Learning again

I'm trying to figure out how to really fit yoga properly into my life again, it seems much harder than I thought. I've discovered - no too surprisingly, - that if I eat properly before going, I feel a lot stronger and I'm not so completely exhausted by the end of it. It's all starting to come back to me now - the problems I used to have when I needed to find something to eat late in the working day so I could last until I got home after nine. It's like I've forgotten everything I learned - I need to look at this again and take much more systematic approach to it instead of just stringing along which quite obviously doesn't work.

So today I tried to eat a bit and drink some juice - and it worked, I was feeling a lot better at yoga today. Apparently Flow is having a yoga challenge in October - for a discounted monthly fee - do yoga every single day for 30 days. They have some nice prices, and anyway this is something that I think my personal practice needs - so I'm signing up for it.

Autumn is early

The scorching hotness of summer most definitetly is over. Today was the first day in months when the clouds again decended on Vancouver and filled it with soft rain. I've taken my jacket with me in the mornings for couple of weeks now, but this was the first day when I needed it when leaving work.

There are autumn people who enjoy it and feel alive when it comes - personally I'm a spring person. Autumn used to be a season for starting over when schools started, but for years now it has meant nothing for me. So it has just become the end of everything nice, end of holidays, end of warm weather, end of light. So there's an autumn in my heart, to.

To top that, we moved at work, and my new desk is not where I wanted it to be - I wanted it to be in the middle of automation team, where the people I know best are. Instead I got a desk kind of next to them, but alone in my own cubicle - and before you think it's nice and quiet and peaceful, I have to add that it's the cubilcle everyone goes through to get to my team.

My boss tried to console me that it was the managerial position and the managers usually sit there, but I was inconsolable. Pris wanted to sit there too because "the boys" were there - and she wasn't happy to sit the with the girls. I would have. Oh well, it's what you make it, and maybe it just hightens the feeling that I'm there just to work.

While going home I decided that I would skip yoga - yes, a bad sign - and for once do all those things that I should have done some time ago and have been putting off. Mainly, filled the insurance claim for my dentist visits (which means money) and even more importantly, I finally filled in the application for renewing my work permit here. Originally I only got a work permit until December this year as that's when my passport was expiring - but now that I have a new passport I should be able to just apply for an extension. It seems straightforward enough - I can even pay the fees over the internet, and I only had to include about 10 pages of photocopies of different documents, and I put in some extra ones just to be on the safe side.

Now I feel better.

Good ideas

I've been feeling pretty miserable the whole day. Don't feel like eating, feeling queasy and now my throat has started hurting too.

So what better time to decide to upgrade my blogging software to a new major version, eh? Call me naive, but I believed what they say when they claim that MovableType 3.2 is the easiest thing ever to upgrade... and tell you what, they weren't lying. Everything went extremely smoothly, everything looks sweet and full of lovely new features, and most of all it looks like it's working. If you find something that seems to have broken, let me know. I'm off to bed.

Not much Sunday

Guests are gone again, and so is yet another Sunday. We did nothing at all, catching up on TV programs and sleeping.

I've managed to get myself a job as a team captain on one of the games going on at the Recipezaar and have been working on getting the team in order and in the same place at a time - all is looking good now though and we're set to go. It's a game where each week we "visit" a country or a region and cook a regional recipe, teams collect points and so on. First stop is France - but my problem is that I don't really like Frech food that much. Not that I have strong negative feelings about it - but I just don't find French food that exiting. I'll find something - I think though it's more likely that I'll pick something from New Orleans or Cajun kitchen which is related enough so the recipes count.

Now I'm sleepy again.

Food and company

After a long, satisfying and extremely geeky conversation I had with Janne last night, we slept long this morning. We had no real plans, so we had a long breakfast reading blogs and lazied around until I got too hungry and we hit the town. We walked back and forth on Robson, and had lunch in our huge favourite, the Mongolian BBQ on Denman.

The concept behind the Mongolian restaurants is stunningly simple, and there is no menu - you go and pick your meats, your veggies and noodles, and add the sauces. Sauces are the heart of the meal - you have about 12 different simple sauces (like soy, chili, garlic, black bean...) and put different amounts of different sauces to create the perfect combination of whatever it is that you want at that point. They have basic formulas to help you along - I mostly follow them, but Dragon for example has created his own favourite sauce.

