Status: A-Team OUT

(Voiceover) "Who are we? You sure you wanna know? The story of our lives is not for the faint of heart. If somebody said it was a happy little tale, if somebody told you we were just your average citizens, not a care in the world, somebody lied. But let me assure you, this, like any story worth telling, is all about a city. That city. The city you live in (or maybe you don’t, but that’s ok too). Burlington, Ontario. The city we've loved since before we even liked cities..."

Well, you actually already know most of our story. But we needed a beginning, and trust us it ties in great with the line at the end. As you may know (if you stalk us), this is our last blog. Try to hold back your tears. It will get better. The emptiness might never go away, but it gets easier to bear with time.

In order to replace the void in your lives that our departure will definitely cause, you could always come to the Visitor Information Centre to purchase one-of-a-kind Burlington souvenirs! For your utilization purposes, we’re just stocked up on Burlington mugs- both the ceramic and travel mug variety- and Burlington t-shirts (in such rockin’ colours as lime green, banana and GOLD – solid 24 karat gold shirts. Just think how jealous your friends will be).

Let’s make a deal. We are going to make a list of clues hinting at something Burlington-related and you are going to figure out what it is. Your prize? Personal satisfaction.

1. It’s in Spencer Smith Park
2. There will be 175 000 of your closest friends there
3. The Real Jerk will be there (no, not your ex)*
4. There will be 150 000 pounds of ribs
5. It starts with a rib and ends with a fest

*Just to clarify: The Real Jerk is a featured Rib Team…though your ex may or may not be on the team I suppose.

Have you guessed what it is? Good. We know you’re intelligent because you’re already reading our blog. (Just in case you haven’t, it’s Ribfest, and it’s awesome). Come down this Labour Day weekend and choose from 18 Rib Teams- or don’t choose…have one from each! And while you’re digesting and preparing for the next round, check out more than 25 musical acts, crafts, kids’ activities and fireworks Friday night at 11pm! Also check out our office, because there will be a very pleasant British woman happy to help you.

On to the goodbyes. First, the Cap’n: Sally, thank you for steering the Visitor Services Ship in the right direction (even though Kat crashed it into the wall). To the rest of the full-time squad, Pam, both Lindas, Simone and Lauren: we appreciate the many projects, especially the Sport Organization Database (you know who you are), the exciting snacks left on the back counter and your cheerfulness even at 6:00 am (you know who you are, and you may or may not be the same person). For Russ, down at the waterfront, your singing was incredible and we enjoyed your efforts to remove every single fingerprint on the windows. To the rest of the student Task Force: Godspeed. We hope your exam questions are less challenging than some of the questions we have received here.

Finally, to our fearless followers: thank you first of all for becoming followers, and second of all for dedicating minutes of your life to reading the postings. We are eternally grateful that you found us amusing, or maybe you didn’t but still read it anyways. In that case, we are even more grateful.

As a parting gift, we have left you with an inspirational message, courtesy of Tobey Maguire. Remember this always and recite it to yourself as you fall asleep: "Whatever life holds in store for us, we will never forget these words: 'With great power comes great responsibility.' This is our gift. Our curse. Who are we? We’re K&A."

Till next summer, stay classy Burlington.
K&A.

Tourism Burlington: Alysserrific

Hello loyal fans!

This is Justin Bieber. Just kidding, it’s not, but if it was, he’d have a sweeter job than he does already. On to business. These are our confessions: just when we thought we said all we could say, we must admit, we [Natalie] have [has] a secret obsession with Justin Bieber. How did we discover this? I’m so glad you asked (don’t worry; we won’t subject you to that one again). Though she tried to disguise it as “browsing the Stratford Tourism website”, we all know that this was not the case. In actuality, she follows Justin Bieber on Twitter and consequentially stumbled upon this gem.

Not wanting to be outdone by anyone, we here at Tourism Burlington decided to create a map about our own local superstar: yours truly, Alyssa the Awesome. Without further ado, we present you with the Alysserrific Map of Downtown Burlington.

We hope you enjoy your tour of Alyssa's Burlington. Maybe one day you'll get lucky and see her. Probably not though, she's super stealthy.

K&A.

