The Jeff R Project

Anybody who knows me even a bit knows I’ve got a Starbucks addiction, but I’m trying to kick it.

In Downtown Vancouver, there is a Starbucks location within a few (read 2) blocks of just about everywhere. In the last 3 places I/We have lived, there’s been one within a block. And there is one within a block of my office.

Seriously, I didn’t plan it, but I think Starbucks did.

A few years ago I went to Yuma, Arizona for Christmas to visit my dad and step-mother and was tired most of the time I was there. I came up with my Starbucks Conspiracy Theory. Basically, the reason I was tired wasn’t that I wasn’t drinking coffee but rather, in Vancouver the air is so saturated with caffeine from one coffee shop or another (Starbucks, Blendz, Cafe D’Artigiano, etc) that you live in an artificially caffeinated state whether you like it or not.

So, this past weekend Starbucks finally released a store locator app for the iPhone into the Canadian iTunes store!

For me, it’s not about locating a store in Vancouver, it’s about remembering which stores are good (clean bathrooms, friendly staff) among the 100s there seem to be downtown.

And of course it will come in handy when we’re out of our comfort zone and I need a fix.

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So, this was the second weekend of the Olympics in Vancouver and things have certainly kicked up a notch or two!

Holy cow it’s so busy everywhere. We spent hours standing in line to see some of the Olympic pavillions or “houses” as they’re called.

By and large, they have NOT been worth the time spent in line. Here’s the ones that we saw and a rating…

• Royal Canadian Mint – 25 minutes for the non-medal line up. Time inside 10 minutes. Rating: 5/10
  We saw the $1,000,000 gold coin, and lifted the gold ingot. Whee!
• Maison Du Quebec – 25 minutes for the lineup before they opened. Time inside 2 minutes. Rating: -50 / 10
  Inside was another line to buy food/drink ($10 for a beer) and an empty stage with the promise of “entertainment” coming up soon. Uh – pass.
• Sotchi House – 2 hour lineup before it opened. We left.
• Ontario House – 2 hour lineup. We’ve been to Ontario, nothing they can do to tart it up will make us stand in line.
• Saskatchewan House – 15 minute line up. We could see it from the minute we got there and we saw it behind us as we left.
  Yes, that’s my take on the “My dog ran away 2 days ago and I could still see him” joke.
• Costco House – not an official house. 5 minutes in line, 2 minute wait for fried “pub” food. Failure to see what the fuss is about. Rating: 7/10, because were were hungry.
• Turner-Rose House – No line-up, good company, cheap food, comfortable surroundings and no crowds. We strongly advise you visit this one. Rating: 10/10

  We also recommend our Welcoming Emissary! He’ll make you feel welcome!

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Today is the 5th day of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The title alone is a mouthful.

Vancouver is alive with people. It’s pretty crazy how busy things are. Even tiny hole-in-the-wall places that locals avoid are busy with tourists. And of course the popular places are even busier.

Sunday, Chris and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather (Yep, sunny and warm in February) and took in some of the Olympic sites. We’d been out Saturday but other than Robson Square didn’t “do” anything Olympic.

We went down to the jail cauldron to see what all the fuss was about. Wow, did someone screw that up. “Too keep people safe” they erected an 8 foot security fence over 100 feet away from it, completely obscuring the view. People were climbing on concrete crash barriers to get a 1/2 decent photo that didn’t look like it came from Guantanamo Bay.

We tried to visit the Royal Canadian Mint display, but it was closed for a private function, so we hopped on the Canada Line Skytrain and went to Olympic Village with the intention of taking the Olympic Line train to Granville Island. 45 minute line up. No thanks, so we walked the seawall – a much better choice.

Granville Island is known as “Place de Francophonie” or “The fake French area” during the Olympics. Honestly, I wasn’t feeling it. The eastern end of the island is blocked off and there’s a large area devoted to French culture and displays, but they were pretty uninteresting. I hear Quebec House is worse. That’s for next weekend.

We then did get on the Olympic Line train (courtesy of Bombardier) since there was no lineup to get BACK to the Skytrain. Cool. It was a nice ride, but not all that exciting. The Canada Line Skytrain back to downtown was lined up out of Olympic Village station! What!

So we walked over the Cambie Bridge and Chris got some great photos of the athletes village and Sochi House on False Creek.

