The Magic Touch...aka...Homeboy...aka... Romeo....
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: (a request from Sofonda Cox to put my location in the message)
Hey everybody... how's it going?
it's been a while since I updated this thing, been pretty hectic and crazy, but at times nice and relaxing as well (just wasn't near a computer so I couldn't update ya)
What a busy day today was, first of all I'd like to pass a message on to all you BC drivers that couldn't handle the snow last week....."suck it up princess" what a crybaby city this is, they get 5-10cm....yes CENTIMETRES of snow, and waaa... bring out the kleenex. LEARN HOW TO DRIVE! i tell ya, they're spoiled out here.... come live in Calgary for a while, maybe then you'll understand what a SNOWSTORM is, or what a real SNOWFALL warning is. Geez.... I remember the big st. pattys day storm a few years back.. what was it 36 INCHES of snow in like 12-16 hours? I WENT TO WORK THE NEXT DAY, and so did a lot of other people... /end rant
ok now that I'm done, can I say that BC roads SUCK. people that can't drive, don't understand the meaning of green means go, and think that a yellow light means stop...(ok maybe it does, but still, I say try and go through the damn intersection if you can) it ain't red yet... :)
I'll fill you in on the adventure today..... and what a day it was....
Start off by heading to drop my cute little cousins off at school, in the rain (which hasn't stopped yet) got to relearn my 2 times table (I was having issues, so the refresher was welcomed) Traffic in BC sucks, nothing makes sense (ok neither does Calgary's road system, but that's another story) so after the adventure of getting the kids to school, I had a really good Strawberry Cinnamon bun from a little bakery in town, then began the adventure to get downtown which wasn't too bad. I think all that sugar that early in the AM wasn't the best idea for little old me... but at least I didn't eat the vegan chocolate cookie that they had at the store...looked like poop, literally.
Ok so for those of you that are still with me, who haven't changed the channel or fallen asleep. I made it downtown. Went into the good old business centre at the hotel and proceeded to check my email and reply to a bunch of pending stuff, did some more research on hostels and hotels etc... umm if anybody knows anybody in Dubai... I need a hookup on a place cheaper than $50 US per night... oh did I mention that thats at a HOSTEL....k, so after this and some other mindless crap, like trying to decipher the bcferries site and its evil twin, the bctransit website, I ventured over, in the rain, to the Vancouver Aquarium (Thanks Hafeez and Derek for the hookup). I'm glad I didn't have to pay for this "tourist attraction" because it's only really worth about $5-$8 not the $16 they charge ($16 is enough to pick up at outlaws.. $5 for cover, 2 drinks and enough change for bus far so she gets home in style) . It is a nice setup, they have 1 (one) dolphin on display, a couple of sea otters (one that looks like a football with whiskers) and these humping turtles, some pink flamingos, big ass fishies, and these really cool snakes that look like underwater twigs... until and unsuspecting fishy comes their way.. and BOOYA... fishy go bye bye. and they had some other stuff nothing too exciting.
So I head out from the Aquarium and it's pouring rain, get to the wonderful bus loop and there is a bus there... but alas.. no bus driver. so I wait, thank goodness there was a little gazebo that I could stand under. After a while the bus driver shows up, opens the door of the bus and gets in, so I start walking towards the bus and he motions me to go stand at the bus stop itself, about ummm lets say 10 steps in front of where he's parked... did I mention that this was now a torrential downpour... so I move up and wait... he takes his sweet time taking the jacket off, sitting down, starting the bus, pause... then drives the bus up to the stop and opens the door for me... at this point I smell like a wet sock, I get on, drop the money in the meter (they don't even trust these idiots to be able to count, and computer does it for ya) and I ask for a transfer and he doesn't say anything, doesn't even look at me. so I ask again, and he replies in a stern and commanding voice " you got one right there" ummm.. no... so look around, and at the meter box, sticking straight up is a little card... so I grab my little card and try to strike up a conversation with the nice bus driver, but I guess he didn't like to talk much. Anyways, get to my stop, get the hell off and wait for the next bus, which had an extremely nice bus driver, who helped me find the right stop, and even signalled to me through the rearview mirror of his that I was about to get off at the wrong stop... poor guy, had to stop the bus earlier to boot a drunk off the bus, even the semi blind guy at the front of the bus had to shake his head, I mean this drunk was passed out across the courtesy seats at the front, so the blind guy had to sit elsewhere. so the drunk goes to get off the bus and the driver is like, "don't you want your stuff?" .. duh..."oh yeah" and the drunk tries to muster the brain cells to figure out how to pick up a bag and depart the bus. Thank you to the nice woman on the bus that gave him an extra plastic bag for his stuff.
