April showers

This month has been a month of generally lousy weather but also one of a reunion with longtime friends.

We spent about 10 days on a trip to Europe. The main reason was the planting of an American Oak tree in memory of our almost life-long friend Henry, who died one day before this past Christmas (see "Into the New Year" post). The planting took place in the town in which Henry was born (his family roots are deep and long in the community) in the same location where he played when he was a child. The ceremony was at once dignified, solemn, and funny. Many people of similar histories related anecdotes about Henry - he was never just an ordinary personality.

We have visited this town many times over the years and have gotten to know most of Henry's friends and family there. The memorial dinner in his honour took place at the local historic "pub" which has been in existence for many years in a building that is several hundred years old. Each of us had Henry's favourite drink (rum and coke) to start, and had a typically extended local dinner. It was a great occasion to talk to the people in attendance (there were about sixty and we know just about all of them). This was a typical European "wake".

We stayed with good friends with whom we have stayed several times before. Our host couple's son flew in on a surprise visit, much to everyone's delight. He lives in California (we have visited him and his wife there a couple of times, too). The whole time we were there a dinner party was laid on every evening, and sumptuous European breakfasts were part of every morning. There was also no lack of champagne, wine, and beer.

Therefore, the cold, blustery weather which persisted through all this time did not diminish the good time we had. The only downside relates to the way we travelled. We had booked our flight in the economy section (which should really be called the "sardines" section). On the way there, we had an empty seat in our four-seat row, which made this tolerable; on the way back, the plane was absolutely packed - for a ten-hour flight, that is next to torture.

Always a new experience...

Into the New Year

Henry and Margarete, a couple who are our long-time friends of ours (they live in San Diego), some time ago invited us to spend New Year's Eve with them. We made the appropriate travel arrangements and looked forward to a sunny time away from the less than pleasant weather here (https://penmachinedad.blogspot.com  - see December 2016 post). But instead of sunshine, we were presented with a rainy week. The weather and temperatures were like what we normally experiencing in winter here at home.

Unfortunately, the anticipated new year's party turned into a more somber affair. Henry died two days before Christmas and the party turned into a celebration of Henry's life. It was a bitter-sweet event, with about 90 people in attendance. We know most of them too, having visited our friends many times over the last 40 years or so. I had taken my wireless microphone kit with me to connect to the sound system in their house which I had modified for this purpose a couple of years ago. This turned out to be very useful for the reminiscences and anecdotes presented by many of his friends, along with singing and listening to some of Henry's favourite songs and music.

This turn of events happened twice to us last year. In April, instead of celebrating the 80th birthday of another close friend (whom I had known for 58 years) we also ended up celebrating his life - he died 3 days before his birthday (https://penmachinedad.blogspot.com - see April 28, 2016 post). This is not how we had planned to get together with friends last year.

We hope for a more joyful 2017.

Catch up

Since my last post in April, we spent almost the entire month of May in California. Before our trip there, my wife and I spent the day of May 3 in memory of our son Derek, who died on that day in 2011. That day will never be a happy one for us.

A couple of days later we took the car to get to San Diego, with a stop along the way to visit a good friend in Chico, California. We also happened to stay a couple of nights at a Hilton-Hotel-affiliated place called Homewood Suites. We found them to be very "user-friendly", with courteous and efficient staff, and breakfast and happy hour included in the very reasonable price of the rooms.

Our San Diego stay was with friends we've known for almost 40 years, and whose house is almost like a second home to us - we've stayed there so often. By chance, we arrived at the time when the host's nephew and a home-town friend (both of whom live in Germany and who are also our friends) were also staying at the house. These two left a couple of days after we arrived, but we had a chance to get up-to-date.

Our host is dealing with some age-related medical issues; we had come to help keep an eye on him during the time that his wife attended a family reunion in Germany. There are always local friends and neighbours dropping in too, so our time there was never boring; we've gotten to know most of these people during the years we have visited there.

On the way back, we stopped for the first night in Fresno, the next in Medford, and spent a couple of hours at Crater Lake, where we had deposited a small part of our son's ashes two years ago, following the wishes he had first expressed in 2007 (http://www.penmachine.com/2007/07/my-favourite-places-and-when-to-take-me). The day was cold (4 degrees C), but sunny. There was still an appreciable amount of snow, and the road around Crater Lake was only partially open.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Crater Lake (taken from the air April 2016)

We dispersed some of Derek's ashes here in June 2014.

