December 2017

I don't know if it was official or not, but we had some snow on the ground during Christmas for the first time since 2008. It varied by region; we had about 2-3 inches, while there was barely any in Richmond, which incidentally is where the official measurements are recorded, at the airport.

Unexpectedly I found myself at Granville Island last week, just killing some time waiting for my dog at the vet. Tannah managed to scarf down a worrisome-sized piece of chocolate as I was outside hanging Christmas lights. I won't go into details of the procedure; the important thing is she's OK!

Ironically, my shopping was done at that point, but I did have a camera in my pocket. Granville Island is especially photogenic during the Christmas season, even without much visible snow left. We were also out early last Saturday morning, just after sunrise, at False Creek.

Under the Cambie Street Bridge. This is where we watched the under-the-
bridge video projection of the salmon last summer.

False Creek reflections.

On our morning run we even came across a Christmas spaniel. 

This place on E. 12th is always festively decked out whether it's Hallowe'en
or Christmas.

Granville Island.

Surface tension at its finest; I honestly don't know
how those ribbons of snow didn't fall from the
neighbour's metal roof.

Under the Bridge

It's always fun exploring new places, and our jogging group sometimes gives me that opportunity. Today Phillip suggested we try one of his regular routes; part of it goes under the Ironworkers' Memorial Bridge. We started at his house near the PNE, jogged through some neighbourhoods that bordered the freeway, ducked into a skateboard tunnel adjacent to a running track and found ourselves almost at the shoreline of Burrard Inlet. The trail that goes under the bridge is part of the Trans-Canada Trail network.

Believe it or not, this gate did not include the statement "Do not enter".

Looks like I'm wearing a steel structure hat.

This is part of the adventure; discovering a tree fort on the north slope of
Burrard Inlet.

The fog was starting to lift on the return leg of our journey.

And there's the Banister-Landy statue at the site of the former Empire Stadium
on the PNE grounds emerging through the fog.

And finally, here's a taste of the grafitti adorning the skateboard tunnel.

ISS

It's been clear weather the last few days in Vancouver, after about a month of mostly rain. Yesterday when I got home from work I let our dog Tannah out into the backyard. As I waited for her, my gaze rose above the houses across the lane to admire the intermediate blueness of dusk.

I seem to forget every year how early the sun sets in early December around here. I noticed a bright dot near the bottom of my frame of observation and assumed it was a plane. And it was...sort of. As I watched its graceful arc across the evening dome above me I realized it was the International Space Station. I've seen it a few times in the last few years but it's always an event for me, and if I'm able (i.e., not driving) I stop to watch it. It lasted from about 5:17 p.m. when I first noticed it, to about 5:22 when it disappeared over the trees on the east side of my street.

Then just for confirmation, after returning from walking our dog on her customary laps around the block after work, I heard Stephen Quinn announce on CBC that a listener had just emailed him a photo of the ISS gliding over East Van (with an arrow, of course, to identify the appropriate reflective dot).

Birds and Murals

I'm going to miss those sparrows at Olympic Village. Their migration is too far in my opinion; they're going to Calgary and then China (!!) for refurbishment. We won't see them again for almost a year. I never considered China as a sparrow-tech hub. Somehow, sparrows don't mesh with my perception of high tech.

On another note, I've been noticing explosions of colour on exposed walls of buildings lately, as in murals. Here are just a few that I've seen in the last few weeks.

I came across this one during the East Side Culture Crawl.

This one reminds me of the TV test pattern. (Does that even still exist?)

This one reminds me of an art style we saw at Circle Craft. I don't even

know if this style has a name. Probably does (geometric, I think).

When "the Earth" hits your eye like a big pizza pie...

Here’s another example of “I didn’t see that coming”. 

Perhaps Elon Musk’s monopolization of the headlines lately with his intended private industry rocket flight to Mars in the near future has had unintended consequences. Last week I heard about some bright spark in California that has declared he believes that "there's no difference between science and science fiction" and has decided to upstage Musk (OK, I added the Musk comparison) with a deep-fried space oddity; a flight in a homemade steam-powered (!!?) rocket up into the sky just high enough not to kill himself, to snap a photo to prove that a conspiracy of astronauts fabricated the shape of the Earth, i.e., that the Earth is indeed a big pizza pie.

Reminds me of a line once used in the long running tv series The Office:
"You must be 'this high' to ride the roller coaster." Would you strap yourself
into this thing? If nothing else, this guy's got guts.

One sticking point however is that it would depend on his believing in digital photography, and I seem to recall that that just may have been developed with the help of "science". Come to think of it, that denial of science might even become a sticky wicket in terms of old fashioned film photography. He might be better served by blasting off with a sketch book and crayons. If he does bring a camera, I hope he also gets a few good clear shots of the angels reclining in the clouds (laughing and pointing).  I’m sure word must’ve gotten out by now of his flypast. Better get your tickets now Angels, before the ticket-bots snap them all up and you’ll be left dealing with Stub Hub.

