It might be cold in Montreal, but at least we have blue skies.

Unfortunately, it seems like the Zone514 park will not be built again for the 2009-2010 winter season. Instead Park Jean-Drapeau management has decided to build a “super-glissade” which we highly recommend you check out.

This makes me sad… Guess it’s back to making our own improvised jumps in every Montreal park with a steep enough hill (Mont-Royal, Parc Lafontaine, Olympic Stadium, etc). Still a shame though.

From Sanibel Island (FL) to Montreal (QC)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Today was Presence BMX’s summer jam here in Montreal, and since I had an iPhone on me, I thought I’d post updates on Twitter all day (easiest updates+videos+pictures on the go).

Here’s how it went for my angle, as seen on my twitter account or in their search tool:

• And so it begins!
  Video: http://twitvid.com/1B60F
• First casualty of the #PresenceBMXJam: I broke my fn chain on a grind… No worries, came prepared! :)
• Getting crowded at the #PresenceBMXJam. AWESOME!
  Photo: http://twitpic.com/ev8g5
• Mad Tuck no hander by @macneilbikes Dillon Lloyd!
  Video: http://twitvid.com/0C910
• And while he’s at it: @macneilbikes‘ Dillon Lloyd barspin 180 over stairs!
  Video: http://twitvid.com/BAC38
• Rent-a-cop mafia…
  Photo: http://twitpic.com/evfms
• Montreal’s iconic, legendary Big-O!
  Photo: http://twitpic.com/evgkb
• Mike Fiz 360 at the Jacque Cartier slab.
  Video:  http://twitvid.com/31E9C
• Siiiiiiiick!
  Video: http://twitvid.com/8EB7D
• Corey Dewey manual to wallride.
  Video: http://twitvid.com/22B71
• Chillin’ at the slab, off to bum park shortly.
  Photo: http://twitpic.com/evyjk
• Ah ah, window foot plant.
  Video: http://twitvid.com/8AF9A
• So, @macneilbikes‘ Dillon Lloyd flared the Big-O! That’ll be a Jeremy Deme exclusive video though. Think it’s a first. :)
• Bum park.
  Video: http://twitvid.com/58A3C
• Manualand.
  Video: http://twitvid.com/1F6F8
• Lost the crew while switching spots cuz the cops were starting to hover like flies on a turd.
• At the final spot were the BBQ will be. Can live with having UAB to myself until they get here!
  Photo: http://twitpic.com/ewksz
• If there were any doubts I need a new frame, today’s outcome seals the deal. Not over either.
  Photo: http://twitpic.com/ewlpm
• High-hop contest: 40″, that’s what’s up. Greg (same guy) did pull 42″ right after.
  Video: http://twitvid.com/F38E6
• And a quick LOL as probably the last video before my battery dies.
  Video: http://twitvid.com/FBFFE
• And this concludes the #PresenceBMXJam 2009. Noon-8:30PM. Not bad for an old fart like me (when considering the rest of the guys’ age). ;)

T’was a good day. Mad props to Jeremy Deme and the gang for being such a tight crew and keeping BMX in Montreal fresh! :)

@thrashermag: got anyone covering the @ZooYorkInst AM Getting Paid contest in Montreal by any chance? Tell them I’ll buy them a beer if so.

If it wasn’t blatantly obvious yet, despite being a web geek and dad of three, I’m also a life long skateboarder, bmx rider, snowboarder, and so on. I’ve resumed spending my spare times riding most of them a few years ago, now that (at least some of) my son(s) are old enough to follow along. These sports bring me balance in a life which could have otherwise turned “static”, to say the least.

In other words, the latter tweet was a humble attempt at ceasing a symbolic opportunity to show my gratitude and appreciation to this iconic magazine, for having been such an integral part of what makes me… well, me.

I’ll assume you will understand how I could barely contain myself when I received a direct message back, stating they had in fact no one on location and asking if I might want to cover the event or know someone who could.

Nothing out of the ordinary if you work in the publishing industry, which since it is far from my case, turned into an all out challenge I just couldn’t refuse. Project and team management is not only what I’ve done most of my career, it’s my true vocation. I happen to practice it in the software and web industries, but projects are projects, and I truly felt this was something I could manage with the crucial help of my oh so precious network.

