what stampede?! i didn't make it past the elbow!

the elbow river casino, that is!! hahahahaha! mind you, my time would have been better spent inside the stampede grounds, rather than outside at the elbow. so i have to recap my experience. i took a taxi en route to the stampede grounds area, to go to the elbow river casino. the taxi driver confirmed that i would have to pay the general admission (it's similar to pne), and then i could get to the stampede casino. i said, screw that, i don't want to pay any extra $$ than necessary!

so i arrived at elbow river casino at 8 p.m. and i was gone by 9 p.m. it was pretty sad actually. the lowest limit game was $4/$8. i figured, what the heck, i might as well play - i can muddle my way through it. i got my $100 in chips, and got my perfect end/corner seat. as we were waiting for the dealer to check the cards, the chatter started and i found out it was a kill game. (so for all the poker rookies out there, kill means that the blinds are raised when someone wins 2 pots in a row, so it becomes a $8/$16 game.) i thought to myself, ah shit, what have i gotten myself into? screw it, i can't just get up and leave now! 'sides, the only other thing i could play at the casino was the slot machines. game on!

or game over! i was getting mediocre cards, so my first few hands i played tight, but then i had an ace 10 (unsuited), and figured how can i go wrong? it's the best hand i've had. yeah, i got beat out by a 4/7 (big blind special). eventually i was kicked off the table before the button had moved around the table. i was pretty choked, but not completely surprised i didn't last very long. so i called chris w/an update and he laughed at me. bad husband! i was so pissed off at what i had done, that i tried to win it back on the slot machines, but then i lost even more $$. before i lost my taxi money back to the hotel, i decided to leave the casino. i was not a very happy camper. i'm never playing a kill game, or $4/$8 again! i'll stick to $2/$4 thank you very much!

damn calgary!

well, all was not terrible. on wednesday night i met up with a former co-worker who moved to cow-town a couple years ago. we had dinner at cactus club, since it was near my hotel. since all my expenses were covered, i splurged and had a 7 oz. steak. ok, i don't know why i've never had a steak at cactus club before, but it was super yummy! i am definitely going to have it again :-) after hours of chatting, i was back in my hotel cursing the elbow river casino for taking my money. but alas, so you think you can dance was on tv, so that kept my mind occupied for the remainder of the night.

richmond night market

i have to go back a few days and talk about the richmond night market. last year, dianne and i took our co-workers to the night market for their first time - 4 locals, 1 aussie, and 1 dutch. everyone had such a great time that we decided to do it again this year.

so off we went on saturday night! for 5 of our friends it was their first time at any night market, so dianne and i took it easy on them. between the 9 of us we ate curry fish balls, sui mai, steamed rice rolls, mango shaved ice w/fruit, bubble tea, pineapple fried rice, (artificial) shark fin soup, the list goes on. everyone agreed the food was great. sue especially liked the candy-coated strawberries. i think she's going to be at night market a lot more now!

a little bit of shopping was also done, but the food was the main attraction of the night. btw, for anyone who hasn't gone to the night market this year, they've raised the parking price at home depot/sears/surrounding area to $4. i think last year it was only $1 or $2.

it was on this night out that i discovered that sue and neil have never gone for dim sum or hot pot. well, at least the chinese version of hot pot. they've done the english version that involves potatoes. so not like the chinese version! so dianne and i are taking our friends to garden city hot pot in a couple weeks. i can't wait!

off to cow-town

nothing new to report today. no notices were posted, no arrests were made, no nothing. it's back to business as usual on the homefront.

and now i'm off to calgary, where i'll probably catch some of the stampede action. perhaps the pigeon races. or the cowboy poetry. here's a snipit from my chat w/renee today:

t: there's pigeon races and cowboy poetry.
r: really? cowboys? HA!
t: :)
r: "my horse is brown, my horse is blue, oh my, i stepped in poo."
t: you've got skillz.
r: thank you.
t: why's your horse blue?
r: underutilized.
t: is he sad?
r: yes, he really wants to be in the stampede
t: hahahahahahahahahaha!

in the news.....