We left Crater Lake around noon and drove north on highway 97 to Madras, Oregon. This is one of the places almost exactly on the centre line of the path of the August 2017 total solar eclipse. It will be the first total solar eclipse in North America since 1979. As expected, all the hotels in Madras are already fully booked for the eclipse, but the area around the city is quite flat, so the eclipse path (which is a couple of hundred kilometres wide) is accessible in a wider area. Google "Solar eclipse 2017" and you'll get all kinds of information links.

The solar eclipse pictures I took on February 26, 1979 (in Winnipeg - the "diamond ring" picture was taken by Neil Laffra on Hecla Island in Lake Winnipeg). At the time I had a complete darkroom in our basement where I developed the film and prints, and mounted them as shown. They have been hanging on our wall since then.

We spent our last night in Portland, Oregon, and, after battling the always busy traffic in Seattle, got home at a reasonable hour.

Since then, I have been active with my astronomical endeavours, meetings, and Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Vancouver Centre public events. The most recent was the celebration of Canada Day in Haney (unfortunately, not a sunny day). However, our various telescopes served as exhibits for the several hundred people who stopped by for a look through some of the telescopes and the free informational handouts.

Canada Day with the RASC

(one of the rare instances when no people blocked the view)

Two eventful months

My last post was written about two months ago. In the meantime, I've been busy with various astronomical activities. There have been public nights at Simon Fraser University to which the Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada members set up telescopes at SFU's Trottier Observatory to help with the long lineup for the observatory's 0.7m PlaneWave telescope. This event (Starry Nights at SFU - organized by SFU Professor Howard Trottier) attracts hundreds of people.

When asked, the RASC Vancouver also sets up displays at Vancouver's Telus Science World, and telescopes at various schools around the Lower Mainland. The intent is to expose both students and teachers to the wonders of the night sky, and also use solar telescopes to observe the sun during the day. There is always a lot of interest and we are often asked to repeat these events. I enjoy taking part.

A week ago, we flew down to Los Angeles for a few days, to take part in an 80th birthday party for a our good friend Adolf Wegmann, whom I have known for almost 60 years. Unexpectedly,  and to everyone's shock, Adolf died three days before the party - it appears to have been a heart attack. He had organized this get-together to the smallest detail; so his wife Andreia decided to go ahead anyway. Instead of Adolf's birthday, we celebrated his life. He was an accomplished tool and die maker, travelled the world for the packaging company he worked for, operated a gun business for many years and was a true outdoors man; camping was his big joy. I have known his two daughters since they were born. Adolf had many friends around the world and lived a full life. All of us will miss him.

Back to reality.

This past month, we traveled to Germany for a reunion of cousins and a visit to one of my two living aunts, my mother's younger sister, who is now 102 years old. She is living in a care home, still sharp of mind, uses a walker to get around, but has been totally deaf for over 40 years. Nonetheless, she speaks normally, but we "talk" to her by writing down whatever we want to say to her. Fortunately, one of her two daughters lives nearby and visits her every couple of days. We had a great time together.

The cousins' get-together was arranged as a boat trip in an area southeast of Berlin, called the "Spreewald". This is a marshy area, drained by channels and canals amounting to a total of a couple of thousand kilometers. These channels are very shallow, if you fall out of the boat, you can walk out (waist-deep). The boat trips are a major income source for the people who live there. Our boat was equipped with tables and shelves which held a variety of alcoholic beverages - food can be purchased at "roadside" establishments.

Cousins in the boat

After the boat trip, we all gathered at a local restaurant and spent a couple of hours there, talking about things which you talk about at a family reunion, the good things, the sad things, possible future visits, etc.

We spent almost a week in Berlin - it is one of the most dynamic cities in the world. Museums, exhibitions, art and science venues, world class shopping, unique local and international food... one can spend many weeks there and still not see all. My sister and her husband (who also live in the Vancouver area) also came to the reunion separately from us, and we met and stayed at the same hotel in the centre of Berlin. It was great fun for my sister and me (our spouses tagged along) to visit our childhood haunts, schools, and other places we were once at home in, and which we left 60 years ago. We also enjoyed going out to local restaurants for some fine, local food and beer. We don't often do that here in Vancouver, usually we get together in our homes.

Our travel to Germany involved a hitch. We had booked the flight including a day-long layover in Toronto. The new Airport rail line to downtown Toronto recently opened there, a la Vancouver's airport line, but the fare is more than $40 per trip per person - outrageous! Therefore, we decided to stay at our hotel, and had a pleasant evening, with a very good dinner and drinks at the bar.

