Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Winter wonderland

> Today we drove up to Whistler for some Cross Country skiing. Wifey has been trying to kick The Cold That Won't Quit and finally felt she could handle the trails. It hasn't been the best weather in Vancouver, admittedly, and so our eyes lit up when the skies cleared over highway 99 as we drove north.
>
> The trails were pristine, and the air cold enough to keep the snow crisp, without freezing us.
>
> This pic was taken looking north west from the Mountain View trail.
>
> Finally, a view worthy of a Christmas card this holiday season.
>

Winter wonderland

Making it right

Instant Bedroom installers showed up tonight after working a different install to correct the mistakes made yesterday:

- two missing cupboard doors: installed

- wiring conduit cut in the wrong place: partially resolved

- wallbed installation askew at top by 1/8 inch: adjusted
- filing cabinet too deep for the desktop: brand new deeper desktop cut, bullnosed, stained today and installed this evening

Buuuut, the desktop was stained the wrong shade. Doesn't match.

Aaaalmost there.

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Sent from my phone. Please pardon typos.

Making it right

Heavens to Murphy

> The install of our new murphy bed and built-in office for wifey is not yet complete due to some mistakes by Instant Bedrooms. However they are going to correct them shortly and the installers were very nice guys that worked very hard to get things right, so far, at least.

Heavens to Murphy

Bedtime

The wall bed is a vast improvement over the old futon, which was too low to the floor for some of our more aged guests to comfortably get out of, and was crammed up against the wall. This features the "autoleg" which drops automatically as the bed opens and raises the bed another 6-8" off the ground.

Bedtime

Table that

I designed this so that wifey would have storage and a large work surface. The drop table was a mandatory feature, and Instant Bedrooms were one of the few with a recessed version of the table, that doesn't look like it was just tacked on the underside of the bed.

Table that

Dirty Pool

The tables at Pancho and Lefty's have seen some action.

Dirty Pool

Electrifying

When I sing into my microphone tonight, a spark is jumping across and my in-ear monitors give me a little shock.

Inside my head.

I'm not sure, but I don't think it's all that good for me.

Electrifying

A placid Mississippi

Room to breathe with the high ceilings of Galvez restaurant overlooking the river.

A placid Mississippi

St. Louis Cathedral, Place d'Armes New Orleans

Now known as Jackson Square. Stopped here on the way to a dinner of amazing Tapas overlooking the Mississippi.

St. Louis Cathedral, Place d'Armes New Orleans

Hasselhoff works it

Why would he do a meet and greet for realtors like this?

Hasselhoff works it

What I'd become, if I spent too much time on Bourbon Street

What I'd become, if I spent too much time on Bourbon Street

Doesn't matter how cold it is

Bourbon Street will always be full of frat boys waiting for girls to show their wares for beads

Doesn't matter how cold it is

Oyster Bar off Royal in the French Quarter

Serve a great chicken and andouille sausage gumbo too

Oyster Bar off Royal in the French Quarter

LA

92F here and gorgeous. Leaving frim the old school LAX terminal. Love it.

Off to NOLA in a few hours. Like old times - travelling business in the US again.

LA

Big Easy

On my way to New Orleans via LA. From one LA to another.

It'a been a long time since I was there and I'm looking forward to seeing it post Katrina.

Always a fantastic city.

Little chance of getting to see any shows but have managed Sonny Rollins, Buddy Guy, Flock of Seagulls, Missing Persons, Modern English and the Beat on previous trips, not to mention three Mardis Gras celebrations so can't complain.

Big Easy

Fall colours in the courtyard

Fall colours in the courtyard

The second oldest profession

Outside The Bourbon Country Cabaret in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, in the pouring rain off an alley in a crappy parking lot, a guy is actually selling car audio speakers out of the trunk of his car.

This entire market, supply chain and retail marketing still exists.

Its stunning but also a little comforting.