We actually forgot we couldn’t get home our usual way from the Cambie Bridge and detoured up Beatty Street past BC Place, Alberta House and the Bell Ice Cube (huh?) and a huge crowd of people gathering around that area.

On the way home, we encountered a fleet of Mini’s that we had seen before. Canon has outfitted a fleet of 12+ Mini’s with camera lenses on top, and for some reason they really intrigue Chris and I.

After 4 hours on our feet and moving constantly, we finally got home and crashed. The dog was happy to have us back.

This week, we’re going to try to get out in the evening and enjoy some of the excitement and crazy during the evening. This will be “tricky” with having the dog at work, and the fact that Chris is working at 6:00am during the Olympics.

On the weekend, we’re hoping to make it to even more venues. Canada House, Northern House and a bunch of province ones too. I’d like to visit Sochi House as it’s supposed to be impressive, but Chris is disinterested. Considering the Russians tried to kill him last time he encountered them, I don’t blame him, so I may have to go with someone else. We’ll see.

Today marks the 2 week point before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and the signs are popping up everywhere.

It feels like every open lot or parking area in downtown Vancouver has had a tent or bigger building erected in it and most buildings have had a bit of sprucing up done. Power wash, new signage or paint has really given the downtown a facelift, and it’s quite nice. Too bad it’s probably a one-off. It would be great if the building owners and tenants continued to take this amount of pride in their appearance.

Too many buildings in downtown (business mostly) look like they were nice about 10-20 years ago, but the owners forgot you can still buy paint, or hire a pressure washer for a few bucks. With the annual Vancouver Rains buildings get this dirty streaking where the water runs down and very few people ever clean it up.

There’s a travel office 2 doors from my office (Creatively named ABC Travel) who have been getting a facelift. What was once an older building with classic features is being updated to be a nice fully-glassed in front. Very modern/contemporary. Unfortunately the business inside hasn’t caught up. They moved in 2 years ago (moving down 4 doors) and the place is a disaster. I swear all they did was carry everyone’s desks covered in years of detritus down and drop them in. So here’s this lovely new glass front, giving you a nice view into a filthy, messy, dark office full of desks covered in 5 year old travel brochures.

Meanwhile, outside our home here on Abbott Street, we’ve finally been cut off from the rest of the city. Well, mostly.

When I took Rumble out for his nightly walk, they’d basically created a corridor of giant traffic cones leading into and out of our garage, but preventing traffic from going anywhere else.

This morning, they’ve been allowing 1 or 2 vehicles past (Casino shuttle for one) and turning away a bunch of pissed off motorists because they’ve also closed Expo Blvd and Pacific Blvd from Quebec to Nelson! They’re in the final stages of putting up the concrete dividers and chainlink fence to completely block the intersection of Expo and Abbott here and should be done when Rumble and I leave for work shortly.

The Olympic “garbage collectors” have started appearing. Basically 2 pinch rings attached to various light posts around the city, with transparent green garbage bags hanging out of them. Not a very “pretty” sight, but as Chris pointed out, they are anti-terrorist friendly. The can collectors will also be thrilled to be able to see which ones to target.

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Breakfast Television (my morning news source) is reporting that Translink wants to raise some of their rates in the new year. This isn’t that new, as it was partly announced a few weeks ago after their funding from local government was turned down.

They’re proposing to raise FareSaver ticket book prices and Monthly passes by up to 10% and claim it’s necessary as these prices haven’t been raised in a few years.

They also want to tack on a $2.50 surcharge for using the Canada Line SkyTrain service to the Vancouver International Airport (and from). Basically if you travel between Bridgeport and Templeton stations, you’d be subject to this additional fare, which I think is pretty steep and nothing more than a cash-grab.

If the concept is to encourage people to use the SkyTrain to travel to the airport instead of driving, it needs to be cost effective. With the proposed increase, travelling from Vancouver to the Airport after 6:30pm or on a weekend would cost $5.00 per person. During the day (Monday – Friday before 6:30pm) it would be $6.25, coming from say Surrey, it would be $7.50 per person.

TransLink knows that the airport will be HUGELY popular during 2010 and I feel they’re just looking to steal as much extra as possible during that period. Why wasn’t this pricing put in initially? Why 4 months after it opens?

If you want to comment, you can send an email comments@translinkcommission.org and voice your support or lack there-of for the above proposals.