Sorry about the lack of updates, I kind of got frustrated with the shaky wireless connection. I'm back home now, with a great connection mere feet from my couch, so here's the update on the last couple of days.

The hockey game was awesome. You haven't lived until you've heard 18,630 Canadians who've been waiting for 16 months for hockey singing O' Canada at the top of their lungs. And it just got better after that. There's nothing like a full stadium of people who are totally into the game and really understand what's going on. Every little thing was met with synchronized cheers, groans, and excited gasps. It was quite a bit of fun after only having seen games in person with far less intense fans in Anaheim, L.A. and San Diego. I sat next to a very excited Canucks fan who was on the edge of his seat the whole game. We had fun talking about the game, and high fiving on goals. I did my best impression of a Canucks fan, and I don't think he suspected a thing :) . Vancouver won, 3-1, which was great because the crowd got what they wanted, but I was secretly rooting for Phoenix to come back at the end for overtime and possibly a shootout. Oh well.

Thursday brought more rain, and more foot/heel/achilies pain. I don't think I was quite prepared for the amount of walking (and mountain climbing) that I did on this vacation, so I paid for it with a little bit of pain. It limited me some, but not completely. Between the rain and the pain on Thursday, I didn't feel like doing much, so I just did a little souvenir shopping and saw a couple of movies. Go For Zucker is a comedy that won a bunch of awards in Germany, so I had high hopes. It was entertaining, but I found it a little hokey, like Meet the Parents in German. Lucid is the only Canadian film I saw, and it kept me interested, but in the end was a little too in love with its shocking twists and turns for me to recommend it.

Friday was my last full day, so I decided to spend most of it in Stanley Park. Since I was still feeling some pain walking, I just stayed around the Lost Lagoon, which is a great place to sit and read. I also walked around the lagoon a couple of times enjoying the wildlife and views. I took a couple of pictures that I like, so I'll post them when my photo album starts working again (its acting funny at the moment, I don't know why).

After coming back from the park, I watched an exciting Angels/Yankees game which the Angels ended up winning. Go Halos!

I ended the night with a final movie, Three Dollars from Australia. I think I liked this one, but I had a bit of a hard time figuring out what was going on sometimes. A large part of the movie was flashbacks, but the main characters didn't really look or act that much different in the past, so there was no real indication about what point in time was being shown in any given scene. That was probably just me though.

So that's it, I caught a plane back to San Diego on saturday morning, and that's where I am now. I had a great time in Vancouver, and already want to go back. Boarding trip to Whistler this year Justin and Dave? ;)

The public transportation system here is really quite good. I took the SeaBus across to North Vancouver, and hopped on the 236 bus which took me to Grouse Mountain. Easy, quick, cheap, very nice.

Grouse Mountain is quite an attraction. There's skiing in the winter, and various other attractions at the top during the rest of the year. There's a gondola to take you to the top...but that's for wimps. I took the other way - the Grouse Grind.

No kidding around here, the Grind is tough. It starts off fairly innocently, like you're walking a giant staircase in the woods, but it quickly gets difficult. There are still steps of some sort the whole way, but the route turns nearly vertical. On the way down they told us that the annual race up the trail had just taken place last week, and a new record of 26 minutes, 26 seconds was set. After 26' 26", I was standing next to a sign telling me I was 1/4 of the way up. I took a picture of that sign, because its just that cruel. I briefly considered turning back, but in the end I decided that since nobody else was turning around, I could make it too. So I pressed onward.

There were quite a few other people on the trail with me, a large group of Japanese tourists, some locals that looked like they did this all the time, and various other tourists. I talked with one guy from Edmonton for awhile until I couldn't keep up with him anymore.

My final time was 1 hour, 25 minutes. Next time I'll do it in 1:15.

The view from the top was somewhat spoiled by clouds, but as they cleared out a little, it was spectacular. I took a bunch of pictures, but they didn't turn out that great because the clouds were still lingering.

I took the gondola back down - walking down is highly discouraged, I can't imagine doing it, it would be pretty dangerous - and got back on the 236 bus, which dropped me off at the Capilano Suspension Bridge. This is a tourist trap, and a ripoff, but I knew that going in. Its just one of those things where I was was there, and its such a well known thing that I had to check it out. Its just a big suspension bridge over a river. You get to walk across it. It was kind of fun, but not remotely worth the price of admission. At the other end of the bridge there are walkways through the forest, including some more bridges between trees about 80 feet off the ground. That also was kind of neat, but still not worth it. Oh well.

