Beach Bound

So it's official... I'm going to Anaheim in March!! Nothing but beaches, boards, and babes! Yeah right... I will likely be spending my week in the sun indoors, either in the convention center or the hotel. Not that I know how to surf anyway. Although, if there's a hunky surf instructor hanging around....

There are definitely not many companies that would send a co-op on a business trip; which makes the fact that I'm going even more exciting. It will definitely be an exhausting week but also a great experience and huge resume booster - I hope!

I'm a Klutz

Yesterday morning the alarm goes off and, after hitting snooze for the fifth time, I decide I really should get out of bed. I swing my legs over the side and WHAM!! I smack my heel on the wooden bed frame. Ouch, but I didn't think too much of it because I am, of course, a klutz. However, once I'm in the shower I get this painful stinging sensation on my heel (much like when you cut yourself shaving in the shower). It turns out that not only did I hit my heel on the bed frame, I also managed to get a splinter in my foot. I short, thick splinter that buried itself into a position that made it extemely hard to grab with tweezers. A splinter that left a bleeding, painful cut on my heel.

Then today, I'm walking back from one of the other buildings and manage to trip, on the stairs, in heels. Fortuneately, I was able to save myself from barreling headfirst down the flight of stairs. Unfortunately, I saved myself by grabbing the handrail and managed to scrape half the skin off my knuckle in the process. Apparently in the fight betweek skin and a textured wall, the wall wins.

Given the way Monday and Tuesday have gone, I'm now just hoping to survive the rest of the week!

Coke or Diet Coke?

So I'm on the ferry this afternoon coming back to Vancouver after a weekend in Victoria. Waiting in the line up at the little cafe to get a tea; and there's this guy in front of me getting a Coke. Now normally this wouldn't be the kind of thing you think someone would right about - he just poured his coke and moved on, right? WRONG!!

First he pours a little coke. Then a little diet coke. Then he taps his cup to get rid of the foam. Then he pours a little more diet. Then a little more regular. Then a tap. (I would have tried to squeeze by him but he was a pretty big guy - I mean, he looked like a lumberjack. Plus the railing made for a tight squeeze and I didn't feel like getting THAT friendly.) A little more regular. A little more diet. This goes on and on until eventually his enormous cup is full. Meanwhile I'm patiently waiting behind him to get my tea!

Why would someone do this you ask? I thought about this myself and the only conclusion I could come to was that he probably likes the taste of regular Coke better but feels like he should drink diet because it's better for him, so he compromises. I figure, that by doing this, he probably gets a drink that not only doesn't taste the was he wants it to; but, in addition to having a bunch of sugar, also contains aspertame or whatever kind of chemically enhanced artifical sweetner they use.

Other than this highlight the ferry ride was pretty uneventful. Oh, except for the genius who decided it's okay to play his portable DVD player without headphones. Everyone wants to hear, right?

Banana Over Texas

If you've ever taken the skytrain in Vancouver you'll know it's a familiar sight to see people standing outside the stations handing out newspapers. At first I was a little confused by this - How much are they? Do I make a donation or something? Nope - they're free! Actually, there is two different papers - 24hours and Metro. Both are distributed in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Whoever thought of making free papers for commuters is a genius!

Mostly the papers are full of local news, advertisements, classifieds, entertainment, etc. They also tend to carry some off the wall news such as this...

"A Montreal artist wants to construct an enormous banana that would float over Texas." The artist calls the project "Geostationary Banana Over Texas" and says he wants to build it because "Texas is as symbolic as the banana." The 300 metre long banana would be inflated with helium and would be up for a month. He also said that "the banana has a lot of symbolism: phallic, humour and political too."

Why not a giant inflated apple over New York? Too ironic? But seriously, how does someone even think of something like that? And where does someone hear of it and decide it's news? I will have to admit, I found it much more entertaining to read about than the still deflated roof on BC Place, ongoing gang shootings, etc.

Snow Days...

