Pic From The Past...

...But not too far in the past. This was taken in April 2005 a couple days after exams ended. Most of my first year small group went up to Whistler overnight... much hilarity ensued

Top 10 Places I'd Go This Summer If I Had Money...

1. Australia
2. The Great Wall of China
3. Tokyo
4. The Ukraine
5. Acapulco
6. Palm Springs
7. Italy
8. Montreal
9. St. Thomas
10. Mission, BC

That last one should be fairly easy to get to and then I can say I went somewhere on my top 10...

How To Talk Correctly

My sister-in-law lent me a book a while back... ok a long while back... and I had a look through it tonight when I was cleaning up. It's a 1942 grammer and speech guide called, funnily enough, "How to Talk Correctly." The funny thing about this book is that it advodcates one way of speaking and the author (George P. Duncan) isn't shy about slamming those who "fail to speak correctly."

The book, which was only published 64 years ago, clearly tries to cling onto archaic rules and the author digs his heels in against a lot of the change that was already happening. He lists the second person pronouns "thee" "thou" "thy," and "thine" as properly used in some situations, even though they had fallen out of general discourse long before 1942. The book also shows how fast the English language is changing. A lot of the words and phrases the author uses just aren't around anymore. Here are some of the good parts...

Vulgarisms and Slang

Carefully avoid using vulgar and unmeaning words and phrases and slang; as You don't say so! Anyhow, Over head and ears, Kick up, Walk into, &c. [Anyhow?? By the way, &c is how they used to say etc. And I guess some of those words didn't last... who says "over head and ears" these days? What does it even mean? Ok back to the book...]

"Mr. Bowery and another gent were with me." We must class this detestable contraction with the vulgarisms, though it is often met with in good company. Always say a gentleman.

The following are a few of the current volgarisms of the day:

Sparrowgrass, for asparagus
Aint, for is not
Haint, for has not
Winder, for window
Bran new, for new
Fetch, for bring
Gal, for girl
Sallet, for salad
Umberel, for umbrella

Such words as pell-mell, bamboozle, helter-skelter, hurly-burly, topsy-turvy, though sometimes allowable, should generally be avoided.

[Ok first of all I think pell-mell should be used more, not less. Second, I think it's funny when people say not to use aint. What's the deal with that word? It's been used for hundreds of years now... at least since the 1700s... and it's a contraction just like a million other contractions we have in English. Yet, while most other contractions have been accepted, aint is still a problem. Why is that??]

Pronunciation of Surnames

"In acquiring the part of Speaking correctly, the pronouncing of Proper Names is a matter of considerable importance, as a correct rendering conduces to ease and grace in conversation. The object of the self-taught, and imperfectly educated person should be, to leave as few traces as possible of the defects of early training; and the evidence of those defects is in few matters stronger, than the way in which the unlearned pronounce certain Proper Names in English."

The book goes on to list about a hundred common last names and tells the reader how to pronounce them... I've never heard a lot of them and most the others sound... old.

Ok well that's about it... there are a couple other things the author says when talking about errors that I thought were funny: "The English is undoubtedly the noblest of modern tongues; but no other language of a civilized people is so badly spoken and written." Wow, the noblest... I mean, we must have beat out a lot of competition for that title. Too bad about speaking our language worse than any other civilized people (it seems maybe we still beat out the uncivilized though). And what's up with calling it "The English"?

Also... "Our mother-tongue - the strong, copious, flexible Anglo-Saxon - is our richest inheritance. We have reason to be proud of it, and ought to labour with the greatest assiduity to perfect ourselves in its use." How's that for motivation...

Let the articling applications begin...

Well, I picked up my transcripts from UBC today... so I officially have no more excuses not to start sending out articling applications. So why do I have the feeling that it's going to take another few weeks before I actually start sending them out? School might be done, but it didn't take me long to find something to procrastinate about...

The worst video Ever

I was going to post this a while ago but I forgot. My friend Matt found this on Google Video and it's the worst video ever. Seriously, it's the worst video ever. It comes from Finland sometime in the late 70's. Check it out:

CLICK HERE AND BRACE YOURSELF

Favorite line: How can I be sure you not pretender?

Second favorite line: Your lips are taste of wine

The woman in the video apparently died a couple years ago of some drinking related illness, and she was Ms. Finland 1977. The internet is rife with stories about an affair between her and the main singer guy (who's married)... apparently she started drinking when she met him. The guy is still famous in Finland and he's got his own website...

