Category: Vancouver

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Weekend craziness begins tonight

We’ve jammed a lot into this summer, and this week has been no exception. I accompanied Rebecca to another MetroBlogging Vancouver meetup this past Tuesday night, but there was no recording taking place at this one. It was just a small group and a good time had by all. And if you were there and didn’t have fun, I know that we did.

On Wednesday, Preston threw a dinner party at some Chinese place that I don’t know the name of or how to get there, really. He picked up the tab to celebrate the ending of his bankruptcy. One should note that CDs and DVDs don’t sell well on eBay anymore. He’s off to bigger and better things now.

SO much seafood. I think I dreamed about it because it was that good and seemed like they were never going to stop bringing out more courses. Literally, at one point, the host tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Good luck!”

I’ve had a variety of projects going on lately. I’ll drop a hint about a new podcast project that I’m working on, but that’s about it for now. More as those details get sorted out. I’m also the new guy in charge of membership for the Association of Music Podcasters(AMP). Learning the ropes there has been interesting. All of this has put a kink into getting a podcast out in time, not to mention more network problems with Shaw(I shake my fist at you!).

Tonight, BarCampVancouver kicks off. Rebecca and I are both going, but we’ll only be there for a little while tonight. We’ll return on Saturday morning for the presentations and discussions. I hope to get some ideas, meet some cool people, share opinions, and see what other trouble I can get myself into. I’m not completely sure what to expect, but I’m taking what I’m doing with the blog and podcast to see what’s up.

Matthew Good has invited a few, select people to come over to his apartment tonight for a completely unplugged, stripped down performance. This will be, according to him, his last night in Vancouver. He’s packing up and heading out to wander the world like Kane in Kung Fu.

Rebecca, on her string of good luck, emailed to be there. Not only did she get in, but she is live blogging the event. I’m going as a plus one and really have no clue what to expect. I feel like I’ll be witnessing a major moment in music history, and let’s hope the folks at BarCampVancouver are cool with us missing out on their cool thing to go do this other incredible opportunity.

Ideally, what I would love to do, is just have my minidisc recording in some corner of the room. I could care less about quality and the fact that it would be done in mono. It would be an incredible thing to record, if not podcast. We’ll just have to see what Matt is comfortable with.

Outside of all of this, I’m focusing on Sunday. Oh yes… Beach? I’ve got my eye on you. And maybe some sleep, too.

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The PNE is the place to get your corn dog fix

Photo Credit: Rebecca(miss604) [flickr]And you know that I got mine. It was warm, greesy, breaded, pork on a stick goodness. Sadly, it was no footlong corn dog like I was hoping and praying for. I kept my eye out for a stand, but they only carried the “regular” sized ones. They were probably jumbos, and I wasn’t complaining once I started devouring this artery clogging product. A real symbol of summertime, let me tell you.

Oh yeah, and there’s an entire fair that goes on at the Pacific National Exhibtion(PNE). We ventured out there with some of Rebecca’s family to ride some rides, see the sights, and toss money at overly priced stuff. This was my first time ever experiencing this event, and I have to say that I had a really good time, even if local folks, like The Vancouverite(which has expanded to a podcast), say otherwise .

The “fair rides” are a meshing of makes up Playland, plus some additions for the PNE festivities itself. A buzz killer to the excitement of running from ride to ride and giving your senses a good whiplash was that some of them cost some extra cash on top of the $30 stamp that was supposed to get your onto all rides. I’m tending to think that they do this on the really popular attractions or for those that require a little extra time and effort to run, but it sucks. I just wanted to ride the Hellavator. Geez.

I grew up just blocks from the county fair grounds in my home town, so there was a lot here that reminded me of home. I’ve never been to the Iowa State Fair, but I would imagine it to be incredibly similar to the PNE. Well, there’s probably a lot more “country flare” that you won’t see at the PNE, but it’s the basic idea that I’m getting at.

I saw dogs do some cool things, watched some ducks race, saw some pigs race, caught a cow getting milked, was cut off from getting my pulled pork sandwich fix by a parade with painful music being blasted into my ears, got a free Gillette Fusion, got a token fair lemonade, and got a candy apple that I just remembered is still in the fridge and will be eaten shortly.

I liked it. It’s a good time that only comes around once a year. Crowds, on the other hand, is something I still dislike. I was a little tired going into our adventure, and they got to me just a little bit, not to mention waiting in lines for rides. We actually got lucky and didn’t do a whole lot of that, but as the day progressed, I lost steam in my legs a little bit. That was mainly do to the fact that I wore flip-flops. When you get on something that flips you upside down and all around, you really have to work hard to keep those suckers on your feet.

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Minor league baseball in Vancouver

I had my first experience of catching a baseball game in Canada over the weekend. That was this past Friday, and we promptly caught a second one the next night. We got hooked up with some free, Vancouver Canadians box seats for Friday’s game, and we had such a good time that Rebecca scored us some more tickets for Saturday night’s game.

