Derek joined a team of seven other young adults and twelve youth from Saskatoon’s Elim Tabernacle that partnered with Mexico’s La Viña (Mexican for vineyard). For nine days the team gave food bags away and made meals for hundreds of people. Any remaining money was given to other feeding projects when they left. The communities didn’t have money and resources so the group would bring in a mobile stage, offer children’s church, and set up a mobile kitchen to feed the entire community. Aside from feeding people, the group found the time to dig several five and a half foot deep, by three and a half foot wide holes for a foundation to a church.

What’s your most memorable story?
“One of the most memorable moments was feeding people at the local Mazatlan dump. Hundreds of people worked at the dump right in the garbage collecting plastic, steel, cardboard and anything else they thought they could sell. They do this because they can’t find a job anywhere else. I was in charge of crowd control for the food line. I’m not going to lie, I got pushed around quite a bit, but the people were overall very nice. They are regular men and women (yes, lots of women and kids worked there too). The only difference is that their job is to collect garbage and they smell kind of funky!”

What’s the story behind these people?
“Most people go to Mazatlan for a vacation and it’s a nice place to do that. What those vacationers often don’t see are the communities of squatters. Thousands of low income Mexicans moved to Mazatlan to try to get jobs in the tourism industry. The problem was, there weren’t enough jobs and these people had nowhere to go. So they built houses on unused land hoping that some day they would be able to buy the land. The other problem is that the houses aren’t houses; they are more like sticks, blankets and old coca-cola tarps – kind of like the forts I used to make in my basement when I was little, except that these people have to live in them.”

What did you gain from this experience?
“It was my 15 minutes of Mexican fame! I would leave feeling like a rock star because when we would ride in the back of the truck home after helping these people all day they would wave and cheer as we drove away.”

“But the bottom line is, I’ve gone on a trip like the Mexico mission before and I will go on more in the future because it helps me to be a more grateful person. I feel our society is extremely possession oriented which inevitably makes us less thankful for what we have. The people that I had the opportunity to help were remarkably happy even though they had very little. I was constantly reminded that, no matter what happens in life, I need to be thankful and content with what I have. It also made me realize how fortunate I am to live in Canada and to have a great new job, and for all the people I get to interact with in Saskatoon and beyond. In the end, I think the people of Mazatlan gave much more to me than I gave to them.”

Here’s to you Derek Robinson!

The facts
Full name: Saskatoon (city), Saskatchewan (province). Pronounced Sask-acha-wan.
Located here on the map
Population: Around 220,000
Famous people: Gordie Howe, Joni Mitchell, Gene Simmons’ life partners’ parents
Average housing price: ~$250,000
Claim to fame: Berries, bridges, and a Guess Who song

The ‘Saskaboom’ boom pow
Economically speaking, our city and province are on the up and up. Read more about the good times here.

The flourishing downtown
For the first 10 years that I lived here, it seemed that nothing ever happened downtown. But within the last 3 years, the downtown has really come alive. From all the new lounges, condo/lofts, warehouse district revival, and small shops opening up, there’s no shortage of things to do downtown. The American Apparel on 21st put the icing on the hipster cake.

The shopping
If you’re going to be a designer in the city, you need the duds to help you represent. These stores can help: Momentum, Durands, Tonic, Clothes Cafe, Frank & Lucy, Vogue, Mint, Manhattan Casuals, Schmatta. Of course, we have your regular shopping centres that carry your run-of-the-mill brands as well.

The nightlife
Whether you like to relax around a few pints or burn up a dance floor to some bangin’ house and electro, we’ve got you covered. Check out these fine establishments: Scratch, Flint, BarkingFish, Freehouse, Baccus, O’Sheas, Winstons Pub.

The district
Every place has their ‘district’. Ours is called Broadway. A long stretch of ped-friendly blocks where you’ll find plenty of coffee shops, independent stores, and local street acts. It’s where you’ll see the local conforming non-comformists and Elvis Costello look-a-likes.

The art
Saskatoon has a well established art and theatre community, enough to satisfy the quirkiest of niches. Check out: Paved, Mendel Art Gallery, Persephone Theatre, Broadway Theatre, Saskatoon Soaps.

The music
For all you audiophiles, Saskatoon has to have one of the highest number of bands per capita. This makes it uber easy to catch a show on any given day of the week. Check these local spots of regular shows: Amigos, Lydias, Louis’, Buds, Odeon.

