Travelogue #1
Let the title be warning lest
you be unexpectedly bored.
My vacation started off interesting. I got to the Victoria Clipper pier at 7am on Wednesday. I was expecting to get a good nap on the way.
There was a hardware problem with a a system I support and the dba (hardware/server support administrator for database systems) was working on it, but has a mental block to anything another person suggests or provides, and has no concept of listening to the actual customer, or awareness he is serving another's needs. I had to keep escalating the problem, and finally got it pushed to higher level early Tuesday morning. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, so started working before 5AM. I don't know how much was the upcoming weather change, and how much was worrying I wouldn't get things straightened out before vacation. I think the fact I was working five hours earlier than usual had an impact. Bob helped from the dev end as well, and luckily he is friends with the dba's manager which helped. I'm the senior dev on the system, so I guess I ended up playing the bad cop, though I remained diplomatic. Finally, they rebooted the system, which should have happened when I initially alerted them to the beginnings of the problem on November 26th, not on December 12th. Everything works fine for now, my frustration is relieved, and I don't have to work remotely. Happy days.
That night I met Steve and we saw the late showing of Borat, which was disgusting and I quite enjoyed it. Sometimes it's fun to roll with the pigs. A lot of things where you go, "this is about to go too far for me," then bang, the funny stuff they were setting up. I spent the night at Steve's, and he gave me a ride to the clipper, avoiding an early morning commute, and long term parking. A good way to wind down, but another night short of sleep. I didn't get the naps I'd expected on the trip either. I was so happy to be totally off on vacation I felt a bit rejuvenated anyway when I arrived...
The weather moved in earlier than predicted, and when I woke at Steve's feeling surprisingly chipper at 6:15AM on Wednesday, I heard the wind whistling around the apartment building and espied stuff blowing around on the streets, and mused to Steve about the possibility the clipper wouldn't be able to make the trip. At 7AM the boats were tossing like corks at the dock, though there were brief pauses where they just rocked violently. It was a wait, until the calm moments became long and calm enough to board. We got out of the slip about 9:20AM, nearly an hour and a half late. Due to the direction of the wind, that was the roughest bit of the trip. It was actually a pretty smooth ride, though we went up the east side of Whidbey Island, for the longer storm route. We were expecting a little chop crossing to Victoria, but things picked up and the seas for the crossing were over ten feet, and we ended up turning around.
Then a wait at the terminal for nearly an hour, waiting on the charter bus they reserved for those who still wanted to go north. So, once again around 1:30PM on Wednesday, we were departing Seattle. Pretty smooth drive, then a long, long wait for the truck crossing at Customs, which is usually pretty fast. Got to the large BC Ferry landing at Tsawwassen, missing my connection by less than five minutes, hearing the whistle blow as I was rushing to the ticket counter. I had ditched the bus, as I preferred the boat to Nanaimo, so Kalon wouldn't have to drive so far. The next boat was two and half hours later, at 8:15PM. At the landing, I finished reading the third script of the day, and started in on one I was working on for a rewrite. Found a bite to eat, and even though it was stuff I should be able to eat it didn't sit well later on, but it was better than starving. I got into Nanaimo about 10:45PM, 12 hours later than I was supposed to arrive in Victoria. Dave works in Victoria, and was going to give me a ride after work, but by the time I arrived he was back home and asleep, as he was working an early shift, which would have worked perfectly with my scheduled arrival time. Kalon rides the same ferry, on a day when it leaves an hour later, and kind of went on autopilot, so I had time to start reading another script while I waited in Nanaimo.
It was a long day, or technically two, as we arrived at the house a bit after Midnight. I was beat and in great spirits. On vacation, and finally meeting up with my good friends. Kind of a quiet visit for a couple days. Had a couple culinary successes on Thursday and Friday, so my reputation of this visiting chef par excellence is still intact. Since I'm a bit of an improvisational cook I know one day my reputation will be sullied. One of the dishes was a seafood dish, adapted from a recipe I developed over a couple years, but haven't prepared since I lived in Key West over fifteen years ago. It was a white sauce, and replacing the milk and wheat flour with water and rice flour worked better than I hoped. Surprisingly I remembered the little things I did to make the dish unique the night before. Hint, if you want to remember something like a recipe you've created, start talking about it over drinks with a friend. In five or ten minutes you'll recall everything.