From www.cknw.com:

Shootout in Burnaby
BURNABY/CKNW(AM980) - More gunplay on the lower mainland Friday night, this time in Burnaby. Around 6pm, several shots were fired in parkade in the 41-hundred block of Dawson Street. Burnaby RCMP corporal Pierre Lemaitre says investigators are looking for more information.

"We've got numerous witnesses from the various high-rises in the area, so it's a long process but we have to do it because one of those people may have some piece of information that could be a clue."

Some witnesses saw two men flee the scene, and a black convertible sports car speed away. One man, who is known to police, suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

**********

From The Vancouver Province:

Man wounded in Burnaby
The ProvincePublished: Sunday, July 09, 2006
Police suspect a young man who showed up at Burnaby General Hospital's emergency ward with a gunshot wound to his hand was shot in broad daylight near a parkade on Dawson Street. Burnaby RCMP said it's unlikely the shooting was random and is likely related to drugs and organized crime.

Witnesses told police that after hearing a number of shots being fired at about 6 p.m. on Friday, they saw two males running from the area and a black convertible sports car with its top down speeding from the parkade, which is under a high-rise in the 4100-block.

It's not known if the car is related to the shooting, but police would like to talk to the driver.
Later that evening, the injured man, who is known to police, showed up at hospital. He refused to co-operate with police and told them he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Anyone with any information about the crime or the car is asked to call Burnaby RCMP at 604-294-7922 or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-669-TIPS (8477).

*********

CTV news also covered the story in the first 2 minutes of their broadcast. it first aired friday night as a very brief clip, but on the 6 p.m. saturday news they had more information to share, which is the same as above. the 11 p.m. news played a repeat from 6 p.m.

*********

so now i know that i had JUST missed the action by 1/2 hour. if i had come home at my usual time, then i would have been at home blissfully watching tv.

crime in my backyard.....er.....parking lot?

part 2 - a continuation from last night's posting......

so i got home at 6:30ish yesterday......i obsessed over what was happening outside my building, and unfortunately chris was working late and fixing a leaky sink at the townhouse, so i hunkered down and watched the security channel for most of the night - it was like being on the set of CSI (almost), except it was actually a real-life incident. 6 hours of security camera watching, and staring outside my window, and this is what i found out......practically nothing.

there was a lot of traffic in our driveway. obviously i don't spend every night watching the driveway, so i can't say it was more than normal, but for a friday night, it seemed rather busy. i think traffic lights should have been installed :P 1/2 the ppl going by were either stopped or voluntarily stopped by the police blocking one of our parking lot driveways. i didn't know what was going on at that point. the security camera in the parking lot entry just showed a lot of cops walking around, as well as our resident manager. and then the action unfolded in front of my eyes! the cops were putting down those yellow numbers on the ground beside bullet shell casings! oh my god! and then the camera started flashing! yikes! there really was something down in my parking lot!!!!!!

when i called chris at 8:30 to report this latest development, he confirmed he wouldn't be home for a while, so dinner was going to be extremely late. so to satisfy my curiosity and hunger, i decided to go to starbucks and get a snack. when my elevator going down arrived, my neighbour was just coming home, and we started talking. this is when i found out more juicy stuff! the incident happened between 5 and 6 p.m., cuz that's when she heard all the sirens approaching (i guess 9 cop cars will make a lot of noise!). she didn't hear the gunfire, since we're away from the parking lot (actually, i was the one who told her there was gunfire involved - she didn't know that detail). as she was coming in, she also found out that the cops were stopping all asian males for questioning. obviously they knew who they were looking for.

so off i marched to starbucks. i passed the driveway parking entrance and peeked in, but didn't see much action, asides from all the yellow numbers on the ground - i did see a #15, but i don't know if that means anything. so i turned the corner, and trotted towards the starbucks, and then put on the brakes. the cops were indeed stopping all asian males approaching the building. i tried not to blatantly stare at the commotion, but my curiosity got the best of me. identification was asked for, state your business on this property, etc. etc. then i finally got my banana creme crunch bar, and hurried back outside. this time as i passed the driveway, i saw the investigators taking pictures under a car in the parking lot. ooooh! action!

