Saskatchewan Plates

For me, gushing about Vancouver has become a cliche. Since moving there for the first time four years ago, my prattlings about the city have made up a sizable chunk of the content on this blog. But there’s a very good reason.

Vancouver is a bit like my disneyland. It’s filled with the sights, smells, and sounds I love. The people in it seem relaxed and there’s certainly excitement in the air because of the Olympics. There’s no chaos, no discontent even in the busiest of streets (I’m looking at you Robson). And I’m always there with friends.

My 48 hour trip this weekend was no exception and the guest appearances were many. Lunch with Cloe, dinner, drinks, and dancing with Kevin, Shannon, and Jeff. I finally got to try The Salt Tasting Room and the Lamplighter seems to have adopted the half-alive crowd for our benefit. I wandered the downtown streets with Cloe and Gage parting the crowds, managed to catch up for a few hours with Dan and Paula and the latest addition to their family, and then capped off the night over beers with James, Davin, and Kerr. Special thanks to Kevin for being the most gracious of hosts and putting up with me for the weekend. And the weather was unseasonable perfect, with some familiar drizzle to send me off this afternoon.

When I took my job, I promised myself to get back to Vancouver in 2010. Unfortunately, things in San Francisco are going well enough that I may not be able to keep it. But my occasional pilgrimages remind me that the date is still out there, marked with a red circle on some future calendar of mine and I’m damn excited for its arrival.

It has been a whirlwind month. In my last post, I was one week from the APM trip. Despite the lack of photos (working on it), I made it through three east asian countries in less than two weeks and back, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

I really liked Tokyo, it was exactly what I expected: awesome. Despite having the most time to spend there out of any country on the trip, I could return and see a lot more. Highlight of the trip was seeing Ed, despite only have a few short hours to catch up. It seems like he’s doing very well out there, so hopefully he’ll be around for me to visit in the future. Beijing was very interesting to see and certainly different than I had expected. Taipei was the big surprise on the trip, largely because I had no expectations at all about it. I’d love to go back, maybe during a cooler season.

We found out our rotation fates at the end of the trip. You may have noticed my hasty “Moving to SF update”. I am happy to report that my new project will have me based out of the downtown SF office, hence the move.

Instead of taking a few days off to recover from the trip, or perhaps locate new housing, I hopped a plan to New York to visit my current team and local friends.

The scenery in New York is wonderful this time of year, but unfortunately the weather was hit and miss. My one night stay at the Standard was beautiful and I was very lucky to check out the brand new High Line Park. If you’re not based in NY, you probably did not hear about the spectacular High Line Park, which is the result of a project to convert NY’s abandoned raised subway lines into a city park. I recommend you check out the pictures. The exposed rails really appeals to my love for nature reclaiming man made constructs.

Only a few short days later and I was back at the airport, this time en-route to Vancouver. Life lesson: If avoidable, don’t travel on the Thursday before the long weekend. I made it to Newark International in time, but my flight departed late and only by running was I able to make my connection in Seattle. Apologies to those whose hopes I crushed by successfully making it.

Cons of living in the states: No credit history; criminal with the same name makes it impossible to check-in to flights online and get the seats I want.

Cons of living in Canada: No Hulu or Pandora

Vancouver was wonderful. I use wonderful here because I’ve simply run out of new highly positive adjectives to describe the city. I caught up with a huge set of familiar Vancouver faces over the course of three days and some from out of town. Kenshi made it up from Seattle and Trish was up visiting Shawn. Shannon graciously picked me up at the airport at Midnight on Thursday despite working the next day. Dan and Paula threw a BBQ. Kevin put me up on Saturday night.

I will move back to Vancouver. I’m not sure if I’ll make my original 2010 goal, but I will move back. I’m sure it’s first love syndrome, but I have very few reasons to be anywhere else. I consider myself a flight risk.

So now I’m munching on Sheila’s cookies and drinking Tim Horton’s waiting for my flight back to SF. The next month will be much quieter on the travel front, but just as dramatic overall. Goals for the next month: Find an apartment in SF, move into said apartment, sell the car, get a dog. Let’s see how I do. At the very least, I’m looking forward to retiring the ‘mountain view’ tag.

