Anyone need ibook parts?

So yes, this is a photo of some guy's convertible with the the top down while it hails and rains into his car. I don't think he was there any longer than he had to be (probably unloading the box) but he wasn't looking very happy about things when he walked past me. For my part, I found it hugely entertaining and had to grab this picture.

So hey, does anyone out there need spare parts for a 12" ibook G4 computer? Ours finally gave up the ghost but I'm sure we could salvage a few parts like the LCD or maybe the battery or disk drive, etc. I'll probably advertise on craigslist as well since we no longer have a use for it.

Surprise snow in Vancouver

It looks like April Fools came early around here this year. Vancouver got a bit of snow today, which means March is going out like a 'lion'. We still get the last laugh though because we haven't had frost in our ground so I expect this little bit will be gone before this time tomorrow.

Look at me, pretending to be Mr. Weatherman.

So what do we do while the snow and rain is coming down outside? Well my wife put a turkey in the oven so now our place smells fantastic and is toasty warm, despite the damp weather. For my part, I recycled a few things and picked up some wine to go with the turkey. Neither one of us has really eaten much today, so I'm hoping tonight's dinner becomes a feast.

Today's photo is another one taken from our vacation. Holly and I found this bar in one of the 'special' areas on our resort, but they still served us just the same. It was nice because it was a lot quieter, since the bulk of the tourists were in other areas. The glass table top is reflecting the framework of the roof, which was quite high to help keep the place comfortable inside.

Walking the dog at night

Cadero at Comox
Originally uploaded by iTripped

I stopped to take a few photos last night as I was walking Louise, mostly because it was a good night for it but also just to play around with my camera some. I modified this photo a little to take some of the yellow tint out of it mostly to correct the other colours that were overpowered by the artificial light in the area.

Vancouver has some surprisingly well lit areas at night so getting some interesting shots is not a hard thing to do. One of the things going on is that the city is flushing the water mains in this area, so we also happened to see an open fire hydrant and I got a few interesting pics of that as well. In so doing, I also stepped into some dog crap (from another dog, not mine) but luckily there was a handy supply of running water to wash my shoe off so I did not complain.

Moonlight dinner

Moonlight dinner
Originally uploaded by iTripped

I found out today that due to the fact that I had my uvula removed about five years ago, I do not qualify for a new anti-snoring procedure. I was in for a consultation today and the doctor determined that my snoring is coming from the sides of my throat, so even if I did not have the earlier procedure done, the newer one (that involves injecting silicone rods into your soft palate) would probably not have helped me either. To top it off, this new procedure has never been done on people who have also had the other procedure done, so basically no doctor is going to want to try on me anyway.

My only option at this point is to use a CPAP machine, which basically means trying to sleep with a face mask on. I certainly hope that modern medical science is able to figure out an alternative measure for me but at this point, it doesn't seem wise to hold my breath.

On a brighter note, today's photo was taken when Holly and I were eating at the resort. I had to use the tripod on my camera to hold it steady for the long exposure, but was happy with how the photo turned out. On Thursday I will have to pick up the bride and groom at the airport and look forward to hearing what other adventures they had after we left. Should be fun.

Back to work once again

My vacation was planned in such a way that we returned home and still had a few days before I had to be back into the office. It felt like a mini vacation and was kind of nice, to be honest.

What you are looking at in this photo is perhaps the best angle to view the largest of the ancient buildings in Tulum, Mexico. There is a staircase built to give access to the beach below and this day was a great day to play in the water. The wind prevented any serious snorkeling, but the water was warm and inviting. I got in trouble with my wife when I took this picture because it meant I had to hop out onto some rocks and that was too close to peril for her comfort. But at least I got the photo and it didn't turn out like crap (like so many others did).

Just out of this photo is a rather large iguana at my feet. He didn't seem to mind me being there at all, so long as I didn't block his sun. I could have stayed here for hours, but if I did I would probably have burned in the sun. We had to re-apply sunscreen a couple times on this excursion.