as i ate my banana creme crunch bar, i called chris with another update - i think he was starting to get annoyed w/my incessent calls :P after that there wasn't a whole lot to see on the security camera or outside in the driveway. cops were just walking around, doing "cop" stuff. then i saw the resident manager w/a cop on our 3rd floor greenspace. they were checking stuff out, looking at all the stairwell exits, and taking a peek down at the driveway. this took all of 10 minutes, so obviously they weren't looking for something in particular. just as it was getting dark around 9:30/10:00-ish, 2 cops were walking around the 3rd floor greenspace. then they were knocking on all the doors to the lofts. i guess they wanted to see if anyone heard or saw anything around 5-6ish. then they were gone.

finally at 11 p.m. a tow truck arrived. at this point i was very curious and focused all my attention on the security camera. i wanted to see what happened. well, chris came home at 11:45, so i never got to see what car was involved in the incident. off we went for "dinner" and by the time we got home an hour later, the street was clear. i was left to my own imagination as to what happened :P

well, i didn't have to wait too long to find out. my mom woke me up at 11:30 this a.m., cuz my aunt had driven by last night, saw the commotion, and called my mom for info. of course my mom knew nothing, cuz i didn't want to call her last night and freak her out. which of course, is what she was this a.m. anyhoo, i watched the noon news, and there was a 10 second blurb - the burnaby rcmp are on the look-out for a black convertible w/its top down that was involved in a Wild West-type shoot-out in my parking lot. here's the report from www.news1130.com:

Burnaby shooting linked to drugs and organized crime
Burnaby RCMP say drugs are behind last nights shooting on Dawson Street. Police are looking for 2 men, and a sports car which fled the scene. Police say they have many potential witnesses, since it happened near a high-rise complex in broad daylight. They now also have a victim, as a man in his 20's showed up at Burnaby General Hospital with a gunshoot wound to his hand. He told Police he was in the "wrong place at the wrong time". But Corporal Pierre Lemaitre says drugs were involved, and it was apparently NOT a random shooting. He says the victim is known to police, and was not very cooperative. Witnesses reported seeing two men running away, and then seeing a black convertible sports car with its top down leave the scene. Police now say the car was connected to the shooting. Call crimestoppers if you have any information.

that's it. that's all the information we have right now. i don't know what's going to happen now - we don't know if it was a random person who parked in our lot and was working on a deal, or it if was someone who had a visitor in the building and it went sour, or what. i am not impressed, but at this point what can i do? who are my neighbours? what are they all doing in the privacy of their own homes? is anyone safe?

all i can say is my god! if i had come home at my usual afterwork hour, then i could have seen more, i could have been a potential witness. if i had come home at my usual afterwork hour, i might have been cutting through the parking lot (which i often do) at the exact time the incident happened. all these "if's". i'm feeling very unsettled right now even though the chances of these ppl re-appearing on our property are so slim. we have security cameras everywhere, and now every owner in the buildings are probably as on-edge as i am and monitoring every move ppl ar emaking. plus the incident is in the news, so these ppl would be stupid to try something here again. on the other hand, you NEVER KNOW! criminals can be stupid.

"it's a crime scene"

today we had our summer event (an amazing race), and everyone was in great spirits after the race was over, eating, drinking, chilling - good times were had by all :-)

then i skytrained home. i got off at my station, and as i was sauntering down the stairs, i looked outside and alas, there was a police car outside the starbucks. not a big deal, cuz they come by for the occasional coffee. then i noticed another car and then another car w/the lights flashing. so i broke out into a full trot down the stairs - i finally counted about 8 or 9 police cars by the time i got to street level. 2 officers were taking witness statements. well, being the extremely nosy person i am, i went into the starbucks to buy a drink and to find out what happened. rumour has it that apparently someone heard gun shots in the parking lot! WTF?!?! well, as i waited for my bevvie, i stood by the window and just stared outside trying to see what i could see, which wasn't a whole lot :P

as i walked out w/my pomegranate frappacino juice blend, i slowed to a snails pace trying to find out what was going on. there was yellow police tape blocking the parkade entrance, so anyone who had parked inside and run into starbucks earlier wasn't getting their car back anytime soon :( i continued along my way, because i couldn't tell where the incident happened. as i turned the corner to our driveway, there were yet two more cop cars - one was blocking the other entrance to the parkade. then i bumped into a neighbour from the 5th floor. he had just gotten home and stopped to ask a cop what happened, and he was told "it's a crime scene." well, that was informative :P

