Beer in Vancouver

Somehow the beer situation is worse in Vancouver than I remember. The biggest problem is the Byzantine liquor board system and their loosening monopoly on alcohol in British Columbia. Seattle is a haven for beer. My usual grocery store has, like, every beer under the sun. My favorite is the simple Alaskan Amber for about $14 for a 12 bottle box.

You'd think that since BC is closer to Alaska than Washington, that you could find Alaskan Amber here. But no! Even with the Canadian dollar at par, there isn't an influx of delicious PNW microbrew. Rather there is corporate beer and only local microbrew. I do like the Granville Island beers, but at C$11 for 6 bottles, I feel like I'm not getting my unemployed savings dollar's worth. So here I sit drinking a bottle of Granville Island Honey Lager (almost as good as the Alaskan Amber but not quite) thinking that this bottle costs almost $2.

The worst part is that the various pubs in the Robson area don't have happy hour. There are 2 approaches to bringing in the customers--happy hour or hiring only drop dead gorgeous girls--and the Robson bars take the second route. Moxie's has $3.99 pints on Monday (all day), but I'd rather have a happy hour.

Contests Where I like Both Sides

American Primaries: It's a bit frustrating to not have MSNBC all day while the primaries are going on. But it was enough to get Elena to upgrade to the $40 high speed internet from the $25 slow--but always on--cable internet. I want analysis. I get some from Talking Points Memo, but I want to veg in front of the TV and have it fed to me. I'm happy with what's going on so far. I'm happy with either Clinton or Obama. The nice thing about Obama for me would be traveling in Africa while a recent African descendant runs for the office of POTUS. I am in some ways still a "participant" in the election. I get several phone calls each day. In the United States they were almost all "unknown" but a significant portion of what would be "unknown" actually turn up as 604-519-0215 in Vancouver. Why? No idea. When I google that phone number, it seems that a lot of people get "unknown" calls from that number as well. So visitors to Vancouver--if you get 604-519-0215, that means unknown. One of these days when I'm bored, I'll enter that number into my phone so it shows some meaningful word.

The Dem primary is not the only contest where I'm a bit indifferent. This coming weekend the Green Bay Packers play the Seattle Seahawks. So who to cheer for? Hmmm.... I'm torn. I guess I'll have to go Packers since the QB for Seattle helped raise money for Bush and the Republicans a few months ago. The most important issue will be can I drink beer during the game? Or will Elena make me not drink beer? I do wish I could get some Alaskan Amber. Maybe I can...

Update: I added the 604-519-0215 number to my cell as Dalai Lama.

Elena, the Socialite

A typical day in Seattle for me included only talking to people to order food, specify the material of my grocery bags, and....well not much else really. I'm a man of few words and I didn't know many people on Capitol Hill.

Now I'm living with my traveling companion, Elena. She is always making plans to meet people, to do stuff, to have dinner or coffee, or go shopping, etc. So last night we went over to Steve's place for potluck dinner (of us in all--each a traveler). Steve was one of my traveling companions in Eastern Europe. The evening before, it was dinner at Saltaire with Barbara. Tonight it is dinner with Cecilia. I've never been so busy.

I'm curious how things will go once I'm in Africa. When I lived in Japan, I could go out to a local bar by myself, and I always knew something interesting would happen. It's part of the novelty of being white in a land without many white people. That will happen in Africa. I'm not outgoing and gregarious, but I am open to new experiences when I'm out unwinding with a beer. Well, off to Cecilia's place...

Sleeping In

I guess the yoga last night knocked me out. Usually when I wake up when Elena is getting ready for work because she's moving around making typical morning noises like preparing coffee, running water, jangling hangers when she gets her coat, watching the weather report and local news. But this morning, I woke up at 9:33. I panicked and went to wake up Elena because she must have forgotten her alarm or something. But she wasn't there. Then I noticed that the TV remote was in a different place from when I last set it down. I had simply slept through it all. So I missed my desired 9:30 yoga. Then I missed the 4pm one because I got caught up with new internet stuff surrounding events in my Capitol Hill neighborhood.

