When we visited Vancouver in February of this year, we did not know we’d have moved here. Emile – as always – took a day to explore the city and took this shot from North Vancouver. If you look at the skyline in the distance, you’ll see our building (the tallest one) near the “giraffes” on the port.
As I drove home tonight, I was considering that it almost half way done November and time flowing by. It feels like I’ve lived here forever but yet, I think I might be on vacation. So much has changed and I don’t feel home-d yet.
November 14th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: If this is vacation, I’ve got to get a new travel agent.
Sometimes I drive erratically. I make quick right turns, pull u-turns, move speedily into another lane, drive significantly under the speed limit, switch back and forth between lanes, hammer on the brakes, and occasionally use my hand-held device. I do hope ICBC is not reading this, but these things are true.
October 1st, 2012 Extra-ordinary: I wish I could have my Ontario plates back so people know I am learning, not a yahoo. I’m trying people – this place is hard to get around in even if I have a map on my phone.
When I first moved to Hamilton, Ontario, I sat at light ready to turn left. It turned green bt then started to blink. I sat and waited while the cars behind me started to honk. I sat in the middle of the intersection uncertain how to proceed. The cars on the other side were not going, yet there was no advance green. After careful checking, I finally proceeded through the intersection much to the relief of the drivers behind me.
After consulting with local Ontarians, I found out that a blinking green light in Ontario was actually an advanced green – normally signified by an arrow or separate bank of lights in BC (where I grew up). It took me quite some time to get to used to this in Ontario – though I find that many lighted intersections use arrows to indicate advance lefts now.
In BC, a blinking green light means a pedestrian controlled intersection. So, normally the light stays green until a pedestrian comes along and presses the button to cross the street.
September 26th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Trying to break myself of the learned habit of advanced lefts on blinking green lights.
Greetings from Coquitlam, BC and the Lydell Family Residence!
Hours on the Road: 10 hours
Kms Travelled: 846
I found myself alone in my mom’s house as everyone left for work. It was 7:30 am. It was weird having nobody to wave goodbye from the front porch or at the airport gate. But I pulled out and heading on the “Crow Highway” or Highway 3 “Shortest Route to the Coast”.
I love the drive from Cranbrook to Vancouver, it is filled with amazing mountain passes with cities dotted along about every 1 hour. There are multiple passing lanes so when you are going down an 8% grade behind a large truck, you can pull around and make a more speedy descent.
I haven’t driven this drive alone for more than 15 years and I enjoyed the solitude. Alone with my thoughts I wondered “Have we made the right decision?”, but mostly I just sang along to my iPod.
As I passed through Creston, I considered purchasing fresh fruit, but decided I would bring it from Osoyoos instead. I love the romance of roadside fruit stands. I imagine family orchards three generations deep with luscious peaches and crisp apples in their blood lines. I am sure it is much more corporate today, but I love to stop.
I stopped for gas and lemon Perrier frequently – the latter causing my bathroom breaks being a little more often than a tank of gas.
In Osoyoos I stopped and purchased a large basket of nectarines and large McIntosh Apples. I cannot return to BC without enjoying a case of BC Macs. I love them – it tastes of crisp weather, Hallowe’en, and raking leaves.
I drove without incident until about 15 kms out from my destination and then entered the construction on Highway 1 and the Port Mann bridge. It slowed my progress tremendously, but I was still able to roll into town just in time for dinner.
To register a non-BC car in British Columbia, you have to complete a safety inspection. That is okay with me I suppose, but it seems like a conflict of interest like many “inspections”. So a mechanic is being paid by me to do an inspection, but yet answers to the Government of BC on whether he is certified to do these inspections. So, he can be really stringent and annoy me with a whole bunch of things that have to be done – that also likely increases his take in the short-term. But, if he dings me for all this work, then chances are I am not coming back next time. And I tell all my friends. Who guards the guards? Hmmm?
My car went through its inspection – just some housekeeping things came up, and came with the strong recommendation that do my front brakes and replace my tires. However, the shop was not going to make these failure items on my inspection. Good. But I am getting the brakes done anyways. Nobody wants weak brakes on the mountain passes of BC.
September 11th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: A bizarre and unproportional feeling of sadness when I watched the removal of my front door window tint. Apparently, not allowed in BC. And driving home? It was so so bright. I’m still squinting.
