Where to start?  Well, after trying for 2-3 years, I finally transferred from the Vancouver Operations Centre to Abbotsford in late January.  The commute has been so much better!  The people out there are great and it certainly was the change that I needed.  I’ve applied for a couple of service technician positions out there, one of which is still pending.  I’m ready for a change.  I’ve been an installer for over 8 years.

It terms of travel, I’ve been very lucky.  I had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon in April.  Going to Las Vegas was amazing just for the experience of the altered reality that it provides.  Arizona and the Grand Canyon had a different significance to me.  In the winter, my grandfather would go down to the Tucson area to wait out the cold to leave southern Ontario.  As a child, I remember him talking about Arizona and what it has to offer.  He should us pictures of the Grand Canyon and even then, I knew that I wanted to go see it for myself some day.  Well, mid-April was my chance, and I couldn’t pass it up.  Even though it is very much a tourist attraction, I managed to find some peace there.  I literally sat on the edge, looking over it and thought about my grandfather.  Meghan just let me have my time there, not saying a word.  It was what I needed.

Two months after that trip, it was time to take out highly anticipated cross-country trek from Maple Ridge to Winnipeg.  My youngest brother was getting married and I simply could not miss it.  on a nearly 2 week trip, we drove across, seeing many things along the way.  It was great to reconnect with my family again and spend some time with them.  This was also an opportunity to get to know my new sister-in-law a little more.  Andrew and Martha seem to be perfect for each other.

In the summer, Meghan, the girls and I went camping only once, but we made it worthwhile.  We went to Vancouver Island and stayed in Victoria for the first night (and a hotel there!).  The next morning we drove up the coast to the Courtney are and stayed at Miracle Beach.  It was nice and sandy, but we didn’t get a lot of opportunity to enjoy it due to rain.  We did manage to find a short window of time when the tide was out to go digging in the sand for sand dollars and clams.  (They bite, I discovered!).  We also managed to find Canada’s largest geocache.  Then again, it’s not that hard to miss as you go by.

Lastly, in terms of travel, Meghan and I didn’t have the kids over Thanksgiving, so we decided to take a quick two-day trip down the west coast to Oregon.  We managed to get all the way down to Florence, where there are a lot of sand dunes.  We would have gone on a dune buggy, but we got there too late.  So, we drove to a state recreation area with sand dunes, and played in the sand there (both myself and in my truck).

It has been a remarkable year for geocaching for me.  My personal goal for the year was to find 200, which was double the amount that I had found the previous year..  Well..  I blew that out of the water.  Unless I go out with the kids later today to find one (not very likely), I found 386 in four provinces and four states.  Not too shabby.  I think I’ll try and make my goal for next year to be somewhere between 400-450.

Towards the end of the year, my back injury has been getting worse again.  For the month of December, I’ve been restricted to light office duties until it improves.  I find out on January 4th what the next course of action will be.  It could be a bumpy year next year.

For 2012, I’ve set some goals for myself.  I plan on losing a fair bit of weight, and getting into yoga to help strengthen my core muscles.  In a general sense, I’m planning on getting rid of the crap in my life — both physically and mentally.  I’ve been letting too much drag me down and that has to change.

So..  That’s pretty much it.  I’m also hoping to start blogging some more.  The one thing I’ve noticed about myself is that when the shit hits the fan, that’s when I get quiet on here and Facebook.  I’ll try to keep the complaining to a minimum too..  :)

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope your 2012 treats you well!

In case you haven’t already heard, Canadian icon, Lloyd Robertson signed off for the last time as CTV’s National News anchor after being with the network for 35 years. His career started long before that, but I’m going to focus on his CTV years..

From a very young age, I’ve always associated late night news with Lloyd Robertson. I remember in the 80’s when I’d occasionally get to stay up late and watch the news with that blue background that has always reminded me of vertical blinds. I’d lie in bed at night and hear through the floor the all too familiar opening tune to his newscast and try and make out what he was saying.

As I got older, I still tuned in to watch the news with Lloyd. Events like the Challenger shuttle explosion, to the fall of the Berlin wall. Celebrations, wars, natural disasters, or any other local, national or world events. There are few things today that stay consistent, but watching the days events with Lloyd explaining what happened was one of those reliable things.