Back in town I had dinner, watched the Angels lose game 1 to the Yankees, and picked out another movie. This time I saw Look Both Ways, and it was excellent. Its a comedy about death that somehow works really well. I have no idea if any of these movies will make it to Southern California, but if this one does come to a theater near you, go see it. It comes from Australia - oh, how nice to see a movie in english again...I'm fine with foreign movies, but they lose something when you have to read the dialog.

Today I decided to take it a bit easy because I've developed a bruise of some sort on my right heel that makes walking somewhat painful. It isn't that bad though, so I went over to Granville Island to have a look around. The public market there is awesome, fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, bread, everything was mouth watering. I wished I had somewhere to cook so I could have taken advantage of it, but it was still fun looking around.

There's also a lot of artists and artisans working and displaying their wares on the island, so I walked around for awhile until my heel made it less fun. I'd also seen all I wanted to see, so I headed back. Now I'm in my room watching hockey, and waiting to leave for the Canucks game tonight. Hockey is back and I couldn't be happier. Well, maybe if the Ducks had a better team....

After tonight I'll have done everything I had planned while I was here, so I'll have to be a bit more creative. Suggestions are welcome :) .

Postscript: Awesome! The Barenaked Ladies are singing the Canadian national anthem at the Maple Leafs game.

Death Cab was great.

I'm online trying to figure out the best way to get to Grouse Mountain in the morning...I think I'm going to attempt the Grouse Grind, so if nobody hears from me for a few days...send help :) .

zzzzzzzz

Today was Stanley Park day. I set off in the morning with the intention of thoroughly exploring the park, and I think I accomplished my goal.

The original plan was to grab a sweet roll or donut or something to eat while walking through the city on the way to the park, then a sandwich to take with me and eat somewhere in the park. Like all my detailed plans so far, this one was quickly abandoned. I saw a restaurant with a breakfast menu that included Four Berry French Toast, and I was sold. What's not to like about that? So I had a real breakfast, and since I found the park before a likely looking sandwich shop, the second part of the plan went out the window too.

My first stop was the Vancouver Aquarium. I think I was planning on actually going in, but when I got there, it just felt a little too touristy for me. More Sea World than Birch Aquarium, so I took a pass. Besides, I was having fun walking in the trees. I headed east to find the Brockton Oval, mostly because there were a lot of signs for it, and I had no idea what it could be to deserve that attention. Turns out its the "Home of Vancouver Rugby". Learn something new every day. Basically its a football (er, rugby) field with a track around it. Less than exciting, so I pressed on.

I walked along the seawall at the eastern edge of the park for awhile, then turned back west looking for Beaver Lake. This is where I somehow got completely turned around. I was following along on my little map, thinking I knew where I was going. At one point there was a sign pointing to the lake, but then nothing at the next sign post, so I turned in the direction that it obviously was. Wrong! I ended up making a big circle around the aquarium, thinking I was going in a completely different direction. I couldn't believe it when I popped out of some trees to find the aquarium parking lot again. Oh well, at least it was a pleasant stroll.

So I started all over again trying to find Beaver Lake, and this time I tuned in the direction that it obviously wasn't. And of course I found it that way. After I found the Lake, I had no navigational troubles, so my working hypothesis is that there's some kind of strange space-time warping going on around the Vancouver Aquarium. Now I'm really glad I didn't go inside, who knows where I would have ended up?

I walked around Beaver Lake taking several pictures, and finally started heading back toward town, because my feet were getting pretty tired. The way back was very nice and tree filled, and I also got to walk around most of Lost Lagoon.

When I hit city streets, I really started to feel it in my legs. I'd been walking for about 3-3.5 hours at this point, and my feet and legs weren't very happy about it. I made it back to the hotel though, and took about a 40 minute nap.

My late lunch/early dinner was at the Yaletown Brewing Company. Got to sample the local beer :) . Verdict - pretty good.

And that takes me to the present, sitting in my room, recuperating from walking and watching Monday Night Football. I'll be leaving for the Death Cab for Cutie concert in a few minutes. The venue is supposed to be very small and intimate, so it should be a great show.

I want to thank Richard and Mathew for leaving comments directing me to the VIFF theaters and a Japanese restaurant that's now at the top of my list of places to try. I have no idea how people are finding this blog (except the people I emailed about it of course), but it just shows how cool the internet is that two people have not only found it, but took the time to leave helpful comments. Also, somehow I have WordPress set so that I have to approve comments before they're posted. I tried changing that, but I don't think what I did worked. So if you post a comment and it doesn't show up right away, that's why, sorry about that, I'm working on it. Its tough when I have to balance my laptop on the TV to reach a wireless network.

