Posts from — August 2007

Yes, I have finally made it home from my trip to Vancouver, and in one piece! haha. As most of you know, I now am a big wimp when it comes to airplanes, so I’m always pleased now when I manage to survive a plane ride. Check out the photos from my trip here: Flickr.

Highlights of the trip:

1. Seeing Incura at the Red Room. My friends tell me that live music clubs are slowly being forced out of their locations in Vancouver, and the Red Room is one of the last surviving ones. Incura is a local prog-rock band that played there Aug. 11th, and it was a great show! I’ve not heard them before, but I highly recommend you go check them out on MySpace real soon, as they could be blowing up at any moment.
2. The Nearly Neil concert at the Harmony Arts Festival. Bobby Bruce heads up this Neil Diamond cover band, and he not only plays Neil Diamond songs, but he looks and sounds like him too. Just incredible. I thoroughly enjoyed all the songs, although Sweet Caroline was the high point for me, as that’s my favourite.
3. The ferry ride to Bowen Island. The weather had finally turned sunny & warm, so we headed out.
4. The Vancouver Canadians baseball game. The C’s, as they’re known in Van City, are one of the Oakland A’s minor league affiliates, and they play at Nat Bailey Stadium. It’s a cute little stadium where every seat is a good one, and the crowd is lots of fun.

Of course the super highlight was hanging out with the Rock Dude and the Rock Queen on their home turf, as I hadn’t done that in 9 years. I’ll be posting some pictures here shortly, but Wordpress & Flickr are misbehaving a bit right now, so I can’t do it just yet. But you can click on over and check them all out if you like.

All in all I’m sure glad I made the trip over, as we had lots of fun. We did a lot of free or nearly-free things too, which is always good. I walked so much that I think I sprained the ligament/tendon on the top of my foot! That was a little annoying, as it made it hard to walk, but I kept on moving. Starting Monday I’ll be sitting on my butt all day at my new job, so I figured a little pain was okay to deal with.

Phew, I realize I’ve been totally remiss in posting anything whilst I’ve been on vacation. Updates will be appearing soon, as my vacation ends tomorrow (boo), so you’ll get all updated & even get some pictures too! I’m having loads of fun here in Vancouver, doing fun stuff with Rock Dude & the Rock Queen. We’ve gone to see about 3 different rock shows, all local bands, then we’ve been to a CFL game, and a minor league baseball game too. Then there was all the free things we did, like walk around the SeaWall from Stanley Park to Yaletown, or walking the park at Ambleside, or even just tooling around West and North Vancouver. Oh, and did I tell you we drove past Sarah McLachlan’s house? Yes, I now know where she lives, and that’s very cool. The Rock Queen’s sister has a friend that lives right next door! I am so jealous. Apparently the friend can see the recording studio, and so can tell when Sarah’s working on a new album. I’ll have to be sure to get her to give me updates. haha.

All in all this has been a wonderful trip, I can’t believe I waited 9 years before coming back here. I think I’m definitely going to have to start a “Vancouver trip” fund when I get back, as that is just far too long to wait for another trip. They’re always coming out to visit me & the gang, it’s only fair that at least one of us reciprocates.

Okay, back to enjoying my last day of vacation before I head out tomorrow! Ciao!

After going quite a long time not finding any money, yesterday I found three pennies on the ground as I wandered around Vancouver. I was quite impressed that I found them as I wasn’t even looking for them. Normally I’m scouring the ground as I walk, but because everything looks new-to-me around here, I haven’t had my eyes down for long stretches of time. And yet I found three pennies.

• One was outside a 7-Eleven store on West Georgia Street.
• One was in the pedestrian walkway inside BC Place as we left the BC Lions game.
• One was on the sidewalk somewhere I don’t recall anymore. Perhaps it was on the way to the SeaBus? Who knows.

Go check out my blog How Much Change Can you Find? to see my totals.

