Category / Blogging

by peter

House of 4-H Cards

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Pigs that fly, steers that sell themselves, a course for horses – all made from cards.

Sometimes good design can act as a trigger that unleashes a flood of creativity. This is what happened when Enbridge Inc. came to Sasges Inc. as the national sponsor of 4-H Canada’s 100th anniversary celebrations last year. They asked us to develop a commemorative gift that would be distributed to all of 4-H members, and to create an online campaign to promote engagement across the country. . . .

Read the blog post I wrote for Calgary’s Sasges Inc., talking about the great multimedia project they undertook for Enbridge Inc., helping to sponsor the 100th-anniversary celebrations of 4-H Canada.

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by peter

Drowning in Content

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Content marketing is still everybody’s favourite new boy toy. But he is getting a bit older and more worn, and has to work harder to command attention in a increasingly competitive market.

Sure, he remains cute. A fresh stream of content is still the way to get noticed online, to up page rankings, to establish yourself as an authority with your market and to build customer relationships. But the trouble is the sheer volume of content being produced. We’re drowning in it. There’s more information being posted than there are eyeballs to read it. I’ve heard that as many as 27,000,000 new new pieces of content are  produced and shared online daily.

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by peter

Serenity After Trial

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“I thought the process was going to be hideous, humiliating and shameful,” Karen recalls of her bankruptcy more than a decade ago. “I was terrified when I went to see Richard Killen. I was in tears as I walked into his office.”

Karen’s story of battling debt is a familiar one. She had decided to make a brave midlife career change from working as a bartender. Finding employment in a Toronto health food store, she made the decision to go back to school to get certified as holistic nutritionist. . . . Read the blog post I wrote for Richard Killen & Associates, showing how their trustee services helped a woman cope with one of the most difficult trials of her life.

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by peter

Coffee Mountain High in Jamaica

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There’s coffee and then there’s coffee.  The world’s best cup may be Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, with its smooth rich flavor and lack of bitterness.

The Blue Mountains of Jamaica are so named for the azure haze that wreathes its peaks, which 2,256 meters above sea level. Covering the eastern parishes of St. Andrew, St. Thomas, Portland and St. Mary, the mountains boast the ideal conditions for coffee growing, with their cool mists, abundant rainfall, rich volcanic  soil offering excellent drainage and prolonged growing season.

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by peter

Graduating into Debt

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Getting a student loan can be double-edged sword. Many kids can’t afford a higher education without one. But the downside is that a lot of students are graduating with huge debts that they many find hard and in some cases impossible to pay off.

The problem of student debt in Canada is on the rise. According to a September 2013Globe and Mail article,  accumulated student debt is now more than $15 billion nationally, and perhaps as high as $23 billion, if you take into account credit card debt, lines of credit and provincial loan programs.

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by peter

Will I Lose My House in a Bankruptcy?

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This is a post that I wrote for the Killen Landau & Associates blog, which seeks to deal with people’s worst fears when dealing with a personal financial disaster.

The fear of losing your home is a powerful one. When their finances go south, many imagine that bankruptcy will leave them homeless. Is this fear justified? Not really, or not in the normal course of a bankruptcy.

Yes, when you go bankrupt, you give control of your assets to a trustee in exchange for getting rid of your debts. This, in theory, could mean that the house gets sold to help pay back the creditors. But in practice this rarely happens, mainly because it is not in the best interests of everyone involved. The trustee has a lot of discretion, which he or she generally uses to safeguard the rights and interests of both the creditors and the debtor. Selling the house outright usually doesn’t achieve this purpose. So what normally happens? . . . Read more.

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by peter

Catalan Mountain and Sea Cuisine

El_Celler_de_Can_Roca_serving_displayEl Món, a selection of five appetizers, served at the “world’s best restaurant,”
El Celler de Can Roca.

Whether you love seafood or meat, or both, Catalonia is a destination for the world’s gourmands. Its culinary traditions are a mixture of influences – for example, paella from Valencia, or meat dishes from Provence – but always interpreted with a Catalan spin and served with the Mediterranean mania for the freshest  foods.

The dishes combine the best ingredients found in sea and mountains, as well as sweet and savoury flavours, for a style of cuisine called mar i muntanya. Typical ingredients include almonds, tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, rice, olives, olive oil, calamari, many other kinds of seafood and pork done in a variety of ways, since Catalonia is one of the main producers of swine products in Spain. Xoriço paprika salami, produced from the black Iberian Cerdo pig, is often used in cooking.

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by peter

Chito-Ryu: The Next Generation

Master Tsuyoshi Chitose

Senior practitioners of Chito-ryu karate live under long shadows. First there is enormous shadow cast by founder Tsuyoshi Chitose, a martial arts virtuoso who studied under many masters and synthesized what he learned into his remarkable art.

Then there are the shadows cast by the pioneers who introduced Chito-ryu to their countries and amassed impressive organizations. In North America these larger-than-life figures include Masami Tsuruoka, the Father of Canadian Karate; Shane Y. Higashi, head of the Canadian Chito-ryu Karate Association;  and the late William Dometrich, founder of the United States Chito-ryu Karate Federation. . . . Read the post from my karate club blog.

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by peter

Take the Heli-Skiing Cure

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The following blog post, originally appearing on Lifecruiser.

I thought it would be a good way to cure my fear of heights.

A friend and I were skiing in Rockies of Alberta, challenging the slopes of Lake Louise and Sunshine. One night, after a couple of  shots in front of the roaring fire at our lodge in the town of Canmore, Hal said, “I think we should try heli-skiing.” . . .

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by peter

Villa Mas Mateu: Tilt at Windmills in True Style

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So you want a vacation in Spain, in Catalonia. You want to be near the action of Costa Brava and to a town full of history and fine dining, like Girona. But you also want a secluded inland location, on its own forested estate, nestled amid olive groves, with views of the snowcapped Pyrenees. You want to immerse yourself in the ambience of a centuries-old private home but have all the amenities and comforts of a dazzling modern design.

A tall order? No, what you want is Villa Mas Mateu. . . . Read the full blog post for the LaCure magazine here.

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