I am currently immensely enjoying the Avett Brothers. I first heard their music on a tv show or a movie and then listened to everything they had. They appeal to my punky side as well as my folky side. It’s fun to see how they got everyone up and dancing.

We got a brief taste of ‘Po Girl. Hopefully we will hear a lot more of them. This is just a great venue for the festival. I’m looking at sailboats, the city (in the distance) and the mountains. It makes it easy to forget the stresses of the day when sitting here.

As I live in an Olympic “hot zone” I thought I would take some pictures of what it is like being in my neighborhood these days.

This is a new sign (above) that suddenly appeared one  day.  I kept thinking they should have had something like this long ago.  I hope that they will be able to change the sign after the Olympics and redraw it with the appropriate (permanent) information.  These signs have popped up all over town.  It would be a waste if they were taken down after the Olympics.  I’m still trying to figure out where I live.  I have been here for 1o years and it has always been called East False Creek, Main St, East Vancouver.  I have never ever been called Mt Pleasant (that’s a whole different area).  I guess, since we don’t have a name, they figured Mt. Pleasant sounded good.  No map I have found today refers to this as Mt. Pleasant (that’s up the hill from here and to the east).

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Above are three of the various banners that are all over town.  These are the ones on my street as I walk home.  They are attractive banners, in both official languages – I see that every second sign is in French and all the sports seem to be represented.  My only question is…what does the blue sign under the last banner mean?  It popped up yesterday.  I have NO idea what any of the acronyms represent.  I’m used to seeing movie signs – and this seems to be in the same vein.  It’s on a need to know basis, and if you don’t need to know…you’ll never figure it out.  If you head to the left as the sign represents you end up in the parking lot beside Science World (which is now Russia House) and you are beside all the tents that are Quebec House, Saskatchewan House, Hockey House etc.  If you go straight on, you can get to the media centre at Canada Place.  With all the road closures, our street has become one of only two northbound streets open heading to downtown. Main St is the other one, but with the closure of the viaducts this weekend, traffic will be very interesting to say the least.

Next there are all the “parking restriction” signs.  These are my favourite because they are EVERYWHERE.  In this case, we are talking about a two block area.   This is my walk home, north along Quebec St, and it is only two blocks.  It is a block full of condominiums (five towers), and townhouses.

This is the sign right in front of my house.  All the signs get confusing, but this one bugs me the most.  The bus sign points to the bus stop.  After 10 years of living here with no way of getting to Yaletown we finally got a bus last year.  It’s a half hour walk along the seawall (which is closed for the Olympics to get here), or it’s a bus ride…the next sign is our actual bus stop.

I’m not impressed that my bus stop is no longer there.  Now, I can’t go to Costco, the liquor store or the Urban Fare market.  I’d like to say I’ll be so busy going to all the events around me, that this minor inconvenience won’t bother me – but that would be a lie.  We all know where the tickets went (hello city hall, hello fat cats, hello government trough dwellers, hello scalpers) and we all know that nobody we know is going to any of the big events with a face value ticket.  I am going to some short track speed skating, some skiing at Whistler (don’t get me started on transportation) and I do have nosebleed (and I mean NOSEBLEED) tickets to see Burton Cummings at the Victory Ceremony.  I bought a package early and got lucky.  For $900 I am going to 3 events and a victory ceremony.  I’d like to see the opening or closing ceremonies (they were fabulous in Salt Lake) but that won’t happen unless I get lucky.  The last time I checked they were going for about $800 each.  So, I’m not impressed with all the inconveniences and closures, but I hope the games are successful.  I just wish Canada would smarten up and actually celebrate their athletes and be proud.  I know more about Russian and Australian athletes than I do our own.  Why would that be?  Oh yeah, all our money went into the pockets of the rich and not into promoting the actual sports  represented.

I don’t mean to be cynical.  It just drives me crazy that we live in a country where we have great athletes and great opportunities.  I used to idolize Karen Magnusson when I was a young girl and she would teach me skating; I sat on the edge of my seat watching Kathy Kreiner tear down the hills in Calgary.  Why aren’t we celebrating these athletes in the run up to the games?  Why don’t we hear more “ra ra Canada” as this is OUR Olympics?  No, we’re too busy trying not to offend anybody to do that.

The games are almost here – pray for snow for Cypress.  It’s not looking too healthy.

The first time I saw Kiss was September 14, 1977 on their Love Gun tour. I went by myself, waited in line for hours for general admission, ran like hell when the doors opened, and found myself at the end of Gene’s feet with my arms hammering on the stage. I was an excited 14 year old, out on a school night at a concert nobody approved of me attending.

I went on to see the band many times over the years. I saw all their major tours, including their farewell tour. I saw them on the “Alive II” tour; “Dynasty” tour; “Unmasked” tour; “Lick It Up” tour; “Crazy Nights” tour; “Kiss My Ass” tour; “Alive” tour; “Psycho Circus” tour; “Farewell” tour; “World Domination” tour and now the “Sonic Boom” tour. I always maintained that my favourite tour was the “Alive II” circa 77-78 but this show last night really kicked ass. They opened with “Deuce” and wound up with “Shout It Out Loud”. In between was a rocking good time. I still get a kick out of watching Gene fly up to the lights and play from high above the stage. The pyrotechnics have gotten to be so much more over the years. All the flame throwers, fireworks, confetti just makes for an absolute assault on the senses.

We can change all that.

Watch this video and decide for yourself. But vote. You have to vote – and while you’re at it say YES to BC-STV.

