Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Seattle Day Trip


Road Hammer and Gunner are off once again! We packed up nice and early Saturday morning looking for new land. E-Gnome from Travelocity tagged along with us after being poorly neglected during the last road trip. It wasn’t easy but we convinced him to join us on this one. Another addition to the traveling party is Joe Dirt. JD is a co-worker of mine hailing from Thunder Bay. His real name is Joe Saliba but I’ve always called him Joe Dirt partly due to his evil nature… and the name is funny to me. Joe had never been to Seattle before and since he’s a pretty fun chap AND doesn’t have many, if any, friends, he was all for tagging along with us.

The A-Team

Okay! Now that we have set the stage and introduced everyone let’s move on to travels. We made it to Seattle around lunch time after a quick stop at a Best Buy along the way to pick up a (sweeeeeet) digital camera and messing around with Guitar Hero 2, a Playstation 2 that involves rocking out to a guitar a la Dance Dance Revolution style but I may end up covering that as a post if I succumb to the temptation of buying the game.

Upon entering Seattle, we made it straight to Seattle Center and parked the car for the day. The Seattle Center is home of the famous Space Needle and a few more attractions such as the Experience Music Project and the Sci-Fi Museum. Before we started touring, our bellies grumbled at us and we looked for a place to eat. Luckily for us there was a food joint called the Revolution Bar & Grill next to where we parked.

Welcome to Seattle Gents

Being the tourists we are, we asked our waitress to point out the city’s main venues and she gave us a map with a few of them marked out. After eating a true American meal (too much food – no wonder they have an obese population), we walked up to the Space Needle to see what the fuss is about. Think of the Space Needle as a west coast rendition of the CN Tower that is smaller and older looking. Having seen the CN Tower before I was mildly impressed and I certainly had no intention of paying something like $14+ for an elevator ride. I did find this picture showing the view of the city from atop the tower. We were also told the Space Needle is a bigger attraction during the evening because it is fully illuminated but we had other stuff on the menu so we didn’t come back to check it out.

Hey Look! A Needle From Space!

Next, we ventured onto the Monorail that takes you close to downtown. Funny how Rob and I never even took the skytrain in Vancouver yet but 1 hour after being in Seattle, we were already using the city’s public transportation system hah! That being said, we made it into the core and headed straight to the Pike Place Market.

The Market

The market was fun to walk around in. It reminded me of the Farmer’s Market in Fredericton but bigger and less crowded (I didn’t have to fight through a mob of people gathered around the samosas stand).

Elliott being the douche he is HAD to go walk by Elliott’s Bay so we walked right down to the waterfront through sketchy parking lots with bums and stuff. We get there and what do we see? WATER! No kidding eh? A few minutes after Joe realized what we were looking and why Rob was taking pictures, and laughed at him.

That day was the playoff game between the Seahawks and the Cowboys so we decided to continue our walk towards the stadium (QWest Field) to see what kind of action was going on there. As we approached the stadium, we saw a crowd of people (Seahawks fans) gathered in a “parking lot” with music, food and … BEER!
Home of the Seahawks

TAILGATE PARTY!!! Woohoo! Talk about a gong show in there haha! It was pretty cool to see people all setup with TVs and huge barbecues just having a great time waiting for the game to start.We had the opportunity to by tickets to the game for about $140 and all three of us considered dishing out the cash for it but you know after the holidays, money can be a bit tight and we ended up not buying anything. We started to regret our decision after seeing all the people and the ambience. After we saw the final score and how it ended in a dramatic fashion, we REALLY regretted no attending the game. The hawks better make the playoffs next year ‘cause we’ll be there “comme un cheveux sur la soupe” as the French would have it.

Second home of the Seahawks (read the sign)

To finish off the day the trio headed to the Experience Music Project (EMP) , which is an interactive music museum that covers, for the main part, artists or bands from Seattle. We got to see some really cool stuff on Nirvana, Pearl Jam (!!!), Jimi Hendrix and then some. The cherry on the cake of the tour was definitely our live performance in front of a large crowd. I think the picture below speaks for itself…

"Rocking in a free world!"

