The DMV... A good experience???

So, I have to say something... I had a suprisingly good experience at the DMV.

This week I had to renew the tabs for my car. Which always puts me in a bad mood because of the extra $190 I have to spend on the most stupid seattle project ever. So I go into the DMV in Redmond and instead of the usual 30 minute wait I was able to go directly to the desk. Then they told me... You owe $297. I start to pull out my credit card and they say "Sorry, we only take cash or check".... Well, I don't usually have $300 in cach on me, and I don't remember the last time I wrote a check, so I ask if there's a bank machine I can hit. They point to a machine right behind me which indicates they've seen this problem before.

I tried to take $300 out of the machine, and was charged a $2 for the transaction just before realizing that the machine has a cap of $200... So I had no choice, I took out the $200. Then I realized I had a couple of $20s, a $10 and a 5 in my pocket... I counted... $295 total, meaning I would have had the $297 if it wasn't for the $2 charge from the machine. I thought it was pretty funny that I had to go pay another $2 to the machine to get the $2 I was missing because it wouldn't give me enough money with one shot for some ridiculous reason.

So I really didn't want to go spend another $2 (on principle) in the machine and went back to the desk. I asked them if they would take my canadian change instead of a US $2 because I didn't want to go back to the bank machine. As I was talking someone gave a $20 to the teller at the desk. It was the manager, and they said that I can use the $20 to help get to the full $297. By the time I realized the money was for me the manager had left, and I couldn't even thank them.

Anyhow, I was in a really bad mood, but that small act of not making me go back to the bank machine really made my day somehow. It's funny, but that's how it goes.

Toronto for Glenn's wedding

So I went to Toronto this past weekend to go Glenn's marriage. It has been such a long time since I saw most of the other folks from Wawa there that some didn't even recognize me. A few of the key folks I came to meet were there, which was really cool.

First of all, I would like to point out that if you see 'Econo Lot' signs when trying to find parking at the Vancouver airport understand that 'Econo' doesn't stand for 'economy', 'economical', or even 'economic'. From what I could tell it stood for 'lots of money', 'rip off', or 'only complete morons park here'. I mean, it was like $15/day in those lots, where one street away there's a lot for $7.50/day. I didn't know about the $15/day until I was at the gate on the one way street with no way to turn around. Luckily I was early enough to get the heck outta there and go back to the other more reasonably priced lot. Unluckily for me, for my 30 seconds in the lot I had to pay $2.50. I suppose this was a small price for the $30 in savings I would get from going anti-econo.

While on the economic track... I'd like to point out that Cheryl had somehow managed to get me a flight to and from Toronto for $230 CND all included, and a rental car for 3 days for $57 CND total which is unreal. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to justify the 3 day trip.

One problem with the flight was that it took off in Vancouver, which is a bit of a problem because as most of you know I live in Seattle... The other problem was that I thought the flight left Friday night when in reality it left Thursday afternoon which really changed the dynamic of my Thursday evening.

Anyhow, the flight to Toronto was on an MD-83 and went fairly smoothly. It left at 11pm Vancouver time and got in at 6:30am Toronto time (an entire hour before the car rental place opened which meant we had to stay at the airport and just wait which wasn't that fun at that time in the morning). Eventually we got the car and arrived in Kitchener by 9:30am Toronto (and now Kitchener) time where RJ and Amy weren't yet home. Shortly after we arrived RJ came in and mentioned that he wouldn't be completely upset if we decided to try and grab a bit of sleep. We took that offer with no complaints whatsoever as I didn't even sleep a wink on the flight over and it was now almost 7am my time.

After a short nap, we took Ryan to the park near their place to play. It was such a nice day, and I was so expecting much lamer weather. I think it was about 24 degrees Celcius all weekend long which was outstanding... Anyhow, while at the park I called my brother in Sault Ste. Marie to give me Mike's phone number (yeh, same Mike as a couple of posts back). He's in Cambridge, so we decided we'd drop by and pick him up to come over for steaks later in the evening (right after I had a much needed haircut).

Mike and Shannon came over to have some wine and steaks at RJ and Amy's. We played some guitar, some foosball, some golf, watched some trampolining, and eventually brought Mike and co. back home before going to get some much needed sleep.

After waking up Saturday we went for a bike ride with the kids. Although I didn't notice the large DH/freeride hits I was promised I still had a good time riding around the block. The wedding was at 3, so we didn't have much time to waste. I got into some decent clothes and we headed off to Toronto.

I will not spend too much time describing the wedding other than to say that it was really nice. Good singing, piano playing and also fairly succinct - I haven't been to too many weddings, but this one was by far the fastest from start to finish which was good. The focus was on the bride and groom, and they did not drag people into a ton of extraneous process that most weddings are plagued with: I thought it was really well done.

Anyhow, we headed back to the hotel room for a couple of hours where Becky and Ryan decided to buy some Red Cap beer to relax a bit before the reception. We had a few of those, and then it was already time to get food.

Crap... I just remembered we have a fire alarm test today at work. I'm going to get outta here as the noise is painful, and then I'll finish this from home.

Ok, back to the post...

Well, this is getting pretty long. Let's say the reception was really smooth, the hockey challenge instead of the normal 'clink your glass' tradition was a nice touch, the speech by the best man about the Tao of Wawa, and the open bar were all highlights in my mind. The music included Home for a Rest, and Cotton Eye Joe, which are songs I haven't heard in a long time, but have sentimental value for lack of their musical value (I actually think Home for a Rest - from Spirit of the West is a really fun song) and are songs I haven't heard in public for years.

The night eventually ended around 1am, and Sunday we went to visit Alana and Ryan who live near Becky's on the Beaches in Toronto. More good weather. We ate at Lion on the Beach and didn't have time for much more than a short walk on the beach before heading back to the airport for Vancouver.