Saturday a little before Noon Dave gave me a ride to the Greyhound station, so I could ride back up to Nanaimo and meet Aaron while they headed into Victoria for Dave's office holiday party. I talked to a great 18 year old guy on the bus whom I'd met the day before at a organic cafe in the Duncan Garage, and as we pulled into Nanaimo I saw Aaron in the lot waiting. Had a quick smoke, and started for a little food shopping and the trip back to Denman Island. Got nicely warmed up again on the ride and in the geodesic dome. The farrier came by as both horses had thrown a shoe in the last few days, and when Aaron had dinner ready for the final heating and blending and I felt nicely warmed to the core we went out in time to watch the second horse get shoed, from start to finish. He is one of the few left who hot shoes, so I got the whole treatment complete with clouds of smoke.
Then we, including their friend the farrier, came in for dinner, a movie (Evolution), and socialized. We wrapped up around 11:30PM, though it seemed much later. Aaron and Sonya live off the grid, so it is one of the few places on the islands with dependable power, though the windmill is offline from too much power -- burned out diode during a storm -- so they are back to using the generator to top off the batteries. They usually fire it up in the Summer for a few minutes here and there. Not much wind in the Summer, but lots more sun for the solar panels.
I slept wonderfully last night, and while it was an interesting trip I missed all the power outages. Duncan had lost power earlier, and the nasty storm that slammed Seattle, Victoria and environs passed us by. I'll have to ask the neighbors how long power was out when I get home, so I know if I need to empty the freezer. Meanwhile I'll enjoy my luck and time off. I did read a news account where the wind took down some high tension lines within ten or so blocks of my house, and shorted into the ground, eventually perforating the natural gas line creating an impressive fireball and torch until they could shut down the gas line. I live next to the same lines and pipes. If there's damage to my house or vehicles I think I'd rather wait until I return to find out.
you be unexpectedly bored.
My vacation started off interesting. I got to the Victoria Clipper pier at 7am on Wednesday. I was expecting to get a good nap on the way.
There was a hardware problem with a a system I support and the dba (hardware/server support administrator for database systems) was working on it, but has a mental block to anything another person suggests or provides, and has no concept of listening to the actual customer, or awareness he is serving another's needs. I had to keep escalating the problem, and finally got it pushed to higher level early Tuesday morning. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, so started working before 5AM. I don't know how much was the upcoming weather change, and how much was worrying I wouldn't get things straightened out before vacation. I think the fact I was working five hours earlier than usual had an impact. Bob helped from the dev end as well, and luckily he is friends with the dba's manager which helped. I'm the senior dev on the system, so I guess I ended up playing the bad cop, though I remained diplomatic. Finally, they rebooted the system, which should have happened when I initially alerted them to the beginnings of the problem on November 26th, not on December 12th. Everything works fine for now, my frustration is relieved, and I don't have to work remotely. Happy days.
That night I met Steve and we saw the late showing of Borat, which was disgusting and I quite enjoyed it. Sometimes it's fun to roll with the pigs. A lot of things where you go, "this is about to go too far for me," then bang, the funny stuff they were setting up. I spent the night at Steve's, and he gave me a ride to the clipper, avoiding an early morning commute, and long term parking. A good way to wind down, but another night short of sleep. I didn't get the naps I'd expected on the trip either. I was so happy to be totally off on vacation I felt a bit rejuvenated anyway when I arrived...
The weather moved in earlier than predicted, and when I woke at Steve's feeling surprisingly chipper at 6:15AM on Wednesday, I heard the wind whistling around the apartment building and espied stuff blowing around on the streets, and mused to Steve about the possibility the clipper wouldn't be able to make the trip. At 7AM the boats were tossing like corks at the dock, though there were brief pauses where they just rocked violently. It was a wait, until the calm moments became long and calm enough to board. We got out of the slip about 9:20AM, nearly an hour and a half late. Due to the direction of the wind, that was the roughest bit of the trip. It was actually a pretty smooth ride, though we went up the east side of Whidbey Island, for the longer storm route. We were expecting a little chop crossing to Victoria, but things picked up and the seas for the crossing were over ten feet, and we ended up turning around.