You collect everything on your plate and you take it to the chef who cooks it for you in a big hot plate in under a minute. Absolutely the most delicious food you can imagine - no frills, just like best food always is.

At home I had to take a nap, stomach full of spicy food does that to me every time. I woke when we got a word that we were going to have another visitor, a Finn living in Seattle who was in Vancouver, and a friend of Janne's. So now we've drank a bottle of red wine, a half a bottle of white, played a game of Saint Petersburg, and the boys have gone to town to get something to eat. I'm sitting here, watching First Contact with one eye and writing this.

I know it seems like I'm just complaining all the time about the guest that swarm Vancouver almost simultaneously, but the truth is that even though it keeps me busy, I love it. I love having the house full of people, I love being with my people who understand me and where I come from.

Good night

The reason why Dragon was picking up Janne yesterday was that I was going to be in bed by ten - lately I've gone to bed far too late and as a result I've been really tired. But I ended up waiting for the boys to come home anyway, and we had a cup of tea, and before I noticed it was almost one o'clock. Fantastic to see Janne again, we talked about life, universe and... well, sci-fi and technology.

Tired now.

I wish...

My little Ixus is not quite small enough that I would want to carry it around in my handbag, it's slightly too heavy. Once and a while a moment comes when I bitterly regret not carrying it around - today was one of them. I was walking home and was just coming to Granville Island, when I saw a group of (mainly Japanese) tourists standing on the bridge looking at something. So naturally, I had to check what it was all about, and found out that there was a fishing boat that had just come in, and a man cleaning out fish - he was throwing the pieces to the water, where there to picke them up were two greedy seagulls... and a seal! The seal must have been this year's pup as it was quite small - but so gracious. It was sliding to to surface to pick up some fish, sometimes upside down, barely breaking the surface. Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.

(I guess the boat had been rented by an older American couple - the lady was taking photos of the seal with an expensive camera, and once the fish were done she took a photo of her husband holding the fish. Very traditional.)

And yoga was fantastic too, today.

And now Dragon just went to pick up Janne from the station.

Good day, good day.

Small joys

Lunches, in my opinion, are social things - you're supposed to get off your desk and get your mind off work. I usually go lunch with Michelle, we just go and grab something and then come back to the office where I can then eat and surf the net a bit.

It usually goes something like this: I get hungry and walk over to Michelle's desk, and we go downstairs. Then we stand outside until one of us decides where to go for lunch - unfortunately there isn't much choice. It's either Wicked Cafe for a grilled sandwich, WrapZone for a wrap or a salad, or one of the two Japanese restaurants for sushi. It may sound like it covers all bases quite nicely, but after few weeks it's still the same menu, I can tell you.

Today I had forgotten my wallet home, so Michelle was lending me few bucks so we had to go to an ATM - and on our way there we discovered a new kebab place that had literally just opened. I had a shawarma sandwich and Michelle had a falafel plate - both pretty nice. What was funny though was the reaction around the office - you could see people's faces light up when they heard of a (fast food) restaurant nearby. Like kids before christmas.

Another classic today at work was when a developer was confronted about a bug I found - his reply was that "it's not a bug, it's always been like that". Er, mister, I know a bug when I see one, and the fact that it exists in the live version does not mean that it should be preserved and cherished in the next one too.

Developers. Tsk.

Complete relaxation

Looking after guests has meant that I haven't had the time for yoga. My choice, obviously, and not their fault - but did it feel good finally going to a flow class today. We did go to yin on Sunday with Dragon which was very nice and I was slightly stiff from that - and generally just starting work and sitting 8 hours a day in front of a computer certainly takes it's toll. Especially my hamstrings were so increibly tight that in the first couple of Surya Namaskaars I had to almost squat to get my hands on the floor. But I don't know a better warm-up sequence than the salutations, five each and you're gonna be as loose as you'll ever be. Class was really small so we got to end it with the finishing series too, and while we're talking about best evers, there's no better way to end a class.

My breath was strong, bandhas a little less so, but all in all a very good practice. I stayed behind after class to talk to Jason, and I put down the deposit for the teacher training. Feels good to be back.

