PD's SkullSkates.com website sells gear worldwide

PD opened his first skate shop - PD's Hot Shop - in Nanaimo in 1976. And it was the man himself behind the counter yesterday when my son Toby and I walked into his shop on West Fourth Avenue at McDonald in Vancouver, BC, Canada. PD was kind enough to let me take his picture and ask him a few questions, while my son oo-ed and ah-ed. Here's the conversation - "Q & A" style...

SM: So when did you open the first PD's Hot Shop?

PD: PD's Hot Shop started in 1976 and Skull Skates started in 1978.

SM: And where was the original shop?

PD: The original one was in Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island. Then the next one was in Vancouver, under the Oak Street Bridge on Marine Drive and then following that was Oak and 67th.

Oak and 67th is the one most people know us for because, by that time, we had become quite established and very early on we were selling a lot of skateboards and even the very first snowboards and the first bmx bikes. A lot of that stuff all happened out of the Oak & 67th location."

SM: Where are your shops now?

PD: Really it's just this shop in Kits - at 4th and McDonald - and our other shop in Japan. But we do sell to a lot of other shops - 80 to 100 other independent skate shops in Canada and a few other independent shops sprinkled around the globe.

We just signed a deal to have distribution start again in the U.S. We were located the US in the 80s for a while, but we haven't had our product distributed there for about 15 years.

Part of our approach is that we want to keep things very limited. We've seen a lot of skateboard brands come and blow up and be really big and then people get sick of them pretty quick. I want to do this for the rest of my life, so I want to do it on a more limited scale.

We also sell off our website skullskates.com and off that we do mail order all over the world. It's actually quite interesting to see. We've shipped skimboards to the United Arab Emirate and our limited edition cruiser bikes to Sweden. It's neat from that point of view - having that connection on the Web because even though we're a small company, it gives us a really international base to work from.

SM: Someone just called and wanted to work here. A lot of people want to work here - but, as you said, it's not all fun, right?

PD: It's a lot of fun. It's skateboards - so when you think about skateboarding, fun is obviously one of the first things that comes to mind. As far as this shop is concerned, I think we've got a pretty good reputation at this point and part of that comes from our dedication to details. When it comes down to it, the difference between a sort of okay skateboard and a really good one lies within the details.

The kind of products we carry - for example, skateboard parts - come in a very wide variety. Each type of wheel, truck, bearing, deck, accessory are all designed for specific use and performance. It's really important that we, as a shop, know what those uses and performances specifically are and that we're able to impart that knowledge to our fellow skateboarders and customers. Which sounds like a load of crap I know - but it really is true. We're here to sell stuff and stay in business but we want people to be stoked on skateboarding.

Marty Layne offers tips for homeschooling families

Author Marty Layne reminded me of something important this past weekend.

The veteran homeschooler and mom of four spoke to parents of kids in home learning programs during her workshop: “Celebrating the Joys and Challenges of Home Schooling” at the SelfDesign 25th anniversary celebration in Vancouver on Saturday.

Marty reminded us that our kids are young for only a short time in our lives. It’s important to cherish this time while we can because “they grow up so fast” as the cliché goes. Those of us who find a way to learn from home with our children – even part time – will have more time to enjoy this fleeting experience of childhood.

Marty showed slides of her family learning at home and outside – playing on the shores of Vancouver Island, creating block kingdoms in the living room, and building castles in the sand delivered to the bottom of the driveway in a dump truck. All four kids did home-based learning and now, as adults, they each followed careers in the arts – including a dancer, a harp player, a percussionist, and a visual artist. Marty was a preschool teacher before she had her own kids and says she has always been passionte about kids’ learning.

In 1998, Marty wrote: Learning At Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling and in 2008, she released a second edition. In addition to her workshops, she also offers a phone-based coaching service for homeschooling parents – along with some extremely cute pieces of art: little fluffy birds, squirrels, and other animals made in needlefelting (a great homelearning project!)

Here are some examples from Marty of things parents have done as a result of learning at home with their children:

Started a business running a homeschooling conference
Started a business designing fashions
Started a publishing company
Written books
Published magazines
Gone on to university or college to pursue another career.

Tutor Erin brings math down to Earth

Erin Riopel is a math tutor who is very intrigued with her subject.

“I almost feel bad charging people money because I enjoy it so much,” she says. “I like explaining things that I find interesting. I like teaching things to people, in general.”

