So the other day, Toshi and I began the Tourism challenge. People involved in the tourist industry get this little passport book with a variety of locations around the lower mainland. It's free access for two people. If the passport holder gets something like 12 stamps in the month of May, then they get access to most of the locations, for two people, for free, for the rest of the year. Since there is always talk amongst the people who I left behind about them coming out here for visits, this is too good an opportunity to pass up.
So the other day, on my night off, I dragged myself out of my day coma after three hours of sleep and we went a touring. We took photos, which I'll post eventually, once I figure out how to set them up.
We started with Maplewood farms, which is a gigantic petting zoo. They have cute little miniature donkeys, pot bellied pigs, chickens, rabbits and other cute cuddly animals.
And Goats. I hate goats. Or, specifically, goat eyes. Maybe it's puritanical Christian of me to fear the iconic image of the devil, but goat eyes really give me the creeps. we got in, too a couple of photos, solved the challenge required of us, and then fled from the grass eating demons.
Then it was up the gondola to Grouse Mountain, home of snow, a giant wind turbine and a pair of bear cubs, which aren't really cubs at this point, and could probably tear us to pieces if they weren't being protected from the mob of crazy tourists by an electric fence.
Seriously, there were people who were struck insane by the sight of these bears. They get up close to the fence, and then attempt to strike up a conversation with them, cooing at them in cutesy tones. The bears ignored them. So they cooed louder and tried to get closer to the glimmering shocking protective barrier in an attempt to psionically bond with them.
This is the same phenomenon as the guy who thought he was one with the sea and jumped into the killer whale tank or the people at zoos who throw themselves into animal pens and get gored.
After my wake up coffee on top of the mountain, we headed down to the Capilano suspension bridge. I'm not afraid of heights. I calmly walked across the bridge, and poked my head over the side to see the beautiful rapids underneath.
Beautiful nature was lost however, on the family who brought their terror stricken mother along, who took 15 minutes to inch her way along, as her family clumped up around her trying to coax her to keep going. Now, in a dangling free hanging suspension bridge when you put a lot of weight on one side of the path but not the other, it rocks precariously and the entire thing will tilt, drastically, threatening to dump the contents of the bridge into the wet rocky death waiting below. 6 people, inching along slowly all against one side, with other quick moving people struggling to get past them so that they can get off the terror inducing bridge makes a Lot of oscillations. Which of course provoked More screaming from the terrified elderly lady and slowed her down even more, making more members of the family bunch up against her, making the bridge lurch like a drunk on Saturday night and the cycle continued.
Call me sadistic, but that was the best live entertainment I've seen all week.
After scampering around the elevated walkways of the BC rainforest, it was off to the museum of Anthropology.
Not really my cup of tea. A lot of supposedly culturally relevant peices of art work, none of which I'd put on my wall, and the rather nice collection of cultural antiquities, clothing, masks, armor and weapons from culture around the world. Other people would probably enjoy this place more than I did.
Then it was off to the botanical gardens. Where, instead of letting nature take it's course, they planted and grew everything, so that it Looks like nature is doing it's own thing. They also have an awesome Physick Garden, filled with all of the pre pharmaceutical company medicinal use plants. It'll be better to go After the delayed, coldest spring on record is over and there are actually plants in bloom.
At which point, I began to collapse in fatigue, being loooong past my bedtime, and we called it a day.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Blue and Orange Doorways
Today, I am the amnesic lab rat dependent on the cold uncaring mercy of a soulless machine.
That's right. I'm playing Portal. Finally. It's been on my Steam inventory for about two years now and I've never has the courage to start it up. I'm not s huge fan of first person shooters. I'm also not a huge fan of puzzle games. So a first person shooting puzzle game was, in my mind, something that I wouldn't enjoy and needed to be steered clear of. I get... Lost... easily in first person mode. With the mind bending ability to create seamless dimensional portals from point A to point B in a variety of directions, I was pretty darn sure that it was going to be hours of frustration, pain and anguish.
I was wrong. I actually found the game immensely enjoyable. The puzzles were fairly simplistic. I whipped through the game in about 45 minutes (while I waited for my Japanese food delivery to arrive) without getting lost or bungled once. The voice of GlaDOS definitely made the game though. Formal and prodding at first, then becoming coldly vicious and then brutally sarcastic, all dry voice modulated wit. The song at the end takes the cake though, literally.
