Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Saturday night I headed out to walk the Sea Wall. I hadn't done this walk before, so I figured I'd give it a shot. When I got to the park in front of my building I turned around and took this shot... I live in the left tower (Jervis Tower).

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Walking down W Pender to get to Smileys. I didn't think sitting at home on a Friday evening was a good idea, so I headed to my hangout (did the math - I've been at Smileys more times than I haven't been at Smileys while being in Vancouver). Had a few beers, and then Chris (my bartender buddy) gave me a free pitcher. I decided having an entire pitcher by myself was a bad idea, so I texted Danielle and Dave and they joined me for a bit. Good night all around... and good beer.

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Updating my blog for the first time in two weeks. And what a hectic two weeks it was! Looking back at what's progressed... I didn't have a visa, a place to live, any clue what I was doing with my car, etc etc. Now I'm in Vancouver, employed, have a place to live, a parking spot, and know my way around sections of the downtown area. It's amazing how fast time flies!

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Just got home and turned on the TV to see what was on... JEPORDY! Caught up on facebook, 100+ blog posts on my google-reader, and then went to bed.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Time to work out! I decided that biking from Vancouver to Whistler sometime sounded like a good idea, so I'm starting to train for a day long ride. Did a mild 20 miles before Big Brother started... I'm planning on getting to 100 miles before embarking on the actual ride.

Monday, August 17th, 2009

My first full week of work since I left New Zealand! I went to the store after work and picked up some food to make Egg/Tuna Salad Sandwiches... delicious.

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

Drove back to Vancouver today. I hadn't spoken with Alla in a few days, so I spent the evening relaxing on the couch and chatting with her. The views from my place are amazing... I don't think I'll even get sick of watching the waterplanes land in the harbour.

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

Finally! Danielle emailed me and was happy with renting her spare room to me, so I went ahead and said yes, moved in Saturday morning, and then drove down to Seattle. I had to catch up on Big Brother since I was back in the states and could watch it online.

Friday, August 14th, 2009

I missed the photo because I was a little preoccupied with drinking on this fine Friday evening. I don't know what I saw at 7:30, but at 11:30 I saw this... a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. I've never paid more for a single drink or shot before, but this was worth it. $28 for a double shot at Smileys. Mmm....

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Still homeless... must find place to live ASAP. Work is going well, and I'm enjoying Vancouver, but without a place to live I'm going to go crazy.

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Heading from Smileys to an apartment, and then off to check out a parking space. The apartment ended up not being very good, but I took the parking space so that was nice.

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

FIRST DAY OF WORK! Woo-hoo! Pretty good first day! I got a lot of work done, and I enjoyed all my coworkers. After work I changed, and then headed downstairs to Smileys, where I had "whatever's on special, and a beer!"

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Monday night... decided to have dinner and a beer at Smileys. Little did I know this would become a routine I would repeat every day this week.

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

Sunday night - walking to Yaletown to look at an apartment. I got offered drugs twice on this walk, thus I will be avoiding this area of town from now on (not Yaletown, but the upper east side of downtown).

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Spent the day looking at places to live. Spent the evening back at the hotel relaxing... it's tough trying to find a place to live in a city/country you're not from.

Friday, August 7th, 2009

I woke up this morning and paniced about my move to Vancouver. Will I get a visa, will I not get a visa, etc etc. So I drove up to Canada. I made the decision around 10am that I would go, and was in the car by 12:30pm. It was a long day, but getting a visa and getting into Vancouver was needed, and it was good to get it done. When I got up here I called my folks to tell them I arrived, thus why Skype is open in this photo.

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

I drove out to see my Uncle David and Aunt Bekki (and Ben, Katie, and Matthew) in Cosmopolis, Washington. It was good to catch up with them... it had been 8 years since I had last seem them!

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Checking facebook while cooking more Borscht. Crystal came over to hang out while people are looking at her and Scott's condo, and Joy is sitting on the floor cleaning some wire racks from her friend Allen. Joy also brought Otter over today, so now there's a kitty cat in the condo! Woo-hoo!

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Huge developments today... everything I had done for my visa was pretty much worthless. Found out I needed to go for a different visa in order to get it processed in less than 2 months, so here I am looking at the letter I had to write for my new visa. Luckily I got my recruiter to do it for me, so that solves part of that problem.

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Getting settled for the week in Seattle. Had to do a lot of work for my visa today, as well as running errands, getting Canadian money, etc.

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Finished the drive to Seattle today. Did another 848.5 miles, which I believe totalled 26.5 hours of driving in about 26 hours time. After I arrived I went to dinner with Joy, Dylan, Crystal and Scott.

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

Drove to Billings Montana today... 872.5 miles in one day. My GPS unit died, so it was a pain finding food and a hotel to stay at. Billings is not laid out very well - I don't think I'll be returning.

Friday, July 31st, 2009

I cooked dinner for Courtney and Ek. I decided to make Borscht (a Russian Soup that Alla made for me before leaving New Zealand - yes Alla, you made a third blog appearance...). Turns out that Chilli powder is NOT an ingredient (or at least not that I can find online), and when you use Thai Chilli Powder it can be pretty spicy! So we each had a bowl, but it was a tad too spicy to be excessivly consumed.

