No, this is not an April Fool’s joke, it really was snowing earlier today.
Damn snow.
But spring is officially here, so t-shirts and shorts here I come!
that darned snow
It’s nearly spring. You know what that means.
Yes, more snow. It’s March 9th but Vancouver has somehow been stealthily moved to Siberia where it snows all the time.
You can almost see the guy at the door across the alley saying, “WTF?” as he looks around at all the white stuff on the ground.
Damn snow.
For the record, being sick sucks
See title.
What’s even better is having a co-worker coughing and wheezing and complaining for days about being sick just before you get sick (by amazing coincidence).
Also, it got up to 12 degrees today. No snow! Yay!
Christmas in January
Snowing in Horseshoe Bay. Damn snow.
I made it over to the island for a late Christmas the weekend after New Year’s. The reason for the delay, of course, was the weather. If someone had told me back in the fall I wouldn’t be able to ride my bike to work for nearly a month due to snow I would have chuckled quietly and called them insane. Today I would call them Kreskin.
I get up on the morning of Saturday January 3rd and look out the window. It’s snowing. Again.
Undeterred, I head out and once downtown I catch the #153 bus to Horseshoe Bay. It is snowing harder in West Vancouver, nestled as it is at the base of the North Shore mountains. The bus driver advises the passengers that all West Van buses are on “snow routes” without explaining precisely what that means. Someone on the dispatch also relays this information. We eventually learn it means all buses are sticking to the lower roads and avoiding the upper levels highway until the plows get through.
We get to the terminal safe and sound thanks to the driver not being a maniac behind the wheel. The ticket booth at Horseshoe Bay is covered but outdoors. It is a bit chilly but the line-up is not too long as I am early. Unfortunately the line-up does not move. At all. A woman up at the wicket is having a problem of some sort. I am too far away to catch any of the conversation so I wait and watch the snow piling up. The line continues to not move. Minutes go by. Then more minutes. The cashier is on the phone now. I gnash my teeth. The woman holding up the line has a dog. It’s a cute dog but if it’s the reason I’m standing here freezing my skinny butt off then screw you, cute dog!
After about ten minutes (which feels like 20 once you add wind chill) I buy my ticket and am astonished that the price is something like five dollars cheaper than it was in October. I take a whiff and sure enough, there is the unmistakable smell of pre-election on the ticket stub. Thanks, Gordon!
Why is my Tupperware dented?
Damage is clearly visible on the modern plastic container I use to safely transport my sandwich to work Monday to Friday:
How did this calamity strike?
I fell on it.
I was walking to work this morning down lovely East 19th Avenue and it was cold, dark and as it turns out, more than a tad icy. I stepped off a section of sidewalk that had been left unshoveled and onto a nice, clear section that had been shoveled. This clean section of sidewalk also has lots of hard-to-see ice on it, runoff that had frozen from Bad Neighbor’s uncleared section. As soon as my foot hit the ice, I knew what was happening. I put out my hands. I fell back, as if taking the Nestea plunge. I went splat. I quickly got back up to my feet, the wind knocked out of me but otherwise unhurt. I was more concerned about missing the bus or worse, someone having witnessed my Funniest Home Videos moment.
I didn’t realize I had landed on and smooshed my sandwich container until I took it out of my shoulder bag (man purse) for lunch. The sandwich, oddly enough, was unhurt, thus proving the effectiveness of meal safety equipment.
After work I bought a pair of boots to replace the amazing treadless sneakers I otherwise normally wear. I know there’s no guarantee the same thing won’t happen even with a pair of boots but since personal jetpacks aren’t fully ready yet, they’ll have to do.
On an unrelated note, I also looked for swim trunks while boot-shopping and Sears had a (not surprisingly) small selection to choose from. The sizes ranged from extra large to hill giant, so I’m wondering if they overstocked or maybe fat people just never swim. Or they make their own swim trunks. Or swim nude. Or buy at The Bay. Or something.
To take my mind off the weather…
I rented the legendary classic1hahaha The Day After Tomorrow through iTunes.
I’d never rented from iTunes before. The $3.99 price probably comes out to half a bar of gold given current exchange rates and the 640×480 image has artifacts o’ plenty when stretched across a 1920×1200 screen so overall I am kind of meh on it. Handy for impulse viewings. I’ll try the Xbox Live movie rentals next and see if I can cause a Red Ring Of Death by watching a bad comedy.
EDITOR'S NOTE, March 13, 2022: I swapped out a broken image link from imdb.com and tweaked the first sentence a bit. 14 years on and with streaming services crowding each other out, the idea of renting a movie seems downright quaint now, right there with rotary phones or buying CDs. Also I actually recently re-watched The Day After Tomorrow and yes, the science is mostly junk, but Jake Gyllenhaal is kind of adorable and the set pieces are still good. The cast is actually pretty engaging, so the movie is better than it has any right to be.
Merry freaking Christmas!
Here I am in Vancouver for Christmas for the first time ever, thanks to the MegaSnow. I had a nice lunch and pie (mmm, pie) with Tim and family and was accosted as per usual by Barley, the dog who seems to love me as if I were a cut of prime steak or something. Maybe it’s a chocolate lab thing.
It is quiet around here and I’m looking forward to my trip to the island that’s been delayed a week. The weather should be back to its usual cool ‘n rainy by then.
In the meantime, I’ve succumbed and created a spartan Facebook page. If it’s anything like this blog, it’ll be a few years before anything really happens there but all the cool kids have signed up and if I want to have the chance to publicly share my KFC sink as hot tub pics (okay, technically they used MySpace) this may be my best chance.
Winter 2008 photo gallery
I’ve slapped together a few photos from around the yard of The Great Snow of December 2008. They can be viewed in the Winter 2008 photo gallery.
‘Twas the night before the night before Christmas…
…and all through the house, I cursed Mother Nature for lousing up travel plans. Stupid lady.
Hello snow
A week ago we got our first real snow of the season, and it was a bit more than usual for this time of year (if we get snow it usually comes in January).This was just the warm-up for the first official day of winter, though. This was the backyard on December 21st (click to enlarge):
Sadly, the shelter protecting the 1964 Ford Fairlane collapsed under the weight of the snow. Hopefully the car isn’t banged up too much as a result. More snow is forecast (followed by rain, naturally). Ho ho ho.