How to make your Canada vacation as geeky as possible
Yes, yes, I know. I’ve neglected this journal for way too long. But now it’s time for a little revival, because exciting fandom shit has happened recently!
Some of you may know I run the Peter Outerbridge fansite peterouterbridge.net. I may have previously posted about him enough that you know he’s a Canadian actor. Not all that well known, but you might have seen him do the occasional guest spot on shows like Nikita, Happy Town, Sanctuary, or Millennium. I shan’t bore you with more details.
I’ve also previously posted about our campaign to try and save the cancelled TV show Bomb Girls. We’ve not been successful (so far?), but we definitely made enough of a racket to get on people’s radars. It’s through the campaign that I came into contact with people connected to the show, which has been a fantastic and very rewarding thing to happen.
For the past year or two, my wish to go to Canada has grown steadily and considerably. I had already been to Toronto and Kingston in 2008-a fairly busy business trip that didn’t give me the chance to see much of the cities or surrounding area. I always wanted to go back.
Then, early this year, my good friend Searge expressed an interest to come with me to Canada, and it didn’t take long for us to book flights and hotels-and the idea of a trip around Ontario suddenly became very real.
There would be sightseeing, and scenery, and things you do on vacation, but luckily Searge is enough of a geek himself to indulge my own geeky tendencies. This made it easy to get a number of fandom-related activities included in our trip; first and foremost a meeting with some of the official Bomb Girls people.
The thing I really wanted to make happen was meet Peter Outerbridge. However, I knew from the get-go that it would be difficult, because he isn’t a very accessible guy. There’s hardly any public information about him out there. He’s not on any of the social networks or otherwise approachable online.
The only way I knew how to contact him was via his agent. And these guys are like doctor’s receptionists: They get paid for dismissing anything that doesn’t further their client’s career or bring in money. And a lowly fansite webmaster asking for an interview wouldn’t qualify for either option. Thus, it didn’t come as a surprise that my request for said interview was declined. Oh well. At least I’d tried, right?
But then I hit the jackpot, because I came in contact with crime novelist and Bomb Girls creative consultant Maureen Jennings. It’s kind of a long story, but in a nutshell, she’s friends with Peter and offered she would ask him if he would agree to meet with me. And, amazingly, he did! I couldn’t believe my luck.
If you’re interested in reading all the pertinent details, I’ve written down all the fabulous Toronto fandom adventures for my website (beta’ed by the lovely imbecamiel-thank you so much!). For the visually inclined, there’s a number of photos there too.
In summary, I can only say, it’s been one of the most rewarding fandom experiences I’ve had, and it was somewhat of a dream come true. I mean, when does it ever happen that you get to meet one of your favorite actors in person, talk (almost) one-on-one over coffee for close to two hours in a laid back atmosphere, and have mutual fun the whole time? Peter was a real sweetheart, it was a two-sided conversation rather than me asking questions and him answering, and we even geeked out over Star Trek in the kind of detail only fans could discuss. It was fabulous.
As you can imagine, I am incredibly grateful for this rare opportunity. Maureen Jennings deserves the biggest hug for being instrumental in making it happen.
Quite honestly, going to Toronto was somewhat of a trip to Mecca for me. ReGenesis was the TV show that started it all-and it’s been a long time that I’ve been so engrossed in a show. Which, admittedly, hasn’t been such a rewarding experience, because I discovered the series when there was barely any fandom left. It’s been a very lonely endeavor-and most of you know that fandom is only fun when you have people to share it with.
But that didn’t stop me from making my time in Toronto all about ReGenesis. I had researched a number of exterior locations prior to the trip, and we visited all except one. It was fun, and made my vacation a little more special. Especially if I wanna venture into the fan fiction world again at some point. As it so happened, I also had the unexpected chance to briefly speak to the show’s creator, and I even walked away with an armful of DVD boxes, promotional images, and a soundtrack CD. Almost unbelievable!
I could probably even say it was the Canadian fandom trip of a lifetime, although I must say our Joan of Arcadia fandom trip to Los Angeles in 2008 was just as special.
The rest of our vacation was wonderful as well. It was a good mixture of city sightseeing (Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa) and scenic views up in Algonquin Park and the Muskokas. We saw wonderful fall colors and visited many interesting sights and museums. Going up to the CN Tower and standing on the glass floor was a highlight (though slightly scary as well-I’m not good with heights), as well as Niagara Falls, the Culture & Heritage Museum in Ottawa, the Booth’s Rock and Peck Lake trails in Algonquin Park and the Matchedash Bay wetlands trail near Coldwater.
Oh, and funnily enough, we had a Mazda 3 as our rental car. This may not be an unusual thing as such, but at home I also drive a Mazda 3, and love it. The one we had was a newer model, and already quite battered. Lots and lots of scratches and little dents, stone impact damage on the windscreen, a tire that seemed untrue. But it dutifully took us where we wanted to go, and I liked driving it. But, man, driving in Canada is soooo boring. Speed limit of max 80 kph (100 on the highways), and once outside the cities, long roads with hardly any traffic. Thank God for cruise control.
