Yesterday, I saw Avenue Q. I have thoughts on the play.
I enjoyed it, but I think it was overrated.
Now, bear in mind that I am not the best with musicals. If the music isn’t recognizable, or doesn’t move along the plot, or isn’t funny, then I feel like a commercial break has been inserted into my theatre experience. In Avenue Q, there was only one song, The Internet is for Porn, that I could hum the tune to. Every other song was fairly forgettable to me. They did drive the plot a bit, and they were amusing, but they weren’t great songs for my taste.
I think the show was too dependant on the spectacle of puppets. I will grant you, the puppet on puppet action was funny. But the plot was not filled with any surprises. It was predictable. If there hadn’t been puppets playing most of the characters, it wouldn’t be the success it is. It would practically be an after-school special. An after-school special on an edgy channel, but still just an after-school special.
I would give it 6/10.

I have a private goal in my running. It is to run more in a week than I do with all other transportation combined. That was a lot harder to do in Edmonton, mostly because I’ve always worked at a distance from home such that driving was required. But now in Vancouver, I can, and do, walk to work. For all I know I had accomplished my goal already, but two weeks ago I definitely did it.
Let’s be honest, in the month of November, I’ve only driven my car once, on November 15th to go grocery shopping. A Tuesday. But I can’t count the first two weeks for technical reasons; In the first week I was in a plane that flew to Edmonton. In the second week, I was also in a plane, but this one flew to Vancouver. Airplanes counts as transportation. If I was more rules lawyering, I could argue about when the week starts and end. But in my head, it is Sunday to Saturday, so that’s what we will go with.
So I’ve got the week of November 13th to the 19th, because I ran far enough, on both the Sunday before and after, to blow away the distance I drove. Although I will only count the first.
And now I have the 20th to the 26th as well, because I didn’t drive at all that week, but I still ran.
Can I do it this coming week? That is where things get sticky.
I do not foresee any reason to drive this week. The biggest reason to drive is to get out of downtown and go where the groceries are cheaper. But when you factor in the time and gas, am I really saving that much money? Sure, a car will let me carry a lot of groceries. But it is hard to argue with the grocery store in the same building you live! (Technically I suppose it isn’t in the same building, but it is part of the same foundation as the building complex.) The price isn’t THAT much more. And the Costco in downtown is within walking distance, especially since I got the two wheeled cart that lets me carry a lot.
But that is all competing against the fact that my left knee has been hurting more and more. Once I get going in a run, it isn’t too bad. But any initial use hurts. On Wednesday I did a very fast 10km. I had to do it fast or I would have been left behind in the dark without a headlamp. The hurt is now more noticeable.
I actually think I injured it in my last run in Edmonton before I left for Vancouver, two and a half months ago. I had to twist out of the way of a caterpillar hanging in front of me. It was just a little bit, but my knee felt it. Then all the moving aggravated it. I really haven’t given it a chance to heal. Now I should.
I tried to go to work today to use the exercycle at the gym, but apparently I hadn’t filled out the waiver so I couldn’t. I did walk, in the pouring rain, to a restaurant to see a friend.
I’m tempted to go for a short run still, just so that I can have my record that shows me running a bit. And as long as I don’t drive, I’m still winning.

Last weekend I had a whirlwind trip to Edmonton. The official reason was to clean up my condo so that it can be rented out. I am thankful that my mother and sister came up from Calgary to help. We even had a professional maid service come in and we rented a steam rug cleaner. We attacked that place.
The biggest surprise was the refrigerator. When I had left, I had turned the temperature down as much as possible and closed it. I figured it would have enough cool to keep from smelling. I was wrong. I don’t think it did any cooling whatsoever. Upon being opened we were hit with a pungent wave of vinegar. There was fuzzy stuff growing all over.
My sister tackled that and got it cleaned up. We have now learned to unplug it (actually just turn off the fuse) and leave it slightly open.
Now the place is looking clean enough to rent out. I still have to figure out a rental management company. I’m thinking trying to rent it personally from a different province will not be possible, even if I have locals to help me.
The unofficial reason to go back was to see friends. So I attended a Friday Feast. There was a board games party. I joined my previous run club for a Sunday morning constitutional. I saw a movie (Doctor Strange) with another friend. And I saw my family a lot.
It was a pleasant trip, but I am still recovering from it. I need this long weekend.