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but between organizing myself for the new job, and then deciding to take a last minute trip, I haven’t had much time. I’m actually writing you from Vancouver, one of my favourite cities. I decided to take a super last minute trip to visit some friends of mine, Rock Dude & his wife, Rock Queen, as I hadn’t been over here in years. How long has it been? The last trip I took to Vancouver was in 1998, and my last to BC was in 2004 for their wedding. So I am long overdue for this one.

Managed to snag the last flight of the night out of T.O. which was actually good, because then I slept a bit on the plane, and arrived at 1am, so I could just go to bed right away. None of this staying-up-as-late-as-you-can thing to overcome jet lag. The time difference is 3 hours, so nothing too horrible, but still enough to mess you up. Oddly enough, after only one day I feel pretty good. We went out last night to hear some live music (more on that in a moment), and I wasn’t tired at all, surprisingly. We were all expecting me to crash a bit before we went out, considering I should be 3 hours ahead of everyone, but no, I felt fine, and was rocking out to Incura till the wee hours of the morning. Okay, not the wee hours, but till about midnight.

Speaking of live music, the Rock Dude & Rock Queen are big proponents of live music, in particular of local bands. They’re always going out to see this band or that. So last night they took me out to the Red Room here in Vancouver, one of the coolest places to see a show, IMO, and there were three bands playing, Jackfish, Chris Witosky and the headliners, Incura. They’re a prog-rock band based here in Vancouver, and I must say I quite enjoyed them. The Rock Dude wasn’t sure if I’d like them, since he was a bit concerned about me enjoying some Madonna & the Police videos earlier in the day (haha). But that’s just cuz we haven’t talked music in ages. The Rock Dude & I went to high school together and he had forgotten that my musical tastes are all over the place. So yes, while I will enjoy a good Madonna pop song, or a rock tune from Placebo, a head banger from Def Leppard, or even a good rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, I’m up for pretty much anything except country. So off we went.

The Red Room is a pretty neat venue for live music, small, but not too small, plus there are some tiered seats near the back, so if you don’t wanna mosh out, you can chill in the back. Jackfish and Chris Witosky were good as well. But everyone was there to see Incura. They came out and just ROCKED! Good tunes, with lots of changes in tempo, so the songs seemed much better than just a prog-rock song, if that makes sense. The Rock Dude is a drummer by passion, so he was just jamming to Zul as he hit the skins with abandon. Kyle, the lead singer, was just all over the place! He jumped and danced and sang like a madman! Great stage presence, as well as knowing how to interact with the crowd. Sure, they had lots of friends there, so they were able to call them out by name, but still, he knows how to talk. I hate seeing bands where the singer or the musicians don’t do much with the crowd, you know?

Before this turns into a tome, let me just stop the Incura talk by saying you should definitely check them out. Kyle says they’re hoping to get out east later on in the fall, so if you see them around Toronto or anywhere nearby, I highly recommend going. I know I’ll be there!

That’s it for Post 1 from Van City. Stay tuned for more reports from the West Coast.

Just how long was I able to make my severance package last? Mmm, about 7 weeks. And I haven’t even touched the bonus payment they still owe me! Why is this significant? Because as of this morning at about 10:30am, I am officially employed. Yes, you heard correctly. In this insanely hot IT market in Toronto, it only took me two weeks to find a new job, and that’s only because I played phone tag with the HR lady for most of that time. I had applied to my new employer on my first day of job hunting, last Monday, and secured the job by Friday, a total of 10 business days. Impressive. So I’ll be working as the lone technical writer for now, although I don’t know if they’ll be hiring any more. At any rate, they don’t have anything ready in terms of docs or anything, so I’ll pretty much have free reign to do what I want, when I want. More importantly, I was able to negotiate a salary increase not only from my previous job, but also from their initial offer, as well as securing an extra week’s vacation per year. Nice. I guess my sister’s negotiating skills are starting to rub off, because she does this all the time and succeeds!

So my time off ends Aug. 19th, and I start work again Aug. 20th. Still have two weeks to play around and do nothing, which rocks.