Getting back on track (pardon the pun). So I start off with a 10 minute train ride into the middle of downtown, which out me in Granville Station (watch out for the theme here), I then walked out on to Granville St. and walked several blocks along there, about another 10 minutes. I then come to Granville St. Bridge which while a little scary in how close the traffic gets but does give a great view of downtown and the surrounding area, and adds another 10 minutes to the trip. After a very short walk I'm on Granville Island (see the pattern?) and 5 minutes away from the False Creek Community Centre from where we run from. So about 35-40 minutes from door to door which is the same as driving but I don't have to worry about parking or having a drink afterwards.
Tuesday was also the day I joined the running group officially. After three trial runs (the jokes keep coming) I decided that I would pony up the membership fee of $35 and legitimise our relationship. I became member 99 and after a few poorly received joke about being '...a man not a number!' (Canadians, Eh!) we went out for a club warm up then out on our individual group runs. This week saw another harbour run with a nice hill thrown in for good measure.
But to add to the general scenic nature of the club runs we had a guest participant for a leg of the course. A harbour seal found us to be mildly interesting/amusing and swam along the sea wall with us until we turned away from the water. After climbing a fairly step hill we the proceeded to throw ourselves down and a bloody step hill. I don't think I have ever run that fast or with so little control and hope never to do so again. The hill in question was in the great neighbourhood of Kits and was lined with street cafes and shops. I will take a moment now to apologise to anyone who had the evening meal/walk/drive/cycle ruined by me as I hurtled out of control down the hill praying that no one would step in front of me or drive out of a side street. Picture in your mid the scene from Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy is being chased down by that giant boulder, I was that boulder and the poor unsuspecting residents and visitors of Kits were brave and quick witted Dr. Jones.The evening ended with a good blue cheese burger and a couple of pints (yay for not driving) in a Granville Island bar next to the waterfront. And after said couple of pints, the walk back from Granville Island, across Granville Bridge, along Granville St. and into Granville station didn't seem as appealing as before so I took a $3 water taxi (aka dinghy) across the creek into downtown where is was but a short walk to the train and home.
After finding a cheapish cinema at the weekend I decided to head back and make use of their Early Bird Special. If you turn up for the first showing of a film then it is only $7.95. This cinema seems to be a bit of an oddity as it is part of a major chain but seems to show a lot of Indie flicks and small films that don;t get a wide release over here, which is great but just unusual. After having a quick browse of the listings I found the film Moon, a UK film (brilliant to begin with) staring Sam Rockwell, who I have always found to be a good watch as he seems to pick slightly screwed up characters to play. As I have said in the past I will try and not spoil any film on here for anybody who hasn't seen it, I will just say give it a quick over view though. The film is set 40 years into the future where we get the majority of our power from a harvested element from the moon. Sam Rockwell plays Sam a lone worker on the moon who is coming to the end of his three year contract to maintain the facility with the help of the bases AI machine GERTY (voiced my Kevin Spacey). After an accident caused by an hallucination (been alone to long?) things start to get a little funky. This is not a fast paced Sci-Fi action film, the fact that it is based on the moon is hardly relevant, it give several nods to films past and has a very old style of film making quality about it. Worth a watch.On the flip side to this, I rented a DVD called Columbus Day with Val Kilmer. Now there is some controversy over this film as two versions have been released, an action version and a drama version, I have no idea which one I watched I just know I was bored my it. I have heard rave reviews about it so don't take my word for it but to me it seemed badly acted and filmed.
Last bit of news for the day. It appears that I have some how managed to wangle a pass from my last Open University course. For those that I have bombarded with simple math questions over the last 12 months I thank you, your hard work paid off.
A special thanks goes out to Gayle's sister's friend's young son (see I worked hard to find these people) who while we were waiting in an airport lounge to go skiing, chipped in his effort. Also thanks go Andy who checked the kids working out, Martin for having random questions thrown at him from upstairs, Mat for emailed random questions and some assignment checking and Darren for helping ensure assignments were delivered on time including a very last minute assignment emailed at 7 am ish standing in snow from a stolen wi-fi connection out side a pub in Morzine France.With the successful completion of this course I have finally finished my BSc degree which I started long, long ago. Whoo Hoo!!!
[The seal photo is for visualisation purposes only, I cheated and thieved it off the Net, I didn't have my camera with me.]
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