Last but not least, let me leave you with a few photos. If you’d like to see the lot, you can look at them in my online gallery.
Some of you may know I run the Peter Outerbridge fansite peterouterbridge.net. I may have previously posted about him enough that you know he’s a Canadian actor. Not all that well known, but you might have seen him do the occasional guest spot on shows like Nikita, Happy Town, Sanctuary, or Millennium. I shan’t bore you with more details.
I’ve also previously posted about our campaign to try and save the cancelled TV show Bomb Girls. We’ve not been successful (so far?), but we definitely made enough of a racket to get on people’s radars. It’s through the campaign that I came into contact with people connected to the show, which has been a fantastic and very rewarding thing to happen.
For the past year or two, my wish to go to Canada has grown steadily and considerably. I had already been to Toronto and Kingston in 2008-a fairly busy business trip that didn’t give me the chance to see much of the cities or surrounding area. I always wanted to go back.
Then, early this year, my good friend Searge expressed an interest to come with me to Canada, and it didn’t take long for us to book flights and hotels-and the idea of a trip around Ontario suddenly became very real.
There would be sightseeing, and scenery, and things you do on vacation, but luckily Searge is enough of a geek himself to indulge my own geeky tendencies. This made it easy to get a number of fandom-related activities included in our trip; first and foremost a meeting with some of the official Bomb Girls people.
The thing I really wanted to make happen was meet Peter Outerbridge. However, I knew from the get-go that it would be difficult, because he isn’t a very accessible guy. There’s hardly any public information about him out there. He’s not on any of the social networks or otherwise approachable online.
The only way I knew how to contact him was via his agent. And these guys are like doctor’s receptionists: They get paid for dismissing anything that doesn’t further their client’s career or bring in money. And a lowly fansite webmaster asking for an interview wouldn’t qualify for either option. Thus, it didn’t come as a surprise that my request for said interview was declined. Oh well. At least I’d tried, right?
But then I hit the jackpot, because I came in contact with crime novelist and Bomb Girls creative consultant Maureen Jennings. It’s kind of a long story, but in a nutshell, she’s friends with Peter and offered she would ask him if he would agree to meet with me. And, amazingly, he did! I couldn’t believe my luck.
If you’re interested in reading all the pertinent details, I’ve written down all the fabulous Toronto fandom adventures for my website (beta’ed by the lovely imbecamiel-thank you so much!). For the visually inclined, there’s a number of photos there too.
In summary, I can only say, it’s been one of the most rewarding fandom experiences I’ve had, and it was somewhat of a dream come true. I mean, when does it ever happen that you get to meet one of your favorite actors in person, talk (almost) one-on-one over coffee for close to two hours in a laid back atmosphere, and have mutual fun the whole time? Peter was a real sweetheart, it was a two-sided conversation rather than me asking questions and him answering, and we even geeked out over Star Trek in the kind of detail only fans could discuss. It was fabulous.
As you can imagine, I am incredibly grateful for this rare opportunity. Maureen Jennings deserves the biggest hug for being instrumental in making it happen.
Quite honestly, going to Toronto was somewhat of a trip to Mecca for me. ReGenesis was the TV show that started it all-and it’s been a long time that I’ve been so engrossed in a show. Which, admittedly, hasn’t been such a rewarding experience, because I discovered the series when there was barely any fandom left. It’s been a very lonely endeavor-and most of you know that fandom is only fun when you have people to share it with.
But that didn’t stop me from making my time in Toronto all about ReGenesis. I had researched a number of exterior locations prior to the trip, and we visited all except one. It was fun, and made my vacation a little more special. Especially if I wanna venture into the fan fiction world again at some point. As it so happened, I also had the unexpected chance to briefly speak to the show’s creator, and I even walked away with an armful of DVD boxes, promotional images, and a soundtrack CD. Almost unbelievable!
I could probably even say it was the Canadian fandom trip of a lifetime, although I must say our Joan of Arcadia fandom trip to Los Angeles in 2008 was just as special.
The rest of our vacation was wonderful as well. It was a good mixture of city sightseeing (Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa) and scenic views up in Algonquin Park and the Muskokas. We saw wonderful fall colors and visited many interesting sights and museums. Going up to the CN Tower and standing on the glass floor was a highlight (though slightly scary as well-I’m not good with heights), as well as Niagara Falls, the Culture & Heritage Museum in Ottawa, the Booth’s Rock and Peck Lake trails in Algonquin Park and the Matchedash Bay wetlands trail near Coldwater.
Oh, and funnily enough, we had a Mazda 3 as our rental car. This may not be an unusual thing as such, but at home I also drive a Mazda 3, and love it. The one we had was a newer model, and already quite battered. Lots and lots of scratches and little dents, stone impact damage on the windscreen, a tire that seemed untrue. But it dutifully took us where we wanted to go, and I liked driving it. But, man, driving in Canada is soooo boring. Speed limit of max 80 kph (100 on the highways), and once outside the cities, long roads with hardly any traffic. Thank God for cruise control.
Last but not least, let me leave you with a few photos. If you’d like to see the lot, you can look at them in my online gallery.