Next morning, we checked our flight time from Toronto to Frankfurt, and, much to our dismay, found it cancelled. The Lufthansa pilots were on a one-day strike (long distance flights only)!

Naturally, we made efforts to get information regarding alternatives. Lufthansa phone lines were not answered, and our hotel desk had no information either. We took the shuttle from the hotel to the airport to try our luck there. At the airport, the Lufthansa counters were eventually served by one lonely lady, whose job it was to re-book and re-arrange the flights for the affected passengers. After a one-hour wait in line we finally got to that lady (for whom we felt immensely sorry), and found out that we had already been re-booked on Air Canada to Zurich, and from there on Swiss Air to Berlin. I guess that, having booked the whole trip on business class, we had received preferential treatment.

The Air Canada flight to Zurich was the best flight experiences we've ever had. The passenger pods were roomy and comfortable, the service was excellent, and the plane was brand-new (it was on its 5th flight, we were told). We had 40 minutes in Zurich to get through customs and onto the Swiss Air flight. It all worked smoothly, and, surprise, we (and our luggage!) arrived in Berlin 3 hours ahead of the original schedule. The unseen airline people who work in the background deserve great credit for how all this was handled.

After our family reunion, we spent a couple more weeks in other parts of Germany, visiting friends, who had planned something for us on every one of those days. We get together quite often in other parts of the world, so we had much to talk about and, of course, lubricated these occasions with the appropriate amount of food and drinks. These get-togethers have become more sedate over the last few years - we're all getting older, and several of our friends have died. None-the-less, a great time was had by all.

Our trip back went without a hitch. We arrived on time - tried out skytrain to get home. It works quite well, but we arrived at rush hour, so the trains were crowded. Traveling with luggage on skytrain is a bit of a hassle; there is no provision to store luggage.

It was a great vacation. We are now getting over our jet lag; back to reality!

Happy Travellers

This month, we spent three weeks in California, driving to see friends in various parts of the state. The main reason we went down was to celebrate our close friend Henry's eighty-fifth birthday in La Jolla. Over the years we have visited him and his wife, we've gotten to know many of their friends, and most of the family. We were one of four "international" couples; the others were from Sweden and Germany. There were about forty of us present. A great time was had by all - the festivity included a catered Mexican Lunch and a wonderful nine-person Mariachi band, which played for at least two hours.

Our fiftieth wedding anniversary occurred a week later. Seeing that so many of our friends had assembled, we arranged to celebrate that occasion after Henry's "big one". We had not announced this ahead of time, so it was a surprise to all. These anniversary celebrations took place in smaller groups at "Piatti's" Restaurant in La Jolla Shores, and at several "happy hours" at local friends' homes. Needless to say that the drinks flowed liberally, and food was equally plentiful (we have proof: our waistlines tell us so).

After about a week of this, we decided to wend our way home. We stayed with friends in Los Angeles and Chico and continued our anniversary entertainment in that fashion.

This car trip included (in chronological order) Medford, Oregon, and in Calfornia we stpped at Santa Nella, Solvang, La Jolla, Long Beach, Santa Nella again, Chico, Roseburg, Oregon, and Portland. We love travelling by car; you can be very flexible about your route. None of these stops were arranged in advance, we decided where to go while we were on the road.

It was a great trip.

Spring is here

During the last month we've had a new roof installed. The installation took several days, and was sometimes interrupted by rain. The only thing left to do is chimney repair - the mortar between the bricks has deteriorated to the point where mortar reinforcement is necessary. All work so far was done by Best Quality Roofing. The company lived up to all of its promises and I expect that their chimney work will also be top notch. If you ever need roof repairs or related work done, I highly recommend that company. They are located in Coquitlam. I'll post some pictures once my hip joint allows climbing onto the roof again.

Update: Pictures of the roof repairs are here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157642643261244

At this moment, I'm sitting in the garden, with a cherry tree in bloom and the sun shining on my back. This past month, my "disability" has diminished to the point where I can walk almost normally. The hip joint socket x-ray showed that the the hairline cracks and the one break appear to have healed. The orthopaedic surgeon recommended that I still use my cane, but not to rely on it too much. So, I walk around the house without it, and that seems to get easier by the day. Stairs are no longer an obstacle; I have the run of the house again. We also take walks around the neighbourhood when the weather permits; my stride is quite a bit slower, but I think that'll improve with time.

