Five years ago most of us probably didn’t even know about Twitter. Heck, some of us might not have known about Facebook yet. But Mack was one of the first people – in the world – to be on Twitter.

From the use of #yeg as an Edmonton identifier to talking up all of our technology, a lot of the Twitter conversation has been shaped by Mack. That he helps raise money through events like Twestival and organized What The Truck?! are just two more feathers for his digital cap.

So, today, we tip our Internet hats to Mr. Male, and will include the hashtag #MackAttack in all of our tweets in the hope of making him a nation-wide trending topic. It’s the least we can do. (It really is, we didn’t even get him a cake.)

While we’re talking about Mack’s accomplishments, you might be interested to know:

Mack was a world-class bodybuilder until he and Chuck Norris teamed up to invent social media.

Mack carries each fail whale to safety. With his mind.

Mack invented sleeping.

In some parts of Eastern Europe, the Internet is known simply as “Mack.”

By Pam Brierley

Kay McRay, of K.D. Honey, smiles warmly at her young customer as they trade three flavoured honey sticks for a shiny gold loonie.

“The thing I love most about the market is the people,” she says.

Don and Kay have been in the bee-farming business for nearly 50 years and are regulars at the Callingwood Farmer’s Market for the last 13. The thing she says she’ll miss the most, when she and her husband Don retire at the end of this season, is all the friendships they’ve built over the years.

“When you sit next to someone week after week, you kind of get to know them.”

The regular vendors even breakfast together at local restaurant Muggn’z before the market opens on Sunday mornings. Occasionally, regular customers will join them too.

Don first learned the trade from a neighbour when he was 12-years-old, and when his own kids turned 12 they got in on the honey production too.

“I told the kids to either get a summer job or they were working for me.”

But over the years farming has not been easy.

“We always had to have another job,” remarks Kay. “When you’re finished, if you’re making minimum wage you’re lucky. People look at the prices and think you’re making all kinds of money, but they don’t know all the time it takes to do this.”

But, Don chimes in, “Never anyone was coming to take my job away from me when I was keeping bees.”

Over the years Don has worked as a letter carrier and a sheet metal worker. He grins widely, “I like working for myself.”

For years, Don and Kay sold their honey to major distributors. “We had shipped for years, but then numbers were down one year and no one was doing farmer’s markets in our area so we decided to give it a try.”

They did their first farmer’s market at Blackfalds in 1995 and have never looked back.

“At first I hated it. It was so boring,” Kay says.

Over the years, as they developed relationships, it grew and they now do markets in Edmonton, Caroline, Rocky Mountain House and Sylvan Lake.

Don and Kay sell unpasteurized honey. “When you heat it you take all the nutrition out,” they’ll tell you.

Honey is believed to have many nutritional benefits. It contains antioxidants, minerals and enzymes and is also a natural antibiotic. They have the clear filtered honey for sale too, but some purists claim that pasteurization also changes the flavour of the honey.

“Most people don’t store their honey correctly. They don’t realize that it can keep for years if they store it correctly,” Kay advises. “Lots of people put it in the fridge and they don’t need to. It needs to be stored in a cool, dry place.”

Another product they carry is dandelion honey.

“It is quite strong flavoured,” Kay notes. “Don prefers it and many of our customers do too.” The type of flower that the bees collected the nectar from has a dramatic effect on the flavour of the honey.

Each week Don and Kay drive two-and-half hours from Caroline to Edmonton. Kay sighs and smiles dolefully, “It’s just getting too be too much for us at this age.” Don’s health has been declining in recent years and they have sold-off most of their farm and will wrap up their operation for good at the end of this farmer’s market season.

“I’ve really enjoyed coming to the market and I’m going to miss it,” Kay says.

You can enjoy Don and Kay’s honey until the end of the season in October. They are at the Callingwood Farmer’s Market every Sunday from 10-3 and every second Wednesday from 2-7. The Callingwood Farmer’s Market is held at the Marketplace at Callingwood (178 Street and 69 Avenue).

Pam Brierley is a freelance writer and editor and is fascinated by just about everything. She is mom to two strong, intelligent red-headed daughters and is fortunate to be married to a brilliantly creative man who continues to amaze her every day. They share their home with a cranky elderly cat named Tita. You can find her on Twitter @bonmotgirl.

