The World is Watching

The Olympics is well underway and the crowds have flocked to Vancouver. Unfortunately the snow has not so so of the local mountain events have been affected. The week prior to the start, the roads were actually better than normal because an estimated 250,000 people have left the city.

We ventured down town last weekend to soak up the atmosphere and found the downtown area pretty empty. It was the day after the opening ceremony so we went straight to the Olympic flame first and found it to be shielded by a large chain link fence. It was so high you had to put your camera right up to the fence and photograph straight through it. They even had a cherry picker lying around the place so it looked really messy. There have been a huge amount of complaints from the public, and rightly so, so they have now cut a bit hole in the fence to allow people to take proper photos. You still can't get anywhere near the structure though.

The rest of the town was pretty quiet. The main shopping street, Robson, was dead with no one in the shops and the only busy area was Robson Square in front of the gallery. They had an ice rink where the Olympic characters danced about and allowed you to take pictures and a zip line across the road. Apparently the line up for this was 4 hours yesterday and it takes longer to get the safety equipment on than complete the trip so it doesn't seem like a great thing to wait for.

We ended up in H&M and found it to be like a Tuesday night (ie empty) and the restaurant that we had lunch in had two customers so I'm not sure what this event is going to do to the local economy. Obviously the hotels are doing very well as they are all fully booked and charging a fortune and VANOC will be doing ell with their ticket sales and merchandising but I'm not sure about the stores or restaurants.

There have been some funny stories about the lengths that the VANOC organization has gone to protect the official Olympic brand and sponsors. One local restaurant downtown was asked to change it's name as it was called the Olympic restaurant. Apparently this place had been a family run Greek restaurant for years but VANOC saw fit to drag them through the courts. Not sure if they won but it was a media booboo for them. Then there's a local clothing manufacturer of yoga clothing who were not an official sponsor but, nevertheless, put "a famous sporting event held in Vancouver" on their T-shirts and this upset VANOC too. Funny that.

But the weather has been the most disappointing as far as the events are concerned. Beautiful blue skies, warm temperatures and a distinct lack of white fluffy stuff has been an obvious issue. We were up Mount Seymour this morning and, while the views from the top were spectacular, it was like skiing on sugar. There were big rocks and tree trunks exposed where there is normally mounds of snow. It was still fun though.

We watched the opening ceremony on the world wide interweb and it was fun. The event tickets were $1100 each and you had to be in your seat by 5pm. The show ended at 10pm and you were not allowed to take your own food in so you had to buy their food. Very expensive I bet. The show was good, especially the light show but not $1100 worth of good. KD Lang was excellent and has a brilliant voice and was by far the best part.

The Olympics Are Here!!!

We had the Olympic flame down our street this afternoon at lunchtime. The street was full of school kids out from their lessons to watch a spectical that we will probably never witness for the rest of our lives. I have to admit that the sense of excitement grew as the torch bearer gradually approached where we were standing in the crowd but I'm not sure I am overly excited about the overall event.

The traffic will probably be chaos in various parts of Metro Vancouver and I for one will be avoiding the bridge from the North Shore as much as possible. The authorities are encouraging people to use public transport as much as possible while warning of 1-2 hour line-ups at the Skytrain stations during peak periods. For "peak periods" read "most of the time, particularly at night". The two bridges from Vancouver to the North Shore (access to Whistler) will be a nightmare at rush hour as lanes are being claimed specifically for Olympic travel. We only have two lanes in each direction on both bridges normally and they are invariably clogged during rush hour so who knows what it will be like for the next 2-3 weeks.

Then we have to look at the expected costs for hosting this. The Provincial government are forking out millions along with the RCMP and as a result the funding for schools and hospitals have been cut while the government waits to see what the final costs actually are. That means no critical facility upgrades for any schools in BC or any hospitals.

Then there's the weather which is out of everyone's control, but we have no snow. None!! We are having to truck snow in from Manning Park at a cost of $150k and helicopter the stuff from the top of Cyprus Mountain at $10k per hour. And that's just for some of the events. The remainder of the alpine events will be at Whistler where the snow is a lot better.

To top it all we had deal with the process that was chosen for the ticket allocation. About 10% of the tickets were available to the public and they had to apply for them through a lottery. But you couldn't chose, say the hockey gold medal game and nothing else, you had to apply for a group of tickets for other events too and at huge costs. This has meant that people are trying to sell their unwanted tickets to friends as quickly as possible in the run up to the games. Then the authorities refused to let anyone sell their unwanted tickets on Craigslist or any other web site and warned that anyone who did buy tickets in this way would be prevented from entering the events. The tickets have the names of the people on them. At least that was the process until VANOC decided to let people sell their tickets as long as they used their own website and charged 10% of the price to both the seller and the buyer.