TV Complaints

The one bad thing about summer is the lack of good TV. There are some exceptions, like in the summer of 2000 when the first Survivor was on, but generally summer TV sucks. Maybe it encourages people to get off the couch more while the weather's good though, so that would be a good thing...

But what I really hate is when the networks move their shows around. Like ABC. In September they're moving Grey's Anatomy to Thursday nights at 9. So that puts them in direct competition with My Name Is Earl and The Office, unless NBC moves those shows around, which it probably won't because they're popular shows and Thursday is their big night. Now, I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of TV scheduling, but wouldn't moving Grey's Anatomy to a highly competitive Thursday night spot create a risk that wouldn't be there if they'd just leave it in its highly successful low competition Sunday night spot? Maybe advertisers pay a lot more for Thursday nights than they do for Sunday night spots... I guess that would make sense. But still, it sucks...

And apparently Invasion isn't back on the schedule for fall? This is what I've heard. I started watching that show by complete accident last September, and since the 3rd or 4th episode it's been on my top 3. And now it might not be back? If that's the case they have a lot of tying up to do in the season finale tomorrow.

It's so great that this is all I have to worry about tonight...

No More House Guest...

Well, Roby is gone... he left today and by now he's probably somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. So now it's time for a few post houseguest observations:

1. I like having a car. I really like it. I rented one for the last week Roby was here and I took it back tonight after I dropped him off at the airport. If I had a job this summer, I'd definitely buy a car.

2. There's a lot of summer left. So this week I need to make (1) a plan, and (2) a budget.

3. Sometimes you need to cash in your chips and call it a day. Or your airmiles. I've been saving them for a long time so I could get something really great... like a flight somewhere. But then I thought about it, and there's no use getting a free flight anywhere if you can't afford the vacation that's attached to the flight. And when I can afford the vacation that's attached to the flight, I'll probably be able to afford the flight too. So I ordered a new digital camera, and I even had enough airmiles to get a 512 mb memory card.

That's pretty much it for observations. By the way, the graduation countdown is:

349 days 11 hours and 11 minutes

Another Year Down

The grades are out and second year is now really officially over. My grades this term were... well... they were ok. My average is slightly higher than it was after the end of first year, but there's a bigger range of grades.... some marks way higher than last year and some lower. But the main thing is, IT'S OVER. Now I have to order some transcripts and get those articling applications out...

Let the fun begin...

Lazy Saturday

I'm still at my parents' place today... since we got here last night I've been way too lazy to do anything ambitious, like go home. There's a big family dinner tomorrow so we're staying for that... then heading back to my place tomorrow night and then Roby goes home Monday.

I think I figured out that video I made in Oyama the other night. Like I said in the last post, I don't have audio on my camera so I wanted to add my own. I messed around with Windows Movie Maker a bit this morning and figured out audio, effects and credits... so here it is...

Osoyoos Friday

Thanks to the Blogger posting issues I was having last night, I've got way too many pictures to post today... so here it goes...

Yesterday morning we were still in Kamloops. I went out for a run before breakfast and I saw a place that I had to take Roby back to...


Yep, Kamloops has it's very own Italian Cultural Centre. I wouldn't have guessed there'd be enough Italians in Kamloops for a centre but there it was... I thought Roby might want to go in or something but he seemed indifferent...


...so we moved the party down the road a bit to this great lookout we found. Ok it wasn't that hard to find... I took this from the side of a fairly major road. There was a spot that I thought would have an even better view but I couldn't find the road up there. Aaaaaand we were too lazy to ask directions, so we got some gas, bought some postcards for Roby, and headed out to Ali's place in Oyama.


It was about a 2 hour drive and this is me at some random lake along the way...


Ali just bought this place a couple months ago and this is the first time I'd seen it. By the way, Oyama might sound like it should be in Japan, but it's really about halfway between Kelowna and Vernon, right by Winfield.


And this is the awesome view from the back of the house. This totally beats the view from the back of my place, which pretty much consists of a couple dumpsters, some parked cars, an alley, and the back of another building.


This is Ali, her daughter Gen, and Lola the dog... Lola is a BIG dog... half Mastiff and half Great dane. Luckily she's a really friendly dog too...