Tourism Burlington: Live from the Beach

We on the Task Force don’t struggle with much. But there is one thing that we on very rare occasions have a slightly more difficult than normal time with: beginnings. In an attempt to avoid having to write the beginning ourselves, we thought we would let our dear friend Lewis Carroll do it for us:

"'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' [Alyssa] asked. 'Begin at the beginning,' the King said, gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'"

Seeing as he’s a king, we have decided to do what he says.

So, we begin our tale yesterday in the far away land of Niagara-on-the-Lake at a mythical place known as the Ontario Travel Information Centre. Your beacheriffic travel counselors were there in force, handing out free drinks, Frisbees and Burlington information to visitors from across North America. The highlight of course was this weekend’s Children’s Festival, which kicked off today at Beachway Park.

Children, families and adults galore gathered at the beach to participate in the epic once a year showdown of sand and castles or, as they are commonly referred to as, sandcastles. Sandi Castle was in her element. The competition was fierce (almost as fierce as the competition to pick up a free Tourism Burlington Frisbee – we know, they’re awesome). We would like to applaud all participants for their creativity, artistic ability and liberal use of sunscreen.

Did you miss the sandcastles? Are you sad? Do you wish there was some sort of second day to the Children’s Festival, perhaps one featuring entertainment, skateboarding demonstrations and activity areas? Well aren’t you lucky. Tomorrow, from 10:00am to 4:00pm those things AND MORE will be happening at Spencer Smith Park. And if you are lucky enough to snag a seat in the shuttle service, you may get a rare but dazzling glimpse of your travel counselors outside of their natural information centre habitat. Discovery Channel, we’ll be waiting.

K&A.

Tourism Burlington: Artsy Edition

Hello bloggy friends.
Alyssa is travelling.
Kat and Nat today.

So to celebrate,
And to boost our artsy cred:
Our blog in haiku.

Burlington events?
We have all the knowledge here.
And we’ll share with you!

No more tasty deals.
Goodbye Taste of Burlington.
You went very well.

Ballot entry done.
Fingers nearly fell right off.
Winners got their prize.

Are you still hungry?
Come down Sunday, August 8th:
Lakeside a la Carte.

Blacktree, Canyon Creek,
My Thai, Spencer’s, Red Canoe,
They will all be there.

Civic Holiday,
Celebrated Joseph Brant
Reptile guy was there.

Hot air balloon rides,
Visitors were lifted high.
Kat was right (for once).

Need something to do?
Come build sandcastles with us!
Right at beachway park!

Children’s Fest awaits,
Inflatables, face paint, crafts,
Fun for parents too!

Just for you, a treat!
Blogging live from festival,
Tune in next weekend!

-K&N
(if you can come up,
With a joke for these letters,
Free Haiku for you!)

P.S. In case you thought all of that was too relevant to tourism:
The tourism travel counselors have brought life into the world. And we don’t mean Linda’s Eva or Sally’s new grand counselor. We mean Basil. Basil is a basil plant. His full title is Basil the Burlington Basil.

Please note that the “a” in Basil’s name is soft (as a baby gosling’s underfeathers), while the “a” in his title is hard (as an adult Canada goose’s raptor talons).

P.P.S. Another video blog is in the works. Every extra moment it takes to be finished adds an extra ounce of awesome.

Tourism Burlington: We're So Glad You Asked

Good afternoon, Tourism Burlington- how can we help you? We’re so glad you called. What’s new in the neighbourhood? We’re so glad you asked. Tell you what: we’ll lay it all out for you right now.

First things first. Kat is on vacation, and let me tell you- her working here is but a distant memory. I hardly remember the times she took a seat beside me to write this blog. I don’t even remember what she looked like in the stunning Tourism Burlington uniform that was slightly too big on her. I don’t even remember who I’m talking about right now…where was I going with this?

I would now like to welcome Natalie, who has risen to the occasion and filled in as co-blogger! I was going to put a joke in here, but I can’t think of anything funny. Seriously though, I’ve got nothing.

Onto Tourism-related events. Taste of Burlington launched July 19th, and trust me on this one, Burlington tastes delicious. Flyers have been flying off the shelves so fast that there is actually now an underground distribution ring for Taste of Burlington brochures. What? You want one? How do you get one? I’m so glad you asked. Stop by our centre at 414 Locust St. But careful, the program ends August 2nd! So put your running shoes on and get down here. Now, didn’t I see something about Taste of Burlington on CHCH Tuesday night? We’re so glad you asked. Yes, yes you did. Our very own Linda Cvetanovic was interviewed on Live at 5:30 about the program and the positive response it has been getting. Watch out Burlington…we’re everywhere.