Newlyweds

Next set of guests have safely arrived, have been kept awake, and have now been tucked to bed. Janka and Orava picked me up from work, and after settling in we went for a walk in Stanley Park to keep them awake.

It's not quite as hot as it has been for the past month or so, but Vancouver was still showing off it's best side. We walked towards the park via the seawall while the sun was starting to set, admired the cargo ships on the sea and the waves, and then walked to the forest and took the long route around the Lost Lagoon and Denman back home.

It was nice to see the newlyweds so happy. We drank the fragrant Yin Ho Jasmine tea and discussed Musashi before they gave up and headed to bed. It's a huge shame that it wasn't possible for us to go to Burning Man with them, but I swear some day it'll happen.

Aamuhaiku

onnellinen yksin tietää
miten vuoret herää:
kun on hiljaa

Runorobotista Turistin vinkistä.

It sucks!

For years and years we've suffered from bad vacuum cleaners. Granted, we've always gone for the cheap models, and that's exactly what we've received. Especially in England, the land of the carpeted houses, poor vacuums make your life miserable. All dirt just gets sucked into these deep "luxurious" (their words, not mine) carpets, hair, dust, it's just a complete mess.

I don't know how common it is to have full carpets in Canada, but in our current apartment that's what we have. When we first moved in, one of the first things we bought was a vacuum. First time I used it, it good and I was happy - every single time since then it's gone downhill. Changing the bags, cleaning it up, changing settings, nothing helps. The truth is, we paid peanuts for the vacuum (because that's was what we had) and it was shit.

It seems weird to buy a new appliance if the old one still has a valid guarantee, but this time we agreed we wouldn't suffer no more. So this morning I had a look at some vacuums on the net, and was amazed to find out how much they can cost. Our previous one cost around $100, but it seems it's not difficult to buy something that costs seven or eight times that. It wasn't quite as much as I was thinking about spending, but determined to find a proper vacuum this time we set out to buy one.

Sears on Robson even has it's own department for vacuums, so that seemed like a good place to start. And immediately after wandering in a salesman came to help us. Bob seemed really knowledgeable and recommended us a $500 Kenmore - the fact that he didn't recommend the most expensive model was a plus - and even demoed it to us. Yes, they had little carpets and buckets of dirt so we could take the beast for a ride. I say beast, but it's actually quite cute little canister vacuum, red and quite elegant. After Dragon saw it in action he was ready to go for the kill and we made the deal. (It turned out that Bob was actually from Norway - he looked middle-eastern.)

And now the baby is home, and I took it for a little ride - just few trouble spots with lint and hair, and oh yes, we seem to have a winner. It's light as a feather, quiet as a hamster, and sucks beautifully, fulfilling all the promises Bob made. Suddenly I understand why people are so willing to pay so much for such simple appliaces. The user experience is totally different with this high end model, it's light and ergonomic and...

I'm lost for words. I'm in love.

Working it out

You might have picked up that I have expressed some displeasure in my new job. It's true - most of my job so far has been pretty trivial and non-challenging, and it just puts me to sleep. It's not entirely my employer's fault, as for preparation for things to come I've been working on four different projects in five weeks - meaning I've not been very useful in any of them. It's understandstandable that they want me to see as many projects as possible as soon as possible but as a sideproduct I've felt totally useless.

Every time it pisses me off I'll just think about my salary and I'll feel better about it. I've also been thinking that my problem is something that will go away in time once I get more settled in. And so it happens - today my boss took me aside and told me that I'd now be officially moved into the automation team (which is what I want to do next) and then I will be able to concentrate on one project at a time, learn the new tools and really start settling in. As an additional surprise there might even be a raise involved - but to be honest if it doesn't happen after five weeks of working I won't be too disappointed.

I'm learning to use the tools and resources that do remain constant between the projects, and I've been able to even write some new test cases today.

So it's looking up, and once in a while I'm still reminded why I love my job.

Alone again

Well, another batch of guests is gone again. I loved having Laura and Harro here, and I daresay they had a fantastic time here.

