Sunday, March 06, 2011

Fried Chicken and Waffles

Long ago I referred to a lovely restaurant in Roanoke, Virginia, that served fried chicken and waffles, I found a picture I had taken of my breakfast there.

SF

Was in San Francisco for the first time. Weather was kind of lousy, unfortunately, it was that time of year, but I ended up there on an especially bad week. No matter, it was great fun.

Was there for the RSA conference on work's dime. Which may be my last work trip for awhile, I have a new job, with little to no travel. So basically my life is going to change, and it will likely take me a few months to sort things out. I am looking forward to no more twice a week flights, but am going to miss being "away". Not sure what the future of this blog will be, hopefully I can find some interesting things to post, there just won't be enough travel pics to sustain it.

Now it's picture time.

Nothing wrong with copying the Pantheon, even if you are hawking Armani


Palace of fine arts, captured a nice blue in the first one




RSA has a big budget, because it is kind of expensive. They throw a pretty big party. It was at City Hall, which is a great place for a party, lots of stone and space above your head inside. The dance floor did fill up by the end of the night. Cover band was "Livewire" they were fun














This is what City Hall looks like from the outside, I stole this photo from a website because I forgot to take one of the building from the outside in the daylight.


Got to the SF MoMA, some pieces I liked.






A building I liked


I had a full Saturday to explore the city. I usually have good luck with weather, but in this case Saturday was by far the worst day of the week. Still managed to see the bridge and some stuff from a friend's car.








Alcatraz is the island to the left, city to the right, just a miserable day.


Diego Rivera has a number of murals in the city, this one is at the San Francisco Institute of Art, it is really good. There is another one, "Pan American Unity" but it is at another college and was closed because of President's Day, I must return to see it.


Saturday evening fun was found in the Castro, everyone I met was extremely drunk but extremely friendly, I was charmed.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

America: F-Ya!

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Vacation 2010 Pictures

So long since I have updated this thing.  Had an incredibly busy autumn filled mostly with work...*barf*.  I did volunteer on an election campaign in the civic election, not Nenshi, someone running for councilor.  We had a good showing but didn't manage to pull it off, we were running against an incumbent and it's really hard to beat an incumbent.  I think I took the loss harder than the candidate.  Also took a 2-D animation class, I'll try and post some videos of my animations, they're pretty funny and crudely drawn.

The other really cool thing was a good friend from Virginia was in Calgary.  When I was down there I had said to him, maybe one day he could come up to Calgary and visit me.  He said he would like to but may not ever make it for various reasons.  Work is hard to come by in south western Virginia, he had been looking for work for a long time and eventually found a job in Alaska.  I knew he was going to find work eventually, and of all the possible scenarios, there is probably only one that would result in him coming through Calgary: if he found a job in Alaska and decided to drive from Virginia to Alaska, which pretty much brings you through Calgary.   That is exactly what he did and stopped by for a few days.  He could not have come at a better time, weather was good and we saw Arcade Fire and Primus while he was here.  He liked the poutine we went out for as well.

Adrian came to Canada from Switzerland for the second time in the summer.  It was damn fun.  I drove out to Vancouver and met him.  I hadn't made that drive in years, since I was about 13 I think.  It is so beautiful.  Sadly, you can see tons of the pine beetle devastation from the road, especially around Kamploops.  I met Adrian in Vancouver, we were in Vancouver over the Canada Day holiday, then over to Vancouver Island for a little surfing and fishing.  Then back to Calgary for some cow-town fun.  Adrian went home from Calgary.

Some pictures...

The Olympic flame was lit for Canada day, it was a real Canada extravaganza with a replay of the Olympic gold medal hockey game playing on a big screen half a block away. No one seemed to notice this foreigner with his flag.


Rented some bikes and went for a ride on the sea wall


Again....:-)


The Vancouver aquarium has this "4-D" movie, in addition to the glasses they spray water and poke your chair at the right time, it was ok.


Adrian brought me a portable Raclette grill powered by tea lights, I can survive an extended black out now.


Surfing in Tofino is pretty much the greatest thing ever. It is not cold. You get a wet suit, the waves are not dangerous and the beaches are unbelievable. It only takes about a half day lesson to enjoy a lifetime of surfing. Surfing is by no means easy, but the mechanics of it are, much simpler to learn than snowboarding in my opinion.

En route to our lesson






Us and the instructor. Guy was from Hawaii, must have the greatest job ever...






Adrian was a god on the surf board


On a hike


I whipped this German guy at Super Chexx


We also chartered a fishing boat and guide in Ucluelet. If you want to go fishing in Ucluelet, get Josh, he's awesome. Don't be squares like us, bring beer to drink for after the fishing.

Ucluelet wharf


The boat




The title of this photo is "pride"




The day's take, 13 fish in total, 3 halibut, 4 chinook salmon, 9 seabass, 1 ling cod. That's the daily limit for 3 people.




Adrian loves the stampede, and I love to do what Adrian loves to do




We met this random lady at the show, she was nice, she may have liked us because we remembered umbrellas.




We did the zip line at Canada Olympic Park, I only add the picture here to say that it was kind of lame


Had a bunch of people over to my parent's house to help eat all the fish




I got talked into digging out the school photos


All the photos are here:
Adrian_Canada_2010