A couple weeks back, I had THE quintessential Kelowna weekend. Every weekend of the summer, Kelowna has a mad amount of festivals or fundraisers or events. The best thing about this arrangement is, since I'm still new to Kelowna, working on the weekends essentially means I get to go to these events (for free) and I get to really experience them because I'm literally taking part in them by talking to organizers and interviewing the people participating in them.
Exhibit A: the Across the Lake Swim. About 450 people raced in a swim from one side of the lake to the other. Since I was working, I got to go in the special media boat, which brought me up close to the swimmers. I filmed the participants as they warmed up to go in the water and then as they took off from the start line. It was a sea of arms and legs and flailing and water splashing as each race started. Then I got to jet across the lake to catch the first group of people crossing the finish line.
Side story: I had to jump out of the boat into the lake so I could get the finishers. I didn't realize how deep that particular part of the lake was so when I jumped, the water went up to my pant pockets...where my iPhone was. A little dirt and water and my phone was fried. So I put it in rice so it would dry up. The next day, the phone was working perfectly! Except...a grain of rice got stuck in the port on the bottom of the phone. AHH of course this would happen to me! Long story short, I got the grain of rice out in the end...but it was a stressful day.
Back to original story: Exhibit B: the Kelowna granfondo. A granfondo is a "big ride" in Italian. It's a 150 km (I think?) bike race around Kelowna and a little bit up to Vernon. The race took off earlier in the day but I was scheduled to go catch the first finishers of that race. So I bolted from the lake swim to the bike race and set up right at the finish line. I got the first group of cyclists as they came in and then got to interview them right away. It was so cool to be the first media person to talk with the cyclists since this was the first ever granfondo in town and I could ask them questions like, how do you feel about winning the first ever granfondo in Kelowna? What does this sort of distinction mean to you?
Exhibit C: The next day, my story was to see whether the residents of a city called Salmon Arm (I know, best name ever) enjoyed having the Sturgis North motorcycle rally in town. Lots of people didn't want the rally because of noise and gang concerns. This story was a sort of "just go and see what happens and what you're able to get" kind of a story. And they're doable but they're made even more awesome when you stumble upon something that you really weren't expecting and it makes your story. For me, for this story, it was a white board outside a store that asked bikers and residents to write messages to the community.
The board was really exciting, but it was even more exciting to interview bikers! I am not really an intimidating person I don't think so I probably seemed like a meek little girl approaching these big, tough dudes standing by their intense looking motorcycles. But I was so enthusiastic and excited to meet them, I think they appreciated that. I ended up speaking with probably around 7/8 bikers and was positively giddy with myself for befriending biker dudes! They were super cool and I think they appreciated that I was taking the time to speak with them rather than assigning the biker stereotype to them.
Seeing the across the lake swim from a boat + being there for the first winners of the first ever Kelowna granfondo + befriending biker dudes = My job is awesome!
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