Last week it was that time again.

Time again to see if the creative world cares about little old me. 🙂

Well I showed up rather early to the meeting, so I took the time to enjoy the warm weather and soak up the downtown ambience.

I’m not normally downtown much. Sure I go to the WAG fairly often, but I’m usually in and out. Not too much time wandering around to see what’s going on.

So after much wandering around, mostly around Portage Place, I was off to the Lo Pub. And more vegetarian-style pub grub.

I tried the nachos this time around. They were quite good. Not the best nachos I’ve ever had though. That title belongs to some unnamed restaurant in the blue smoke filled haze that is Bally’s casino in Las Vegas. Now those were awesome nachos!

While I was there enjoying my nachos, I had three quick conversations. One with a budding First Nations artist who, when asked where his work was being shown, rather offhandedly said, “New York”. I was rather flabergasted (and somewhat jealous). And apparently too flabbergasted to get anything else like a name or any place locally where his work might be found. And then I spoke to two other programmerator types who could have been each others stunt doubles. Which lead to a rather embarrassing event that will go left unsaid. Suffice it to say I had a seniors moment, and I’m a bit too young at 37 for such nonsense. 😯

The rest of the evening was looking to be rather blah, when I ran into someone I had chatted to briefly before several meetings ago. Turns out, he’s an EV (electrical vehicle) enthusiast. And while I’m not exactly the worlds greatest environmentalist, I do own a hybrid Honda Insight and try to walk, bike or bus to work every day, so it was interesting to hear what he had to say regarding the state of EV ownership here in Manitoba. Seems to be a bit more of that going on around here than I thought.

And in keeping up with the environmental theme of the rest of the evening, I then spoke for quite a while with someone working in the carbon trading industry. He works for this company Emissions Recovery Solutions Inc., that is trying to get First Nations communities set up for carbon capture programs — mostly thru land management practices like tree planting and wetlands preservation — thereby generating a carbon credit that can be sold to corporations to offset any regulations these business may be facing. That’s a very basic explanation. More info can be found here on carbon trading. Anyways, he spoke to me for some time regarding lots of the aspects of his business and environmental policies here in Canada and the US. Especially regarding the Tar Sands in Alberta. And he wasn’t nearly as negative about it as you would think. Though he wasn’t exactly glowing with optimism either. Very down to earth approach. While I’m not totally sold on everything he said, he gave me quite a bit to consider.

So after a rather successful evening out, I headed off for home. Once again enjoying the nice warm evening. I even got off the bus early so I could walk a bit more of the way home.

I’m also rather looking forward to next month’s meeting. Seems there will be a demo of a game called Cogmation Robot Builder. As someone who once owned the Star Wars Droid Factory playset, I’m intrigued.