Random Musings and Nicknacks

I’ve lived in friendly places before, but I have to admit that here in the Cariboo has everyone else beat.  It doesn’t matter where we go, everyone welcomes us with open arms.  For example, I called a doctor’s office for an appointment, started to explain that we were new and the receptionist says, “Well, you’ve chosen a lovely place to live, welcome.”  Cable, the local store, the gas station it’s all the same.  I love it!

Further to the traffic jam problems, we had to slow down this morning because 3 deer were crossing the road.  I’m still waiting for my first bear sighting but that will come.  Apparently there was one at the golf course which left us wondering what would happen if you bounced your golf ball off one?  Would you be able to play it where it was if you knocked the bear out or would you have to take a penalty?

The yelling turned to screaming.
The screaming turned into shouting.
The shouting turned into the thumping of foots.

The humans were somewhere upstairs. You could clearly hear as the dogs quickly ran past or away from the beings. I paced myself upstairs, stopping once or twice to let a dog run downstairs chasing a squeeky ball that fell down the stairs. When I got up there, it was quite a sight to see.
A company of adults were chasing the excited dogs everywhere, and when they caught a scared dog, a few more would sweep the giant off his or her feet and the dog chase would begin again, resulting in more falling and tripping.
I scurried upstairs, the thump of the dogs against their cages echoing down to me. I heard many shouts from them, and they seemed to be wondering why the huge ruckus was all about. I came up to another huge room, this time with rows and rows of huge cages attached to the wall. The dogs whimpered inside. All of them seemed to be very scared. I examined their cages, and there were no levers or things on them, but to my left I saw a box attached to the wall, full of big red buttons. I pressed them all.
The sound of paws tapping the carpet filled the air, and 40-50 more dogs were released from tyranny. The sound seemed to stop though. The sound of panting now filled the air.

“What should we do?” They all shouted.

I thought for a moment. I didn’t know what to order them to do. The goal of saving my brother was still far away, and how would I do that? The sounds downstairs didn’t help, either. But I knew I would save my brother somehow. Time, I thought, time.

“Save the rest of the dogs in the neighbourhood. Meet in the entrance to the forest.”

I started to walk downstairs, then I came up with something.

“And tell them to save who they can. Spread the word.”

Some updates on what has happened to the cost of housing in Vancouver.

A co-worker bought a condo, and is leaving the place she’s been renting for the last 2 years (1 bedroom, downtown Vancouver). Two years ago it was rented for $900 per month. This month, it was listed at $1150 listed 16 people showed up to view the place on the same day, a bidding war broke out and it finally went for $1250.

This leads me to another question — yesterday morning I was listening to “The Current” on CBC 1. Their discussion for the morning was around why we keep building our houses bigger and bigger, how we’re going to reverse this trend and what impact it has on the economy and environment.

I don’t know if I’m out of touch, they are our of touch, or there was a major regional difference in effect here, but I don’t see houses being built “bigger and bigger”. Just yesterday I was trying to figure out based on a listing how they fit 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms in 1300 sq ft. Everywhere I go in Richmond there are rezoning applications to take down 2 houses and turn it into 10 townhouses.

In Vancouver I have actually stood in front of lots, trying to figure out how they are going to put 15 townhouses in that physical space.

Are houses really getting bigger? If so in Metro Vancouver it must be such a small, luxury group that I’m not sure it says anything about anybody except the 1% richest in the world.

“The Current” saying houses are getting too big?

Oh my.

The first real impact of a dollar at par.

And its hitting a bumper industry, getting us where it really hurts…

B.C. pot prices hit by rising loonie

I often have words to say about my disagreement with societal trends and government decisions. Today is a day to reflect on how fortunate we actually are, something we take for granted.

I’ve been waking up every morning to headlines about the protests in Myanmar, and have to remember that although I have complained in the past about allowing protests to block rush hour traffic, we have to temper that with the knowledge that we live in a country where we can protest without worrying about when the government is going to send the army to gun us down.

We should never forget this, and the bravery of people like the Buddhist Monks who are spearheading these protests, knowing that when they step out on the road they may be killed for what they believe in.

It’s something we take for granted here. We shouldn’t.

On our new morning schedule we no longer get the luxury of lying in bed for a while listening to Rick Cluff. The radio comes on and we’re out of bed 5 minutes later. So we have switched the radio to News 1130 so that we hear the traffic and weather report in that 5 minutes.

This had lead to a disturbing revelation — every morning, at 5:30 AM they are already reporting significant backups over the Port Mann bridge. This has been a pattern for two weeks now, so I assume it’s permanent. A rush hour that starts before 5:30? I can’t even imagine!

On a related note, it seems to me that with the weather going downhill and traffic getting worse the amount of road rage directed at me lately has actually decreased!

Which has led me to wondering — was the problem increased cars, or increased bikes? Maybe there is an attitude that “I can put up with the occasional bike in my way, but when there’s another one around every corner that’s just too much”?

I’ll keep you updated.

The sports world is in turmoil, and nodbody knows how to deal with it. On one hand we have the sports that refuse to do anything — both Major League Baseball and the NFL are in the middle of very large drug scandals that I’ll bet almost nobody has heard about — both have several star players who were receiving shipments of HGH (human growth hormone) in the leadup immediately prior to winning their respective championships. Ouch. No wonder they are sweeping that under the rug.

Then there is the other side. Last week on the same day two sports fined teams for cheating. The NFL fined the Patriots $50 thousand for their cheating. On the same day the Formula One association fined McLaren $100 million for their indiscretions.

But when does it become a witch hunt? The appeal for Floyd Landis was was denied yesterday, and he has been officially stripped of his title. After reading a lot of discussion about this, I decided to skip the middle man and read the report myself.

What I found disturbed me, legally and ethically.

(more…)

I think it must have been the weather change, but it seems that everyone is moving a bit slowly today. I first noticed it this morning when I stopped off for my Tim Horton’s coffee — there was nobody in there. The cashiers were standing, waiting for a customer. Whenever I go to the seabus I get there within +/- five minutes of the same time, I have never seen this — the typical lineup is about 20 people.

Odd, I thought and got on the seabus. I was the first in the office, not unusual at 7:00 in the morning. Around 8:00 I realized I was still the only in the office, and by 8:30 there were only 3 of us. That is unusual, even for a software company.

I went to the Subway at lunch, again no lineup. Another somewhat unusual lack of activity.

I blame it on the change of the weather. I think the cold and rain is keeping everyone in bed.

But it could be worse … I understand yesterday it was snowing just south of Edmonton.

A new company is moving into the empty office space on our floor (empty since it was vacated by BC Rail), and we’ve been speculating on what kind of company it was. I quipped “well, they have the most expensive real estate on the floor, I’ve seen guys in suits, and I only see people in there about 2 hours a day, it must be government”.

The signs have gone up … turns out I was right.

Ethics. They are an interesting theory, aren’t they. And theory is all they are.

Tim was acting, umm, shall we say a bit energetic last night. It was when he went to pour himself another glass of koolaid that I clued in and asked him just how many cups he had had. He wasn’t sure, “but that’s okay,” he told me, “it has zero calories.”

He showed me the package of crystals, and sure enough right there on the back – 100% of your daily calcium, 0 calories (for the dry mix in the package).

The first instruction is then to add a cup of sugar to the mix.

I wonder just how many people they catch with that?