and the novel continues....
so meet up with Imraan to see the shop he's got going at the hospital, and I must say, our tax dollars are hard at work. They have some excellent equipment and really good, smart people behind it. I was impressed, blade servers, fiber channel drive arrays, StorageTek tape filers, even a server with 300GB drives, like 3.5TB of Disk!!! I took a pic for those of my fellow geeks. got to see the server that stores and displays the digital diagnostic images (didn't get to see any pics... just a pretty black box that made a whirrrrr sound)... pretty cool stuff.. oh and Earthquake rack stands.. these are so cool, if there is an Earthquake, the ground will move, but the racks will stay in place. Ubercool.
checked out events in London for when I'm there, Green Day is playing in Manchester, so Ima gonna try and get tix and get out there for it, but I don't think it'll be cheap. Got my Aussie Visa took all of 10 seconds to approve (gotta love technology, it was an internet application form and the verification of the visa was faster than the Credit Card processing for the application fee)
Then got stuck in traffic ... left the hospital at 5:45pm, drove into downtown (oh and it's still raining at this point) and then off to PoCo ... got so tired of sitting in traffic, we ate at Nando's for dinner at 8:00 and got into the house at 9:45pm almost 4 hours to get back to the house. We could have driven to Edmonton to Calgary AND back in that amount of time (ok, breaking a few laws as far as speeding goes, but I'm allowed to imbelish a little).
It was good to sit on the couch and watch the Amazing Race... now I'm writing to you all, as I prepare for bed. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you later. I'm off to Sechelt tomorrow and then Victoria on Thursday. And on that note, there is NO SHUTTLE BUS or FERRY from one of the glorious Ferry Terminals to the other...so I'll be on a bus for like umm...2 hours.. umm...like...okay...grrr
J hope you feel better. E Congrats, and to all those former co workers that have found new challenges and adventures in the last few weeks, Good Luck and I know that you will excel at the challenges and adventures that lie ahead!
time to go La La
f
Hey everybody... how's it going?
it's been a while since I updated this thing, been pretty hectic and crazy, but at times nice and relaxing as well (just wasn't near a computer so I couldn't update ya)
What a busy day today was, first of all I'd like to pass a message on to all you BC drivers that couldn't handle the snow last week....."suck it up princess" what a crybaby city this is, they get 5-10cm....yes CENTIMETRES of snow, and waaa... bring out the kleenex. LEARN HOW TO DRIVE! i tell ya, they're spoiled out here.... come live in Calgary for a while, maybe then you'll understand what a SNOWSTORM is, or what a real SNOWFALL warning is. Geez.... I remember the big st. pattys day storm a few years back.. what was it 36 INCHES of snow in like 12-16 hours? I WENT TO WORK THE NEXT DAY, and so did a lot of other people... /end rant
ok now that I'm done, can I say that BC roads SUCK. people that can't drive, don't understand the meaning of green means go, and think that a yellow light means stop...(ok maybe it does, but still, I say try and go through the damn intersection if you can) it ain't red yet... :)
I'll fill you in on the adventure today..... and what a day it was....
Start off by heading to drop my cute little cousins off at school, in the rain (which hasn't stopped yet) got to relearn my 2 times table (I was having issues, so the refresher was welcomed) Traffic in BC sucks, nothing makes sense (ok neither does Calgary's road system, but that's another story) so after the adventure of getting the kids to school, I had a really good Strawberry Cinnamon bun from a little bakery in town, then began the adventure to get downtown which wasn't too bad. I think all that sugar that early in the AM wasn't the best idea for little old me... but at least I didn't eat the vegan chocolate cookie that they had at the store...looked like poop, literally.