While our trip to Europe was cancelled due to the problem with my hip, we are going to "substitute" a visit to close, long-time friends in California soon. We like California a lot and have been there many times. We'll be staying in La Jolla for the most part, but also in Chico and various other places on the way there and back. Since we'll be driving, we have the freedom to make drop-of-a-hat changes to our itinerary and travel routes and can take more baggage along. We're looking forward to the sun and seeing our friends again.

An end and a beginning

Today is the last day of 2013. Let me wish everyone a Happy New Year, and all success for the future.

In addition to being the last day of the year, it is also my last "working" day. I decided at the beginning of this year that I'd shut down my business and retire at the end of the year. From now on, my business is a passive entity and exists only for so long as it takes to clean up the "loose ends", i.e. close GST and PST accounts, and collect outstanding accounts receivable, and a few other things. I will no longer actively provide the services which were the base of my business. After all these things are done, my business will no longer exist.

My wife and I are looking forward to more travels, I look forward to the pursuit of my various hobbies (astronomy, photography, electronics) and generally not having the time constraints imposed by operating a business. A big thank-you to all my loyal suppliers and customers - we've had a great business relationship.

Again, the Best to all.

A nice summer

We've been rather busy travelling in the last month. Beside the previously mentioned visit to Saltspring Island, we visited a good, long-time friend in Chico, California, and attended a wedding in San Ramon, east of San Francisco. We also took time driving and wine tasting in the Napa and Sonoma valleys.  Wine tasting in California is an expensive proposition these days, each winery charges twenty or thirty dollars for a wine tasting tour consisting of about five samples of wine. I think some part of these fees is imposed by the state of California; I recall reading about the budgetary problems they are having. So, soak the tourists.

A driving visit to the somewhat bleak Crescent City area, and a spectacular visit to, and including a tour of the Oregon caves were other interesting events.

The traces of the economic recession seemed still evident to us. Crescent City showed little activity during our admittedly short stopover.  In Napa City we found many of the tourist-brochure-advertised places shuttered and empty. With the recent upswing in the US economy, we hope that things will improve for everyone soon.

The wedding itself took place in San Ramon, California. The groom was our son's boyhood friend. He visited us a couple of years ago to pay his condolences regarding our son's death. We were surprised and honoured by the wedding invitation and certainly wanted to represent our son on that occasion.

The venue was the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, California. The ceremony itself took place in the open plaza in front; the reception inside. Since the groom is of Chinese ancestry, and the bride French; it was a delightfully mixed theme, with elements of both Chinese and European character.

The museum itself is exhibiting antique, prototype automobiles, dating from about 1870 to 1970. All cars are originals, and belong to the collection of one private owner. Needless to say, they were all in pristine condition. An area on the museum floor had been cleared to accommodate the guests and wedding party, and for dancing.  A few pictures:

It was certainly an original, and unique wedding.

Since the weather here at home was wonderful, we felt as though our vacation continued after we came back. We had our usual happy hour (a glass or two of red wine) every day on our back porch, with temperatures reminiscent of California.

A nice, summery July and early August...

Hope for a better year

It's been a month since I've put up a post. In the meantime, we celebrated our family Christmas. It was a bitter-sweet experience for our immediate family. Our son Derek was not there (as he had predicted a year earlier), but we had a new addition to the family. His name is Alexander, the son of our niece and her husband; he is the first baby boy in the family, since Derek himself was born. The young people had a great time at Christmas - as usual, too many presents (they didn't mind).

My wife and I spent New Year's in Puerto Vallarta, with good friends. Our host (and good friend) had unfortunately contracted pneumonia earlier in December, and had just gotten home from the hospital for Christmas. Therefore, he was not quite his normally exuberant self. Talking to him today, and he sounded a lot better. We met many people we hadn't seen for a number of years and several very interesting people we had never met before.

We have visited Puerto Vallarta for New Year's for many years. The city has improved its beachfront walkway (the Malacon) wonderfully, see picture. It is always nice to walk under palm trees in warm weather when it is miserable at home.

The weather was a nice 23 to 26 degrees Celsius during the day, and not much less during the night; we spent every evening outside, or in open-air restaurants.

The Mexican people greet a new year with fireworks galore. These were going off all around us for almost an hour after the New Year arrived. 

We all expressed the hope that this year will be better for all of us.