Even though most Canadians never met him, I believe that we all learned about our world and country from him. So many newscasters “tell” you the news, but few explained it like he did.

Lisa LaFlamme certainly has big shoes to fill. It will be interesting to see what happens with late night news ratings.

Lloyd, if you happen to read this, thank you for being a part of my life. You will be missed on the late night news by myself and all Canadians.

Good luck and enjoy your retirement!

Every now and then, my mind wanders..  okay..   frequently my mind wanders..   In the past week, I’ve come up with a couple questions for you all..

1.  What is the difference between a forest and orchard.  If I’m growing Christmas trees, would it be an orchard or forest?

2.  How many trees need to be grouped together to be considered a forest?

Yes..   I’ve had a lot of spare time recently..  :)

I’ve had this blog for over four years.  For those of you that have been reading it,  you’ve been right there with me through the good and the bad.   Mostly the good.  One thing that I’ve noticed during my blogging years is that when things get rough for me, I blog much less.   As an example, to date, I have only written a post about Day One of my trip to Winnipeg.. and that was a ten day trip..

Recently, I had to renew my subscription with the company that handles my webhosting.  I pondered whether I should just let the blog go..  Along with it would go my domain of eagleinbc.com, along with another site that I help run.  In the grand scheme of things, I doubt that very many people would notice the sites missing..

I could try and make an effort to blog a little more.  Usually, when I’m at work, I can come up with ideas of things to write about, but when it comes to the end of the day, I forget them or can’t be bothered..

Another idea I had was to change the format to a vlog.  I know someone who has been vlogging for years and it definitely seems like something that I’d like to start doing more of.  The thing is that I know that I would need to commit to myself the time to not only shoot the videos, but to edit them at least a little.

The third option is to sign off the blog and let it go.  A thought that has occurred several times to me over the last few months, but I do enjoy it as an outlet for me.

What to do…….

We got there around 5:30pm to see how things were and decide whether we would eat dinner before or after. There were about 100 people in line, so we decided to wait in line. Around 6pm, the staff led us into the store and started us snaking through the bookshelves to line up to get our books signed. They had a DJ there who was playing some decent music and we waited.. and waited..

Finally at 7pm, the book signing starts with 250-300 people in line waiting. It wasn’t until 8:30 that we got up to the table where Russell was sitting. He said hi, asked how we were doing and signed our books while the staff of Chapters used our camera and took candid photo’s of us at the table. And then that was it.. we were done.

Now, I do enjoy Russell Peters comedy routine.. But if I were a die-hard fan, I would have been pretty disappointed with the whole thing. He was nice and polite, but didn’t seem too engaged in the whole event. Of course, if I was meeting that many people and signing my name that many times in a night, I might not be either..

So, I have a copy of his book.. It’ll probably be a good read and then sit on the shelf..

On the bright side, it was a good excuse to not go home after work and clean my bathroom..

The year started off with promise. I got to go on a trip back home to Ontario — something that hasn’t happened for 9 nine years. I visited my family and a few friends on my quick trip back.. It started off well!

Then the 2010 Winter Games were here! An exciting event that I brought the kids to see the sights downtown. We even took the kids to see a Sledge Hockey game for the Paralympics..

Sadly, this was also a turning point. The same day as the hockey game was the same day that my wife and I let our children know that we were separating. It wasn’t an easy decision, but after being together for over 12 years, it wasn’t working for us..

Shortly after I moved out. And since then, things have been a very different. I left nearly everything in the house, so I had to quickly furnish a place as inexpensively as possible. (Well.. the inexpensively part didn’t work out so well). I’ve also had to learn how to operate a household on my own. This is the first time in my life that I’ve had to be on my own. And yes.. I do suck at housekeeping! My ex and I are also still working on how to schedule the kids around our needs, and parent as a cohesive unit that live separate lives now. A challenge indeed..

I’ve met someone as well. This happened much quicker than I thought and she’s had to put up with me. I’ve been all over the map in terms of how I feel about where I am in life, dating and family. It’s been over four months since I’ve moved out and this new lady in my life has been supportive (she’s clearly a sucker for punishment!). I’ve made mistakes and I still keep trying to improve myself.