Here's me 'n Ali right before dinner... and speaking of dinner, THANKS for the awesome enchiladas Al... they'd be hard to beat


This is Alan... he bought the house with Ali but he lives in Chilliwack... he had been up in Kamloops on Wednesday night so he came over on Thursday...


Roby and Lola just lyin' around...

Staying with Ali was good because we don't get to see each other nearly enough these days. She moved up to Oyama 4 years ago I think.... maybe 5.

That's it for the Oyama pics. There's a video but I'm not posting it yet. My camera doesn't have sound so I'm trying to figure out how to add an audio track. Hey if anybody out there knows how to do that I could use some ideas....

Ok well this morning we got up and hit the road at 10:30. I wanted to make it down to Osoyoos before heading back to the coast, and it only took about 2 hours to get there. On the way we went through Kelowna (where I had originally planned to take some pics but then didn't), Peachland, Summerland, Okanagan Falls, Oliver, and some other little places I can't remember.

Like I was saying in my post from Kamloops on Wednesday, the Osoyoos area is home to...


Canada's only desert... it's a really interesting area because the landscape is a lot different than you'll find anywhere else this far north. Apparently (according to scientific people) it's the plant life that exists in the area which actually makes it a desert. Osoyoos gets up into the 40's during the summer (105+ degrees farenheit) and only gets about a quarter of the rain that Vancouver gets. Part of the desert is considered endangered though because of irrigation so there's an effort underway to restore it...

I got some pictures of the Desert Centre site (you can see part of the building in the picture above) but I got some water on my camera lens so the pictures sucked pretty bad...


...this is the road back into town... by the time we were leaving I guess most the water on the lens had dried.


The town is pretty small... this and a couple other streets are pretty much all there is for stores... The main reason I wanted to come to Osoyoos is because I might eventually be looking for somewhere to live outside the Vancouver area and I heard it was a nice place.


We drove up the side of a mountain and got this view of the area... the town on the left side of the picture is Oroville, Washington.


And Osoyoos is just upshore a bit. I was talking to a guy from Oroville who said the whole area is a lot of fun in the summer and the population of Osoyoos pretty much doubles. I should probably check it out during the winter too though... me and cold... bad combination...

After Osoyoos we hit the road again and drove to my parents' place in Abbotsford.


And on the way we stopped in at the site of the Hope slide... which is crazy to see. On a Saturday morning in 1965 part of this massive hill just gave away and slid down, covering about 3 kilometers of the Hope-Princeton Highway and burying three cars. Two of the cars were never found so they're still under it all...


They eventually rebuilt the highway a little to the south of the slide because there's no way they could have cleared it...


This is the only picture I got and it doesn't really show what's happening... this is the point where the slide debris meets the mountain but you can't see how big the pile is. It goes on forever and it's so high that I'd need a wayyyyyyy different lens to get a good picture. I wish I'd taken a video... I don't know why I didn't think of that.

Ok well that's it for the pictures... We're just hanging out this weekend and then Roby is going back to Vencie on Monday... and for me, back to reality... I should probably start thinking about some way to make some money this summer. And I have to get my articling applications out... ok ok ok I don't want to think about that til I have to next week...

In the meantime... I need sleep...

Oyama Thursday

This morning we got up and drove around Kamloops for a while before heading for Ali's place in Oyama. We were supposed to meet her in Kamloops this morning but there was a slight schedule adjustment and we came here instead. I took some pictures but I can't post them right now because I'm having connection issues.

So instead, I'm going to do something a lot easier. It's been awhile since I did a top 10, so here's my top ten prime time tv shows as of May 2006:

1. Invasion
2. The Office
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. Amazing Race
5. My Name Is Earl
6. Survivor
7. House

Ok I can't think of 10 so it's a top 7. I mean, I can think of 10, but there aren't any more that I'd even put on the list. Especially not the Apprentice.

I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of the Kamloops pictures, today's Oyama pictures, and tomorrow's Osoyoos pictures... that's going to be a lot of pics...

See ya then...

Kamloops Wednesday

Today we left Whistler at some point after lunch and headed for Kamloops. We went through Pemberton, Lillooet, Cache Creek, and a bunch of other tiny little towns and reservations before making it to Kamloops four hours later.

One thing about BC, it's crazy how fast you can leave a city and be in the middle of nowhere. We left Whistler and an hour later we were on this crazy little road through the mountains. In four hours we went from an alpine mountain environment to an arid desert region... and of course I've got pics...


