IMG_0820
Originally uploaded by Americanuck
Just what you expect to see in February. Pansies! Friends in Facebook talking about how they’re working in their garden and seeing people walking around in shorts (okay brr it’s not THAT warm.)
Still, the news stories are all about the lack of snow and the rest of North America seemingly getting more than their share. Weirdness.
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Posted by americanuck
I work in downtown Vancouver and it has been interesting watching the slow ramp up to the Olympic games for the past several months. The pace has picked up in the last few weeks as the games are right around the corner. There is a security detail blocking the entrance to the street that leads up to Canada Place and the poor hotel staff have to stand out in front of the entrance to Waterfront Centre with their luggage carts and there are plenty of tent-like structures set up for goodness knows what.
I’m starting to see more and more of the volunteers in their blue coats wandering around and there is definitely more people in the core hitting up the lunch spots. I’ve taken to bringing my lunch now to avoid the crowds and they are only going to get thicker once the spectators descend so I may as well get used to it now. The Skytrain now has announcements at specific stations telling visitors how to transfer to a bus to get to other venues off the train route and many of the trains have had extra cars added to them. They can only put so many cars on though as the stations are only so long. There are all kinds of scary predictions of hours long waits to get on a train during peak travel time, I’m hoping they are erring on the side of caution but who knows? We won’t know how challenging it is going to be until it happens so no points in worrying about it now.
I have no plans on going to any gatherings free or otherwise and we definitely didn’t get any tickets to actual events they tend to be priced a little rich for our blood and both Tom and I are kind of crowd adverse. I will probably watch some of the TV coverage like I’ve done with games past it will just be a little more interesting to see how well they can carry the games off here in the hometown.
The snow or lack of it is the big story. This has been an unseasonably warm Winter, not unexpected and frankly not unwelcome at least from my standpoint after the last couple of Winters we had to endure here , but it hasn’t been all that good for the games. I’ve had colleagues from the States mention the lack of snow on the local hills so it has definitely been a story in the news. I heard even David Letterman cracked wise about it. They keep saying everything will be fine with the existing snow pack, the man-made and trucked in snow they have and I hope it’s true as whether people like it or not it’s coming and we’re gonna be paying for this for a while so best it is successful.
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Posted by americanuck
WELL. That was interesting.
The good news is we now have a floor again, the bad news was it took a LONG time to get it. Now that it is in I want to roll all over it and kiss it. Not that I would because if I did my husband would never kiss me on the mouth again. But yes, I am happy, sooooo soooo happy we have a floor.
Truth be told I was kind of getting used to seeing the cement in the entry way and that ugly lino that was hiding under the laminate in the kitchen. At least after the flood and the clean up we were able to use the dishwasher and the laundry, but because of the adventure of installation we’ve been without for over a week and a half. I will never ever take my dishwasher and laundry pair for granted again.
So what happened you ask? Well lets start with day one. The sub-contractor in charge of flooring called to arrange for the installation. At his estimate it would take two days, maybe three to install the flooring in pretty much every inch of our condo (minus the bathrooms). This meant we had to pack pretty much everything we own so it could be shoved from one place to another while they worked. You don’t realize how much shite you have until you have to box it up.
It also meant I had to burn three vacation days to basically sit around bored. Our insurance company would reimburse us for the hotel stay (our beds would be taken apart among everything else) so Tom booked a hotel across town, there is nothing decent locally.
The morning of the first day of install finally arrived and the four guys carried the wood in, leaving it in the common hallway (much to the chagrin of the condo prez) and I went out to look at it. Hmmm, it kind of doesn’t look like what I had ordered. I figured maybe it was the light in the hallway or the plastic packaging that was maybe making it LOOK that way.