I wonder about my motivation. When I am here with someone, I don’t seem to accomplish as much. It is more vacation-y. When left to my own devices, I seem to do more. My sampling for this theory is low, so I probably have made some errors using the scientific method
Catalina is gone now. She left this morning and just landed back in Houston. So I am without adult supervision. I used the opportunity to take a nap. After lunch I joined some friends and went snorkeling (because I have learned nothing about taking care of my ear.)
Our guide for this was Chris. He can be best described as the pool boy here, although his shirt claims he is a lifeguard. For Catalina’s purposes, he is her supplier of fresh coconuts. But since someone stole the resort’s ladder, he is getting easy ones that are too young. He is also sketchy looking and acts creepy. He hits on all the women. I think he is under the impression we are swingers. (We are not.) His eyes are perpetually bloodshot and he is rather gaunt. You can make your own conclusions.
Chris swam us out, but he stayed over the shallow part of the water, all filled with identical seaweed that I did not want to touch. Pretty boring overall. Greg then suggested going to the deeper part. We went off and it was much nicer. At the very least, there was no fear of menacing seaweed. Unfortunately Chris had almost literally latched himself to the only girl in this excursion. He was always dragging her around on the swim. And while we were going deeper, he took her towards a bay where there was a little in-water cave/cove. He started talking about how couples come here to have sex. She was very happy when Greg and I showed up to see how they were. We then headed back out to deeper water, saw a lion fish and then headed back.
I took another nap, checked in to my flight, had a hamburger, and then went on a jerk quest. (Not an expedition to find someone annoying.) Catalina and myself enjoy a jerk sauce made by The Real Canadian Superstore. So we were looking forward to trying some of the authentic spicy stuff. But, we are in a resort. So they have made tourist-grade jerk sauce. It is not spicy. So I talked to the chef, and she recommended a particular brand of jerk. So I left the resort, walked down the street to a chaotic grocery store and got some.
Now I shall get ready to join the remaining friends here for dinner.
2016-10-22 19:33

On Tuesday, our group loaded on to a bus and drove 40 minutes towards Ochos Rio. There we boarded a catamaran. It was a booze cruise with some snorkeling. Unfortunately it rained almost the entire time. But still, I got to float in the water. But after awhile, all the coral and plants look the same. On one of the attempts to dive deeper, I think I did something to my ear. My right inner-ear has been aching ever since. On the way back to the bus, the weather improved and it was quite lovely. By the end, there was a steady level of exhaustion for the rest of the day.
We did another excursion on Thursday to the Glistening Bay. It is a nearly unique location where the water, when agitated, glows. It sounds better than it actually is. The water does glow, but it is very subtle. It is only visible at night. Which is a good thing; if you saw it in the day you wouldn’t go into the water because it is so muddy. I am still glad we went; it was an experience. It looked more interesting to look at the wake of the boat.
No picture I took showed up very well. The paparazzi on board took some slightly better pictures, but they wanted $15 minimum for even a single one of them. They were not willing to negotiate on that either.
On another day, Catalina and I took a kayak out with the express purpose of getting off of it to swim. It was nice to float in deeper water without risk of seaweed. The resort is surrounded by a lot of shallow water filled with it, which is not enjoyable to swim in. It was going well, but at one point a resort staff person paddled out to try to rescue us. Somewhat embarrassing.
2016-10-22 19:00

We have decided to front load this vacation. In previous vacations, I would save activities for later and then run out of time to do them. Here we are doing many activities early.
Yesterday we went kayaking in the morning, although it was a bit windy for that.
In the afternoon we took a bicycle ride to a nearby beach and walked along that. The resort has daily bicycle tours, so we are getting those out of the way now.
This morning, we took another bicycle ride to a nearby limestone cave. We did a tour of it. It has a long history of hiding slaves and Spanish government. It was recently used as a nightclub until 1994. We saw snakes and bats.
Afterwards we went across the street for jerk chicken. The resort makes its jerk chicken for gringos, so it is not very good. No spice. The native ones are much more flavorful.
Unfortunately while I was in line to get the chicken, Catalina got hit by a cricket ball in the leg. We hunk a blood vessel burst so we are applying ice. Otherwise she is fine.
I need to catch up on sleep a bit, but otherwise we are having a great time.
2016-10-16 13:29

It is apparently inclement in Vancouver this weekend. Last night a storm moved through town; I slept through it and am not even sure it was real. I was inside the rest of the day and didn’t notice significant rain. The second storm should be more active and will happen overnight. That is more of a concern because my flight leaves in half an hour. The rest of the week looks like nothing but rain.
But as I remarked, I won’t be here to see it.
Off to Jamaica. Well, Toronto first. I plan to sleep as much as possible on this leg. Because I won’t sleep much when I’m in the Caribbean.
The airport was fairly easy to get to. There was a train two blocks from home that took us right here. Got through everything quickly and now we are just waiting to board. So far, I would recommend traveling from Vancouver.

