Last Day in Vancouver

Today I fulfilled my last APA obligation: I chaired a session on "Political and Social Theory" from 10 to 11. Normally chairing is a snoozefest as the speaker talks, the replyer talks, and then the speaker talks some more, and then people from the audience talk. The only time a chair has to do anything is if an audience member hogs up too much time (or, what is worse, is if no one from the audience asks a question and so, as chair, you have to step up and, pretending that you've been paying attention and care, ask a question that prompts conversation.) So, the talk started on a sour note when I realized that the replyer was not there. Amazingly (for me, I normally put no preparation into chairing) I had printed up the talk and reply before I left Flint and so I offered to step in a pretend to be "Nathan" (or whatever the hell his name was). Then the speaker made a bold move (always a mistake at these sorts of things) and decided to leave her script and go "free form". Not a success. She was nervous, stuttered and stammered, meandering in circles. About 3 minutes before her time was up (when in fact it had run over, but I gave her bonus time to make up time we lost searching for the missing "Nathan") I gave her the "wrap it up" gesture (tap the wrist). She smiled her thanks and then boldly started section 2 of her paper. Five minutes later I gave the "you're done" gesture (this is the hands open, palms down, hands move apart from the wrists). She laughed nervously, said, "Ok, so basically my argument is...." QUITE SOME TIME LATER she started in on section 3. I checked the audience members and every one was just staring out the large window, looking out onto the koi pond. Finally, without any warning at all, she just stopped talking. We all snapped awake and then, after I instigated, clapped rather half-heartedly. I then read "Nathan's" reply and, despite the fact that I had never read it before, I gave it a pretty good presentation and generated a few titters, a few snickers and one belly laugh. I then turned to the speaker and said, "Ok, I believe you have a minute or two for a response [which is pretty stupid, really, since she's responding to what I read, but didn't write, and can't defend] and then we'll go to questions." And she said (rather snappishly, I thought), "I have five minutes, actually." Everyone in the room, myself included, sighed and slumped down in our seats. When it DID end there was only time for TWO QUESTIONS. Finally, FINALLY, the hour was up and I sprung free. I had agreed to meet a colleague from our department, Benedicte, in the foyer and then we were set to go to the Vancouver Aquarium, which we did. The walk took us about 20 minutes (walking at not great speed) and suddenly, tucked within the woods, it was there. I should taken a photo of the entrance but we were busy bad-mouthing various lecherous philosophy professors we had met in our time and so I forgot. I love, LOVE sting rays ever since I stepped on a very tiny one (and didn't get stung!) while on the beach in Mexico. I still remember what the skin felt like--awesome. I only included this picture to explain why I didn't take more photos: the whole place was so steamy (this is in the "tropical" section so it was even worse than the already pretty bad parts) that my camera lens misted up and I couldn't get any photos. It's too bad as this is a picture of two giant blue (bright cobalt blue) parrots. This was a giant tank filled with several hundred tiny jellyfish. Anyone who has spent any time playing Animal Crossing City Folk will recognize these creatures, garden ribbon eels (worth 115 bells each, I believe). At one point we walked from the underground tanks, up to the first floor and up more to the second floor. We passed what I thought was a giant HD screen (about 20' by 20') with giant (GIANT!) jellyfish pictured on it. Then I realized that they were alive, though moving about very much like a very nice screen saver. (A LOT better than that lawn mower guy or the ants.) These are my favorite jellyfish, my inspiration for my underwater (or outer space, depending on your preference) mosaic.

Walking Along the Sea Wall

After deciding I had seen enough of the business district for one lifetime, I headed in the opposite direction to repeat the walk I took yesterday (4.8 km, according to a complimentary flyer I found in my hotel room) around the Bay Shore Pointe. The walk path, split in half for bicyclists and walkers/runners, follows the sea wall which allowed me to peek down onto various yachts (pronounced "YOCH-TH" by Frederick) and private clubs. I also saw this blob on one walkway heading to a fishing boat. I assumed, of course, that someone had drunk too much last night and vomited up an organ. Until I got closer and saw that it was a very large starfish. If the boat walkways weren't all locked (they are YACHTS, after all) I would have gone down to tossed it into the water in hopes of saving it. A few yards later on I saw this one. WTF? One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog was my surprise at how much stuff there is floating around in the ocean: logs, wooden crates and boxes, random pieces of wood, more logs, boxes, more logs... This guy picked the shabbiest, runtiest boat to sit on. I am assuming that either this yacht is being fumigated or is a meth lab. Ok, around the bend away from most of the private clubs (but not all as there are many more--rowing clubs, shooting clubs, yachting clubs, naval academies--I saw three separate ones--along with various other private clubs with non-informative names) you can see the bike/pedestrian path fairly clearly. More logs. A dried egg yolk mountain! Hmm. Not nearly as interesting. Very little actual grass here but lots of moss.

