working from home

[brightbluegirl]

I'm working from home today. The good thing is that I'm still in my pjs, making some applesauce in preparation for baking some vegan apple-bran muffins, and generally being productive.

The bad thing is that I'm not being very productive as far as work goes.

Ah well. It's still early.

I'm staying home because there's supposed to be a blizzard today. Yes, that's right, a blizzard. In fucking VANCOUVER. It's snowing, but not hard, so far. I had no interest in going out in it, though, or trying to come home in it, and wasting my time trying to get back home in the snow (the public transportation system crumbles here in the cold and snow). So here I am, at home, working.

Andrew hurt his back at work again yesterday, so they sent him home with papers he had to have signed by a doctor within 24 hours. Of course, he didn't get home until 6:45, so he had to find a doctor this morning, and of course the doctor near our place doesn't open until 11am, and still wasn't taking phone calls at 11:30. So he's off trying to catch a bus to go to a walk-in clinic to see a doctor there, and HOPING to get to work for 3, when his next shift is supposed to start. I'm not very optimistic about him getting to work on time, but he'll call them if he's going to be late, and I'm sure it'll all work out.

I sort of feel guilty about staying home while he's trekking out in the icky, but he doesn't hate winter as much as I do, and I AM working, which must count for something. He says it's not a problem at all, and I'm trying to honour that.

And now I go back to work!

Comments

[pfloide.livejournal.com]

The only time it snowed during the time I lived in Van was on my birthday, which, as you may recall, is in spring...

[blowtorch-betty.livejournal.com]

What is the bus system like during rush hour? We were only there on the weekend this time so I couldn't really judge. We're starting to think about what areas we might like to live and this will obviously be affected by the punctuality of the transit system.

I may bug you about things like this in the future, if you don't mind.

[freakykitten.livejournal.com]

I absolutely don't mind at all! It really helps to be able to pick someone's brain, I admit.

I have found that the skytrain (like the Toronto subway only over the city, not under) operates very often during rush hour, and still in plenty of time on the weekends and non-rush-hour (say, every 7 minutes or so). The busses are also fine on rush hour, and reliable - the only time I've seen them not reliable is during snow and such, although some people have told stories of busses just not showing up sometimes, I've never experienced it - but keep in mind I've only been here for 4 months.

Here's a link to the transit website (http://www.translink.bc.ca/)

We live on the border of New Westminster and Burnaby, and when I need to get to Downtown, it takes me an hour and some to get there by transit. I wouldn't recommend living farther away than that - I don't mind it because it means I get some reading in.

The bus pass system here is kinda neat, too. There are 3 "zones", and you can buy a one zone, two zone, or three zone bus pass (or tickets, of course), but the two and three zone passes are only necessary from 6:30am to 6:30pm during weekdays - otherwise you only need a one zone ticket or pass, which is pretty cool. Prices are pretty reasonable, so it's super worth it to have a monthly pass - especially since so many of the cool sections of town are so spread out - Granville vs Commercial Drive vs Main Street and etc.

Did that ramble help? :P

[blowtorch-betty.livejournal.com]

Yup, definitely helpful. At this point we're hoping to live either downtown or in Kits. I'm an hour from school where we are now and it's miserable. It's a little weird to be downsizing when most of our friends are going in the other direction but taking care of a whole house and yard by ourselves isn't all it's cracked up to be.

So much will depend on what we're doing for a living as my hsuband is hoping to change careers when we move and it will likely involve a paycut.

We were only in the actual city for a couple of days but at least we have an idea of what is where and what it's next to, if that makes sense.

Where did you move from?

We stayed right across the street from the big dome thing when we were there last week and it was great to walk all over the place. The juxtaposition of chinatown and all it entails past dusk with the marina area and all it's glass and glory is very similar to Boston, it's kind of strange.

Thanks!

[freakykitten.livejournal.com]

I originally lived in Ontario, and moved around a lot - Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, etc, and ended up in Toronto, which is where Andrew and I met. But we spent Sept 2002 to August 2003 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

It's awesome that you're planning on living downtown or in Kits. I know people who live in those areas, that are really happy with it. We decided to move out here for the cheaper rent, but if we'd been able to afford it and still reach our goals, I know we'd have been in those areas. We found this place online, when we were still in the U.S., so that we would have somewhere to move to - I found it difficult to find good places that would allow tenants to have animals, btw.

I know what you mean... Vancouver is gorgeous. I'm glad you're coming here!

[blowtorch-betty.livejournal.com]

Bah!