Then, on top of all that, you have to buy the official gear with either cash or a VISA. Guess why; 'cause VISA are one of the official sponsors.

The list goes on, but enjoy the games.

Peter

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I don't know about you lot but I am constantly being asked to open a Facebook account by people at work, friends, family and all manner of hangers on, so that people can contact me. Erm, isn't that what email and the electric telephonic apparatus is for? "Yeh, but you can store photos on it for everyone to see". Why would I want my photos on the interweb for everyone to see? The are my personal memories of vacations and days out and soccer games and if I wanted to share them I would email them to my friends, not post them for the entire world to see them. Unless, of course I wanted people to buy them, but that's something else and even then I would create my own website and call it petesphotoemporium.com or something.

And the latest one is this LinkedIn. I do have an account there because I have been inundated with requests from people all over the world that work for Honeywell (yes I know people all over the world that work for Honeywell). I started my page, invited a couple of colleagues and then looked at other people's pages. They had 80 connections here and 40 connections there. I had 2. So now I felt pressure to link up to other people that I knew and spend an hour searching through their database for more people. I think I am now up to a whopping 6.

So my question is this: how do these, normally efficient characters manage to get through their work during the day and have 80 connections? If it took me an hour to get 6 connections how long does it take to win over 80? Or are they spending time at home doing it? Either way, why are they spending this time on it?

What's happened to calling people? Or emailing them? Are we now living in a society where we get satisfaction, not from performing well at work and earning the respect (and lot's of money) from our colleagues and customers, but from how many "friends" we have on Facebook.

And what's Twitter? Is this a social website for twits? Or budgies?

Then we have this new iPad. Isn't it just a slightly larger iPod Touch? A bigger screen to play bigger games and look at your photos, and read emails slightly easier than a iPod Touch. Granted you can read books on it and perhaps this is more environmentally friendly that the traditional paper versions but I won't be able to browse through the old second-hand electronic books in charity stores and pay $1.99 for them. No, I'll pay full price for them and build up an electronic library, drop the bloody thing in the street and lose the lot. Or am I being a ludite?

I'm off to read a book. Made from paper.

Peter

New Follower

Oh, before I forget, we have a new follower. Any names matey?

A Week in the Rain

This week has seen horrendous weather here in Vancouver and even worse conditions up the mountain. We bought season's passes for the skiing back in September and the season seemed to start OK in early December but we were unable to go up due to our move so we kept our fingers crossed for January. The kids had their first school lesson up there this week and I took them up to get our passes and check out the conditions. I've never seen anything like it up there. The car park was a mass of rapidly melting slush, the sleet was driving hard and the fog was thick enough to prevent a view of more than 100 yards. When I picked the kids up at the school later they complained that there was little snow up the mountain and the lower chairlift was closed. There were rivers running through the snow and rocks sticking up through. Not very safe. I hope it gets better for the Olympics here in February. The majority of the skiing will be at Whistler where the conditions are a little better but some of the events are to be held at Cyprus where the snow is very similar to our mountain.

On a related note, the authorities are advising everyone to use public transport during the Olympics as large parts of down town will have restricted access or be closed altogether. One of the main downtown bridges, Cambie Street bridge, for example, will be closed to the general public forcing the traffic over the Granville Street bridge and causing untold chaos. At the same time the organization that operates the public transport and the Skytrain in particular are warning about line-ups of up to 2 hours during peak time through the week. So what they are really saying is, avoid downtown altogether and take the time off or work form home. Even though I work in Burnaby I have to use the main bridge that carried residents from the North Shore into man Metro Vancouver and this is scheduled to be chaos as Vanoc use one lane in each direction for Olympic Traffic.

I ventured to my local Charity Store this week and picked up a few CDs.

