Greer Family News January 31, 2006

Fresh powder at Whistler, BC, January, 2006

Welcome to the latest update of the Greer family of Vancouver, BC, Canada. After dismal skiing in Whistler over the Christmas holidays, the snow has fallen, and fallen, and fallen in Whistler (over 10 feet or 3m of snow). Jocelyn and David along with Jocelyn's friend Adele enjoyed a powder day on Blackcomb mountain. The only downside to so much snow is that it has rained for much of January in Vancouver. At one point, we had twenty-seven days in a row of rain.

Our house under construction

The most significant change in our lives is that we are doing a major renovation to our Point Grey house. The renovation is so extensive, that in October, 2005, we moved to a temporary house in the Strathcona neighbourhood of Vancouver. We have three major goals with this renovation project:

1. Build the basement down three feet and finish it as-new with two bedrooms and a bathroom for Jocelyn and Kevin.
2. Repair the building envelope, which in places has been leaking for decades. This includes replacing all of the windows in the house.
3. Some interior upgrading.

Our plan is to be out of the house for six months. To date, we are about two weeks behind schedule, but we still have a reasonable chance of being back in the house in April, 2006.

January Views from the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club

The rest of this update is in reverse chronological order. We work back through the fall of 2005, including updates on David's and Karalee's career progress. We end with nice sunny and bright pictures from last summer.

December, 2005

Xmas 2005 in Whistler, BC

We spent the Christmas holidays in Whistler, BC. When we first arrived there was snow on the ground, but days of rain turned snow into grass. We slept in, went swimming, and took a break from our frantic daily pace. We did get some good skiing in after Christmas. For New Years, ten of Jocelyn's and Kevin's friends joined us for four days and three nights. It was a squeeze fitting them all in, but it was fun and everyone had a good time on the slopes and in the village.

Christmas Family Portrait (Kevin, David, Karalee, Allen, and Jocelyn)

As our daily schedules are full, it is rare to have the opportunity to have a picture of all of us. Our Christmas picture was taken at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club where we had a celebration dinner for Karalee's birthday.

Kevin at the Britannia Christmas Concert

Jocelyn, Kevin, and Allen continue to be busy with both school and sports. Jocelyn is now in International Baccalaureate Grade 11 (see the IB Website for more information about IB schools) at Britannia Secondary. This is an academically challenging program which keeps Jocelyn busy most evenings. Kevin attends the Venture program at Britannia, leading to the International Baccalaureate program. Allen continues at West Point Grey Academy. Kevin plays saxophone in the Britannia Senior Band. Allen is playing saxophone at school, while also taking private drum lessons.

Allen playing soccer

On weekends, Jocelyn is on a recreational basketball team, a recreational soccer team, and she has started Dragon Boat Racing. During the week, she plays on team sports. Currently, she is an outstanding basketball player (recently winning a tournament MVP award) on the Britannia Senior Girls Basketball team. Kevin is on a recreational basketball team, is doing basketball development, and plays on the Britannia Grade 9-10 Basketball Team. Allen is on a recreational soccer team and is playing for the WPGA Grade 5 Boys Basketball Team. We spend a lot of time helping with logistics, driving, and attending the games that we can.

October, 2005

Our new puppy Tammy

For the last few years, we've mumbled about having a dog. Days before moving into our temporary house, Karalee's Mom let us know that their dog was the father of some really cute puppies and did we want one? There was a rapid exchange of telephone calls and less than five days later we were the proud parents of a 7-week old Shitu Bichon Poodle we named Tammy. She's very happy and energetic and wants to visit with every person or animal we encounter. Sometimes we think she's going to wiggle herself inside out.

Direct Marketing Association

Atlanta from the 70th floor of the Westin

David has a long association with companies that use direct marketing to sell their products and services. One of the best-known conferences for direct marketing professionals is the Direct Marketing Association annual conference. David attended the 2005 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, along with 10,000 other marketing professionals from around the world.

Direct Marketing Association Conference

David spent all of his time at DMA 2005 focusing on best practices in:

• Email marketing
• Email list management
• Natural search engine optimization
• Paid search advertising
• Web metrics
• Measuring marketing campaign ROI for paid search advertising

Yankelovish Booth at DMA 2005

The best marketers in North America are using the online medium to measure their marketing effectiveness in ways that have never been possible before. While difficult to achieve, a combination of traditional and online advertising, combined with user-specific measurements is creating campaigns with tremendous ROI. Recognizing the importance of the online medium, the Direct Marketing Association announced at the conference that they have rebranded and created new internal councils for on-line marketing. Given that the DMA is known as a conservative print-based organization, this is a major change in direction and shows that there is a fundamental shift occurring in marketing products and services today and in the future.

David's New Career

David has investigated over two hundred companies in the last twenty months. He has invested in two companies and is assisting both with his expertise and experience. David has been using everything that he learned at DMA 2005 to help the following two companies quickly grow.

MailChannels is a leader in improving the reliability of the global Internet email system. David invested in MailChannels and joined the Board a year ago and is actively engaged with the company to advance its sales and marketing efforts. He recently did a complete revision of the MailChannels web site to reflect the exciting new products that MailChannels is providing to the marketplace.

