Day Media Inc.

Steve is in Alberta once again. Originally for just one month, but it may be as long as 3 months!

He is out there to start an advertising company. The basic idea is advertising on parking meters, but it's even better than that. It's a system called 'sponsored parking' where businesses pay for ads on parking meters, which actually makes it free to park there.
They have been working on getting Day Media Inc. started for about 2 years now. They are pretty close, but still have a few things to do.

Yesterday, 7 February 2011, Steve presented the idea to the Lethbridge city council. They need to amend a bylaw in order to operate since the parking meters are city property. The council didn't give a 'yes' or 'no' answer, but instead said they wanted some more info. So Steve will be doing a bit more work and then presenting it again in a couple months.

This is some of the press coverage:
It was on multiple radio stations (Rock106)(94.1 CJOC)

The radio station, Country 95.5FM has the following article by Marion Warnica:

"Lethbridge's Own Dragon's Den Rejects Free Parking Scheme"

The familiar 'ping' of coins into a downtown parking meter slot may be an endangered sound in the city's downtown, if one company has its way.

Lethbridge-based "Day Media" approached council with a business scheme that would see advertisements on parking meters. A percentage of the profits would feed back to the city so residents don't have to pay for parking.

Council rejected the idea, but Mayor Rajko Dodic told the group this "isn't the end of the road" for them. He recommended they do some more research and create a formal business plan before pursuing it further.

Company president Steve Day says he's been developing the concept during the past two years, and has the informal backing of several businesses that he heard of through "friends of friends." The company wasn't able to formally solicit businesses with the concept because they don't yet have a business license. But they did bring it to the attention of the Heart of the City Downtown Revitalization committee and the Downtown Business Revitalization Zone [BRZ].

The two downtown business groups are split on the issue. Heart of the City, a committee that's a division of city council, rejected the sponsored parking scheme. But Steve Day says the committee misunderstood certain aspects of the plan, and he hopes to win them over with a formal presentation. At the other end of the spectrum, the BRZ - an independent group formed to promote business downtown - fully supports the idea. Executive director Ted Stilson wrote council a formal letter, waxing enthusiastic about the plan's potential to attract more business to the city's core. "I believe that their sponsored parking concept would be an excellent tool to attract more customers to the downtown," we writes. He goes on to say he would be "excited" to see the "unique" idea implemented in the downtown.

The city's elected representatives are not as sure. Councillors raised several concerns about the company's lack of a formal business plan, the fact the idea was already rejected by the city-directed Heart of the City group, and the concept of placing paid advertisements in the public right of way - which is currently not allowed under city bylaws.

"This would be quite an exception, and an exemption to that rule. And I could see it opening the door for other advertisers wanting to get in on that," says alderman Jeff Carlson.

Carlson says the presentation just left him with too many questions, and that many of his concerns echoe those of the city committee that originally rejected the idea. He says the fact the company tried to go around that decision undermines the process and sets a precedent that could drag the issue out "for years and decades."

"I do get concerned when somebody does approach a committee, the committee makes a reccommendation, and then council says - send it back to committee for more discussion," he says. "There needs to be some trust factor between council and committees of council, that when a committee makes a reccommendation, council trusts it."

Representatives of the sponsored parking plan say their experience at city hall has inspired them to apply for a business license and come up with a more formal plan, which they'd like to bring back to the Heart of the City group within a month.

The Lethbridge Herald has this article on the front page by Gerald Gauthier:


"Parking Meter Proposal Gets Hearing, Little Else"

A company proposing to sell ads on downtown parking meters will have to do more homework if it hopes to get city council's okay for such a venture.
The owner of Day Media appeared before council members Monday, seeking approval to sell business sponsorships on parking meters. Company president Steve Day told council the sponsored spots would provide free parking for downtown patrons, and a portion of the advertising revenue would be returned to the city to offset any potential losses of parking revenue.

Once a parking meter was sponsored, a special advertising shroud would be placed over the meter head, eliminating the need for users to plug coins into the device, according to Day. Enforcement could still be done by chalking tires, as is already done in one- and two-hour parking zones in the city, he said.
After listening to Day's pitch, only a minority of council members were convinced the idea warranted referral to city administration for further study. Instead the proposal was simply filed as information.