Onto event-related events. The Jazz n’ Blues Festival was this past weekend, and unfortunately the weather was as blue as the music (but not as soulful). That being said, Sunday afternoon brought a larger crowd as Mother Nature brought out the sun. She was a little tardy, we know. Appropriate complaints have been filed. As many of you also know, this Monday marks (as Kat likes to put it) the “not quite a statutory holiday but somewhat close to it” day. Joseph Brant Day, celebrating the man named after Burlington’s busiest street (other than Lakeshore, and maybe Plains – highways not included) will be held at LASALLE Park. We would just like to point out that this year there WILL be balloon rides. Hey…wait a second…didn’t Kat tell people there would be balloon rides last year, but they were nowhere to be found? We’re so glad you asked. Yes, she dropped the ball(oon) on that one. There will also be many more displays and activities to check out, including music, Six Nations dancers, a BBQ, boat rides, and reptile people. Not some half human hybrids, but instead people with reptiles (unless we have been grossly misinformed).

Onto blog-related events. Last week, we released our first video blog, and what a video blog it was. The tabloids immediately started to speculate, was Dania secretly dating her co-star, Lake Ontario? We cannot confirm or deny, but as far as we know, they’re just friends (but so were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Six kids later and look how that turned out).

Since we’ve had so many views, we’ve decided to give you a bit of a look behind the scenes of our “City Your City Could Be Like” video, and questions your inquisitive mind might have:

What was the video filmed on?
The video was filmed on Natalie’s camera (which is a Canon VIXIA HF100, for anyone who finds that sort of thing important).

Who filmed the movie?
Natalie, because she won’t let anyone else touch her camera.

What was the video edited with?
iMovie. Yes, we like the program, but we’re not crazy Mac people. Actually, we’re not exclusively “Mac” or “PC” people. We like computers in general. Don’t be hatin.

What was the budget for the film?
The budget was $7.50 in Burlington pins. We’re just joshing you. It was funded by unicorns, rainbow sparkles and the goodness of our hearts.

How did the lake suddenly appear in the background?
Although that transition may have seemed seamless, we actually turned off the camera in the office, walked to the lake, and proceeded to turn the camera back on. A stroke of genius, we know.

How did the sweater and pins just drop into the frame?
Below we’ve posted a couple uncropped shots from the video. If you look VERY closely, you can actually see Kat standing on a stepladder beside Dania, ready to drop what we need. Also, her aim was really good. I don’t think we had to redo any takes because Kat missed.

- N&A (as opposed to N/A. We are very applicable.)

Video Blog 2: Burlington Coupon Book

Thanks to everyone who checked out our last video blog! 266 Youtube views (and that doesn't even include facebook views) inspired us to create another! How did we do this so quickly? Time travel.

This week we have for you, a video entitled "Burlington Coupon Book," filmed/edited by Natalie, starring Alyssa and Michelle (as the voice-over). Shout out to Celine, who generously took on the important role of "stay at the front desk while we film this in the back office," so she could still help out our visitors. Nothing can stop us from providing tourism-related information.

Without further ado, "Burlington Coupon Book," based off of this commercial! (You have to follow the link, since this is a bit of a larger video file)

Keep in mind that you actually can come in and get both a Burlington Coupon Book and Burlington/Canada pin free!

Would we lie to you?

Stay tuned for a text-blog to be released in the very near future!

Burlington: The City Your City Could Be Like

Tourism Burlington proudly presents:

A Natalie short film starring Dania with special effects by Kat,

Burlington: The City Your City Could Be Like. We hope you like it (spoiler alert - you will). It took a lot of takes. A LOT OF TAKES. And a lot of confused Pane Fresco patrons. Anyways, here we go.

If you don't get it, maybe you haven't seen the commercial it's based off of.

Thanks for waiting so patiently. There are more to come (but only if you comment on the awesomeness of this one).

K&A&N.

P.S. There's a higher res version available on youtube so you can see our video in all its glory.