Tag Archive for 'vancouver'

Escape From Vancouver

It’s funny - the further you get from Vancouver, the more of it you see. No matter where I look, there it is! What’s really funny is to hear people say, “Yeah, I hear Vancouver’s nice…I should really check it out someday.” - not realizing that they probably know more about Vancouver than they might suspect.

Consider music. Now, I’m personally not a big fan of Finger Eleven, and God knows I’m happy to have escaped the 24-7 Nickelback shill machine that is C-FOX. However, the local music stations have regular rotations of both, as well as the occasional Hootie and the Blowfish version of 54-40’s “I Go Blind”. And of course, there’s always regular play of chick-rock fav Sarah McLachlan.

Or how about movies and television? Scooby-Doo 2 is due out in short order, not that it’s anything I didn’t already see in production on West Georgia. Or how about in production on West Georgia. Or how about Paycheck? Only a real Vancouverite would recognize the squeal of brakes from a BC Transit bus as it nearly runs over Ben Affleck. And didn’t that movie also star former Prime Minister Trudeau as an arch-villain - or at least, the guy who played him? And, of course, any number of television shows are shot in Vancouver, though they don’t really count. They’re all shot in warehouses in Burnaby. And with Aamer Haleem, former host on VTV’s morning show, hosting VH1’s Bands Reunited, it’s like we never left!

Notwithstanding the television shows, I think most people here in Silicon Valley could wander around Vancouver without so much as stopping to ask for directions.

New Year, New Job

After a hectic (well, not really; rather relaxing, now that I think about it) Christmas holiday, the New Year is here. And with it, my new job as a Product Manager at PGP Corporation in sunny California! I’ll be starting in mid-January, which means Ashley and I are on a hectic schedule to move down to California in the next two weeks - cue the craziness. Yes, I know, how ironic that I become yet another casualty of the brain drain, neglecting to pay the toll along the way.

It’s with some sadness that we’ll say goodbye. It’s been over three years since we returned to Vancouver, glad to escape Ireland. No sooner than we returned to Vancouver than one of its native authors, returned to Vancouver, glad to escape Ireland. No sooner than we returned to Vancouver than one of its native authors, Douglas Coupland, published “City of Glass” and reminded us of all the things we love about Vancouver. With that in mind, we spent the day around Stanley Park snapping pictures of the mountains.

The North Shore Mountains

I knew that once I completed my MBA, it would probably be time to go walkabout again. Though we love Vancouver, the opportunities are pretty limited in the city at this time - so it only makes sense to see how things are in other parts of the world. Especially while we have the freedom afforded by no mortgage and no children. We will return, of course. The mountains surrounding Vancouver will always be waiting to welcome us home.