POWER WITH GREAT POWER, COMES GREAT CONVERSATION
One woman’s entrepreneurial spirit led to the creation of the Pacific Autism Family Centre—North America’s first. The M Power Speaker series brought in CEO and philanthrophist Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia in to share how she did it with a rapt audience of attendees at the extravagant Brian Jessel BMW dealership on November 15. Watch the highlights at BrianJesselBMW.com/EventSeries.
multiple muscles at the same time to complete amovement.
The advantage of SFU’s force myography system is that it is much more intuitive and natural, according to SFUalumnusLukas-Karim Merhi, who leads the interdisciplinary team, which calls itself M.A.S.S. Impact (Mass Activity Sensor Strip). “Our sensors recognize the pressure map for a specic grip pattern and then tell the hand to move that way,” he says. Merhi notes that this technology also collects computer models to use for future activities: “The more data you give it, the more it will learn.”
Pousett says the SFU innovation “is acompletely new approach to picking up signals and controlling an electric prosthesis from someone’s body.” She believes it has the potential to increase the motion currently available to prosthesis users.
Merhi admits that the SFU technology still needs rening before it can be commercially applied, which is the ultimate goal. The prototype was tested at aCybathlon trial in the summer of 2015 and placed second, but the team has made several renements since then. “At the trials, one of the team members was literally running alongside me with his Bluetooth and laptop as I moved from station to station,” says Letain. Today, that computer has been reduced to aChiclets-sized packet that ts inside the prosthetic arm. “We feel good about our chances,” Letain says, shortly before leaving for the Cybathlon.
Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned. It’s October, the day before the SFU team is set to y to Switzerland, and the Bebionic3 hand has stoppedworking, knocked out ofcommission by a faulty main electronic board. By sheer luck, the teammanages to borrow areplacement from Barber Prosthetics, but there is aproblem— thisprosthetic hand is amedium and Letain has done all of his training with the large model.
“This had ahuge impact on my performance since we didn’t have sucient time to practise with the new hand and could only train the software (provide it with data) once before leaving,” he says.
Letain completes the course, but his precision has been disrupted and he doesn’t make the nals. In an ironic twist, a Dutch team using a conventional hook-and-pincer prosthesis wins the event, defeating eight teams that are all using myoelectric technology.
Despite the disappointing result, Merhi is proud of what his team has accomplished. “We’ve only been working on this for a year and a half and it’s all been volunteer,” he says. To arm his point, hedescribes how some of the technologies they were competingagainst have beneted from years of research and billions of dollars in funding.
Looking ahead, Merhi hopes to continue to improve the functioning of the prosthetic arm and perhaps compete in the next Cybathlon in 2020 in Tokyo, when it will be held in conjunction with the Paralympics. Exactly how the team will proceed from here is still being discussed. Merhi estimates that advancing the sensing technology to acommercial state will take several years.
“Additional tests would have to be conducted with multiple amputees, and running these sorts of feasibility studies requires at least a year and considerable funding,” he says.
In themeantime, the SFU team leader is focusing on the positive aspects of the Cybathlon experience. “I feel privileged to have attended the event. Watching paralyzed people stand and walk in their exoskeletons was incredibly inspiring. It’s made us even more determined to make a dierence.”
Be thankful for the little earthquakes that shake us—they serve as much-needed reminders that a 7- to 9-magnitude event looms. The treacherous Juan de Fuca plate will eventually buck up and the ground will move, a lot more destructively than the 4.7-magnitude quake felt across Vancouver and Vancouver Island in December 2015.
There are reasons to be nervous. Especially when earthquakes still scare one of the country’s foremost experts, John Cassidy, aseismologist with Natural Resources Canada. It’s Cassidy’s job to better understand earthquake hazards through research, including looking for hidden faults and mapping the forces that cause earthquakes. His realization after 30 years of doing this: there’s no way to predict when the Big One will hit.