We have tons of new trips planned out and with Joe now officially being the 3rd member of our group you can expect more laughs and random (mis)adventures in the near future.

Do I Sense a Mariners Game This Summer?
You Betcha!

Next Stop: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Whistler, Astoria, who knows?!?

Posted by Brian at 4:55 PM | | Comments

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

2006 Year End Review

2006 has already come to a close and with my lack of regular updates, here’s a chance to get everyone caught to the multitude of events that have happened here in Vancouver.

First off, for those who don’t know already, my car, Desert Storm, was stolen from me in late November while I was at the biggest mall in town. It’s a real shame that anyone would even consider touching such a beautiful piece of history. Long story short, I went in at the mall with Rob on a Saturday afternoon to buy a microwave and parked my car right by the door (and I’m thinking: “what a score!”). I came out about 2 hrs later and my car was… gone! Without jumping to conclusions or showing any signs of panic, I walked around and talked to mall security for another 1-2hrs and subsequently left the mall without my own wheels. Unphased (sp?), I went to the restaurant that night, had a few beers and shared a few laughs.

Side note: Funny Rob found an article online and the most stolen car of 2006 was a 1991 Honda Accord EX-R and the picture showed was of my car (same colour, everything). I’m just glad to be able to contribute to the statistics. I also saw on TV the other day that Surrey (next to Vancouver) is the stolen car capital of the world. If only I knew that before I would’ve at least get a “Club” or something!!

I proceeded with an insurance claim and all the other fun procedures involved with a stolen vehicle and ended up buying a 1992 Accord EX-R. I call her… Angel Dust! I thought I had a picture around but I apparently don’t. This brings me to my next item; expect more pictures from me since I received a digital camera for Christmas! Well I don’t have it yet but I am heading to town this weekend and will pick up one (My parents sent money up to go buy myself a nice camera). I’m pretty stoked since I have been thinking of getting myself a camera for the last couple of years haha!

Oh and my car was eventually recovered 4 weeks later. It was in better shape than I thought it would be but the stereo system was gutted out and it was in no driving condition. I was able to say my goodbyes to my precious automobile at 340,728km and put some closure to all that had happened. I salvaged what I could but my valuables were also taken… *sigh* Desert Storm, you will be missed. The places we have been, the memories we’ve had….

Aside from that, I’ve been pretty busy with work and other daily activities. I haven’t really had time to tour the city a whole lot. The party scene has not been evaluated fully yet, bars are expensive to go to and for some stupid reason, the “really good bars” start to line up at like 10pm!!! What the hell?!? I did however go on a Christmas Party bend (3 parties in 4 days) and all I managed to get out of that was a beat up immune system and a cold. It was fun nonetheless and I’ll do it again if the opportunity shows!

For those who watch the news I’m sure they have noticed has had quite a streak of extreme weather condition from snowstorms, to wind storms, to heavy rain falls. I didn’t get hit too much where I live compared to other areas of the city. Apparently “This is not normal” but I don’t know the difference so I’ve been taking in all I can from it. You like rain? Well head on the west coast I say, it rains every day here that it’s almost awesome… almost.

As mentioned earlier, my parents did send money up and some other Christmas presents in the mail since they had no idea I was going to come home to surprise them! Mwhahaha I am so evil! My sister and I have been lying through our teeth since November making up all sorts of stories about how I could not come home for the Holidays because I had to work etc. Well let me tell you we played it right because when I popped in the house with my Santa hat and my bouquet of flowers, everyone was so surprised to see me, Good times J

My stay in New Brunswick was short but tons of fun and I had a great time to see my friends once again and just hang out like ol’ times.

I hope this makes up for a lack of updates in the last 2 months. I could say that I will try to update this more often but I’d rather not make empty promises. I do have a bunch of topic ideas floating in my head and I just need to take a few minutes to write something, and now that I will have a camera ready, it will be easier for me to include visual aids and work stories around them. So with that I will try to try to update on a semi-regular schedule (once or twice a week to start off).

On that note, it’s already time to start a whole new year. Happy New Year everyone, I heard that 2007 is suppose to be a good one! J

Cheers!

Posted by Brian at 7:40 PM | | Comments