Through the software/web world as well as through being a regular at most of Montreal’s riding spots, I’m very often given to interact and become friends with very skilled and talented photographers, cameramen, filmmakers, such as Eva Blue, Jereme Deme (Presence BMX) and many others.

I also realize that I’m very lucky to know an ever increasing ratio of the people who make up the local (and inter/national, online) extreme sports community and industry to be able to succeed with such a task, out of the blue and with only a couple days notice.

So armed with all this, and with the help and guidance of High Speed Productions and Thrasher’s creative director Kevin Convertito, I embarked on a mission to round up the right people to score the best possible footage and photos, planning on focusing on the organizational aspects such as getting full access press passes to the event for all of us, and everything else my team might need.

Unfortunately, being summer and all, it turned out that all of my contacts in this realm, except for Eva, were either already long booked on other events and/or out of town altogether… This could have put quite a wrench in the operation, but Eva and I decided that we wouldn’t even let it slow us down. I’d be handling the video footage, as well as the final video editing.

And shoot we did! We both spent most of Saturday and Sunday at the Taz, taking hours of video (over 16GB) and thousands of pictures (over 20GB combined), thanks to the freedom accorded to press passes, provided to us by Philippe Jolin through my friends Charles Deschamps and Marc André St-Jean.

Eva took some amazing photos and provided us both with mid to high end still camera equipment, but I had no choice to resort to using my recently acquired, cheap, barely appropriate pocket HD cam to handle the video. I mean, aaak, pistol grip form factor, low end processor and fixed lens, no fisheye, no real means of (or time to) color correct the video, etc. A challenge to say the least, but quite an ode to “gettin’ her dun, no matter how”.

And then of course, came the tedious, but rewarding, post-processing of all that media… Eva and I processed our photos Saturday and Sunday night, while I was also scrubbing through all the raw footage for valuable parts. There went a couple of 4AM bed time nights. Not that unusual for both of us, being night owls.

And finally, I ended up *forgetting* to sleep entirely in the night of Monday to Tuesday, as I painstakingly edited the videos (1, 2) and photos you can see on this blog. Talk about getting out of your comfort zone! I hadn’t done any such editing in over three years, and never beyond the obviously amateurish realm.

All that to, in the end, getting scooped by the Zoo York pro crew releasing their edit only a few hours before I was able to send them to Thrasher, and only because of my aging MacBook pro chocking on the final exports, upload time and the fact that I do have a day job that keeps me busy busy bee-zay. Oh well!

All in all, the entire experience was nothing short of a BLAST. Can you feel the hype on that bold uppercase? Can you? :)

Given the opportunity, I’d do it all over again on a moment’s notice! Actually, scratch that, I’d do it all again with a bit more advanced notice next time, so I can really make the most of it and book the best people for the job instead of improvising it all. Seeing what we achieved in the short time and with the means we had, just think what we could have produced with even the smallest of budget: real-time online reporting, interviews, professional-level editing, the whole nine yards.

So if you’re a skateboarding, BMX or snowboard brand and are looking for a Montreal hookup to cover such events, you know who to ping. :)

Note to self though: next time, get a quick and dirty edit out extra fast, then work on a nicer cut. Heh heh, lesson learned. :)

Related content:

• Photos: Eva Blue’s AM Getting Paid tag on Flickr
• Photos: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Photo Gallery
• Video: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Saturday
• Video: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Semi-Finals and Finals

Click here to view the embedded video.

Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Sunday from Stephane Daury, for Thrasher Magazine.

Related content:

• Post: Thrasher Magazine Wanna-Be Correspondent for a Weekend
• Photos: Eva Blue’s AM Getting Paid tag on Flickr
• Photos: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Photo Gallery
• Video: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Saturday

Click here to view the embedded video.

Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Saturday from Stephane Daury, for Thrasher Magazine.