Council would have to amend the city's land use bylaw before such a venture could go ahead.

Mayor Rajko Dodic said it would set "a bad precedent" to allow advertising on meters, which are technically a public right of way, and he suggested the company has done too little in terms of market research so far for council to give the idea serious consideration.

Ald. Jeff Carlson also said he felt it would be inappropriate to allow advertising on publicly-owned meters and that doing so could lead to problems with enforcement.
"It's a frustrating response," Day said afterward. "We strongly feel we have a solution that can benefit not only the city but the motorists and businesses."
He described Lethbridge as the perfect city for such a venture because of the number of parking meters about 1,600 and the size of its business community.

The proposal has so far failed to gain the backing of the Heart of the City revitalization committee but it did receive a written endorsement from Ted Stilson, executive director of the Downtown Lethbridge business association.

But he added he wasn't surprised by it and intends to pursue the issue further with the Heart of Our City committee in the hope of returning to council within a couple of months with a more detailed proposal.

Day acknowledged his company had little in the way of market research to go on given the fact he hasn't obtained a business licence yet and therefore couldn't do any direct soliciting to gauge interest from local businesses.

"What we will most likely do is go and get our business licence, we will solicit businesses and officially get feedback as far as who would be interested," he said. "This is similar feedback to what we were kind of expecting. We expected them to defer it to another committee."

Meanwhile, Ald. Joe Mauro was among the few council members who felt the concept merited a closer look by administration.

"I think we haven't given it a fair chance. I feel council is making a decision without having all the facts," he told his fellow council members.
He also asked council to consider waiving the business licence fee for the company, an idea that didn't sit well with some members of council, including Mauro.

"We did get some support out of it, and it's very, very encouraging to see that," Day said.

Day isn't based in Lethbridge, but he said his company has established a home-based office in the city.

Technology

Technology is growing so quickly! This is a video from 1994. They are trying to figure out what "@" means and what the internet is.
I remember 1994! It was only 17 years ago... which sounds like a lot, but think about how much technology we got in those 17 years! We went from pre-internet times, to what we have now in less than 20 years! Crazy! I look forward to the next 20!!!

Steve's new bookshelf

- written by Steve


I have this awesome little office in our new house, and it's pretty perfect for what I need. Big windows, teddy bear ceiling fan, white board wall, door to nowhere. Everything the work-from-home man needs. While I love the teddy bear ceiling fan, we did want to do something about that door to nowhere. Fortunately, Amy, being the genius that she is came up with her brilliant idea (wording included for legal reasons) that we turn that space into a "built-in bookshelf".

Pretty awesome eh? See how it looks like the shelves are actually sliced into the door frame? Well they're not. Stop being so ridiculous!

The first step to any good built-in doorway bookshelf is to take off the door.

Yup, that's the doorway that leads straight to a wall. It was actually a good move by whichever of the previous owners decided to do this. On the other side of that wall is our bedroom, and that closet space was used to make the master bedroom closet much bigger. While that's all great, this space needed to be dealt with.

Since there used to be a door attached to that frame, I had to fill in the various door-related holes. Of course, they were right on the edge, making this particularly tricky to get shaped properly, but I think I did ok.

With a couple coats of paint, the patch jobs were pretty hard to find. Once my arm pain was gone from all the pats on the back I gave myself, I painted the shelves.

No, we didn't just magically get these perfectly cut shelves to fit our needs. Since we wanted the shelves to look built in, we wanted them to be wider than the door frame. To avoid actually cutting into the door frame and risk the house falling down on us, we opted for the illusion of the shelves being a bit inside the walls. After checking and rechecking the measurements to make sure they were right, we took them to Poppa to cut, since we didn't have anything sharper than a steak knife (although they're pretty good steak knives).

The shelves were originally black, and at the last second, we decided to go with white, so I got to painting them with multiple coats. While I was at it, I thought I might try to put the trim from inside the door frame to good use.