All in all, I'm quite impressed by the game. I don't have a formalized rating developed for my blog yet, so... Two and a half thumbs up with a lovely arterial waveform for gameplay.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
That's right. I'm playing Portal. Finally. It's been on my Steam inventory for about two years now and I've never has the courage to start it up. I'm not s huge fan of first person shooters. I'm also not a huge fan of puzzle games. So a first person shooting puzzle game was, in my mind, something that I wouldn't enjoy and needed to be steered clear of. I get... Lost... easily in first person mode. With the mind bending ability to create seamless dimensional portals from point A to point B in a variety of directions, I was pretty darn sure that it was going to be hours of frustration, pain and anguish.
I was wrong. I actually found the game immensely enjoyable. The puzzles were fairly simplistic. I whipped through the game in about 45 minutes (while I waited for my Japanese food delivery to arrive) without getting lost or bungled once. The voice of GlaDOS definitely made the game though. Formal and prodding at first, then becoming coldly vicious and then brutally sarcastic, all dry voice modulated wit. The song at the end takes the cake though, literally.
All in all, I'm quite impressed by the game. I don't have a formalized rating developed for my blog yet, so... Two and a half thumbs up with a lovely arterial waveform for gameplay.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:The World Electronic
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Keys of War
Toshi (my roommate, so you'll read about him semi-frequently) has done the unimaginable. He has delivered a blow that can only be met with swift and brutal retaliation, a disproportional response involving burning down his village and sewing the ground with salt.
He's taken his Keyboard out of the basement. The musical kind.
Through the years people have told me I have piano hands, the long nimble fingers ideal to play. Coupled with a few high school years of music class and after school band so I can read music, I have the irrational delusion that I can play the piano.
It turns out, I can not. At all. Not one bit. In fact, I'm downright horrible. So now, the keyboard sits in our geek room mocking me in it's silence. Under his trained hands it sings happy birthday and little brown jug. Under my inept clumsy bashing, it screams and wails, our wine glasses shatter and the cats howl like dogs.
I have begun the search for lessons. Some one local. Preferably some bitter old woman who beats me with a ruler when I make a mistake.
I will master his noise device, claim it for my own and destroy him as I steal away it's love.
Cold snarling righteous retribution.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
He's taken his Keyboard out of the basement. The musical kind.
Through the years people have told me I have piano hands, the long nimble fingers ideal to play. Coupled with a few high school years of music class and after school band so I can read music, I have the irrational delusion that I can play the piano.
It turns out, I can not. At all. Not one bit. In fact, I'm downright horrible. So now, the keyboard sits in our geek room mocking me in it's silence. Under his trained hands it sings happy birthday and little brown jug. Under my inept clumsy bashing, it screams and wails, our wine glasses shatter and the cats howl like dogs.
I have begun the search for lessons. Some one local. Preferably some bitter old woman who beats me with a ruler when I make a mistake.
I will master his noise device, claim it for my own and destroy him as I steal away it's love.
Cold snarling righteous retribution.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Base of Operations
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Insomnia
Part of my job requires that I work both days and nights. For 95% of the profession, night shifts are the bane of their existence. 12 hours of grueling work in dim lighting, dragging them down, after maybe 2-3 hours of sleep during the day.
Being pseudo-vampiric, my circadian rhythm that controls my sleep/wake cycle is reversed. I sleep 8-9 hours during the day, the brighter the light, the better I sleep. Night time is not for sleeping. But, since I'm still relatively new to 'The Unit', and day shifts are a significantly more enriching learning experience, I can't swap all of my day shifts away.
So I end up dragging myself out of bed at 5am, after an hour or two of sleep, fill myself with coffee, a wonderful medium for caffeine and sugar, and attempt to wake up. Day shifts drag for me. It's loud, bright, I often get headaches, I'm kind nauseous from sleep deprivation. All the fun that my co-workers experience on nights, I get during the day.
Most of it comes from my lack of restful sleep. I lie awake in bed for hours, staring at my ceiling, waiting for sleep to claim me, which like the contents of lost and found boxes, is a long time in coming, if ever.
Drugs aren't an option. Sleeping aids knock me out for 8 hours at a time, minimum. I've slept through the start of shifts before when taking the chemical route. Which leaves me with resorting to non-pharmaceutical methods for obtaining rest.
