Look What Fancy Made!

So, my snowman didn't last the night. Not, it didn't melt. It fell/got knocked down. Someone else made a snowman right beside it that fell as well. Giant snow balls scattered everywhere.

In other news, today, the day in which everyone on the radio told us to stay home, we were out of our house for 10 hours.



Half this time was spent on the roads driving cautiously (only fishtailed once) and taking note of all the cars in the ditches.



The other half was spent at the airport trying to get Fancy's dad on a flight that would actually leave the ariport today. His afternoon flight got cancelled and he was reboked on an evening flight. End result, we're home safe, and her dad is still waiting to leave the airport.



In our human interest story, we got a new Christmas tree! And its even already up. Fancy and I both did the decorations, though she reworked it some this morning. What you see here is the final result.

Amazingly, it lasted through the night. We'll see if it will make it to Christmas without the cats using it as a plaything.


P.S. The second flight just got cancelled. Looks like we'll be housing both the parents tonight. (Powers out at the RV park.)

Look What I Made!

Its snowing in Vancouver. And surrounding area. Here are a few pics.



This one is of some of the trees around our building. Probably taken about 11pm saturday night.



This one is of the bushes near the small strip mall next to our building. Again, taken saturday night.

And the GRAND FINALE! This is what I made. Other peope came to take pictures with it as well. I'm kinda hoping that the tower managers will take pictures to put in the newsletter thing. Sigh. I'm such a little boy. :)

The Enlightened Masses

OK, today you get a twofer.

The Playstation 3 was released this Friday. Only 400,000 units were available for all of North America. Now, this is no where near the number of units that would actually fulfill demand. However, it is enough to create a super media hype about the product and drive people to line up for days to get their hands on one. One begins to think that perhaps the “production problems” Sony had were perhaps artificially created. “Oh! No wonder we only have 400,000 units. We totally forgot to turn on the second, third and fourth production lines! Silly us.” And of course, even with only 400k units, they would still HAVE to release now. Imagine the publicity they would lose if they waited another week or two when they could double the amount of units available. But really, you can’t fault Sony for wanting to create a big media hype and artificially increase demand. Well, maybe you can. You can also, however, call the thousands of people who have been waiting for days to buy the new console so that they can sell it on e-bay idiots. Now, I guess I can’t say they are complete idiots, since they will likely sell them for a nice profit. The bigger idiots are the people who are actually going to pay 2x to 3x the retail price just to have the machine before Christmas. Sometimes corporate America, and the seemingly innate greed of the American public just astounds me. And after writing this I can’t decide if I should stick with my original thought of “they are all dumb” or if I’m the stupid one for not getting in on it.

Now what makes this a twofer is the recent stormy weather the greater Vancouver area has had. It was bad enough to churn up the three major water reservoirs, which in turn prompted officials to put out a boil water advisory for the whole area. So the waters a little dirty, and you should boil it to ensure you kill off any bacteria and parasites that may get through the disinfecting process. Not difficult. But that’s apparently not easier than buying some bottled water and using that instead. Now, generally I believe that most people are somewhat rational, but what went on around here this weekend after the advisory makes me want to change my mind. People started clamouring to buy 50-100 bottles of water each. There were nearly fistfights from al the pushing and shoving to get at the water at the big superstore type places. Even the neighbourhood grocery stored had people pushing carts stacked up with cases of bottled water. It’s like they were going to use it to bathe with. I understand hotels and restaurants using the larger 5-10 gallon jugs to wash and cook their food so they can ensure the food they provide won’t make anyone sick. But c’mon. A single person does not need 7 cases of water to get through two or three days of a water advisory. And after writing this, I still have no problems with calling anyone who walked out of a grocery store with any more than a single case of bottled water for themselves stupid. There is being prepared, and then there is grossly overreacting to an event that could possibly cause you some discomfort. I say again. Stupid.

PS. It was really clear yesterday and the snowy mountain caps were visible along our entire panoramic view. I likey.

Windows are the ... biggest pain in the ass!

So, the one thing that’s really bugging me about where we live are the windows. When we first looked at the place, I made a comment to the manager about the windows being single pane and not having any screens. She replied with a quick “We don’t have mosquitoes here so there is no need for the screens.”

Well, when I first moved in, they had recently painted the place, so I opened a window to air out the place. Within two minutes there was a bee in the room. Now, being on the 23^rd floor, I really didn’t expect as many bugs are we do get up here. We get as many here as we did back in Edmonton, on the 5^th floor. One day we counted nearly 30 ladybugs hanging out outside our window. But the manager was right, we've had all sorts of bugs in our place, but no mosquitoes. So, to put it succinctly, issue number one is No Screens.

Of course, with single pane windows, there is also zero insulation. The summer got very, very warm, and we’re expecting the winter to suck a lot of heat out of the place. Sometimes, you can actually see the blinds move a slight bit from the draft. Issue two. No Insulation.

Issue three was brought about by the recent nasty weather. Apparently these windows can’t stand up to constant wind and rain. Yesterday Fancy found that the clothes that were stacked under the bedroom window were rather wet. Soaking actually, along with some of the carpet. The windows are old enough and the winds strong enough that water was forced between the windows. Enough water to soak 3 or 4 items of clothing and a good portion of the carpet. Looks as if there might also be some damage to the window sill. So issue number three is These Windows Are Useless.

In conclusion, I miss my double-paned windows with screens.

(But at least we didn’t get flooded out, lose power, or have a tree fall on anything we own.)

A Nap Would be Nice Right Now

Its been an active weekend. Marc came down for a few days and we spent very little time at home. Friday was drinks with jette at a Surrey bar. Would have been good if the music was a bit quieter and they had more than one pool cue for the two tables they had. Well, I guess they did have two cue’s, but the second was only usable by people even shorter than jette.

Saturday was spent dong the tourist thing for Marc. And somehow or other, he actually got Fancy to eat at a sushi place. Granted, she only had a chicken bowl, but still! That’s the only time I’ve ever seen her even consider walking into one of those places.

Yesterday we spent many hours travelling down the northern coast of Washington. Passed through Chuckanut and Juan De Fuca before getting on the Interstate and heading back to the Great White North. Marc had issues with the border crossing (we didn’t know you were required to be out of country for 48 hours before you could bring back tobacco/alcohol without paying duty) but it was nothing worth getting stripped searched over.

In less recent events we spent some time just before Halloween with jette et al. at her parents for a BBQ and pumpkin carving. While most people went traditional, I took it upon myself to get creative and put some effort into what I thought were quite good creations. Fancy says I obsessed, but I call it attention to detail. Either way it was fun as well. Then there was jette’s birthday party. A good night for reasons not the least or which was we got to go out and be social.

This is something we’ve (well, me at least) become keenly aware of here in our little apartment. We are working towards finding ways to get out and make Vancouver someplace we live rather than someplace we visit on occasion. You may have noticed that jette is a big part of that effort right now. Eventually though, we'd like to be able to go out without first getting an invite from her (though we'd probably still throw an invite out to you jette.)

Contemplating joining Fancy for a nap, so I leave you now. Goodnight.