Callie's Birthday

August 7th was Callie's 17th birthday. She went out for lunch with some friends and wanted to go to White Rock in the evening for dinner. We walked the pier and went to Ocean Beach for dinner. It's too bad White Rock has so little parking down by the ocean because it really is a great place to go in the summer. Every 4th shop sells ice cream and there are some great restaurants. The one we went to had great food and a lot more room inside than I was expecting. After dinner we had to go to Snowy Village for a shaved ice desert. I say had to, because although a fun place to go once in a while I prefer ice cream. I will admit to getting one in Whiter Rock before we left. 

Some of Callie's friends weren't available on her actual birthday so she arranged a party a few days later. They had cupcakes and snacks and watched Momma Mia. They party seemed to go well as it lasted well in to the evening. For the first time I realized Callie and her friends will soon be adults and I will have adults coming over to my house for visits. I will have to make the adjustment from goofy Dad to slightly less goofy host soon. Only one more year until she turns 18 and is ready for university and then another year until full drinking age!

 

Kerry's Vacation

Since this was Kerry's vacation and the kids and I weren't there this is more of a quick update of what happened while she was away as well as a description of her trip from her point of view. Kerry's best friend Melissa won a trip for two to the Seychelles. She had to pay for her flights but she got to stay in some hotels that were over $3k a night and go somewhere she would likely never have chosen to go. The flight was quite brutal with an 11 hour followed by an 8 hour with an 8 hour layover. Door to do ended up about 36 hours. The trip was amazing with the exception of catching Covid on the way home.

The kids and I had to fend for ourselves for 10 days. We tried to do somethings we might not do with Kerry here including the Richmond Night Market and Fusion fest. The night market was mostly food and less market and Fusion festival was a lot less food than we were expecting. I made an attempt to teach some life lessons to the kids during the week. Carter was pretty good at taking part including doing laundry without asking. Callie on the other hand was less engaged. She still had to figure out most of her own meals though and hopefully has a much bigger appreciation for Kerry. :) 

Funko Pop

Funko Pop are collectable figurines of virtually every pop culture figure in existence. It's unlikely they will ever have much real value since they are so common but the kids still like buying their favourite characters. Callie has been collecting a fairly random set including everything from Marvel to Stranger Things while Carter has dedicated his collection to the Simpsons. When we went to Disneyland in March one of our plans included stopping at the Funko Pop store in Everette. Unfortunately we were driving back on either a Monday or Tuesday and the store happens to be closed on those days. Callie was quite upset but we promised we would come back.

Since Everette isn't very far over the border ,one of the options for returning was actually just driving down for a dedicated trip. We had some spare time over summer holidays so we came down first thing in the morning and were back by noon. We were a little nervous when we arrived because there was some sort of basketball tournament in front of the building and at first it looked to be closed. Luckily we were just early. The store itself is quite amazing. They didn't have as many options to purchase as we hoped but there were lot's of dedicated displays that were incredibly well done. If you are a fan I recommend you go. 

Summer In Prince George

We took our annual trip up to Prince George this year. The timing was a bit tighter than normal. We usually like to go up for three full days with a day of travel on either side. This year we had to squeeze between Callie's driving lessons and Carter's sport camp which meant we had to leave late on Wednesday and take two days to get up. We left around 3:00p and got into William's Lake around 10:00p and stayed in a hotel. We then got up and drove the rest of the way in the morning getting into Prince George around 10:00a. This year the whole family was able to make it including Jordan and Karla who have recently moved to Quesnel.

Our first destination for the weekend was West Lake where my family has property. This year my first job was to drive some stakes marking out that property. With my Grandmother passing away a few years ago the family is looking to build a cabin so we had the property surveyed so we knew exactly where the property lines were. I was quite surprised at the size. I knew we had about 2.5 acres but it was bigger than I expected. The rear of the property goes all the way back to a secondary access road. The lake frontage was about where I expected it to be and there are a few oddly shaped portions that went farther than I was expecting as well.