I simulate daytime. Often times, I'll keep my bedside lamp shining in my eyes. Which let's me stay asleep, but doesn't help me feel tired. For that, I have recently been blessed by a service found on iTunes.
iTunesU. They offer free university courses to download and watch. So now, come my mandatory set bedtime, I march myself into my room, curl into bed, set up my iPad and subject myself to calculus based physics lectures from MIT.
Math, it turns out, induces narcolepsy. It did in high school, college and university. I understand the material perfectly. I follow along in bright eyed wonder, though I can never apply it (as my school transcripts will easily prove). As the math gets more and more complex, as the teacher gets more and more enthusiastic, my eyelids become leaden, my head droops, I begin to drool. Within 20 minutes, I'm asleep. Why is something so interesting and fun to learn so awakeness sapping?
Tonight will be the rest of the speed, velocity and acceleration lecture that has taken me several nights to get through.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Being pseudo-vampiric, my circadian rhythm that controls my sleep/wake cycle is reversed. I sleep 8-9 hours during the day, the brighter the light, the better I sleep. Night time is not for sleeping. But, since I'm still relatively new to 'The Unit', and day shifts are a significantly more enriching learning experience, I can't swap all of my day shifts away.
So I end up dragging myself out of bed at 5am, after an hour or two of sleep, fill myself with coffee, a wonderful medium for caffeine and sugar, and attempt to wake up. Day shifts drag for me. It's loud, bright, I often get headaches, I'm kind nauseous from sleep deprivation. All the fun that my co-workers experience on nights, I get during the day.
Most of it comes from my lack of restful sleep. I lie awake in bed for hours, staring at my ceiling, waiting for sleep to claim me, which like the contents of lost and found boxes, is a long time in coming, if ever.
Drugs aren't an option. Sleeping aids knock me out for 8 hours at a time, minimum. I've slept through the start of shifts before when taking the chemical route. Which leaves me with resorting to non-pharmaceutical methods for obtaining rest.
I simulate daytime. Often times, I'll keep my bedside lamp shining in my eyes. Which let's me stay asleep, but doesn't help me feel tired. For that, I have recently been blessed by a service found on iTunes.
iTunesU. They offer free university courses to download and watch. So now, come my mandatory set bedtime, I march myself into my room, curl into bed, set up my iPad and subject myself to calculus based physics lectures from MIT.
Math, it turns out, induces narcolepsy. It did in high school, college and university. I understand the material perfectly. I follow along in bright eyed wonder, though I can never apply it (as my school transcripts will easily prove). As the math gets more and more complex, as the teacher gets more and more enthusiastic, my eyelids become leaden, my head droops, I begin to drool. Within 20 minutes, I'm asleep. Why is something so interesting and fun to learn so awakeness sapping?
Tonight will be the rest of the speed, velocity and acceleration lecture that has taken me several nights to get through.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Base of Operations
2 Year Recap
I started this blog originally when I moved to Vancouver 2 years ago. May 14th marks my two year anniversary. In my usual process of turning over a new leaf I slaughtered the previous posts in order to start fresh.
Be amazed, as I cover 2 years of personal growth and change in a single blog entry and get all my readers (all 3 of you) up to speed.
2 years ago, I abandoned/fled/aborted my previous life, got on a plane with two suitcases and flew about 2800 kilometers across the continent, from continental Gatineau Quebec to west coast Vancouver. I went from small town lifestyle to... Err... Small town lifestyle an hours bus ride from a thriving metropolis.
I began accomplishing firsts. I got my own place for the first time. I started nursing for the first time. I got a drivers license for the first time. I started putting down roots in the pleasant retirement community of White Rock. Life was good, stable and I was filled with the balmy contentment of making a life/career for myself. I was even getting a tan.
Fate had strolled over and kicked over my anthill. I lost my job during a fiscal policy change. Over used but appropriate, the Mandarin symbol for crisis is a combination of danger and opportunity. My infamous luck kicked in and I scored a position in an intensive care unit.
I moved closer to the intimidating metropolis, began working at a bigger hospital and started the ICU program. Roots began to worm their way into the concrete soil of New Westminster. I had found a new home and a new tempo to my life.
Fate then snuck up behind and sucker punched me. Landlord decided to sell the condo I was renting. After a mad dash scramble to find a place to live, I lucked out and found my current base of operations.