Ok, got to upload this and some pictures before I have to leave for the concert.

Yesterday started with a mission: finding somewhere to watch the Chargers game. In my wanderings yesterday, I found a pub down by Stanley Park that had NFL schedules posted outside. Figuring that was a good bet, I headed out there. But when I got there at a few minutes before 10, they were closed. Apparently they open at 11. Sigh. So I checked my guide book to find a sports bar and headed off to the Shark Club Bar and Grill. They were open, and showing all the games, including the Chargers game on the big screen. Score! I had a veggie omelet, and watched the game. There was a die hard Chargers fan sitting near me, and we had a great time whooping it up as the Bolts crushed the Patriots.

After such a great start to the day I decided to go explore Stanley Park a little, so I headed outside to find...rain. Well, it actually wasn't raining that hard, and I did have both a raincoat and an umbrella in my backpack (how's that for foresight?), so why let a little water spoil my day?

So I walked around the park for awhile, and it is all its cracked up to be, even in the rain. In fact, walking around in the rain was a lot of fun. I only got a very little way into it, about as far as the Lost Lagoon, but I'm already planning on going back today to explore more. One thing I didn't realize is just how BIG it is. I thought I'd walked quite a ways into it, but when I looked at a map I realized I had only scratched the surface.

By this time I was pretty wet and a little tired from walking, so I headed back into the center of town to find another movie. I found another theater, one with more than one screen, so my choices expanded considerably. When I got there, Souls of Naples was about to start, so I grabbed a ticket. I actually quite enjoyed this one. I guess you'd call it sort of a documentary. Basically its a study of Naples, featuring mostly the poorer parts and people of the city. Take a look if you see it playing somewhere.

I felt like Japanese for dinner, so I consulted by book to find a couple of likely places and headed off to find one. No luck. I still think they're out there, but I couldn't find either of them after walking up and down the street they're both supposed to be on. Maybe I should have brought the book out with me, but I was trying to travel light for the evening. Oh well, there were plenty of other places to try, so I just picked one near the movie theater that looked good. I had a very good smoked salmon roll, and a rice bowl/egg/chicken concoction that was just ok.

How about another movie? This one was called Crash Test Dummies. Its about a Romanian couple that goes to Austria (?) to drive a stolen car back to Romania. Of course things end up going wrong, and the story just basically follows four characters around in their various meetings and trials. I'm not describing it well. It was interesting, but not a must see by any means.

So a pretty relaxed day, some walking in the rain, a couple of movies to stay out of the rain, and a great Chargers win :) .

Today I think I'm going to go back to the park, maybe try to find the aquarium that's supposed to be in there somewhere. Then the Death Cab for Cutie concert is tonight, I'm looking forward to that. My weather report says its only going to rain on wednesday, so here's hoping for some dry days this week.

Well, I made it here. Our plane was a little late arriving in San Diego but we made up for that with a super fast boarding and apparently turning on the turbo jets in the air. We actually arrived in Vancouver at 12:48, 4 minutes early. I count that as bonus vacation time.

The customs line was fairly long, but it moved pretty quickly. I was a bit worried they weren't going to let me into the country when I came up with some pretty lame answers to the agent's questions.

"So, what are you going to do in Vancouver?"
"Uh, I don't know, just wander around downtown, maybe go to the park."
"For a week?"
"Uh, yeeeaaaah."
"Welcome to Canada."
"Whew"

I rounded out my visit to Vancouver International Airport by getting ripped off at the currency exchange (though, I'm sure its still better than whatever fees Wells Fargo is going to charge me when I eventually use an ATM here). My cab driver spent most of the ride to the hotel trying to get his brand new GPS system up and working. And when I say new, I'm not screwing around. He was just taking it out of the box and reading the yellow card saying it would take 15 minutes to start up the first time. He was fairly disturbed by that news, as he wondered how he was going to hold the power button down for 15 minutes, but after he handed me the yellow card, I assured him that he only had to hold it down for 2 seconds to turn it on. I've only been in the country for about an hour and I'm already helping out the locals! They're going to beg me to stay.

I got the guy at the hotel desk to move me from the second floor to the first floor, because apparently the wireless access point is located in the office (below the first floor). Unfortunately, even with the move, I'm having quite a time getting a signal in here. I finally got something to work by putting my computer right next to the open window. I suspect I'm actually using a signal from the building next door, but its not password protected, so its good enough.