1. American Recordings by Johnny Cash - this was the first record he did with Rick Rubin and includes a number of original songs mixed with covers. It's a simple, under-produced record.
2. Absolution by Muse - never heard much of this band except the singles so I thought I'd give it a go.
3. Greatest Hits by The Stray Cats - you can't have enough Rockabilly.
4. My Way The Best of Frank by Frank Sinatra - a collection of his best known recordings
5. Burn to Shine by Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - I haven't heard this yet but if it's anything like the other two CDs of his that I have it will be great.
6. A Love Supreme by John Coltrane - a classic jazz record from the sax guru. A little challenging i you are not used to jazz, like me.
7. It's Great When You're Straight Yeah by Black Grape - this is still a brilliant party record from our drugged up Mancunian friends.
8. Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim - an eponymous record from 1967. Frank at his best with a slight Latin vibe.
9. Night Train by The Oscar Peterson Trio - the classic jazz record recorded after the sale of Verve Records to MGM in 1962.
10. Amplified Heart by Everything But the Girl - great songs and a great voice.
11. Technique by New Order - you can never go wrong with these guys.
12. Get Ready by New Order - see above. This is a relatively new one from 2001.
13. Nirvana - a collection of their songs after Kurt spread his brains all over the room.
14. The Group Played "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music" by Stereolab - the bands first record from 1993. They are worth a listen - 60's influenced lo-fi genius.
15. Giants Steps by John Coltrane - more sax jazz
16. Static and Silence by The Sundays - I bought their first album while at University because someone called them the next Smiths. Not quite but some great songs nonetheless.
17. Blind by The Sundays - see above
18. Reading Writing and Arithmetic by The Sundays - the album I bought on cassette in Liverpool.
19. Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen - a classic rock 'n' roll romp from the Boss
20. The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding - great soul form a much missed soul legend
21. The Gentle Side of John Coltrane - more jazz
22. Prototype by Seb Fontaine - full on party dance music mixed as part of the Global Under Ground series.

As you can imagine, I haven't listened to all of this yet but I look forward to doing just that when I get the chance.

have a good week.

Peter

Happy New Year - Good Riddens to the Last

Happy New Year everyone, all 3 of you. New Year Resolution #1, get more followers. I may have to start posting pictures of boobs or something.

We are still in Nelson and looking out to the lake after a fresh dump of powdery snow. We return to Vancouver tomorrow so I need to keep my fingers crossed that the roads clear up a bit before we set off.

2009 was a busy year for us and full of surprises along the way. We started here in Nelson having spent last Christmas here too. We had skied at Whitewater a couple of times, spend a relaxing time reading books and chilling out and then drove back to the coast around the 2nd or 3rd. I was back at work immediately after and spend a week or two catching up with customers and colleagues before flying to Florida for Honeywell's annual Kick-off meeting. This is a week of presentations from the senior managements, inspirational speeches from guest speakers and award for those sales reps that sold the most during the previous year. You have to earn the right to attend by selling a certain amount so you go with a certain sense of achievement. It's a tiring week with late nights in the bar followed by very early starts in the morning but it's a great way to start the year. I have not qualified for this year's as I had a year of building accounts in 2009, not actually selling them.

We had a busy couple of months back home and returned to Nelson for the 50th wedding anniversary of my Aunt and Uncle. My cousin had a large group of friends at her house and we spent a great few days in the snow again.

Spring beckoned and we decided to book a holiday in Disney in May. Before that though we drove to Seattle for a weekend, driving back late on the Sunday night before I rose early in the Monday morning to be in the office for 6.15am. I went home at the usual time, fed the kids and then worked on the internet preparing for a trip by our leadership team who were travelling out for a couple of meetings the following day. It was around 10.30pm and I suddenly had the feeling that my thoughts were not my own and this overwhelming sensation of panic. The next thing I know Tracey is shouting my name in an alarmed state. This turned out to be the first of three seizures, but it was a couple of days before I went to the doctor to confirm it. She immediately banned me from driving and sent me to the hospital for an EEG test. The results of this suggested an abnormality on the right side of my brain and so a MRI was recommended to rule out a tumour. We decided not to wait the 3 months that the local health service would take and paid for a private one the following day. It still took a few worrying days to get the results that suggested the all clear. I was referred to a neurologist who took over the case.

We were given the all clear to fly to California to our planned trip to Disney and spent 5 days or so walking around their two parks and tiring ourselves out. Next came two weeks at Whistler for a couple of business conferences in which a colleague and I were standing by a Honeywell booth in the exhibition halls. Again, another two tiring weeks. The following Friday I had my grand mal seizures and this necessitated the taking of my anti-seizure medication.

This preceded a summer of extreme tiredness caused by the first drug that I was prescribed in the middle of which we drive back to Nelson for a well earned rest. My days at this time consisted of getting up for work, having to call Tracey around 2pm to be driven home again and the remainder of the day in bed due to the fatigue. This prompted a return to the neurologist who changed my medication. The first couple of weeks appeared to be a return to normality but the fatigue followed closely behind and an additional mild depression that wiped me out altogether. I tried to continue to work although it was a struggle and I kept my boss informed as to how I was doing. During the Fall (Autumn, not the band) I was put onto my third medication and this has appeared to be the best of the bunch.

We had a couple of trips to a friends cottage in Harrison Hot Springs towards the end of the summer and my parents flew out in September for a couple of weeks and Josh's Birthday.