So after the blizzard on Wednesday (yes, it snowed again!) there's still snow on the ground. Well it wasn't really a blizzard, but as close as it gets in Vancouver. There was already a good amount on the ground when I woke up and it continued to snow throughout the day until about 6pm. While this doesn't bother me so much since I'm taking transit. It did make life interesting for everyone else. You see, my office sits on a hill, a fairly steep hill. Due to a rather large median, the only way the people leaving the parking garage can go, is up the hill. This made waiting for the bus VERY entertaining. People were getting stuck on the hill, so other people were attempting to go around them and getting stuck themselves. Meanwhile, there are more people coming up the hill; and rather than waiting at the bottom for the cars to clear and taking a run at the hill, they decided to drive halfway up and stop behind the other cars and proceeding to get stuck. Meanwhile, this guy in his truck decides it will be helpful to start honking his horn (because of course honking your horn helps people get their cars unstuck).

Long story short, the bus never ended up coming and I walked down to the skytrain. It took about fifteen minutes to struggle with the snow and my high heeled boots. Smart, I know, but actually, the heels almost worked like ice picks to stabilize me! Anyway, due to all the backed up traffic, it likely took the cars three times as long to get down as it did me.

One nice thing about the snow and ice sticking around is that the bus drivers actually take the corners slowly. I don't know what it is about the bus drivers on my route (I haven't ridden any others yet and therefore cannot vouch for their skills) but they seem to think it's a race to get up and down this hill. They have a tendency to speed up really quickly and then slam on their brakes when they come up to a stop. They also seem to enjoy taking corners quickly. Not so much fun when you're standing like a pack of sardines in the aisles!

I'm living in a wind tunnel.

Yesterday they shut off the water in the bathrooms of several suites between 9am and noon. They were shutting the water off so that a leaking valve in the suite two floors above us could be repaired. No big deal - I'd be at work.

So I came home yesterday and was walking to the bathroom when I stepped on a wet squishy spot on the carpet. I thought my roommate had just spilled some water and didn't think anything of it until later in the evening when Sarah noticed that the wallpaper in the bathroom looked damp. By this time the wet spot on the floor had gotten much bigger. Leak.

This morning when we got up the entire carpet between the front door and the bathroom was soaked and there was water dripping from the fan in the bathroom. Dirty water. Dripping so badly that we had to hold a towel over our heads to use the toilet! Apparently the plumber who came in to fix a valve with a small leak has created a BIG leak.

In addition to the soggy carpet and the leaky ceiling, they'd turned off the hot water again. Sarah left to go shower at her boyfriends place. So now what? No shower? Not really an option if you've ever met me in the morning. Freezing cold shower? Hell no! Bath in the kitchen sink! That's right... I washed my hair and had a sponge bath in the kitchen sink.

So what does this all have to do with me living in as wind tunnel, you ask? The building manager came in today and has brought in a dehumidifier and a giant fan. There's a power cord running through the hall and kitchen, tubing running into the bathroom sink, a fan blocking most of thew bathroom door, and the carpet is all pulled up! Needless to say the fan is very noisy and makes the apartment quite windy. Chester the cat was so freaked out that he wouldn't come to the door to greet me like he normally does and chose instead to meow at me from the living room. I think he's gotten a little braver since I've come home and is quite interested in the air bubbles moving through the dehumidifier tubing.


Apparently, they're coming back into tomorrow to drill holes in the walls to try and assess how wet everything really is. Fortunately, they turned the hot water back on so I don't have to bathe in the sink!

I hate...

Car alarms.

There's someone parked on the street whose car alarm keeps going off. So far their alarm has gone off twice tonight. They were also parked out there yesterday when their alarm went off twice in the afternoon and at least eight or nine times last night. Eventually, they came out to move the car and someone from another apartment started swearing at them. Ahh, what a neighbourhood!

Edit: Since originally posting this at 8pm, the car alarm has gone off at least five more times in the last two and a half hours. Fun!!

The Office

So I just finished watching the second season of The Office (the American version). I started watching it earlier this week on Tuesday when the power was out. (Fortunately, he battery on my laptop lasts for a long time!) Anyway, it's officially going on my favorite show list. Not many shows fall on this list... only two others make the cut: Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs. I used to watch Lost as well, but after missing the last season I haven't gotten back into it. I've just discovered my roommate also has the first season which I will likely begin watching tomorrow. Then I'll eventually have to get around to downloading the episodes of the third season to get all caught up. Exciting isn't it? But when you don't know anyone and have no car, what else are you supposed to do?

