that ring of confidence

And I arrive in Edmonton

It was a typical Vancouver day when I left.  Walking from my apartment to Waterfront station to catch the Canada Line up to the airport I was soaked to the bone.  Thankfully my Timbuk2 bags tend to stand up to the rain pretty well, and by the time I found the proper place to catch the new Skytrain line and actually arrived at the airport I was dry for the most part.  The flight itself was uneventful, I slept through take-off and read through the rest of the flight, and I arrived in Edmonton at nine.

Edmonton is cold.  It's been awhile since I've experienced a real winter.  As much as Vancouver is wet and kind of miserable during these months, it's not actually that cold.  Sure you never feel dry, but there's a definite lack of biting cold that I noticed the minute I stepped out of the airport in Edmonton to flag down a taxi to take me to the Radisson where I'm staying.

Once I'd gotten a room I was about to go out to get some food.  Being cheap however I wanted to avoid cab fare, and yet it was late and I wanted to catch Late Night with Conan O'Brian at 12:30 so I did not want to set off walking anywhere.  At first I tried to go to the pub in the hotel, though walking in I realized that I had forgotten that I was here to speak at a Canadian University Press (CUP) National Conference (Nash).  A CUP Nash is a quick way to jump start the economies of any nearby pubs or bars, and the hotel's bar was packed with students.  Not feeling social I retreated to my room where I ended up ordering Boston Pizza delivery.  

The internet in the hotel is hit and miss, apparently having a student journalist conference hosted there is overwhelming their ability to provide access to the web.  So while I had thought to be blogging as much as I can, I might not be able to as much as I had hoped.  

Now it is late, by either Vancouver or Edmonton's standards, and I have to go to Bioware in the morning to work out what exactly I'm going to be saying at the first panel.  Still there is a made for television movie on the CBC about the 1972 Summit Series where professional hockey players from Canada and Russia met for the first time [wp].  That is tempting.  So very tempting.

Vancouver's first snow of the winter

We made it all the way to mid-December before getting the first serious snowfall of the season, so good job everyone. Now tomorrow we'll see just how little everyone remembers about driving in the snow [mbv] and just how shitty Smart cars are in the snow.  I'm just glad I'm not working tomorrow.  Instead I've got all day to stay nice and warm at Lydia's place before trying to get myself home sometime tomorrow evening for work in the morning.

About five hours into this new snowy existance, and my Mini is holding up nicely.

As we prepare for Las Vegas

there are only two more sleeps until I go to Las Vegas. If you do the math right, and don't count afternoon naps and the times I fall asleep watching the evening news, that means that I'll be on a plane and leaving Canada for the City of Sin and Celebrity Chefs on Thursday. Though Lydia [iatl] is going for the shopping and a meal at Bouchon Bistro [bb], I'm excited to go to the new Star Trek Experience. (I'd link to its webpage but apparently it's down which does not bode well for getting to have a drink in Quark's bar).

I've got a little money, but I doubt I'll be doing much gambling. The fact is the house always wins eventually and I'm not blessed with enough luck to make up for the fact that I can't be arsed gaining the needed skills. I might play some Blackjack since that's about the only card game that I feel like I've got enough knowledge of to make a game of it. Poker I can play on my iPhone that's about it. I don't understand most of the other games, and as far as I can tell there's no money and no fun to be had from playing the slots.

Apart from Lydia I'm going with the rest of my immediate family. My parents are heading to see Jay Leno, because apparently his nightly appearances on television have not been enough to convince them that the man is painfully unfunny, and Neal and his girlfriend MC are also coming. I don't think they're going to see Leno, so maybe they'll nerd it up with me at Star Trek.

Or maybe not.

One night we're also going to go see the Cirque Du Soleil show Love, which is the one that uses all the Beatles music. I'd been to one of their shows in Vancouver back in 2006 [mbv], and it was pretty impressive. I think the addition of the Beatles music will make it a bit more enjoyable for me. I mean I liked the last one I saw, but I didn't love it.