The Friday was Canada day so Callie, Carter and I headed to Fort George Park (Recently renamed to something I can't easily recall) The rest of the family wasn't interested in going but we like to go for the food. Each kid got $20 and despite runaway inflation, the prices were not too bad. They each got a food item, a drink and a dessert. The weather was perfect for it and we got there just in time. By the time we got our food, the lineups for all the stalls were quite long. They had a good mix of cultural performers. The only downside is they are quite strict about no dogs in the park. Animal Control was very prominent.

Carter and I went out to the lake one last time on the Saturday. It's been an annual job for me to take the canoe around the bend and pick rocks from the shore line. Eric has been putting in steel baskets to manage the shoreline and it needs big rocks to work well. I took Jackson for a trip and then on our last trip Carter followed us in the canoe and we decided we would head to the public beach. Another item that Carter had no recollection of. I got into a bit of trouble because we didn't bring a hat for Jackson but I was slightly overcast so I think he'll live. We picked up some nice flat rocks on our way back.

We came home on the Sunday and traffic wasn't bad considering it was the end of the long weekend. We stopped off at Horsting's farm for some fudge and bread. Cache Creek was the greenest I've ever seen it. A pleasant change from last year where the fires were so bad and the heat dome brought the hottest temperatures on record. We also stopped off at Hungary Herbies for lunch. The food there is always great. It was a quick trip overall and I still enjoy heading up to Prince George especially when the weather is nice enough to spend most of it at the lake. 

 

Father's Day

Taking a lesson from Mother's Day where the family had to guess what Kerry wanted, I decided to be very clear with my Father's Day wishes this year. My specific instructions were "I'd like Dick Prenoke's book on building a cabin and I'd like to go to Granville Island by boat." The family was able to take care of some of my gift request however Father's Day landed on the last weekend before the end of school so they requested that they postpone a portion of Father's Day to the following weekend. They got me the book I wanted but we had to go to Whiterock for dinner.

The weather has remained cool this year but it was nice enough to go to the beach. We ordered fish and chips and had many seagulls join us for a meal. They seem quite polite until they sense weakness and then they swoop in. There was definitely a hierarchy of birds with the bigger ones getting a bit too close for comfort. We managed to eat our meals but we had to sacrifice a few fries. We then came home for dinner where Carter had made me a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. It was quite delicious and he was quite proud of his diabetes inspired decorations. 

The following weekend we made it to Granville Island. We didn't get to go by boat but we were still busy so that was okay. The weather was much nicer so it was good thing we did go the following weekend. It was our first nice day this year. One surprise was that we realized Carter had no real memory of ever being at Granville Island. It had been a few years before Covid that we had gone and I guess he was too young to remember. He actually thought we were taking a ferry to an island. I think he enjoyed himself. We even went to the kids market and had him go through the kids door. He's a bit tall now. Father's Day spread over two weekends was great!

A Trip to Dallas - The Grassy Knoll

Day two started with a trip to the George Bush Presidential Library and Archives. I've never been to a presidential library so I didn't know what to expect. As I arrived I decided the whole thing seemed somewhat absurd. I can't imagine going to the Justin Trudeau library or the Steven Harper library and can you imagine what the Donald Trump library is going to look like? It was still an interesting experience. They had a full mockup of the oval office and the attendant was very knowledgeable though I did stump him with some of my woodworking related questions on the furniture. 

They didn't push a political agenda too much with the exception of the 'The Bush Tax Cuts' and the 'No Child Left Behind' exhibits. I suppose Obama would have Obamacare and half the country would think that would be too political. One of the wings hosted a 'Liberty and Laughter - The Lighter Side of the Whitehouse' which was fun as it showcased the sense of humor of most of the recent presidents. I'm assuming it was a few years old as Trump wasn't represented. There was also several recent Bush paintings. He's actually not that bad.

After the library, I took the train downtown to the hotel I'd be at for the conference and then went to check out the place that JFK was shot. There were several grassy knolls so I'm not entirely sure which one was related to the second shooter discussion. The book repository was also a lot closer then I was expecting. I took a bit of time to listen to some people with flyers speaking. No one mentioned JFK was still alive but there was a lot of talk about the cover up by the government. A few blocks away was a memorial where I discovered his middle name was Fitzgerald. I'm not sure I knew that until now. 