Once a week, Erin comes to our house to tutor my eight-year-old son, who has been doing school from home since January 2009 with SelfDesign - an online independent school program funded by the B.C. Ministry of Education. Erin also tutors a Grade 9 SelfDesign student online using Skype voice chat and Scriblink, a free digital whiteboard that users can share online in real-time. (It’s “sorta like pen and paper, minus the dead trees, plastic, and the inconvenience of being at the same place at the same time,” says the Scriblink website.)

Erin says she has always liked math as a subject in school – but it wasn’t until Grade 10 that she started to see how interesting it was.

“In the early grades, I liked math because I found it really easy but I didn’t really see how it applied to real life. I found it the easiest thing to do because it’s fairly black and white and objective. You can just get the right answer and you don’t have to worry about it,” she says. “In Grade 10, I had a math teacher who told us about other things we weren’t doing yet, like imaginary numbers.”

In Grade 11, Erin gave birth to her first child – a much-loved baby girl who is now 10 years old. She completed high school while living with her parents and attending a program for young moms, sponsored by the Elizabeth Fry Society at Duchess Park Secondary in Prince George. She graduated “on time and with honours” before moving to Vancouver to study math and sciences at the University of B.C. At the end of her first year, she had a second baby – a much-loved son who recently turned 7.

The hard-working single mom continued her studies at UBC til her kids were 2 and 5 – and since then, she’s been “taking a break” from formal studies and working with her kids who are also in SelfDesign. Erin plans to finish a science degree eventually, and in the meantime, she is studying math on her own. She often buys second-hand elementary and high school texts from Value Village and checks out the various approaches to explaining math.

“I don’t like most of them,” Erin says, referring to how the text books often fail to explain simple concepts in ways that kids will understand. “You have to start with the concept and then show them examples of how it works. Most of the books don’t give any help or guidance on the concept. They just try to move straight into the formulas without any context. It took thousands of years to discover what we know about math. You can’t just give kids the problem and expect them to come up with concepts.”

Erin says she likes to explain math to her adult friends, but it doesn’t always work out…

“Some of them can’t listen, partly because of how math was taught in school. They’re convinced they don’t understand math, and as soon as I start talking about it, they just glaze over and don’t listen at all so I don’t torture them and make them listen,” she says, laughing.

Erin is accepting new students – so drop me a line if you are interested.

Charles cooks classic Commercial Drive cuisine at Cafe Deux Soleils

Charles has been cooking at Cafe Deux Soleils on Commercial Drive in East Vancouver, B.C., Canada for the past three years - ever since he moved to Vancouver. Today he did an especially good job on my favorite item because he used the perfect amount of sauce and cooked all the ingredients to the exact level of texture I like. The tofu was lightly browned the perfect amount, adding a slight crispness. Generous amount of sauce, perfect texture, excellent!

Tofu scram. It's the one thing I always order at Deux Soleils. I never get anything different. Chunks of fluffy tofu, sweet peppers, and onions marinated in a garlic-ginger sauce. I order mine with no mushrooms - but for the many people who like mushrooms, I'm sure this would be a tasty addition. Prices are very reasonable at this excellent vegetarian restaurant that has been a Commercial Drive fixture for many years.

Cafe Deux Soleils is my favorite breakfast spot on Commercial Drive. My son, now 8, likes to order a side of "marble toast" with garlic butter and a side of vegi sausages. With a lot of wide open space and a very laid-back atmosphere, it's a great place to bring kids. You order your food and pay at the counter, grab your own cutlery, find a table, and wait for the staff to bring your food. If it's busy, listen up: they may be calling out to you.

By day, toddlers and preschoolers play with kitchen toys and draw pictures on a big black board on a stage. By night, this stage is home to live music and poetry slam events. The Cafe has a licence for beer - popular at these evening events - and they have nice choices on tap. It's not uncommon to see folks enjoying a mellow, afternoon beer with friends. Line-ups can be long on the weekend and it gets really crowded, but if I get a craving for tofu scram (or feel like meeting up for breakfast with friends) I will gladly wait in line - and eavesdrop on other people's conversations. It's definitely worth the wait, so don't let the line-up scare you away.

Volunteer Jessie Martin savours slow food

Slow food is the opposite of what you get at a fast food drive-through.

Why does Jessie advocate for slow food?

"It's healthier and we are more in touch with where our food is coming from," says Jessie, who cooked at The Reef on Main St for four years. Now she has left behind the hectic life of professional food preparation and is studying to become a veterinary assistant, but she still enjoys cooking on her own time - no doubt more slowly and peacefully than at work!

Jessie signed up participants at Britannia Community Centre today for the 2nd Annual Bike the Blossoms cycle tour organized by Slow Food Vancouver, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, and the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition.

