Went by Ambleside Park in West Vancouver today. Since I am from Ontario, I don’t get to see (or smell) saltwater much. Walking up and down the boardwalk of Ambleside Park was quite pleasant. I just wish the weather was a bit more pleasant. It was quite gray and gloomy the whole time.
Afterwards, I pulled out my phone, and looked up the GPS app for any other interesting touristy attractions. Hmm, Cypress Provincial Park looks intersting. The moment I saw the path I had to take, I immediately had a wide smile on my face. Want to guess why?
According to Google, the elevation change is about 440 metres
The higher I drove, the more fog I saw. And then it started raining very hard. Fortunately, that did not deter my enjoyment of the drive up or down the mountain.
A small stream flowing from the side of the mountain. I don’t get to see that very often in Toronto!
The baby was supposed to be due today. It doesn’t look like he’s in any rush to get out though. So after a few days of resting at my brothers place, I decided to go to another short road trip.
I drove to the top of Whistler mountain today. Unfortunately, it rained sporadically the whole way up, while it was sunny most of the day down in Vancouver City. The drive itself was truly breathtaking. I think I actually forgot to blink, since my senses were so overwhelmed, resulting in my eyes turning dry and red by the time I got home. I can’t imagine having a more perfect vehicle to make this drive with either! The twists and turns was no challenge, and I was able to drive at full speed the whole time. In fact, I was overtaking quite a few slower vehicles around the turns, since they were so slow, impeding my enjoyment of the drive itself! My brother told me that radar detectors are legal in British Columbia. Perhaps I should source one here. Regardless, I absolutely intend to make the almost 2 hour trip to the top again in the future before I return home. Hopefully I can “Initial D” it downhill next time?
Warning – geek rant below. The guys over at the Traefik developer team decided to release ver 2.0 recently. Unbeknown to me, the .toml config file is not compatible from 1.7 to 2.0. So half the services on my server just went down with no warning. It took me a while of troubleshooting before I discovered what triggered this issue. This is the last thing I want to do in the middle of my vacation! I manually rolled back the docker version, and I will update the .toml file when I get back home in a few weeks. I bloody hate computers…
My sister in law asked me to apply some window film on their house windows for added privacy. I decided to do what I usually do when I was in Toronto, and that was to just drive straight to ND Graphics to pick it up. I looked up their local branch, and made the 20 minute drive to their office. Big mistake. Where as the Toronto location was the size of a football field, their Vancouver location was the size of a small Tim Hortons. They stocked nothing, and had to order everything from Calgary or Toronto! I was told this was quite the norm for living in Vancouver.
I know I can order this stuff from their website, or from Amazon! The reason why I wanted to go visit them in real life was so I can see different films in person to make a more informed decision!
In this day in age, a laptop or tablet computer is an essential traveling companion. The biggest nightmare for any seasoned traveler would have to be a malfunctioning laptop.
That just happened to me. My laptop charger suddenly stopped charging. Luckily I did pack some basic tools, such as mini screwdrivers, and multimeters, but I still lacked the proper connector that was broken. A quick Google search yielded a local electronics store about 10 minutes away called Lee’s electronics. Wow, walking in was like walking into Supremetronic back in the 90s in Toronto. I had a very interesting conversation with the owner of the establishment. He actually knew about the Toronto electronics scene, and all the hot spots I shop at!
Yes, I was able to McGyver a fix. I will have a proper fix when I get back home shortly. Hopefully this will last me until then.
Drove to Stanley Park today. That park is massive! Unfortunately, it was raining quite heavily, so could not really walk out. I ended up driving around the park path twice. It was beautiful. My brother told me that I should bike along the path next time. I absolutely intend to one day when the weather co-operates. Perhaps I should install a tow hook and bike hitch on my car. Biggest advantage, I can use it as an excuse to hide my license plate as I drive on the 407/ETR.
I also drove to Richmond, BC, to Aberdeen Centre. I went during the weekday, so traffic wasn’t so bad. I forgot how beautiful the indoor water fountain is!
The problem with owning a 100+ year old home is, dealing with the retrofits over the year. My brother was having some difficulty with some lights and sockets not working in his house. Troubleshooting under really old wood, spider web, dust, was a lot of fun!
Just checking things in my server at home, and I received this.
I did NOT expect this. I thought being able to remote everything over IPMI would be so damn helpful when I am on vacation. This time it only helps me feel even more useless, since I KNOW how to fix it, I CAN’T, since I am unable to be there physically to perform surgery.
Worse case scenario, I’d get my brother in Toronto to do the appropriate fixes while I am instructing him over the phone.
Went grape picking today! My brothers backyard has a massive collection of grape plants. I think there is enough to last an average family several weeks. I must admit, it tastes really good…
New British Columbia drivers must have a green N sticker in the back of their vehicles to tell the world that they’re still new. Just for shits and giggles, I got one! I was warned not to apply it onto my car while I am still in the province, since RCMP will harass me because of my foreign province plates!
Whenever I visited family in the west coast, I’ve always flown over, and relied on family and friends to drive me around, or used public transit.
This is the first time where I am able to explore this city by myself without anxiety in the comfort of my own vehicle paired with Android Auto. However, this too comes with disadvantages. For example, while my mother and I was looking for a Chinese grocery store in Chinatown, Edmonton, we were stopped outside a intersection where drug deals were taking placce. My mother told me that several questionably looking characters were sizing us up while I was waiting for the light to turn green. I wish there was a button in modern day GPS systems where they say “Avoid sketchy ass neighborhoods…”
I think the biggest lesson out of all this is, always keep your door locked even when you are driving.
