East Van Snobriety

I live in East Vancouver, a district of Vancouver that encompasses a plethora of little villages with residential & business zoning closely tied together, intermingling on street parking, laneways filled with recycling boxes, garbage cans, graffiti, chicken coops and overhead electric wires, community gardens, greasy spoon all day breakfast diners, dive bars, overwhelming homeless problems, hipster joints, and all the cool kids.

It’s a beautiful place to live, for the most part a very friendly and pleasant community to hang out in with most people saying hello while out for a walk on a lovely Vancouver day.

But – yes, there’s a but – there’s a problem.

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GLOBE 2012 Panel Discussion on North America’s Energy Mix

On Wednesday, March 14th 2012 GLOBE 2012 Vancouver had an event hosted by Encana Natural Gas: a panel discussion on North America’s Energy Mix.

This event was very interesting in that it was primarily filled with students with hopes that questions would be raised, and ideas discussed with the impressive mix representing the panel.Hopefully somebody was taking notes.

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New Shoes: Simple Shoes

As you can see from the picture above, Simple Shoes does not just make simple shoes, they make shoes that make the wearers feel happy and conscious about the choice that they have made with their pair of kicks.

I think this quote from their website aptly sums up their existence: “Finding materials and processes that make our products sustainable is a method we call Green Toe. It isn’t a magic formula, or a cure. It is a compass that, we hope, points to a bright green future.”

So without further adieu, I will showcase my picks that I’ll be trying to get my hands on.

First up is the Men’s Carport Elastic – Wool and Suede. These things are a delicious style of class mixed with aging University Professor with a color that swells with vintage. They go for $60USD.

The other shoe that I really like is the Men’s Tuba – Hemp & Eco-Certified Leather. These shoes define very well the type of shoe that I want as a more casual shoe. Since I do a lot of skateboarding in the summer, the Carport Elastic wouldn’t really do well for that, so I feel that a more casual shoe would do the trick. The Hemp Tuba’s go for $70USD.

Of course, this Tuba comes in different styles, and I’m trying to decide which style I like better, the Hemp or the Suede shoe. The Suede is slightly cheaper at $65, and I think is a slightly bit more ‘hipster-ish’ with its brown colors…But I think with the Carport Elastic I’d already be jumping into the category of the hipster…

These shoes look great and are very environmentally consciously made. With my recent new passion to reduce the waste in the world, it would only seem like fitting choices for shoes.. What do you think of them? Do you like the suede better than the hemp?

For the final bout, in anticipation of the sweet beaches I’ll be hitting, I think it would only be fitting to get a pair of sandals… the choice? Men’s Flippee – Recycled PET. They go for $30USD, and I think I’d feel like Jack Johnson walking around in them! I like the coffee liqueur stripe personally, which ones do you like?

Good luck and happy trails!