Ok so for those of you that are still with me, who haven't changed the channel or fallen asleep. I made it downtown. Went into the good old business centre at the hotel and proceeded to check my email and reply to a bunch of pending stuff, did some more research on hostels and hotels etc... umm if anybody knows anybody in Dubai... I need a hookup on a place cheaper than $50 US per night... oh did I mention that thats at a HOSTEL....k, so after this and some other mindless crap, like trying to decipher the bcferries site and its evil twin, the bctransit website, I ventured over, in the rain, to the Vancouver Aquarium (Thanks Hafeez and Derek for the hookup). I'm glad I didn't have to pay for this "tourist attraction" because it's only really worth about $5-$8 not the $16 they charge ($16 is enough to pick up at outlaws.. $5 for cover, 2 drinks and enough change for bus far so she gets home in style) . It is a nice setup, they have 1 (one) dolphin on display, a couple of sea otters (one that looks like a football with whiskers) and these humping turtles, some pink flamingos, big ass fishies, and these really cool snakes that look like underwater twigs... until and unsuspecting fishy comes their way.. and BOOYA... fishy go bye bye. and they had some other stuff nothing too exciting.
So I head out from the Aquarium and it's pouring rain, get to the wonderful bus loop and there is a bus there... but alas.. no bus driver. so I wait, thank goodness there was a little gazebo that I could stand under. After a while the bus driver shows up, opens the door of the bus and gets in, so I start walking towards the bus and he motions me to go stand at the bus stop itself, about ummm lets say 10 steps in front of where he's parked... did I mention that this was now a torrential downpour... so I move up and wait... he takes his sweet time taking the jacket off, sitting down, starting the bus, pause... then drives the bus up to the stop and opens the door for me... at this point I smell like a wet sock, I get on, drop the money in the meter (they don't even trust these idiots to be able to count, and computer does it for ya) and I ask for a transfer and he doesn't say anything, doesn't even look at me. so I ask again, and he replies in a stern and commanding voice " you got one right there" ummm.. no... so look around, and at the meter box, sticking straight up is a little card... so I grab my little card and try to strike up a conversation with the nice bus driver, but I guess he didn't like to talk much. Anyways, get to my stop, get the hell off and wait for the next bus, which had an extremely nice bus driver, who helped me find the right stop, and even signalled to me through the rearview mirror of his that I was about to get off at the wrong stop... poor guy, had to stop the bus earlier to boot a drunk off the bus, even the semi blind guy at the front of the bus had to shake his head, I mean this drunk was passed out across the courtesy seats at the front, so the blind guy had to sit elsewhere. so the drunk goes to get off the bus and the driver is like, "don't you want your stuff?" .. duh..."oh yeah" and the drunk tries to muster the brain cells to figure out how to pick up a bag and depart the bus. Thank you to the nice woman on the bus that gave him an extra plastic bag for his stuff.
and the novel continues....
so meet up with Imraan to see the shop he's got going at the hospital, and I must say, our tax dollars are hard at work. They have some excellent equipment and really good, smart people behind it. I was impressed, blade servers, fiber channel drive arrays, StorageTek tape filers, even a server with 300GB drives, like 3.5TB of Disk!!! I took a pic for those of my fellow geeks. got to see the server that stores and displays the digital diagnostic images (didn't get to see any pics... just a pretty black box that made a whirrrrr sound)... pretty cool stuff.. oh and Earthquake rack stands.. these are so cool, if there is an Earthquake, the ground will move, but the racks will stay in place. Ubercool.
checked out events in London for when I'm there, Green Day is playing in Manchester, so Ima gonna try and get tix and get out there for it, but I don't think it'll be cheap. Got my Aussie Visa took all of 10 seconds to approve (gotta love technology, it was an internet application form and the verification of the visa was faster than the Credit Card processing for the application fee)
Then got stuck in traffic ... left the hospital at 5:45pm, drove into downtown (oh and it's still raining at this point) and then off to PoCo ... got so tired of sitting in traffic, we ate at Nando's for dinner at 8:00 and got into the house at 9:45pm almost 4 hours to get back to the house. We could have driven to Edmonton to Calgary AND back in that amount of time (ok, breaking a few laws as far as speeding goes, but I'm allowed to imbelish a little).
It was good to sit on the couch and watch the Amazing Race... now I'm writing to you all, as I prepare for bed. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you later. I'm off to Sechelt tomorrow and then Victoria on Thursday. And on that note, there is NO SHUTTLE BUS or FERRY from one of the glorious Ferry Terminals to the other...so I'll be on a bus for like umm...2 hours.. umm...like...okay...grrr
J hope you feel better. E Congrats, and to all those former co workers that have found new challenges and adventures in the last few weeks, Good Luck and I know that you will excel at the challenges and adventures that lie ahead!
time to go La La
f
posted by Fez at
1:48 AM
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