Stormy day here in Victoria. I awoke to the sounds of a huge downpour. Just before leaving for work, the sun tried to come out from the clouds, and this sunrise was the result. Gorgeous! I would have liked to get better angles and better compositions on these shots, but it was still raining quite heavily when I took them, so I couldn’t go outside. Still, I like how they turned out. Later in the day the rain gave way to wind. It was pretty neat walking around downtown seeing huge columns of leaves swriling around in a circle.
Driveway River
I feel the need to relate the story of the hole in my front yard. It is a nice hole, but I would rather it get filled. Also, it isn’t a hole that I created.
It started last Friday (Nov 5) when Suede and I came home for lunch. As we were pulling into the driveway I noticed that the grass was really wet, and that the street was a little wet. On closer inspection I saw that some water was flowing up through the ground right beside the end of our driveway.
Hmm, not good.
We called the city, and notified our landlord.
What follows next is quite funny.
Suede took Yoshi for a walk, and when she came home, there was a orange pylon by the end of the driveway.
A little later a Victoria City works truck showed up, and two guys got out and inspected the leak. One of them placed a cell phone call, and all he said was “Yep, there is a leak”. Meanwhile, the other pops off the closest manhole cover, and confirms that he can see water leaking down there too. Then they get in their truck and leave. They told Suede that they should get to it by Wednesday (Nov 10).
At some point in the afternoon our pylon got upgraded from a orange pylon to one of those construction, sandwich board, blinky signs. Wooooo!
Over the weekend the water started to really come out of the leak. It was sending quite a river of water down our road, and into the storm drain. The grass was supersaturated, and the edge of the driveway had no support under it any more.
Tuesday (Nov 9) we came home to a large hole in the front yard, dug right beside the end of the driveway. There are now 4 of the blinky signs, all connected with flagging tape (another upgrade). The hole is about 5 feet long, 2 feet wide, and about 6 feet deep. Really, it is a nice hole, but every day when I drive down my street I have a slight anticipation of what I am going to find. Unfortunately there is still a hole, and there hasn’t been any progress in a while.
There is always tomorrow though.
Hip Bent
The Hip though, were magnificent. They played a combination of new stuff, and a lot of older stuff. I much prefer their older material. To me their past couple releases have had a lot of songs that sound very similar. Their newest releases have felt very flat to me.
The sound was pretty good, but I felt that the mix was a little off. I someimes found it difficult to hear Gord Downie over the rest of the band, especially when he went off on a rant (which he did a few times). I was happy to see that Mr. Downie hasn’t changed much on stage. He is still as strange as ever! His antics up there were priceless. I remember one time I saw them in concert he was riding his mic stand like it was a horse. He rode it so hard that he bent the thing and a rodaie had to bring him a new one for the next song!
In that respect he really hasn’t changed. At times he looked like he was in the middle of some bizzarre seizure. Ahh, good Canadian boys!
After the concert we headed back to Suede’s moms place, and then this morning (after getting too few hours of sleep), we hopped back on the ferry and came home. Whirlwind trip to Vancouver, but as usual, it was fun!
The set list (from thehip.com)
Vaccination Scar
Grace, Too
Poets
It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken
Summer’s Killing Us
Courage
Bobcaygeon
Nautical Disaster
It Can’t Be Nashville Every Night
Boots Or Hearts
Inevitability Of Death
Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park
At The Hundredth Meridian
As Makeshift As We Are
Springtime In Vienna
Goodnight Josephine
My Music @ Work
New Orleans Is Sinking
1st Encore:
You’re Everywhere
Ahead By A Century
Blow At High Dough
2nd Encore:
Fully, Completely
Heaven Is A Better Place Today
Donation Pie
Mmmm, pie!??! Last night Suede and I donated blood again. Blood donation 23 for me! It was a little more time consuming this time due to our recent travels to Mexico (and the accompanying vaccination we got). In the end we got through, donated our blood, then moved on to the cookie table where the volunteers were serving pie! I had never seen this before but some of the local businesses sometimes donate food for the donaters. The volunteer told us how the Subway close by once donated sub sandwiches all night long. Very cool.
After our recuperation period, we went out for dinner to Yoshi Sushi.
Oak Memory
Sunday the photo club met in Oak Bay for our shoot. It took me a few minutes to get into shooting, but once I got on a roll, I ended up with some great shots. I practiced a new handheld technique to try and get better, more in focus pitures. On most digital cameras there ia a high speed mode. I shot using that most of the day, and certainly noticed that of the sequence shots I took, some were more in focus than others. Some even dramatically so! Very cool. Downside is that it chews up the memory on the card. Ah well, time to buy a bigger card?
The rest of my pics are here.
Restaurant Pictures
This past weekend some of Suede’s family visited with us. As I mentioned in a previous post Friday we went out to our favorite restaurant, and as usual, it didn’t dissappoint. Well, I quite enjoyed my meal, but Suede and her step-mom were less than ecstatic about their dinner.
Saturday Suede, her step-mom, and I took Yoshi to Matheson Lake and did that jaunt in what seemed like record time. I still found time to take some pictures of the colored leaves. Yoshi of course loved the romp in the woods. The neat thing about that walk, like so many surrounding Victoria, is that you don’t see anyone else there. When we got to the parking lot there were no other vehicles, and when we were finished, there was one other vehicle there. Very nice considering it is about a 15-20 minute drive from our home.
After the walk, we stopped for some food at My Chosen Cafe, then headed home to get cleaned up. Lovely start to the day.
Commenting Approval
I may return to anonymous commenting in a week or so and see what happens, but for now you will have to login or register to leave a comment.
Hour Version
Well, I just spent the last hour or so doing some site upgrades. First I upgraded my Gallery version to it’s latest.
Then I spent a lot more time upgrading my version of Drupal to 4.5.0 There are some cool things about this new version, but once again I need to redo my theme. That is alway a pain in the ass. I think I got everything else upgraded and working again though. If I missed something, just shoot me an email.
Support Home
So now I sit here at my desk relaxing a little, enjoying a beer :guzzle:
Yum.
Must go home soon. Suede and I are heading out to our favorite restaurant for dinner with her Dad and step-mom.