I stopped going to the Running Room in Edmonton because I did not like their running club. It used to be good, but wasn’t anymore. On Wednesday evenings they were always doing hill training, and I just wanted to go for a run. On Sundays, they always had the same route and I was getting sick of it. So I joined United Cycle and had a much better time there.
However, there is no United Cycle in Vancouver. So I have to go back to the Running Room and progress from there. I was hoping it would be different, but it isn’t turning out that way. The Running Room near Stanley Park did not have a organized run today. Instead, they had people doing speed work, which involves doing a loop several times, quickly. That is not what I am looking for when I want to go out for an enjoyable run.
So I ran by myself, getting somewhat lost in Stanley Park. It was nice enough and I had a good time. But I worry that I am hurting myself. I should get off my high horse and run with other people, even if I don’t like the run itself. Otherwise, how am I going to meet new people and make friends?

I live almost exactly between two Running Room locations, so this evening I went to the other one. This one was located next to Stanley Park, so I figured there would be a good chance for trail runs. With that in mind I wore my Vibrams, which meant no cushioning.
Since I’m still avoiding driving, I ran the 2km there. Once there I discovered that the run would be along the Seawall in Stanley park. Actually, completely around the park. This is also known as a pavement heavy route. My shoe selection was not optimal.
But, it was still a pleasant run. I interrogated the other runners and learned about my options for trail running in the future. It was right beside the sea so there was interesting things to see. There were seals floating around like they were in a food coma. A large transport ship heading out to sea. A gorgeous sunset into the ocean.
I also discovered that I work for the same company as another of the runners.
On the run back, in the middle of a busy residential area, right next to downtown, I had to avoid a skunk that looked like it owned the street. In fairness, as far as everyone else was concerned, he did.

I went out to lunch with a friend today at work. Since she knew the area, she picked the place. The only caveat that we had agreed on was that it would be someplace healthy.
I was taken to Living Produce Aisle. My first though on entering was that this was a place for farm animals to have lunch. They had flats of grass all over the place. Although it was probably actually something else that was healthy, it still looked like they were doing a grow-op of grass.
Their website claims they “want to revitalize Yaletown”, but I am afraid that ship has sailed. Yaletown is already very affluent. Check you real estate prices if you are unsure. They are also working with the “Zero Mile Diet™” which has a trademark. That just sounds like they are trying to one-up someone else in the buzzword competition.
I have found where yuppies go to act like hippies.
All that said, the smoothie I got there tasted good. And it was low in sugar.
But after lunch I was still hungry enough that I had to go find some more stuff to eat.

On Friday I got a phone number local to Vancouver. This meant I had to give up my previous phone number that I had had for 21 years.
Today, I was told by some friends that I didn’t need to do that. A friend of a friend had moved from Edmonton to Vancouver and kept her number. Well, I really liked my old number, so I never wanted to give it up. I was upset that the cell phone person I was dealing with had never even mentioned this as an option.
I went back to the cell phone dealership. Everything is conveniently within walking distance, so it wasn’t hard. There I found out that my old phone number has already been claimed.
Yesterday I was fine with losing my cell phone number. It was something out of my control, and it made a sort of sense. Now I am angry that I didn’t need to. And yet nothing has changed. There is nothing I can do anymore about it, so I should move on.
But I am also suspecting I would have had to change it anyway. In a way, it is just a number, so I wouldn’t think that any number had to be tied to a particular location anymore. But there is such a thing as being able to tell the location of a number by looking at the first few digits.

I have now completed my first day of work at my new job. There was a lot of orientation in the morning. This place has a lot of benefits. Among them, food is heavily subsidized. The orientation people mentioned that people gain weight when they join the company. I can see that.
I got invited out to lunch to a Japanese restaurant. It seems that it is very common for people to go out for lunch here. (See that earlier remark about subsidized food.) The problem is that sit-down lunches are very long. I am not a fan of long lunches. And sit-down lunches invariably have too much calories that make me want to take an afternoon nap.
Coca-cola is subsidized too.
The afternoon had me filling out forms and attending meetings.
Hopefully I will be a productive member of society too.

