Category Archives: Touring Vancouver

What I did on my summer vacation – Item 4

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Like Rebecca Black said: “It’s Friday.” If you don’t know what I mean, listen to this:

Yeah, it makes me cry too.

Friday rocked. Having finished with the cleaning and organizing, we finally got to the “cation” part of our “stay-cation” and decided to head up to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, which is a bit like returning to the scene of the crime.

Back in 2005, around the time we first started going out (Holy shit – it’s been almost 7 years!) I returned from Arizona on January 1 or 2, and our first “date” upon my return was a trip to Capilano. Chris was a little horrified to be seen with me, I think, as I’d let my step-mother bleach my hair while away. It was a cold day (for Vancouver in January) but bright and sunny. We were excited because not only did we have fun, but we got the BC resident deal and could go back as often as we wanted for a year.

We went once more.

Capilano Suspension Bridge Cliffwalk

Capilano Suspension Bridge Cliffwalk

Spring forward 6 1/2 years and we’re back. This past summer they opened the Cliffwalk adventure. Near the end, I realized that they had an educational theme about the importance of water in nature sprinkled throughout.

Cliffwalk is a semi-circular bridge stuck to the side of a cliff 300 feet or meters (I forget) over the river below. There’s a really cool video on YouTube about the challenges of making it. It’s worth a watch. Along the way you are treated to some small signs about how the valley was formed by rivers, and water cracks the stone. Very informative if you notice them. I didn’t.

So that’s Chris, hanging out high above the valley floor. At various points they have clear super-strong glass panels to walk out on. It really feels like you’re floating.

We also checked out Raptor Ridge (one bird, does not an attraction make) and the TreeTop Adventure, which is a really cool series of bridges suspended between the trees.

After making our way home, we basically decided we’d had enough, and I wasn’t feeling that good. So bad that I actually took a nap. I don’t nap. Whether it’s 10 minutes or an hour, after I nap I wake up all fuzzyheaded, disoriented and useless (no comments) so when I do decide I need a nap, it’s a bit of a deal.

By the time I was feeling better, Chris was on the decline.  We usually work like that. One is sick, the other is better. Then we switch. Not usually within minutes, but you know.

So, we had a quiet evening at home watching TV, playing with computers, iPads and the dog, which was fine.

As I write this, it’s Saturday morning. Rumble dragged me out just before 7am and I stayed up to try to get things done. Other than some blogging, nothing much has happened, but we have a plan! We’re off to Stanley Park as soon as Chris and I muster up the energy to shower. Harder than it sounds, but the weather is enticing!

What I did on my summer vacation: Days 3 & 4

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So Wednesday dawned, so did Thursday. As I write this on Saturday, neither Chris nor I are exactly clear what happened on these days. But here’s what we do know…

We finished cleaning up. Everything was returned to it’s rightful spot, garbage was thrown out and recycling put downstairs, the dog got a bath, Chris got beer Corona), we had some ice cream and other bad food, and we hung out.

I was also kicked out of the house for a few hours while Chris worked. He spent many, many hours sorting, organizing, boxing etc while I sat in a Starbucks hard at work on a WordPress plugin. Rumble and Chris had walked me down, sat while we drank a cooling libation (sans alcohol of course) and then they went home.

At several points, we also went on many, many walks across the city, along the seawall etc to take full advantage of the fact that summer decided to return during our vacation! Woot!

We also wrote the email to Mikes Flooring expressing our displeasure in their installer’s lack of care. But that’s another post. A long other post.

Sometime in there, we also finally got to relax. As one is supposed to do on vacation. This made the dog happy as we stopped messing with him, moving things around etc. And he seems to like his new food!

What I did on my summer vacation – Part B

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So, Tuesday morning, bright and early, Chris and I slipped out of our warm bed and stepped onto the cold, cold wood floors we had installed. Apparently air conditioning makes the floors really, really cold. (Note to self: need small mats for bedside)

As usual, Rum got his walk and since we’d terrorized him the day before (spending the day driving around), we didn’t do anything too mean. We left him home in his solarium/jungle while we headed out. To Ikea – aka, Land of the Lost. Where we had their $4 breakfast. Actually 4 x $1.00 breakfasts, plus bacon plus drink. This is s decision that haunted us on Wednesday.

The gaping void of the fireplace

The gaping void of the fireplace

The purpose of the trip was to find a new entertainment center/unit/table/bench -thing to replace the horrible fireplace that we had removed. This removal left us with a bit of a mess as it was screwed AND glued to the wall, not to mention tied into the electric.

