Friday, October 23, 2009

It's the Olympics! Welcome?

This shot was taken at the Downtown campus for UBC. This secluded little rink is hidden underneath Robson street and is right in front of the main campus entrance. I am fortunate enough to be taking a course there over the next few weeks for work. I have walked past this campus hundreds of times without ever having a reason to go in and explore so it was nice to finally check it out.

There has been a lot of activity around Vancouver in preparation for the Olympics. We have had police drills lately where officers were climbing Science World and helicopters were flying around at low altitudes. At this early stage it is all a novelty. I'm curious to see how novel it all is two weeks prior to the main event. I fear the world may be introduced to some grumpy Vancouverites who are near the end of their collective rope.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Ever since I hurt my back last, I have stopped shaving. While the natural result was that I was sporting a full beard, it was also driving me crazy. My facial hair tends to be very coarse and somewhat curly which means that if I manage to get past the first 'itchy phase', I have the pleasure of going through it again usually a few days later.

It also didn't help that the beard wasn't very popular at home. My wife put up with it at first, but after a few weeks started to protest. From then it was really only a matter of time before I was to shave again.

Anyway, at this point I am once again clean shaven. It took me two days to get the beard off but the job is done. Normally the first shave after a while is extra smooth, but this one was very difficult. I was just happy to get the job done without too much discomfort.