After blogging about how we don’t have “real” seasons in Vancouver anymore (just hot hot for 2 months in the summer then 10 months of grey wetness [mbv]) Mother Nature made me put my foot in my mouth as the Lower Mainland with dusted with several inches of snow this weekend [mg] [mbv].
It’s still coming down although it’s not as noticeable downtown. We took the Skytrain out to New Westminster this morning and as we headed East, the more snow there was.
There’s about 8 inches right now in Burnaby, New West and from what I hear, Surrey. Any place with an incline has either become the fun afternoon hangout for kids in snow suits armed with toboggan and crazy carpets, OR a skating rink for car with a driver freaking out about this white substance falling from above that is ruining their traction.
Luckily, we can rely on the transit system for now so John and I can just walk or grab a bus/Skytrain if we need to get anywhere. On the train this morning they had a message playing every 2 stops: “Skytrain is now running it’s Snow Plan. There is an attendant on every train. Due to heavy snow, there may be sudden stops. Please hold on at all times or stay seated, thank you.”
I’m pretty curious as to how the commuters will fare tomorrow morning, downtown may be pretty empty tomorrow without all those who don’t want to brave the trek in. One thing I have to mention is if you’re coming from the burbs and you have a foot of snow piled on top of your car, please make sure to scrape it all off. Nothing worse than driving behind someone with a foot of snow on their roof and WOOSH the wind catches it and you get clumps of falling snow either on the road right in front of you or smack dab in the middle of your hood. Please be careful out there and check out these traffic webcams to find out what your route might look like.
It’s a good thing I walk to work… or is it?
Here in the West End, the snow is piling up. We just came from Burrard station where the insulating concrete of the heart of downtown is keeping everything pretty liquid. I’m looking outside the window and I see trees covered in powder, not as much as in Burnaby, but there’s enough on the sidewalk to scoop up and mold into a killer snowball. So this one’s pretty easy, my next “cheap fun thing to do in Vancouver” is this: Build a snowman & have a (friendly) snowball fight.
This summer we enjoyed so many outdoor activities in Vancouver, that didn’t cost a thing except maybe bus fare if we wanted to venture a little further from home [miss604]. As the rain rolled in for fall and winter in the city, our beach time came to an end, walks are less frequent and we spend most of our free time watching hockey indoors.
Today, we discovered something (for under 10 dollars) that’s a GREAT way to spend a rainy day inside and get a workout. Ice skating [metblogs]
We’ve been meaning to go for a while and since I had the day off work and it was a Twonie skate at the West End Community Centre, we jumped at the chance. Lacing up the skates and getting out on the ice felt SO good. It took us a lap to get our skating legs into gear and we were off. 45 minutes later I was out of breath and just listening to the sounds around me. Ashlee Simpson on the loudspeaker, crunching snow and ice beneath the skates of school kids, tourists and old couples alike. Echos of young girls giggling when their friend would trip, the crunching of snow under the skates of the hockey star in the middle of the rink practicing his turns and stops. Man it felt good to get out there.
I was surprised that John did so well, although I shouldn’t be really. He comes from a climate where outdoor rinks would flourish in the winter time much more than they would here. He’s also got a lil hockey background. I felt empowered, being one of maybe two girls on the ice wearing “boy” skates although I think I lost my ability to hockey-stop. Regardless, we had such a wicked time.
On the way out of the rink, there was a display case mounted on the wall, just outside of the doors on Haro Street [view Flickr pics]. They were photos of Coal Harbour and the old Denman Arena. For those who don’t know – that’s the last place that the Canucks won the Stanley Cup in 1915 [read my metblogs post].
We’re set on going skating again, probably tomorrow. And I’m thinking of starting a new series of blog posts (since we’re kinda cheapskates) about things to do in Vancouver that are uber fun AND under 10 bucks. So let this be the first, and we’ll see how our season goes.
*View the YouTube video John took at the rink & my Flickr photo set.
The Vancouver Park Board Rinks: Britannia, Kerrisdale, Killarney, Kitsilano, Riley Park, Sunset, Trout Lake and West End Community Centres [VPB].
