleeping Sickness”. Fantastic job!!

5:58 – Bob Rock takes the stage to induct Loverboy to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. There’s a video presentation about their success then the 4 band members take the stage.

“Wow… home town. Home country. Canada! Never to be forgotten.”

Saying thanks in English and in French, the band gets a little more time on stage for each of them to say their thanks.

“We still get to play these songs 30 years later, and that’s something”

They also pay tribute to their bass player, Scott Smith, who died in a boating accident in 2006.

6:12 – Crystal Shawanda performs “You Can Let Go” with a grand piano, followed by Divine Brown singing “One More Chance” with a strings section and Serena Ryder picks up the pace with her guitar for “Little Bit of Red”. I love her – she’s been my favorite artist in person for 2 years running. So cute.

6:19 – Tara Oram, Nikki Yanofsky, and Pepsi Super Fan Ali Furgala present the Juno Fan Choice Award to… Nickelback!

“This is a good one… this is the one for us… this is why we still don’t have a real job. All because of the fans. Thanks very much!”

6:26 – Musicounts PSA. We learned last night that this program is in need of greater support, it may be only renewed for 2 more years!

6:30 – Simple Plan perform their hit “Your Love is a Lie” to a very satisfied crowd. They worked it! They headed out to the crowd, singing to the fans, shaking hands, going all over the stage for their performance. What a job!

6:35 – Russell Peters goes into the crowd to talk to some sports stars. As a means to introduce Melissa Hollingsworth & Jeremy Wotherspoon, who in turn introduce Bryan Adams!! Bryan sings “Walk on By” with Kathleen Edwards. Amazing!!! Their voices together are like silk.

6:43 – Feist and Jim Cuddy take the stage to present for Artist of the Year. Tough competition! But it goes to Sam Roberts!!

6:50 – Elvis Costello and Diana Krall take the stage to present for Album of the Year. What a lineup for that one! But in the end, only one group can win… and it’s again, Nickelback!

Mom gets thanked first this time around, “I have to thank my Mom… for giving birth to half the band,” its joked. Oooh, and the shut-up music cuts off their thanks.

6:55 – Great Big Sea take the stage to close out the swho with their performance of “Gallows Pole” along with Workman & Eccodek. It’s a fantastic set, lots of drumming and movement on stage.

6:59 – Russell Peters appears briefly to close the show, then Great Big Sea return to close out the credits. Tune in next year as the Junos head to St. John’s Newfoundland & Labrador.

Hope you enjoyed the show & the live blog!!

June 20, 2009 will mark the second year for this crazy charity race. The race day is a one-mile uphill race that draws out some of the world’s best runners (for the generous winning prize) as well as superheroes and bridesmaids. That’s right – it’s a theme race! There are several “theme waves” to the race – from the Pooch Parade to the Superhero Half Mile or the “fun” High Heel Dash.

The race was set up to benefit BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. Chip explained how creating a race like this had the potential to raise a great deal more awareness and funds for the hospital than simply him donating each year (though Chip will match entry fee contributions up to $150,000). The goal of the race is to raise $1 million annually in perpetuity. And Chip is taking social media into heart as part of the strategy to get there. Memelabs is working with them on their social media strategy, including a contest for best “theme wave” idea.

Last night we had the chance to bounce some ideas off of Chip and his team about how social media could help build buzz for the event – it was a great discussion to be a part of. There’s so much we can do to leverage our “influence” online towards positive things like this race. It was a fun opportunity to offer ideas about how new technologies can enhance the entire experience before, during and after the race. I look forward to seeing what comes of it.

If you’re interested in being a part of the race, you can register for $30 (cheap!) and can kick-start your own fundraising efforts now. Whether you take part in the race seriously, sign up for the family wave, or just go to the fun zone for the street party, it’s a great local event to keep in mind for the summer.

The event will take place on June 20th on West 10th in Point Grey. Stay tuned to the CNDY Twitter for more updates.

As Buzz notes:

Virgin 953 is all about doing things differently. Pushing your boundaries. Getting you through the boredom of life, over the edge and into the goosebumpy goodness. You might even call it a popgasm.

Virgin 953 is very similar to how the radio station has always been, with the same demographic and music styles. There is a fancy new schedule, some new programming, but overall it’s still the same great radio station.