Yep, ugly, right? About what you’d expect. Paint doesn’t match, hole in the carpet, patches of missing drywall. Not to mention nowhere to put the TV that was previously atop said monstrosity.

So, Ikea proved useless, but we did find a nice area rug for Rumble, a small mat for the fan, a small bookshelf and assorted other things we probably didn’t need.

Then Chris said the horrible words nobody should ever say.

“Hey, do you wanna stop at Walmart on the way home?”

And we did. And it was…. sticky.

But we did manage to find an entertainment center that was quite nice, but didn’t actually exist except for the demo unit. So we moved 4 feet and found another one. And it was deemed perfect. And heavy. Whoa was it heavy. Stupid tempered glass.

Afterward, we spent about 1/2 an hour discussing dog food with Celine at Tisol on the Grandview Highway. The vet had suggested Rumble go on an Kangaroo or Emu diet. $110US per case. I don’t think so.

Instead we settled on NRG dehydrated food as a source of all things different. $30CDN per case. Yeah, that’s better.

The rest of Tuesday was occupied with the ongoing cleanup and also putting together the new entertainment shelves. Ugh. Not bad though, less than 2 hours, only a couple of mistakes. You know that was going to happen with 30 instructional steps on paper, PLUS a 20 minute DVD you are “advised” to watch prior to assembly.

The new entertainment unit

The new entertainment unit

Question: How are you supposed to watch a DVD about assembling the entertainment unit if you don’t have a place to put the TV until you’ve assembled the entertainment unit?

I know, right? Thankfully our laptops work. We watched the DVD at triple speed thanks to VLC media player. Much more entertaining.

So, now we have new floors, new rugs, new bookshelf, new entertainment center and still somewhat of a mess to clean up. This whole “have someone install the floors for you” is not necessarily as easy as it sounds.

What I did on my summer vacation – Part 1

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So, Chris and I arranged a few days off together. A full week in fact! Not that unusual, last year we took 2 full weeks in Ontario.

We didn’t really have anything planned for this time, but we did take the opportunity to finally have laminate floors installed, to replace the carpet that Rumble had… damaged over the last 4 years. And what a nightmare that’s been.

First thing, we love the floors! They make the place look much better, and even though they’re dark, the house doesn’t feel darker.

Monday morning (officially day 1 since Chris worked Sunday night), starts with us packing EVERYTHING out of 1/2 of the condo into the other half. Packed. So tight that if we closed the solarium door, we may not get it open again. So full that we couldn’t even think about entering the kitchen or storage room.

Even the bathtub got a temporary resident.

Long story short – floors take a long time, even in about 300 square feet. And there will be dust EVERYWHERE if you don’t have an outside space for cutting. The number of Swiffers we’ve used could clean … bunches of space.

Now, Thursday after Monday install, we finally have everything back in order. The changes necessitated the purchase of 3 small rugs, a new TV stand and about 100 little felt feet. We packed the place up in about 2 hours. It took us 2 days to get everything sorted.

It all felt like moving day. At various points it both looked and felt like we were moving either in or out. We even ordered pizza and bought Chris some beer.

The nightmare part is the mess that the installer made. The floors are great, but he managed to make a mess everywhere. Broken baseboards, chunks of floor in the bathroom, purple goop on the walls, smears on the floor etc. We’ve filed a complaint with the company and are anxious to see if they even reply, now that they have the money.

If not, expect a big post about them here, with names and pictures. Yes, it’s a little like blackmail. Here’s a sample photo. Still a bit of mess, but we’re getting there.

Vancouver Videos

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Rebecca Bollwitt (Over at Miss604.com) shared some new videos of our beautiful city and I thought I’d re-share them here to remind everyone why we love living here so much.

The first video is a time-lapse of Danny Askew‘s “summer” – which actually starts during the Olympics. It’s a little strange as it starts with Vancouver and the Olympics and suddenly jumps to Las Vegas for about 20 seconds, and then back to Vancouver and some lakes in the forest somewhere. It’s a great video though and the time-lapse is quite nice.

Summer 2010 Timelapse Reel from Danny Askew on Vimeo.

Next up is a sort of walking tour of downtown Vancouver. Brandon Moza was testing his Canon camera and got some amazing video. If it was only a matter of buying the same camera to get the same quality video, I’d be out shooting tomorrow.

Vancouver – Testing the Canon 7D from Brandon Moza on Vimeo.