My husband is selling his 1996 black Honda Prelude SRV coupe. When I first met him, the Prelude was his baby. He spent ample time washing it, waxing it, and certainly nobody else drove the car. I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the line, he realized that the Honda Prelude was just a car. There were other things more important to him. After dating for about 3 years, I actually drove it. And the washings petered down to a couple of times a year.
His friends still ask after the Prelude – always referring to “her”. It was part of Emile’s identity – he drove that black Prelude, he was that guy around Celestica. It drove like a dream, cornered like mad, yet each month, just not the same. Rattle here, rust there,
He held on to it – it was paid for, and if he could just squeeze one more season out of it, we could avoid putting the money out for a new car.
But now it sits in the garage – knowing its fate, I’m sure. I can only hope that someone comes along who loves it as much as my husband did.
August 20th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: She had her day, The Prelude. Sometimes things are more than just things.
There is an inherent feeling of danger that comes from men who are bikers. If I said fill in the blank: “Biker ______”, you’d probably say “Gang”. I suspect that the truth is more like society at large – people on the entire spectrum of evil and frightening scales. Sure, in a group of bikers, there surely is a chance of meeting a mean person as there is an encounter with a weekend warrior lawyer in the throes of a midlife crisis. Nonetheless, put me in a large group of bikers, and my intellectual understanding of stereotypes is somewhat drowned out by yeas of bias training in movies, headlines and books.
So, while driving the streets of Sturgis (Like we didn’t stop to drive through town! Do you not know us at all??) during the 2012 Motorcycle Rally, I felt conspicuous. Never mind we were in the 5% of the traffic in an automobile, but we were also driving a tinted-window, sport packaged, purple (ahem, “Blackberry”) Honda Fit with Ontario plates and a photographer hanging out the window trying get close-ups of nipple tassels.
And while I am on the subject of nipple tassels, I ponder this. Why is it that many of the women who live in this club or culture or whatever you want to call it, are overt and confident in their sexuality? I mean, there are some who in regular life we would encourage not to wear a tube top, to please put on a bra and certainly get longer shorts. But here, everything is hanging out in its glory. Now perhaps this is in the vein of the blatant sexuality at Pride celebrations that is used to boldly claim this as their right, their place, and to make a stir to provoke thoughts. But Sturgis? I don’t think it is political – I think it is just men and woman enjoying each other, and to hell with the concern of extra rolls, or saggy boobs, or ripplely thighs. Shouldn’t we all take a little lesson from this?
Oil Changes and Bikinis. Stugis.
The logistics/planner person in me was fascinated by the preparation of Sturgis and surrounded areas for such a huge influx of bikers. All of the intersections in Sturgis were changed from lights to four-way stops and every square foot of space was either parking, booths or gathering places. It was fascinating – and made me want to meet the person in charge of this project – because this isn’t anarchy, people somewhere are planning this and planning it well.
Anyways, imagine driving the short distance from the South Dakota I-90 to Mount Rushmore with 50% of the traffic being cruising bikes. We were in a group of about 15 bikes and us. It felt like being in a poor country’s presidential motorcade.
Our Escorts
Mount Rushmore charged $11 to “park” indeed not for entrance to the monument. Even at Mount Rushmore, there was a Sturgis Gift Shop set-up and 2 specially designated motorcycle lanes. Mount Rushmore was interesting, but the image is so iconic, it was difficult to really understand that I was actually there. It seemed smaller than I expected, and I found it more fascinating to look at the uncarved “needles” in the Black Hills.
The “Other View” at Mount Rushmore
The nearest town, Keystone, was almost a replica of Niagara Falls, Canada – with bold SHOUTING billboards and bizarre twisted history (ie, Sitting Bull’s Crystal Caves. Really?)
We travelled through South Dakota stopping at strange places. Pioneer Auto is home of THE General Lee (um, wasn’t there like 40 or something?) and Elvis’s motorcycle, but we were too cheap to pay to the $10 admission, so we’ll never know how cool it was. Alas. Wall Drug has brilliant marketing campaign with 40+ billboards in the 50 miles leading up to Wall – they advertised free doughnut and coffee for honeymooners. We were going to try to scam them, but we don’t like coffee and didn’t feel like doughnuts. But the worst was the “Corn Palace” in Mitchell who is a victim of “setting expectations”. We expected a building made of corn, but instead it was an arena/stadium thing that was covered in corn. I suppose that is impressive in itself, but it seemed lacking when we thought corn was used instead of concrete. People, under promise, over deliver!
