Summer in Prince George

Last year we had our Europe trip early in July and were planning on going up to Prince George in August. Unfortunately the engine went in our car and we weren't able to make it. This meant we hadn't been up; for over two years which is the longest I've ever been away from Prince George. I also realized that I moved out of the house 25 years ago and have lived outside of Prince George longer than I lived there. We traditionally go the weekend after school gets out before the summer gets busy so were there for Canada day. We had some food, checked out the fire engine playground and then headed out to the lake.

My brother Eric has done quite a bit of work at the lake property in the past two years. He finished the stone basket retaining wall to manage the eroding beach and he's cleared the brush all around where we tend to hang out. The properly is 2 1/2 acres so much of it remains fully forested but it's good to clear out the brush near where we have camp fires to reduce the fire risk. In recent years we've had fire bans but this year has been plenty rainy so it wasn't a problem. Carter managed to get some time in the kayak and I took some time to build a small garden for strawberry bushes. I wish this properly was closer.

I took some time to take pictures of the entire property that my parents live at. We moved there when I was five and were there until I graduated university and moved to the lower mainland. They have been toying with the idea of selling though it's not easy since there isn't a lot of good places for them to downsize to in Prince George. Mom indicated there weren't immediate plans and asked why I was taking pictures but I did it anyways. I realized that as I was taking pictures almost everything has changed since I lived there. They are still good triggers of those memories though.

Carter had come up with us but he flew back because he had a basketball camp starting on the Tuesday. He still got two full days in PG and really just missed one day since we drove back on the Wednesday.  He was lucky it was only a one hour flight rather tan the 10 hour drive though I admit to mostly sleeping as Kerry does all the driving. We stopped off at some traditional rest stops including the heritage park at 108 Mile. We also stopped in at Hosting's fam in both directions. It's pricy but I like that we're supporting a local economy.  Callie might not make it next year if she has a job so at some point it might just be me flying up. I can always stay a few weeks and work from there. 

Father's Day

I don't have big demands for Father's Day each year. When the kids were younger I would just ask for some sort of sporting equipment that I could use to play with them like a baseball bat or a basketball. Now I tend to request experiences. This year it was Carter's suggestion to go to a smash burger place in Vancouver. I'm not entirely sure we were aware but on one of his recent Friday afternoon outings him and his friends made it all the way downtown to the West End to a place called Vonn's. It's owned by a Palestinian family but the burgers are quite western with a bit of a spice to them. I had the chicken burger which had two entire chicken breasts deep fried. It was very good but not easy to eat. 

Callie's approach to Father's Day is a bit different. She likes to point out that I'm 'not a terrible father'. A few years ago I got a Darth Vader "Galaxy's Best Father" t-shirt and this year the theme continued. The book contains all sorts of examples of less than stellar father's like Thanos and Darth Vader. She seems to enjoy it so I'll take it in stride. 
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Schwab-Kilden Family Garage Sale

We have a local realtor that advertises a garage sale every year and this year we decided we would see if we could make a few dollars for the kids. We've never had a garage sale and usually just donate all our clothes to Big Brother but the crawl space was getting a bit over crowed so it was time to see if we could get rid of some items that we knew we were never going to use again. This started by bringing everything up from the crawl space and scattering it around the house.  The sale was in mid June which isn't a great time for a teacher and people in school so we started about a month out so we had enough time to organize. Our house was a true disaster the whole time.

The benefit of doing it on this weekend was the free advertising. We figured we would get more traffic. Corey's family decided they wanted to join so we each got one side of the driveway. Unfortunately we did not get a lot of traffic. We had priced everything to sell but there just wasn't enough people coming buy that wanted what we had. We did well with some cleaning tools from Reg and our old lawn chairs but in the end we only made about $150. Luckily we packed everything up and took it to Value village and to our surprise they took everything so at least we reached our goal of clearing out the crawl space. We'll do that again when we move in the next decade. 

 

The Northern Lights

If you've never seen the Northern Lights in the lower mainland don't worry you didn't technically miss much this past May. Coming from Prince George I can say that I have seen the Northern Lights with my own eyes and they do exists though even in Prince George they were a relatively rare occurrence and the lights I saw felt more like a whisper than the images you see from people farther north. This year there was a lot of news hype about a spectacular event that was going to be visible as far south as Arizona and expectations were high that it would be spectacular. When the night arrived I took my bike to the closest dark area near our house which is the local elementary school.

