Invite The World

Places things and ideas to share

BC Place Open House April 28-29, 2012

Posted by Cofa on April 28, 2012
e english only, events, Places / No Comments

Wanna meet up for an inspection tomorrow? Your $450M renovation project is ready…

When I first texted the above news to members in my circle I got some questions back. So I would like to first explain a little bit before moving on:

1) The building to be inspected: BC Place in Downtown Vancouver. An event entitled BC Place Community Weekend is being held during the weekend April 28-29, 2012, and the admission is free. Pardon me if I have used jargon of our industry in real estate sale: I play the open house event as “house inspection” by owners of a construction work they had paid to complete.

2) The renovation project: The work to rebuild with a retractable roof that has costed British Columbia taxpayers $450M ($450,000,000). So the word “your” in my initial invitation would mean us taxpayers that could include you and me.

BC Place open house - a screen shot of the BC Place website

No matter what your comment would be on the spending, BC Place is part of our life and as part of the community and the Province, I encourage everyone to take a chance to enjoy a moment of it!

Link to photos:
Photo Album at Google+

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Good news to Gmail account holders

Posted by Cofa on April 26, 2012
e english only, events, ideas / No Comments

For months I have been worrying about reaching the free storage limit of my Gmail account. It was approaching the 70% mark *and counting*! And you know what – the worry was so real that it in effect had made it a practice of mine to keep staring at the bottom-left of the Gmail screen whenever I log in – see image in green box below. (For me, deleting read messages from my inbox is not an option – I keep all messages since day 1.)

And today I have a huge relief! I just noticed that my storage usage has reduced to 49% only, and that the storage limit has increased to 10240 MB (10 GB) from its previous 7.5 GB. And this has in fact just officially happened on April 24, less than two days ago!

My current usage at the time of writing this post (image):

Competition is G!

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2012 MAC Golden Cube Follow Up

Posted by Cofa on April 24, 2012
e english only, real estate / No Comments

This is a follow-up on my earlier post titled “The 2012 MAC Golden Cube Event”. In that post I said I hope to get a copy of the group photo that was taken at the end of the event…

With the help of Melanie Briggs, Sales Director at MĀC Marketing Solutions, I got the great picture of that magnificent view! My BIG thanks to her and her great team!

I am glad to be able to share this great picture – Over 300 REALTORS waving hands to you!

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Port Mann Bridge Photo Gallery

Posted by Cofa on April 24, 2012
e english only, Places, Things / No Comments

Wonder how the new Port Mann Bridge would look like when it’s done? Well, that could only be found out when it is completed sometime in late 2012 or early 2013.

However, for a preview of the “product” there is an album of photos I took earlier this month…

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The 2012 MAC Golden Cube Event

Posted by Cofa on April 17, 2012
e english only, real estate / No Comments

The Second Annual MAC Golden Cube Awards dinner was held on April 16, 2012 at the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, British Columbia. Glad to be part of the event that evening! Over 400 guests were seen at the meeting (my guess only, haven’t got the exact figure from the organizer).

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Google Art Project

Posted by Cofa on April 04, 2012
e english only, Things / 1 Comment

Have just learned from tonight’s TV news and would like to share this great project with you – The Google’s “Art Project”. This is where you could view 30,000 HD images of works of art from over 150 museums across 40 countries…

What is the Google’s ‘Art Project’? Here’s what Googleartproject.com/faqs/ has to say:

The Art Project is a collaboration between Google and 151 acclaimed art partners from across 40 countries. Using a combination of various Google technologies and expert information provided by our museum partners, we have created a unique online art experience. Users can explore a wide range of artworks at brushstroke level detail, take a virtual tour of a museum and even build their own collections to share. With a team of Googlers working across many product areas we are able to harness the best of Google to power the Art Project experience. Few people will ever be lucky enough to be able to visit every museum or see every work of art they’re interested in but now many more can enjoy over 30 000 works of art from sculpture to architecture and drawings and explore over 150 collections from 40 countries, all in one place. We’re also lucky at Google to have the technology to make this kind of project a reality.

Want to have a tour of The White House? Click this link to start:
http://www.googleartproject.com/collection/the-white-house/museumview/

To explore the Google’s Art Project click this link:
http://www.googleartproject.com/faqs/

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Vancouver Highway 1 and the HOV Lane

Posted by Cofa on April 02, 2012
driving and practice, e english only / No Comments

This might be belated information but just in case some of you are still not aware of the changes…

Recently there have been some changes made to the HOV lane on Highway 1 in Metro Vancouver area. If you only occasionally use the busily under construction highway, the following information might be of advantage to you for your next trip:

  • The end point of the East-bound HOV lane has changed. It is now ended at close to Exit 44, just before getting on the Port Mann bridge towards Surrey.
  • The effective time of the HOV lane has changed. Current effective time is: 6 a.m. through 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. That’s right: There is NO restriction on the use of the HOV lane during Saturdays and Sundays.

New Port Mann Bridge under construction, viewed from 116A Avenue:

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Google Plus and a lot to learn

Posted by Cofa on April 01, 2012
e english only, ideas / No Comments

I have just set up my Google Plus profile today! What an experience and what a feeling!

I’ve been using Google’s Gmail for long and only in the recent years to notice that many new “add on” services were coming out of Google. And all of a sudden I just came to notice that I was sooo outdated from those social media stuffs. I have had a Twitter account and a Facebook account for quite some years already but have only been rarely posting to them. After having read few books on social media recently, and especially having made up my mind about doing something with my International Mahjong® stuffs, I now decided that I should be more participating in the online community. I have so far set up two blogs and my profile at Google+. To many of you this might just be a piece of sesame; but it’s already a lot to me. However, it’s really fun!

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They now have their tourist visas!

Posted by Cofa on March 18, 2012
e english only, travel / 1 Comment

As the Grand Prize Winner of the Invite The World Campaign, my ‘obligation’ is to invite four people from around the world to visit Vancouver. [My 'obligation' is indeed my honour.] As revealed in my previous post, I have decided my guests to be my relatives in China and in Hong Kong. Visitors from China are required visa to enter Canada. To many of you applying for a visa would seem to be a matter of filling out few pieces of document and submitting them to a Canadian Visa Office overseas. But to people who know very little English (or French) the lots of paper work could be a disastrous work.

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Hello world! 世界好!

Posted by Cofa on March 13, 2012
e+c bilingual, events, ideas / 2 Comments

It was the New Year Day of the Year of the Dragon 2012 (Jan 23). I got an email from Tourism Vancouver advising me that I was the Grand Prize Winner of its Invite The World Campaign held in year 2011! I was thrilled to be “The One!” And that happening has led to the coming about of this Invite The World Blog. I plan to use this blog to record the activities and feelings of the invited guests related to their visit in Vancouver. In addition, and as outlined in the page About, my ultimate goal is to keep this blog as an vehicle to help bring up places, things and ideas to share with the communities where I live, and with the blog communities around the world. 当天是2012年龙年元旦日（1月23日）. 我从温哥华旅游局发出的电子邮件通知得悉, 我是她们在2011年举办的 邀约世界推广运动 的大奖得主! 我很高兴成为这个 “幸运儿”! 这事件最终导致本 “邀约世界博客” 的建立. 我打算用这个博客来记录应邀客人在温哥华的旅游活动和他们的感受. 同时, 亦正如在 “关于” 一文作出的介绍, 我的最终目标是可以维持这个博客网站, 並透过她将不同的地方, 物事和想法带出, 与我居住的社区和世界各地的博客社区分享.

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