An adventurous trip

We returned from a three-day repositioning cruise with an added three days in Las Vegas this last Saturday. The cruise had an "interesting" period. The "Golden Princess" is a 109,000 ton displacement cruise ship with wonderful amenities, excellent food, nice lounges, great music (including the kind of music we like to dance to). We enjoyed all this on the night we left. By midnight, just after we went to bed, the ship left Juan de Fuca Strait and turned south towards the next destination, Los Angeles. At that point we ran into an extreme low pressure system with hurricane winds and huge waves.   This extreme storm was strong enough to toss the ship around like a log, making walking almost impossible. Because of the violent motions, and winds in excess of 110km/h, access to the open decks was blocked, the swimming pools were emptied, and the ship had to reduce its speed to about 13 knots. The noises generated by the wave action kept me awake all night - the most annoying noise was the constantly clicking of the empty coat hangers in the open closest hitting each other, funnily enough. After we took them off the rack and stuffed them between our suitcases, my wife got some sleep, but I didn't.

While my wife has better "sea legs" then I, she managed to get to the dining rooms at the centre of the ship at the lower levels on the following day (which was just as violent as the night). I stayed in our cabin, which was located just one level below the open decks, and near the bow, close to the ships bridge, and tried to get some sleep. In that location, the motion is probably the most extreme. I could time and anticipate whenever the ship breached a wave, and then slammed down on the next one. At that point, everything in the cabin banged, creaked, and groaned, and I felt like being inside a drum being worked by a heavy metal band drummer.

This episode lasted just about 24 hours. When we finally got out of this extreme low north of San Francisco, the day turned into a much nicer one, and the previous day was soon an "interesting experience". The captain brought the speed up to over 22 knots, trying to make up for the lost time running slowly through the previous days' storm. None-the-less, we arrived three hours late, which played havoc with many people's travel connections. As usual, it takes about three hours to disembark the passengers and go through customs.

Our own travel connection was a bus to take us to Las Vegas - we had no trouble with that because the driver had to wait for all his passengers (who were making the same trip we were). We arrived in Las Vegas around 8pm. There were two stops at hotels before we got to ours (Harrah's). The first two got people off the bus to a well-organized reception by the travel agency; our destination had no one to "receive" us. That was somewhat chaotic and meant individual check-in. We finally got to our room after 9pm, and called it a day.  Our room was nice enough, but little things left an impression of neglect (loose shower head and hot water tap covers, a bit of rust here and there, hallway carpets showing wear and tear and so on)

The next day, after a so-so and expensive breakfast with indifferent service at Harrah's, we walked the strip, and started looking at the various hotels, especially the new, luxurious ones: Bellagio, Aria, Caesar's Palace, Excalibur, Mirage, Venitian, Wynn's, etc. They were all superior to Harrah's. If we get to L.V. again, we'll probably stay at one of those. They incorporate large "shopping concourses" with many nice restaurants and other amenities. In the evening, we enjoyed watching both the "volcano" at the Mirage, and the "water ballet" at the Bellagio. Since we are not gamblers, these activities were our main occupation.

The shows which might have been of interest to us (Cirque de Soleil, and other high quality ones) were always either sold out or had long box-office line-ups. We had only two days in L.V., so we passed on them. Most of the other shows were "imitation shows": Sinatra, Elvis, Rat Pack, etc. They were expensive, and, since we have seen the real artists in the past, of little interest to us.

There are very few benches to sit down in L.V. - obviously on purpose: the businesses want you to spend time in the ubiquitous casinos (almost all hotels have one or more - they all look alike, and are just as noisy). You are also almost always forced to walk through them in order to get to the shops and amenities. The nicer hotels had easy chairs and tables in the long hallways, away from the casinos, which enabled us to sit down to a leisurely coffee or ice cream and watch people (which both of us enjoy).

We went to downtown Las Vegas on the following day - bought a day pass on the "Deuce" (a double-decker bus system which runs 24 hours a day). This proved to be the most efficient transportation for us. Fremont street downtown has a two block long arched cover which is actually the worlds largest video display. It's advertised as the "Fremont Experience". We arranged to be there early for the 7pm "showing" - it was a bit of a disappointment. While technically impressive, with a Hallowe'en-related theme, the show was only 7 minutes long. The real fun part for us was watching people from a sidewalk seat at a Starbuck's - the bikers had a convention; it made for some interesting viewing.