There were already  several people wandering around and at first I thought we were all in for a big disappointment. There was the slightest hint of something happening but it was not very clear. That was until I took out my camera and took a picture. Ordinarily when you take pictures on older cameras they don't pick everything up. That is not the case now as they are much more sensitive to dark light photography. I quickly sent the picture to the family and they asked where I was. As they were walking over I think they felt they had missed it but I showed them the camera trick.  It was a great Instagram moment if not a great in person moment but that seems to be the case with most things now a days. 

Tulip Festival

Callie and I headed out to the Tulip Festival this year. Kerry didn't want to go and I think Carter was busy and Callie and I had seen quite a few photos on Instagram so we decided we would check it out. Without going too deep in to the whole history of Tulips in Canada, I'll just say that there are quite a few large tulip fields in the Fraser Valley with one of the ones closer to Vancouver having an annual Tulip Festival though I'm assuming most of the farmers try to take advantage of the amazing colors that show up when the tulips are in full bloom. This location added a number of 'Photo Spots' including tractors, swings and even a piano.

We had a bit of trouble checking in because we hadn't received the confirmation link but it was a known problem and our credit card receipt was good enough. There were quite a few tulip varieties that I would love to get bulbs for but unfortunately there was no bulb sales at all. Partly because it's not bulb season but also because they are a wholesaler and just don't sell to the public in that way. They were selling the flowers so we brought a few home. My favorite was the 'Barcelona'. This fall I'll have to check out the garden centers and see if I can find it for sale. 

 

Work Trip to Victoria

In April I had to be in Victoria for work. It was during the week with an afternoon session on one day and a morning session on the next. This gave me the opportunity to do a few Victoria tourist items that I hadn't done in a long time. The first was a trip to the BC Museum. This is the one that the government has deemed in desperate need of replacement and proposed a 1 billion project. Unfortunately the project was shelved as it was just not palatable to people to have to spend that much. The issue is that it's difficult to continue to retrofit the existing structure and do it incrementally. I hope they sort it out though because it's nice having a high quality museum in BC.

Next up was a quick visit to Beacon Hill Park. Apparently this park has two faces and I don't know if I've ever seen both versions at the same time. I started on the hill where I found the familiar peacocks and petting zoo. The peacocks are wild and not part of the zoo and I don't think I would want to get in a fight with one. I also don't know what reason I would have to get into a fight with one but I'm sure they could do something to piss me off. I walked around the petting zoo and through some open meadows and flower gardens and then noticed that it was possible to go up and over a hill towards the ocean.

It was at this time that I realized there was another part of the park that seemed familiar to me but I think when I've gone to each side we've  parked in different locations and not done both locations at the same time. The ocean portion of the park is quite wild considering it is just a short walk from the parliament buildings. The oceans cliffs have been left natural, there are some totem poles and walking trails to allow you to go right down to the beach. I imagine this would be a fun place to visit during a wind storm. It's nice to see we have so much land in the public domain rather than having houses trying to own their part of the beach. 

Fan Expo 2024

I think Fan Expo in Vancouver will be an annual event for Jeremy and I, especially as we try to advance the work on R2D2. We've only been twice and I'm not sure if they purposely try to have a theme each year but I did notice there was a lot of 80's nostalgia going on. There were booths for Star Wars, as I think is standard, but there was also a Ghost Busters booth and an entire booth dedicated to 80's movies and TV shoes like Ghost Busters, Back to the Future and I think the couch from Rosanne or maybe it was Married with Children. They had a DeLorean as well as the Ghostbusters car. I've done a bit of research on the ambulance used and apparently it's very rare.

Jeremy managed to get the majority of his Ghostbusters costume done in time for the expo. I think he probably has plans for a trap and like most cosplayers I'm sure his costume is never completely done. I was interested to learn that a number of the other Ghostbusters costumes were at least partly kits where Jeremy did the majority of his from scratch via a 3D printer. I'm sure the kits are cheaper but I personally like the idea of building from scratch. The only item I saw in other costumes that was a bit more detailed was that the backpack on some actually opened up and showed inner workings. I would still vote for Jeremy's. 

The other highlight of the show was that Adam Savage was a guest speaker. If you follow him online you'll know that he spends most of h is year travelling to different Fan Expos, Comicon's etc. I don't think he dressed up for this one but he was available for pictures and signings, which are not cheap for any of the celebrities. I briefly considered getting in line to ask him a question as I was a bit disappointed that the vast majority of questions were related to his time on Mythbusters where I was more interested in his knowledge as a maker. I chickened out though as I figured there was probably some process for getting in line that I didn't understand.