I’m not usually one to pass along things like this, but this video is pretty neat. At the same time, it pains me that I enjoyed an advertisement for highly, overpriced water in a bottle. Passed on to me from Rebecca, via Laura.
The Future of Rock and Roll
WOXY.com went to a member based operation as of Feb. 6, 2006, leaving their 24k stream open to non-subscribers. This might be old news to some, and with the wedding coming up as fast as it did, I didn’t get a chance to mentioned this. I tuned in today because sometimes I just get tired of listening to podcasts and want some music other than my own library.
WOXY used to be a great terrestial station in the Cincinnati/Dayton area until they were sold to some, big radio company that got the whole broadcast portion of the operation. Everything else WOXY was retained and put online once some investors stepped up to foot the bill. And yes, WOXY used to be 97X. And yes, this is the station Dustin Hoffman’s character quoted in Rain Man over and over.
“97X… BAM!… The future of rock and roll!”
If you dig independent, good music, check them out. Give them your support to help keep this wonderful internet radio station alive.
The Risk of a Bridge
Already this year, five people have died in vehicle accidents on the Pattullo Bridge. This is a fact that is simply staggering to me as one of the first things I recall Rebecca teaching me about this structure was its history of being notorious for car collisions. And just yesterday, another person died in a head-on crash with an oncoming vehicle.
This takes the number of people who have lost their lives from similar accidents on the Pattullo to 15 since 2001. Further up the river, the Port Mann is about to be twinned in order to solve congestion issues with traffic. It’s obvious that people want to get to destinations faster than they can now, but at some point, I would think that you have to weigh the value of life over the value of time.
I mentioned this in a podcast with Rebecca some time ago, and today I released a video podcast that has a brief segment going over the Pattullo. The timing is erie, but perhaps you can see a little of this for yourself.
Forecast for Today: Whatever
I’m learning more and more about the weather here in Vancouver. Yesterday when I went running through the park, I came home soaking wet. The strange thing is that during my route, I could have swore that snow was falling into my mouth on occasion. That’s just something that happens when it’s raining, but this was really cold and kinda solid on my lips. I thought I was imagining it, but it was confirmed when I got home, and even more so by the Volvo pulling onto the street with a healthy coat of snow on top, obviously someone who just came from the higher elevations.
So this morning, there’s more clouds and snow, turns back into rain, then blizzard like conditions for nearly a minute, back to clear and sunny skies, and now there are these snow pellets descending from the sky. All of this in the time span of about eight hours, none of the snow sticking to the ground here in the West End. Too crazy.
Coffee, Cookies, and the NHL Trade Deadline
Three sports channels covering the last minute details of the NHL trade deadline. Some interesting moves so far, and the Canucks added Brown from New Jersey to their defensive line for 4th round draft pick. We woke up this morning to The Fox giving the news about Monteal sending Theodore to Colorado for Aebischer in an all out goalie swap. This is pretty exciting.
Today is a good day to be living in Canada. Rebecca made oatmeal peanut butter cookies last night. That makes today uber good. And now back to the couch to catch more.
Update: Check out Rebecca’s post from today to get the low down of how things ended for the Canucks.
Is It Any Surprise?
Barry Bonds is a juicer. Does this really surprise anyone? The word is coming out with very hard evidence making it very difficult for Bonds to escape this one. Just listen to the guy. He wants to break that home run record. He wants to be the guy on top. He’s greedy enough to push the idea of being too old to play baseball aside to achive that one goal. To have his name in the record books. Hardly does he ever site sticking around this long with the purpose of putting the Giants into the playoffs. For him, that’s just an added bonus.
I’ve never been a fan of Bonds. His days with the Pirates put him up against the Cubs too many times that I developed a healthy disliking of anytime he set foot near the plate. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good player. I respected Bonds during those days for what he could do on the field. I just never liked him.
So what’s next? He has money and fame. Being the way things work in America, the formula is set for a long dispute over the final outcome. History tells us that the odds are in his favor. I’m more concerned over the implications this has for baseball in the future. More so, I hope Barry goes down.
The Olympia Restaurant vs. the COC
Last Saturday, we ate at the Olympia Restaurant on Denman Street. After a long day of hiking, Rebecca tempted me with the thought of some greek food, and I was totally down for that, especially with my empty, fully hiked stomach yelling at me for nourishment.
The food was outstanding, but the restaurant itself has become a bit of a famous landmark due to it’s name. As 2010 approaches, the Canadian Olympic Committee has hit the Olympia with an order to take down their sign as it uses the olympic rings in their logo. They have used the name and logo this way for fifteen years, but with the games coming to Vancouver, the COC has deemed that the Olympia has no right to use the sign they have been all this time.