The flight home was somewhat convoluted. We were flown from L.V. to Phoenix, changed planes there, and flew right back over L.V. on the way home. Airport security is highly inconvenient (body scanners, numerous identity checks, etc.) and takes a lot away from the actual flying, which we both enjoy. The flight itself (US Airways) was on time, we actually arrived home early.

So, what is our overall impression? Las Vegas is a city of "imitation" and flamboyance, with relatively little cultural substance. It exists to "pull money out of your pocket", and that may be it's "talent", if it can be called that. Superficiality comes to mind; everything is "show"(off). Some of the new hotels are really beautiful from an architectural point and can be considered to be counterpoints to the shallowness evident elsewhere. We may get there again, someday, passing through, but it's unlikely that we'll make a special trip with this city as the destination.

Pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/6213529854/in/set-72157627696025357/

Cruising

It's been awhile since I posted. In the meantime, I've done some astronomy, got busy with my business (schools and universities started up again after the summer break), we painted the carport, removed the accumulated algae from the front steps and generally took advantage of the nice summer weather we had until a few days ago. We're now getting ready for a minicruise to L.A. and Las Vegas. The weather is back to it's standard after-summer behaviour (rain), so we'll appreciate the warmer southern climes.

Life has settled into its new routine. I think of Derek daily (it's coming up to 5 months since he died), but my thoughts are slowly taking on some characteristics of nostalgia (in addition to the sadness). We'll be reminded of him on this coming trip too, because he and his family visited both places last year. Read the posts subsequent to the one indicated in the link, too. He also knew that it would be his last time to visit there.

Anyway, we'll enjoy this little sojourn, and I may post some pictures on Facebook.

Life goes on

During this month my wife and I went to visit good friends in California, and yesterday, our granddaughter Marina graduated from elementary school (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157627073520948/).

We quite enjoyed our visit to California; it is always good to see friends whom you've known for a long time.

Our granddaughter's graduation was a lively affair - followed by a dance from which parents were "disinvited". She is a lovely young lady now, her dad (http://www.penmachine.com/) would have been proud of her.  In fact, we had a hard time recognizing many of her school friends in their fashionable dresses; they looked so mature.

Looking at this from the perspective of our own age, we had nostalgic feelings about our own youth, now so long ago.

Life goes on...

Eventful times.

We've had some visitors from Europe during the last month (daughters of good friends and their partners), and have done our "tourist guide" obligations. It's always interesting to view our area through their eyes - we take so many things for granted.

The guests have left, and it's back to regular life. One of the unpleasant situations right now is that, just after going through the latest 3-day chemo session, Derek is back in the hospital with a blood clot in his left leg. This is apparently a not unexpected occurrence with colon cancer. He's on blood thinners and is scheduled to stay in there for two or three days. It has spoiled his and Airdrie's planned weekend at the Ti-Na-Mara resort on Vancouver Island; this really "sucks" - both had very much looked forward to this.

An update: the hospital doctors have determined that Derek is fit to go home, and he arrived here this evening, feeling much better. We're all happy to have him back. He'll be on blood thinners for an indeterminate time, but of all the medical problems, that's a small inconvenience. Perhaps there is a small consolation in Derek and Airdrie's missed trip to Vancouver Island: there is a big storm brewing in the area of their destination.

Back home

It's been a while since I last posted here. In the meantime, we've been to Germany, and since our return, I've been busy catching up on accumulated activities related to my business. In Germany, we attended the wedding of the daughter of a close friend. She's stayed with us twice at our house here, each time for a three-month period, to take courses in teaching English, and is now qualified to teach ESL anywhere. Another milestone was the celebration of the 80th birthday of another close friend (who actually lives in California, but he and his wife maintain an apartment in Germany). My own birthday happened to be in that same period, and was duly feted as well.

These things all happened in a spa town (we have a number of good friends who live there), so there were get-togethers every day. The social scene in Europe always involves much food and drink, and this has resulted in a need for me to lose the pounds I gained.

We're over the jetlag by now, and things have returned to their normal routine. We enjoyed our stay over there, none-the-less it's nice to be back home with our family here.

Back home

We were away in Germany for a couple of weeks and since our return, I've been catching up in my business. So today is the first chance I've had to relate some things related to the trip.



We attended the 40th wedding anniversary of close friends who live in an area not too far away from the North Sea, and had a Family meeting in Berlin as well. I have two aunts in their mid-nineties there, and we visit them as often as we can. One of them is my mother's sister - she's the last one of her siblings. She's in good shape, but unfortunately totally deaf. We communicate by writing our comments on paper. The other aunt is a former sister-in-law of my mother. Both she and my mother were widowed twice; in each case they lost their first husbands because of the second world war. She is slowly going blind, but lives in a first-class old-age home, has a friend there, and the two support each other.