Tomorrow I start my new job. It has been a whirlwind of activity to get to this point.
The apartment is starting to come together. The living room is almost looking livable. There are still a few boxes that need unpacking, and my clothes need to be sorted through and homes found for them. This place is small though. We have been managing, but we have to be watchful of everything we bring in.
We have found that the part of the city we are in is very walkable. And we are hip-deep in restaurants around here. They are more expensive than what I am used to, but we are downtown, so what was I expecting. We can also find numerous stores that we don’t need a car to get to. So we can make a run to Costco on foot, which nicely prevents us from buying too much. It is right next to a T&T superstore. Movie theatres are around here. We haven’t explored regular grocery stores that much; we’ve ended up driving a fair distance to a Superstore for some staples.
Generally, if there is something I need though, it is within walking distance.
I did a run with the Running Room this morning. Since I’ve made it a goal to avoid driving as much as possible, I ran 2km there. This was followed by a 24km run. Since the move has prevented me from doing any real training, I am not used to that kind of distance. My legs hurt now.

We got up early. Our Airbnb host said they would be up at 7, which meant we would be able to have half an hour for breakfast. But I guess she was partying too late last night, because we left at 7:30 and no one else in the house was awake. We got a breakfast at a Tim Hortons in Kamloops instead.
The rest of the trip went okay until the last kilometer. I had no trouble driving a big truck through downtown Vancouver. But the truck didn’t fit into the entrance to the building I was trying to take. I discovered this when I started banging on low hanging signs designed for this express purpose. And with the car attached behind, I could not reverse.
Thankfully, my new security guy came out and helped me. I “quickly” detached the car (it felt really slow with all that was going on) and parked in a very convenient spot. With that off, I could reverse better, with the spotter watching for traffic. Then around to the back alley I should have gone in, and had a better time backing up there.
The movers were thankfully late, so everything was handled in time for when they arrived.
This place is small. I knew that going in, but it is different actually looking at it in the face. The big furniture was mostly done correctly, but we should have made starker choices purging in the kitchen. There is not as much space for things there either.
But we returned the truck, had sushi for dinner, then got home and laundered the bed sheets (after we found them) and slept.
Today will be unpacking.
2016-9-22 8:57

Well, I’m moving. I have the job offer and now I will be working in Vancouver.
It has been stressful, but it, annoyingly, hasn’t sunk in yet. There is so much to do, that I haven’t had time to reflect.
Packing has revealed that I own too much stuff. I need to purge more, but it is too late now. Steph has been good at helping with that, but there comes a time when you have to do it yourself. That time is not now.
Finding boxes was a challenge, but I eventually found that the liquor store at Superstore just lets people take lots of boxes. I made several trips, sometimes multiple times in a day, and grabbed lots.
It came to a head yesterday when the movers looked at my stuff and the truck I had rented and declared I didn’t have enough room. I had rented from U-Haul the truck they claim was good for a two bedroom apartment. Apparently I collect more than most people. However, the mover had great Tetris skills and was able to put a lot on. But not all. Some stuff is still in my condo. We have some plans as to what to do about it, but that is an issue for the future. Fortunately, I have all the the stuff I wanted in Vancouver.
He also didn’t use all the blankets. Which was good, because I was worried I hadn’t brought enough. On the morning of the move, I got up at the crack of dawn (that is relevant) to go to the U-Haul dealership to get some more. They only had one and a half dozen, and I thought I would need more. So I drove to another location to try and score some more. Unfortunately, the location was due east of the first. It is also around the fall equinox. So the dawn sun was making my drive to the other location very bright. The other location was closed by the way.
We left late, with my car attached to the back of the truck. My car is on a roll dolly, so that means I will not be able to reverse the truck. The truck sucks back a lot of gas. I think it is getting 25l per 100km. It is also a very American car. It has stickers all over it giving information in imperial units, while traffic signs in Canada continue to be metric.
We got to my parent’s late, and the next day we tried to unload some of the things we were leaving there. By this time it was raining, and we discovered that the roll dolly could not be unattached from the truck without taking the car off first. We were not willing to risk that, so we couldn’t move the truck close to the house. We proceeded to juggle the furniture out while driving it to the front door in another vehicle. We finally got off by eleven.
The drive through the mountains wasn’t too bad, but it did snow at times. I have to drive slow, because, well, I’m hauling a lot. We were stopped for 20 minutes for some construction project. However the most harrowing moment came on a dry sunny road. We were on “Deep Creek” road and going downhill, when it did far too sharp a turn to manage. We stopped and luckily no one was coming the other way.
We are now in Falkland. Tomorrow we try and get to Vancouver in time to meet the movers who will move me.
2016-9-20 22:17