PDF schedule for all rinks in Vancouver.
In October of 2000 I was working at a dotcom. It was me, 12 computers, 12 phones and a whole lot of conference call webcasting. It’s what eventually got me over to Boston a couple years later, and then back home a while after that. The way it all started, as some liked to say, was with shoelaces and bubble gum. The system was rickety, duct tape was often involved, and I would soon realize that the Burger King on Main Street, near 2nd didn’t serve breakfast at 4:45am, just dinner.
I got into the whole deal through some old friends that I’ve known since I was 8 years old. We kept in touch until my mid-teens then we didn’t see each other for a while. After couple years passed, one of them happened upon me online, recognizing my handle on Audiogalaxy (this was before the days of Napster and Kazaa). We then did a little catching up. They talked about this online broadcasting project that they’d just begun, I signed on and the rest is my geek history.
Currently, one of them is doing contract work over at Telus. John met me after work today and we Skytrained out to Joyce (since we’re cheap and only wanted to pay the 1 zone fare at the time) then walked over to ‘The Boot’ [GVRD].
‘The Boot’ is rather intimidating. Sitting atop the hill on the corner of Kingsway and Boundary is the multi-googo-mega Telus Corp. We went inside and got a tour of his new workspace – basically the encoding centre. Man, encoding centres have come a LONG way since my days of duct tape, Real Media editor and gentner switches.
I almost had to stop John from drooling over all the audio equipment (and the on-site fitness club), man we gotta get him a job soon.
From there we headed over to Lynn Valley to catch the game, since it was Pay Per View and the guys have the whole pre-paid package deal. Boy, it was well worth the money tonight… well okay the 3rd period was well worth it.
The following is a photo tour of our afternoon and of things I was comfortable snapping shots of in ‘The Boot’ before we vacated the premises.
We felt the love
Where some of the magic happens
“That’s not good enough! We want MORE asbestos! MORE asbestos!”
HOT
The escape route
Alternate escape route
The reward
Everyone is back on the line for Episode 8. Talk of booze, fights on the ice, and JJ becoming our very own Canucks.com fan blogger all keep us chatting this week.
Although the water is still murky in Vancouver, the Canucks’ play has made everything a little brighter. After a dismal beating last week, our boys come back with two victories since the last episode.
Alanah is back online with the gang as we discuss our recent wins. J.J. recaps his experience at the game vs St Louis on Friday night and Dave gives us his perspective, after attending the Chicago match last night.
Record as of this podcast: 10-10-1 (3rd in the Northwest Division)
The quick little defenseman catching our attention, our fearless Captain almost getting a hat trick and Kesler’s right hook all lifted our spirits. With 3 more games this week, and no shortage of shots on goal, we know the Canucks have the potential to kick some serious butt.
Run Time: 26:20
The Crazy Canucks Podcast, Episode 8
While looking over a new theme that we’ve been working on for a while, John and I got into a heated debate over fonts. Yes, our household is just THAT geeky.
I flashed a screenshot of the theme-in-progress to my co-worker, Chris who said there’s a part of it that reminds him of “that little tank game”, he then proceeded to demonstrate with his fingers, the movements of the tank and tag on some sound effects “eeeee oooooo crrhhgggglllhhhhhh!” I totally knew what he was talking about.
Way back when, my brother, sister and I used to have two games on our computer. One was with two gorillas on top of skyscrapers and you had to adjust velocity and angle, then toss a banana at the other person’s gorilla. Any banana that missed, left a crater and the cityscape would vanish around you, while battling. They also had a version of it on Intellivision [wiki]. Quality gaming, I know.
Another, was Tank Wars – the game Chris was getting at. All the computer-run tanks were named after dictators and warriors, Atilla, Musollini, Adolf, etc. To play a much-updated version of Tank Wars, visit a site that lives up to its reputation, AddictingGames.com.
Chris also says I should be a “Verdana sales rep” since I can sell anyone on it [previous post about fonts yes, I have a previous post about fonts].
Update: Found a forum post about the gorilla game, “Apes”. Someone actually re-created it, sweeeeet.
