12 Days of Danika Part 1

For those of you who have liked our facebook page and those of you who follow us on twitter, you've probably already been noticing our #12DaysofDanika posts. For the rest of you... Here is 12 Days of Danika Part 1.

Danika only visits a few times a year, so we've gone all out this time with this holiday themed project. Stay tuned for part 2!

Kids on coffee

Doug is bouncing off the walls

Ray is drooling big spit balls

Bill is breaking large objects

Kids on coffee! -The Descendents

Those lyrics of course are the first thing I though of when we rolled up to the skate park today.

Why were we at the skate park in the winter you ask?

Reason #1... Ryan #1

Backside board slide.

Reason #2... Ryan #2

360 Shuv-it

For the record, partner in crime... Caffeine free!

That's that!

The Test

With one project complete, it's time to focus on finishing the next one. This project is what's been keeping us spending more time behind the scenes working hard, which explains why we've been blogging on a less consistent basis.

We're still in the "hoping this comes to fruition" stages of this project, but we're finally at the "testing stage". Testing is exactly what went down today. We don't have a fancy focus group, so we got together with Grady today to show him our new P&S Zine app for the ipad.

He gave it rave reviews, but he could be biased...due to the heavy Grady Kuly content in P&S Zine Issue #3. We'll hit the streets and show a few more people before we send this app off to Apple for review with fingers crossed.

DV Gallery

It's always nice to have a "project" crossed off of the list and I am happy to announce that the DV Gallery is ready for your viewing pleasure (best viewed in person of course). Crossing off the list....now!

What exactly is the DV Gallery? Let's start with this... Delicious Restaurant (a.k.a. Delicious Vegetarian Restaurant, commonly referred to as Delicious Vegetarian or DV) is a place that I've dined at enough over the past two decades that I could call it a second home. For approximately the past two years the walls have been void of art. Many, many months ago I pitched the idea of providing some photos to remedy the situation and not only was the pitch happily accepted, it has finally come to fruition. So for our own purposes we're referring to this as the DV Gallery on our site.

The prints are for sale of course, but the main mission is to grow our audience in an off-the-internet/analog fashion. If you drop in to dine at the restaurant, we hope you enjoy the photos! You can check it all out at 1467 Pembina Hwy in Winnipeg!

The power of one

It's 10:30am on a Sunday morning. It's -24℃ with the wind chill. Bears are hugging to keep warm...

There's a coffee and donuts tailgate party going down...

There's a Santa's helper in training...

What's going on? Karen Boittiaux Lizon is kicking off her second annual Random Acts of Kindness drive in memory of her father and his own goodwill to the community he lived in.

The loot...

The sacs...

The sled...

The message...

The volunteers...

Ready, set...go!

CTV has the whole story here. Visit the "Random acts of kindness - in memory of Gary Boittiaux facebook group for more information.

Having fun while "on duty" is all part of the job description of being a volunteer.

Being paid in smiles is always a great bonus too!

Modern Taco

Many moons ago Winnipeg had a Chi-Chi's restaurant. It thrived, it died, it closed. It was never anything to rave about, but it was all we had for "Mexican Food".

There was always Taco Time as a back up plan and then there was of course Taco Bell if you just needed a fix. Aside from that I've always felt that we lived in a post Chi-Chi's drought of anything related to Latin Cuisine, Hispanic offerings or simple Mexican food. For a while we had the El Salvadorian option of La Fiesta, but they moved out of the old West End to the suburban equivalent of the boonies (which is as good as leaving the planet as far as I'm concerned).

That was then, this is now and the drought has finally ended. Similar to the bagel restaurants in the 90's and the sushi restaurants of the 2000's (that have now spread to every corner of our medium sized city), we've been experiencing a mini explosion of restaurants with burrito and taco offerings alike! We've been to a few and we've heard about others, but the game has changed as of this month when Modern Taco Company entered the equation!

The story...

The first visit was by myself and the second visit was the very next day with my partner in crime. We lucked out with the Alfred E. Newman bobble head...there were other unique bobble heads, but I'm pretty sure the other customers were jealous with rage that we scored the Alfred.

The appetizer is not necessary, but after my first experience I realized having some chips on the side could help with any taco filling mishaps (should such a situation arise). There is of course forks for that as well.

The reason we even heard of this new restaurant in the first place is because we were tipped off by the kind folks at the Canadian Hemophilia Society - Manitoba Chapter. They're a huge fan of Chef Rob Thomas as he donates his talent to their Gala dinner every year! They tipped us off. We lucked out and Chef Rob himself showed up at our tables Tacos in hand!

Appealing to both the eyeballs...

...and the taste buds!

How's the service? Awesome! Although camera shy, Angela the kitchen supervisor even paid us a visit to ensure everything was a-o.k.!

Go visit them now at 612B Academy Rd. in Winnipeg, follow Modern Taco Company on twitter and like them on facebook.

Final thoughts...we're all about pancakes, so we're returning tomorrow to try out the corn cakes! Vegan menu options? Yes! Licensed for those who drink? Yes! One suggestion...bring in some Jarritos drinks to wash down those delicious Modern Tacos!

That's that!

Thinking outside the bowl

People are often encouraged to think outside the box. Along similar lines, Ben showed some "outside the bowl" thinking tonight. Air-out to fakie on the bank.

Green and Blue in Black and White

People often offer the advice "don't quit your day job". I rode that scary roller coaster once and I'd do it again if I felt certain circumstances warranted such a bold move, but the fact is...I am currently very thankful to have a "day job".

There's rarely a reason to bring a camera to work, but last month there was and that's when I started a new project that lasted a month...or as long as one roll of film. I took a few shots of some co-workers and quickly realized they all had either green or blue eyes. It was then I decided to dedicate the entire roll to co-workers and friends alike that happened to have blue or green eyes.

Danielle "The Buyer"

Billy Joel "The Rep" from the "Movember" shoot.

Danielle part II.

The man I fondly refer to as "Silvertongue".

@crujonez during Movember as well.

Mélissa is not a co-worker, unless of course I work on the Star Ship Enterprise!

Breakfast buddies, Amanda and Jordie

Jordie and Amanda

...and then there was Cassandra!

...part II

...part III

That's that!

Facelift

We have no idea what actual "version" we are on, whether it is 3.0 or maybe 4.0. What we do know is camnikkel.com was long over due for a facelift, so now this is happening.

We tried not to "fix it" as we didn't really feel it was "broken", but there are a few new projects we have on the go and we think some changes might help us showcase what's going down more effectively. Speaking of broken... if you're still using ie7 or ie8 for a web browser, you may be out of luck if you're expecting this new site to function properly. We have it working smoothly on Firefox, Safari and ios devices, but for some reason that's not good enough for good ol' Internet Explorer. There may be a way to work around these bugs, but it also might be time for you to update your browser. Sorry friends. We can't burn ourselves out trying to please EVERYone!

We'll keep you updated when all the bugs are worked out and things are smooth sailing. In the meantime, feel free to take it for a test drive!

What about the pancakes?

Sometimes people come up to us and ask what's with the "pancakes" in pancakes and skateboards? The answer is quite simple...we eat pancakes, we go skateboarding.

Unfortunately due to the 12+ age restriction at The Edge Skatepark's all free sessions weekend, skateboarding wasn't in the cards. When our breakfast crew friends asked us if we'd like to meet up for breakfast, we decided to not let the fate of a good breakfast end up in the hands the service and flavour lacking spot down the street and we took it upon ourselves to be the creators of breakfast... pancakes and all!

In other news... After breakfast, one of our friend's showed us one of the friendlier alternatives to the infamous A.C.A.B.

That's that!