Revelation about New York: The crazy people in my dreams are actually crazy people yelling on the street below my apartment and my mind is just creating characters for them to explain it.

I could live in New York, in the sense that I’d be happy to live in the city, not in the sense that I could afford it. I long for the days when a ten minute walk with music was all that separated me and the office. Of course, as easily as I could live in New York, in actual fact it’s Vancouver that I want. Sometimes I wonder if my obsession with that city is more harmful than helpful, if any other city could live up the impossibly high bar set by my first metropolitan love.

Fortunately for me, Vancouver (unlike my ex-girlfriends) would take me back in a heartbeat. Hell, it’s the only long-distance relationship I’ve ever been able to maintain.

/me doesn’t think that’s a sad thing.

I’ve been neglecting my blog. I’m not entirely sure why being home in Saskatoon has that effect. I hypothesize that it was because the blog was originally started to relay my Waterloo adventures back home. In reality, my readers have transitioned from being almost entirely Saskatoon to an eclectic mix of states and provinces with Saskatoon being a very large minority. So it would make sense for my writing to stay just as frequent regardless of my location. Evidently this hasn’t been the case (so much so that I’m writing my first post in almost a month at the moment in Vancouver). I promise to try and do better.

What’s happened since my last half-assed post? Well WWDC was a great time. I met some very cool people, learned a ton, and saw the Barenaked Ladies. Back in Saskatoon, I joined a start-up company in Innovation Place doing some proof-of-concept work in exchange for just enough pay to cover this summer’s bar tab… and maybe a new mac. This last Thursday, not even two weeks into my job, I’m back on the road. This time out to the west coast.

If I were somehow able to get my hands on an unlimited supply of both gas and great music, I could drive between Saskatoon and Vancouver for the rest of my life. The prairies might be boring for some, but the massive skies and vast fields make this boy’s heart skip a beat. The mountains though are undeniably beautiful. My first night, I stayed with Duncan in Kananaskis, which is just south of Banff on the edge of the Rockies. On Friday and Saturday, I moved on to Vernon to stay with Chandra in the Okanogan who was playing in the Funtastic, a weekend long baseball tournament and beer gardens. I had an blast, even as a spectator as Chandra’s team was full of ridiculous characters. Kim Mitchell played the beer gardens on Saturday night, and I barely made it out of the scorching hot weather alive. Seriously, Lytton was the hottest place in Canada on Sunday rocking a 39.6 C. I drove through Merritt which is just west and the thermometer in my car read 38 C. And I was driving without AC trying to save gas. My left arm is more sunburnt now because it was next to the window the entire trip.

Still, I made it to Vancouver just fine and it feels so wonderful to be back. I cannot describe how much I love this place. It’s just like any other love in that, even over the years, and as much as you try to cox yourself to move on, being back just makes it all come rushing back.

I wandered around Granville Island market today, sampling produce and enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells. I had to work quite hard to form a justification for not just staying. Right now, only my career ambitions have me headed anywhere else, and I’m finding both in Vancouver and in Saskatoon that being in a place you love surrounded by your friends and family is just as satisfying.

In the mean time, I have five days to enjoy Vancouver and two months to enjoy Saskatoon. Summer is shaping up just fine.

Continuing the trend of foreign Sean spotting, Lisa and Shahnaz have spotted this dolled up Frenchie in line at a DJ Tiesto show in Montreal on new years.

For your informations:

Sean is arriving in Saskatoon on Westjet flight 178 connection from Calgary to Saskatoon. Estimated time of arrival is 12:07am (seven minutes after midnight) on Saturday, December 23nd. That’s this Friday night/Saturday morning.

Till then.

Things are goofy at work and I’ve got a DE exam Saturday morning which I’m finding impossible to study for. Therefore things have died on the blog. You’re not missing much. Let see here..