After we left Whistler it wasn't long before Highway 99 got small and full of ruts and bumps. I don't know a lot of people who take this route anymore since the bigger and better freeways were built. But I heard it was a great drive, so we decided to try it out.


This picutre sums up a lot of what we saw for the first hour, except a picture can't bring out the real depth and how BIG everything was. Once and a while we'd go through a small reservation or cluster of houses in the middle of nowhere, which was pretty cool... definitely a different way of life than I'm used to. After a while we climbed high enough to be at snow level, but the roads were clear and it wasn't really that cold. I guess because it's May...


We came around a corner and met this bear on the road. It went into the bushes when we got close but a couple seconds after we passed it was back out there.... so I drove to a safe distance and took this picture. This is full zoom so yeah, I was pretty far away.


There were a lot of lakes too at the lower elevations. The truly amazing thing about this trip though was how fast the landscape changed from this...


... to this. Everything after Lillooet was pretty much arid and desert-like. Southern BC has Canada's only desert, which is the northern end of a path of desert extending up from California. More on that from Osoyoos on Friday...


There's a lot less green than we have on the coast, but there's a lot less rain too... and that's a trade off I'd be willing to take. I know, I know, the coast is really great... but I need sun. Badly.


So here's some more scenery...


And some more...


We got to Kamloops a little after 5 and booked into a small motel that was nice and cheap. This is the view from our door, which is on the back of the building.


And here's one last picture from our room taken at sunset....

Ok so there aren't actually any pictures of Kamloops... pretty bad, seeing it's Kamloops Wednesday. But after finally getting here and getting a motel room, we were pretty tired. So we just ate and called it a day. Tomorrow we're meeting my friend Ali and I'll take some more pictures then.... now it's time for nice sleep...

Whistler Tuesday

Ok I'm a totally wiped out tonight so if I don't make sense I can blame it on that...

Today was Whistler Tuesday but it was also Granville Island Tuesday morning. Granville Island is about 11 blocks from my place and in the 60s it was full of old factories and broken down old buildings... but then they cleaned it up and now it's a public market with a lot of little restaurants and shops.


Granville Island is on the south side of False Creek... which isn't really a creek... it's just a place where the water comes in and seperates a lot of downtown from the rest of Vancouver... so this shot was taken on the water looking towards the West End


Another shot looking under the Granville Street Bridge towards what I guess would be part of Yaletown... that little ferry there connects Granville Island with the downtown side


They left a lot of the old buildings standing when they cleaned up Granville Island... this is one of the streets


There are a lot of art design and supply stores, art sellers, a design school... stuff like that. So yeah, the place has an interesting feel... and lots of old buildings. And fish. And expensive restaurants. And mimes...


We left Granville Island and headed west towards Vanier Park... these apartments are along the way and I've always liked them... I mean, their back yard is water. So it doesn't need to be mowed.


We didn't have time to go to any of the museums in Vanier Park but we walked through the park before going back up to my place. I had to get a pic of the awesome landscaping that places palm trees in front of a totem pole. Strange...

So after that we went back to my place, packed some stuff, and headed up to Whistler. We made it in under 2 hours, which isn't bad seeing the Sea to Sky Highway is getting all those upgrades for the Olympics. When we got to Whistler we made the discovery...


... that ski season is definitely over. I don't know about the ski lifts closer to the top, because it looks like there's still a lot of snow up there, but the air is warm at village level and this is the only snow we saw down here.


The village was pretty quiet, as you can probably tell from this pic. There were a few restaurants that were really busy but aside from that there weren't too many people out. Maybe it's that quiet time between summer and winter where not a lot is going on or maybe it was just because it was Tuesday evening... either way it seemed kind of dead.


The village is actually pretty cool.... there's a movie theatre, lots of restaurants and clothing stores, souvenir stuff, a supermarket...


I took this from a pedestrian bridge crossing a street... I just liked the mountain in the background.


On our way back to the hotel we met these people who invited us into their room for some drinks. They were a lot of fun but I didn't get their names... Roby had a cognac and a beer... ice water for me...

That's it so far... I badly need sleep... tomorrow we're heading to Kamloops via Cache Creek... so we're taking that little road through the mountains that is apparently really... um... scary. So hopefully tomorrow night I can let you know how that went... but if there's no internet at the hotel I'll have to do it Thursday from Ali's place...

North Shore Monday

Last night was family dinner night at my parents' place (like most Sundays)... My neice and nephew were over and I had the camera out so I got a few pics...