It's Business Time

So that I don't have a freak out Sunday night after 12 hours of travel, I decided to get serious and get some work done: prepped all my classes for the week and graded all papers submitted (they were due at noon Flint time). I still have mountains (yes, MOUNTAINS) of work to do since we are nearing the end of the semester and it's time to put the thumb screws on those knuckle heads so that is what I will be doing tonight and much of tomorrow. (Fortunately, as per usual, I become an insomniac when I change time zones and only need 3 or 4 hours of restless sleep. Strange, but true. This started in Prague many years ago and is still the case. I am half thinking of taking a flight a few time zones away and knocking out a best-selling novel in the course of a few days. I only have to earn enough to cover the flight and a week's worth of hotel time and food. It's totally do-able.) All right, enough of that. Time for my afternoon walkies. Today we got the real Vancouver weather: gray, cold and wet--though nothing like what is waiting for me at home, I am sure. I walked around the Bay Shore Point yesterday so, before doing that again today, I wanted to head the other way first to see what is there. I think that little house is supposed to be art. Ooh--a building with grass growing on the roof. What's not to like about that? Ok, let's get a close up. Wait--where are we again? For a second I thought I was still in the U.S. Not that there is enough money in the world to get me to get on one of these things BUT were I to consider it for a minute, yesterday there was an endless stream of news breaks telling all who could see a tv screen that a sea plane had to make an emergency landing and missed the landing strip and instead plowed into the pier. Well, if they lived those vacationers have a great story to take home with them. Wait--where am I again? Ever since I got here I have been asked by Canadians eager to improve me, "Have you seen the Olympic torch?" Now, blessedly, I can say, "Yes! I have seen the @&^* torch!" I was more excited about seeing this, a statue our shuttle driver yesterday referred to as The Lego Orca. Imagine my disappointment when I got up close and personal and could see that it isn't made out of Legos at all! It's just a bunch of plastic cubes fused together. Apparently the artist (whose name I won't mention to spare his feelings) wants us all to realize that we, as part of nature, are becoming increasingly "pixelated" by modern life. And this statue tells us that. Apparently. This place really goes in for parks. This is a "meditation" park. We passed an underground skate park on the way to whaling yesterday, as well as a dedicated "plane watchers" park over by the airport. ("So that people who like to watch planes can do so from a comfortable--and safe!--vantage point!" Levi (pronounced Levee), our Chinese-Canadian shuttle driver announced. Factoids from Levi: Chinese-Canadians make up just over 50% of the Vancouver population; Chinese-Canadians are very "house proud" and only drive brand new cars and keep their houses in perfect order because they want to hang on to the title "model minority"; Chinese-Canadians in Richmond have the longest life expectancy of any people in the world.) Wait--where am I again??