If I must admit to one thing however, and I really do mean only one thing that Trump's done well, it's been to draw the nut-jobs out of the woodpile.

Cartoon not used with permission, but hopefully the artist
will agree with the relevance.

P.S. (2018-01-05) I watched another video of Mad Mike over the Christmas break to see if there's a new launch date. There is; Super Bowl Sunday. He says he wants to be in direct competition of US football's biggest annual attraction. Hmmm. 

Also, he now says that the Associated Press article from a couple of months ago mis-represented him by saying he was doing this to prove the Earth is flat. Ultimately, he's the only one that knows why he's doing this. All I know is from what I read, and the AP article states that Mad Mike said, "He believes what he believes, including that the Earth is flat." and "I don't believe in science."

Hmmm...

My Capture Photography Festival 2018 Canada Line Competition entry

(I entered the "Capture Photography Festival 2018 Canada Line Competition" today and thought I'd post the Artist Statement and the five photos that I submitted.)

The arrival of the digital camera age has enabled me to carry a camera in my pocket on an almost full time basis since the purchase of my first non-film point-and-shoot in 2007. And now of course it’s even easier due to the prevalence of an integral camera included within every smartphone. In my everyday travels in and about Vancouver I strive to document the city’s evolution in varying perspectives, from natural phenomena, in this case seasonal canopies (spring, autumn and winter), to construction projects, i.e., a very specific cut and cover project employed to create the King Edward subway station.

Although a theme was not specified this year, my "Capture Photography Festival 2018 Canada Line Competition" submission none-the-less has one relating to canopies and covers. An archival photo of mine documents the initial cut and cover construction method employed to create the King Edward Station in and around 2007. Last year I photographed the station’s continuing evolution that added residential accommodation above it. Rounding out the Canopy/Cover theme are seasonal displays of regional leaves and blossoms, and snowfall (incidentally occurring outside the station), closing with an avian canopy of regional crows during their daily aerial commute across the city.

Autumn Canopy (2009)

Avian Canopy (2010)

Cut & Cover at King Ed Stn (2007)

Snow Cover at King Ed Stn (2016)

Spring Canopy (2014)

Seasonal Smorgasbord

We've really had a smorgasbord of weather lately. As I write this post its snowing outside. I fondly recall that last weekend the mercury hit about 18 degrees. Then by mid-week the forecast was predicting a temperature plunge with at least a possibility, if not a likelihood, of snow for this weekend. Needless to say I pushed up snow tire installation on my schedule, at least to Shauna's car. She has to traverse the hills of West Van while my office in is the flatlands of Richmond.

It turns out my Monsters Inc. pumpkin was a pretty popular choice this year; I saw
about three of them in my neighbourhood.

Only a week post-pumpkin and we've already had a dusting of snow
(Wednesday night), which evidently was more of an accumulation elsewhere
in the region.

Does this mean one of the big sparrows at Olympic Village has now been
crowned "The Great Pumpkin"?

Deer Lake in Late October

Our weekly run location was Deer Lake yesterday. The weather was perfect, quite unseasonably warm for this close to Hallowe'en.

Tragically Hip-less-ness

We’re now ten days into Tragically Hip-less-ness.

So far so good I guess.

I did another road trip this week which involved about 6 hours of driving on Vancouver Island, from north to south. It was a perfect opportunity to load up the CD player for some “Hip” audio therapy, blasted at fairly high volume. Of the CDs I brought with me I played them all through twice at least before swapping discs. Almost at the end on one song, “Thompson Girl”, I remember snapping back into reality thinking that I’d actually forgotten for a couple or three minutes that Gord was no longer with us. I think that's a good sign in terms of starting to recover from the shock.

And in terms of lasting legacy, if I were him I'd want people to be able to lose themselves in my music at least once in a while.

Empire Landmark Hotel

Shauna came across an interesting garage sale-style event while web surfing yesterday. Somehow I'd not heard of it before despite it being an on-going event for a week already.

The Empire Landmark Hotel on Robson Street is the second structure in Vancouver to feature a revolving restaurant in its penthouse. Unfortunately we've now missed our chance to dine there as the site will be redeveloped with two condo high-rise towers in the near future. In other words, that site's gonna get a big surprising real soon, implosion style.

Interestingly, there was a TV news report earlier this week profiling a huge sale that was slated to occur all week of everything related to the hotel. We only heard about it on the sale's last day, but decided it was a good rainy day outing, and a last chance to see one of Vancouver's "Landmark" buildings.

Empire Landmark Hotel

Need a bar for your basement? Make'em an offer! What's the worst they
could say? 