That's funny. I grew up in a number of places, including toronto, pickering, peterborough and a couple of other points in between. Unfortunately I spent my teenage years in peterborough but escaped back to toronto in my late teens. After meeting my husband we spent a couple years in chicago and have been in boston for about four years now. As soon as I graduate we're moving to vancouver and we're SO excited about it.

On the pet front, hopefully buying rather than renting will make it easier. There has to be some way to do it considering the enormous dog population vancouver has. We're just in the preliminary stages of research now but our ideal plan (so long as everything works out) is to open a doggie daycare. I know there are a number in the area already but the demand is still very high, we'll see.

How did you end up in the US? Is Andrew american?

Luckily I have family out there, my mom moved from Beaverton ontario to vancouver island a year or so ago in anticipation of our move and I have an aunt and uncle in Powell River. They also have a small condo in Kits that we hope to be able to stay in when we first arrive though we may have to share it with one or both of my cousins at that point.

I think also with pets it's much more difficult to find something when you're searching from a remote location rather than actually being there, hopefully we'll be okay. We have three cats and a seven month old lab at the moment and we don't plan on growing anytime soon!

Back when I was a teenager in peterborough there was a period of mass exodus of young people who picked up and moved to vancouver, most of them ended up back in peterborough and I only managed a short visit but it's where I've always wanted to live.

Lastly, have you been to the restaurant Wild Rice?

[freakykitten.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't been to Wild Rice, where is it, what do they serve, is it good? (I'm guessing yes, or you wouldn't have mentioned it. :P)

Is your husband Canadian as well, then?

We ended up in the US because I had a couple of friends in Albuquerque, and I'd visited twice, and Andrew visited once, and we really liked it. We thought it'd be a fun experience to live somewhere completely new and different, for a while. So I got a TN Visa for a year and we moved down there. Well, I moved down there, Andrew "went with me to help me move" and stayed for the year while working odd jobs. ;)

We'd planned on staying longer, but too many things went weird. Although we met other people and made some fantastic lasting friendships, my original friendships went spectacularly belly up. My job was frustrating, and not paying me nearly what I was worth, and stagnating. The U.S. went to war, and started instituting all these laws that we thought might make it difficult for Andrew to get out of the States when we DID want to move back.

So now we're here.

I agree with you - finding a place that you can keep the pets in will be a lot easier when you're owning, than for us renting. A doggie daycare sounds wonderful - we LOVE dogs, but the place we live in allows us our 2 cats, but no dogs. Andrew is WILD about dogs, and if you'll let him, will visit you weekly to play with not only your dog, but all your doggie daycare dogs. :P We're going to get a dog as soon as we move into our own house - which unfortunately won't be for another 5 years or so.

[blowtorch-betty.livejournal.com]

I can't remember what street Wild Rice is on but it's right on the edge of chinatown near the bc place stadium. They bill themselves as "modern chinese" food but I wouldn't call it that. They have an enormous martini menu and a number of really good teas too. The food is a little pricy but really good. It's done up all arty farty on neat little plates and stuff but it's really, really good. The atmosphere is hipper-than-though but it's an odd mix of ages and styles and it's really fun if you go in with a good attitude.

bq (hubby) is American, but none too happy about it. I'm getting tired of being here and he's never really liked it so we're eager to get out. We know we won't make as much money in vancouver but it will totally be worth it. The cost of living in boston is the second highest in the US and if we can make it here we can probably do okay just about anywhere.

Originally I was the one to move because I was kind of coasting through life at that point and he had a "real" job, that and I just love moving to new places.

I know what you mean about friendships going belly up. Two of our closest friends were introduced to us by their best friends whom none of us speak to anymore. People are weird sometimes and I like to think I have a lot of patience for my friends but I'll only take so much abuse with explanation before I'm done with it.

What made you choose vancouver? Had you visited there before and fallen in love with it like I did?

Can I ask what you guys do?

[freakykitten.livejournal.com]

Well, Andrew loved Vancouver. He grew up in Kelowna, about 4 hours by car away, and his extended family lives here, so they visited often when he was growing up.

A couple of summers ago, we went to BC for 2 weeks and I got to visit his folks for the first time. We did end up going to Vancouver, for 3 days, I think, and I fell in love with it as well. I loved Stanley Park and the Sea Wall and the glass buildings and the mountains and the air... everything about it.

I love moving to new places too. I still do, but I want to experience staying in one place for longer than a year - I haven't done that for about 10 years. It's a bit of a relief, we've decided "fuck it, we're staying!", and we're just going to stick in one place until he's done school.