So again there's a lot more room here, and I get lost in the empty rooms without seeing anyone. (Well, obviously, not really, but for a moment it felt like that.) I think we taught the guests to get into the West Coast groove, and to enjoy life in Vancouver. Starbucks was visited frequently (and as you can see from the photo, even the dogs go to Starbucks here) as was our regular sushi haunt Akira. I asked what was the best thing about the trip and they just said "Vancouver" - and it's so true. I keep going on about this like a broken record, but this is the most beautiful city in the world, full of nice friendly people - it's got the city and the nature combined in a perfect blend.

And I love seeing my sister. We didn't really get close until we were both adults and living in separate countries, so we don't meet often. But when we do, it doesn't cease to amaze me how similar she is to me. Not only is there this person who had exactly the same upbrining than me, but who looks like me and to certain extent even behaves like me. We share same kind of weird problems no one else (in the world) does and we have the same kind of sense of humour.

It got me thinking about my family, and planning Christmas holidays which I feel guilty about not doing sooner - so when my mom got online I called her. She told me about my aunt's funeral that seemed like a lovely and fitting occasion, and we talked about old relatives and I found out that my great aunt's husband had died recently too. I didn't really know him, we only met couple of times, but all this gets one thinking. I don't think I really believe yet that I won't see my aunt again - it just seems so... strange and unlikely. With old people you know what to expect I guess, but with someone young like my aunt and her suddenly dying... I think it will take some time to sink in.

So I'm sitting here, crying on my keyboard and listening to Coldplay. I should get to bed but life seems too precious.

so you take a picture of something you see

in the future where will i be?

you could climb a ladder up to the sun

or write a song nobody had sung

or do something that's never been done

do something that's never been done

Train of thought

Work is boring, but at least it's nice in a way that going home feels even better. Laura and Harro had a successful whale watching trip after all, and even Dragon was home so we spent a nice evening before the youngsters go home tomorrow.

Game of the evening was Ticket to Ride Europe which we played for the second time. Boardgamegeek.com rates this game higher than Saint Petersburg (our current firm favourite) so I had high expectations for this game - however it hasn't filled up the expectations at all. It's a nice game, I wouldn't mind playing it more - but some people in our party found it boring. Concept is very simple - you have a map of Europe, tickets with start and end destinations, train cards for different coloured trains to correspond to different colour tracks, and train tokens that you place on the board to indicate your routers. I get lot of satisfaction about the physical aspects of the game, I like building tracks with my little trains, I like the pretty and colourful train cards. In fact I got so involved with building the tracks that big part of the game I forgot to give myself points, which meant that by the end of the game I was probaly missing 20 points or so. Not that it would have mattered that much, the boys take gaming more seriously than me and my sister so they were far ahead of us anyway.

So although I'm a bit disappointed that the game isn't more interesting, I'm happy enough to own it. I think it'll make a good starting or finishing game, very light, easy to learn and fun. I mean, who doesn't like trains?

Shy whales

This isn't even funny anymore - just when Laura and Harro had left to buy some snacks for tomorrow's whale trip, the whale company called to cancel. This time the excuse was that the ship had broken down - which I like much better than the "captain's eye" from Sunday - but it still sucked big time. Luckily they managed to the Laura and Harro to a trip leaving from Richmond... which is about an hour's bus journey from Vancouver. After some consideration the offer was taken - but not without much cursing. Really annoying - I'd still like to go on a trip myself, but trusting this company is getting harder and harder.

To console ourselves we played a game of Settlers of Stone Age - Dragon was still working, but the game worked pretty much as well with three people than with four. I've been really tired every morning this week, and I'm guessing going to bed after 11 tonight doesn't help... however I don't get to spend much time with my sister so I conseder the time well spent.

I don’t want to Save Dr. Lucky

After we had quite a bit of fun killing Dr. Lucky on Saturday, I picked up the prequel Save Dr. Lucky from Drexoll yesterday. Laura was feeling a bit guilty about killing him the day before so we set out to saving Dr. Lucky from the ship they called "unsinkable". Game mechanics for saving him were identical to killing him, but in addition the game board was shrinking while the ship was sinking which was done in a really nice and clever way – so it all looked quite promising.