Our journey through Minnesota was almost entirely during dusk and we were treated to a slowly darkening cloudless sky with fields of corn and wind turbines. We drove on to make up for our short day yesterday, and arrived at a Days Hotel that only wanted $60 for the night. Clean and cheap. Love it.
Beautiful Evening.
August 5th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: A run in Wyoming at 7:30 am, through a field, down a bike path, around a lake. It made me feel like I am “that” person. Yep. Her.
We departed the house at 9:00 am exactly. We had targeted leaving between 9 and 9:30 am, but my mom doesn’t understand time ranges and therefore she amended our departure time to 9:00 am. When she climbed into the car, she gleefully announced that we were exactly on time – 9:00 am. Emile couldn’t let that slide – he announced back that it I keep the clock 2 minutes fast. But, I’ll bet we actually pulled out of the driveway at 9:00 am.
The drive on Highway 3 – Crowsnest Highway – is tremendous. There is no shortage of glorious twisting turning mountains passes bored through the mountains dotted with picturesque – and now growing – towns.
We stopped frequently on this trip – we needed to help Mom spent her Tim Hortons gift cards, and we needed smoke breaks and pee breaks. And food breaks.
When my parents were first married, they moved to Trail BC, and often returned to Vancouver to visit family. This meant much of the trip was spent recollecting family lore stories about the travels. Next time you see my mom, ask her about “Never Again (subtitled “The Whipsaw” and the “Sidewinder”)”, “I’ll Shut Up Now about the Sewing Machine” and “CastleGAAAAR” – they are stories worth the time.
I told you about Christina Lake visits when we were kids – it was 3.5 hours for my mom driving a 1969 Barracuda over two mountain passes. To keep the peace, she bribed at us always with a visit to the Castlegar Dairy Queen on the journey. It was old, brown and decorated with Dennis the Menace cartoons and we loved the stop. We stopped on this trip also and found to my dismay that the place – although still in the same location – had been modernized and updated.
We stopped in at Christina Lake at the house we always stayed at and found to my delight that although some updates had been made – it had been left almost totally alone.
We pushed through the Okanogan pleased to see the same fruit stands advertising local cherries and other fruit. We timed our arrival into the Lower Mainland perfectly – little traffic and still light.
Grandpa is so pleased to see us all.
July 23rd, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Standing on the Christina Lake beach recalling long summer days and times gone by. Wishing so much that things didn’t change and that youth didn’t fade.
Greetings From Cranbrook, BC and the Levang Motor Inn!
Hours Door to Door: 15
kms travelled: 1525.3
Money Spent: $124.56
We had a plan – we were going to sleep in, enjoy the gym at our fancy hotel, eat breakfast, then hit the road for day 3. That all changed when Emile woke up early feeling refreshed – and with a thin wallet – and said “I think we can make it all the way today”. It wasn’t a bad idea, we had about 1.5 days of driving left and it felt silly to stay the night 4 hours away from our destination. So, plans changed – out of bed, in the shower, stop at McDonald’s, fuel up and head out of Winnipeg with a song in our heart.
Just a note here – for anyone who hasn’t had a McGriddle in a long time (like me) – they are as wonderfully terrible as you can remember a sandwich made with syrup pitted pancakes to be. And the Higgins and Burke Earl Grey tea was excellent.
There are those that will tell you driving the prairies is boring, but for me, I love it. The vast expanses, the fields of yellow and purple, the multiple tiny towns gathered on the highway’s edge and the land filled with grain elevators, silos and even small oil pumps. I also love that as a province, Saskatchewan refuses to change their time for Daylight savings – if it is 11:00 am in January, it’s good enough to be 11:00 am in July. They just opted out. I didn’t know you could opt out of Daylight Savings time. – I should try it in the Spring ahead and get my extra hour of sleep. Just like the city of Creston, BC who as a town refused to change their clocks – they are right on the timezone line, otherwise that could be problematic.
I also love that Western Canada seems to have an end to their cities. There isn’t outskirts for even most of the major cities – suddenly its upon you and just a quickly you are through. In Ontario, we stretch and spread beyond the city limits, and now it seems that Barrie to Niagara Falls is one unending path of human construction.
We stopped at a little bakery in Indian Head outside of Regina. I ordered 3 “jam jam” cookies and savoured them as we continued our drive. Actually, I didn’t savour them at all, I ate them as quickly as I could. Emile’s Long John – and I am talking about his chocolate covered pastry – disappeared pretty quickly also.