After getting settled in my room (which is humble, but it works, and has a view...of sorts), I realized that it was about 3:00 and all I'd eaten was a Jamba Juice at about 7, and the little packet of...of...stuff they give you on the plane. What the hell happened to the peanuts? I haven't had nuts on a plane in a few years, and frankly I'm sick of...of...whatever that stuff they give you now is. Anyway. I asked the desk guy which direction to walk to find food, he pointed, I started walking. I was having such a good time walking that I suddenly realized I had walked all the way to the edge of Stanley Park, which, it turns out, is about a 20 minute walk from the hotel. The park looked beautiful, so I decided to retrace my steps, find a sandwich shop and get some lunch to eat in the park. Well, apparently I'm not a very attentive walker, because I soon found myself back where I had started. By this point I was getting really hungry, so I abandoned the park plan for another day and stopped at what looked like a sports pub.

I quickly ordered a beer, and some fish and chips, and settled in to watch some baseball highlights. I think my first clue that I was actually in a gay bar was the rather lurid message on the coaster. I looked around a little and started noticing that almost all the waiters were wearing tight black shirts and earrings. Then of course, there were the paintings of naked men on the walls. I think that's what sealed it for me. To be fair, there was one painting of a naked woman, though, sadly, she was mostly hidden behind a TV. Final verdict on the place who's name I forget: good beer, decent fish, good fries, atmosphere not my cup of tea.

After eating I decided to see if I could find one of the theaters involved in the Vancouver International Film Festival. It proved easier than I expected, as it was just 3 blocks down Granville from my hotel. Neat. I got a ticket for the 9:30 show of Duelist, and also became a proud member of the VIFF club. Interestingly, they aren't allowed to show movies to the public, just to their members, so you have to join the club to see a movie. I think the reason is that they aren't rated by the BC Film Board, so you have to make some kind of gesture that says you are enough of an adult to watch a movie that the government hasn't declared sanitized enough for consumption by the masses. I'm excited.

So that brings me to the present. I'm sitting in my room watching soccer (after failing to find the Canucks preseason game on the TV), and resting up from all the walking I ended up doing.

Random Canada observation for the day: Sometimes the traffic lights flash green. I have no idea why they do this. At first I thought it was the equivalent of our flashing red I'm-out-of-order signal, but I was quickly proved wrong there. Then I thought that that's just the way they all are. Wrong again, some are solid green, some flash. I'm fresh out of ideas, but I've got a week here, I'll get to the bottom of this mystery.

(I promise better pictures later.)

I was in Vegas over the weekend with the usual suspects (Dave, Sarah, Katy, Cathy, Erica S.). A good time was had by all (or at least by me). Here's some highlights:

Friday

We all arrived on Friday evening, and by the time we were all together and fed, we decided not to go out anywhere, but just stay at the Sahara and play some blackjack. Or at least Dave, Cathy and I did, Erica and Sarah wandered off to do who knows what. Blackjack was up and down, but mostly down, though not horribly so. Dave cried for mercy first, and soon after, I decided that a little poker sounded better than either blackjack or sleep. I later found out that Cathy made a nice comeback after I left the table to get to at least even for the night.

The Sahara poker room had been expanded since last time I was there. They now sport 15 tables, and 3 daily tournaments ($40 + 1 $30 rebuy I believe). When I got there there were a couple of 2/4 games going, and they had a seat for me at a full table. Rock on! I sat in the 9 seat for about 3 hours, and managed to finish -$16 through a combination no cards and poor play by the rest of the table. But it was fun to play some poker after not sitting at a table for a couple of months. I ended the poker session at about 4ish because I vaguely remembered Sarah saying she was going to get us all up at 9 for breakfast.

Saturday

We started the day with the early-for-vegas breakfast, and a little blackjack. Dave, Cathy and I all cleaned up at the tables, erasing the losses from the night before plus a little bit extra for our troubles. Take that casnio!

After that we took the spiffy new monorail into the main part of the strip, and checked out the Wynn. For me this was just a waypoint on the trip to the Rio to experience the 2005 World Series of Poker. We got to the Rio at about 3:30, and walked down the world's longest hallway, finally arriving at the event at 4:00 two weeks later. The room can only be described as HUGE. No, really, it was huge, and completely filled with poker tables. It was truly an awe-inspiring sight. And the sound was pure heaven, nothing but chatter and chip riffling. Music to the ears.