The launch party on Thursday was over the top crazy! If you can imagine a naked man (yes, naked, and flown in from LA), a tattoo artist, a woman with a snake, servers in crazy tutus, and people being set on fire… well, that was the long and short of it. Toss in some food and an open bar, and it was quite the party!

Check out our photo set here.

The tasting was done at Everything Wine, a very large wine store in North Vancouver. It’s a nice large space and the number of wines they have in stock is a bit overwhelming. They have daily wine tastings from 2pm to 6pm and they described Farmstead’s as:

This portfolio of wines is one of the best we’ve tasted since the store opened!  Well worth the trip to taste wines from producers devoted to organic and sustainable agriculture!

Anthony was offering 4 different wines and answering questions from the clientele. We tasted all four of them and asked him to give a short description of each one.

The first wine we tried was a Gruner Veltliner from Martin Arndorfer.

Then we tried a 2001 Barbera from Agricola Marrone.

The next wine was a 2007 Dolcetto from Renato Fenocchio who inspired Anthony to start importing wine.

And lastly, a Minervois from Domaine de Courbissac.

I also caught Anthony explaining the meaning behind Farmstead Wines.

We enjoyed all four wines and they were all very different. The Barbera, in particular, caught my attention, I don’t think I’ve tried anything quite like it before. In the end we brought a couple of bottles of the Minervois home.

The bottom line is that if you want to try wines that are hand-made by the farmers, who really care about what they do and do it in a sustainable and natural way, you must give Farmstead Wines a try.

Sunset taken from Lonsdale Quay. Not as nice as the one we had a few days ago, but beats the grey sky we have now. 7 shots.

Around the same time as the sunset above, looking north. You can see the new watefront development. 5 shots.

And last, a dreidel. Hannukah is coming up and I saw this little guy on my bookshelf so I decided to take a couple of shots.

This site is your official source for WCWhistler information. Check out the speaker page, add your own submission to become a speaker, find out more about sponsorship, and check back for blog updates. You can also follow the action with the RSS feed or by adding @WCWhistler on Twitter.

So go buy your ticket before they sell out. It’s going to be an awesome time.

I’m not going to recap the meeting here. For that you can go to Raul’s post where he did a great job of live-blogging the session. There is a webpage/wiki with more information about the project and I also attempted to do a live stream using Qik on my iPhone, which mostly worked, and got about half of the meeting online for your viewing pleasure.

The bottom line is that there is a lot of interest from a lot of people and various organizations. We have a lot of questions and a lot of ideas and we need to start working on figuring out what we intend to do and how we are going to get there. I intend to help out in any way I can.

I was invited out to the salon about a month ago for a facial and a massage. Although I get massages regularly, there’s quite the difference between a massage and massage therapy. At Zazou, they have Registered Massage Therapist who can do the deep therapy, but also the more relaxing stuff. I had a combination of both, which was quite the treat.

The spa takes up 3 rooms in Zazou, with it’s own calm reception area. The treatments all start off with a comfy robe, a beverage if you wish, and a nice foot soak. For both the massage and the facial you get to choose your scent experience. They started using some Aveda products last week that are quite relaxing.

[Photo Set Here]

Facials are newer to me, only had a few before, but after my experience that first day at Zazou, I immediately signed up for a full series (3 more). Aside from how relaxing the entire experience is (the calming process, the various massages, and just the ‘me’ time), it’s done wonders for my skin. I’ve had a lot of skin issues over the years, and the last few months had been a bit worse for me. Now it’s all starting to clear up, which is fantastic! I even bought some of the Comfort Zone products to continue using at home. Most of the products used in both the salon & spa are naturally-based, many fair trade and organic.

I’ve been quite the regular face around Zazou this month, and now that I’m due for a hair cut, I’m planning on booking one today from the salon. May as well try out all the services! Oh, they have a gorgeous pedicure section too, which I plan on using next time I’m due!

I’ve had the pleasure so far of seeing Lori for my skin and Scott for my massage. While at it, I would also love to recommend the servicecs from the North Shore Wellness Center, where I’ve been treating my injuries and issues for over a year now (with great success!) with the help of both Philippe and Shawn.