August 2007 Archives
As I was getting ready for work this morning a thought crossed my mind. Why don't I ever sleep in the middle of my bed? I always sleep on the left side. For most of my life I've always slept on the left, but it's usually closest to the door, which leads to the bathroom. It might seem funny that I never thought of this before after all these years. I guess it's just habit and I don't even think twice about it. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed strange that I didn't sleep in the center of my queen size bed. With all that room, why do I limit my sleeping space? So tonight I will sleep in the center of my bed and maybe, just maybe I will wake up more refreshed!
It's quite common to get all kinds of feedback in my line of work, but today had to be the most unusual for me. I received feedback on one of the first projects I worked on upon arriving here in Vancouver. According to a lady who had taken the training, she saw an image of a woman's bottom half in a swimsuit in the background interface. At first I couldn't see it, but when a co-worker pointed it out to me then I could see what this lady was seeing. It's quite amazing that she saw this image because the screen appears for a few seconds before images appear over top.
Aiy yi yi... the things people see. I had a good laugh for sure. It must have bothered this lady enough to point it out to the training manager, which led to a focus group and a chain of emails that finally reached me. What can I say? It certainly wasn't intentional. I was going for a spotlight effect on a grey streaked background. I never thought that the way the spotlights came together would form a subliminal image of a woman's thighs and crotch.
Perhaps I should try creating more subliminal images in my designs and see if people will catch them. Wouldn't that be fun?
My key planet Venus seems to be aligned with the stars in the sky in the house of communication. I suddenly have the urge to chat with friends and family from far away. So if I ring you in the next few days don't be surprised that it's me wanting to chat with you about whatever comes to mind. And if your sun sign is in the house of "I don't feel like chatting" then no worries, I won't take it personally as I understand the importance of the signs and stars being in alignment. Hopefully in the near future our symbols will be aligned for talking.
Here's a great example of how a small change can make a big difference to road safety just by changing the type on road signs. The piece in the NY Times provides a great read on font design and also the history of road signage in the U.S.
This leads me to thinking about eye exams and the silly chart the eye doctor makes you read. Maybe its not a problem with our eyes, but rather the illegible characteristics of the blocky font that make it difficult to read. I would be interested in finding out the history of its design. If anyone knows, please share.
In the beginning when I first moved here, I felt quite out of place. Everything was different even though the language was the same. Everyone talked differently, dressed differently, thought differently, drove differently. They didn't step on the gas when the light turned yellow or cut in front of you rudely, but actually drove like civilized people. It felt as though everyone here was Canadian except for me. I felt dumb when I couldn't tell the difference between a loonie and a toonie. Everytime I went to buy something at the store I'd be trying to convert the prices in my head. I no longer could find all the things I used to buy. I now had to buy other brands, deposit quarters into boxes attached to shopping carts in order to use them, try to guess what a flashing green traffic light meant and avoid scraping my car against pillars when parking in really tight spaces. Everything that was different was a reminder of the physical and psychological distance from the familiar.
So whenever a reminder of what used to be home would pop up, I would be so surprised. And usually these occurrences tend to show up right in front of my face.
When I was searching for places to live in the beginning, I called a number of people and one person I spoke with happened to have friends in Green Bay. What are the chances of that happening?! Of all the people I contacted that were renting in the Vancouver area, a city of about two million, this one person had friends in Green Bay, a city of about 300,000 over 2,000 miles away. From time to time I spot people wearing Packers apparel at the mall or on the Skytrain, but I don't really find that surprising since it is a well-known NFL team. But calling up a random person and discovering they have friends in Green Bay is a different story.
Once, while driving around town, I spotted a large white van with Wisconsin plates. That made me look twice. Another time I was driving back home from the Capilano Suspension Bridge when I spotted an suv in front of me with Illinois plates. I pulled up next to them and almost rolled down my window shouting and waving at them just to let them know I had just moved from there. Then I thought about how crazy that would have been and decided not to. Just recently, I was driving right behind an old Jeep in a daze and staring at the wheel cover for a while until I realized the large letters sprawled across the cover said Schaumburg and below it the location on Golf Road with the 847 number of the dealership, although the plates were from Ontario.
For me I find it's quite amazing to see reminders of home appear in unexpected places far away when you least expect them to.