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

ZOE! I love this cat! She doesn't like getting her picture taken though, so she's a little angry in this photo. Jen and I drove up to Apple Valley today. She's moving up there to go to Hamline Law, and I was visiting courtney, so we both loaded up our Hondas and drove north. Courtney, Ek, and I went to Shoeless Revlolution at night.

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Final night in Madison - had a few drinks at Old Chicago with old Suby coworkers. It was good seeing everyone again before I left, and it was nice to see some poeple I hadn't seen since leaving Madison last time (Crystal, Sue, etc).

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Doing some cleaning and packing before the big move! Everything I took with me fit in the back of my Civic, which is a nice feeling.

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Had dinner with Christine and Kurt at the Old Fashioned, and then headed to the Brocah for a few drinks (or as Christine sold it to Kurt "Just one") before they took my dresser to it's new home.

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Justin came into town for the weekend, so Sunday night we headed up to the Dells for a guys night out. KFC never tasted so good!

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

Watched Gladstone and a few other bands at the terrace. Eric and John K showed up for the first hour or two, followed by a horde of people once I was inebriated.

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Drove down to Chicago with Jen, as she had an extra ticket to the cubs game at Miller Park South. Here is Jen, Jen, and Pam ordering 50 chicken wings. Also caught up with Ed and Andrea, who I haven't seen in at least 8 years. Ed and Andrea went to college with my mom, but they're pretty cool folks.

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Had a few drinks with an old friend from High School. There aren't too many of them who I still talk to, but it's always fun to catch up and reminise on old times.

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Picked up some more stuff from my old place, but my phone died before I could take the picture. Not sure what else went on, but I'm sure it wasn't too exciting.

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Waiting for Kurt and Christine at Point. We went to see The Hangover. It was pretty hillarious - got me a little excited for Ek's bachelor party next year (probably not a good thing).

Monday, July 20th, 2009

The Brewers game got delayed, so I watched a movie (not sure which one) and caught up on Big Brother 11. My roomie came home an hour or so after this and watched the game with me. Brewers lost... ugh.

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Got back from the LAN and sat down to catch up on emails and facebook. Spent a good deal of time chatting with Alla about her plans on getting out the states and what not... things are starting to get exciting!

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

LAN! Up until today I hadn't had a good LAN in years! Justin, Kurt, Shiny, Wubs (sic?), Leb, and person-whos-name-i-do-not-remember were there. Good times and great games. At this point we're about 2 hours into a 6 hour Sins of a Solar Empire map, which we ended up not finishing due to... well it took 6 hours+.

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Jen picked me up from Margarita tasting with Bree so we could go to Eric's birthday dinner (a few days after his birthday) at Fridas. There were more margaritas at Fridas, of course, followed by going to Shoeless Revolution at the Orpheum.

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Dinner at Old Chicago with Kurt and Christine. Dinner was delicious - I had chicken strips with some honey mustard sauce. One of my all time favorite meals from the OC.

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Picked up some delicious pork chops and had a relaxing evening at home. After the previous day I decided I would take 48 hours off of drinking. It was a good decision, and I'm thinking about not drinking during August as well. We'll see what happens.

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Watched Gladstone and a few other bands at the terrace. Eric and John K showed up for the first hour or two, followed by a horde of people once I was inebriated.

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Searching for flights to Russia to get a good idea of the costs. Alla and I were discussing plans for Canada, roadie(s), and going to Russia at some point while she's out here. Should be a fun year ahead!

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Andy Camann was back in town for a few days, so I met up with him at BW3s. Lots of people were there, including Ryan, Melissa, Belle, Heather, Dave, Mike Lashua, Mike's wife (I can't remember her name), and Katie. It was good seeing a lot of people that I haven't seen in a year. Belle is HUGE! I don't know what Ryan and Melissa are feeding her, but it's probably miracle grow.

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

New Zealand wine tasting event at Barriques with Bree, her folks, and her sister. It was nice to do a tasting here in the states to compare the more common NZ wines that we get out here to the ones in NZ. Turns out the ones we get here are nowhere near as good as the ones back in NZ!

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Watching an episode of "Fringe" before heading out for some darts, 50 cent high lifes, and baseball at Bucks with Eric.

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Drove up to Minneapolis with all of my stuff for Courtney and Ek, and had a stop over at Microcenter to pick up my new Core i7 920 Processor. I was discussing external hard drives with Ek, and we decided to look at external enclosures when 7:30pm rolled around.

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Bree dishing up some more lasagna from the vegetarian pan. I had Jen, Bree, Eric H., and Kim over for some lasagna and New Zealand wine. Turns out that there was a TON of Lasagna (2 1/2 big pans of it). Post lasagna and wine feasting we went to the Old Fashioned and played uker for a bit.

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Dinner! Cooking some spaghetti for a night at home watching baseball. Go Brewers!

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Day two of picture blogging... it turns out my life is much less exciting than I thought (which doesn't say too much). I suppose that in order to have the exciting pictures come I have to get a job first, which is what I'm searching for in this photo. Another job description that matches about 70% of what I can do, and 10% of what I want to do...

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

There's nothing like searching for employment on your birthday... Monster.ca leaves a lot to be desired.