Check out 998denman.com and see for yourself. Oddly enough, we were searching the web before heading over for dinner only to have Mosi, the guy pictured on the front page, as our server. The place was pretty packed the night we were there. As far as I’m concerned, sign the petition because the meal was pretty freaking spectacular!
Hiking the Park
Maybe Rebecca and I have a warped sense of what a honeymoon should be, but the outdoors are something we both enjoy. Right now, we don’t have a lot of extra cash to spend on a trip to Mexico as we would like to do. We’re going to do our best to enjoy as much of life that we can, and that is exactly what we did this past Saturday.
Nearly five hours of wandering around Stanley Park, and we had a hell of a good time. For those of you not in the know, the park is roughly 15% larger than Central Park in New York. You cannot even compare the two beyond that. Central Park is surrounded by Manhatten and tall buildings. Stanley Park is surrounded by mostly water with mountains for a back drop. It’s unfair to compare the two as they both have their wonderful charms.
The hike, which might not be a hike to some, was something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long while. I’ve become familiar with less than a quarter of the interior of the park, so we took the opportunity to explore, have fun, and check out the scenery. With a variety of trails, it’s easy to get lost or turned around, but you’ll never lose all hope. The worst that will happen is that you get yourself further from where you wanted to end up.
One thing we discovered that was new to both of us, Rebecca having more experience wandering all over the park through her life, was the lookout above Siwash Rock. The sun was high in the sky, 12C, no clouds, and it was just beautiful. Turns out that this lookout is on top of a WWII defense bunker. I’m sure people were looking up at us trying to sort out how we got up there. It was truly an accident that we did. Hit the Siwash Rock Trail, head towards the rock, and check it out some time.
The most fun we had was off the trails. Mushy, rain soaked ground that was covered with fallen trees, leaves, moss, thorny plants, and all sorts of dirty stuff was a good, good time. There are lots of other places Rebecca kept bringing up that we have to check out and do more hiking at. I’m completely up for it and could hike through the mud all day long.
The tide was the furthest out I have ever seen it that day, so we had to hit the English Bay side of the seawall as well to see some of the inukshuks random folks have constructed. I have to add, some of them are truly impressive.
It’s strange to go from murky Beaver Lake to the smell of sea water down by Third Beach. Mud coated shoes to having sand inside them. Truly you are not having fun unless you are getting dirty.
Some Good Shows Coming to Vancouver
I will never claim to be the end all source of music related events in Vancouver, but there are things that are of great interest to me that I think is worth sharing when I see them.
With that being said, Mates of State are coming to town April 21st! Midwest transplants that call the San Francisco area home now, they are pretty amazing to see live. More so, just the sound they are able to reproduce in a live atmosphere is pretty incredible. A purely husband and wife duo, she plays the organ, he’s on drums, and they both sing. A drunken buddy of mine, Ben Schmidt (who has now inflitrated the land of Minnesota), said something to me at one of their shows that sums up seeing Mates of State live quite well. “I hear a whole band, but there are only two people up there! Am I that wasted?!” Long answer short, yes. Check them out at the Plaza Club for an early show.
The Boy Least Likely To is playing with James Blunt on April 2nd at the Orpheum Theatre. This isn’t overly huge news, but I just caught wind of the opening act, not being a James Blunt fan myself. However, I would go to check out The Boy Least Likely To and stick around for the rest. I’ve played them on my podcasts after getting direct permission to do so. That makes them nice people, and I like that.
Also worth mentioning is the Matthew Good solo, acoustic tour. Three dates in Vancouver, but he’s also doing a set in Nanaimo. Would be very cool to catch a ferry for an overnight to check out the show, but I don’t think we’ll have the time. Rebecca’s a longtime fan of his stuff, so I’m thinking we’ll be checking out one of the Vancouver dates.
Beth Orton would be a good time as well on March 29th. She’s playing the Commodore Ballroom where I went to my first show in Vancouver, a Matthew Good show at that. I’ve always liked Orton’s music. She has a pretty amazing voice and unique writting style. This would be an excellent venue to check her out.
I’ll do more posts like this as shows come to my attention.
Wish You Were Still Here
Looking through some of the pics from the last week or so, we have a lot of great memories. Mom and Dad kept up with the pace of the city, but they were pretty worn out by the time they got back to Iowa. It was hard for both of us to see them go.
Miss you, Mom and Dad. Hope to get back and see the rest of my family again very soon. More so, hope to see as many of you folks from back home up here soon. And I mean before 2010!