As they got to work ripping up the old floor and began laying the first few boards down, I quietly said to Tom “yanno, I don’t think that is the floor we picked…” he said he was thinking the same thing but we both agreed it actually looked nice and we were okay with it. He left for work and I kept trying to stay out of everyone’s way. I mentioned my thoughts that perhaps the floor wasn’t actually ‘OUR’ floor and the guy goes… um really? Hmm its your house and we want you to be happy. I assured him we were FINE with it but perhaps this was someone else’s order and if so would this be the right amount of floor? He didn’t seem concerned. They appeared to be doing a good job on the install though day one they broke part of Tom’s dresser while moving it. Sure it’s an Ikea dresser but hello, you don’t lift a dresser by the drawers!
The underlay (heh Butt joints)
Old vs. the new
They were supposed to work until 6:00 but the lead guy announced they were done for the day at around 3:30. Okayyyy… so you’ll be done tomorrow then? Oh yeah easily.
I locked up and headed for the hotel to hang out. It was actually a pretty nice place with a kitchen, living room separate bathroom etc and very very clean. Best of all free wifi.
I headed down to the Moxie’s downstairs and had dinner by myself. I always feel a wee bit lame in a restaurant by myself unless I have something to do (like read) or keep my hands busy. So I kept my hands busy holding this..
Tom got off work ’round 10 and joined me for a glass of wine before bed. We had to be up and back at our place again to let the guys in before 9:00 am. I was up first and headed over, Tom followed behind and picked up some breakfast/coffee.
The guys were pretty much on time and got right back to work again.
By early afternoon I overheard one guy say to the other “Umm I think we’re going to be short wood…” WHAAAAT? My ears perked up. I go talk to the guy and he goes “well we’re not sure yet, the boss is on the way you can talk to him” I guess the boss gets paid to pass on the bad news.
He shows up and they’re all talking in low voices and he approaches us and sure enough, they are short about five boxes of wood. Even better it has to come from Calgary so they would have to come back next week. I said to him that I had mentioned to the installer guy that I was pretty sure it wasn’t our floor colour, I had looked up the colour on the flooring company’s website and maybe that is why they were short. He goes and makes a call and comes back saying that no we had the right floor it was the colour called ‘York’, the stock numbers matched. Maybe the sales guy showed me an older sample. Um. Yeah right. I’m thinking he’s blowing wind.
So they tidy up to leave for the day saying we’ll get a call to arrange for them to finish next week. Great, so still no washer/dryer or dishwasher. The living room, dining room, office, and both bedrooms were done leaving the main walk-in closet, half the kitchen and the laundry room/storage yet to be done…
Once again I lock up and head to the hotel. The following day we could at least start to put some of our stuff back together including the beds so no more hotel.
They flooring company calls me on the weekend and we arrange for Tuesday (as Tom’s off so I don’t have to take any more vacation time for this.) The time rolls around and nobody shows up. Tom calls the company and they said “oh we had it down for Wednesday” Um NO. I even have the voicemail he left saying they were looking to come Tuesday. GRRRR.
Wednesday they show up with…. guess? Yep you got it, the WRONG WOOD. Or should I say the right wood, the wood we had ORIGINALLY ordered. “York”. The guys agreed, said they had thought it looked different too and put a call into the boss man. They had to convince them it was the wrong order. I KNEW they were snowing me when they said the wood they’d laid down was our order. WELL once again they had to put another order into Calgary and wait for it to arrive.
Friday, yes they would be back Friday. They finally finished Friday with not a moment to spare. Tom had to head to work. The guy broke the cover of our laundry room fluorescent light fixture. How? No idea. He told Tom to call they boss for reimbursement. Sigh.
During all of this Tom had booked the plumber to come back and install the dishwasher and hook the washer dryer back up. With all the delays and issues we had to cancel on the guy three times. We finally decided to NOT call him again until the damn floor was in. Hopefully he’s gonna be here Monday morning.