Related content:

• Post: Thrasher Magazine Wanna-Be Correspondent for a Weekend
• Photos: Eva Blue’s AM Getting Paid tag on Flickr
• Photos: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Photo Gallery
• Video: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Semi-Finals and Finals

Related content:

• Post: Thrasher Magazine Wanna-Be Correspondent for a Weekend
• Photos: Eva Blue’s AM Getting Paid tag on Flickr
• Video: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Saturday
• Video: Zoo York AM Getting Paid 2009 – Semi-Finals and Finals

Seems to me like most participants of #wcmtl are still on some sort of high. Meeting smart and nice people is better than drugs.

It was indeed too much geeky goodness crammed into one weekend for most attendees, just as much as for yours truly, to wean ourselves off all of it by Monday. :)

I’ll have to admit right away that I missed most of the actual sessions, because I kept “being volunteered” for such duties as WordPress Gangsta doorman and sit-down-next-to-me-during-my-talk-in-case-I-have-a-panic-attack’aid (true, ALL of it was fun). But from what I read, people seem to have enjoyed what they’ve seen and to have gotten answers to the questions they might have had.

On the other hand, being so heavily invested in WordPress through Praized Media and other projects/contributions/pipe-dreams, learning wasn’t what I was expecting for myself at the event, but mostly to get to “tribe up” with other people as passionate about the platform as I have now been for years. And, boy, was my wish ever granted!

Apologizing profusely for not being able to list everyone I’ve had the pleasure to meet, I truly had wonderful talks and/or plain old fun with the following people. Most of which is leading to enough ideas to keep us all busy until WordCamp Montreal 2010 (which I hereby predict will be twice as big and happen during the Jazz Fest again. Somehow… ;)

Here we go, in alphabetical order, by Twitter username, no bias:

• @alexaclark – Alexa Clarck, with whom I had as much fun talking about her Cheap Eats Toronto and Cheap Eats Ottawa books/blogs/venture as I did talking about and enjoying Montreal’s food and restaurants.
• @amoyal – Arié Moyal, who if nothing else (and there IS more) has lit the way to me desperately wanting to watch the Hebrew Hammer.
• @arach – Arach Tchoupani, a skilled Python charmer with whom I had a great time talking about World politics, and thanks to (or because of) whom I was delivered the best pickup line by a woman in a bar in my entire life. A bit late for that girly-girl, married and 3 kids: can’t touch this! (♫ ta tadada tada tada ♫)
  
• @digibomb – Brendan Sera-Shriar, who beta launched FlashPress, and with whom, I was apparently (and rightly so) “separated at birth and reunited at #wcmtl“. I’d say we clicked on so many levels, along with Pier-Luc and Arié, it’s actually kinda scary. ;)
• @erinblaskie – Erin Blaskie, who despite being a fiery ball of lifestream smarts and energy, slept through her 12PM checkout on day 2. ☚ Ha ha! That’s what Montreal will do to ya. ;)
• @evablue – Eva Blue, indie photographer extraordinaire, with whom I had a few extra-hilarious moments and who in my humble opinion, took most of the coolest shots of the weekend.
• @photomatt – Matt Mullenweg, with whom I had a fun and casual chat ranging from high availability/fault tolerant database architectures, as well as the OpenMicroblogging specification and how it could pertain to our favorite codebase(s). I do have to call him on being a BIG TEASE though, because he left me with a maybe-not-so-utopic-web seeekreeet cliff hanger at the after-party Saturday night from which I still haven’t recouped from. Shame on you Matt. J’accuse!
• @pluc – Pier-Luc Petitclerc, with whom I had a blast, pure and simple! Nothing new there, really. Business as usual.

All in all, I do not think that Sylvain Carle (@afrongnthevalley [en], @sylvaincarle [fr]) and Jeremy Clarke (@jeremyclarke) could have done a better job of organizing this first WordCamp Montreal. I mean, 160+ attendees/speakers from 2 countries for a quasi-free ($30, including free food/drinks) and theoretically local/regional-by-nature tech event spells success to me. Mega-props to these two for making this event happen, and to all of the speakers and attendees for making it the success it has been.

And then of course, there were the Brooklyn Sailors moments. Coz that’s how we roll [out kickass Open Source software]! :)

Brendan (left) and I (right) being our usual silly selves. Photo by Eva Blue.