As I have previously mentioned, I have been unemployed. I have been looking for jobs, and it hasn’t been going the best. I had a great company in Edmonton that I was really hyped about, but they did not accept me. That has left me depressed, but I persevered and kept looking.
Today I got offered a job for quite a bit more than I was making. Unfortunately it is not in Edmonton. It is in the most expensive city in Canada; but also the city every Canadian wants to live in. Vancouver.
There is very little question. I should take this job.
But it is scary. I have been in Edmonton for just over twenty years. I have lived in Winnipeg longer (barely), but I was not physically aware for a good chunk of that time. So Edmonton feels more like a home than any other place. The move from Winnipeg to here was scary then, so I know what to expect.
The fear is all the things I am leaving behind. I became an adult here. I have friends I have fought tooth and claw to earn. I know where things are. I know how to run the trails here. Now, I will probably be leaving it all behind.
Where will I get my hair cut now? Where is the best place to buy spices? How am I going to find a place to live? What is going to happen to my current condo? Will I be able to throw an American Thanksgiving dinner?
My life is going to change. A lot.

People in Vancouver do not know how to run in mountains. They don’t have to deal with altitude, and they don’t get good practice going downhill when they have a cablecar to take them back down.

I have some thoughts on the sharing economy. Now that I have used Airbnb, I actually have a shred of experience with the system.
While staying with hosts, I found myself trying to “game” the system. I wanted a good review, so I bent over backwards to be nice to the hosts, and even make friends with them. I don’t know if I did this more than I would have otherwise. I did get good reviews.
Airbnb will even link to my Facebook account. I don’t know to what extent that means the two providers are integrated. I suspect Uber does the same thing.
In the non-sharing economy, your credit rating is everything. The better it is, the more financial options you have available to you. You start out with none, and have to work to get a good rating. But it its an easy thing to grow if you do it carefully over time. It is why I got a credit card in university even though I didn’t really need one at the time.
Now I can see Facebook becoming the new social rating service. If you link everything to your Facebook account, all the other services can see if you are a trustworthy person or not. Different from your credit rating, this is more of a personality rating.
(This is actually something I’ve been wanting for some time, a way to rate people as human beings. If someone is a jerk, it would be cathartic to be able to let other people know that I believe he is a jerk and therefore consequences will happen. But that is a system that would be very open to abuse, so we shouldn’t go there.)
But, similar to how I got a credit card in university, it implies that everyone should get a Facebook profile to grow their social rating. You need to start developing a profile with history, or otherwise you will look like you just made a new fake person because the real you has a poor rating. And it is an easy thing to grow if you do it carefully over time.
This feels like an advertisement for Facebook: use it early and often so that you can participate in the new economy.
It is an end-run around the old economy. It is similar to how the world electrical grid may evolve in the future. Instead of all the competing electrical plugs you need in North America versus Europe versus Britain etc, you may instead just use USB outlets. A technology that didn’t have the intention to become the power standard of the world, does.

Tuesday was our last day of vacation. We just had to drive to Edmonton and we would be done.
But, we didn’t think we were in that big a rush, so we checked out the Wells Gray park nearby. Our Airbnb host was a good champion of the park and even had brochures ready, and recommended trails and stops. We decided to pass on some of the hikes, because we didn’t have too much time, but we did drive to all the highlights.
It was a very beautiful park. There were waterfalls everywhere. It has a history of glaciation and volcanic activity that makes those waterfalls so prevalent. I would have liked to have spent longer there and seen more. Maybe another time.
But we must have spent too long there, because in the end, we didn’t get back home until after eleven o’clock.
We had a lunch at the “Clearwater Stop” restaurant, because a friend had recommended it for good German food. And the Jager Schnitzel was good. I think we were in a very German area, because a LOT of the other tourists in the park were speaking German.
In Jasper, we ate at the “D’ed Dog Diner”. Last year it has a great “Big Game Burger”. This year, that burger was overcooked. My travelling companion was over-tired at that point and was taking it very personally afterwards. If I had let her continue her rant, it would have ended with the Diner being burnt down and the ashes sown with salt. I was in a more forgiving mood and would give them another shot.