I spent most of today reading the latest Le Point. There was even an article about the upcoming IA and NH caucuses and primaries. Tomorrow I'll read bits of their extensive in depth reporting on China which is their cover story this week. I learned such interesting terms as "gueule de bois", "pomponner", buveur", "illico", and "autochtone".

Yaletown Yoga

I started my $99 1 month of unlimited yoga today at Yaletown Yoga (YY). I have been there before about a year ago, but they moved in the interim into a new building. It's in a sort of district of startups and small high tech companies. It is Yaletown, after all. To those not familiar with Vancouver, Yaletown is the gentrified section of Vancouver where all the hip yuppies live. You have to be social (i.e. like to party), have a nice job with a nice income (anything computers will do), and be willing to live in a tiny condo where the space under a flight of stairs is considered a "den" and where any TV other than a flat one will take up most of your living room. While the housing is ridiculously small, there are benefits. Simply close your eyes, spin 10 times, walk 10 steps, and heave a rock--you'll hit either a drop-dead gorgeous woman or smash the window of a restaurant which offers a gorgeous dining experience. Now you know Yaletown.

So I signed up for yoga. It was funny entering the studio. It felt like going to work. The environment is "high tech startup" rather than my Capitol Hill Samadhi Yoga (SY) experience of "old warehouse made spiritual". In fact there is a completely different spirituality between the places. Samadhi has an altar in each of its two studios. I've only seen one YY studio so far, but I don't believe there was an altar. We started out with 3 oms, but no intention setting. The title of the class was "Power Yoga". My SY Wednesday class is "Jen" and once you've taken a few of Jen's classes you know what you get.

YY keeps the room very warm. The Power Yoga classes are 30C and the Hot Yoga classes are 40C. To convert from Celsius to English, that's "hot" and "fucking hot." I was slipping all over my mat. I noticed that most students only seem to do about 80% of the entire session, often retreating to Child's Pose. I did a little bit, but I managed to keep up fairly well. Next time I'll take a towel and maybe some water. At one point we had to do a 5 minute shoulder stand. The instructor told us to endure it. I figured it couldn't be worse than some of the bush taxi rides I have waiting for me in equatorial Africa in the summer, so I endured. I hope for the sake of the Africans on the bus with me that I don't sweat as much as I did today.

Murder in My Seattle Neighborhood

Last night there was a stabbing murder of a 31 year old woman in my old neighborhood of Capitol Hill. It was at an intersection I don't go to often, but I cross it sometimes--usually when going to Madison Market, the very store she was returning from when she was attacked. I'm about to go off the the Dark Continent (with election violence in Kenya, genocide in Darfur, and chaos in other countries), so I am taking on a bit of additional risk in exchange for adventure, but events like this drive home that even people living normal lives in my wonderful neighborhood are at some risk. Capitol Hill does have more than a few people who are mentally ill. As a result of this event and the blogging around it I learned the name of one particularly annoying ill guy who has problems shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs. This guy was half a block behind me one day shouting about being used for sex or something. I crossed the street because, to an observer, it would look like he was talking to me. He just continued with his raving looking straight ahead even though there wasn't really anyone anymore.

The news at this point make it look like a random killing by a mentally ill person. That is scary. Random killings are random. Since I'm not into drugs, gambling, cheating with married women, etc, I have to reason to fear a targeted killing, but random? Could happen to me. It's such a tragic way to bring in 2008 on Capitol Hill.

2008

2008 has arrived! It is officially my year of travel. Last night Elena had her meetup.com hiking group New Year's Eve party. There were about 100 hikers there having a good time. There was Garland who also took some time off and plans to travel, Darrell who recently came back from a year of travel. Joanna and Dan weren't there because they are still on their year of travel. It's nice to know that what I'm doing isn't strange. There seems to be a bug that bites people at about this age in Vancouver that makes them want to take some time off and see the world. Maybe it is a product of prosperity and the security it provides. Back in the days when you worked for one company and retired with a pension, you couldn't really just take off. But now, we change employers and control our own 401k's. Today our skills--not our employers--are the guarantors of our futures. So if we want to take a year off and see the world--we can. And for me, the year of doing it has arrived.


Also on the plus side, I'm entering 2008 healthy. My cold is over. My sniffles are almost over--just the residual sniffles. I haven't coughed since 2007. :)