However the first time someone tried to save Dr. Lucky, the differences become painfully clear. Firstly, the "saving aides" unlike the weapons where somewhat forced, but worst of all was that the failure cards were all identical abstract cards. Whereas in Kill Dr. Lucky the failure cards were funny and could be role-played and you could see what was happening in your mind’s eye, the failing save attempts where just a mechanical "oh well, it didn’t work". We did play the game till the end – I saved Dr. Lucky – but I sincerely doubt we’ll ever bother doing it again. In fact, we talked about killing him as soon as possible as our hate for him just grew with this stupid game.

I don’t get it – first game was carefully thought through, balance of weapons, failure cards and move cards was good and the cards themselves were funny and easy to understand and corresponded well to the background of being in a mansion. The second game – it was like they just copied the rules, printed out three different types of identical failure cards that filled half of the deck, then threw in few not very well thought saving aides and some moves and called it a game. Balance between the cards sucked big time – most of us had huge amounts of failure cards in our hand all the time, few move cards that we didn’t feel we needed, and very little saving aides whose value was mostly very low anyway so countering them was just trivial.

The problem is not with the rules – the rules play well enough as they are pretty identical with Kill Dr. Lucky – it’s that all that made the original game funny is missing, so the game just becomes another game of moving the pawns and playing the cards without much though.

Whales, schmales

"The captain had something in his eye", hence whale trip was cancelled. I'm disapointed, nay, I'm absolutely gutted - I was so looking forward to this trip. Laura and Harro managed to book a place in a tour for Wednesday, but I'll of course be working then.

Games

Nice day today, very hot - but then again not much to do. Walk on the beach turned into a hunt for an army surplus store, and then it we were already too tired to do anything but grab something to eat.

Place of choice was the new Fatburger on Denman, and once back home the moment when everyone just tucked in and silence fell to the table, except the munching sounds, was just perfect. For the first time it was so hot I wanted some air conditioning, but if you just keep peeling off clothes at some point you usually get a suitable temperature.

After a short nap we played some Mah Jong, finally trying out the new set. It's beautiful and plays well, and learning the characters was actually surprisingly easy. We played about four games, and hopefully we'll have some time to play a bit more later on in the week. When Clay came by we played some more games - Citadels, in which Dragon beat me so totally this time, it's all a punishment for all that gloating I did after guessing his tactics last time... And we finally managed to play a game of Kill Dr. Lucky which I bought ages ago but we just haven't managed to find any time to play yet. Had a lot of fun playing all the games (except maybe Citadels where Dragon murdered me and stole my money so many times it wasn't funny anymore).

Tomorrow, whales.

Frogs and tea in Chinatown

I'm having a day off today to entertain the guests, and they wanted to see Chinatown so off we went. Another gorgeous day in Vancouver, which wasn't so nice for poor Harro who seems to burn with a mere thought of going out, but nice for me and Laura who love warm weather. Chinatown was as busy and entertaining as ever, and we wondered around - bought some tea from my favourite tea shop in Chinatown, Treasure-Green Tea co, and watched frogs in Dr. Yun Sat Sen garden and had lunch at Hon's.

I love Chinatown, I could spend ages just lazying about and browsing there. If you want to buy something it won't break your bank, for example today I picked up a deck of Mah Jong cards (rules are the same as with tiles - only you don't build a wall but shuffle the deck) for few dollars. I think I could spend hours just in T&T, the funky supermarket.

Today we managed to spend our time exactly so that every time we had some time so that we could have gone for the guided tour in Dr. Yun Sat Sen historical garden, the tour had just started or was about to start so that we wouldn't make it. So the youngsters will probably come back some other day to do the tour which is a must if you want to see the garden - for now we just briefly visited the public garden which is nice too, and watched frogs sitting on the water lily leaves.

Buying lenses

Contact lenses cost a lot of money – our insurances cover most of it, but it’s still a good idea to look for cheap deals. For example, 6 pairs of monthly 30-day constant wear lenses cost $220 when I got them from my optician – but buying the same lenses from a net store I can shave off about $80 off that price. So today I was looking at different places to buy my lenses, and came across a nice looking shop called ClearlyContacts.ca – looked at prices and procedures, and decided to put in an order. Put details of my lenses in and clicked continue – only to find out that by doing this I had already placed the order!