The food
If there is one thing my friends say about Saskatoon when they visit, it’s usually “You have an above average amount of beautiful women” followed by “What’s with all the restaurants?” Make sure to check out: Calories, Truffles, Cafe Sola, Scratch, Tusq, the 4 AYCE sushi joints, Samurai, Jakes, EE Burritos, Golden Pagoda, Conga Cafe, Taj Mahal, Red Pepper, and Dim Sum on the weekend. And if cooking is your thing, you’ll be happy to hear about the Farmers Market and Souleio.

The outdoors
Granted, there aren’t any nearby mountains, but what we lack in height we make up for in water. There are nearby beaches, a river that runs through the city, lots of bike and hiking trails, and many large lakes within driving distance. So practice your J-stroke.

The festivals
Like most other major centres, Saskatoon is in full festival mode come summer time. Events you’ll enjoy are: The Jazz Festival, Taste of Saskatchewan, Folkfest, Fringe Festival, and Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan. I really do like living here. Throughout my travels, I’ve fantasized about moving to much more exotic places, but there’s something about this damn city that makes it hard for me to justify leaving. Take a look around, and I hope to see you soon.

While we at zu hope that you are all doing your part to make our world a cleaner, more sustainable living environment for the future, we would like to share with you some of our company’s green initiatives for our office space and surrounding community.

Our recently expanded Green Committee has provided the zuCrew with a new green challenge each day this week as a reminder to keep thinking green. Whether it be to remember to recycle coffee cups in our paper and plastics bins in the lunchroom, or to turn off lights that have been left on, the tips are always smart ideas for keeping our energy costs low and our recycling bins high.

One of zu’s company wide initiatives is the EcoBonus. By walking, riding your bike, taking the bus or carpooling, you receive three dollars every day that you don’t drive your car to work. We have had success with this initiative as we have given away almost $1,500 to staff since January 1, 2010. The three dollars a day roughly works out to the cost of a bus pass every month. It keeps the 60 per cent of our staff that take part active and is part of our healthy living philosophy here at zu.

Also, this Friday is women’s days at zu so one of the activities they have planned is a clothing exchange. Each female staff member will bring in five items to exchange from their closet that they no longer need. The left over items will then be donated to Community Living.

We are doing our best to stay earth conscious on this Earth Day and we hope that you are too. Feel free to comment and leave your green tips for us to follow. Until next time, remember that planet earth has sensitive feelings, do your part to keep it healthy and happy.

What would you do if you went to outer space?
AL: I would try bowling or playing ping pong.
AB: I would silently scream as my eyeballs froze and then quickly asphyxiate.
zu: Huh?

What do you want to be when you grow up?
AL: I’ve never been in a band, but there’s still a part of me that wants to be a rockstar. But not the main singer, the mysterious bass guitar player in the background.
AB: Taller.
zu: Nice.

What are you passionate about?
AL: Music. I love playing and listening to music.
AB: Films and the Internet.

What do you do in your spare time?
AL: Play guitar. Mostly blues and rock. I love reading. I just finished ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. And sports, I’m not the best, but I still love playing.
AB: I watch, act in and make videos of all kinds but mostly short films because they’re cheaper to make. But I’ve acted in comedies, dramas, and full length features.

Are you aware that there is a two-handed pro-bowler?
AL: Next time I go bowling, I’ll have to give that a try.
AB: Nope, I didn’t know that. But I’m impressed.

Favourite lunchtime TV show?
AL: Well, the only option we seem to have here at zu is the Price is Right or the Flinstones, I suppose. We watch that the odd time.
AB: The Price is Right.

Favourite book?
AL: Heart of Darkness. Sounds depressing, but it’s an awesome book.
AB: All I read is tech books.

Favourite video game?
AL: Super Smash Bros.
AB: Star Control 2.

What surprised you the most about zu?
AL: How good zu is to its people. They obviously care and are willing to accommodate.
AB: That it’s run by two man-children. Seriously, Ryan and Tony are like two big kids, which is awesome. Oh, and that the receptionists were still nice to me after I got hired.

What’s your favourite thing about zu so far?
AL: The entire atmosphere. It’s so relaxed; it has this feeling of being in a really cool place. I’m always excited to tell people where I work.
AB: The people. It’s such a great collection of extremely talented and creative people all in one place.

zu: It’s been a pleasure. Welcome to zu Andrew and Adam!