"This self-guided tour is fun for the whole family!" reads the Slow Food Vancouver website. "Enjoy a leisurely ride along boulevards of spring cherry blossoms, traveling through a diversity of neighbourhoods from the eastside to the westside, stopping at local community centres to meet local farmers, to sample local foods and refuel at slow food designated eateries, restaurants and cafes along the way."

Slow Food Vancouver is part of the International Slow Food Movement that has more than 80,000 members in 100 countries. Members get together (often at potluck dinners) to share their love of local flavours, traditions, and foods grown and created by local farmers and artisans.

The Commercial Drive Business Society partnered with Slow Food Vancouver to offer Slow Taste of the Drive to increase the level of engagement between local farmers and city folk. Selected eateries and restaurants on Commercial Drive offered a Slow Taste of their foods that fit the slow food criteria: good, clean, and fair.

Jolene shares the power of yoga at Exhale

“I love the joy of yoga and I want to share that with people. It’s a service,” says Jolene Bayda, 31. “For those few hours in the day I teach, it’s not about me. I just want people to feel that power of yoga.”

Jolene has been a yoga teacher for four years and she says (half-jokingly) that she started yoga on the day she was born, when she took her first breath. Here are the classes she teaches at Exhale in downtown Vancouver, B.C., Canada:

Candle Light Yoga class on Tuesday at 8:30pm
Hatha Yoga Classes on Thursdays at 10am, Fridays at 5:30pm and Sundays at 10:30am
Candle Light Yin Yoga class on Sundays at 8pm

Exhale offers a great deal for beginners, which I took full advantage of: $24 for one week of unlimited classes. Jolene was my teacher for two of the classes and I also did classes on Monday and Wednesday night with Dan.

In the past, my version of exercise was jogging and lifting weights at the gym - but in recent years, I've been really put off by the gym atmosphere. The smell of sweat, weights clanging, tough guys grunting... Now, as a contrast, the yoga class seems so peaceful and gentle, and it also offers a great workout. I've tried yoga a few times, with some very devoted teachers, but I've never really enjoyed it this much. In fact, I'm kind of surprised by my own enjoyment of it. Am I being whimsical and enjoying the novelty of something new? Or is this the start of something I will cherish for years to come? Time will tell...

In the meantime, thanks to Jolene, Dan, and Exhale. My experiences in the studio have helped me through a stressful week - and I am eternally grateful.

80 percent first-timers at Vancouver Net Tuesday

Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega was one of six presenters who shared their ideas on technology and social change at Vancouver Net Tuesdays tonight at WorkSpace in Gastown.

Raul, who has a PhD in Resource Management and Environmental Studies, is the organizer of the Vancouver Bloggers Meetup. Tonight's Event - Net Tuesday - is organized by social media consultant Joe Solomon announced on Meetup as: "Social Media and Web Innovators come together with Social Change Makers and Nonprofits to mix, swap stories and ideas, and build new relationships."

Famous Vancouver blogger Darren Barefoot MC-ed the event and he asked for a show of hands: "Who is here for the first time?" About 80 percent of us in the crowded room put up our hands.

Doug van Spronsen told us about MakeGood.com. Info from their website: "MakeGood helps your company communicate the good things you do through an interactive badge that you place on your website. Customers and employees can click on the badge and see photos, stories and testimonials from the people you helped - without ever leaving your website."

The badge isn't just a chance for the company to brag; it also links people to opportunities for participating in the company's charities or actions for change.

Grace Carter shared the story of ChipsNotDeadYet.com - a BC Children's Hospital Social Media Case Study. Participants dress up in costumes, run around, have fun. and raise money. Last year 2,500 people participated and raised over $100,000 for Children’s Hospital.

During the presentation, a man ran into the room wearing only underpants! He is a popular race contestant with many fans on the ChipsNotDeadYet Facebook Page.

Shawn Smith spoke about Global Agents for Change - a group of under-30 folks from around the world. This year they are organizing two youth-led cycling journeys raising funds and awareness to fight global poverty. One ride is from Vancouver to Tijuana and the other from Amsterdam to Istanbul.

Steve Williams of SAP Business Objects told us about his work with non-profit organizations - helping them to see how they can use their data and information. This data, if well-managed and mined, can be used for communicating, demonstrating the impact of donations, and engaging stakeholders.

"It's not just about communicating on an issue. It's about "How do you encourage people to take action?"

Joe Solomon mentioned one way of encouraging people to take action during his talk on what's next trend-wise in the world of "social change meets tech." It's the “Related Ways to Take Action” WordPress Plugin that allows your blog readers to take action based on the content in your post.