Andrew's a bit younger than I (I turned 30 in October, he turns 22 in March), so he's just started University part time. He works part time in a warehouse right now, (although he's looking for new work because he hurt his back and they expect a ridiculous amount from him), and he's taking a couple of courses from BCOU, which is a very reputable online university, and if he takes 10 courses from them he can go to Simon Fraser or BCU full time for 2nd year and on. Oh yeah - for Political Science.

I got my degree in Mathematics - Combinatorics and Optimization, at UWaterloo, and I wrote code for a couple of years, but didn't really like it. Nowadays I do Software Quality Assurance. Right now I write test plans, and do some testing when required.

My dream, though, is to open an organic cafe, with only fair trade coffees and probably mostly vegan and vegetarian food - if I *do* have meat and dairy, it'll be all free range fairly killed organic type stuff. That won't happen until he's done school and we've got some savings, though...

I know you're in school for Architecture, which is so cool.
What does bq do?

Wild Rice is now on our list of places to check out. :D

[blowtorch-betty.livejournal.com]

Kelowna got hit really hard by the fires last summer, right? I was out on the island in late summer and it was all over the news.

We never really made it past Kits and our immediate downtown area but we really only had a day there and that was only because we couldn't get a flight booked so we hadn't really planned anything. We're coming back this summer to explore the mainland more and try to get a better idea of where we might live and what we might do. The island is great but I'm not ready to live there yet and it's tough to get away from my mom once she's got us out there!

We've been in boston for almost five years and in our house for about three and a half now, we're really sad about leaving our friends and there are a lot of great things about boston. I moved around a lot as a kid (14 schools by highschool graduation) so I'm looking to settle down and since we don't want to do it here it's kind of time to go, you know?

Our goal is to eventually retire to one of the islands but that's a long way off.

Very cool about andrew being in school. I started when I was 22 so I know what he's going through. It's a little weird and isloating being around a bunch of 18 year olds who've never been away from home before but it's worth it. I'll be 29 by the time I get my undergrad next year, there were a couple interruptions and changes of city and schools. The best part is I don't think I even want to be an architect, I just need to finish something at this point. Ironically, I started in Political Science and I miss it a lot.

Hmm, math and computers. So basically you're a big geek! I mean that in the most flattering way possible. I do okay with that stuff but it's really more bq's department. He deals with wires and systems and I deal with power tools and aesthetics, it works.

I will definitely patronize your cafe! We thought about going vegetarian about a year ago but decided we'd rather keep eating meat for two reasons. One, I love it. Two, we only buy hormone and antibiotic free, vegetarian fed, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. You know, help the farmers and ranchers who are actually trying to do right by the land and animals and keep ConAgra's greedy mits off their land. I was stunned when I was out there last summer and couldn't find any milk without all the nasty stuff in it, then again, I was shopping in Duncan!

Hmm, what does bq do? I'm not even sure anymore. Tech stuff, information architect is his title, or was, he may be a director now but who knows. The company he's currently with is not a happy place, I'll leave it at that. He's nervous about moving somewhere he has no business contacts but he's dying to make a career change of sorts anyhow so the move will be a good opportunity.

Definitely check out wild rice, I'm not sure how much vegetarian fare they had but they must have some and if it's anything like the stuff we ate it will be marvelous.

This page in your journal must be enormous by now!

[freakykitten.livejournal.com]

Tee hee, it *is* huge!

Ok, that's it. I'm going to save some conversation for one of YOUR entries now. :P

[ihlathi.livejournal.com]

The situation with the doctor's note is competely stupid. That would frustrate me to no end. It frustrates me just to read about it.

I've been hearing weird stories about this winter from all over...it's been fairly mild here (considering it's Montreal), but I'm hearing about warmer places getting really cold, snowy weather. A friend told me it snowed in Mexico city pretty hard in early November, before we even had snow on the ground. And now Vancouver.
Very suspicious...

[blowtorch-betty.livejournal.com]

It's weird in boston too. We're usually pretty cold and covered in a bit of snow at this point.

This year, we had three feet of snow in one weekend a few weeks ago followed by several days in the forties and fifties with lots of rain. I can't believe my basement flooded in december!

It rained for much of last week too, now it's really cold and dry so everything is just frozen mud.

[freakykitten.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I think it's really stupid too. What's worse is, he just called me to say that he saw the doctor, who told him not to work this week, but WOULDN'T FILL OUT THE FORM, then Andrew had to trek all the way over to work, where they yelled at him because he didn't get the form filled, and now he has to trek all the way home.

It just seems an exercise in futility, designed to make him just work through the pain anyway, or quit. I hate it.