A: At this point in time we can’t predict earthquakes. We can assess where earthquakes can occur; we can model and say this is the level of shaking we can expect. That’s the information we can use in building codes. It may be that we can never predict earthquakes. So I believe the most important thing is having an informed public and having well-designed building codes that incorporate the latest earthquake science. A: We’ve heard of animals in China that may exhibit strange behaviour before an earthquake, but that doesn’t happen before every earthquake and not in every area. There have been some interesting observations at different times. The real challenge is finding something that is consistent and works all the time. A: I think back to when I was growing up in Victoria and there were no earthquake drills in school, there was no talk about seismic upgrades. Now we see bridges being retrofitted and, in Victoria, the old buildings being retrofitted. Before, we only had fire drills, and now we’re regularly doing things like ShakeOut. It’s all good progress. It’s important for individuals to have earthquake kits and to know what to expect; that’s at the personal level of preparedness. As ascientist, the work we’re doing in earthquake research and working with engineers to design buildings and bridges and infrastructure that prevents shaking is working. As federal government scientists, our research feeds into national codes and standards used every day by engineers and regulators and decision makers. A: The key message is that we can protect ourselves from earthquakes. You asked how people react when they meet earthquake scientists, and one of the things that comes through is that people are really happy to hear earthquake scientists live in earthquake zones and we’re not in Saskatchewan, where earthquakes don’t happen. We live here, where earthquakes have occurred and will occur. A: What is known is that there has been a great deal of data that has been supplied and used. Engineers have used that information; there have been upgrades made to infrastructure, building codes. We are much better off now than we were even 20 years ago because we have that much more research— even something like more detailed maps that allow us to see through vegetation and trees. We have new tools that allow us to get very detailed images of the sea floor to identify active faults. Every day we know more, and when people are prepared, we can now know what to expect. If people know what to expect, and they’re prepared and they know what to do after the earthquake occurs, that will minimize the impact of future earthquakes. And there will be future earthquakes.
How easy is it to build one of the very best wine programs in Vancouver? Well, if you’re the crew behind Mount Pleasant’s Burdock and Co., it’s actually quite simple.
First, just ensure you have an incredibly passionate chef/owner, Andrea Carlson. After a quick 20 years toiling in some of British Columbia’s best kitchens (Sooke Harbour House, Bishop’s) and playing asignificant part in a locavore movement that has grown exponentially in that time, she’s making some of the best food in the city, in collaboration with local growers, farmers and foragers. (Also, it can’t hurt to ensure that culinary royalty like Nigella Lawson rave about her cooking.) Then, work with a well-versed wine director in the form of Matthew Sherlock, who is also a partner and winemaker in the Okanagan’s Lock andWorthWinery andco-owns an import agency sourcing some of the most interesting natural wines—that is to say handcrafted wines made withminimalintervention—fromEurope. Then get Jesse Walters, the friendliest sommelier in town, to be your wine guy on the floor, ensuring every guest enjoys some of the most honest, delicious, intriguing wines available in Vancouver, perfectly matching the authenticity and integrity of the dishes on the menu.
Finally, ignore those who say you need white linen, piles of Champagne and afancy-schmancy cellar to have one of the best wine programs out there. You just need everything to be legit, and that’s what you have right here. For starters, I want to be clear —it’s not all about money. There are always places that will sell abottle of Veuve for $90 (like Rogue Wet Bar, see page 41), but that just takes acorporate owner willing to run aloss leader. But it is a little bit about the money, isn’t it? There can be no doubt that the 40,000 bottles at Cioppino’s are breathtaking, but they often come with an equally rarefied price point. But for me, the nexus between value and selection sits in the finally opened Vij’s at Cambie and 15th.
I don’t really know wine director Mike Bernardo, but he always had one of the great small lists at Vij’s old South Granville location, andnow, with some more room, he’scrafted a model for all wine lists in the city. Not only does he sell one of the world’s great Champagnes— Krug Grande Cuvée—for ajaw-dropping 19 percent over retail (in a city where 250 percent is standard), to show he’s not just aname-dropper he also brings in cult sparkler Benjamin Bridge Brut from Nova Scotia and still can’t bring himself to mark it up more than double. Page after page of the list shows great selections— Lopez deHaro Rioja,KanazawaRosé—at or less than two times retail. And if you want to nerd out he hasgrower Champagnes, furmints from Austria and akékfrankos from Hungary (I had to look that one up). It’s alist that anyone— snob,cheapskate,newbie orsouse—can find something to love on. That being said, the ginger lemon drink—at $5.50—is a tad pricey.
t’s 7 a.m. and the crows overhead are still flying to their day jobs, but Derek Brown, 58, is already on the clock, navigating his bulky white Busters tow truck through the streets of Vancouver. “It’s an interesting business; it certainly keeps me on my toes,” he says candidly. “I’ve had people spit in my face, push me, you know, things like that. I can take care of myself, but who wants to come to work and have people try and attack you?”
He’s a solid man, with boyish good looks, aheavy brow and forearms like Christmas hams. “A guy came at me one time with a tire iron,” says Brown. “He didn’t hit me with it because Itold him, ‘You might hit me once, but the next half-dozen hits will be on you, good buddy. You might hurt me a little bit, but I’m going to hurt you more.’” After 25 years of towing for Busters, Brown has seen his fair share of grisly fatal accidents and once discovered a dead body in avehicle—the result of a gangland hit. “I’ve encountered almost everything you can imagine in towing. It sticks with you quite a bit.”