The kids went back to school and the soccer season started again for them both.

The remainder of the year has been a busy time at work and in October our landlady served us notice that forced us to look for alternative accommodation before the end of the year (niiiiiice). We couldn't even end the year without some added strain but we found our current apartment within a weekend moved out at the end of November. We are now living in our new home together with a bunch of boxes that remain unsorted but at least we now have windows...and a balcony. This will be an excellent feature int he summer.

A friend of ours managed to save a large table and 8 chairs that her friend was going to throw out and a trip to Ikea meant that we now only need a sofa and some living room furniture, oh and somewhere to store our bikes that currently occupy the living room.

It's been a pretty hectic year so I hope that this one allows us to breath a little more easily.

I've added to my collection of CDs and discovered some new bands with the help of Mr Black. My favourites among them are Midlake, Fleet Foxes and Elliot Smith. I was reintroduced to Supergrass, a band that Tracey and I saw at the pub in Drummond (???Street, PLace, Road erm don't know) in Aberdeen when they supported Shed 7. We stayed for Supergrass but the smokey atmosphere saw us exit before Shed 7 appeared. I don't think we missed much.

This year I saw the marvellous Black Crowes and then downloaded the concert from their website and U2 at the disappointing BC Place. I will continue to scour the charity stores for bargains in their CD section. There's a couple of new records out that I fancy: the DVD/CD from Nirvana of their famous Reading Festival appearance and the CD from the latest supergroup, Them Crooked Vultures. Anyone got these already??

Hope you all had a great Christmas and didn't get too drunk at New Year.

Speak to you all soon.

Peter

Merry Christmas. I think my lack of blogging in the past couple of months has switched most followers off so perhaps I should commit to blogging more often as a New Year's resolution.

We are in Nelson for Christmas and relaxing as we always do here. There is some snow here but not as much as last year so our journey up on 22nd was a lot quicker. The scenery was just as spectacular though. The snow covered mountains were beautiful and the rivers and lakes partly frozen but with the absence of brilliant blue skies we didn't experience the same sights on the way up as we did last year. On the last trip the partly frozen rivers were bright blue as the sun shone through the thick snow covered ice. This year we had cloudy skies all the way up so the variety of colour was missing but it was still spectacular.

For the first time in years I didn't get any CDs for Christmas but I've been buying enough in the charity stores recently to make up for it. I did buy The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall on Christmas Eve in a second-hand record store in Nelson. I have it on cassette in storage but I'm gradually trying to replace my tape collection with CDs as I find them. I might struggle with a few of them though and end up having to buy a second-hand cassette player in a charity store for $10. There's plenty of options for these machines and I suspect that most of them actually work pretty well but for $10 I can afford to try a couple until I get one that works.

I'll have to buy a hif first though. I bought a hifi magazine last week and depressed myself at the price of the various boxes you can buy. Record players have taken off again as the music business has embraced this old technology again. Most bands are releasing their material on 180gm vinyl so the hifi companies are developing the technology to keep up. But from the evidence in that magazine, it comes at a price. I'm sure you can buy the equipment in the hundreds of dollars instead of thousands but it would be great to b able to afford the quality and have a room to house it and the rapidly growing collection of CDs. There's even more vinyl in the charity stores so I will have fun wen I eventually buy a hifi.

In the meantime I will have to rely on the iPOD and the cheap machines that they plug into. Either that or we buy a quality iPOD stereo and make do until we buy a house. I think I will have to continue dreaming for some time to come.

Tracey bought me the complete Monty Python box set for Christmas. This is all the TV shows, a couple of live performances in the US and a couple of documentaries. I also bought the box set of the recent Monty Python documentary that was shown on the TV in Canada in November so I have a lot of comedy to watch...if I get the chance. A friend of ours leant us a DVD set of House, Series 4 and I watched that in a few days, driving Tracey crazy at the same time so I will have to watch Monty Python in sections I think.

I finished a course on speaking in public recently and one of the assignments was to give a couple of persuasive speeches. One of mine was to encourage the class to listen to different bands instead of the mundane piffle that the majority of the world seems to be listening to. I listed the following to teach them:

1. Marvin Gaye's What's Going On
2. New York Dolls first anonymously titled album
3. London Calling by The Clash
4. Velvet Underground and Nico
5. Three Feet High and Rising by De La Sol
6. Bryter Layter by Nick Drake
7. Nod's as Good as a Wink by The Faces
8. Super Ape by Lee Scratch Perry and the Upsetters
and of course
9. The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall.

I wonder if any of them will listen to any of this selection or will continue listening to Lady Ga Ga. Sadly I think the latter.