I'm not quite sure what the blogging situation will be while I'm gone. I've got to find out if the hotel we're staying at has Wi-Fi and depending on that I may or may not bring my Macbook. I will bring my iPhone, but I really don't like blogging on it, especially given that the fancy drop caps that I've been starting every post with is a bit of an HTML workout and with no copy-and-paste on the iPhone I'd have to remember all of it which clearly is not going to happen. If I don't blog before I go, and I don't bring my laptop, I'll do a summary post for the trip when I get back.

Another apology

i t feels like every post I make these days is a post asking for forgiveness after another long period of this blog laying fallow. Each and every entry seems like it's asking for forgiveness for the length of time since I've last blogged and promising to be more attentive to you, my dear readers.  Does it feel that way to you?

Again I've been writing for The Georgia Straight [tgs] and though I haven't been working as much this past week I've been travelling with Lydia.  We took a long weekend and went to Vancouver Island to visit Tofino and Victoria.  Lydia blogged about eating on the island [iatl] and I guess I don't have a whole lot to say beyond that, so I'll leave you with the link. 

One of the things we did do in Victoria was look at venues for the wedding.  We checked a few places, mostly heritage homes and none of them seemed to work for us.  They were either not the right type of place, required us to use their expensive in-house caterers or had the overall feel of a bingo hall.  After already mostly eliminating Kelowna from our list of cities to get married in, it seemed like we were crossing Victoria off the list as well.

I don't know how it came up, but talk turned to the Heritage Hall on Main Street in Vancouver [hh], and since I had been to Curtis's wedding there I sent him an email asking for a rough estimate on how much he paid.  His reply was surprisingly inexpensive and so we booked a viewing for Wednesday and after looking at it and talking to the woman in charge of rentals we've booked the hall for August 9th 2009.

Which is a huge relief, since now that we've got a date and location everything else can slot into that.  I guess the last really big thing is the caterers, and once that's sorted we're just having to deal with a few minor details like the flower arrangements for the tables and whether or not we're going to ask people to sit through speeches or a slide-show or possibly both.  Lydia's for neither and I'm for both.  I figure if we're feeding people the least they could do is pretend to care about us for half an hour, even if they'd rather be watching a rerun of The Office.

Down at the 764

Kelowna was a fun trip. Back in Vancouver now I've not yet had a chance to unpack, or even really sort through some of the stuff that I brought back to the coast but it was a really nice three days away and probably one of my best trips to Kelowna ever.  I would still probably agree with my younger self who claimed that Kelowna is a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there, but damn is it a nice place to visit especially in the summer.

It never quite reached the car seat melting summer temperature highs that I had been hoping to experience as a cruel reminder of my pre-air condition days [jks], but apart from anytime we tried to go into my parents' pool it was well warm enough.  As soon as we got into that pool however the sun would set, or there'd be a cloud suddenly arriving on the scene to blot out the sun.

Ryan (pictured) and Ashley were also east from the lower mainland, there for Ashley's high school reunion.  Chad organized a night at Kelly 'O Bryan's on the night that Lydia and I arrived but by the time we got into town and got settled in with my parents it was too late to make it.  I did get to catch up with Chad when I stopped by his office and gave him his new iPhone. 

Lydia and I did the obligatory hitting of the local fruit stands and I stocked up on corn.  We did a bit of jet-skiing and I got a chance to sit down and write the article for The Straight [jks] that I've been fretting over.  I'm not yet sure when it's going to be running, but not to worry I'll pimp myself out so much when it does that you're unlikely to miss it.

We debated staying an extra day and were going to try to work out in our minds a way to get our shifts at work covered, but by the end of the three days we both felt poor and figured we needed the shifts.  Gas is expensive, and that was what was driving me to the poor house.  I used to think nothing of driving between Kelowna and Vancouver, but with a tank of gas for my Mini up around $60 the three or so tanks that it takes to get back and forth do tend to put the brakes on any trips.

