All I want for Christmas is a job. I tend to keep myself pretty occupied with other things as the days go by. I keep doing my podcasts, but is anyone else listening besides my family? Of course, I’m going to keep doing them regardless of who is and isn’t listening. Remember, I used to work in college radio where even fifth year students at the university didn’t even know it existed. There’s also a part of me that feels that I should make a vague Clerks reference by saying that I worked at a crappy college radio station.

The jobs are coming. Vancouver wants me. The government just has some paperwork for me to fill out until that happens. I have faith that something will work out in the end. I don’t care where. I’d just like that to happen sooner rather than later. And it’s not that I’m really complaining. This is like a nice vacation. I don’t need round the clock entertainment to keep me going. I’ll take a nice walk around the city and see what I can find. Well, at least when it’s not raining.

The first time I went to Texas, they had the worst snow storm in about thirty years. Snowflakes the size of your fist falling at a blinding rate. For being the Iowans we were, you would think that it would be no big deal. One thing you don’t factor in is that this is Texas. When it snows like this, even the folks who are in charge with keeping the roads clear even have a hell of a time dealing with all the whiteness. Shamrock, Texas. We were on our way to Lubbock, but that’s as far as we could get. Yes, it was winter time, but the southwest shouldn’t get that way.

Now I move to B.C. and all sorts of snow goodness is happening. It snowed in the downtown area today, which is a rarity actually. More so, the ski slopes stayed virtually closed in the immediate area last year because there was little to no snowfall to speak of. For those keeping score, you need snow to go skiing, so the slopes called it off last year. Fast forward to the beginning of November this year and the local mountains are opening the earliest they have in nearly thirty years. By the way, did I mentioned it snowed in the downtown area today?

These things follow me. It’s almost like I’m cursed, but I can’t complain. I do love the snow. I’m actually quite sad that the snow melted off within minutes of showing up on the ground(a very common occurrence during the times that it does snow in Vancouver). This dumb luck that trails me is another story. Be it strange conversations with strange people, mistaken identities, or getting a bellini spilled into my lap at Earl’s over on Robson just last week, these things happen to me. Maybe it’s luck. Maybe it’s fate. I just cannot deny that these things happen, and they happen far too often.

Victoria is more than just what it’s been portrayed to me. It is pretty quaint and simple, but there’s a particular charm that speaks to me. It’s small enough without being too small, and large enough to still be a comfortable city to me. One would think that the sake of being stuck on an island would create some sort of noticeable separation from what you experience on the mainland, but that’s not completely true. The smell of the sea is probably stronger than it is here in Vancouver, and the comfortable arms of the mountains are replaced with that of the Pacific Ocean being just a short distance away.

Basically, this is the hub of the province without a whole lot really going on in the city. For the most part, all the “action” is back on the mainland except for the politicians that meet up here to decide the better good for the rest of the population that comprises B.C. You’d never really realize that if it weren’t for the large building that sits over-looking the harbor with a nice flag on its center dome. For just being the city that it is for just over one hundred years, it still has plenty of promise to it.

You have to keep in mind that great cities and civilizations just don’t spring up overnight. It takes people to gather. The masses build. Then things start to happen over a period of time. I kind of get the feeling that Victoria is on the verge of becoming quite the city in its own right over the next period of years. How long that might be, I’m not sure. If the northeast is taken to be any example, I think Vancouver Island is going to find its way of competing with the getaway culture of the east coast. It already is, but it just feels like it’s not that well known yet. That might be a good thing.

At one point, after being in GM Place last night for about five or ten minutes, my heart was beating pretty hard. I was that excited to see my first game last night. There’s part of me growing up that felt like I should be a Blackhawks, but it never quite took ahold of me. For a time, when I first fell in love with hockey, I was a Rangers fan. It’s a fact I’m ashamed to admit, but I got sucked in. I barely understood what icing meant, yet alone what being offside meant. Fortunately, to many of you reading this, my dedication to them was short lived and lives in a memory now.

It was when I discovered Patrick Roy that things changed. When he left Montreal for the Colorado Avalanche, I was hooked. Maybe it was the allure of a new team in the league that got me, but they became my favorite. And somewhere deep down, they might still be in my heart somewhere, but I have to say that I follow very little about them now, especially after the lockout.

Now I find myself more drawn to the Canucks than ever before. I always had a general respect for the team, but never had much to anchor me to this team. Moving up here changed all of that. The game that I saw last night from section 103 cemented my devotion. It was such an experience that will never be repeated or beaten being the first time that I got to see my first NHL game in the place that I did. I’m still an outsider to this city, but I feel like I’m more apart of Vancouver than I was last week.

There are two things that I enjoy more now than I did prior to now. A good chocolate is enjoyable from time to time. It can’t just be any chocolate though. There’s that cheap chocolate that tastes like crap from the moment you put it in your mouth to more so ten minutes after you ate it. I just can’t say that I universally enjoy chocolate. It’s good. I enjoy it. I have to say that I still like a good oat bar before I’d go for chocolate though.