Backbone Systems solves information technology problems for small and medium size businesses, by offering software as a service. David invested in Backbone Systems along with Basil Peters and his new Fundamental Technologies II Fund. In December, 2005 he joined the company as an advisor. He is working directly with Backbone CEO Sarah Morton to assist the company with its marketing and product launches.

September 2005

Karalee Enjoying the Sunset

Karalee is volunteering at Allen's school as well as training and running half-marathons. She has started training to run a marathon this year. She's still committed to writing but has slower progress with the house project commitments. In September, she once again attended the Surrey Writers Festival and spoke with several agents. Her first book needs some rewriting to be successful and she has started on that quest.

Summer 2005

Midway, BC

This update covers the summer of 2005 through to the present. We started our summer holidays with a family reunion with Karalee's family. The reunion was hosted by Thelma and George Dagg at Myers Canyon Guest Ranch, their resort in the Kettle Valley. The town of Midway is the center of the Kettle Valley and is located in the mountains half way between the Pacific coast and the BC/Alberta border. We did lots of visiting, catching up on family news, and hiking in the beautiful mountains that surrounded us.

Lakes and Mountains Near Midway, BC

One day, David took Jocelyn and her cousin Shara for a drive. They took off into the mountains and found this lake. There were few visitors and Jocelyn and Shara had a fun time walking along the beach and exploring. Jocelyn and Shara live more than one thousand kilometres apart, so it's great when they have a chance to be together.

Water Skiing on Wasa Lake

After the family reunion, we returned to Tata Creek, BC where Karalee's Mom and Dad live. Tata Creek is north of Cranbrook and east of Kimberly. All of the cousins played together, especially when we went to Wasa Lake to water ski behind Karalee's brother's boat.

West Coast Sailing

Back Onboard Dragonsinger

After returning to Vancouver, we chartered Dragonsinger (the boat we lived on for two years in the Mediterranean) and left Vancouver for two weeks of cruising. Once everyone was onboard, things slowed down and we even made time to play board games and interact with each other.

Kayakers in Skookumchuck Narrows, BC

We went up Agamemnon Channel and stayed overnight at Egmont. Our goal was to hike to Skookumchuck Narrows, a narrow entrance that creates huge standing waves at peak tidal flows. The maximum flood tide was at 8:00 PM, so after dinner we hiked for an hour to the banks of the rapids. The tide was running at twelve knots (seventeen miles/hour or twenty kilometres/hour), creating ten foot (3m) waves.

A group of kayakers were riding the standing wave. It was awesome to watch kayakers brave the rapids -- willingly. They would enter the water down current and work their way through a back eddy. They would paddle furiously to get over the lip of the wave. About half the time they didn't make it and when they didn't the kayak shot down current at such a rate that is was 200 metres before they could get back to shore. The ones that made it would sometimes last one or two minutes, but others lasted for ten or fifteen minutes. It was fascinating to watch and as dusk approached we tore ourselves away from the view to walk back through the darkening forest to Dragonsinger.

Moored at Tugboat Island, Silva Bay, BC

After Egmont we returned to Pender Harbour at the entrance to Agamemnon Channel. We wanted to go farther north and Karalee and David got up at dawn to make a good day's travel, but a Quallicum NW wind was blowing 25 knots. After an hour of bashing into the seas, David decided that the wind wanted to blow us south. With the engine off and the sails out, we sailed for six hours (averaging six knots) to dock at Tugboat Island in Silva Bay on Gabriola Island.

Allen helping Jocelyn get ready to sail

We spent the rest of our holidays moored among the Gulf Islands. We traveled through tidal passes, moored on Salt Spring Island, and visited the town of Ganges. Then we headed back to Silva Bay, where we left on a four hour non-step sail across Georgia Straight back to Vancouver. That's the way all sailing holidays should end.

Back to the Kootenays

Kevin learns to shoot a gun

The issue of guns, owning them, shooting them, and just there presence is a controversial one in Canada. Urban Canadians overwhelmingly favour tighter controls and restrictions on guns. Rural Canadians feel that guns are a necessary part of rural life and chafe under what they see as big city rules, created with little thought for rural needs.

We split the divide between urban and rural. We live in the city, but Karalee grew up in the country. We have many friends that live far from any city, enjoying a lifestyle in touch with their natural surroundings. This summer David spent a week with Kevin and our friends Ron and Natasha Wilson. It was quality Dad and son time, but it was also an opportunity to teach Kevin how to shoot a gun.

View of the Kootenay Valley

We didn't do anything more than target practice, but Kevin got to learn the proper care and handling of guns. He was surprised at just how powerful the recoil is from a large rifle. Over the week, Kevin improved his target practice and got much better at his gun handling.

Ron Wilson and Kevin with a quad

We also spent lots of time on quads (small, open air, four wheeled vehicles) riding around the numerous trails found in the Kootenany valley. We spent one entire day on a long ride that took us to an old fire lookout. From there, we could see the Kootenany Valley opening at our feet with the Kootenany River winding its way to the south. It was a special week together as we hung out and enjoyed everything the mountains had to offer.