It was for the best that for our second trip out to Nat Bailey Stadium[wiki] was under the lights. Friday’s game was a 1:00 PM start time, and Rebecca is still treating a sunburn. I did ok, but one of my arms has a much worse famer tan than the other now. We’ll never head out to another day game without bringing the sunscreen with us.

I know that there is a matter of respect that must be payed when it comes to cheering for the local team, but I could not do it. You have to understand, the Boise Hawks are a branch of the Chicago Cubs farm system. Vancouverites, I apologize to you and this great city. My heart has forever been with the Cubs, and it will take a hell of a lot to get me to stop bleeding Cubbie blue.

Nat Bailey is a great, little ballpark with overpriced everything that you would come to expect with catching a professional baseball game. Beer was almost $7 for the good stuff, $6 for the suds and water. Hotdogs are four bucks a pop, but, like I said, it’s to be expected.

The seats are very hard to argue with. Hardly a bad seat in the place. Check out their website for more details on pricing, but it is very much a family friendly venue.

Just remember to tip the waitress in the event that you sit in a section with such a luxury. That thought didn’t really cross our minds until after paying the chick for our first round of Granville Island Pale Ale. After the second time, she ignored us while returning about five more times to the group of folks in the row directly behind us. Call it a lesson in etiquette, and I have a few choice names that I’d like to call that waitress.

Saturday’s game was particularly interesting. It was “Mexico Night”. I can’t recall how many times I heard the “Mexican Hat Dance” played, be it over the PA or by the classy-looking mariachi band that was wandering about the stadium before and during the game. They were also giving away a trip for two to Mexico that we didn’t win. That’s about as Mexican as it got.

We still had a lot of fun. It made me excited to see the Cubs logo on the sleeves of the Boise players. The chances of those guys getting up to Wrigley Field[wiki] are against them, but with the horrible year the Cubs have been enduring, I’m sure some of them might get scouted for a solution to the problem.

And of course, during each singing of Take Me Out to the Ball Game[wiki], I sang, “Let’s root, root, root for the Cubbies…” I then received an elbow in my side from Rebecca.

Check out the pics from the games on Flickr.

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Why so many power outages?

Maybe I’m not used to living in a large community like the one that makes up Vancouver and the surrounding areas, but it seems like there are a lot of power outages that occur.

MAPLE RIDGE/CKNW(AM980) – A fire at a Hydro sub-station in maple ridge has knocked out power to more than 16-thousand customers, and it’s also causing traffic delays on Dewdney Trunk Road.

Ridge-Meadows RCMP are warning drivers about a lane closure west of 216th as crews try to douse the fire.

The power’s been out since shortly after seven this morning and it’s not expected to be restored before 9am.

The affected area covers 246th street west to the Pitt River and the Fraser River North to 144th Avenue.  [cknw]

Of course, this stands to make sense, but there is hardly a month that goes by where I don’t catch news about some area being without power during the morning news.  Trust me, I’ve been the victim of being caught in the dark because a rodent met its demise at a sub-station.  I understand that these things just happen, but is the power grid to blame or are there just that many accidents that disrupt the flow of electricity around the lower mainland?

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Cranberry slurpees are divine

I’ve been able to replace my summertime craving for ice cream with slurpees. Truth is, I can really go for ice cream at anytime of year. Even back home, when it is -15F in the dead of winter, there’s nothing better than grabbing some ice cream. A blizzard during a blizzard? Done that many times, but back to slurpees…

Just the other day, a new flavor popped up on one of the machines we frequent. Cranberry. Most of the time, colors are the flavor. And until that wonderful day last week, orange was my favorite, closely followed by blue. However, cranberry has knocked both of them from the top and earned the honor of being called by its true name.

A flavor this good cannot be called by it’s color. I’m sorry. I just can’t get myself to do it.

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Getting chased down by minivans

I let myself fall out of routine this week.  Rebecca is going to work an hour early all this week, the plus side being that she gets off an hour sooner as well.  That makes for a slight change in how everything works in your day, so I made it a point to get a little more sleep and take a super long run this morning.  There’s just something about it that makes your internal sense of well being come back around.

The last block of every run, I burst into a dead of a sprint that my body has energy left for.  It’s at this point that your body has expelled the stored fuel that you get from eating meals from the past 24 hours.  Just as much as you are digging deep to breathe and keep your legs moving, your body is doing the same with your fat reserves.  Pleasent thought, I know, but it’s something that tends to run through my head everytime I hit this point.  That, “my god, don’t fail me now.”

Today, there was a brown minivan that suddenly appeared in my peripherial vision.  It pulled ahead, slowed up, pulled ahead again, and waved.  I noticed her somewhere in the middle there.  I knew that this person wanted directions.  The nice thing would be to stop and help, so I did.

“Do you know…  can you tell me…  the intersection of Pender and…  um, Davie?”

Her english had a hispanic accent to it.  I was fighting to maintain my breath and not spit as I spoke.  Getting beyond that thought, I knew this woman had no clue where she was going or looking for.