Anyway. I had a hard time figuring out which tables were which event, but after reading some reports later, I think most of what we saw was Event #17 $2,500 Limit Hold'em. We didn't stay for long, because after getting over the awesomeness of the room, the event itself was pretty boring to watch (as I expected). But before we left, I did see some pros: Phil Gordon, John Juanda, Daniel Negranu, and John D'Agostino were all in action. The nice thing about the crowd is it made it really easy to find the recognizable pros. They're at the tables with all the people crowded around them.

When we got back to the Sahara, Dave and Sarah went to get ready for their big dinner at Emril's restaurant and the girls were napping, or something, so I decided it was the perfect time for poker session #2! A similar mix of opponents, but slightly better cards netted +$10 in about 3 hours. I can't really remember any notable hands, partly because I spent most of the session trying to be nice to the crazy lady sitting to my right. I think I'm too friendly at poker tables, I always get the crazies talking to me. Everyone else just ignores them, or is actively rude, but I'm usually trying to portray the friendly non-serious player (which isn't easy to do when I fold almost everything, and raise half the openers I do get), so I usually give them the friendly smile or nod, or courtesy laugh. That seems to be all it takes, and suddenly I'm hearing life stories that I really don't want to hear. But oh well, its a trade-off I'm happy to make if the other option is being rude to everybody, and risking boring to hostile tables every time I play.

Eventually the girls got their act together, and we had dinner before meeting up with Dave and Sarah. We ended up at V Bar inside the Venetian, which was actually better than I thought it would be after hearing the thumping music from outside. I'm not good with loud bass-music, it makes me queasy after awhile, but luckily the song I heard before we went in was the exception, and the rest of it was pretty good. We spent a few hours at V Bar, where I had several Guinnesses (Guinnessi?), but somehow never managed to feel much of anything. Must be the extra oxygen they pump into the casinos. Either that or I'm just in tremendous drinking shape. Either way, after getting back to the Sahara, just about everyone wussed out and went to bed. Seriously people, its Vegas! Katy gets a gold star for not succumbing though. She went off to play slots somewhere, while I headed back to the poker room for...

The Best Poker Game Ever

This game was spectacular. I'm not going to be able to do it justice, because, let's face it, I'm a pretty bad writer. It started innocently enough with the guy in the 7 seat posting a blind raise UTG. No live straddle in 2/4 they informed us, but no matter, its bound to come back re-raised anyway, so the blind raiser gets a perfectly valid chance to cap it. This one innocent act started a firestorm of the same. The 7 seat and the 2 seat ended up playing several hands blind to the river, betting and raising the whole way. The 7 seat got some sweet karmic reward for starting the hilarity when he took down AK with his flopped two pair (K4), betting and raising the unfortunate AK holder in the 9 seat the whole way. At the end the four was flipped over first, and then the K, followed by an incredibly non-chalant "Oh, I flopped 2 pair" before scooping the huge pot. The 9 seat couldn't believe it, and he ended up leaving the table an orbit later, taking his two friends with him. You've gotta love the blind two pair that chases three people from the table .

The blind play got so common that the most frequent response to, "Raise" was, "Did you look?" One of old, white-haired dealers got in the best line of the night, to the big blind (playing blind) preflop, "Its $4 to you, you might as well cap it"

I even got caught up in the action a couple of times, and got myself nicely stuck $40 by about 4am. I later made a comeback with a couple of big hands at the end to finish +$60 for the night.

But the blind raising wasn't even the highlight of the game. That honor goes to the guy who sat down in the 8 seat at 4:30, looked around, saw the 1 seat eating a BLT (which we were all drooling over), and promptly ordered a round of BLTs for the table. Seriously. A round of BLTs. Craziest thing I've ever heard of. One of the tastiest too. So at about 5am, when they were finally ready (after much discussion over whether he actually ordered them or not), the whole game slowed to a crawl while we all happily munched away.

A couple of other quick highlights from that game:

- One of the big hands that put me into positive territority was flopped quad 10s. I believe that's the fourth time I've had quads in a live casino game. And I've only got, what? 1500 hands or so of live play under my belt? I'm doomed to never have another big hand again.

- Our game was a new table that started right when I got there. As we were sitting down (about 60 seconds before the cards were in the air at our table), another table hit a bad beat jackpot. I found out later that the Sahara pays a share of that jackpot, not just to the table that hits it, but to everyone in a live cash game in the room. Doh! I think the room share was $51.

Ok, that's it, I'm getting tired of typing now. Wow, this ended up being a pretty long first post. I'll try to contain myself in the future.