When I first considered doing a story to inform you all how much I enjoy a trip to Two Rooms Restaurant on Whyte Avenue, I seriously debated just posting a picture of the amazing carrot cake they serve.

But! After a brief conversation with Two Rooms owner Connie John one day over breakfast, I knew I couldn’t just phone it in. Even if it meant bypassing carrot cake for the short term.

Connie is an elegant, charming lady whose passion for food is unmistakable. She is not a career restaurateur; in fact, her resume will probably surprise you.

“I’ve always had a passion for food. I had a catering company when I was completing my degree in nursing in Regina,” she says.

“I was a nurse for a number of years, “ explains Connie.

“I was a flight nurse in the Northwest Territories, and I was a community health nurse. I was an obstetric nurse for a number of years. .. I did all the nursing I wanted to do”

After that, she spent some time as a Realtor, which was how she discovered Two Rooms was for sale in 2008.

“You know, some people dream about being a model or a television actress, or someone famous – I dreamt of having a restaurant,” she smiles. “That was one of those things that you just didn’t do, because it never made enough money to support children.”

But when the restaurant came up for sale, Connie, whose children are now grown, says it seemed like the right time to take the plunge.

“It was time to do it now..”

—–

Two Rooms Restaurant (formerly Two Rooms Café) has a storied history; Connie says it’s been a restaurant for more than a hundred years.

“It was built as a hotel and 200 or so people sat down to a dinner…in this very place in 1903. It was a 40-room hotel.”

“This restaurant has always been two rooms. The restaurant used to be upstairs and downstairs.  The veranda was the second room of Two Rooms; now, it’s Twist Ultra Lounge, so the second room for us is either the kitchen in the winter, or the patio outside.”

“It’s the original patio on Whyte avenue,” she laughs.

—–

Before Connie took over in 2008, Two Rooms was run by Jacek Trebaczkiewicz for nearly 25 years. Today, he fills the role of executive chef.

“For him, it’s a continual life-long thing, his love of food. That’s what he’s done ever since he came from Poland. He’s owned five restaurants in the area, and, so, I enjoy him and his coaching.”

Connie has already made many changes of her own since taking over from Jacek in 2008.  Two Rooms is now open in the evenings, and hosts white tablecloth events, private functions and even networking groups. She says that building the business to this point has involved a learning curve.

“There are two different elements to the restaurant; the front end and the kitchen. And the first year, I thought I could do it all. In the second year, that’s when I realized that there’s two parts of it, We got so much bigger, our hours got longer, so now I do rely on…the executive chef…there’s a manager in the front end…and there never was anything like that [before], I did it all.”

If you’re interested in giving Two Rooms a try, Connie suggests some of her favorite dishes; warm beet salad with walnuts and feta cheese, the brie melt, or the ravioli with elk (which she describes as her contribution to the menu).

“When I bought the restaurant, I said I should eat everything on the menu, and when I tasted the yogurt, I ate that for a whole month because it was so good. And then the omelette, I ate that for a whole month because that was so good,” she laughs.

“Although I like to see how established this restaurant is, I like to label it as mine too. Since I’ve owned [Two Rooms] – on October 10 it will be two years – the third year is when you get to really play, because you’ve made all of the mistakes in the second year and the first year, and you’ve learned. So this third year is going to me.”

Two Rooms, in the old Dominion Hotel building, is at 10324 82 Avenue.

Doug Organ: NOT a space cowboy. NOT.

So imagine my surprise in meeting 29-year-old Doug Organ. He is neither super villain, nor space cowboy; rather, a well known local musician (you’ll likely recognize him a former member of The Wet Secrets, The Whitsundays, or from his namesake Doug Organ Trio) and the owner, operator, producer and engineer of Edmontone Studio. It’s a young recording facility that has, since its inception just three years ago, housed recording projects for Edmonton luminaries like Christian Hansen and the Autistics, Tim Gilbertson and of course our buddies, The Omega Theory.

Edmontone started off as a lot of smaller jobs for Doug, who would often record in makeshift studios, like rehearsal spaces, or his own home.