We missed any restaurant that appealed to us in Lethbridge, so ended up at Jimmy’s Drive Thru in Bow River about 40 kms past. Type of place that really doesn’t care about the service levels – just takes care of business. We ate our burgers on the go as we continued our trip through Alberta.
Do you know the speed limit in Saskatchewan and much of Manitoba is 110 km/hour? You’ve got a four lane divided highway with 5 km visibility. I wonder if they ever have accidents there? In BC a twisting mountain narrow 2 lane highway speed limit is 100 km/hour. I think one of these provinces need to consider adjusting. As Emile was passed several times by the locals, we enjoyed the reemergence of the mountain ranges, and I felt the familiarity of home.
This is where we’ll stick for some time now before carrying on to Vancouver and returning to Huntsville via the United States. It’s not very often that you take a picture of the welcome sign for three provinces in one day – it’s nice to have a break from driving.
July 13th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Photo Credit Susan – that’s right! Not Emile!
What an ironic day. At least I think it was ironic. It could be Alanis Morrisette ironic. I am not totally sure.
I was in a toy store shopping for a gift for my nephew’s upcoming birthday when I received a call from a recruiter. It’s weird to have a conversation like that in a toy store. It was a recruiter I’d worked with before – he wanted to know if I would be “too angry” to talk to a certain company about a Materials Manager job (in Markham) and the company had asked for my résumé. Yes, that is a funny question, but here is a back story:
About 6 weeks ago, a job posting come up on Workopolis. The job requirements matched exactly to my education, experience and skills – with one exception, they prefered a candidate with pharmaceutical background. But seriously people – I’ll tell you now: Manufacturing is Manufacturing. Good practices are the same regardless of what industry you are working in. Obviously if you are making pacemakers versus inexpensive pens, your levels of quality control, government regulations and testing are adjusted. But don’t let anyone bamboozle you into thinking the underlying principles are different.
Anyways, I applied to this position. I got no response – which given how many resumes postings get when on Workopolis, I can understand. It’s pretty easy to get lost in the crowd. Later that week I received 2 calls from 2 different recruiters about the same job. I told you my background matched the description! Well, when the feedback came back from the company, I was told that I didn’t appear to have any “MRP/MPS experience”. Huh?? I’m a Materials Manager! If you are in manufacturing, you know what this is. So, I’ll give you examples of what this means to say to a Materials Manager.
To a teacher: You don’t seem to have child interaction experience.
Electrician: You don’t know how current flows.
IT Technician: You don’t how to put together a home computer.
Accountant: You don’t know how use a spreadsheet.
MRP/MPS is the basis of any materials role. If you have worked manufacturing, you would know that you cannot run your department without it. MPS = Master Production Schedule. MRP = Manufacturing Resource Planning. That sounds fancy pantsy. But really, it means having a plan, knowing what you need for the plan, and knowing what you’ve got for the plan. If you have ever planned a dinner party, you have done MPS and MRP.
Anyways, I’m not angry – I just thought it was funny. Their loss and I moved on.
But now, they are back. (And so you’re back! From outer space! I just walked in to find you here! With that sad look upon your face!) And the recruiter thought I might be too angry. Angry?? This is what all Richard Marx listening break-up victims dream of. Ha ha! Oh, I’ll interview alright, and you’re going to see I look fabulous, I’m thin and I so do know what MRP/MPS is! Ha!
Later that afternoon, I got another call from a recruiter for another position (Mississauga). One that I think they copied requirements directly from my résumé. They want to know my interview availability. What??
Why is this ironic? Several reasons:
I haven’t received a call from a recruiter/company in about 6 weeks.
Emile has been working on landing a position in Orillia with his former company after deciding that perhaps Toronto is not the place for us.
We are leaving on Wednesday (or perhaps Thursday) for a long sojourn across Canada and the USA. We have so much to do to get ready!
Our car needs an oil change and check-up before we head out. The car will be out of commission in either Monday or Tuesday.
Emile is working Monday and Tuesday for a friend. So he will not be available during the day to assist.
So needless to say, these two calls fly in the face of short and medium plans we have finally been able to put together. And I’ve had ample time over the last couple of months to do these things – yet now I have to try to perhaps to fit in 2 city interviews and all the prep for being away into a short period of time.
July 6th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Do I really have to say? 2 calls in 1 day?
PS – Yes, we are coming to a city near you, so you west coasters, we’ll be there soon!
The Daily EO 