What is your full name and what is its meaning?
You’d better copy that from the email I sent! My full name is Alex Nana Kwame Osei-Gyau. If you break it down, Alex is my father’s first name and was given to me. Referred to historically as one’s ‘Christian’ name, it is an English name attached to (or sometimes replacing) one’s Ghanaian name. Nana literally means chief (unisex for both male and female).  At one point it meant one was part of the lineage of chiefs for a particular village, but now is used more to reflect what one hopes their child to be.  So it means ‘one who leads’. Kwame means a male child born on Saturday from the Ashanti group of tribes. Osei-Gyau is my family name.

Throughout your life, which countries have you lived in?
In order: Ghana (where I was born), Nigeria, Kiribati (Gilbert Islands), England, Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Grenada, and Canada. I’ve lived in Canada the longest, 8 years. After that the longest I lived in one country is Kiribati for 6 years. I moved around a lot because my father was a lawyer for the British Commonwealth. So he always had contracts in the various Commonwealth countries.

What will you miss about living in Saskatoon?
Well, a lot of things. But most of all I would say the ‘do it yourself’ attitude of the people. I think that exists because people here come from a past where they couldn’t rely on others to do things for them. I will certainly miss the survival attitude of Saskatchewanians.

What will you miss the most about zu?
Again, a lot of things but to sum it up, the work culture. By that I guess I mean the amazing work hard, play hard culture of zu. Oh, and also the approachability of the bosses. One of the things that has impacted me the most is the approachability of zu’s owners. It is such an incredible asset. You don’t get that everywhere. I’m not sure I will ever find anything like this anywhere else, but I sure hope I do.

I will also miss the themed parties! Even though I sometimes complained about the work and time involved, I always looked forward and enjoyed the group projects. They take a lot of work to prepare and are sometimes stressful, but they are always worth it. For example, we had to do a choreographed dance routine but in the end it was great to perform what we practiced and see what everyone else did.

What’s your most memorable zu moment?
Hmmm, ha. Probably when Albert and a friend of mine threw me a surprise 30^th birthday party last year. Al mistakenly thought it was my 30^th, so all the guests showed up thinking the same. When in fact, it was only my 29^th!

Why are you moving to Ottawa?
Oh, lots of reasons. Part of it is habit; it’s just the way my life has been, always moving to new places. I typically don’t travel a lot. I like to move somewhere new and stay there for a length of time. I’m ready to start something new in a new environment with new challenges. Maybe eventually I’ll settle in one place, but for right now I want to keep experiencing new homes.

What’s one piece of advice you would leave people new to zu?
Relax. Relax and be ready to be passionate about what you do because it’s going to involve working hard. And be open to the people because they will be open to you. If you want rules, order and structure zu is not for you. Things are intuitive and you need to be able to adapt. If you are an independent thinker that doesn’t need constant guidance you will flourish at zu.

Wherever your adventures take you Alex, we are sure you will flourish too! Happy travels and don’t be a stranger.

Devon will be graduating with his Bachelor of Commerce Degree in Marketing next month. But life won’t slow down for him; he will be preparing for his June wedding. The Lloydminster boy keeps busy with shinny, curling, football, fishing, golf, snowmobiling, video gaming and boxing. Phew! And he cheers for the Oilers and the Riders. Nice.

Devon says, “When I envisioned my first post-university job, I did not think I would be downtown with my own corner office. At least that is what I tell my friends. Truth be told, I just stole Jordy’s office while he was on holidays!” Sorry you didn’t get to keep the corner office Devon but we’re happy to have you on board!

24hrAssistant (www.24hrassistant.com) is a zu sister company, offering cost-effective, easy-to-use online appointment scheduling software to its clients.

Levi Bucsis (pronounced bew-sis and often referred to as Levi B or Levi 2) joined zu in late November as a Project Manager and brought with him extensive web design and programming experience as well as a degree in psychology. I’m sure we’ll put that degree into practice around here at some point. Levi hit the ground running, taking on all internal zu project management, the MLT rebuild, and Teck Resources, one of our newest clients, just to name a few.

Levi is a sucker for anything related to health and wellness, travel, culture, languages and music. So where have you been at the last zu yoga classes, Levi? He’s passionate about people and the web. Could we ask for a better fit? Oh ya, and he adds good depth to our street hockey squad. Sweet.