So I went back to their "New Visitors" page that quite clearly says that after pressing continue I should be given a chance to review the order and enter my credit card details – but none of that happened. Next I get an email saying that they will send me the lenses with a bill (extremely rare – this is the first time I’ve seen a net store sending you something that you haven’t already paid for) and after that if I want to pay with a credit card I need to call them. It’s not that these are somehow unfair conditions – it’s the principle that they say one thing and do another.

So I sent them a fairly pissed off email quoting their own pages that explain the "how to order process" that says I should be able to confirm my order and enter my card details, and that I’d like to cancel my order as I’d rather place it with someone I feel more comfortable with. In couple of hours I received a reply:

Thanks for writing. As per your request, your order has been cancelled. As you we not charged for the order because it was an invoice payment, no refund or action is required. We at Clearly Contacts have started a new method of payment for your contact lenses. It is an invoice payment. This means that at any time, you can call us at 1-866-xxx-xxxx to pay by credit card, or wait until you receive the goods to either send a check or credit card info. That is why you didn't need to enter it in at the time of placing your order.

We appreciate your business and hope to hear from you soon!

If you have any further questions, please contact me. Thanks again!

Based on the chirpy tone my frustration obviously escaped them. I’m still debating if I should write to them saying that I don’t have a problem with their method of payment – it’s probably just perfect for some people - but my problem is that if they had said that on the web site I had never placed an order with them as that’s not how I prefer to shop.

Ah well, found another place that was happy to do business my way – me giving them my credit card details and them sending me my goods. If I want to talk to someone, I’ll call my friends. Thank you for listening.

Lifestyles

My poor sister hadn’t gotten any sleep on the plane and by the time we got home she had been awake about 24 hours. Arriving in the evening has the advantage that you only have to stay awake for couple of hours, which she barely did. I remember trying to keep my parents awake until nine in the evening - who arrived mid-day - was quite a challenge, this was much easier. Rest of the evening I spent keeping company for Dragon who was watching Galactica, reading the new Viivi & Wagner album and eating salmiakki. Even the highly trained commando mosquitoes left us alone last night. In the morning my sister was awake and energetic and we had breakfast together while talking about ashtanga and yoga.

At work I’ve been having bizarre conversations with the new girl Pris. She asked me yesterday if I had an "European lifestyle" and I had no idea what to say to that. She couldn’t properly explain what she meant by that, only vaguely mentioned "freedom" and "relaxed" – all I could say was that it was my lifestyle, and I didn’t know of anything else. Apparently "European lifestyle" is a concept on this side of the Atlantic – maybe it’s something to do with long vacations and generally working less than our American counterparts.

At the same time we’ve been trying to get Pris to get into the West Coast lifestyle. Today Angelo tried to teach her to order his favourite coffee at Startbucks – that's grande sugar-free hazelnut latte with non-fat milk – when it turned out she had never set her foot in Starbucks before. This caused loud gasps in the office as Vancouverites are probably born holding a coffee mug and never let go, this city literally runs on coffee.

More guests

Despite everything, I love having guest.

Spent some time yesterday – ok, quite a lot – cleaning up the house again, this time quite thoroughly and especially giving the kitchen a good scrub. I love cleaning, really – I hate starting the process, but once it gets going I absolutely love it. I especially love how everything changes, you start with chaos and end up with order, you start with dirty and get clean. When I woke up this morning it just felt so good waking up to a clean apartment instead of the pig sty it so quickly turns into when two full-time working tired people live there.

This is one of the nice things about having guests, you make the effort you normally wouldn’t. I also love cooking for guests, and my sister offers me an interesting challenge – I already had the opportunity to test a recipe for baked feta on Chu which I know my sister will adore. If everything goes to plan I should even have a day off on Friday so we can spend some quality time together.

For a moment I entertained the idea of going to see Bruce Springsteen on Saturday as good tickets are still available, but as the guests weren’t interested I think I’m going to pass. Doesn’t matter though, there’s plenty to do in Vancouver on any given day even without Bruce. And we have been planning a proper Mah Jong session while they’re here so that should keep us busy if nothing else – that’s also a chance to test our new set that we haven’t played with yet.

So I’m off to the airport in a second to pick up the next batch of guests.

Canadian mosquitoes

...are crafty little buggers.

Test subject

And this time I'm not talking about my job.

