This was my first day back after a week off work, and after being here for 12 hours, I’m about ready for the weekend.
My friend Tanya had a baby girl, so I drove down to Kamloops for a visit. I stupidly forgot my camera, but I took a shaky phone video that I’ll be able to show her when she’s 20 and the world communicates via digitally-enabled telepathy, when cellular phones are a thing of ancient history.
I bought some scuba equipment while I was in Kamloops from a good friend of mine. She gave me a great deal. I’m planning on taking lessons in the next few months and then heading to the Bahamas with her for a week on a live-aboard dive ship, so that should be a lot of fun.
I then drove to Vancouver to visit some more friends of mine. It was around 38 degrees Celsius (100.5 Fahrenheit) and my air conditioning was broken, so the trip was a little painful, but we made it alive. Once there, I had a fantastic time. The friends I was staying with had a Canada Day party with great food, drink, and Rock Band, so it was a fun night.
I hope to make it out to Vancouver more often this next year. Living on an island with oppressive ferry rates to get to the mainland can really make you feel trapped at times, but it’s worth the cost for the occasional weekend trip.
I’m back from the conference. It was good, and I learned a lot. I knew more overall about the technologies going in this time, so I feel like I was able to get a little more out of the talks.
I won a 3rd generation iPod Nano door prize, which is pretty cool. I already have my own 8gb Nano though, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with this one. I’d like to find some cool use for it, but I might end up just keeping it as a backup or giving it away. The next draw was for an iPhone, so I unfortunately just missed out, but I also dodged the book draws, so I can’t complain. Nothing worse than winning the draw for a book when an iPhone is coming up next.
There was much drinking and a serious lack or sleep this weekend, so I’m still recovering. I have my first appointment for dental work tomorrow, which I’m dreading terribly. I get to find out, while in the chair, whether or not I need a root canal. It’s a surprise!
I’m off to Seattle this weekend for a Java conference, so you might not hear from me much for a few days.
We’re going to the No Fluff Just Stuff symposium. We went the last time it was held in Seattle, and it was fantastic. The hotel accidentally labeled the conference No Stuff Just Fluff that time, but it definitely had stuff. I really picked up a lot from it.
The focus is on learning. You don’t have to sign up for the individual sessions, so you decide what to view throughout the day instead of committing at the beginning, and no one tries to sell you anything or push their products. It’s set up in a way that allows you to get the most out of it.
The conference is right in Seattle this time, instead of being in Redmond, so we’ll have more to do at night. It should be a fun weekend.
I had planned to spend a lot of time writing this week, but here I am sitting in the Vancouver airport, waiting for my 5:00 flight to Victoria, and I haven’t written a single word since my last post.
Last time I was in Kamloops, most of my friends were gone and I was there strictly for leisure, so I had a lot of downtime. With friends in town, and half the week dedicated to work, time flew by this trip, and I’m actually a little sorry to leave. I had a good time.
The weather was great in Kamloops, which was a pleasant surprise after walking through rain and looking up to grey skies all winter. I never realized how much my mood is affected by weather. I wouldn’t say I was depressed this winter, but I was just generally disinterested in everything around me. Now that we’re having the occasionally sunny day, I find myself going back to my hobbies and wanting to pick up new ones. It might have something to do with spending the winter in wet darkness rather than snow.
At least this trip home had a little excitement in it. When I first arrived at the airport, I walked into the washroom and someone was being yelled at for smoking. He ran out, and they just let him go. I wish I had known you’d only get a stern scolding in this situation back when I smoked. I might have chanced it.
After that, I sat down in a seat facing the tarmac. An aircraft taxied passed, and the air from its jet engines blew a big, metal carry-on luggage cart about fifteen feet into the air, smashing it against the window in front of me. Thankfully, the pane was laminated glass or something and the cart just bounced off of it. If it hadn’t, I may not have had all the proper body parts remaining to type out this post. It was cool in that life-flashing-before-your-eyes sort of way.
It was a refreshing trip away, at least. Maybe I’ll feel a little more energized now.
Hell must have frozen over - Vancouver airport finally has free wireless internet. It seems silly, this day and age, to be excited about free wireless, but it sure beats paying $10 dollars an hour for it.
My trip to Kamloops is going surprisingly well. My taxi driver was friendly and interesting, and the traffic was light. I bypassed the check-in line at the airport by using the self check-in machine. No one was in the security line, so I walked on through to my on-time flight. Arriving in Vancouver, I had a rice bowl and beer before chatting with a friend in town here on my cell.
I’m sure my good luck will run out any minute now. My next plane will probably go up in flames.
..not by me, of course. I’m no terrorist, friendly airport security people…
Tomorrow night I’ll be flying to Kamloops for work. I’ve extended the stay through Easter weekend, so I can have some time with my family and friends there.
Whenever I’m on a flight, I think of this song. I first heard it while watching Hackers back in 1995 and became obsessed with it. It’s played during the opening scene, when Dade Murphy is flying to New York, and it sets the mood perfectly. Hackers had a lot of cringe-worthy moments, especially for anyone with some knowledge in computing, but it had geeks that weren’t completely socially inept, interesting pop culture and technology references, Angelina Jolie, and great music, so I think that made up for it.
Orbital was a great UK electronica duo, unfortunately now defunct, and this is from their second album Orbital 2, released in 1993.
I went to Vancouver this weekend to visit friends, and it was a lot of fun. I should make an effort to get over there a little more often, but the ferry ride from the island makes the trip, however short, very irritating.
We ate and drank at some great restaurants, did a little shopping, and generally had a good time. Chris even made a nice home-cooked meal for us to enjoy, which was excellent and very appreciated. This last month, I’ve gone off cooking a bit. Sometimes it just seems like more hassle than it’s worth when you live alone, but it’s unhealthy and expensive to eat out too often.
I happened to visit during a freak snow storm, which is just my luck. I was catching a ride with another friend from Victoria, and we had to make a quick trip down to Abbotsford to grab his bike before returning, and for the first 30 minutes of the trip we were averaging about 10km per hour on the highway. The last thing you want to do when you’re tired and hungover is drive through fresh snow surrounded by Vancouver drivers.
I think I’m going to return to Vancouver in a couple of weeks to watch Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets, an avant-garde play from William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, and Tom Waits, the coolest man on earth. It should be an interesting show, I think.
On an unrelated note, I made haggis tonight for a belated Robbie Burns Day. I now have enough left over to keep me frying for a week.
Home Sweet Home