This is my nephew Curtis eating some Jello...


And this is my niece Audrey waiting for some food... she didn't have to wait long...


Curtis and his crazy uncle (me) taking a self pic... seriously... that look in my eye... if that's not pure wild-eyed craziness I don't know what is... but in my defense, Curtis was determined that there would be no self pics yesterday, so I had to do it real fast before he figured out what was happening...

So Roby and I ended up staying at my parents' place last night and we took the train home this morning. And when I say this morning, I mean early this morning. We got up, packed our stuff, and got to the train station in Mission by 7:15am. That's pretty much still the middle of the night. And to make matters worse, I didn't get to sleep until about 2am. And to make matters even worse than that, the smoke alarm where I was sleeping in my parents' basement decided at about 4am that its batteries were dying so it started to chirp about once every 2 minutes. I would have taken it off the wall, but it was only loud enough to bring me into that half awake/half asleep state where everything is confused and instead of actually doing something about the problem I just dream over and over that I'm doing something about the problem... So I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

But getting up early was worth it because we got the rental car picked up by 9 and after doing some other stuff we were ready to start North Shore Monday... And there are plenty of pics. But in the interest of not boring anyone too much I'll only post a few.


First stop was at the West Vancouver Museum, where I worked last summer and the summer before. After that we came here to Whytecliff Park, which is on some cliffs and gives an awesome view of Howe Sound.


There are a lot of little islands off the BC coast and a lot of them have ferry service. This ferry has just left the mainland and it's headed to Bowen Island (I think)... at times like this I wish my camera had a panoramic function.


If there's one thing we have a lot of in Southern (coastal) BC, it's water. So ferries are everywhere, crossing rivers, sounds, inlets, ocean, etc. Horseshoe Bay in West Van is a major departure point so we headed out there to have a look. And for some reason the only picture I took was of this motel sign. It's a nice sign but I probably should have taken a picture of the ferries. I guess I forgot to do that in my excitement about the sign...


Next stop was the lookout point on the way up Cypress Mountain. Cypress is a North Shore ski hill and it's the one I usually go to... decent, cheap, and close to home. You can see forever from up there, but it's hard to take a picture of forever... so I settled for downtown, Stanley Park, the Lion's Gate Bridge, and a little bit of West Vancouver on the North side of the water.


After Cypress we headed to the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. That bridge is messed up. And I'm not just talking about the 20 dollar entrance fee. It is seriously about 3 million feet above the Capilano River, and it sways when people walk on it. Roby had no problem with that as you can tell by that big happy smile he's wearing in this pic.


This, on the other hand, is not a big happy smile. It's one of those smiles you get right before you cry or pass out. I hate heights and I hate the fact that the bridge actually moved when people walked or when the wind blew. Seriously if you were to lean over the side the bridge would actually shift with your body weight. Not that I did that, but it would shift when I got too close to one side. Notice I'm holding on with both hands.


The original bridge was built in 1889 but this one was built in 1956. This picture is what Roby saw when I made him look over the side... and it's hard to do it justice with a still pic....

So I got this video. By the time we came back accross (after the treetop adventure... check the website for more on that) I was getting brave enough to hold the camera over the sides. The video only needed to be about 10 seconds long but I started it too early so it's about a minute long. But... if you want to have a look, it gives a better idea of what it's like to look over the sides (watch it to the end to see both sides). You can also check out the website for better pics than the ones I took. Actually I just watched the video again and it really does suck in terms of quality. But here it is...



Ok well after that, we went out to Deep Cove, which is a great little place at the east end of the Burrard Inlet. It's only about 15 minutes from the city (when traffic is good) but it's really quiet... like being in the middle of nowhere. And when you live in a big city, sometimes the middle of nowhere sounds pretty good.


It's got one main drag (if you can even call it that) with little restaurants and other assorted shops... a park... some residential areas... and a marina. This would be the marina...


And these are some kayakers heading in after... um... kayaking I guess. I took this picture from the end of the wharf.


Some homes on the hill... and they don't come cheap. Deep Cove and West Van are expensive places to live.... probably because you can live there and be close to the city without having to be in the city.

I took a picture of the main street too but it's not that great so I'm not going to post it. Just imagine a little street with a lot of shops and a park with water at one end.

Ok well that's it... I need to sleep... tomorrow is Whistler Tuesday.