For our summer just a weekend camping with Nathan and Krista and our trip to Toffino remain, which is a nice way to round out the summer. 

Kelowna day 1/2

Despite plans to leave fairly early yesterday, and thanks to my GPS device sending me through Burnaby first, Lydia and I didn't get to Kelowna until about eight last night.  The drive itself was good, especially since everyone on the road was going the other way as they returned to Vancouver at the end of their long-weekend.  It's one of the many reminders that while working Saturdays and Sundays does have its drawbacks, it generally means that anything we do is a little less crowded.

Chad, Doug and Ryan had all made plans to meet-up at Kelly 'O Bryan's which is a Kelowna institution.  Sadly by the time we got into town and tracked down my parents to let us into the house it was well past time to meet-up with them.  Instead we ended up on a late night run to the Boston Pizza that's next door to where I used to work.  It's a place that I used to eat at on a near daily basis, but now since the only ones I know of in Vancouver by Metrotown and somewhere on Broadway, I rarely get to.

Once at my parents' old house, they've bought a new one since the last time I was in town, we played with the dogs a bit.  Well past his bedtime Charlie, my mother's new puppy, ran around the yard like someone had been feeding him Sugar Smacks until he was put to bed.  After that Lydia and I fell asleep watching the 1 am rebroadcast of the Daily Show.

Now I just need to get over my block and actually start the word processing on this article.  It's the opening that's bothering me, and so far all I have is a fairly lame size joke.

Kelowna never seems as hot as it should be

We've never managed to hit Kelowna on a really nice weekend since I've moved to Vancouver. Last summer we came down during August and it was cloudy and only slightly warmer than Vancouver. It's because of this that Lydia has never been to the Okanagan when it's stupid hot. We're heading down tomorrow, but sadly even now it looks like we'll be lucky to have the heat top out at 37 degrees.

Oh it's plenty hot, don't worry but it's not quite the heat that I used to have to drive around in back before I owned a car with air-conditioning.  I'd have the window down and I'd still show up for work needing to change and have a mini shower in the Paramount's bathroom before my shift began.  37 degrees, why that's an almost livable temperature.

Essentially we've got three days when we were hoping to scout around for wedding stuff, since Kelowna is where we're planning on having the wedding.  Lydia got a bit disheartened after contacting her choice of a caterer and getting a rather uninterested response.  It seems that offering any information via email or phone is beneath them, but if we're okay with driving to Penticton and meeting them at a farmer's market then maybe they'll be willing to talk to us then.  Or we could go to their special $100 a plate dinner and talk to them there.

Clearly their business is running well enough that new customers aren't a concern.

I'm not sure if we'll end up able to meet with them or not this trip, but it would be nice to get that major planning bit out of the way.  As I see it the major things we need to organize is the two venues (one of which we think is sorted already), the food and then justice of the peace/minister type of person.  Or a sea captain.

My cousin Lindsy got married in Cuba [fkr], and when trying to price out locations and caterers that sort of starts looking nice.  Maybe not Cuba, but a place like Hawaii where my aunt Peggy and uncle Gregg got married is significantly cheaper on us, if not on our invited guests.  For some people it might be an excuse to have a really fun trip, for others it would be a reason not to come.  Which would be a pitty but it would make things even cheaper...

Now just to find a sea captain.

The summer plans are still being made

So these past few days have even been extremely beautiful. Well at least the weather in Vancouver has been very beautiful. Warm, sunny and with not one drop of rain to be seen darkening the sky it's been very un-Vancouver.

Lydia and I have been trying to figure out what sort of vacation plans we can make. There was some light talk about a trip to Las Vegas with my parents in September, but that seems to have died down. I'm trying to get a camping trip arranged with Nathan and Krista for August but after making bold claims about wanting to camp Lydia is feeling a bit nervous about the bears and the potential lack of washrooms that come with camping.