I’ve lived her long enough to understand that the streets she was looking for don’t intersec at all.  From the downtown core to Stanley Park, the area sits on a bit of a penninsula.  The streets she was looking for run parallel to each other, on opposite sides of said penninsula.  When I asked if she meant Pendrell, she said that must be it.  Struggling to breathe through my words, I directed her to where she needed to go.

As she started driving backwards down the street, I continued in the same direction that she stopped me in.  At that point, I realized that she is going to be looking for Davie and Pendrell.  Those streets run parallel to each other as well, but only a block apart from each other.  That’s when I heard horns honking at the brown minivan for going backwards on a two way street.  She was lost, and quite possibly insane.

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Maverick!!!

Snowbirds buzzing the towerHoly crap.  The Snowbirds[wiki] just buzzed my apartment building.

I heard something loud, and a lot like a jet.  When the sound seemed like it was increasing to no end, I jumped to the window in time to see not one, but a formation of eight planes streaking across the sky.

They came back for another pass, starting out by coming over Stanley Park, into Coal Harbor, circling around the downtown core, and heading back towards English Bay.  Then they peaked back into the West End for a moment before heading back out into Kits.

This is the best I could do for grabbing a good photo of it since Rebecca has my camera for the night.  She is heading to Seattle to catch Real Madrid take on D.C. United and took the minidisc in hopes of capturing some good audio for the podcast as well.   I’d go, but crossing the border right now wouldn’t help my immigration status very much.

Not bad for a cellphone and a bit of editing, and I heard people swearing from somewhere when the jets passed over.  This is after we had a chopper circling the Empire Landmark[wiki] with a camera bubble stuck on its nose last week.  That was a good hour or so of annoyance, but it doesn’t happen very often.

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Beyond Robson is using some of my photos

My photo on Beyond RobsonWell, ok, as far as I know, it’s just one. Beyond Robson was looking for submissions for rotating header photos to run on their site, so I submitted a few shots.

As far as I know, they’re only using the shot of Sapperton Station[wiki] that I took some months ago. I have a bunch more from months back that I should upload to my Flickr. It’s just a matter of making the effort.

Still, it’s pretty sweet to have my something of mine featured on BR. Mark that as a first. Well, at least that I know of. Afterall, I did give my permission.

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The pains of not having the right papers

I had a job interview today. This is the most recent one since coming to Vancouver, and it continues the list of jobs that I can’t have because of my immigration status. It’s a topic that I plan on getting into more once the process gets closer to completion, but I don’t want to start on it yet. No doubt about it though. It’s a crazy one, and as an American coming to Canada, it’s not a simple thing to do. Patience is a virture, if not a must.

The interview today went well, but there is very little chance that I’ll get it. I don’t want to get into the specifics of who it was with, but it’s something right up my ally, on par with what I used to do back in the states. They want somebody in the next few weeks, and my status is set to come through any day now. That could mean this afternoon or in two months. That doesn’t help me too much.

It’s a pain. Maybe heartbreak is the better way to say it. Every job that I have applied for in Vancouver, since moving here, has given me an interview. Some of them have been radio stations, and some have gone as far as checking my references from previous employers. That says a lot. They want to hire me, but it’s that lack of go ahead from Immigration Canada that stops everything. I’ve had a company go as far as saying I was hired only to have the same problem. Seriously, if you know some one who can kick the process in the pants for me, I’d be forever in your debt.

The folks I met today were really great, and I wouldn’t put it past a few of them to fire up the Google and find the blog here. If so, hey guys, great time meeting you today and checking out the setup. Very, very cool stuff. Would love to be apart of the fun.

That’s probably the hardest thing, too. I like to take whatever I do and make it fun, including anything that involves “work”. Pride in your work. Enjoying what you do. I’m itching to start doing something in this city because there are times where I feel everything passing me by. Rebecca sees it, and I know my time is coming. All in due time, right? Trust me, I’m not whining or complaining. I’m just ready.

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Proper pet etiquette in Vancouver

Aside from pigeons and seagulls, which are mutated forms of rats with wings, I’m generally an animal person. I’d almost lump crows into the disliked category, but I have this hope that one day they will rise up against the already mentioned varmits and destroy their empire. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that I’d like to see this happen in a West Side Story[imdb] battle to end all battles, but I digress.

When I see some one walking down the street with a dog that’s about the size of me, I have an overwhelming, child-inside-me urge to run up and pet it. This is after I have the thought that the person who owns this beast is probably living in an apartment that is in the 600 square foot range, give or take a hundred or two. Animals of this size need room to roam. That why they have four legs, right?

chiuaua = three pointsI don’t get as excited by little lap dogs. Rebecca and I like to call them “puntables”. Rude, I know, but if you are not watching where you are going while walking along a busy, downtown sidewalk, you can give one of those things the boot.

The struggle I have is the correct and incorrect thing to do when it comes to interacting with these creatures. They’re not mine, and for the most part, I try not to try. There are some owners who are visibly ok with anyone coming into contact with their pet. Others give you a scowl. I’m sure that old lady walking her chiuaua couldn’t kick my ass as much as I could send her little doggy through the uprights from fifty yards out. Of course, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.