Then there is beer. Not just any beer will do for a whiskey, vodka, and tequila drinker like me. I have to say that Okanagan Pale Ale is by far a favorite since I have discovered it here. I can’t really pin down what it is. The higher alcohol content or the flavor. It could be both. And quite fortunately, this beverage is readily available at Canucks hockey games, of which I will be attending one tonight. Outside of that, I haven’t found anything else that trips me as much as the pale ale. This is really unusual for me. On top of that, it treats me better the following day than anything else I’ve ever had. However, this might be what most canadians are implying when they are saying that american beer sucks. There’s a large part of me that now has a reason to agree.

My sense of time that it takes to get to any destination in this city, especially by foot, is still way off. Be sure to add extra time to that in case you seem to be carrying a hot beverage. This became apparent to me yesterday when I thought I would wander over to Stanley Park to take some shots of the skyline at sunset. You truly, have not experience Vancouver until you see the city during a good sunset. It’s even better when you have clouds back to the east with the sun being uninterrupted to the west. Plus, I’m just a sucker for sunsets. It’s damn near breathtaking.

My plan was to meet up with Rebecca when she got off work, somewhere in between there and the park. When I started to move away from the waterfront, I got lost in a maze of high rise condos. It wasn’t dire straights, but it was scary in the way that these things surrounded you. When in doubt, head towards the water, but somewhere in there, I had to find Rebecca. It was a bit messy, but we linked up without harm to either of us. There’s really not a lot to fear in terms of your safety in Coal Harbor, unless that chick in the lululemon track suit on the cell phone and her tiny dog like animal on the end of a leash could be considered “dangerous.”

I do not like pigeons.

They are scavengers. Pigeons don’t set out to forage for food. The food is whatever they can find. Quite often, the food isn’t that of what a real bird likes to eat. If there is a morsle of what looks like bread that a human has dropped, they’re all over it. One time I had a family of pigeons nest on the balcony of the apartment I used to have in downtown Iowa City. The nest was impressed. Leaves, twigs, and pieces of garbage they gathered up to make a home only to pop out three more. The nest gave way to piles of bird droppings that coated the entire area that once was there. Then the smell. And then, my roommates didn’t want to touch the mess, so I took charged and cleaned it all up.

I hate pigeons.

Now I’m surrounded by seagulls. They’re much like pigeons, but worse. For the most part, they keep to themselves. This leads me to believe that they are smarter than pigeons, but there could be other explanations. Perhaps their size leads them to be a little slower, thus being more accessible for anyone wanting to cause harm to a slow moving victim. So perhaps it’s a conditioned response to steer clear. However, running by the Lost Lagoon only finds some of them camped out in the middle of the pathway, barely noticing you go by, but that’s easy to do when you are flanked by canadian geese that have a taste for blood if you’re not too careful.

Large cities are like a neuroscience experiment. There are so many parts and pieces that exist for a particular reason and all have a hand in the make up of a major, metropolitan area. This area has this and is made up of these types of people and that’s where this type of thing happens. Over there you have people who do this, live this way, and there are typical and untypical things that happen for reasons no one can explain. Here you have a hub where everything that happens must be coordinated and approved. Here is the work center, and over here is the play center. And there’s the bad part… Don’t go there.

In the places I’ve explored in life, some of these parts of town are clear as day. They start and end with very visible borders and markers. Sometimes it’s an area. Other times, it’s a street or set of city blocks. No matter where you go, you find these things. Borders within borders within borders and so on. The social breakdown of this idea never ceases to amaze me. One portion of Hastings Street has an amusement park, another has one of the highest drug problems in the lower mainland, and another portion has one of the most expensive, upper class neighborhoods in the city with the financial district next door. It’s socially, psychologically nuts.

There are moments where I flat out forget about the changes that occur when you go to a different country. Take my consumption of whiskey for example. Jack Daniels is no longer a domestic product. Up here, this is an imported liqour. My days in Iowa City always found Crown Royal to be more of a treat and a pricey pick for enjoyment. Now all of that is backwards. What was once domestic is an import. What was once a tasty import is locally made in this country. It’s such a great deal, but a painful realization of how silly I can be. No matter how much you try, it’s difficult to shake off that ignorance.

In due time, it will all be more and more apparent. The differences creep up everyday, but the most important thing I keep in mind is that this is simply how it is up here. You can’t go around saying “that’s stupid” or believe that it should be the “american way.” Of course, you can’t help but make a comparison. Everyday I find myself fascinated with something new that I’ve learned.

I made my way around the entire Sea Wall today. I don’t know what came over me, but instead of turning into the park where I normally would, I just kept going. It was a typical, rainy day, but a perfect day to go for it. It’s nearly nine kilometers from where I started and ended my route along the sea water. The easiest thing to remember is that I used to run four miles on average back home. A kilometer is pretty easy.

The simplicity of it all came from everything around me. The water starts out so dark, but the further out into the inlet that you get, the greener the water around you gets. True sea water. You can’t tell if you’re getting wet from the rain or the water bouncing up against the wall. Every half kilometer, there are markers to tell you how far you’ve gone. Each one that goes by just made the whole thing that much easier.

It’s just that last kilometer up a nice gentle slope where I started to regret my decision. The dreaded Pendrell. The homestretch. The street that sets my lungs on fire. It’s a good pain. I just keep telling myself that the whole way to the top.