By this time, I had invested in a saw, so I cut the pieces to be supports for the shelves and painted them up.

There are 2 things to note in the picture above.

1. My hands were pretty dirty at this point, so there are smudges everywhere.

2. There are some pretty noticeable chunks missing from spots around the door frame.

Well, I figured I'd do a clean up at the end, so easily disregarded the fingerprints. :) As far as those chunks are concerned, that's the secret to the "built-in" look. When it's all done, those little chips will make it look like the shelves are slid right into the wall. You'll see...

After a lot of hammering and chiseling, the frame was ready for shelves. See those little pieces of wood that were going to be used as the back supports for the shelves? Well, turns out they suck, and all had to come out. Fortunately one of the reason they sucked is because they didn't stay in very well, so it was pretty easy to pop them all out. We had already bought brackets, so I just ended up using those.

There you have it! See how it looks like the shelves cut into the door frame? Sneaky eh? Now all I need to do is buy a whole bunch of crap I don't need, and load up the shelves with it!

Making it Ours!

We're almost finished the painting/wallpapering we planned to do when we moved into our new house.

The former Nursery has turned into a nice little Office.

That's a white board painted on the wall behind Steve. The office still needs a few little things before it's finished.

- the shelves in the built-in bookshelf need to be cut to fit properly

- some appropriate office furniture (chair, printer stand, etc)

- a few pictures on the wall

The second bedroom (AKA the Library/Guest Room/Amy's Office) has been changed from the bright red and blue Thomas the Tank Engine motif to a more grown-up/relaxing white room.

this is a close up of the wallpaper:

We bought a new couch to go in the Living room (for now).

It is actually a futon, so it will eventually end up in the second bedroom. But for now, it is in the Living room. It has 3 positions: couch, bed, and double lounger. We love it!

We have decorated the house for Christmas, even though all of my Christmas things are still in Alberta.

Despite having very limited decorations, I think it looks CUTE!

Here is our tree...

And here is our Fireplace (with our new mirror):

and here is a close up of the little topiary ornaments that I think are the cutest things I've ever seen!

I really love our house!

Our House!

We got the keys to our new house on Thursday! And by "we" I mean "Amy". Steve is out in Alberta starting an advertising company (Day Media). He left on October 7th and will be back around the 15th of December. So, I get a house to myself for a month and a half. I'd rather him be here though!

Last night was my first night in the house. It was very nice. I really do love this house. Here are some from my first day in the house. Keep in mind that I bought a few things for the house that day, so the counters are a bit messy, and we haven't painted anything yet. So, these are the 'before' pictures.

The Joys of Moving Across the Country

While we are VERY excited to be moving into our new house in a week, and are happy to be back in Nova Scotia with the MacKinnon side of our family, we are not super excited about living in an empty house for about 6 months.

All of our stuff (our bed, night stands, TV, chairs, pictures, ornaments, kitchen things, extra clothes, sheets and towels, etc.) is in Alberta until we can figure out how to get it home.

We could have paid $5,000 to rent a u-haul, but we thought that was a ridiculous price (that doesn't even include gas!)

Steve is in Alberta now, so he will be bringing some things home with him in his suitcase, along with mailing home a couple of boxes. Everything else will have to wait until Spring, when we will probably drive back out there in Ashley and Chad's SUV.

All of my Christmas decorations are also in Alberta, so I will be making new stuff this year. Mom and I went to the beach the other day to collect shells in order to make some ornaments.

This is what I will be attempting with the shells:

I also plan to make the following Martha Stewart ornaments:

I'll post pictures when they're finished. I do love making crafts!!

Our First House Adventure continued...

After looking at about 40 houses, some of which we liked A LOT...

We're 99% sure we found the one! (we'll leave a 1% chance that things don't work out)

We made an offer, they countered, we accepted and now we're going through the process of working out financing, getting the house inspected, etc.

We love this house! It has 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a dry, usable basement (which is surprisingly rare), a fenced in back yard, all appliances (and some furniture) included, and it's in a good neighbourhood. It doesn't need any work, but could use a few little things to make it perfect for us :)

I am SO looking forward to painting and decorating and making it ours!