Then ICU school started and I vanished from the rest of the world. To make a long brutal story very short, I passed the rigorous and challenging course. I started working in the intensive care unit days later.
Terror. Bowel quaking terror. Thankfully it faded as I gained experience in the unit.
Which leaves me at the present, days away from celebrating my two year BC anniversary. Other things have happened during that time of course, but they'll be covered in their own posts as it comes up.
Tada! A two year recap with none of the cut away montages that you'd see on a sitcom!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Be amazed, as I cover 2 years of personal growth and change in a single blog entry and get all my readers (all 3 of you) up to speed.
2 years ago, I abandoned/fled/aborted my previous life, got on a plane with two suitcases and flew about 2800 kilometers across the continent, from continental Gatineau Quebec to west coast Vancouver. I went from small town lifestyle to... Err... Small town lifestyle an hours bus ride from a thriving metropolis.
I began accomplishing firsts. I got my own place for the first time. I started nursing for the first time. I got a drivers license for the first time. I started putting down roots in the pleasant retirement community of White Rock. Life was good, stable and I was filled with the balmy contentment of making a life/career for myself. I was even getting a tan.
Fate had strolled over and kicked over my anthill. I lost my job during a fiscal policy change. Over used but appropriate, the Mandarin symbol for crisis is a combination of danger and opportunity. My infamous luck kicked in and I scored a position in an intensive care unit.
I moved closer to the intimidating metropolis, began working at a bigger hospital and started the ICU program. Roots began to worm their way into the concrete soil of New Westminster. I had found a new home and a new tempo to my life.
Fate then snuck up behind and sucker punched me. Landlord decided to sell the condo I was renting. After a mad dash scramble to find a place to live, I lucked out and found my current base of operations.
Then ICU school started and I vanished from the rest of the world. To make a long brutal story very short, I passed the rigorous and challenging course. I started working in the intensive care unit days later.
Terror. Bowel quaking terror. Thankfully it faded as I gained experience in the unit.
Which leaves me at the present, days away from celebrating my two year BC anniversary. Other things have happened during that time of course, but they'll be covered in their own posts as it comes up.
Tada! A two year recap with none of the cut away montages that you'd see on a sitcom!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Base of Operations
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
New Beginnings
So.... Here I am again. Blogging. The overused and exploited Internet forum of posting thoughts and words for the public. When I thought about starting up blogging again, my brother asked me "Matt, what is your blog going to offer the world? How will it contribute to the blogosphere?"
The answer I had in my head is complex. Really, my blog will offer absolutely nothing new. I'm not some world altering powerbroker, famous celebrity or well known writer. I will not change the course or tone of the great debate. What purpose does a blog have?
It will be my little slice of the Internet, opening up my thoughts and words to the entire world (or at least those parts of the world that are allowed to read my blog).
Part of the problem with my last attempt at blogging, and why it didn't
work out quite as well as I had hoped, is that one of the hats that I wear is that of the workaholic Nurse. Which means that 40 to 50 hours a week of my life have to be kept confidential. Now that I'm working in the intensive care unit, more so than ever. My job in a way is about as secretive as a CSIS agent's. Which leaves me with what to write about?
I like writing. I'm told I have a modest skill with putting my thoughts into text. I now have an iPad with a fun and easy to use blogging app. Me blogging again was inevitable.
So here it is then. Matt and the Grand Adventure. Take Two.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The answer I had in my head is complex. Really, my blog will offer absolutely nothing new. I'm not some world altering powerbroker, famous celebrity or well known writer. I will not change the course or tone of the great debate. What purpose does a blog have?
It will be my little slice of the Internet, opening up my thoughts and words to the entire world (or at least those parts of the world that are allowed to read my blog).
Part of the problem with my last attempt at blogging, and why it didn't
work out quite as well as I had hoped, is that one of the hats that I wear is that of the workaholic Nurse. Which means that 40 to 50 hours a week of my life have to be kept confidential. Now that I'm working in the intensive care unit, more so than ever. My job in a way is about as secretive as a CSIS agent's. Which leaves me with what to write about?
I like writing. I'm told I have a modest skill with putting my thoughts into text. I now have an iPad with a fun and easy to use blogging app. Me blogging again was inevitable.
So here it is then. Matt and the Grand Adventure. Take Two.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Base of Operations
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