We still have THIS to deal with…
It has been over a month since we heard from the Strata insurance. This isn’t an improvement folks, a wall is kind of part of the building. Tom called the property manager because our personal insurance project manager wanted to schedule a time to get in and paint the base boards. We had to explain to them we don’t have a wall to nail part of it to. That and the facing round the door was still missing. The property manager called back and said he’d get on with booking the drywall guy and maybe he can also fix the door frame. I mentioned the lower cabinets were supposed to be fixed too (the kicks and the bottom part under the sink.) Until that was all dealt with our insurance company’s PM can’t finish our jobs. Man I have HATED dealing with all this crap. All I can say though is MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PROPER INSURANCE to cover improvements to your home. We did and man am I grateful.
It will be nice to be able to put everything back where it belongs. Things are still a bit scattered round these parts but it is better. Now we really really need to paint. The new fl00rs make the wall colour look even crappier than it did before… isn’t that always the way? We also need to get the couch cleaned. The floors make the couch look even dirtier. Darn cats and their lick stains.
Next up though is putting in a new stove and fridge in the kitchen and replacing the dining room set which was a Costco set we bought 5.5 years ago which is slowly falling apart. Well at least all the chairs are, it is gambling your safety to sit on them these days. The table looks a tad on the rough side but it is still okay. I just kind of hate it, so it’s going too. The building’s cleaning woman was interested in taking it. I mean it’s free so why not? It’s too bad Chris isn’t moving out on his own yet, this stuff would be fine for a guy starting out on his own. Ah well.
I think I found some contenders for the new table/chairs and some new end tables for the living room, I just need to drag Tom there and get a second opinion. He says he doesn’t care what we put in as long as it holds his plate but even still…
And still I’ve yet to find curtains.
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Posted by americanuck
Last weekend, before all the madness that is the Olympics begins we decided to head across the border for a post-Xmas shopping trip cos we are not going NEAR it during the games. We opted to take our chances with a later start time for two reasons…laziness AND we wanted to have a brunch followed by dinner at Anthony’s rather than an super early breakfast and running out of ways to kill time to get to an hour where even a Linner makes sense yanno?
Despite a late start the line-up wasn’t horrible. It was a ways past the duty-free store (I know unless you live here you have no point of reference but lets just say it’s about 45 mins from the Duty Free on a normal day). Even with the heightened security the line moves pretty smoothly and we were on our way before we knew it.
We were both hungry and REALLY in need of a caffeine infusion so our first stop was the B’ham IHOP. We both elected to have the two egg quick breakfast which would keep us going but not fill us up so much that a early dinner would be too much.
After breakfast we hit up the shops. Ross had been letting us down recently but we had more luck. We did the usual rounds, the mall.. spending a wee bit longer than most in Macy’s and we both had ideas what to spend our Xmas present money from Tom’s Mum at Best Buy but both of us failed our missions. We did get to see this ultra cool *cough* truck in the parking lot. Umm WTF I thought that kind of painting went out with the vans of the 70’s?
Then it was time for…
Mmmmmmm
I saw my camera was having some issues finding a good white balance with the rather orange-ish lighting so I started fiddling with it and to my amusement everything turned green. Tom played along and goofed around for me….
Dinner was WONDERFUL as always, I had the halibut and Tom had the halibut cheeks.
Cannot rave about that place enough. After dinner we put on heavier coats and walked around the waterfront for some picture taking. Here’s Tom taking a picture of the statue. Despite what it looks like he is not urinating on that light fixture haha.
It wasn’t a perfectly clear night but the bay was calm and gave some nice reflections.
Bellingham is a cool little town, we always enjoy going there.
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Posted by americanuck
Puttin’ the tree away
Originally uploaded by Americanuck
Cinny had to say goodbye for another year to her “salad” on January 1st. Of course once she realized that the big box had arrived she had to run around and chew on as many parts of the tree as she possibly could.
I am not sure why she likes the feeling of the prickly branches in her mouth but that is only one of Cinny’s mysteries.
Left up to her it would be Christmas all year round these parts. I was personally kind of happy to see the stuff go away because once the presents are gone the tree just kind of looks sad.
