November 4th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by Heston Kan
Today is my last day of doing nothingness……as my friends would describe it since I’m not in school and they all are! Hope you’ve all been studying hard! =p
Also, at the time of this post, there are officially 100 days left to the start of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.
I mentioned in a previous post that I would give a quick synopsis on how I got hired and I just realized I had forgotten.
From my perspective, living in a city that has been selected to host the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I was present at GM Place during the IOC’s final vote on July 2nd, 2003. The atmosphere there was euphoric! Here’s a photo from the event [picaday] Back in 2003 though, I was a bit young to realize what it really meant.
Fast forward to Spring 2009. After spending another cold winter in Guelph I decided that I needed a change and if the opportunity to work were available I would take the year off for it. I finish the year in Guelph and packed my stuff away in storage, courtesy of a family friend who is also a professor at the University of Guelph. After returning to Vancouver, I snuck into a 2010 Olympic Job fair hosted by UBC and met with OBSV, VANOC, and NBC.
A few weeks later I was contacted by NBC’s HR dept and an interview was scheduled at the GE Capital offices in downtown Vancouver. One of the first things I was asked was, “If you are currently studying in Ontario, how do you plan on working for the Olympics?”. Subsequently she listed a bunch of dates. November to March, January to March, Feb during the Olympic/Para-0lympic games.
BTW, the plans to attend my cousin’s wedding in Hong Kong and travel China in mid-October were getting booked around the same time, so my answer was more or less, “I am planning on taking the year off if given the correct opportunity, and the November time frame is…well…perfect”. From there, the usual HR interview was done. (What do you expect, why would you like this experience, what do you know about this…that…etc).
After a general interview with human resources, I was told I would be meeting with the VP of Technology of NBC-Olympics….right…now and I was brought to his office as he was in town for the week. We went through my resume and talked about previous IT experience at the University of Guelph and other prior jobs.
For those of you who do not watch 30 Rock or do not know in general. NBC-Universal is owned by General Electric. (I did not know that at the time of the interview….how embarrassing, but this isn’t business, this is IT…I guess it didn’t bother them that much). NBC follows most of General Electric corporate mandates for IP solutions and networking and GE’s main vendor is, Cisco Systems. Despite Nortel being the official sponsor of the 2010 Olympic Games. NBC will still be using Cisco equipment. side note: Nortel is no longer a sponsor for the 2010 London Olympics. Cisco has taken that role since Nortel is bankrupt.
After a lengthy discussion about Cisco equipment from phones to routers and switches, we also talked about a variety of support tactics and general knowledge of other computer related things. About 40 minutes later I headed home on the bus.
A month and a half later, a few dozen emails sent around, and a Skype conversation with a few people at Rockefellow Plaza in New York and I am now privileged to be part of the NBC-Olympic IT team.
I’ll see what I can comment on during contract as some sort non-disclosure will probably need to be signed! (Knowing me I’ll get lazy and not post anything for a while anyways)
PS: Cisco will be featured in this week’s 30 Rock episode
PS: Some of you do know that my father works for 2010 Legcies Now and he had no influence to my hiring. All he did was give me my support to take the year off.
UPDATE: Nov 5th, 20:00 – Fixed minor spelling mistakes and little things….
Posted in: Stuff, Technology
Tags: 2010, ibc, nbc, olympics, vancouver
November 1st, 2009 / 2 Comments » / by Heston Kan
As many Canadians are familiar with expensive cell phone plans offered by mainly three main providers, Rogers, Bell, and Telus, hopefully some of the new up-and-coming providers can hopefully provide some lower prices to increase the competition.
Most of the new providers hoping to enter into the market will be offering HSPA networks and deploying them in major metropolitan cities. WIND, Public Mobile, Videotron (Ontario/Quebec only), and another one possibly named after everyone’s friend, DAVE Wireless.
WIND mobile recently made Canadian news headlines as the CRTC has denied the further use of WIND’s license due to its parent company, Globalive, being majority owned by an Egyptian firm. Apparently under the Canada Telecommunications Act, any wireless carrier in Canada must be 80% owned by Canadians. Of course rogers/bell/telus jumped to the CRTC right away to point this out. They don’t want anyone impeding their oligopoly.
Anyways, I won’t bore you with what the media hasn’t already spoken about. Feel free to read the links below for more information about WIND, Globalive and the CRTC ruling.
BTW, my take on the CRTC is that they need to be abolished or restructured. They are outdated and inconsistent.
Globe and Mail – Globalive fails ownership test: CRTC
WIND Mobile Official Website
Boy Genious Report – BGR Sits down with WIND CEO Ken Campbell
CBC News – CRTC says no to Globalive
Posted in: Technology
Tags: bell, cellphones, crtc, rogers, smartphones, telus, wind
October 29th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Heston Kan
Well I must apologize for the lack of writing. I am far too lazy. Given the choice between sitting here and reading random crap on the internet versus writing about my trip, I chose the easier one…haha
There’s just too much to tell! I know some of you are waiting to hear, especially those who I won’t be seeing for a long time in Ontario, I promise to try and get something up here soon!
In the meantime, I’m almost done going through all my photos from my trip and have begun posting them on picaday.ca I’ll post a photo every day for the next while until I run out. I took a good 3-4k photos in 2 weeks so it should keep me going for a while. On the side, I have checked our d300 and the pro-lenses in for a warranty check/service and cleaning with Nikon Canada. All free 
Also, While I was away, I saw this post by a local Vancouver Police officer. It pretty sums up my drives to Whistler. Very frustrating….and annoying. When driving on a highway, keep your eye on who’s behind you and move over for them…please! You might prevent an accident from happening! [click]
That’s all for now, I will be starting with NBC a week today!
Behind the Blue Line >> Can you Answer This?
Posted in: friends, travel
Tags: beijing, china, driving, sea to sky, shanghai, whistler
October 16th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Heston Kan
I did mention that I’d try and keep my blog updated with my travels in Asia but that has kinda failed.
In Hong Kong, I was pretty much busy with wedding stuff and seeing family that the only time I was on the computer was in the morning or late at night. Most of that time was spent catching up on email and other stuff too.
I am currently in Shanghai but will be heading off to Beijing tomorrow. The flights between Hong Kong/Shanghai and Shanghai/Beijing are short enough that I don’t really have enough time to write anything between them as well. I should also mention, that the internet in the hotel that I’m staying at is very slow, and we are also behind the “great FIREWALL of China” so I am unable to access certain sites (facebook..oh pitty…twitter, certain news sites). I should probably be careful what I post until I get home though, just in case….you never know.
I will most likely start posting my experiences during the final days of my trip and dispersed for the days following my return to Vancouver. I do have an 11 hour flight to do some blogging on. Other than that, everything is good and I have a ton of photos to go through.
Posted in: Stuff, friends, travel
Tags: beijing, hong kong, shanghai