Today, Monday, we got up late.
We tried to get in a little bit more of Vancouver before we had to go, so we walked to Granville Island. However, neither of us were big shoppers, so the idea of wandering through a bunch of eclectic shops didn’t appeal to us that much. Instead, we stayed on the bridge leading to the island, took some pictures of the scenery, and then headed back.
I wanted to try out some of the food trucks as a lunch option. It seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, just because they are a truck, doesn’t make it fast food. It took as long as a sit-down meal to get the food. It WAS good, just not worth the wait when you have a long drive ahead of you.
Then we started driving home. We only had to make it to the town of Clearwater in British Columbia. We have a Airbnb there, so that we don’t have to try and do the whole trip at once. Since we had time, we thought we would take the scenic Trans-Canada Highway back again instead of the faster Coquihalla Highway. We even stopped for more fruit from the roadside vendors. (So good!) We planned to not take lots of pictures. Why should we, we had already taken them on the way down. Then we hit the golden hour, and that plan went to pot.
We kept stopping for pictures because it was overwhelmingly beautiful. We got to Kamloops at around 8:30PM and picked up a very quick meal. We didn’t get to Clearwater until after ten o’clock. That was a long day.
Unfortunately, Clearwater is in the middle of nowhere, so there was no cell service. I had been overly dependent on my iPhone to map my way everywhere, and the mountains were indicating that was a bad idea. Fortunately, I had printed out a faded copy of the map. I just wish these Airbnb people would have better lit numbers for their houses.

Today, Sunday, we didn’t plan things that well.
For some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to go to the aquarium. On a beautiful Sunday, the park was packed. We REALLY lucked out and got parking after a very rough time driving there.
The aquarium was really cool. But we had arrived too late in the day to spend more than two hours there. And we lingered too long in the not-cool part. So we had to rush through the parts featuring mammals, like belugas and seals. We did end it off with touching sea flap-flaps.
Then we went for coffee with an old work friend. While there, we had two sightings of Neil Patrick Harris. I didn’t recognize him, but my friend had read his biography and was able to recognize his children enough to confirm it was him, and not just someone who looked like him.
Then off to dinner with another former coworker. We had Indian. I seem to be doing a lot of networking here.
The friends we had been seeing had done an evening cruise, so when we went to the club it wasn’t as many people. And frankly the club was disappointing. So we didn’t spend too late there.
We got a late check out, so we shouldn’t need to rush on Monday.

Today, we walked back to the waterfront and rented some bicycles. Then off to Stanley Park.
Bikes are a great way to see the park. It makes it easy to get around, you feel more connected, you see things you wouldn’t from a car, parking is easy, and you get exercise. I’m sure I have a friend who would approve; as long as we were wearing helmets.
I liked Prospect Point because of the view of Lions Gate Bridge. We were lucky to be there just as a cruise ship was going through; it makes the pictures better. Probably adds scale or something. There was a Chinese man playing Pachabel’s Canon on some instrument I didn’t recognize. It is a lovely song.
We also had lunch now a rocky beach that was only accessible because of low tide. It was near Siwash Rock, so there was a nice view too.
After four hours, we returned the bikes, and walked back to the same restaurant as yesterday. We liked it, and we had found other dishes we had wanted to try.
Then another night of meeting friends at clubs. Staying out too late too. This time we scored a cab ride there with an acquaintance, and walked back afterwards. We had planned to walk there, but the person offered to let us join her.

Please excuse the lateness of the next few posts. I’ve been busy and I’m trying to catch up.
On Friday, we evacuated the Airbnb and moved to a hotel. I’m trying to make that sound simpler than it was. The hotel wasn’t ready until later, but we could park our car there. We did that and then walked half an hour to Gastown. It is a trendy part of town. Well it pretends to be that, but at times it felt touristy with lots of souvenir shops. And occasional over-priced yuppie stores. (The fur rug at $3500 felt fabulous until I realized it wasn’t fake.)
We actually started at a restaurant I had been to before, Save On Meats. It is a diner with its own butcher attached to it. The meat is fantastic and the prices are good. If you are in the area, go check it out.
We then did the wander through Gastown, stopping to see the steam clock. I am annoyed by it because it was four minutes off. And a friend told me it wasn’t run by steam. Still the moving metal balls inside that roll around on tracks to help run it are cool to look at.
Eventually, we proceeded to the waterfront. The scenery was beautiful and we took lots of pictures. I liked watching all the water planes come in and take off. You don’t see that in Edmonton. I wonder if you could? Could we use the North Saskatchewan as a landing strip? Certainly not in winter.
For dinner we went to a cheap Japanese restaurant that is on the same block as the hotel. We wanted to have sushi here because, well, it is Vancouver. You are practically required by law.
Afterwards we went out to a club with a bunch of friends. We are being surprisingly sober here, so it makes getting around easy when you don’t have to worry about driving under the influence. Although parking feels awkward when you do it next to a homeless person and a prostitute.
Stayed up way too late.