At some point we will get to Kelowna, both to scout out wedding locations and caterers and to just enjoy the sheer heat. Last year it was a bit cooler while we were there, and I was wanting Lydia to really get the sweltering Kelowna experiance where you'd kill a small child for a cold glass of lemonade. There's also a trip to Tofino at some point, since we really enjoyed out brief time there last year so much that I even claimed to want to move there [jks].

Don't worry, I probably won't. Though that would keep me from worrying about the future of Metroblogging Vancouver [mbv].

Three out of three agree, Fiamma burger is awesome

  Fiamma Burger 
  Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

After my post about the joy of Fiamma burger [jks] in Bellingham two of my co-workers have since gone and they've both enjoyed it greatly.  I've been trying to come up with an excuse to go to Bellingham so that I can have another one.  I think I'm going to go with a need to buy cheap but high quality groceries at Trader Joe's is excuse enough.  So with this weekend (yesterday and today) booked up with Granville Island and Whistler it seems like I'll have to wait until next Wednesday for the wonder that is Fiamma burger.

If anyone wants to lend me a few hundred thousand dollars we could set up a Fiamma burger chain in Vancouver.  We'd be rich, richer than astronauts.  You know I'm right.

Heading to Seattle the Emerald City

I'm heading down this weekend to Seattle for the Emerald City Comic Convention [eccc].  I'm feeling broke, nay I am broke, so I looked at canceling the trip altogether but with the exception of gas there's not a lot I'd save since most of it I'd already paid for back when being broke was not a near perpetual state of being.

I've been the last two years, and mostly just bounced around the convention floor looking at the shops and what they had to display, but this year I'm going to make an effort to get to a lot more of the sessions hosted by various comic industry types.  Spending money is not really an option, so thankfully once I'm inside most everything is free.

Except for food, artist sketches, merchandise, parking and so forth.

Speaking of which I'd better get going, I don't want to be too late getting into Seattle, I want to be well rested for the start of the convention tomorrow.

Let's go to Fiamma Burger

It's late, I should be in bed since I work early tomorrow morning at a new job, but I'm blogging about food.  Not just any food, the greatest hamburger you'll find around these parts.  Okay, sure it's in Bellingham but that's pretty close isn't it?  Fiamma Burger is a Bellingham burger joint and probably my favorite around.

That's right, better than Vancouver favorites like Vera's.  Using mostly organic and locally grown produce the meat is great, the drinks are great and the fries aren't bad either.  It's a most stop at for me now anytime I go to Seattle or venture into Bellingham, unless Lydia wants us to go somewhere fancier.

I went down last week with Nathan, and it was great.  The fact that they have good beer, and good ice lemonade is a definite plus.

I feel like this is all really cheesy though right now, so I'd better get to bed before I end up as a parody.

The ring is the thing and other terrible titles

Lydia was away for the last two weeks at her parents.  They've recently sold their motel in Bracebridge Ontario which served as both their home and business for the last five years and so that meant moving homes.  With Lydia's mother going to Mexico to visit family for a week they needed Lydia's help to get everything packed up and ready for the move.

While she was away I lived the bachalor life, which mainly consisted of being less tidy and staying up all night to play Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart.  With her back today I dragged Nathan down to Bellingham to pick up the engagement ring [ial] that she had picked out a few weeks ago.  We had not been able to take it at the time, because it was off getting resized, and I wanted to have it for when she got back.

Having picked the ring (pictured above) yesterday, I picked her up from the airport today.  I had debated pretending to not have already proposed and doing a big showy thing where I got down on one knee in the arrivals area of Vancouver Airport, but decided instead to give it to her in private.

Less romantic perhaps, but also less chance of airport security deciding that we were acting suspicious and roughing us up.