I promised to take part in an audience study and have now fulfilled my duty. Last week a tape was delivered to me by Fedex - and not just any kind of tape, this is the self-destructing type. Or at least self-erasing type, I never knew they could make tapes that erased themselves while you were watching them which is got to be almost as cool as self-destruction.

I had to watch the tape on Sunday - not a day earlier, not a day later. I had to fill in a booklet of "consumer choices" before watching the tape, and another one (sealed) after watching the tape. And today I've just spent half an hour on the phone answering questions about the tape.

The seeming main purpose of the tape seemed to be a half-hour sitcom about three dads taking care of their toddlers (how modern). Nothing special, made me smile several times although not laugh - something I'd probably watch if there was nothing special on. There were also couple of short ad breaks - and although they lasted maybe two minutes total, they were the main focus of the questions on the phone. You know, how would you characterise this product, when would you buy it, what can you remember from the ad and so on.

Interesting process to see in itself, but boring enough so I don't really want to do it again.

Goodbyes

I don't know if anyone really likes them, but I hate goodbyes. Chu is gone now, and for once our timetable was spot on. In the morning after everyone had woken up we went to one of the beach restaurants to have brunch - I went for a variation of Eggs Benedict (I so love them), Dragon went for eggs and ham and Chu got a feta and spinach omelette. And because they gave the drinks list to Chu we all chose different Mimosas to start with - booze at 10 am isn't normally my thing but as Mimosas are champagne coctails we decided the moment was right for them.

Rest of the day was spent packing (Chu), working (Dragon) and cleaning (me) - we took a break in the middle to watch the latest episodes of Stargates and Galactica, and by the time Chu had put last of her things into her hand luggage, we still had time for a quick cup of tea. I got her a cab and took her downstairs and waved goodbye...

Home alone. Feels empty, I got used to always having her there by my side.

To cheer myself up I put best of my Pride Parade photos up on Flickr. I've used Flickr several months now, and the more I use it the more I like it - and today I finally gave in a bought the pro membership so I can organize my photos better. Check it out if you haven't already and if you have, don't forget to add me to your contact list.

Shoes and kimchi

Tired but happy.

Dragon has finally managed to spend a normal day at home, and will even be able to catch the final fireworks display with us tonight. As for today, we wanted to hit the town with Chu for the last time before she leaves sunny Vancouver. I hadn't really planned to buy anything but ended up buying two pairs of shoes and three books. Although summer is still in full bloom over here and will probably continue for at least a month or so, most shops are starting to display autumn lines - which of course means that all summer stuff has gone on sale. So naturally I had to browse a bit, and found absolutely magnificant pair of little black suede shoes with a red embroyded dragon from one of my favourite shoe manufacturers, Rocket Dog (their autumn collection is better than it has been in ages).

Then Virgin had a 50% sale on everything but CDs and DVDs so I picked up couple of books, and we made a slow stroll down Robson while stopping to browse now and again. We ate lunch in one of Robson's numerous Korean restaurants - bound to be a good sign that we were the only Western people in there. Our waitress was really nice though and explained to us what different menu options meant - they did have some English text on them but dishes with mostly Korean names meant little to us. Food was good though and we got enough of it, and Chu got to taste some kimchi which I've been talking about for ages. And I'm indeed developing the taste for the killer gabbage.

TV shows the games from Helsinki, and it appears to be raining there. We're heading for the beach to watch the fireworks.

It's always about people

The new girl in the office who moved to Vancouver a week ago from Winnipeg said the other day something that you just not supposed to say. She said that she was lonely and she didn’t have any friends here.

I’ve been living away from people I consider friends for years, and I’ve never dared to utter those words. I’ve sometimes said that it’s not easy to make friends in a new country, but I don’t think I’ve ever said it that honestly. Whether it’s a Finnish thing or me thing, I’m not quite sure of.

Other thing is that I guess at this point I wouldn’t say I’m lonely. I’ve learned to be very self sufficient in many ways, and I’ve kept in very close contact with my best friends in Finland and England – they are rarely further away than a text message, email or IM chat. I do crave close friendships though, and chatting or even talking to people is never quite the same as meeting people face to face. So thinking of this it’s even sadder that two dear friends we’ve had here have now officially broken up - so looks like we’ll have even less chances of actually getting together with important people in the future.