Ever had the desire to host your own episode of "Iron Chef"? Again, make'em
an offer!

Coincidentally, a walk-through such as this excursion turned out to be is exactly what I do for my job. I conduct property condition assessments, mostly for transactional due diligence, which generally involve a tour of a building from its roof to its basement, viewing interior finishes, heating/cooling systems, electrical systems, fire/life safety items, windows (for potential signs of leakage), etc. As such on this day, at least once I had to refrain from pressing the shutter for anything but an item of interest to me, not for the needs of report preparation.

Need any chairs for your next house party? Christmas party? Wedding?
Bar mitzvah? 

Despite the somewhat haphazard appearance of the linens room, we did
actually pick up a couple of new pillows for 2 bucks each.

"Two fifty for a flat screen

A big smokin' deal to be clear

Happy hour, happy hour

Happy hour is here!"

(Intended to be sung to the tune of "Little Bones" by I think you-know-who)

If you painted each one a different colour you could complement your new
basement bar with a Rubik's Cube-themed refrigeration system.

Twenty-fourth floor views of the "Shangri-La" and the tower of "he whose
name shall not be spoken", high altitude competitors both clawing at the sky.

Twenty-fourth floor view of the West End and English Bay.

Twenty-something-ieth floor in the direction of Coal Harbour and Stanley
Park

Monster mushrooms

I think I may have stumbled upon a local, fast-growing, organic housing solution for Greater Vancouver. If it keeps raining like it has lately, who knows how big these things will grow!

Long Time Running

It's been a tragic week for us "Hip" fans. As I sit here wearing my Tragically Hip 2016 concert t-shirt, having watched and listened to TV and radio tributes all weekend, I guess all that remains is to wait to see if Ry Cooder actually will sing his eulogy.

I think the ultimate take-away from the whole experience is to admire how unselfishly a personal tragedy was diverted towards an urgent national issue. Gord emphasized more than a couple of times the "down here" versus "up there" mentality that exists. I think he's right. Living mostly along the 49th parallel we have it pretty good, with all necessities close at hand, and available employment and income, by and large. Isn't it about time we try to bridge the cultural gap?

Thanks Gord, of course for all the great music over three decades, but also for the big kick-in-the-pants to include and value the North in Canada's multi-cultural mission statement. Perhaps we could call it a "13 Mission Cap" for the 10 provinces and 3 territories included under the Canadian umbrella.

New Sidewalk

We finally took the plunge and hired a contractor to upgrade our damaged sidewalk. It had been damaged during repairs to the drainage system, and was also settling to some degree.

Before

The demolition stage.

No going back now... Our pig, Floyd, is overseeing construction.

A big improvement.

We decided to re-purpose some large concrete pavers that my bother-in-law gave us. I really should have pressure-washed them prior to installation, but the summer kinda got away from me. As is, they don't quite match the new material due to a slight green tint, but I'll remedy that in the spring.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

It seems hard to believe it was only one week ago today that we participated in Victoria's marathon/half-marathon/8K event by jogging 8K in the warm morning sunshine. As I write this (Sunday) there is brilliant sunshine outside (I should be out in it), but last week, Wednesday in particular was pretty nasty. I remember sitting at my desk looking out the window at about 8:30 a.m. impressed by the how dark it was outside. It seemed to have been lighter out there when I'd arrived at 7:50.

Periods of heavy rain occurred later, but I didn't realized the extent of the downpour until later that day as I reviewed Twitter. Turns out there were areas of flash flooding in Vancouver and enough hail to look as if we'd had the season's first snow already in White Rock.

Broadway at Cambie on Oct. 11.

Hail in White Rock on Oct. 11 (Internet screenshot).

Air Travel to Vancouver Island

Lately it seems like another week, another trip to Victoria. I think I've been there five times in the last month and a half. All the work-related trips (three out of five) have been via float plane, and I've managed to get some good views from the air of the places we bicycled (i.e., the Galloping Goose trail system).

The red line indicates the Brentwood Bay to Mill Bay ferry route.

On our side trip last month we detoured west from the Lochside Trail to explore a restored former train trestle, the Kinsol Trestle, near Shawnigan Lake. It involved a small ferry trip from Brentwood Bay to Mill Bay. We then cycled to the town of Mill Bay and a further 12 km past Shawnigan Lake to Kinsol Trestle. It was well worth the ride as it turns out the Kinsol is the largest such wood structure in the Commonwealth of countries! I'd had no idea.

Fort Rodd in the red circled area.

Another place we explored recently, in 2016, was Fort Rodd historic site, across the bay from Victoria. That time we were on a motorcycle daytrip. It was interesting this morning that the natural sunlight lit up the point of land where the fort is located just like a flashlight had been aimed at it.