I’ve had a lot more time for myself. When I don’t have the kids and when I’m not working, I spend time with this new woman in my life (Meghan). I go geocaching, have gone camping a couple times (with another trip planned in a couple weeks), and still am full of good intentions..

So, here it is on a beautiful, sunny holiday Monday. I’m planning to take the kids to the beach today, play in the water and find seashells and some crabs.. I have no idea where life is taking me at the moment, but I’m still moving forward. Who knows where this journey will take me.

Hopefully, I’ll be blogging a lot more regularly now..

I changed my background pic from me in front of Alcatraz, from my trip to San Francisco last March to a skyline shot of Toronto, (with me blocking it!), from my trip home this past January.

So..  on with spring cleaning!  Good luck with yours!  :)

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/glowing-hearts-day-in-bc.html

Have a great day!

Well, not really..  While the rest of the world goes on with life, with athletes returning home, and regular TV programming resumes, Vancouver is very much in the Olympic spirit.  How does a city and country come down from the high?  How do we resume life after over two weeks of a big party?  There are still the Paralympics to come.  All the pavilions will be open again, but I imagine that the whole event will be a little more low-key.

On the radio today, there was a report saying that this is not uncommon in cities that have hosted the Olympics.  There are going to be counsellors available to VANOC employees to help them transition back to the real world of work.  Ever since July of 2003 when the world heard Jacques Rogge announce that Vancouver was awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics, things have been building towards it.  Major construction projects, such as the athletes village and the Canada Line, reports warning about road closures and the traffic mayhem to expect.  The general hype around it was building until February 12th when it was finally here.  Now that the Games are over, we all look around at each other and say, “Now what?”

Well, the sad reality is that after the Paralympics, it’s all done.  Vancouver will return to life as it was before, but with one last question.  What will happen to the economy here?  We’ve avoided a lot of the job losses here so far, but without the driving force that we’ve had here, no one knows what is going to happen….

For months, VANOC was warning us of impending road closures and traffic/transit congestion. The truth is that my 75 minute commute from home to work (and back) has been reduced to 35-40 minutes through the duration of the Games. Yes, you read that correctly.. The Olympics are good for my commute. Who woulda thunk it?! Whether it was intentional, VANOC seemed to prepare us for the worst, but the situation turned out really well. I drove downtown the other day and parked on the street a block away from The Bay.

People are generally more friendly and patriotic! I’ve seen more Canadian flags in the last two weeks than you ever do for Canada Day. People are waving them in the streets and drivers honk as they go by. The Olympics seem to have really united this country…. even for a couple weeks.

I took my kids downtown last weekend to take part in the general celebrations.. It was amazing! Lots of people everywhere, but I didn’t notice very many people that seemed frustrated with the crowds. The lineup to get into the Olympic Superstore at The Bay downtown appears long, but only takes 15-20 minutes to wait for.

It’s been a challenge trying to find the popular Team Canada hoodies too. Even though they were in stores for four months prior to the Games, I never bought one.. By the time I decided that I wanted one, they were nowhere to be found. Eventually, I resorted to Craigslist to find one for my wife and I… paying double what they would have in the store just one month earlier.

Now everything isn’t all sunshine and puppy dogs though. There have been issues with the Games too. Everyone has heard about the tragic death of Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, which has brought into question about the safety of the track. Even the IOC has stated that they never requested that VANOC build a track as fast as they did.

The lack of snow has been an issue. I’ve lived here for nearly 13 years and this is the mildest winter I can recall. Even my first visit to Vancouver in February of 1997 was warm, but not like this! Fortunately, Whistler and Cypress Mountains have managed to work around it and (to my knowledge) get the events rescheduled.. It is too bad that 28,000 tickets had to be refunded for Cypress because of unsafe conditions for spectators that weren’t in the stands.

I am glad to hear that the pavilions are going to be open for the Paralympics too. I think that we should make just as big a deal over them as the Olympics. I guess we’ll see how that all turns out in a couple more weeks. I bought tickets for Sledge Hockey too.. I could afford those tickets!

That’s about it for now. I’m hoping to make it downtown tomorrow to take in more of the amazing atmosphere down there.. If not, I will definitely be going there during the Paralympics.