Back from Mexico

I learned something about beer in Mexico. Beer is a water substitute there, and drinking it helps prevent a thirsty traveler from suffering 'Montezuma's revenge', which you can get from tap water down there.

There are two reasons I did not blog while I was away. One, my wifi access was very limited - it wasn't until I was halfway through my stay when I discovered where it was, in one remote shop on the resort. The other reason was that even with wifi, I did not have a good way to upload any of the photos I took. Expect a few post-vacation posts to feature some of the better ones.

There were about twenty of us that went on this wedding trip and roughly half of us managed to get sick for at least a day. Luckily, my wife and I managed to play it safe enough to not be in the 'sick' group. The worst I had was a sunburn on my back on the second day, that was mostly healed by the time I returned. We had only gone out on one excursion (to the Mayan ruins) and decided ahead of time not to eat or drink anything but bottled water until we returned. In fact, the only thing I had off-resort the whole trip was this Corona pictured here. I had that on the tour bus that brought us in, and it was the only beer that I paid cash for (three dollars).

The evolution of money

Okay, so the other day I got some change when I bought some stuff at the store. I'm purposely being vague on the place because when I tried to spend some of my change later, I was informed that I had a counterfeit $10 bill. When I compared my bill to one that the cashier had (the one who said it wasn't real) the two bills did look similar enough to be the 'same' but also had enough differences to suspect one to be fake. As it turned out, both were in fact real and not counterfeit.

At least, I HOPE that my bill was real. About a day later I bought some more stuff and used my 'fake' bill without thinking about it. At least by that time I had seen enough on wikipedia to be confident that it was just an older version of the bill and not a real fake. Yes, I did enjoy writing that last sentence.

Hopefully the photos I took show the differences and also obscure the bills enough that they can't be used for making copies. I noticed that not even wikipedia has photos of the bills, which is probably prudent.

Shake shake shake your Shamrocks

I bought the office Shamrock Shakes the other day. It was a teambuilding kind of thing, where people who had never had one before were able to try out the minty flavoured milkshake from McDonald's. All told, I had 25 milkshakes to buy, which was about 10 more than the milkshake machine seems to be able to handle at once, at least at that particular McDonald's. We walked from the office (I had about ten co-workers with me) so the plan was to carry them back.

Don't worry, they all made it back to the office. It was fun to see some people who claimed to not like them at all try it anyway and admit to enjoying it. I ended up blending some of mine into my decaf coffee, which turned out quite good, despite the colour. It is all about the proportions, I think. I also think the camera had too much blue in the photo compared to reality.

Here in Canada, this was only possible as of 2008, as McDonald's had discontinued the Shamrock Shake for the past five years. It is also possibly the only time I consider getting a milkshake at McDonald's and even so, it is more out of nostalgia than any real craving for the taste.

The price of eggs

One of the things we did this weekend was to go shopping in South Granville. Yes, that is right, we left the downtown core for Kitsilano. We had to return some lamps to Pier One Imports and figured that since we were going to be over there, we would also check out Meinhardt foods to hopefully get some balsamic vinegar on sale.

Let me just say now that I am no expert when it comes to balsamic vinegar. I knew it could get expensive, but my version of that story approaches $30 - $45 dollars. I had no idea it could get up into several hundred dollars!
My pictures turned out blurry, probably because of my state of disbelief - but you can still see the prices in the first one.

I know I don't exactly sound like a 'sophisticate' when I talk about sticker shock, but it does amaze me sometimes what some people will pay for things. There were many other shops in the same area that were substantially more expensive than their competitors even though they were selling exactly the same stuff. Some of the kitchen stores had amazing markup, often in the double digits when compared to their mall equivalents. What possesses a person to say 'yes, I will pay $20 to $50 extra for this item even though I can find it cheaper within my local area.'? It can't be convenience, since often these places are on the same block. It can't be brand because that is the same. I just don't get it.