so for the past little while, i've had one eye outside and one eye on our security camera to see what's going on. since it's still warm in our condo, i had the windows open and there's been a lot of traffic in our driveway and everyone's talking. i caught a few words from a conversation......"gunshot", "body", there were others, but those stand out in my mind right now. i'm not sure if anyone was shot (injured or killed), since there were no ambulances or firetrucks when i arrived. a firetruck did show up later, but they weren't parked in front of my building, they were kitty-corner so i'm not sure if it was related or not.

some of the police cars have since moved away, but the police tape is still blocking the parkade. it looks like a news cameraman was filming for a couple minutes, so perhaps i'll see something on the news hours tonight.....i plan on recording all the local news channels :P i hate not knowing what's going on, especially in my own building!

never a dull moment in burnaby :P things like this never happened to us in vancouver......

96......and going strong!

this week has been about the number 96. on wednesday, my grandma (on my mom's side) turned 96 years old. she's been in a care facility for several years - it all started when she fell down the stairs and broke her hip many, many moons ago. she also suffers from alzheimers, so she's pretty much out of it all the time. once in a while she'll look at you and remember something, but she doesn't talk anymore.

yesterday, my grandma (on my dad's side) also turned 96 years old. we had a big family dinner at my aunt & uncle's house - one of the few relatives who still has a house large enough to accommodate our family :P last night it was a quiet intimate dinner for 46.5 ppl (one of my cousins is 4.5 months pregnant) - and crazily enough that's not even my entire family. as with any family dinner, there was an overabundance of food, so today's lunch is leftovers! yum yum! i always tell chris, because he's such a polite person, that at large family dinners sometimes you just gotta get in there and get your food. if you don't get it quick, you might not get it at all! and true to that, the black cod didn't last very long, so no cod for lunch today. oh well :( but there was lots of crab to be eaten! whoo-hoo!

i have to admit that i don't always look forward to these family dinners. it's such a big crowd, and my grandma has so many great-grandchildren, that it's absolute chaos sometimes. also, being the 2nd youngest grandchild, i don't have a lot in common w/my older cousins. they're always one event ahead of me (i.e., getting a drivers' license, moving out, getting married, having kids (most of them already have 2 each), blah blah blah), and a lot of them grew up in the same neighbourhoods, too. the only reason we've talked in the past year was because chris and i were getting married, and they all wanted to party without the kids and get drunk :P whatever.

it was touch-and-go, but my baby's gonna be fine!

last night was a little stressful. we had dinner at my parents' house, and upon my arrival, my dog was sleeping on her bed at the front door. she was so peaceful and cute, it's hard to believe that she's now a 14-year-old! well, that lasted all of 15 minutes, because once she got up, it's easy to see her age. she took a little stroll 6 feet into the kitchen area, and promptly fell over. i didn't witness it, but she quickly got up and came back to bed. and then she fell over again. just like a tree falling down, one minute she's standing on all 4's, and then the next, she's actually fallen over.

just watching her try to lie down was painful. she would circle her bed at least 10 times, trying to find her comfortable spot, and then eventually she'd lose her balance and fall down, so she'd just stay where she fell. as time progressed, she picked up another weird habit. she would be looking at you (with her partial vision) and then she'd cock her head to the side and look up above your head. then once it reached maximum stretching ability she would lower her head back into position. all of her movements were to one side - she could only turn one way, her head would only tilt one way, and she was actually walking sideways - so we thought she might have had a stroke.

once it became apparent that keah's falling wasn't going away, my mom made a vet appointment for today. we also confined keah to the (now-carpeted) entryway, so she wouldn't break her legs on the tile or hardwood floor. as horrible as it was, keah still made me laugh last night. i hate to admit it but it was pretty funny to see keah falling down, because seriously, she was just standing, and then falling. and now that we have a diagnosis for it, we're much relieved. apparently keah has an ear problem which is causing her imbalance, and explains her head-tilting. she was probably trying to make the ear feel better, and since she couldn't shake her head (because she'd promptly fall over), the head-tilting was the only thing left to do.