Then a wait at the terminal for nearly an hour, waiting on the charter bus they reserved for those who still wanted to go north. So, once again around 1:30PM on Wednesday, we were departing Seattle. Pretty smooth drive, then a long, long wait for the truck crossing at Customs, which is usually pretty fast. Got to the large BC Ferry landing at Tsawwassen, missing my connection by less than five minutes, hearing the whistle blow as I was rushing to the ticket counter. I had ditched the bus, as I preferred the boat to Nanaimo, so Kalon wouldn't have to drive so far. The next boat was two and half hours later, at 8:15PM. At the landing, I finished reading the third script of the day, and started in on one I was working on for a rewrite. Found a bite to eat, and even though it was stuff I should be able to eat it didn't sit well later on, but it was better than starving. I got into Nanaimo about 10:45PM, 12 hours later than I was supposed to arrive in Victoria. Dave works in Victoria, and was going to give me a ride after work, but by the time I arrived he was back home and asleep, as he was working an early shift, which would have worked perfectly with my scheduled arrival time. Kalon rides the same ferry, on a day when it leaves an hour later, and kind of went on autopilot, so I had time to start reading another script while I waited in Nanaimo.
It was a long day, or technically two, as we arrived at the house a bit after Midnight. I was beat and in great spirits. On vacation, and finally meeting up with my good friends. Kind of a quiet visit for a couple days. Had a couple culinary successes on Thursday and Friday, so my reputation of this visiting chef par excellence is still intact. Since I'm a bit of an improvisational cook I know one day my reputation will be sullied. One of the dishes was a seafood dish, adapted from a recipe I developed over a couple years, but haven't prepared since I lived in Key West over fifteen years ago. It was a white sauce, and replacing the milk and wheat flour with water and rice flour worked better than I hoped. Surprisingly I remembered the little things I did to make the dish unique the night before. Hint, if you want to remember something like a recipe you've created, start talking about it over drinks with a friend. In five or ten minutes you'll recall everything.
Saturday a little before Noon Dave gave me a ride to the Greyhound station, so I could ride back up to Nanaimo and meet Aaron while they headed into Victoria for Dave's office holiday party. I talked to a great 18 year old guy on the bus whom I'd met the day before at a organic cafe in the Duncan Garage, and as we pulled into Nanaimo I saw Aaron in the lot waiting. Had a quick smoke, and started for a little food shopping and the trip back to Denman Island. Got nicely warmed up again on the ride and in the geodesic dome. The farrier came by as both horses had thrown a shoe in the last few days, and when Aaron had dinner ready for the final heating and blending and I felt nicely warmed to the core we went out in time to watch the second horse get shoed, from start to finish. He is one of the few left who hot shoes, so I got the whole treatment complete with clouds of smoke.
Then we, including their friend the farrier, came in for dinner, a movie (Evolution), and socialized. We wrapped up around 11:30PM, though it seemed much later. Aaron and Sonya live off the grid, so it is one of the few places on the islands with dependable power, though the windmill is offline from too much power -- burned out diode during a storm -- so they are back to using the generator to top off the batteries. They usually fire it up in the Summer for a few minutes here and there. Not much wind in the Summer, but lots more sun for the solar panels.
I slept wonderfully last night, and while it was an interesting trip I missed all the power outages. Duncan had lost power earlier, and the nasty storm that slammed Seattle, Victoria and environs passed us by. I'll have to ask the neighbors how long power was out when I get home, so I know if I need to empty the freezer. Meanwhile I'll enjoy my luck and time off. I did read a news account where the wind took down some high tension lines within ten or so blocks of my house, and shorted into the ground, eventually perforating the natural gas line creating an impressive fireball and torch until they could shut down the gas line. I live next to the same lines and pipes. If there's damage to my house or vehicles I think I'd rather wait until I return to find out.
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