Ladies and gentlemen, today I did the extraordinary. Today, I went to the source of good-looking bums all over the world. Today, I went to the head office of Lululemon.
Mindy's friend Kate Gustafson (who is, incidentally, a fantastic runner) works at Lululemon and invited us by for a quick tour. Actually, Kate works for ivivva. I was confused when she told us that she works for the girls' brand at Lululemon... When did Lulu become so male-dominated that they had to devise a focused brand for women? Kate clarified that ivivva isn't for "girls" as in females, but actually for young girls. Makes a little more sense. For a variety of reasons, I would never get any work done if I got a job at Lululemon in Vancouver. The prime reason, though, is that they have a totally open concept work area, and I suddenly found myself grateful for the short walls of my cubicle.
Prior to the corporate tour, there was work to do. I didn't run this morning as I was doing final preparations for my first presentation at this conference. While I am told I presented well - on OntarioMD's Hospital Report Manager and how it is a showcase for the Rhapsody product from Orion Healthcare - the whole thing was rather anticlimactic. There was little to no promotion of the session by the conference, and so we ended up with about a dozen people in the audience, largely from Orion. Whatever. The important presentation - in my opinion - is tomorrow.
After taking in more of the conference - the sessions, networking, and learning about products that could revolutionize healthcare - I escaped for another evening in Vancouver. Tonight we joined Olympian Dylan Wykes and Rob Watson, the "almost winner of the Boston Marathon", for a social run with their coaching group Mile 2 Marathon. Rob is every bit as friendly, chatty, and personable as you might expect if you've read his blog. What I didn't expect, from the author of a blog with more expletives than I use the letter "e", was to be running beside him as we approached a man walking two dogs, and to hear Rob exclaim: "That is just adorable. Adorable!" And as far as I can tell, he meant it.
After the run we went to a local pub called the Tap Shack for a few drinks. Partway through the run I had deked back to the hotel to pick up my credit card; randomly, I picked up my ID as well. Turns out this was a good thing. As Mindy and I ordered drinks from the server, she asked us for ID. Somewhat incredulously, I handed over mine as Mindy explained that she didn't have hers on her because she hasn't been ID-ed for years. I assumed that the server, upon seeing that I am 34 years old, would realise that Mindy is nowhere near 19 (sorry, Mindy). Instead, I was served and Mindy was declined. Because she looks too young. With good intention, the server commiserated with Mindy, explaining that she brings three pieces of ID to get into clubs because the enforcement is so strict. Which is fine, because our server was maybe 21 years old! We called over the manager, but no dice. Now that his server had decided not to serve us, he wasn't about to go against her decision. When the 40-year old man sitting across from me was also denied a drink because he didn't have ID, it went from hard-to-believe to downright ridiculous. As we paid our bill to leave:
Server: What are you doing the rest of the evening?
Mindy: I'm going to go have a drink!
Rob: Yeah, time to play catch up.
Server: Catch-up? What's catch-up?
Mindy: Um....I'm going to catch up on the drinks I couldn't have here.
Server (laughing): Oh, I thought it was a drinking game and I was thinking "I want to play!"
We didn't actually go out anywhere else to get drinks. We wandered around looking for an enticing restaurant, but the only things open were very nice restaurants (we weren't dressed for that) and a single Starbucks. I got a chocolate frappuccino. Delectable.
Mindy's friend Kate Gustafson (who is, incidentally, a fantastic runner) works at Lululemon and invited us by for a quick tour. Actually, Kate works for ivivva. I was confused when she told us that she works for the girls' brand at Lululemon... When did Lulu become so male-dominated that they had to devise a focused brand for women? Kate clarified that ivivva isn't for "girls" as in females, but actually for young girls. Makes a little more sense. For a variety of reasons, I would never get any work done if I got a job at Lululemon in Vancouver. The prime reason, though, is that they have a totally open concept work area, and I suddenly found myself grateful for the short walls of my cubicle.
Prior to the corporate tour, there was work to do. I didn't run this morning as I was doing final preparations for my first presentation at this conference. While I am told I presented well - on OntarioMD's Hospital Report Manager and how it is a showcase for the Rhapsody product from Orion Healthcare - the whole thing was rather anticlimactic. There was little to no promotion of the session by the conference, and so we ended up with about a dozen people in the audience, largely from Orion. Whatever. The important presentation - in my opinion - is tomorrow.
After taking in more of the conference - the sessions, networking, and learning about products that could revolutionize healthcare - I escaped for another evening in Vancouver. Tonight we joined Olympian Dylan Wykes and Rob Watson, the "almost winner of the Boston Marathon", for a social run with their coaching group Mile 2 Marathon. Rob is every bit as friendly, chatty, and personable as you might expect if you've read his blog. What I didn't expect, from the author of a blog with more expletives than I use the letter "e", was to be running beside him as we approached a man walking two dogs, and to hear Rob exclaim: "That is just adorable. Adorable!" And as far as I can tell, he meant it.
After the run we went to a local pub called the Tap Shack for a few drinks. Partway through the run I had deked back to the hotel to pick up my credit card; randomly, I picked up my ID as well. Turns out this was a good thing. As Mindy and I ordered drinks from the server, she asked us for ID. Somewhat incredulously, I handed over mine as Mindy explained that she didn't have hers on her because she hasn't been ID-ed for years. I assumed that the server, upon seeing that I am 34 years old, would realise that Mindy is nowhere near 19 (sorry, Mindy). Instead, I was served and Mindy was declined. Because she looks too young. With good intention, the server commiserated with Mindy, explaining that she brings three pieces of ID to get into clubs because the enforcement is so strict. Which is fine, because our server was maybe 21 years old! We called over the manager, but no dice. Now that his server had decided not to serve us, he wasn't about to go against her decision. When the 40-year old man sitting across from me was also denied a drink because he didn't have ID, it went from hard-to-believe to downright ridiculous. As we paid our bill to leave:
Server: What are you doing the rest of the evening?
Mindy: I'm going to go have a drink!
Rob: Yeah, time to play catch up.
Server: Catch-up? What's catch-up?
Mindy: Um....I'm going to catch up on the drinks I couldn't have here.
Server (laughing): Oh, I thought it was a drinking game and I was thinking "I want to play!"
We didn't actually go out anywhere else to get drinks. We wandered around looking for an enticing restaurant, but the only things open were very nice restaurants (we weren't dressed for that) and a single Starbucks. I got a chocolate frappuccino. Delectable.
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