I have another aunt in Vienna, also of that advanced age group. We didn't get there this time and we're hoping to see her next year, if our family situation allows.

It's important to maintain family connections.

Time with the granddaughters

Since Derek and Airdrie are at Gnomedex, we have our two granddaughters to look after these days. Thursday we explored the new Canada subway line to the airport, yesterday we spent all day at the PNE (we sat on the grass for the "Beatle Anniversary" performance, too). Big crowds.



The "Canada Line" day was an all-day event for us. We decided that four of us would take public transport to get to all the places we were going to visit. The "Skytrain"is our elevated/subterranean remote-controlled light rapid transit line which has existed since the year of "Expo 86" (i.e. 23 years), and has become an integral part of the public transportation system in our "lower mainland" cities. One of its larger stations is located a 10 minute walk away from our house, so we walked and bought a day pass for all of us. At a total of $27, that turned out to be a bargain.



To begin with, we rode the skytrain to the Waterfront station, and then changed to the Seabus (a ferry service to North Vancouver, part of the public transportation system), to have lunch at Lonsdale Quay. The kids and my wife picked their traditional Chinese food; I don't particularly like Chinese food and ate a more traditional sandwich instead. Our older granddaughter also bought a new pair of shorts. We then returned via the Seabus to the Waterfront station, which is also the terminus of the new Canada Line subway.


The trains on that line consist of two cars (all pictures below are from the Translink web sites), connected by a "flexible" passthrough, much like subway trains in other parts of the world. The stations on the Canada line are just long enough to accommodate their combined length, so coupling two of these trains together would make them too long for the stations. The Canada Line train cars are wider than the Skytrain cars, making the cars incompatible with each other's stations. In fact, I don't know of any track connection between the two. That makes it necessary to have two different parts and maintenance centres. Personally I find this incompatibility illogical. I can understand that such incompatibilty might exist in some of the older cities in Europe, which started their electric subway services over one hundred years ago, but the skytrain line is still young (23 years), and the underlying remote-control technology cannot be that much different.

Another question I have is the use of only a single track into the airport itself - it means that only one train at a time can be at the airport station. I suppose that the underlying reason is the same as always - money, money, money. There was a big "Ahead-of-time, on-budget" statement from both our provincial government, and the public transit authority, made possible only by what I consider "corner-cutting"; even the underground track section which was originally meant to be a "bored" tunnel was actually built using the "cut-and-cover" method. That caused a great deal of financial losses to, and the closure of a number businesses along the Canada Line. Courtcases are still pending in that regard.



Notwithstanding all the above, the ride to and from Richmond and the airport is smooth, efficient, and will likely become popular with the commuting public and travelers from the airport to downtown. While most of the line is underground, the elevated and above-ground sections offer a grand view of Vancouver's spectacular scenery (that's true for the mostly elevated Skytrain too, of course).






The PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) is the granddaughters' perennial favourite. While the younger one is more interested in the rides at Playland, the older one is developing a taste for the agricultural and "arts-and-crafts" aspects. Our granddaughters' maternal grandparents (we're the paternal ones) are both wonderful and accomplished people and very artistic, and they really involve the granddaughters in that way when they are staying with them.

Both granddaughters enjoy the animals at the 4-H displays. As usual, we consumed the obligatory junk food offerings (corn dogs, mini doughnuts, hamburgers etc...).

An added feature this year was an open-air performance in honour of the Beatles - on their 45th anniversary. The theatre grounds were jammed with people. The band "Revolver" performed ably, and had the crowd highly motivated - everyone seemed happy. The amazing thing is that our granddaughters knew and sang along with all the songs; we ourselves, being of a generation well ahead of the Beatles, could not do that.

Marina (the older one) is also developing a talent for photography. She has a camera cellphone and took some interesting and artisic pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigm/.

All-in-all we are having a great time with the two of them.

Pseudo vacation

Over the last few weeks, at various times, we've had visitors from both Mexico and Germany. Since the weather here has been great during the last six weeks or so, we decided to show our guests around. We went to the various Vancouver showpieces, and also included a trip to Whistler.

