Weather
The temperate weather swap finally happened, I think.
On my Yahoo portal thing I keep weather indications for several cities now: Vancouver, Dallas, Lubbock, Jackson. Starting this week, Vancouver is now the warmest city on the list. Granted, it was always warmer than Jackson, WY (not saying much), but the others are significant.
Especially now when people back in Dallas continue to make uninformed comments like, "You ready for the cold yet?" or "Yeah, just wait until winter," not only can I point out their mistake, but I can redirect them to a weather forecast to prove it. Who's cold now, bozo? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Of course, if I end up on any business trips to Edmonton this winter, where our other office is, you might hear me screaming a little. (It can get down to 30 below 0F there — I think they have at least one outdoor hockey arena, if that's any indication).
Speaking of weather, it's really foggy this evening. I was up on the 18th floor checking on some of my people, and looking out the windows up there, it looks like the world ends in about a half mile in every direction. During the daytime that's not so weird, because it's easy to perceive the increasing level of obscurity of objects which are farther and farther away, but at night, with only little pinpoints of lights to focus on, it looks like things are there and then they just stop.
I couldn't even see the train station with all its lights, even following the silhouette of the tracks to where I knew the station should be.
* * *
I found myself thinking today that I wish I were more of a morning person, because it's really depressing when people start peeling out of here at 4:30, and I still have another hour's worth of work to do. Not to mention there have been a couple of days when, even getting here at 7:45am I found myself in a sudden frenzy to catch up with all the emails and phonecalls from my more easterly time-zoned coworkers.
Maybe if I could train myself to be here by 7am, I'd have that hour to get organized and acclimated before I have to deal with too many people socially, and then by the time people start to leave, I should be finishing up as well.
Sounds like a good plan. Now for reversing 30 years of non-morning-personness (at least on weekdays — you remember the Calvin & Hobbes strips where Calvin oversleep every single day, but then would be wide awake at 5am on Saturday causing all kinds of grief? Yeah, that was me). We'll see.
* * *
On the way out of the building today I had to stop by the post box to mail off my expense receipts, and noticed that the #19 Stanley Park bus was just pulling up. "Hey, Stanley Park is downtown, so I bet this bus will take me by home," I thought. The nice thing about a city whose important bits are on a peninsula is that there's only so far astray a bus can wander.
Anyway, I hopped on the bus, which ran up Kingsway, past blocks and blocks and blocks of Chinese businesses and Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants, turned onto Main St near Science World, and then went through Chinatown onto Pender St, past more blocks and blocks of Chinese businesses and Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants, and into downtown at Pender and Seymour (my street), where I hopped off the bus, and decided to look for some tasty eats, especially since my moving company (which is now nearly a week past the "absolute latest" they said my goods should arrive) offered to start paying 50% of my dining expenses — not bad eh?
After only a little wandering around I dropped into a place called Jester's, which is an English restaurant and taphouse. One order of bangers and mash and one Sleeman's Honey Brown Ale later I went on my merry way home.
I stopped by London Drug to buy a new mouse (yeah, computer supplies at the drug store, don't ask — they also sell computers, CDs, DVDs, and appliances), and also picked up a water filter thing, which is good, because the existing tap on my kitchen sink really sucks — it splatters everywhere. So now I'll have water that's not only not green (maybe) but may taste better, and at the very least won't be all over my shirt.
On the home stretch, a big line of people were outside the Commodore Ballroom waiting for a Gwar concert to start, and the whole street's normal noises were punctuated by an occasional roar of "Gwarrrrrrrrrr!" Enthusiastic fans.
On my Yahoo portal thing I keep weather indications for several cities now: Vancouver, Dallas, Lubbock, Jackson. Starting this week, Vancouver is now the warmest city on the list. Granted, it was always warmer than Jackson, WY (not saying much), but the others are significant.
Especially now when people back in Dallas continue to make uninformed comments like, "You ready for the cold yet?" or "Yeah, just wait until winter," not only can I point out their mistake, but I can redirect them to a weather forecast to prove it. Who's cold now, bozo? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Of course, if I end up on any business trips to Edmonton this winter, where our other office is, you might hear me screaming a little. (It can get down to 30 below 0F there — I think they have at least one outdoor hockey arena, if that's any indication).
Speaking of weather, it's really foggy this evening. I was up on the 18th floor checking on some of my people, and looking out the windows up there, it looks like the world ends in about a half mile in every direction. During the daytime that's not so weird, because it's easy to perceive the increasing level of obscurity of objects which are farther and farther away, but at night, with only little pinpoints of lights to focus on, it looks like things are there and then they just stop.
I couldn't even see the train station with all its lights, even following the silhouette of the tracks to where I knew the station should be.
* * *
I found myself thinking today that I wish I were more of a morning person, because it's really depressing when people start peeling out of here at 4:30, and I still have another hour's worth of work to do. Not to mention there have been a couple of days when, even getting here at 7:45am I found myself in a sudden frenzy to catch up with all the emails and phonecalls from my more easterly time-zoned coworkers.
Maybe if I could train myself to be here by 7am, I'd have that hour to get organized and acclimated before I have to deal with too many people socially, and then by the time people start to leave, I should be finishing up as well.
Sounds like a good plan. Now for reversing 30 years of non-morning-personness (at least on weekdays — you remember the Calvin & Hobbes strips where Calvin oversleep every single day, but then would be wide awake at 5am on Saturday causing all kinds of grief? Yeah, that was me). We'll see.
* * *
On the way out of the building today I had to stop by the post box to mail off my expense receipts, and noticed that the #19 Stanley Park bus was just pulling up. "Hey, Stanley Park is downtown, so I bet this bus will take me by home," I thought. The nice thing about a city whose important bits are on a peninsula is that there's only so far astray a bus can wander.
Anyway, I hopped on the bus, which ran up Kingsway, past blocks and blocks and blocks of Chinese businesses and Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants, turned onto Main St near Science World, and then went through Chinatown onto Pender St, past more blocks and blocks of Chinese businesses and Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants, and into downtown at Pender and Seymour (my street), where I hopped off the bus, and decided to look for some tasty eats, especially since my moving company (which is now nearly a week past the "absolute latest" they said my goods should arrive) offered to start paying 50% of my dining expenses — not bad eh?
After only a little wandering around I dropped into a place called Jester's, which is an English restaurant and taphouse. One order of bangers and mash and one Sleeman's Honey Brown Ale later I went on my merry way home.
I stopped by London Drug to buy a new mouse (yeah, computer supplies at the drug store, don't ask — they also sell computers, CDs, DVDs, and appliances), and also picked up a water filter thing, which is good, because the existing tap on my kitchen sink really sucks — it splatters everywhere. So now I'll have water that's not only not green (maybe) but may taste better, and at the very least won't be all over my shirt.
On the home stretch, a big line of people were outside the Commodore Ballroom waiting for a Gwar concert to start, and the whole street's normal noises were punctuated by an occasional roar of "Gwarrrrrrrrrr!" Enthusiastic fans.