Today we did a lot of hiking.
It started with a trip to the Capilano suspension bridge. It is an expensive park, $40 per person. It is beautiful, but the bridge itself isn’t that exciting. At the time of day we went, it was crowded, and certain kinds of people will get cranky if you take too long taking a picture. There are park attractions on either side, but the far side is better. Bonus: there are less people on the far side due to the bridge bottleneck.
They have something called a “Treetop Adventure”, but they really should have bitten the bullet and called it the “Ewok village”.
I liked seeing the owl up close, and the remains of the tree that tried to take out the bridge.
Afterwards, we continued up the road to Grouse Mountain. They have a great trail called the “Grouse Grind”. It is about 2.4km, and goes up 850 meters. You have to be strong to handle it. I was with someone, so I had to go their pace, so I spent most of the time being cheerful and encouraging to other people who may have been cranky. It was nice to be on a busy trail because I could pass people.
I don’t like being passed on a trail, and it is usually because of the slow people I’m with. (Do I sound bitter?)
Interestingly, someone died on the trail yesterday. Heart attack. I know I should feel sorry for him, but it does make me feel more accomplished.
We didn’t do much at the top because some of us were tired, so we took the gondola down.
I wish we had remembered to check out the Capilano dam. I don’t know if it an attraction, but it would have been nice to see.
2016-7-22 1:18

We drove down the Thompson river on the Trans-Canada highway. We stopped for some fruit, and got a complimentary habanero plant too. We will see if we can keep it alive for the trip. We have a huge amount of fresh produce on us now, that we need to eat before it goes bad.
We went south, stopping to take pictures every so often.
When we passed “Hell’s Gate” (not the only time I’ve seen that name. People keep naming things the same thing ) we stopped off at what we thought was a scenic point. However it required walking down a steep road. Eventually we figured it was just to the other end of the cable car that lets you view the Gate. We decided to give up after we had gone halfway. We would only have seen the view from a bridge a bit above the water, and it may not have been that good. We also weren’t wearing good hiking shoes.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, and now we are in Vancouver.
2016-7-20 23:33

My first Airbnb was very good. I was exhausted yesterday evening, so my blog post may have been rambling. In the harsh light of day I realize how nice it was.
The host was very welcoming. I had planned to go out for breakfast, but she started offering her own food. Since she had chickens, we had incredibly fresh, fertilized eggs. They were the best eggs I’ve ever had. Fresh bread from the bakery for toast. She was also a great conversationalist.
After breakfast, we got a tour. We held chickens and rotated them. (You have to try it to see.) Then a tour of her garden.
We bought a few of her eggs (hard-boiled) and then left later than we had planned.
She gave us directions to Vancouver that would be better than the default. So now we are in Cache Creek having a lunch before continuing on. I’m sort of looking to see if there are any fresh fruit vendors along the way. But we have a lot of fruit in the car already.
2016-7-20 14:15

The day started in Priddis. But we got up early and drove to Mount Temple, to climb it. We had decided to go today, because the weather would be better. And the weather was nice, in Priddis. Around Lake Louise the weather was decidedly more inclement. It was okay when we started out, at around nine. But it soon started raining. We persevered and we seemed to get a new form of weather every half hour. Although my other half looked rather cranky for the first part. I was too, but that was until I ate some trail mix; I hadn’t eaten for too long.

When we reach Ministemma lakes, we stopped for lunch. It was sunnier, and everything felt better. Then up to Sentinel Pass. Lots of pictures were taken. The we kept climbing up. We had no intention of getting to the top, but we got to the cool ledge, made for taking exciting pictures. There we had another lunch and then headed back.