What else I'm getting aside from a puppy

If you've known me for awhile you probably remember the single days.  The long, long, single days.  In fact you just have to take a look at this blog's "Being Single / Dating" category [jks] to see the last few single years.  In fact back in university I had thought that I could somehow spin my single-dom into a career, since people seemed to enjoy reading articles of my disastrous romantic adventures [teotw].

Lydia and I have been going out pretty much since we first met after she responded to an ad that I put up on Craigslist.  The ad was put up very much in the spirit of, "Well if this doesn't work out at least I'll have something to write about" and so that it actually worked and I've gotten a long term relationship out of it is very surprising to me.  Delightfully surprising.

Last week the two of us went down to Seattle for her birthday and had dinner at The Dahlia Lounge [td], where after the "Cougar Gold, fried green tomatoes, Bavarian beer vinegar, mustard" appetizer was cleared I asked her to marry me and much to my relief she said yes.  So we are now officially, though currently ring-lessly, engaged.

It's been just over a week, but I've wanted to keep it quiet because my parents were on a cruise in Asia and I wanted to tell our folks before we let anyone else into the secret.  Last night I surprised the family with it, and Lydia told her mother over the phone, so now that all the one degrees know, we're letting other people in on it.

So yeah, I'm getting married.  On April 21st. 

Just kidding.  Probably next spring or summer depending on a few factors. 

Photo credit

• Photo by: Jeffery Simpson
• What: Lydia at home
• Date Taken: October 19th, 2007
• Camera: Canon EOS Rebel XTi [fkr]

The epic poem of my life

I'm trying very hard to come up with something to blog at this point.  Following the Mr. Rawson school of forced free writing never ends up with anything readable, and certainly nothing that you want to submit to a(n) (potential) audiance of millions.  In fact during the ten minutes of free writing every class I tended to just fill my workbook with the phrase, "I am free.  I am being forced to write."  It was meant to be ironic, in that way that we can achieve irony at 17.

I suppose to make this a better blog I need some drama or adventure in my life.  Another trip, for example, to compete with last year's travel to Europe.  Something quite facinating and new so I can dazzle you with photographs and tales of eating weird food in dodgey resturants.  Instead I have pictures of the inside of the Skytrain, as I commute to and from Metrotown every day.

Which is not to say that life is boring, or dull.  I watched Bee Movie last night and it was pretty good.  However the fact that you're reading about me watching Bee Movie is a sign that perhaps I'm not leading the sort of heroic life that is worthy of great study.  Perhaps I should join Jason and search after the Golden Fleece [wp].  I'm sure such a journey would provide many chances for good pictures and many meals of weird food in dodgey resturants.  At the very least Mysia should be interesting.

Photo credit

• Photo by: Jeffery Simpson
• What: Arc de Triomphe, Paris France
• Date Taken: May 15th, 2007
• Camera: Sony Ericsson K790i

iPhone blogging from Seattle

I didn't bring my Macbook to Seattle for the three day weekend, despite the fact that the hotel has free Wi-Fi and thus would be perfect for blogging on the move. Instead I decided to see if I could go with just the iPhone as my portal to the internet.

So far it is going fine. I admit aside from this short post and some Twitter action (look on the right hand sidebar) I haven't done much. While my blog service TypePad has a nice iPhone interface I've not wanted to screw around trying to post to Vancouver Metblogs. Not that I've even been in Vancouver.

Today for lunch we went to the Crab Pot down on one of the Piers where Seattle meets the sea. Large wooden mallets were involved and we both enjoyed the seafood. Then we trucked around Pike Place Market.

Tonight we go to the Dahlia Lounge for Lydia's birthday dinner.

This picture does not match the text

IMG_0919.jpg
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

I did not start the day with a headache, and yet now it feels as if someone has just walked up to me and hit me right between the eyes with a hammer. I'm not prone to stress headaches, so I'm not particularly sure where it's come from but it's making me feel physically ill.

Can't I go a week without being sick and wanting to vomit?

