Tag Archives: vacation

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!

It’s that time of year

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I don’t have any pictures of it this year, it seems to have come and gone quickly. I’m referring to the annual pink budding of Vancouver. For the last few weeks, thousands of trees have sprouted their pink blossoms and come to life during the amazing weather we’ve had.

Unfortunately, and fortunately, that’s coming to an end. I say unfortunately because it’s so pretty to walk down the street and see hundreds of trees festooned in bright pink – a sure sign of spring here. It also means that we now get “pink snow” with sidewalks covered with millions of rotting pink petals as they drop from the trees making way for the green.

I say fortunately because it means that summer is fast approaching and the weather will stop being as unpredictable. Plus seeing Vancouver return to it’s lush forest-like state is the way we all want to see it.

It also means that Chris’ birthday is approaching. Early April and he’ll be, well let’s just say turning another year older. It always causes him stress and last year I didn’t exactly help alleviate that so I’m going to try to do something special this year. Not a big party, but something nice.

We’re also planning on a small mini-vacation either that weekend or the one after. Just a quick trip out of town for 2 nights to re-group and see someplace new. Technically it’ll be the first vacation we’ve taken as a couple. A few years ago we went to Calgary for a long weekend, but we stayed with my family the whole time and had a tight agenda of things we had to do. Not really a vacation.

This will be all about us – relaxing, no agenda (other than getting to the destination), no interruptions. The dog is coming with us, but he’s low maintenance generally.

Spring is in the air!

Playing “Where’s Jeff?” in Vancouver

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Playing “Where’s Jeff?” in Vancouver could be a fun game, but I don’t think enough people know me to spot me. Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t have a striped red shirt and jaunty toque like some people, so that may make me harder to spot in a crowd.

Although I still have the ’70s porn star moustache thing going on so that may make it a little easier.

Today, on the last day of my vacation, I had intended to get out and do some sightseeing or touring or something but instead got several emergency emails from work and ended up going in for 3 hours. Yup. Check out the dedication! I spent the whole time I was there solving a series of problems, which in general were of my own making. But also due to a lack of foresight and testing. Sucked.

I left work at 2:30, got home, had some lunch, walked the dog, played with the dog, then headed downtown to meet Chris. Chris had to go to the doctor for his broken ass leg problem again. More drugs, more tests, more pain. Poor guy.

So I hung out at the Starbucks in Chapters for a while trying to accomplish some of my work for the day. It was loud and noisy and hot. Apparently men swarm in about 10 minutes before I got there and form a series of impromptu chess tournaments. It was kind of interesting. Some 20-somethings playing chess against what could be their grandfathers. Quite a range. Seems like speed chess since the matches didn’t last very long.

I met Chris in front of Vancouver Optical where I had perused their latest series of displays. They always have such interesting windows. I usually like their October ones best, when they get a bunch of props from horror movies made for local productions. A little gruesome, but fun!

Now I’m hanging out at the Starbucks at Helmcken and Howe across the street from the doctors office. Chris is in getting his bursitis checked and fixed, I hope. Turns out he’s not alone. Another friend also has bursitis and has been off work for quite some time because she can’t sit for that long (Hi Jessica). That’s gotta suck.

When Chris is done, I’m hoping for a long-ish but leisurely wander home. I need some downtime before we hit the couch for the night. And undoubtedly the dog will pounce on us the minute we get home.

See, that game of “Where’s Jeff?” would have totally sucked. Outside of home, I’ve been in the same 5 blocks all day.

Taking it on the road

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I’ve been on a mini-vacation this week (3 days) which is nowhere near enough, but better than nothing. Mostly I’ve been doing maintenance on a few websites, playing with the dog a lot, a few minor domestic chores and generally doing sweet f*** all. It’s great. I could get used to it.

Today is day 2 and I decided to take it on the road. Chris and I bought a laptop about 2 months ago (on credit card, 3 months no interest, already paid off thank you very much) and it’s never left the house.

That’s not quite true. I took it to Metrotown on Good Friday to meet Chris but we didn’t go anywhere to sit that I could pull it out and use it, so it stayed in the bag. I consider that “not going out”.

Today, I finished most of my self-imposed chores at home and took the dog on a good hike. The sun was out the whole time, some puppy friends were out and he had a good time. Then I decided to head downtown. I had to drop some checks off for the orthodontist and since it was nice, I decided to relax outside the house for a while.

I considered where I could go, and settled on the close and familiar Starbucks inside Chapters downtown.  Not very exotic or interesting, but I knew my Chapters card would get me some free wi-fi and I could have a little coffee. Having never done it on this laptop before (only on my iPod), I assumed it would be easy. WRONG.

According to the Bell WiFi Hotspot site, their connection/setup isn’t compatible with FireFox, my browser of choice. So I fired up IE. It worked “better” but the connection screen kept refreshing and never gave me the “You have 2 hours” message. In fact, it even yelled at me once saying I had tried to connect too many times before the connection was ready and I should “Stop it. Now!” – yes, it actually said exactly that.

I finally opened a new tab to my home page and it worked. I guess the connection was established but the Java applet they use wasn’t compatible with this 64-bit version of Vista. 20 minutes wasted.

So here I am, sitting in the middle of Starbucks, surrounded by a lot of people (it was empty when I arrived) and writing this blog post. Fun. I’ve been tweeting, checking email and generally trying to look busy, productive and somewhat less pretentious than most people I usually see, but guess what!

Starbucks, enjoying my mystery beverage.

Starbucks, enjoying my mystery beverage.

Using your laptop while sitting in Starbucks with a giant coffee cup (full of mystery fluid, or empty) looks pretentious. No matter what.

Stop me? Not bloody likely! I love being able to do this. The freedom is pretty cool. I should activate my webcam and take a picture. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

There you go! Now I have to leave. Not only do I want to get home before Chris, but 2 women just sat down RIGHT NEXT TO ME. They pulled 2 empty chair and just sat down. No table, no nothing. It makes me uncomfortable.

Aw crap. It’s raining. Thank god for the Sears viaduct to the Skytrain. Minimal wetness.

Thanks for reading…