We took too long, and we’re running behind schedule. So we ate a lot of snacks in the car instead of stopping in Lake Louise for dinner. Probably for the best, because the town was very busy and had a traffic jam. We wouldn’t have been able to get a dinner in a reasonable time. So, we had a long drive to our next stop in Falkland, B.C., where we had an Airbnb to go to. Don’t be surprised if you have never heard of Falkland. But it was a good stopover to let us arrive in Vancouver over two days.

The planning could have gone better. I figured it would be easy to find the way to the really small town (hamlet?) Except I was thinking like an urban prairie dweller. There was no cell access in the mountains. So my map plan was not reliable for a long stretch. The only other map in the car was twenty years old. But a combination of the two got us here.

It is now very late, and I need to sleep.

2016-7-19 23:55

This had been planned long before my unemployment, so it would be hard to justify doing these things now. Yesterday, I went whitewater rafting on the Kananaskis river. That was loads of fun. The weather was slightly overcast, so I worried about being cold; especially with glacier water. But when you are paddling you keep warm enough.
Immediately afterwards there was the drive home. On the way we stopped off at Big Hill Springs Provincial Park. I had always been interested in it, because it has a beautiful valley entrance that entices me when I drive past. This time, since we had the time, we stopped off. It was gorgeous. The lower parts looked like a fairly tale. In a movie I would expect little woodland creatures to be frolicking about. If you have the time, stop off there for at least half an hour. Do the small hike and take lots of pictures.
We got back late on Friday evening, which made getting up on Saturday hard. We couldn’t linger in bed, because we had to go do the Color-Me-Rad run. I’m of mixed feeling about it. I saw a lot of opportunities where the event was trying to milk me for money (especially with their convoluted parking scheme, in collusion with the Northlands) but the event itself was fun. I got sprayed with all sorts of color. At one time in the face, by request, which caused me to lose sight in one eye, until I could get my sunglasses cleaned.
At the end we were a rainbow of spectrum.
Instead of getting cleaned up, we went to the Whyte Avenue artwalk. We fit in well, and got lots of compliments. There were a few other post-racers there. Solidarity!

After hard work, I now have an app in the Apple app store. I’m very proud of this. It was a team effort, but I was the one making the actual code that went into the store; everyone else was in the back end and the web pages being displayed. (Which is probably the more important part.) It was actually approved in less than a day, but that is probably because it is of no interest outside of our existing customers. If it was something everyone was using, like a game, they would have looked at it harder. That, and the approver probably had a long weekend they wanted to get to.
We had planned to try and get everything done by June 1st, but no plan survives contact with the enemy. Still, we just got it into the store under the wire for the same month as planned.
It was a nice way to finish my last day at work.
I have not been looking for a new job very hard. I’ve updated my resume, but I feel a little burned out now. I gave a good chunk of my life to the company; I guess I feel like a spurned spouse. So I’m going to probably spend a lot of July “finding myself”. This will involve self-development. Now that I have someone in the same living place as me, I’m hoping it will help me concentrate on doing work. Last time I was unemployed, with no one able to comment on my actions, I wasn’t as accountable.
But I have an app in the app store, and no one can take that away.

Last Friday I got my two weeks notice. I’ve been laid off.
I’ve been stressed for the last few weeks, thinking I had been doing a bad job at work. This was because my boss was under a lot of pressure, assumed someone else’s mistake was mine, and took his frustration out on me. He apologized later, but the damage was done, and my confidence in my job has been shot. So this lay off was not entirely unexpected.
However, it was not for anything I’ve done. The company’s finances haven’t been that good lately and they have to let people go. Several other people are going too. But they are trying not to be mean, and want us to keep working for the last two weeks; as opposed to kicking us out and forcing us to use our vacation time. They’ve given me a very good reference letter, and said that if things picked up, they would hire me back.
I long ago decided that there is no point to getting angry or vindictive at employers. Don’t burn bridges.
Today was exhausting though. I am doing some training of a junior employee on the code I’ve worked on. I am trying to be in a positive mood, but it is a bit of a lie. If I can keep myself distracted, it isn’t too bad. But I constantly question myself and try to determine if I am working on something important. If I get stuck on something, can I waste someone else’s time to try and get out of it? Tired.
Part of me is looking forward to being laid off. I can finally catch up on some personal programming projects that have been left behind. But every so often I think about some of the stuff I want to do, and I have to realize that money isn’t always going to be there now.
My life has changed and I need to accept that.