so now she's probably resting at home hoping the infection goes away quickly. because we had no idea what was going on last night, we were braced for the alternate possibility of having to say goodbye to our baby. i had cleared my work schedule and arranged for someone to cover for me, but now i'm sticking it out at work, and am going to spend some quality time w/my baby this evening. phew!

go green!

well, since we've moved to burnaby and live right on the skytrain line, there's really been no excuse to not use transit, especially since i get a (slightly) discounted transit pass through work. i think i've only driven to work twice since february, which is pretty good, considering i used to drive in regularly when we lived on 16th avenue.

having a 2-zone pass isn't too bad, since i can get home door-to-door with minimal outdoor exposure (great, on the piss-rain days), plus i can get to my parents house in richmond on the same pass, without paying an extra money :-) one great feature of having a monthly pass is that on sunday's i can travel with more ppl - the guidelines are 2 adults and up to 4 children can travel for "free".

last sunday, chris and i hopped on the skytrain and made our way to new westminster quay. neither of us had actually been there in a long time, so we thought it'd be fun. well, there's not a whole lot to do there, but we managed to buy our wild salmon for dinner that night. then yesterday, we headed in a different direction and seabus-ed to lonsdale quay. we ate fish & chips in the market, checked out the shops, and watched the "tribute to elvis". unfortunately i have to be really careful when i travel by sea, because i forget that i'm prone to sea-sickness, and yesterday was no exception. by the time we got back to downtown to do a bit of shopping, i was feeling pretty horrid. between the heat and the rocking of the boat, i wasn't doing well. when we finally made it home i just crashed in bed for a while. luckily i was able to sleep it off and recover in a couple hours.

i love lazy days like yesterday......we just chilled out and relaxed. we both actually had afternoon naps, watched some movies on the pvr, ordered in some pizza, and just did nothing. what a great day :-)

customer service is a thing of the past

so today, i had 2 somewhat disappointing experiences w/customer service, or rather lack of customer service. the first happened after work......

i've been having some trouble w/my cell phone......sometimes my pictures from my camera phone just disappear. they're saved, but they show up as black squares. and then a couple weeks later they decide to reappear. the other problem this week has been missed calls......the incoming calls are connecting, but my ringer doesn't work regardless of what setting it's on. so i took it to a telus mobility dealer, and explained my problem. well, unfortunately for me, the pictures have been responding fine.....it wasn't a big deal before, but the ringer thing is annoying, so i figured i'd lodge all my complaints at once. then the salesperson, let's call him "dave", tests my ringer. well, wouldn't you know it, it worked! well duh! i tried it myself earlier. i thought there was some technical thing he could do to see what the problem was from before. well, then he told me to take it to a repair centre if i thought there was still something wrong with it. all the while he was sitting back without a care in the world. i wanted to tell him to piss off! of course, the actual sequence of events was a little more dramatic and involved, but it requires my in-person story-telling for full dramatic effect :-) hahahaha!

i went for dinner at milestone's w/leanne and leanna. we got there just before 7 p.m., and were seated pretty much right away. well, we waited almost 15 minutes before we were even acknowledged by our server, and we had to flag him down at that! he said he was about to come pour water for us, but i have my doubts. anyhoo, we ordered our drinks and meals simultaneously, because god knows how long we'd have to wait for him to reappear. our meals were delish, and the conversation entertaining. i was laughing so hard that my stomach was hurting :( well, our server must have thought we weren't leaving for a while, so he didn't really bother us at all......in fact, he never even came by to do the courteous "how's your meal?" 1/2-way through. when we finally asked for the bill, he quickly pulled it out of his apron, and left it for us, but when we needed to pay by credit card, he was nowhere to be found. i didn't time him, but i think it took him another 8 minutes to re-appear......long enough for us to all go the loo and back. needless to say, his 15% tip was quickly becoming non-existent. the restaurant wasn't even totally busy, so i don't see any excuse for his inattention (is that a real word?) to us.

whatever, i still had a great start to the weekend, and now i'm looking forward to relaxing over the long weekend. HAPPY CANADA DAY!