Now I am quite comfortable living here and have accustomed to the ways of the Vancouverites. I find life to be much more comfortable and enjoyable here. The laid back, easy-going style fits more with my personality than the fast-paced, in-a-hurry lifestyle that I was once surrounded by. Sure, you may have to wait in line longer or drive a little slower, but what's the rush? Life's more enjoyable when you can live in the moment and soak up the sun while it's out from behind the clouds. One thing I've learned since I've been here is to not take the sunny days for granted, literally and figuratively.
One of the many activities Vancouverites recommend is the Grouse Grind if you enjoy the outdoors and hiking. It's not an easy-going trail, but rather an intense 2,800 feet climb that at some points is close to rock climbing. It's also known as Mother Nature's Stairmaster. An estimate of 90 minutes is given for the average hiker.
Nothing about this trail sounds appealing to me at all, but when I went with some co-workers and their family, we decided to give it a shot since the price for the gondola ride up the mountain is $33 and with a family of four that quickly adds up. We figured if it was too hard, we'd just turn around. We all knew from the beginning it would be tough and being that we are not avid hikers, we guessed it would take us two hours or more. Before making the decision to attempt the hike, a lady told me she had done it once and would never do it again. It definitely gave me pause to rethink, but at the same time I thought it never hurts to try.
Finding the trail required a bit of help, but once we started at an average walking pace, we quickly grew tired and needed to stop for a short break. We stopped quite a lot the first quarter of the hike, but when we reached the quarter mark we decided to keep going even though some wanted to turn around. I'm really glad we didn't because it was such a great feeling of accomplishment when you reach the top.
The hike got much more difficult after the quarter mark, but I found that if I paced myself, it was much easier to go slow and steady than go fast and stop many times for breaks. Most of the trail is rocky and covered by tall trees so you don't see much of a view below except at a few points. The hike requires a lot of concentration and most of the time you are looking for your next step and deciding which path to take as there could be a short path but bigger steps on one side or a longer path to the right with shorter steps. Being a novice, I'd usually go for the latter since it would take less effort.
We saw quite a number of hikers on this trail going up and down. We even saw some old men walking backwards down the mountain. You would think it's easier going down, but actually it's more difficult and much more dangerous. I can't imagine climbing down some parts where it was quite tricky even going up. The fastest time officially recorded was by some guy at about 26 minutes, believe it or not. To achieve a time like that would mean running through most parts of the trail, which I can't imagine doing.
It took me two hours to finish and now I can look out from my balcony and say I've conquered that mountain, which I must say is an extremely gratifying feeling. And the crazy thing is I'd actually do it again! Pics are posted in my gallery.
If you're ever looking for something funny to read, just go to the "I Saw You" section of the paper and I guarantee you'll find a good amount of cheesy and comical write ups. For real, who are these people that write this stuff?
They usually are along the lines of, "I saw you at the corner of Main and Broadway. The whole world froze around us the moment our eyes connected. I asked you for directions and you told me to turn left. How about we get together and map the rest of our lives." Some of them are so cheesy it makes me gag.
I'd like to know how many people read the "I Saw You" section of the paper. I don't usually unless a paper happens to be sitting in front of me and I leaf through every page until the very last one between the car ads and escort services where these ads usually are found.
Who knows, I may be missing tons of "I Saw You" ads from guys who I've happened to connect eyes with at the supermarket or gas station. Gosh, I better start checking daily from now on. My Prince Charming could be looking for me through an "I Saw You" ad and I would never know it! Oh, what a tragic thought.
The other night I decided to have a mango and started eating one, but found it to be overripe that I had to toss it away. Not satisfied with only having a couple bites of the extremely ripe mango, I proceeded to try another one. This too was a bit ripe, but not as bad as the first one and good enough to eat entirely.
The mangos I bought are the small yellow variety. They are usually sweet and less thready than the red and green ones. I like mangos and anything that is mango-flavored, but don't eat them much because I find them quite messy. Without fail, the juices from the mango usually end up all over my hands and roll down to my elbows. I only buy mangos when I'm in the mood to, which is not often. That's why I prefer the dried mango since it's not messy and tastes like candy.
Now I know this sounds crazy, but I swear that after I ate the mango my face got really warm and was pink like I had just had some alcohol. It wasn't hot in my place at all and the only thing I could think of is those mangos. Could it be possible that they were so ripe they began to ferment? Wow, that would be wild. I got a buzz from eating ripe mangos.
