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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For Christmas Chris’s step-dad sent us a care package full of treats for Rumble. Oh my god! We never have to buy dog treats again I think. There were so many! (Thanks Dave!) And his mom slipped in a nice box of her homemade shortbread cookies. They were delicious and Chris showed a great amount of restraint and made them last 2 days.

One of the other gifts in the box was a super nice (simple) coat for Rumble. We’ve expressed to Dave before that Rumble hates getting wet and with Vancouver Winter upon is, tis the season to be wet.

So we put the coat on Rumble and he froze. No surprise there, he doesn’t handle change or clothing very well. We’ve shown video of him in boots before. Have a look… This is what happened with the coat.

So what’s the miracle you ask?

That was exactly a week ago. As of now, he’s actually walking with his coat on!

Sadly, this proves something bad. It means that anything Rumble doesn’t know and “can’t” learn is either our fault, or simply because he’s hard headed. But that’s not news to anyone who met him.

Downtown Vancouver is rapidly becoming Olympic central as you would expect with the games roughly two months away at this point.

One of the features is GIANT, building sized posters or banners or flags or whatever you want to call them. On the building opposite the VAG is a giant Canada flag, which I think Chris has a picture of, but I don’t. I’ll post it one day. Ok, here it is, I got Chris to email it to me. We do love our tech.

On the Hudson’s Bay building there are a series of giant pictures of Canada’s winter Olympic athletes, which is a great way to promote them, make the Bay building look good (nobody will be able to recognize it as the place they shot Blade 3).

The biggest reason I like this particular promotion is because the very first photo I saw was of Olympic cutie Carter Rycroft. I know, I’m a shallow, shallow, looks obsessed person for this and I’m sure I’ll be toasting in hell at some point.

Hey, I’m not saying I don’t think he’s a tremendous athlete or that any non-cute athletes don’t get my support, I’m a big athletic supporter – hey wait…  but it sure helps hold my interest in what they’re up to when they’re adorable at the same time.

I like the whole hot-men-in-speedos aspect of swimming and diving during the summer Olympics, but have you seen Michael Phelps? His face isn’t exactly model quality so I don’t care about it so much.

Anyway, in the mean time. I have a new interest in Canada’s men’s curling team and hope to find some time to watch it over the 2 weeks that Vancouver will become a complete zoo in February 2010. Best of luck Carter. Oh, and everyone else.

I was cruising Google Reader last night and came upon a recommended feed that sounded interesting. Price Tags, it’s called. It’s an unassuming little blog by Gordon Price, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University.

One of the recent articles is entitled “Vancouver’s bus service tops in the world,” which had me scratching my head. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know I regularly complain about the crappy service I get from transit in Vancouver.

Color me surprised to find out we actually have one of the BEST and most ON TIME bus services in the world.

I’ll have to remember that the next time the C23 comes every 15-30 minutes instead of every 10 during rush hour.