I’m probably thinking about this now because Chu has been here and has been irreplaceable help for me considering that I hardly remember what Dragon looks like these days, and she’s leaving in couple of days again. Good news is that I won’t be lonely after that either, as my sister and her boyfriend are coming right after that to keep me company for another 10 days or so.

I have been thinking about this though a bit more in a wider sense lately. I love Vancouver and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else right now – only it's becoming more clear that it really is very far from my loved ones.

China all the way

The photo is only a memento, really, as I don’t think one can really take photos of fireworks that serve them any justice. I don’t really know why I bother, like I’m hoping I’ll get the perfect shot by accident? In any case, I chose yesterday’s photo because that’s one of the mind-blowing highlights of the show, the finale’s golden sparkling giants, hope you can get the idea of the size of those bangs.

We didn’t know what to expect, this was China’s team all the way from Beijing. And it was certainly very different from the two shows we’d seen so far – music was mostly Chinese, and the style of the fireworks was very different. They seemed to have a completely different sense of the music and how to choreograph the fireworks with it creating at times very surreal feeling, and there were times when it seemed they just put the music aside and fired as many fireworks as possible at the same time. Finale was one of those – although it actually worked very well – music was there but the fireworks consisted only of different sort of gold sparkles, first more subtitle ones that were like... ahem, Tholian webs drawing a web in the sky, in the middle they had the most amazing multi-changing bombs that started out like a traditional ones, changed into sparkles and then in the end exploded like... ah, Wraith attack on a shielded city of Atlantis. (I’m a geek, what can I say.) And then it was all-out biggest golden sparks I’ve ever seen, one after another until we could feel the shockwave from the bangs and were almost laying on our backs from the visual, physical and mental shock they caused.

What comes to imagination and especially use of colours though, they were the best. The colours – first I would have said that it was very conservative as they only used one or two colours at a time, but the way they shifted the colours to create an entirely different mood in a blink was just spectacular. Special favourite was a piece with music from Time Machine – only piece of western music, and there was a section that wes destructive and violent, and that was pure red, absolutely stunning.

After the show we got home and the whole place was stinking of smoke and sulfur, and when we went to the balcony the whole West End was covered in smoke (that disappeared pretty fast though).

Something completely different

Too much work

This work thing is really getting in the way of my hobbies, I don't understand how other people do it. When I get home from work I feel like laying down and having a nap, not going to yoga - often it seems like a better idea to stay at home. Still more often than not I manage to go, and so far I have manged to make myself a realistic schedule and not tiring myself out completely. I miss the lightness of it though, going to practice still fresh, coming out feeling strong not dead tired.

I kind of assumed that this feeling would pass after a while, but after three weeks of working and getting used to waking up early and not just laying about, it's still exhausting. No matter how I look at it, there just aren't enough hours for working, yoga and just chilling.

Happy Pride

We went to see the local Pride Parade yesterday, as it passed right by our house. I haven't seen one before, but this was excellent fun and totally took my mind off the bad news. The gay community in Vancouver - and especially West End - is quite happy and visible, and Pride is a total field day for them.

What I love most though is how all the local businesses take to it too. There isn't a shop on Denman that wouldn't have rainbow colours on the window, but in addition to that big businesses like big breweries (Labatt, Molson), banks, airlines (Air Canada) and coffee shop chains (Starbucks) are sponsoring the whole event. I mean, could you imagine that in Finland Koff, Finnair and Osuuspankki would proudly support the gay community? I didn't think so either.

Anyway, the parade. We got there just before the real parade started and were entertained by "dykes with bikes", a group of lesbians on motorbikes who were driving up and down the Beach Avenue to the crowd's great amusement (ok, it might not sound like much but it was fun). We got front row seats where we spent the next two and a half hours cheering for the amazingly varied and extremely entertaining entrants for the parade. Everyone and their dog (literally) was there from gay restaurants to soccer teams, synagogues to AIDS victim support groups and veterans' organisations to choirs. Gays and lesbians alike, all races (Queer Bollywood - gotta love it), all ages.

The thing that I remember topmost in my mind is the atmosphere - everyone was so happy, dancing and singing and cheering, smiling and laughing. People were there to have fun, to see and support their friends and relatives and... no matter how corny it sounds, love was all around.