Category: Canada

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Jiminy Jillikers, Radioactive Man

No stone is left unturned in the War on Terror[wiki].

An 83-year-old Surrey man who had been injected with a radioactive dye as part of his medical treatment set off a nuclear alarm at the Peace Arch crossing south of Vancouver last week.

Stanley Smith had undergone an injection of a radioactive dye into his heart as part of a diagnostic scan.

He was on his way to the Ferndale Casino in Washington state when the alarm sounded.

Mike Milne, who speaks for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, says guards took the senior to the secondary inspection area, where he was interrogated for half an hour before being allowed to proceed.  [cbc]

My mother has to carry a card with her whenever she travels commercially because of a knee replacement she had a few years ago.  That way the TSA knows that there is metal in her knee and not a concealed weapon.  This a far cry from detectors picking up nuclear material at the border, but maybe they should issue cards for radioactive, elderly folks as well.

Maybe it helps him see what the dealer is holding at the blackjack table.

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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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Eat at Rolly’s

Rolly's in Hope, B.C.I was going through my photo library on my laptop and came across pictures from the weekend getaway that Rebecca and I took to the Okanagan a few months ago. Perhaps one of these days I will get around to posting some of those to my Flickr. When you take a boy who has lived in the rolling prairies of the midwest all his life into the mountains, he tends to get a little camera happy.

Let me just say, landslides are impressive. I fear them now.

We stopped in Hope, B.C. for some breakfast on our way out, obviously at Rolly’s. Personally, this will be one of the most memorable parts of our trip because not only is the food good, but that little grease stop is too cool. Never before in my life have I ever felt more like Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fiction[imdb]. The locals kept looking at Rebecca and I like we were going to rob the place ourselves. That doesn’t imply that they were unfriendly. We just weren’t apart of the local crowd, and it might be fair to say that this fact was on the obvious side.

Still, I will make my demands that anytime we pass through Hope and are looking for a meal, we’re stopping at Rolly’s.

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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.

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Oh boy, I can’t wait to go to camp

Via Kris Krug[post], I’ve signed myself up for BarCampVancouver.

Who?
Tech creatives: Local technologists, geeks, innovators, enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, tech writers, tech managers, bloggers, podcasters, video bloggers and hangers-on. We can only accept ninety people, so register early.

What?
A 24-hour ad-hoc, all-play unconference where everyone who attends participates by presenting or helping out.

Where?
Bryght Offices, 1 Alexander St. (suite TBD); Gastown, Vancouver: Map

When?
Friday, August 25, 6:00pm to Saturday, August 26, 6:00pm

Why?
Because it’ll be a fun party and totally informative, all at the same time. Here’s the full rundown: https://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouver

[barcamp]

I think this takes me into a whole, new classification of geek, but that might not be the most horrible thing. There are a lot of really interesting people in the Vancouver that are going to be at this event. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to contribute, but once you get me talking about podcasting, it can get difficult to make me stop. Just ask Rebecca, who will be in attendance as well.

I’ll have to think about doing something with making a recording while I’m there. maybe even a few. With hope, Ubercaster will improve to make it more efficient to do it on the spot. That would be sweet, but more on that program another time.