At Whistler we spent a day which included taking a ride on the new Peak2Peak gondola. This is a great experience, and I recommend it to anyone not afraid of heights. We went all the way to near the top of Blackcomb mountain ('seventh heaven') which gave us a great view of the snow-covered mountain peaks for 100km around. The viewpoint is located above the Horstman Glacier; we had a birds-eye view of the skiers and snowboarders who were displaying their talents.

Last weekend, Derek had his 40th birthday bar-b-q at home, attended by about one hundred of his friends, and our family and friends as well. Lots of food was consumed. The next day we took part in an open house at Derek's friend and former IHR partner Paul Garay's house in Maple Ridge - again with lots of food.

The last two weeks have therefore been filled with many social activities for my wife and me. Every now and then, though, I had to do things related to my business, but since the universities and colleges are running on summer hours right now, I wasn't too busy.

So this episode has been like an unplanned break - a "pseudo vacation" .

Update: Here are a few pictures from the Whistler excursion:

(click on any frame)

Pictures by K. Pelk

Ferries

Yesterday, I had some business in Victoria; So my wife and I took the ferry from Tsawwassen (Vancouver) to Swartz Bay (Victoria). For the trip to Victoria, we caught one of the Spirit class of ferries. We had a buffet breakfast on board (all you can eat, about $17.00 per person). You get a nice window table, if get there early enough.


"Spirit class" (BC Ferries' web page)

These vessels are 11,700 ton ships, built about 16 years ago, can carry over 400 cars at a time, and were the "stars" of the BC ferry fleet on the Vancouver-Victoria run until the arrival of the Super-C ferries within the last year, or so. They are capable ships, and are an important part of BC's transportation system.


Since we hadn't been on one the new ships yet, we arranged to return on the "Coastal Celebration", one of the three new Super-C class ferries. These are somewhat smaller than the "Spirit" vessels (10,100 tons - about 370 cars at a time). The major difference is that they are "double-ended", so they head straight into and out of their docking berths. By way of contrast, the Spirit ships need to turn around before they dock (Swartz Bay) or after they leave(Tsawwassen) the dock.



Super-C class (from BC Ferries' web page)

In other respects, the new ships have perhaps slightly more comfort and convenience in the on-board services, but they don't differ substantially from the older ships in that regard. A ferry trip to Vancouver Island always feel like a "mini-cruise" to us - the beautiful scenery through which BC Ferries' ships sail makes this a "word-class" experience, in our opinion. If you intend to visit Vancouver Island, this is a nice way to go.

A few travel notes

As mentioned in my last post, we've spent some time with friends in California, and travelled there by car. We returned yesterday, taking four days to come back, and driving along some of the roads less travelled.





While the American interstate highway system goes through some magnificent scenery (the view at left is of Mount Shasta), the smaller roads offer some wonderful, sometimes unexpected views of nature as well.


As an example, we stayed in Calistoga, a small city in the Napa Valley of California (this area is known as one of the top wine-producing areas in the world). The hotel was a beautifully restored place, reminiscent of high-class hotels of about 100 years ago, mixing "Art-deco" and "American-West" styled rooms with present-day wireless internet access, DVD players, and TV in every room.

On our way out, just outside of town, we stopped at a place featuring the smaller sibling of "Old Faithful" (in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming), also called "Old Faithful", seen at left. This geyser erupts every ten minutes or so. Each eruption is preceded by about a minute of bubbling, gurgling sound, not unlike that of our electric coffee maker at home. The geyser is located on private land, so we had to pay some admission ($6 each); we considered it well worth the experience. Since we had arrived early, we were the only visitors and could look at the geyser, the museum and videos at leisure and without interfering with anyone.



During our travels, the other amazing thing to consider was the fact that all the roads on which we travelled were either blacktopped, or concrete-covered. The picture shows the road through a part of California's famous Redwood Forest. If you consider the immense road system in the USA alone, how much does this represent in natural resources and evironmental alteration? How could the majority of people learn to appreciate these natural wonders without such cost?






Our vacation ended on a beautiful and romantic note. We headed to Cannon Beach (Derek's family's favourite vacation spot), on the Oregon Coast, for our last evening "on the road". It happened to be the day of our 44th wedding anniversary. Accommodation was in a beachside hotel room with balcony, looking west over the Pacific Ocean. With a bottle of red Oregon wine, and a couple of piccolos of champagne, we had a nice, sunset French "Dinner" on the balcony (consisting of French bread, some cheeses and sausage, rather more like an elaborate picnic). This was a fitting end to a trip which included the reunion with many good friends and good times with them.