It was a lot easier for me to get around today as everything I was interested in was downtown including the conference where I'll be for the next three days. There are two separate utility conferences in the same location so there are a lot of vendors and it's a giant conference hall. I checked in and got my swag. Highlights were a chocolate bar and some gummy bears. My day will start at 8:30a tomorrow with Rick Perry as the key note speaker. I suspect oil and gas will play a big part in his speech. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the buildings in downtown Dallas. The most impressive was the old court house that had been turned into a museum but had since permanently closed. I checked in the window and the first exhibit was a Pegasus. I see them everywhere down here and I knew there was a gas station with that as a symbol but I haven't really figured out the full history. There is a giant neon one on top of my hotel which has been there for 80+ years. I'll have to do more research and try to get a picture. I didn't even know it was there until researching this blog section.

I thought my day was over but there was a lot of noise outside my hotel. I went to investigate and realized there was a viewing party for the Dallas Mavericks. AT&T has a square nearby with a giant video screen where they were showing the game. The warm evenings and people made for a fun atmosphere though they did lose and are now down 3 games to 0. One more home game while I'm here. Hopefully they win. Always fun to be in a city when one of their sports teams wins a playoff game.

A Trip to Dallas - Riding The Rails in the Wrong Direction

The day started very early. In an almost post Covid world not everything is back to normal. Air travel is up but it's been inconsistent and staffing has been a problem. This has resulted in significant delays at airport security. Unfortunately it's hard to predict when the delays happen so for leaving for my 6:00a flight it was a serious consideration to just go the evening before and sleep at the airport. I decided to gamble because I knew they close security overnight and I'd probably just be in the check-in counter area all night. All turned out well. I got there at 3:00a and the ticket counter had just opened. I was near the front of the line for security and no issues getting on my flight.

The flight I had chosen was booked about a month beforehand and was the cheapest I could find. It also happened to be a direct flight which isn't something I can usually take advantage of. I slept through most of the flight which helped me catch up on most of my lost sleep. The main issue I had was that with the time change and the early start I lost track of what time it was in both time zones so I wasn't really sure what meal I was supposed to eat and when. The other issue was the Dallas airport didn't  have a clear taxi pick up area at least where I ended up. I managed to find a security guy who called a cab in for me.

It's Saturday and my conference starts on Monday. I like to add an extra day to work trips so I can explore whatever city I'm in. I tried to research Dallas but it's not really a tourism town and it's very spread out so most people drive. This meant I was going to have problems finding places to go as well as figuring out how to get there. My hotel was near a train station so I took the train downtown. The basic infrastructure was fine but it was not very clear on what train to take and it had a strong pee smell. It looked like most of the people riding were homeless. They had all their belongings with them and I think they were just trying to stay cool. 

My first destination was the Ross Perot Museum of Nature and Science. The station I got off on was a bit sketchy. I had several people approach me for money and a few groups of people approach me from different directions asking about the camera I was holding. I don't usually worry about getting asked for money but it was a bit more aggressive then I was used to. I made it to the museum with no problems and bought a ticket for general entry as well as a ticket for a show on dinosaurs in the Antarctic.

The museum itself was quite nice with a good layout. The content was a bit different from what I would expect from a science museum. The dinosaur movie started with 5 minutes on the importance of 'energy' and the role of oil and coal in the creation of energy. The movie ended with a statement about the impact of volcanoes on global warming and a reminder that Antarctica was warm in the past and it was a great lush environment. I quickly realized this museum was going to have a different message then the ones I was used to in BC and California.

I decided to head back to my hotel before it got dark and hopped back on the train. I had trouble when I arrived figuring out where I was going as the only maps were 'simplified' views of the routes that didn't show an overview of what city I was going to. I ended up getting on a train that took a turn I wasn't expecting. By the time I figured it out I was in the middle of nowhere and the nearby houses were boarded up. I got off and spent the next 20 minutes telling people I didn't have any cash for them. I got asked by 6 different people. I did manage to get back to my hotel but hopefully my second day in Dallas goes a bit better.