Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Observations
- Vancouverites sure do complain a lot. The housing prices, the rampant poverty, the winters (more on that in a bit), the transit system, the architecture, the (admittedly annoying) civic strike, the new Canucks jerseys, the Canada Line, the Olympics, the gun crime…it’s one gripe after another with these people. I even heard people bitching about The Economist naming Vancouver the world's best place to live. Now, that’s not so say there aren’t perfectly legitimate grievances out there, but really.
- The one thing worse than the incessant complaining is the following formula: ‘Vancouver’s great, where else can you ________ in the morning and _________ in the afternoon?” (for example: “ski” and “kayak”). This was a running joke between my brothers and I before I moved out here, but I’ve actually heard it said.
- Vancouver people seem to take perverse pride in their winters, to the point where virtually every time I’ve met someone and mentioned that I’m from Edmonton, they’ve been compelled to warn me about the fact that it rains a lot during winter here. Now, I’m sure that probably sucks, but I’m from Edmonton, people! Do you know what winters are like in that place? Incidentally, the only people I’ve met who don’t complain about the winters in their city are horrible douchebags from Calgary who act as though the chinook is borne over the Rockies by the very breath of the Holy Christ Child.
- The gigs don’t stop coming. Since my last post on the subject, I’ve tagged three more must-see gigs: Bella at the Railway Club on October 4, the Long Blondes at Richard’s on November 2, Small Sins at the Media Club on Remembrance Day and Les Savy Fav at Richard's on December 1.
Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
It's been another long dry spell here I see. Posting has been light since the Big Move, so I think a brief recap is in order.
Some time ago, the missus and I started kicking around the idea of getting the hell out of Edmonton. She always hated it there and I had started to sour on the place as it became more apparent that the flood of oil money was not exactly doing wonders for the quality of life. Also, I had recently turned 30 and figured if ever there was a time to escape the 50-kilometre radius in which I had spent my entire existence, it was now. She wanted to go back to school, and I just wanted a change of scenery. We wanted a large, cosmopolitan city, (which ruled out Calgary *spits), and so, after considering our options (which were, due to my status as a unilingual Anglophone, pretty much limited to Toronto and Vancouver), we decided to try our luck on Canada’s west coast. Of course, picking up one’s life and moving is never simple. Most of my family and friends are in Edmonton, and I had a cushy government job that paid me a bundle and placed few demands on me beyond showing up on time and relatively sober. But, as the saying goes, fortune favours the bold, and so I chucked the job that was slowly grinding me down, said goodbye to the grey lady on the North Saskatchewan and set out for (literally) greener pastures.
And it’s been great. We managed to quickly find a pretty nice little place in a cute neighbourhood for a decent rent (though it came to light later that our landlords, who live directly below us, are of a rare species of nocturnal troll that subsist solely on cigarettes smoked between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.). The missus was accepted into school and managed to find a job to help defray the cost of a liberal arts education. And I scored a communications gig at a large not-for-profit that pays me better than my old cushy government job. Except here I actually do work, which turns out to be far more rewarding than surfing the internet for seven hours a day.
We’re getting to know our neighbourhood (no easy task given the fact it’s currently being torn apart by the construction of Vancouver’s new rapid rail transit line; see above) and other parts of the city (hopefully I’ll get around to posting about our favorite spots soon).
We bought a very decent couch. We’ve been going to lots of gigs.
In short, we’re settling in and rather enjoying the process.
So there’s your backstory.
What’s next? Not sure. I do know that, between the demands on my time by my job and social life (such as it is) and competition from Facebook and Flickr, this blog probably won’t get all that much attention. But I’ll try to keep the snark coming while also using this space for some of my favorite photos. Here's one now, from a recent saunter down by the waterfront at Coal Harbour:
Later.
Some time ago, the missus and I started kicking around the idea of getting the hell out of Edmonton. She always hated it there and I had started to sour on the place as it became more apparent that the flood of oil money was not exactly doing wonders for the quality of life. Also, I had recently turned 30 and figured if ever there was a time to escape the 50-kilometre radius in which I had spent my entire existence, it was now. She wanted to go back to school, and I just wanted a change of scenery. We wanted a large, cosmopolitan city, (which ruled out Calgary *spits), and so, after considering our options (which were, due to my status as a unilingual Anglophone, pretty much limited to Toronto and Vancouver), we decided to try our luck on Canada’s west coast. Of course, picking up one’s life and moving is never simple. Most of my family and friends are in Edmonton, and I had a cushy government job that paid me a bundle and placed few demands on me beyond showing up on time and relatively sober. But, as the saying goes, fortune favours the bold, and so I chucked the job that was slowly grinding me down, said goodbye to the grey lady on the North Saskatchewan and set out for (literally) greener pastures.
And it’s been great. We managed to quickly find a pretty nice little place in a cute neighbourhood for a decent rent (though it came to light later that our landlords, who live directly below us, are of a rare species of nocturnal troll that subsist solely on cigarettes smoked between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.). The missus was accepted into school and managed to find a job to help defray the cost of a liberal arts education. And I scored a communications gig at a large not-for-profit that pays me better than my old cushy government job. Except here I actually do work, which turns out to be far more rewarding than surfing the internet for seven hours a day.
We’re getting to know our neighbourhood (no easy task given the fact it’s currently being torn apart by the construction of Vancouver’s new rapid rail transit line; see above) and other parts of the city (hopefully I’ll get around to posting about our favorite spots soon).
We bought a very decent couch. We’ve been going to lots of gigs.
In short, we’re settling in and rather enjoying the process.
So there’s your backstory.
What’s next? Not sure. I do know that, between the demands on my time by my job and social life (such as it is) and competition from Facebook and Flickr, this blog probably won’t get all that much attention. But I’ll try to keep the snark coming while also using this space for some of my favorite photos. Here's one now, from a recent saunter down by the waterfront at Coal Harbour:
Later.
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