The second oldest profession

Chocolate avalanche

Touring the Urban Fare chocolate display and enjoying a huge pile of Callebaut chunks.

Chocolate avalanche

All good

Slip sliding away.

All good

Sweeny Todd

Ecstatic about his new coif.

Sweeny Todd

On the train turntable at Roundhouse

On the way in from the airport.

Charlie riding in style.

On the train turntable at Roundhouse

Swings and roundabouts

Getting Charlie swingin on the way to our house ... Fight that jet lag.

Swings and roundabouts

Rellies

Off to the airport to pick up my sister and nephew from the airport. Bringing the boy back on the Canada Line because he likes trains.

I have to admit that I'm pretty excited to see him. He can walk and talk now and is almost a human being. I have purchased a very belated birthday present for him and, dare I say it, am actually looking forward to playing with him.

I may finally be turning into an uncle. More surprisingly, I may be giving a small child more than a passing glance.

Check this space on Monday to see how quickly this warm feeling fades.

Insiders are giving it very short odds.

Rellies

Wendel's cookies on display

D&D by her large Wendel's cookies display at Urban Fare in downtown Vancouver.

Wendel's cookies on display

Commuting home

It is really the simple things that remind you how fortunate you are.

Commuting home

Night sight

Always get a slight and somewhat childish pleasure out of being sober around large groups of drunken strangers. Wrapping up four nights of gigs in the suburbs at a bar and saw people in various stages of intestinal distress, overindulged duress and drunken arrest on my way from the suburban gig to home, downtown.

I've recently seen the all-too-real and grisly aftermath of youthful overestimation of one's own skills behind the wheel; and therefore I thank the constabularies of Pitt Meadows, Coquitlam, Burnaby and Vancouver for demonstrating their skills last night: dealing with our nation's weaknesses in the wee hours of the morning.

They are our city's social sanitation engineers:

Dealing with bad decisions smeared across our streets.

Night sight

Beautiful

Ah, magnificent.

Brings a tear to my eye.

Beautiful

Thank goodness

If you hadn't forked out the $100 for the personalized plates, I never would have known the model of car you were driving.

Thank goodness

Day 2: Lake Chelan to Koocanusa

In the second morning of our road trip from Vancouver to Koocanusa Lake in Montana, we had breakfast at the B&B with the owners. They are selling up, so if you are looking for a large nicely renovated 1950's house, setup as a nicely done three suite B&B overlooking the river in Lake ChelN for under $600k US...

Under a clear blue morning sky, we drove down into the Columbia River valley and up the other side through a fast and twisty valley on McNeil Canyon Road and up onto a moonscape. In our quest to hookup with US 2 heading east, we had to head straight south on Washington State highway 172 through a visually stunning vista. Dry grasslands, flat and barren, punctuated by large lava rocks that had been dumped there like shrapnel from when Mount Baker exploded some millennia ago. We stopped and got out of the car and experienced total silence. Nothingness. Not even a breeze.

We got back in and completed the last bit of the highway, which jogs only slightly when the highway engineers came up against a piece of lava as large as a house, and decided they couldn't be bothered to blow it out of the way.

We finally arrived at #2 and turned left to head east.

The top was down, the road was empty, and the barren grasslands gave way to endless golden fields, billowing off to the horizon like quilts spun of golden silk.

We rolled along through Hartline, Coulee City, Almira and Wilbur. The coulee is something to behold: Cutting its way through the prairie like a rock walled scar. The highway dips suddenly and dives across its floor, stone walls towering above us.

Then pine forests, and suddenly we are in Spokane and sweltering in the traffic. Through the city after a slight detour (is it really necessary to have both a Business 90 and an Interstate 90? Sheesh) and out the other side after a junk food lunch, then its a straight line north to tan the left side of our face, and we are off to Sandpoint, then as suddenly as we entered Idaho, we are through it and in Montana.

Then we start the long way up the side of Koocanusa to the cabin.

What a drive.

Day 2: Lake Chelan to Koocanusa