As he cruises along Broadway for the morning rush, Brown acknowledges his fellow tow truck drivers with a wave of his thick hand as they trawl up and down the street like giant white sharks. “Certain streets through the city are designated as rush routes. Between 7 and 9:30 a.m. we tow all the illegally parked cars to keep the traffic moving—otherwise you’d have gridlock,” he explains. “It’s bad enough as it is, because they’ve changed a lot of the streets to accommodate bike routes; it’s really starting to slow down the movement of traffic.”
Much like Drake and Unitow, Busters offers private towing and roadside assistance, but since 1999, they’ve also held the City of Vancouver contract to provide tow services for emergency and roadwork crews, event preparation for marathons and fireworks and, of course, the removal of vehicles that are guilty of bylaw infringement. As soon as a parking enforcement officer has electronically issued an order to tow, Busters dispatch is alerted, and a driver is immediately notified.
The two-way radio crackles to life with the coordinates for the next job and Brown swings his truck over to the 1000 block of West 12th. “There has to be a ticket,” he says. “I’m not just driving around picking up cars. If that was the case, I’d be a millionaire.” As he reverses toward an illegally parked Acura, Brown simultaneously lowers the hydraulic arm on the rear of his truck, which glides under the vehicle and lifts the front wheels off the ground. Jumping out of the cab, Brown smoothly performs his daily routine of hooking chains to the chassis and attaching magnetized brake lights to the roof of the vehicle.
“I don’t get too excited if someone starts yelling while I’m loading their car,” says Brown as he ratchets down one of the wheels. “I’ll say, ‘Listen, this is just the way it is. I didn’t put the ticket on your car and I didn’t park your car here. I’m just doing the job that I’ve been asked to do.’” A quick glance reveals that the parking brake is on, so Brown grabs two large plastic wedges and forcibly shoves them into the jamb, opening the door just a crack. He then inserts a flexible strip of plastic attached to a string, which he manipulates around the push-button lock, pulls tight and lifts up, unlocking the door. The earsplitting wail of the Acura’s car alarm fills the morning air as Brown releases the parking brake, jumps back in his truck and drives away.
from her office at city hall, Vancouver’s director of streets, Taryn Scollard, empathizes with the Busters tow truck drivers. “They’re unfortunately disliked, usually for all the wrong reasons,” she explains. “They perform a service that people often don’t want—unless it’s their driveway being blocked or they’re the ones stuck in traffic on a Friday afternoon.”
The city regulates parking by implementing myriad rules and regulations, and motorists who don’t fall in line are liable to be slapped with a fine. In 2015 alone, the City of Vancouver issued almost 383,000 tickets, generating $16.7 million in revenue. But Scollard refutes the public perception that ticketing vehicles is a cash grab. “We make way more money from parking meters than we do from people paying their parking tickets,” says Scollard, who explains that last year, Vancouver’s 10,000 parking meters collected more than $49 million. “The obvious thing is to jump to the revenue it generates, but it actually only represents about one percent of the city’s total income.”
Of the vehicles issued with aticket and an authorization to tow, more than 60 percent end up in the Busters impound lot, which is anecessary evil, says Scollard. “The majority of our tows are from rushhour zones, and as much as we often curse a tow truck driver or cars being towed, if we didn’t clear the street blockages, it’d be even more frustrating for all those people stuck in traffic.”
Eliot Scott is the personification of frustration as he bows down to be heard through the small hole in the Plexiglas window at the Busters impound office, located just a short walk of shame from the Main Street SkyTrain station. “I was parked out front of my own house!” he says. Scott, 22, had parked a grey 1985 Volvo in front of his father’s house on West King Edward Avenue while he attended classes at Langara, but the car had boxed in the vehicles belonging to his father and brother. “I was freaking out. I thought it was stolen. This is my mother’s car. I was parked literally on the entrance of our property. . .”
meanwhile, outside in the impound lot, in truck number 31, Ali Shokri is rolling out for the 3 p.m. rush. “This job is all about the commission,” says Shokri, who’s been towing with Busters since 2004. “I keep my energy for rush hour. At 3 p.m. I become acoyote, because the coyote just grabs it and goes. I have to be fast to clean the city.” Each Busters driver works on commission, collecting 67 percent of the tow fee, the remainder going to Busters. Shokri, 48, is the proud owner of three tow trucks and a $1.8 million North Vancouver home that he shares with 11 pets. “We make that money with our blood. Sometimes you’re in danger. Same as a drug dealer. A drug dealer makes good money, but always people are coming to shoot you.”
Shokri pulls in front of aticketed blue Toyota Camry on West Georgia and twists his oil-stained figure to peer out the back window as he reverses. Within minutes the Camry is lifted, hooked and secured, and truck number 31 is headed back to the impound lot. “To be honest, 50 percent of the public doesn’t like us, but they don’t understand,” he says. “If you do the illegal thing, you have to get a fine. If you follow the rules, you’re always winning. If you take the shortcut, you’re always losing.”