Markus’ Blog

It’s been a couple of busy weeks, but now everything is finally done. The old condo has been emptied (finally), the keys handed over, we are settled Downtown (for a month and a half now), our storage locker is full to the brim (and there’s still tons of stuff cluttering our lovely downtown dwelling :-)), the old mortgage has been paid off, the cheque of the proceeds has been received and deposited.

I think time has come to take a big breath and relax for a bit. Three more weeks till I go on vacation, which will be even nicer.

If (or hopefully when) they clean our apartment windows, I’ll post a few Downtown views. Right now, they are too dusty and spotty to make for good photo taking.

A month from today, the buyer of our condo will take possession. That’s pretty darn soon.

On the other hand, we’ll be moving out of the condo even sooner! Moving day is August 2. That’s three weeks and a few days. We are — sort of — trying to take advantage of the long weekend. We’ll “lose” one day of it due to the move, but there will still be two more days off after that. Days to relax and chill out. Besides, August 2 already counts as “mid month” as far as mover’s rates go, which is always good.

We’ll be staying Downtown for the following not-quite two months (till September 27). That’s when it’ll be time to move to our new house in New Westminster!

Exciting times and a “first” for either one of us. Brigette’s first time living Downtown and a first for both of us living in our own house, on property that we actually own.

I didn’t mean to post another weather related rant, but this fact deserves mentioning. Yellowknife in the North West Territories (Canada’s “Great White North”) is actually warmer and sunnier than Vancouver, BC.

Vancouver
Current Conditions: Light Rain, 11 °C
Observed at: Vancouver Int’l Airport
Date: 10:00 AM PDT Monday 9 June 2008

Yellowknife
Current Conditions: Partly Cloudy, 16 °C
Observed at: Yellowknife Airport
Date: 11:00 AM MDT Monday 9 June 2008

Two weeks ago, when we got home from our vacation, I thought summer (or late spring at the very least) had finally arrived. Particularly, since it was so hot the weekend we got back.

Fortunately it cooled off a bit soon thereafter, because that weekend was a little too “warm” for my liking. However, it’s been gradually getting worse and worse ever since. There were a few nice, sunny, warm days, but now it’s back to daily highs of 12°C and rain. — And it’s supposed to stay like that for the whole week.

To be fair, the weather last weekend was good, and it doesn’t look too bad for the next one, either.

Today

Day: Showers. High 15. UV index 3 or moderate.
Night: Cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. Becoming windy overnight. Low 11.

 

Wednesday

Cloudy with 40 percent chance of showers in the morning. Clearing in the afternoon. Windy. High 18.

 

Thursday

Showers. Low 10. High 14.

 

Friday

Cloudy with 70 percent chance of showers. Low 11. High 14.

 

Saturday

A mix of sun and cloud with 30 percent chance of showers. Low 12. High 16.

 

However, I can’t help but wonder: when, just when will it turn nice for more than a day or two in a row? The weather we are having right now is suitable for October or February, not June.

And no, I am not asking for 35°C heat or anything even close to that.

The weather is not supposed to do that. Snow in April is just wrong. Especially in Vancouver. But it happened.

Getting back from a trip to San Jose, on April 18, I was welcomed by thick snow flakes falling from the sky. It even started to stick. About an hour after getting home, the view from our condo looked like this.

Of course it’s all gone again by now, but it’s still too cool for this time of year.

So, we’re back home. Yay! It was a loooong January 7 for us.

The flight was good and uneventful. The immigration lineup was quite long, though, and the luggage people were even slower. But after an hour we had all our bags and were on our way home to greet Queen Calli Boo the Kitty who was very vocal and very happy to see us.

Here are some photos from two Sundays ago when we had tons of snow here in Vancouver for one full day (yep, that’s how long it lasted). Haven’t gotten around to posting them before. So, here we go.

However, I have to issue this warning first:

Dear wife, close your eyes, you’ll find these gross.

The fountain in front of Bloedel Conservatory:

This is the Big Quarry in Queen Elisabeth Park:

Looks like Greater Vancouver made it into the Austrian News today. The article says that a jury in New Westminster, near Vancouver, found Robert Pickton guilty of murdering six women on his farm. It also gives a few more details about the case and talks about an upcoming trial against Pickton for murdering 20 more women.

It has been in the making for a while (hints here and there), now it looks like it’s official. Translink’s new price structure as of January 1, 2008 has been published on their web-site.

Unlike the last time around (January 2005), this time they are increasing the cost of (pre-paid) FareSaver tickets as well.

I don’t find the increase for a two zone monthly pass (from $95 to $99 or 4.2%) too bad, but at the same time the increase for a one zone pass (from $69 to $73 or 5.8%) seems a little steep.

I am not going to rant how evil Translink is for increasing the price. They have been doing a lot of improvement to the public transit system (new light rail, more and new buses, etc.). What I am going to say, however is this:

They still have a long way to go.

Why? Because there are still not nearly enough buses. I can only speak of the #8 Fraser route, but it is bad, seriously bad. In the mornings, because the buses are often completely packed half way down Fraser street going North and a lot of people get by-passed. Every single day. Sometimes about a dozen of them at one single stop. I wouldn’t be surprised if people actually got passed by more than just one bus. I am not amongst them, because I get on before the bus fills up too badly, but it would sure suck #$!#^% if I were.

At night, it’s similar, but worsened by downtown rush-hour traffic. There frequently are 15-20 minute “holes” between buses, which means that once a bus comes, it’s too packed to pick up passengers. Wait times for the #8 at night (going South) are completely unpredictable. You can get three buses in 30 seconds or you’ll end up without a single bus in 25 minutes — and then get three buses in 30 seconds (usually it’s somewhere in between). It has all happened. And I do end up stranded then, sometimes. (Just yesterday evening was one of these 25 minute incidences.)

So, I am sure people getting by-passed on a daily basis will have a hard time swallowing this fare increase. (“What? Now I have to pay extra just to be by-passed like before?!”)

Apparently not only the #8 is affected. It seems bad enough that the U-Pass (transit pass for university students) is now dubbed Pass-U (pass you), because students end up being by-passed by buses so frequently. (Found that in a comment to a CBC article.)

PS: In case anybody read this far a little “reward”. Are you interested in a paid-for 2-zone monthly pass for December? I only need it till (including) Dec. 18, so there’d be almost two weeks of two-zone traveling left (it’s un-scratched, so it could be turned from a zone 1/2 into a zone 2/3 pass.)

And just for my own reference, I am “saving” the old and new price tables here.

(Read on …)

Looks like it was snowing for the most part of last night as well as this morning. There’s a lot of the white stuff out there right now. The temperature is 0°C right now, according to the all-knowing Internet.

Here are some pictures I just took.

There are probably more pictures to come. I am planning on venturing out there for a little walkie in the afternoon.