The other night I was at Bedford Academy for dinner & drinks with some of my fav friends to celebrate Renee‘s visit from SF. Haven’t seen Renee since she moved and it was so nice to see her in IRL. WE MISS YOU RENEE! ♥ We felt it was a good idea for her to make a speech. It went something like this… Tried to take some pano shots of the crew but I’ve not mastered shooting people this way. I’m learrrrrrning still. Most of us in this group met early 2009 through events like Twestival, GenYTO, CanLit and patio Tweetups. It’s amazing to see how everyone has evolved over the last few years. We’re a passionate group of young people working with new technology in mobile, social and web.  When we started GenYTO this was our mission, to unite the “wired, creative and ambitious young people in the in the Toronto startup, marketing, PR and tech community.” This is me on My City Lives around this time last year talking about how my friends in the Toronto tech community have inspired me.   You might recognize a few of these awesome people 😉 I reckon it’s time to plan GenYTO Summer 2011. Ideas welcome. LMK.

You know I love my bike, biking, bicyclette. If you don’t, you might wanna do some homework in the company Bike archives. (Duh, where have you been?) There she is. She needs a physical, some real attention. Let’s hope she’s gonna make it. Last week I dropped her off to the Curbside Cycle  on Bloor to see if we can bring her back to life.  Fingers crossed! I was introduced to Curbside after learning they carried the ORONTAS BikeCare line. Orontas is an alternative oil company with “a reckless commitment to do better”.  Their products are biodegradable, petroleum-free and they look nice. Attention bike nerds/hipsters, you should have this stuff already. It just came out Spring 2011. Orontas is a lifestyle maintenance company based in Toronto (cool eh!).  They manufacture and distribute high performance, sustainable and nontoxic products (and tongue twisters). I read on the Curbside Blog that Cervelo uses this stuff. Make your bike sexy & lube it up with ORONTAS products from Curbside Cycle w/ Plant-Based Lube – $13CAN/300g, BikeCare Cleaner – $14CAN/240ml, BikeCare Lubricant – $14CAN/240ml or the Waterproof Grease – $15CAN/115g. Hello Pantone family friends. You are real pretty. I like you. Hey Michael, bicycle, bicycle! These bikes are neat. Reminds me of the Marvel Wheelchair. I have a blog called Nutcase, you probably never heard of it. Curbside has some really sweet helmets. Deff high in the style department. I have a white bern helmet. These are my fav helmets Yakkay “brainwear for smart people“. Only found in Canada at Curbside Cycle.  I mentioned them May 18th, 2009 when you could only order them from the interwebs.  (Early adopter) I look like a dork here but the helmets have this cute hat covering on them and look cool. See the one behind me there? Once…

I woke up this morning determined to find my hot pink photo album and bring back some memories. I didn’t find it but I did come across a bunch of things that made me feel fond about friends, happy about starting a new year and proud of things I’ve done. This was me at Mum’s house on my 21st birthday, eight years ago. This was me at Mum’s house on my 21st birthday, eight years ago. A few months after that photo I shipped off to Australia for university. This was right before the airport, my family. There was a time where I thought I’d never get Mum & Dad together for a photo but such is no longer the case. I grew up so much that year I was away. This was at The Moose in Kitchener (anyone from there will recognize it!) the day I got back from Aus. I was so tiny, all my friends were like “where did your boobs go?”.  I left at about 125lb and came back barely 100. Living at the beach is a great diet. I figure today, my birthday is as good of a day as any to share some memories of where I came from/how I got here. One thing that always changes, is my hairstyle. I’ve had so many colours. Teen model. That was not the end of teen modeling. Oh no, there was much more. And more. After I won this pageant I did all kinds of fashion shows. It was really fun to be honest. I got lots of practice being in front of the camera, walking on stage and it introduced me to some people at Gap where I got my first ever real job. I had braces for about two years in high school. This…