Whaling

I don't have any appearances to make at this conference until Saturday, so I took the day off to go on a whale hunt. Spoiler: We didn't see any whales--none of the boats did today. So long faces all around. But we did see other stuff, and it was really nice to get a tour of the islands around here, so there you go. This is at the dock, heading down toward the boat. This is me on the deck of the boat, waiting for everyone else to get on. About 20 people were there including four Swedes, four Germans and eight English people. The rest were normal people. Now we are pulling out. I think these are all fishing boats. There were signs that mentioned hiring a boat to go fishing but I didn't see anyone doing much of that. I was very anxious about going on this boat trip, and not simply because of the very real possibility of sea sickness. When I bought the tickets the lady working there advised that I "dress warm" and bring a snack as the trip would be between 3-5 hours long(!). Well, I didn't bring any particularly warm clothes with me, and the hotel is in the middle of a conference center, so there is no take away to be had for love nor money in this area. I bought a little sack of trail mix from the same place I bought shampoo (I won't even mention what I paid for THAT!). Rather thoughtfully, the whale boat people had nice wind proof, fleeced lined coats they lent out, and I snapped up one of those very quickly. On land, temps were perfectly reasonable (about 50 F) but we were told that the open boat gets chilly indeed--and did it ever! I was slightly sick while we were close to land, as the other boats and dykes made big waves but once we got out in the open seas, the water was very calm. To stave off the heaves, I stayed up on deck until we were very clear from the land and by then my hands were so cold, I couldn't move them. By the time we got back home 5 hours later, I was frozen through. Add the hour each way on the shuttle and it has been a helluva day--but I get ahead of myself. Here are some sea lions--and not California sea lions, either, which are pretty small. The guide lady said that these are steller sea lions. which are much larger. More steller sea lions. Cormorants, or so I was told. Here are two harbor seals, which seem minature in comparison. Here is an island that has no people on it. I didn't hear the real name, but the nick name is Safari Island since, in the 1950s it was stocked with antelope and sheep from every corner of the world: some from Japan, Africa, South America, the U.S. Rich people would pay money to be dropped off and allowed to shoot as much as they wanted. This went on for a few decades, until the 1970s when animal rights people started to have some leverage and put an end to it. Now they roam free with no predators there to molest them (No moleste!) and only the harsh winters and scarcity of food to keep their populations in check. We mainly saw big horn sheep. Now we are just inside the U.S. border. The port here was unbelievable. Some of these ships were large enough to house entire cities. Those canisters stacked 20 and 30 high are those things that are loaded onto train cars. They look like shoe boxes when they are on those massive ships. It took several minutes to sail around this ship, it was so big. I would love to have someone tour me around a harbor like this, as well as one of these ships, and learn how everything really works. (The blackmarket stuff, too.) How many Lithuanian women are stuffed into those canisters? I have several videos, but will have to wait to upload them until I get home. This is my boarding pass which I needed to get on the boat today. However, because we didn't see any whales, it is now a REboarding pass, which I can use at ANY TIME in the future if and when I wish to go on another tour. The boat owner insisted that everyone keep them because "one never knows when one will be in Vancouver again!" Apparently a Japanese tourist kept his unused boarding pass for 20 years, returned last Autumn with it and was blessed with dozens of whale sightings. Pass that story along to 20 of your friends during the next 10 days to avoid bad luck.

My Small House. Until Sunday Morning

It's nice to know that this hotel has your back in emergencies such as when you realize you've packed everything except your religious text of choice. But they will NOT lend you a hand if you forgot to pack shampoo....as I did. So I went to the hotel "gift shop" and bought a bottle. Which cost $4.99. Even in Canadian dollars, that is a rip off. (Those are 3" by 3" tile squares, by the way.) But the room service makes up for it. Every single guy who has delivered food (and it's always a guy) has mentioned the amazing view from my room. Don't they live in this town? Or perhaps they were abducted from Eastern Bloc countries and required to remain in the underground kitchen except for when they come up to deliver food. They were all very pale....(And, yes, that brownie is gluten free. Just not fat free.)

Vancouver BC CA here I am!

Because someone has to earn the money in our household, I am at a philosophy conference in Vancouver for five days. (I am set to give my talk in about an hour and after that I will have nothing but time on my hands. I would have liked to come home earlier--no really!--but since I am here on the university's dime, they informed me that I would be staying over the Saturday as that changed a $2400 round trip flight to a $750 round trip flight. So there you go.) So sit back and get ready for the first walking tour of my time here. First stop, this is the bay outside the hotel I am staying in.

Same bay, looking slightly to the right.

Here I a at the bay, looking back at the southern end of the hotel I am staying in. For some reason, probably because this is Canada, everything seems turned around. The bay, which is part of the Pacific Ocean, and which SHOULD BE ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE HOTEL is actually on the east side. How is that possible? Notice small waterfall there? That thing kept me awake all night last night.

In this part of the world, Spring has sprung. In Flint, we got nothing.

Now I am in my room, looking out my sliding door window. I don't have balcony, but since this is not the U.S. I could easily leap out my 7' tall and 10' wide window/door if I so chose.

Yeah, yeah. More window views.

Here is my room. If all I had to go by was this room, I would have no idea where I was--except at some APA conference somewhere.

This really chaps my hide. I first saw these plants in England and Thomas and I desperately wanted to get some for our yard. But there is no way in hell they will survive in MI--plant growers won't even allow MI residents to buy them. But here they are, growing wild out of some crack in the cement in front of our hotel. Why is life so unfair?

This is looking out my window to the right, to the business center. There are mountains of hotels here and more are being built. Clearly this is the place to come if you want to do business.