Monday, January 28, 2002
Monday, possibly my last post for a while. I am heading up to Whistler tomorrow straight after work. I am just about to start packing. Still bits of snow about and it is cold so lots of ice about. Hope the bus gets up to Whistler okay. Hope there is still lots of snow up there. Steve and Pat should be here by now.
posted by John Woakes 8:02 PM
Sunday I woke up to Alexa bellowing at me to look out the window. It was snowing and there was a lot of snow on the ground. We were due to go to Cypress Mountain for the day to go snowboarding. We had arranged to drive Sally and Troy up the mountain at 11:00. We set off to pick them up and it was snowing even harder. Very unVancouver like. We took it easy the few blocks but skidded into a curb once. Once we picked them up we headed up the mountain. We could not even get up the slight gradient in Stanley Park. We decided to catch the bus from Park Royal, as the minivan was very unstable. We got to the bus just on time and re-headed up the mountain. We could see cars having a hard time. We came around a corner and there where were about six or seven cars all over the road all trying to get traction. We stopped and waited for them to get out of the way. Then as we made our move the back of the bus slid away from us and ended up off the curb. We were stuck. We all got out but that bus was going nowhere. A few more feet and it would have been down a 4 foot drop which would have been interesting. Well hours later a bus coming down picked us up and took us back down. On the way down we talked to a co-worker on the phone who had made it. He said it was sunny and snowing – powder everywhere and not many people. AUGH!!! We went out for dinner to cheer ourselves up to one of our favourite restaurants. It is a Japanese place that uses garlic (in nearly everything). It is very boisterous – the waitress shouting out your order across the restaurant and the food is fantastic. Still pissed about the lost day of powder.
posted by John Woakes 7:58 PM
Saturday, the usual chores. I cooked for Alexa. Baked Cod with Orange, Caper and Olive Sauce which I got off Epicurious. A really strange mixture of ingredients but it came out well. Alexa liked it because she finished off the sauce while doing the dishes.
posted by John Woakes 7:40 PM
I bought some FSR radios for Whistler. Stewart had a couple when we went to Cypress and they proved useful. Oh goodie, more gadgets. They came with ni-cad batteries so worth the bit extra (I hope). I then met Alexa for dinner at Jasmine’s Joint which was better than I expected. The waitress was practically popping out of her dress. I haven’t seen such an exposed cleavage in a long time. Bit like what’s her name in the Adam’s Family.
posted by John Woakes 2:50 PM
Our fearless leader gave a staff meeting in the morning. Very rah-rah but interesting all the same. The earnings call was the day before and the stock price went up to $6 – 20%. One of the points that made me perk up was that staff personal life was seen as important and that there would be no rules for attendance as long as you got your work done.
posted by John Woakes 2:50 PM
Went boarding on Thursday. It was warm and wet in Vancouver and we nearly didn’t go. A friend of Dave’s, Stewart, drove us up. It stated snowing about a Km before we got there and it turned out to be a great evening. It was practically empty, still, a bit of snow falling and powder in places. It got stickier as the night wore on. We did some jumping and I felt some real snowboarding. We got bollocked twice by ski patrollers for going under ropes. The mountain is definitely changing (and not necessarily for the better).
posted by John Woakes 2:40 PM