Meet Heather Adams. She’s an avid soccer player, dancer, ponger, and shoe shopper. Or maybe better put, she’s an intensely competetive ping pong player. You’ve never seen a programmer with their tail between their legs like after a game with Adams. And I can vouch, she’s got some pretty sweet shoes in her vast collection. With Heather, anything she does she does full-on and she does it well.

Heather has spent the last three years at Rawlco radio managing their online advertising department as the Client Services Coordinator and comes to zu fully armed with a wealth of Internet knowledge and excellent customer service skills. She is, again, a perfect fit for zu. She is currently in full force working with clients such as Cameco, Elk Ridge and Lexcom.

Mmmm, ice cream floats at the February birthday celebration.

Welcome to zu Heather and Levi! We’ll introduce a few more new faces next week.

In our second installment of videos from December’s 85th Annual Mackenzie Thayer Awards for Entertainment Excellence, we feature a silent film that was originally aired on an episode of ZNL. For those born in the 1800s when silent film was as good as it got, the film will be interpreted an emotional joy ride about life and death. However, to those of us born in the age of blockbusters and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film may be interpreted as a piece of art.

Enjoy the flick, it is brought to you by:

Albert, Devon, Jamie, Jane, Dan, Melissa, Levi B and Ryan.

Oh so debonair.

Now that’s pancake perfection.

The 85th Annual MacKenzie Thayer Awards for Entertainment Excellence

No peeking!

Each week, zuLife will feature a film from the awards presentation as a way of showing off our creative side and poking a bit of fun at our staff.  To begin, we have an out of this world sci-fi thriller that has it all: aliens, skeletons, ghosts, ninjas and screaming ladies.

Here is: Aliens From the Planet 303P

Recipe for office tea party success:

• Ten teas from around the world supplied by a local teashop. We recommend Leopard Snow Buds, Crime of Passion and Lapsang Souchong (although a love of beef jerky or a shot of spirits helps with this one).

• A spread of goodies ranging from cucumber sandwiches, to fancy dainties from a local tearoom, to baking from Saskatoon’s best Asian bakery.

• Themes and hosts for each tearoom. We went with the Asian Tearoom, Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, English Tearoom, Tea Saloon and the Princess Tea Party. Fine china, top hats, colouring books, ponchos and all. Oh, and of course enthusiastic hosts willing to participate.

• Theme music.

• A few good people with a willingness to wear tiaras, speak in fake accents, sample tea and eat.

And voilà! A fabulous tea party. We consider ourselves a bit more cultured after our classy affair. Well, maybe not, but at least we tried. Take a look for yourself.

Terren’s take:

My first thoughts about designing websites, honestly – I was not very interested and thought it would be very boring. But, now that I’ve had the experience to see what happens behind the scenes, it has definitely changed my mind. It was actually not boring at all, besides the timesheet sorting. I got to meet some really nice people who made my stay here for the week enjoyable. From learning more about how to use Photoshop to just reading and learning more on the basics of web design, it was a really great experience for me.

It was awesome.

Thanks!

Thanks for helping us stay young and hip, Terren. It was great to have you. Take care, good luck in the future, go to class, keep gamin’, ‘insert other motivational, responsible advice here’, and stop by for a donut and jam session any time.

Ryan
“The things that I spend the most time thinking about/researching/doing would be spirituality, web development, painting, and exercise/nutrition.  I’m really passionate about spirituality and Eastern philosophy, and if you want to talk about topics like meditation, qigong, pranayama, yoga, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Taoism then give me a shout.”

Jordy
“It was a calm Thursday afternoon in Edmonton when 7lb 5oz Jordy Burrows rushed into the world. The hospital was a mere 7 blocks from the house, but I was almost born in the back of a ’78 Blue Oldsmobile. Since that day my life has never slowed down. Much of my childhood was spent in the hospital. When the ER nurses know you by your first name you should probably be locked in a padded room.”

We’re just glad to see they’re still here after the hazing incident . . .

The zu office will be at a loss without Igor’s ability to shock, humour and consistently test the limits of workplace protocol. But seriously, we will greatly miss Igor’s lightheartedness, laughter, friendliness and head of hair that will soon compete with a horse’s mane.

Fortunately, his art and design influence will not be lost. Igor will continue to be a member of the zuCrew, expanding the remote locations (zu Ottawa, zu Medicine Hat and zu Auckland) to include a zu Brisbane office. He will be able to continue his work from a distance, and his zu friends will make regular use of ‘Igor-isms’ to remind us of him.

Have wonderful adventures Igor and Slav!