On another note: IKEA tomorrow!!!

Snow and Skytrains

So I woke up this morning and looked out the wondow to see if it was raining (who am I kidding? It's Vancouver. It rains ALL the time!) and it's SNOWING!! That's twice in one winter! Since I've been back living on the West Coast it hasn't snowed more than one a year and it's only stuck around for a day or two at most. This year there was snow for a week in December and now again! Well, to be truthful, it's just raining now - again. But I did have the wonderful discovery that my sneakers - today was casual Friday which is why I was wearing sneaker to work - my sneakers, while they're fine in the rain, don't take particularly well to the slush. In the two minute walk home from the Skytrain my feet were soaked.

Speaking of the Skytrain, I really do like riding it to and from work. For those of you who don't know what he Skytrain is, it's basically a train in the sky (helpful, aren't I?). The train runs on tracks which are supported about 30 feet above the ground. I think the thing I like most about the Skytrain is the sound it makes when it's leaving the station. Is that lame?

On another topic possibly related to the snow, the roof of BC Place collapsed. The roof is basically really tough fabric held up by air pressure. A big hole opened up in the roof (possibly from the weight of the snow) which reduced the air pressure inside the building causing the roof to fall. Shouldn't there be some precaution againt the snow, you ask? After all, it is Canada. Well, to answer your question, the roof is actually made of two roofs (is that how you'd say that?) with four feet of air space in between them. If it snows, this air space is supposed to be heated to melt the snow. What happened? I suppose we'll hear over the next few days.

Wrapping up... I'm sooooooo happy its the weekend. I can't believe how hard it was to get out of bed this morning and how often I felt like putting my head on my desk for a nap. I'm likely going to be lame and go to bed early tonight. It's only 6 and I feel like going to bed! I'm definately going to sleep in tomorrow.

Live from Vancouver!!

As part of my degree I have to complete three four month long co-op work terms. These are basically the same as an internship. The nice thing about this is 1) I get to make some money and 2) I come out of school not only with a degree but with some actual experience.

I've been working for my dad's wholesale distributorship on and off, part time and full time for the past three years. I've done some administration, sales, and marketing for him so I was able to use this to challenge my first work term. I did my second work term this past summer working for a small (roughly 5 people) tech company in Victoria.

This time round I'm working for a large tech company in Vancouver. I'm working in the Marketing Communications division under the Events and Advertising Manager. Basically, this all means that I'll be working on trade shows, promotional materials, and advertising. Most of my time will be spent working on three trade shows - two of which I get to go to!! At the end of March I'll be heading to the Optical Fiber Communication Conference in Anaheim, California. In mid April, it'll be the Storage World Conference in San Diego, California. For these two shows, I'll be the primary person in organizing the logistics of the travel, booth arrangements, and client meeting suite; I'll be creating and gathering materials, working within a budget, and organizing the other departments who are contributing. Basically, everything that could possibly need to be done. I'll also be working on NXTComm in Chicago, but since it's in June (after my co-op ends) I won't be going. So it should be a busy four months!!

Right now I'm pretty tired. Between staying up late on New Years, getting up at 7:30 on New Years Day to catch the ferry, up again late on Monday, etc, etc I'm feeling a little run down. Last night the power was out until 10pm and so I ate a dinner of crackers, an apple, rasins, and almonds. Fortunately, my roommate, Sarah, and her boyfriend, Chris, came home - Sarah was hungry to so they ran out to McDonalds and picked me up a McChicken. Really, I'm just not a fan of McDonald's, it seems like a good idea but really, I'm usually let down by the food. Probably not a bad thing since it means I don't eat it very often! Anyway, now I'm just rambling so I'll wrap this thing up. I'm looking forward to the weekend when I'll be able to sleep in. My new roommate and I are planning on hitting IKEA - yes!!