“Well. it’s not like I’d set up a band in the apartment,” he laughs. “[Artists would] come over to do the vocals…but every time we needed to do beds, the band’s money was going to someone else’s studios or renting a space.”

Doug soon realized he could be earning a better return on his (and his clients’) time and money if he had his own space to record in – so he found an investor and set to work, searching out the right spot.

“What I was looking for was like a light industrial area…and I basically drove around Edmonton late at night for three years, looking creepy, trying to find the exact building.”

Eventually, driving around looking creepy paid off, and Doug found a space in the city’s downtown that he renovated with the help of friends and fellow musicians.

Edmontone Studio before...

“It took us six months to build the studio, and that time, and the first year…were pretty stressful.”

“The construction snowballed, and therefore the costs snowballed and I felt that,” he explains. “Like, this is a big investment, and I know I can do good recordings, but man, can I pull this off?”

Despite the obvious risks associated with opening any small business, Doug says he remained confident Edmontone could succeed.

“I kind of suspected that the business would take care of itself because it always had,” he says.

...and after.

“Worst case scenario was that we would have a room that was physically large enough for more than one person to make music in at once, and I knew that no matterwhat happened, if I was unable to work or nobody was recording anymore …at the very least it could be a rehearsal space.”

Today, the studio stays very busy. A new homeowner, Doug lives in the neighbourhood and says he spends most of his time working.

“I lock up, I walk home for two minutes, and then plunk down in bed. Then I wake up and go back to work,” he says.

“The stuff that I’m doing now is probably more than one full time job, but it’s not quite two full time jobs,” he explains.

“But to have to be the cleaning lady and the admin guy and do the actual recording also is not such a big deal. Especially when it’s your baby.”

ALSO, the job has its occasional perks…

Doug, at Abbey Road.

“I just came back from mastering a project at Abbey Road. And the client was excited – but nowhere near as excited as I was because I was actually going to get to go,” he laughs.

“It was very last minute, I [was] going to England…I’m just going to see if it costs like 30-grand to master. It was a fair amount of money, but not unreasonable, as it turns out.”

“We spent about four hours, and at six hours I was going to be like “‘OKAYTHANKSBYE!’” he says, miming running out the door.

To learn more about Edmontone Studio, you can check out the website here. You can also pick up a record from the Doug Organ Trio here.

Artist Rudy Smith during Art Walk, back in July.

Here’s an easter egg for all you superfans; if you’ve been with us from the beginning, you may remember that Jeff and I went to Art Walk back in July. Among the people we met was tremendously talented Sherwood Park artist Rudy Smith, whose work you can currently see featured in the flash player at the top of our main page (…and we’re going to blame our not having a proper picture of Rudy on his work – it’s just so dang compelling we couldn’t look away).

Only 21 years old and largely self-taught, Rudy’s work is vibrant and clever, features a multitude of hilarious pop culture references in its titles (“I suck at making up my own,” he says) and stars awesome and unexpected subjects like robots in love, cowboys, and teddy bears destroying cities with their laser eyes (I know, right?!).

“Anything and everything can influence my work,” says Rudy. “Music, movies, books, quotes, conversations, nature, relationships, other people’s art, etc. …Painting landscapes or bowls of fruit never appealed to me. I always wanted my art to be fun and action-packed, the kind of stuff I was excited to read in comics or see on Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid.”

“I suppose I’ve tried to capture some of that childhood excitement and awe in my paintings, or at least create some kind of escapism from the seriousness in life we often encounter as “grown-ups”.”

While Rudy doesn’t have any shows on the immediate horizon (“I’ve been taking a bit of a break from creating new original work and focusing more on getting some commissions out of the way,” he says), he is in the midst of cleaning house – so if you’re in the market for something hang on your walls, you may want to peruse his facebook fan page or his website. You can also head on over to Strange City Body Modification Experience on Whyte, where he currently has a few pieces hanging.

As for what’s still to come for Rudy, he says he’s interested in possibly heading back to school in the next few years, and would like to try out lots of new projects.

“I would love to try painting with oils,” he says. “I’ve been working with acrylics exclusively since I started painting, probably because that’s just what was in front of me at the time….

“I’d love to write and illustrate a children’s book someday soon! Maybe even a graphic novel too! Better get to work on that…”