Dear Bob [editor of V.I.A.],

I want to thank you and the readers of V.I.A. for helping to find a home for our BC-made bench. We received numerous e-mails within days of the POST from both people suggesting places they know of, and others with space to offer. We were looking for a space to house our bench until the IDSWest show in September, and the person we got linked up with offered a compatible timeframe.

The man for the job was Mark Brand, then preparing to open No.1 Noodle House, a pop-up restaurant in the old Boneta space at #1 West Cordova. Currently the concept for the Noodle House is a seven month pop-up shop. In addition to providing the bench with a home, Mark has reserved space beside the bench for us to promote the product and our business. This is about people helping people and opening the door to opportunity.

For the next location and potential final home, we really wanted to see the bench in a open environment with lots of light and space around it. I got an e-mail from Jodie Braaten, exhibit designer at Science World, with an attached photo of the prospective space.
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Hey, actor and musician, husband to Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon! High five, Nick Cannon!

Nick was on Breakfast Television this morning talking about America’s Got Talent, Mariah & his upcoming Showtime comedy special that’s taping at the River Rock… and we got our pals over at BT to deliver this virtual high five for you! Check out our slew of other celebrity fives HERE.

We recently released a totally silly iPhone app with our friends at Company Policy and 49 Digital. Eyes on the World is entirely free, free of advertising, and it essentially allows you to add googly eyes to your photos, then share them. We all volunteered our time for this project because we feel it’s very important that you be able to add googly eyes to things. Like your cat. Or your friends. Or random inanimate objects. It is your right to be able to add googly eyes to things, and we want you to exercise that right with ease.

As long as people continue to use the app and share their photos with us, we’ll be running a weekly feature called Eyes on Vancouver. This week’s images came to us from a Vicky Swan who used the “Send to V.I.A.” option within the app to send us snaps of her parents. Thanks, Vicky!

Download the app HERE and be sure to share with us so we can share here on the blog!

SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver. With over 28,000+ artists, boasting more than 140,000+ tracks, the CBC Music/CBC Radio 3 web site is the absolute ultimate authority, and the home, of independent music in Canada. With that massive library along with tools for members (free to join!), we’re taking advantage of what they’ve set up by bringing you a fresh batch of music every week featuring local groups who have tracks (entire albums, even!) on the R3 site.

I hope you all had a great week this week…tomorrow is my OFFICIAL 3 year blog post, and Thursday is my 5-year Vancouver Anniversary. It just so happens that there is a great show lined up for the 16th at the Media Club – Rococode, Tough Lovers, and this week’s playlist creator: Colourful Language. The duo will be opening up the show, so get your tickets by CLICKING HERE, and click the images below to hear some of their picks for this week’s playlist:

Welcome to The Playground, a place for Vancouver families. I’m always on the lookout for fun stuff to do, so if there’s something happening that you think I should know about, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Forest Fairy Gathering
Saturday May 18th
Meet at the Burnaby Lake Nature House
11 am – 3 pm
Grab your wands and strap on some wings and head down to Burnaby Lake Regional Park.  Metro Vancouver is putting on a FREE Forest Fairy Gathering where families can explore the world of forest fairies and gnomes.  Spend the afternoon looking for flower fairies in the butterfly garden, visit the fairy market for building supplies to construct your very own fairy or gnome home and face painting.

From 1934 to 1979, street photographer Foncie Pulice set up his camera on Vancouver city sidewalks and snapped candid shots of people strolling by. For almost half a century, he took thousands of photos, unwittingly capturing moments in time, the history of a city, and the lives of British Columbians.

Now documentary filmmaker Melanie Wood and British Columbia’s Knowledge Network are bringing these photographs together – collecting them from albums around the province and giving them a public home. Photo negatives of Foncie’s images do not exist. He destroyed most of them when he retired. Until now there was no central archive or collection.

Here are some thoughts from the mother and wife of the subjects of this 1954 photo:
“My husband Eddie is shown here taking our first born daughter, Robbyn Anne, about 5 years old, for a walk. She is wearing a coat that my mother-in-law bought from Woodward’s. It was red with a black collar. Eddie and Robbyn are probably on a shopping trip of some kind. We lived on the North Shore and it would have been a real treat for her Dad to take her shopping downtown. They probably would have driven into town in our blue Roadster. We all grew up in West Vancouver where my dad was one of the first milkmen.”

This is a story about Vancouver, about British Columbia, and about it’s people… so they need your help. Visit Knowledge.ca/FonciesCorner to add your photos and stories to the collection.

We’re sharing a couple of Foncie photos here on V.I.A. each week leading up to the premiere of the documentary film being released in the summer. Share your memories (or the ones you find in your parents’ and grandparents’ archives) and become a part of Vancouver’s history!