This weekend is Thanksgiving here in Canada. As such, it is a long weekend. I've decided to give all the staff here at et.com an extra day off on Monday. So from Jimmy in the mail room to Janelle in marketing, we all wish you a happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

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Today was the debut of the greater Vancouver area to Google's awesome Street View service. Supplementing an already fantastic Google Maps feature, Street View offers a new way to explore the city of Vancouver (and its surrounding areas) in the comfort of your own home.

First, I must commend Google on its boldness, logistics, technology, and vision (no pun intended) to get this done around the world. Imagine how many streets there are in even a medium-sized city. For Google Street View to work, their mapping cars must visit every street from beginning to end. When I think of the size of the greater Vancouver area, which is nothing compared to some of the world's larger cities, it's amazing what Google has done.

So now to the fun stuff. Since I was at work, I was able to play around with the service for only a bit. What I did see though was very interesting. After looking at the obvious places like my own home and my parents' home, I started to look at places I used to work. As many of you know, I was quite fond of Black Box's downtown location. It was there I found a few gems. Look at the screen shot below:



What appears to be just two dudes crossing W. Cordova along Howe is actually a technical director and an online producer on my team. We can thus surmise that the Google Street View car did this section of Vancouver before our June move. Click here for the actual link.

Now take a look at the dude below:



Waiting for the light to change is Gord, a world modeler I worked with on the original skate. Click here for the original link.

Has anyone else found interesting things in Google Street View for Vancouver?

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I was on the phone today with my building manager to find out when someone was coming to actually repair my now "supposedly" dry bathroom ceiling. He said it was up to the restoration company and their schedule but it would be soon.

I also tried to find out who was actually paying for these repairs. I originally thought this was all going to be under the new home warranty for the building but I was wrong. The building manager is billing the owner of the apartment above me for everything. He didn't give me an exact figure (not all the work has been done of course) but he mentioned it would be in the range of several hundred dollars. Sucks to be that person.

Now I could be subject to the same penalty if spilled water near my toilet too. Of course, I'm not stupid so that won't happen. I will, however, put a seal around my toilet base just in case. When that happens, I'll probably document here.

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So I spent another weekend with those two big machines in my bathroom. As you might recall, Friday was supposed to be the day they took the drying equipment out. This did not happen because they determined my ceiling was still too damp. So I had to run these machines all weekend long. This morning was another judgment today as the restoration company came by again to assess my ceiling.

Using a handheld piece of electronic equipment, they somehow detected my ceiling was dry enough to repair. They took the blower and dehumidifier away. Then they told me that someone else would be in touch to begin the final stage of repairs. No one called me today but I'm going to get the building manager on the phone to find out additional details.

If you're interested, the above picture is the current state of my bathroom ceiling. The indent is from me applying light pressure with a single finger on the ceiling. It was mushy enough for me to easily push in. This is where I think two drywall sheets meet up and I was actually pushing in the joint tape. I'm not certain but it sure seems like it.

I'm hopefully in the final stage of repairs.

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On Saturday morning, I woke up very early in the morning to go out to the airport. The purpose was to visit a friend who was coming in through Vancouver on his way to Bangkok. His layover was about five hours. Not long enough for him to venture out into the city but long enough for us to have a leisurely brunch.

Using public transportation to get to the airport from where I live offers two interesting options. Keep in mind I live just about due east from YVR, so the most geographically sensible route is to go due east. So option one does almost exactly that: a bus from the 22nd street Skytrain station goes east along Marine Drive and stops at the Marine Drive Canada Line station. From there, it's just a few stops to YVR. The other option involves riding the Skytrain northwest all the way to Waterfront (going in almost the complete opposite direction from where YVR is) and then taking the Canada Line south, visiting almost all its stops. This option makes the least sense geographically.

In reality though, both options take about the same amount of time, with the difference being less than ten minutes. The reason why the times are almost the same is that the bus crawls compared to the speed of the automated trains. While going in proper direction, the bus is subject to more stops, traffic lights, and traffic congestion. In the time it takes the bus to go from New West to the south of Vancouver at Marine Drive, you could get to Waterfront, hop on the Canada Line and speed south to the Marine Drive station and meet up with the bus.

Knowing this, I decided to take the bus option to the airport and the other option on the way back home. It was an interesting trip in both cases. On my way to YVR, I got to see a new bus route which is always useful. On the way home, I got to see many of the Canada Line stations I hadn't seen before. It really is amazing how fast you can travel from YVR to downtown Vancouver.

As a side note, this was the earliest I've been to the airport where I wasn't traveling nor transporting people to/from YVR. I got there before 10am. If you know me, that's incredible for a Saturday morning.

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