One day last week I posted a tweet on twitter saying how I needed to go out and find someone for this blog. I quickly got a reply from Shane volenteering to do it! So with that we arranged to meet on Saturday and we did the interview. Here is what Shane had to say.

Camera: Canon 5D mark ii & 135L – Settings: 1/1000th // f2 // ISO 100

1. Where are you from?
Well I jokingly like to call my self a minority in my own land, as I was actually born in raised in Calgary.

– Rob: Haha nice, that’s a good one.

2. So do you like living in Calgary?
Well for the most part there is always something to do in town. But the one bummer about living in Calgary is sometimes when you rely on public transit, if your trying to get from suburb to suburb you need to make sure you leave early, because it’s going to be awhile. But transportation issues aside Calgary is a great place to live.

3. What is about Calgary that you like? or Don’t like? You choose.
Well what I particularly like about Calgary and what I don’t think we really get enuf credit for on a national scale is the street festival scene here during the summer. There is always something to do during the week. A lot of people get together. There is always a central theme and that kind of thing. And my self being a web producer for a music magazine, I partiularly dig the Sled Island Festival, and what I like about it is, you may not have heard about much of the artists, but that’s kind of the point, discovering new music.

– Rob: What was the name of the publication you where just talking about?
Beat Root Magazine, we are an independent music publication.

– Rob: And is that local to Calgary?
It’s local and we have an edition in Vancouver as well.

– Rob: Ok cool, and you just gave me this other publication that you where involved in, the Calgary Journal. How did you get involved with these guys?
Well it’s kind mandatory to write for the Calgary Journal because it’s the Mount Royal University Journalism program. So if you want to get that $25,000 piece of paper you kinda have no choice but to write for the Calgary Journal, it’s just the name of the game with that program. A lot of journalism programs have community news papers that they just run in house. Consider it kind of a showcase of young journalists work and there growth if you will.

– Rob: And is it this that led you to the music magazine your working with? Or how did that come about?
Your on the ball actually, my job a Beat Route Magazine kind of fell on my lap. When I was a news intern at the Calgary Journal, at the time our production manager Brad Simm, he’s also the publisher at Beat Route Route Magazine and he knew I was pretty savvy in terms of working with digital media and being the word smith that I am, so he offered, I took it and 2 and half years later I’m still with Beat Route.

– Rob: Nice. You also have a blog, I checked it out quickly. What kind of stuff do you got going on there?
Yes, Pronounced Floog. Well regretfully I haven’t written anything there in about a month. It’s just a personal blog, I don’t have a lot of high hopes for it. It’s just intended for my twitter adiunce and facebook friends, that kind of thing. Sometimes I write a little bit of humour and other times I write opinions.

– Rob: Or impressions perhaps? (I saw a video of one on his blog before the interview)
And voice impressions, Metallica (Shane starts screaming loudly and we are standing beside a gas station in public! haha) YA, YAAAA, OUWA!

– Rob: haha Ok your freaking me out! (laughter) I’m just kidding.

4. I also noticed on your blog you had a picture of your self with a camera, so are you a bit of a photographer too then?
Well I see your a Canon guy, but you’ll hate to hear I’m a bit of Nikon guy.

– Rob: I dont have problem with Nikon.
You don’t have a problem with that, ok that’s good. I know there’s a bit of a rivalry going on there. But anyway, I suppose I’m a bit of an ameture photographer. My specailty would have to be action photography. It’s pretty simple, it’s just f8 and you go from there. Just shoot the hell out of the event and hope for the best and usally get something good.

– Rob: Haha Spray and Pray I think they call it.
Is that the term?

– Rob: Ya haha.
Alright, I learned something today on my end too.

5. Alright so what do you like to do for fun?
For fun particularly I enjoy a game of pool it’s sort of thinking mans game but it’s a lot more socailble then say chess. You can drink a beer and just shoot the stuff with the guy your playing with. So I enjoy pool. I need to get better at it, but when I can I also enjoy fishing as well. And my Final Fantasy days are over at this point in my life, but I do play some PS3 once in a while.

6. If you had to describe Calgary to some one, what would you say?
Well it’s huge, to say the least. But it’s a very homely city for it’s size, it’s very neighbourly, the people are nice and it’s kind of one of those city where you can leave your jacket in the bar to go to the bathroom and not be to worried about it being stolen from you and that sort of thing. It’s a very friendly city that way. And we do have a really thriving arts and culture scene in Calgary, but like I said before I don’t think we get a lot of credit for it on the national level, because you your self probably discovered while doing your blog, there is more to us than just cowboys, stampede and our fossil fuel economy.

7. Have you ever ridden a horse?
Does pony count?

– Rob: Ya I’d say a pony counts, it’s kind of a horse, a small horse haha.
Ok close enuf haha. I was a small lad at the time.

– Rob: There you go! So it’s all relative then?

8. Anything you’d like to add?
Just keep up the good work with your blog. It’s a very fascinating concept. I mean not only are profiling, just telling some great stories of people, just for being them selfs and that kind of thing. And we are watching your growth as well as a new Calgarian who discovers more and more. And there is just a lot more to us than Stampede.

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That’s it for Shane, you can find him on twitter at @sflug. Thanks for volunteering to talk to me Shane! 😉