Vancouver

Ok, I’m bragging. I just feel an incredible fascination with the city right now. I’ve been here for 20 years, yet in some ways I feel like I’m seeing things for the first time. I have started looking at the world through my camera lens and it’s giving me a whole new perspective. It’s as though it has given me hope again. I feel as though I have been in the darkness, unable to pick up my camera – but I have come through it, and can once again look at things.

The city is going crazy getting ready for the Junos on Sunday night. I have seen musicians (Jim Cuddy) walking around town along with the usual movie stars who troll Robson Street (Robert Pattinson was my latest sighting). The people all look different to me, they don’t seem to be in such a hurry. Have we all started slowing down?

It’s my city and I love it.

Vancouver

Looking at this picture you can see where I work and where I live.  (Ok where I live is actually not visible, but it’s just to the right of the big white dome).    You can see the seawall all along the waterfront on both sides and this enables one to walk forever (or bike, or rollerblade).  I left the office today and looked at the mountains marvelling at the beauty of the snow capped peaks and as I got closer to my home I walked along the water thinking about how beautiful it made the city.  Yep, I can’t imagine living anywhere else.  For all that’s wrong with this city (gangs, guns, olympics coming, too many cars) the city has so much to offer.  I love it here.

The End of the Day

I had to post this photo.  I was looking through some old pics and it was staring at me.  I had it in my bucket of pictures that need some post processing done on them, but I hadn’t got there yet.  In looking at this photo I realized how amazing the sky is.  It was probably what inspired me to take the photo in the first place.  This is the view from across the street from where I live.

It seems to mark the serenity and peace that can be found, even in the city.

I fully support the notion of getting people out of their cars.  We have WAY too many cars on the road here.  However, until transit is willing to install turnstiles, or gates or whatever it takes to enforce payment on the system – I think it’s ridiculous.  Every year we are told of the millions of dollars lost to “those who don’t pay” because of the “honor system” which we have here.  They are putting in a whole new line from Vancouver to the airport, and it would have been a perfect opportunity to install gates or turnstiles, but they refuse to do so.  The advocates for the poor scream that it’s unfair to the poor and discrimination if we try to enforce payment.  Well heck – it’s not the poor and downtrodden that concern me.  I work with several people who openly BRAG about the fact that they ride the train to work every day and have never paid.  They have been caught twice in the last year (at $144 per catch) and they haven’t paid because nobody comes after them.  Meanwhile, I watch the drain from my pay to support all this.

Somehow I think that the powers that be in this province are still sufferring the effects of all the recreation they enjoyed in the ’60′s.  There is certainly no reality check there.  Of course they can raise taxes at will, after all, they also give themselves double digit pay raises regularly.  I’m fighting to get a 1.5% increase and already this year my costs have risen about 9%.  I am irritated at the prospect of these new taxes.

Vancouver has undergone a spate of gang killings since January.  We had something like 15 shootings in 11 days.  This is sleepy Vancouver – where the only crime really is the crack addicts breaking into our houses, cars, offices and private storage areas over and over.  Now the gangsters are fighting over the drug trade and seem to be killing each other.  Brazenly and in broad daylight they drive up to their victim and shoot them with a variety of automatic and sem-automatic weapons (which I’m sure aren’t registered in Canada’s gun registry since they are banned here).  Most of the gangsters are young guys in their early adulthood.  What makes them think it’s ok to just drive up to someone and shoot them?  Is killing real to them or is it just a really big video game?  There don’t seem to be any consequences (unless of course the rival gang finds you and kills you).  Our judges certainly don’t throw them in jail or mete out a viable punishment for the crime.  (We need elected judges – not government appointed as some political favour).

I don’t worry about walking around in Vancouver, other than the usual “healthy” fears we should all have to keep us aware.  I find myself falling back to that place though, where I can’t tolerate man’s inhumanity to man.  How can we treat each other like this?  We are all just human beings who inhabit this planet – and if you look at what motivates us, it’s probably pretty much the same thing for everyone.  Nobody wants to feel bad so why can’t we all treat each other with respect and dignity regardless of race, colour, creed or religion?

It’s amazing how busy this place is.  Waves only opened a month or so ago in what I call the dead zone of downtown.  On weekends there was nothing open down here.  Now, there’s a major drug store, Starbucks and a few restaurants.  With all the new condos finally filled with people who leave their house, the “business district” seems pretty busy.  It’s good to see.  Vancouver is growing and changing so much.  I’ve been here for twenty years and it’s not the city I moved to.  There have been lots of changes – and most of them seem to be in the infrastructure and the changing of business development areas to condos and residential.  There are now a lot more people living downtown.  They used to live in the “West End”, but now we have “Coal Harbour” as well.  We are hindered in our growth as we have water and mountains all around us, so all we can do is go higher.  We used to have height restrictions, but that seems to have gone by the wayside.  We now have a sixty-six storey building called Shangri-La in the downtown core.  I find that a little disturbing as we are in an earthquake zone and waiting for “the big one”.  Hopefully the prices of housing will come down with this economic downturn, and more people will be able to buy.  A lot of the places now are owned by offshore investors waiting to see what happens in 2010 when we host the Olympics.  It’s a little disturbing to look out at night and see condos with most of their lights off – because nobody lives there.  We need people to buy and live in the city.  Maybe then we will get some amenities. Everything right now is centered around the Olympics.  I have lived ten years in my neighborhood and we still don’t have a decent grocery store anywhere close.  It’s a pain for me to have to buy groceries.  Finally we are getting one – Urban Fare.  That is NOT a grocery store.  That’s a high end, high priced, yuppy grocery store.  I need to buy the groceries at a reasonable price to eat for the week.  Sigh.  When I moved in to my condo there were five buildings, now there are twelve…where do these people shop?