I need a week's vacation where I spend the entire time within about ten kilometres from my apartment. No driving, no chores, nothing but the simplest shopping for groceries and comic books. I am getting a bit of a vacation, a three day weekend that's running from Mondaythrough Wednesday for Lydia's birthday trip to Seattle. Seattle is hardly relaxing though, its stressful to drive around, find parking and make sure everything is going okay.

My next holiday is going to be Chez Moi. It's going to be fucking wonderful.

Edit: I should point out that I do enjoy travel trips, and that this trip to Seattle is going to be really fun.  I like Seattle, and going with Lydia means that it's sure to be a good time.  It's just not a relaxing good time.

Gone to Seattle

The Costal Kitchen
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

I'm heading off to Seattle for the Matthew Good show. Nathan's coming, so expect to see us on the news trying to scale the Space Needle sometime after the show tonight. That's the sort of ruckus we can get into when we're south of the border.

Thanks to Jeff for giving us a place to crash, and I hope you all have fun while I'm gone. If you want to come in and finish cleaning my apartment while I'm away please feel free to do so.

I've fled to the eastern lands

Gloaming all of my weekends for the month of November together managed to allow me to get a week free to travel to Ontario (Bracebridge) to visit Lydia's parents.  Lydia went a week before me, so she's here too. 

Bracebridge is a small town in the cabin country a few hours north of Toronto.  During the summer it's flush with tourists coming up from the big city to spend a little time with nature.  Lydia's parents run a motel there. 

I flew to Toronto from Vancouver, got picked up from the airport by Lydia and her mother.  We then drove to Bracebridge and I settled into one of the rooms at the motel.  The next day we just sort of relaxed around Bracebridge, walking to the nearby mega Wal-Mart was a highlight of the day.

On the weekend we went to the nearby Enterprise car rental and got a car to drive to Montreal via the Algonquin Provincial Park [app].  We stayed at a hostel in Montreal and basically ate our faces off.  My favorite meal of course was Schwartz's the famous smoked meat deli.

After two days in Montreal we drove back to Bracebridge via Toronto, stopping at Eaton's Centre to visit with Delme.  Now there's a day and a half left here in Ontario before we return to Vancouver.  Return to a solid three weeks with no days off, as the mall gears up for the Christmas rush.

Gone to Seattle

Lydia and I are just leaving for Seattle, once she stops hitting my arm. Arcade Fire and Jeff Weston tonight.

See you on the other side.

I want to move to Tofino

Lydia and I went to Tofino and Victoria for our weekend, which is generally mid-week, so we've been out of town for the last few days.  I'd never really had any desire to go to Tofino, but Lydia had wanted to for awhile and so finally I broke down and agreed to go before the summer ended.  She booked us into the hostel in Tofino, but only could get one night there so the next night we spent in Victoria.

Tofino is really nice, I really liked it.  It's a town I could see myself living, granted with a Zip.ca account and regular Amazon purchases thanks to high speed internet, if I wanted to get away from the big city life.  It's small town like Barrhead [wp] used to be when I was younger and going to the farm my parents owned outside the town.  And you know when Tofino makes Barrhead look like a big town, that it must be small.  I'd move their tomorrow if there was a job opening, maybe writing for the local paper.

The only reservation I'd have is that like Kelowna, though more so, it's population balloons because of tourists during the summer.  I'm not a huge fan of living in a town and having to deal with tourists.  In Vancouver it's not that bad, because the city's large enough to take in tourists without noticing, but in Kelowna it's annoying and I'd image in a small town it would be even worse.

We didn't actually do much in Tofino, just walked up and down the main street for a few hours and then I taught Lydia how to play crib.  The next day we were off to Victoria to stay in a dive of a hostel, and visit with her high school friends.  We bought hats and ate more ice cream than we should have, and then came home.  All in all it was a nice vacation, and I'm certainly looking forward to going to Tofino again.

Anyone have a job for me there?