• Missing Lisa
• Kicking it into Overdrive at work to get a good review
• Trying to get plans for Christmas organized
• Snow’s melted in Vancouver, can drink the water again, feels like spring
• Listening “The Eraser” by Thom Yorke of Radiohead a lot – Official album of Vancouver fall ‘06?
• Bought and flipped a Wii – Two hours from Post Office to sold – Buy more tomorrow?
• Drank, did chugging contests, and someone (not me) puked, all at The Hudsons Bay building – Best Christmas party ever
• Decemberist next week

Brains talk through time. No serious: (from “What the ^&#$ do we know?”)

Diferente by Gotan Project

This week has been hectic. Tuition bill paid. Last month’s rent paid. Large credit card bill paid. I bought a Wii to flip on eBay. I ended up writing a script that automatically polls Futureshop and Bestbuy and then alerts me for updates. I re-wrote it with SMS support so that Gee could get in on the action. Futureshop did 60 PS3s today. I almost pulled the trigger. If you’re still on the look out for one or the other (or anything out of stock on BB/FS), let me know and I can set up alerts for you too.

I had a sit down with my boss’s boss today. We talked about project management and school, and I’ve been seriously considering coming back after I graduate. I don’t quite know when my perspective changed, but I have really warmed to my team and my job. Especially consider I’ve been busting bugs for the most part as of late.

Vancouver’s snowed in. You can tell the city wasn’t built for it. I think our pipes froze last night as there wasn’t any hot water this morning. A lot of trees are pretty weighed down. But don’t let any of the news deceive you, this storm is pretty weak in comparison to the ones I’ve seen in Saskatoon or even Waterloo. The only reason it’s so sensationalized is that no one’s actually ever had to deal with weather like this. All of the Easterners at work get a kick out of the it.

So we’re done to a few weeks now. Final exam for my DE class in a week. The Decemberists in two. Home in three. Hectic to the finish now.

Have to track down Jamie yet too. I’ll find time yet.

City of Delusion by Muse

I’m pressing start on the counter. I’ve officially got one month left to go until I wrap up my year in Vancouver (and five month vacation in Waterloo/Saskatoon). It’s been a several blasts and I will be very surprised if I dont’ come back.

I went and saw the new Bond movie tonight. I think they did a brilliant job. Really well done movie. This wouldn’t be a blog if I didn’t piss and moan about something though:

• A little heavy on the product placements. I suppose it’s unavoidable to get Sony in there since they on the production company, but it’s sacrilege to have Bond driving a Ford Focus.
• That Mathis character is a flaming bag of douche. I hate the JarJar-esque role of having him chime in every five minutes during the poker game to fill in the “stupid” American public about what’s going on. Everyone knows what’s going on. The only people who don’t would sure as hell not be watching a Bond movie.
• That atrocity of Casino Royale’s main theme song. The song is called You Know My Name by Chris Cornell. I provide this information not so you can download it (please for the love of Deity do not download it!), but because hopefully someone who Googles it, thinking it’s good will find this and realize that they are screwed up in the taste department baaaaaaaiiiiiig time. If you’re this person, please do me a favour: Stop buying music. You’re the stupid American I was refereing to in the last point.

Exercising my Demons is fun!

Fun fact: “Mad World” is number two on iTunes top selling songs right now. I can only assume it’s because of the placement on the Gears of War trailer that’s been getting a lot of playtime. Someone’s going to be pissed: They’re buying the wrong version (Original Sacre version over Michael Andrews Gary Jules cover).

Oh and last but not least, the worst Pitchfork media review ever (too bad it’s for a good album). No word of a lie, I had two seperate people come up to me today and say “You have to read this Pitchfork review. It is awful.”

Out of this World (Version 138) by The Art of Noise

I’m all conferenced out. It is amazing just how draining sitting on a deceptively uncomfortable chair for somewhere close to 10 hours is. Two days of it is all my body can handle. It was quite the experience and I’ll reflect on it a bit more on the CS site in the coming days. For those that are interested, feel free to stop by.

Thing that I missed while I was in stuck in a hotel for two days: Big fucking storm.
Way I found out: Water in shower before I got in was brown (we’re under a boiled water advisory now).

For being out in the open, downtown wasn’t hit very hard at all, other than some relatively heavy rain.

Back to work tomorrow. Shall be quite the trial.