I rode back to Seattle with nothing exciting to report I'm happy to say. Anyhow, I promise the next post will be much shorter than this one...

Exit 38

I've been really dragging my feet on writing my west coast trail writeup... It's given me an excuse to stop writing weekly, but I'm just going to start writing regardless and post about the west coast trail when I get it written.

Turns out I caught Beaver Fever (Giardiasis) from some water I drank on the trail. It was certainly not fun, and I lost more than 10 lbs during the week or two that I had it. Lame. Turns out that 5 of 6 of our crew caught it, and the one that didn't went directly on anti-biotics for a foot infection once he came off the trail, so he was basically lucky. I'm just now getting back to the gym and trying to get my weight back to usual.

This weekend was all about rain, specifically rain on me and nobody else it seems. It was super nice all day long on Friday, I even brought my bike. The minute I stepped out of work to go biking it started raining. The minute I got to my destination it started pouring. I waited it out until it was only drizzling and then I went out. Near the end of my ride it was raining on me again.

Saturday I went over to Evan's and did a 24 mile ride near Discovery Park. It again rained on me. Evan was able to find me a jacket which really helped out. I need to get one of those. Later Saturday night it was Henry's birthday party. He's now just as old as me: poor guy.

Sunday Henry and I went to Exit 38 which is a popular downhill bike area near Seattle. We were just going to check it out because of how beautiful it seemed outside we figured we'd just walk the trails. Little did I know it was 'Rain on Aaron' weekend. As soon as I got out near Issaquah it started raining, and the minute I got out of the car at Exit 38 it started pouring. We drove around killing time until it stopped raining. Then we checked out the trails for a bit. They weren't as 'big' as I had imagined, but then again, I didn't see all the trails. We did see a wild cat of some sort jump out in the trail in front of us and run away, but that was probably the most excitement we had.

We drove back and right after Issaquah it stopped raining and totally cleared up. Turns out it was nice in Seattle all day long as it rained on me. Ah well, the trails were somewhat interesting.

Mom and Mike hit Seattle

So Mom and Mike drove down to Seattle from Sault Ste. Marie... As you might imagine it's a long ride.

They showed up right after I came home from the company v-ball tourney on Sunday. That means they made it in 3 days. They were understandably tired, so we just went out for Pagliachi pizza and they went to bed early. I found sleeping bags for them, but I had originally assumed Mom would have brought the inflatable mattress she brought last time. We figured something out.

Monday as I was at work they bought and assembled dressers for my room. When I came home we went to Golden Gardens to check out the sunset and find some sealife. I think this was the first time Mike had seen salt water.

Tuesday Mike and Mom went to EMP to check out the memorabilia, and play some instruments. Mike had issues with the drum set, but had a pretty fun time overall. When I came home we went out for Thai food which was the first time my brother had ever tried it. We later played pool at the Garage which was interesting because it was the first game of pool my Mom had ever played even though we owned a pool table back home in Wawa for years.

Wednesday Mike and Mom went to the Boeing Factory Tour where they saw the new 7E7 being built. Good times. They came by the company where I gave them a tour which included a lot of the regular stuff (office, museum, courts, whatever else I could find). Then we had some Indian food which again was a first for Mike. He did like it, but not as much as the Thai food. We went to Champs Karting to do some indoor electric kart racing which was pretty fun. I was a couple of hundreds of a second off being able to use one of their high end karts.

Thursday we went to Mt. Rainier (the north side at Paradise). We didn't actually get to see more than a piece of Rainier because of the clouds and fog, but we did get some good waterfall pictures, so it was worth the ride regardless.

Friday we had a coffee taste test at Cafe Vivace which is right by my place. Neither of them had ever tried anything other than black coffee, so we all ordered something different (Late, Mocha, Cappuccino, Velvet) to get a reasonable sample. It was raining, but we still made it out to downtown Seattle to see the Seattle Library (and it's spiral staircase), checked out Pike's Place Market and the waterfront and walked a bit downtown for general site seeing. Although it was looking miserable I really wanted them to go out for a hike while they were in Washington, and we were scheduled to head to Vancouver later Friday night, so regardless of the looming clouds we headed out to Rattlesnake Ledge. At Rattlesnake Ledge it proceeded to rain on us with reckless abandon. We made it to the top in time for the rain to let up and give us a view of Rattlesnake Lake, but we were so wet it was ridiculous. I'm very proud of my Mom and brother for actually forcing through and finishing the hike under those crappy conditions. Good genes I guess. We then headed to Vancouver.

Saturday we rented rollerblades and bladed around Stanley Park which is about 10km, we hiked Lynn Canyon, where there were some pretty ballsy kids jumping from some pretty high places into some pretty tight pools. We went to the Deep Cove Bike Shop to check out the famous bike shop, and ate dinner in Deep Cove. Later in the night we went to the Symphony of Fire's Grand Finale. I forget how many people showed up, but it was on the order of half a million people on the beach. As far as I know that is the biggest crowd I have ever been a part of. Apparently we went to Milestones for a Bellini (3 parts champagne, 1 part peach schnapps, dash of grenadine - put some raspberry stoli in as well). Mom offered to pay, then realized she forgot her card :)

Sunday we all headed to Whistler. Mike and I rented big squishy bikes while Mom, Cheryl and Amanda rented XC bikes to do some tamer riding. We did hit a good amount of the park, and spent some time in the training areas where Mike hit some good air but. For whatever reason they weren't giving out free t-shirts so that was lame. Sunday night I headed back to Seattle, but Mom and Mike stayed in Vancouver to head home from there.

They stayed for 7 days, and I'm pretty sure they had a good time.