Happy Birthday Sue!

Saturday morning I did a little maintenance on my site, had some lunch, then went for a dog walk with Sue, KaptainK, Yoshi, and Digger at Island View Beach. Fun times. Except when Digger decided that he needed to do a little business right beside a family that was roasting marshmallows over a fire. Bad dog Digger!

Some snaps from the day:

And for something a little different, here we have Digger digging on the beach.

Saturday night was fun too! We went to Christie’s Carriage house pub for some eats and drinks. Nothing like miing a good pub burger with some excellent beer (Kilkenny). Very enjoyable day in all.

Friday night was fun. A guy from work had won a gift certificate for a brewery tour at Vancouver Island Brewery. It wwas a great way to get to know some of my coworkers. I met up with them at the brewery, had a couple drinks, did the tour, then had a few more.

The tour itself was pretty interesting. There was a history of beer brewing on Vancouver Island, an overview of the ingredients, and the process for making beer, the steps followed after the beer is brewed, then an overview of their bottling facility.

After finishing up at the brewery, we then decided to head down to the Canoe Club for some mroe drinks. Mmmm, beeeeer!

Around 12:30 I decided to call it a night and was going to grab a cab home. When I got to Johson St, I couldn’t find any cabs, so I just walked home, stopping at Tim Horton’s for a late night snack. Gotta love those Canadian Maple Donuts.

Tuesday night we had a couple people over to watch the Flames take on the Tampa Bay Lightning. We also ordered in from Salty’s Fish and Chips.

Definitely a good dining experience there! Service was quick, and friendly. They are only a few blocks from my place too, so turnaround time from ordering to eating was in the neighbourhood of 15 minutes. This meant that the food was still piping hot. Speaking of the food, it was yummy! The battered fish was excellent, and the chips spectacular (even when they got cold). Also, the measure of a good fish and chip shop is in the amount of tartar sauce they give you. We had just he right amount, so that was pretty good. The downside was that it was all in individual packets so getting to the sauce was a pain.

As for the game, it was pretty good too. I quite enjoyed watching the Flames beat the Lightning.

Phew, long week. It was a good first week at the new job. I was doing some testing yesterday and today and found a couple previously unreported bugs.

Now I turn my attention to the weekend, and another downhill race. I am ready for action! Tonight I am going to head to Nanaimo to stay at my moms. Tomorrow morning I begin a long day of practicing (with no shuttle support). Then Sunday I race! Wish me luck!

Mmmm, coffee. This morning after dropping Sue off at work I headed to a new coffee shop close to home. It is called Buon Amici’s (there website appears to be down at this time). Excellent coffee, yummy muffins, good service, a great atmosphere, and (apparently) free wireless internet connection. They also have a couple internet terminals set up, but I am not sure if they charge for their use or not.

I sat in the shop, in the corner in a comfy leather chair. I sipped my coffee, ate my muffin, and read my book (more on the book later). It was a very enjoyable experience too, one that I would like to repeat some day. Unfortunately for me, my days off are dwindling, so I must make the best of what is left. Somehow I find it easier to concentrate on my reading there than I do at home. In all I was there around a couple hours, and I got a lot of reading done (in amongst the people watching).

Today had been a very productive day. I took Yoshi to Elk Lake for a walk this morning. It was slightly raining, but that didn’t slow us down. Yoshi had a grand time running through the grass. He can be quite a character while running too. At one point the grass was taller than he was, and he was “porpoising” through it. It was quite funny to watch. Of course, he was absolutely soaked. I expected he would get wet, but every single inch of him was soaked. After our walk, I grabbed the kong, and we had a retrieving session, something I havent done with him in a while. When he finally called it quits, he was quite content to jump in the truck after his towel down! He has been a very happy pooch all day.

After that it was a couple errands, which included signing up for parking with Robbins. This turned out to be a lot easier than I was expecting. A few signatures, hand over the credit card, a couple initials, and I was back out the door. Easy.

Once I got back home, it was time to work on the office a bit. Sue and I decided to switch the office and the spare bedroom. I am starting by moving the computer gear, and a little furniture. The shaw dude comes tomorrow to move the cable outlet.

I did a little reading up on C# (I have a lot more to go), and now I am sipping on some coffee from River City Coffee in Powell River. So far it has been a great day.

The bike is prepped, the bags are packed. Tomorrow morning I will be off to the races. Literally. Shane, Mike and I are heading up Island to do Hammerfest! Yeehaw. This is the one race that I make sure I do every year. I always have lots of fun at this race, but unfortunately I usually injure myself before the race.

This year is going to be very different. After the last race, the course was logged. This means that this year there is a whole new race course! Also, this is no longer a BC Cup race, so it will be more low key than ever, and probably less people racing as well. Hopefully there won’t be an hour long wait for my race run like previous years. I am also crossing my fingers that the weather will be better this year. Previous years it has rained, hailed, and snowed.