Hello to the few of you who still bother checking in here occasionally. I don't blame you if you have stopped as there wasn't much action for quite a while however I am making a bit more of an effort these days. Sorry Jimmy, this is another long one with no pictures, however the general theme of the post is that I have a job and am making money and will be able to afford a camera soon so hang in there mate.

It's been a busy week. I am now the proud owner of a pair of steel capped boots, a white hard hat and a tool belt containing a hammer, nail puller, square, tape measure, leather gloves, safety goggles and a carpenters' pencil. I donned my tool belt for the first time on Wednesday and headed off to a site at the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus. I felt like a kid turning up for my first day of primary school. We had a tool box meeting, where a guy talked about site safety for about 15 minutes and then it was time to work. When I say work, I mean WORK! My first task was to go along one side of the slab and chip away at the side that had been over filled by the monkey with the concrete pump. "Here's your jack hammer. Get to work." It was great fun! Half an hour into the morning, four pieces of four by two fell from the first floor and landed on the neck of a guy who was working below. Flattened him. Fortunately he wasn't seriously injured, just a quick trip in an ambulance to the hospital for a check up and he was back in the afternoon to pick up his car. He wasn't doing much nodding though. That was a nice little introduction to the dangers that are present on any building site. I definitely had my eyes open a little wider from that point onwards.

I said I was having fun with the jack hammer. That was before lunch. After lunch I could barely lift the bloody thing, but there was more over fill to chip so it was back to work slacker! I managed to make it to the end of the day without dropping the hammer over the wall, which I thought was a pretty good achievement. I made my way to the bus stop, which took 20 minutes instead of the 10 minutes that it had taken me in the morning, and headed home. Had some dinner. Passed out by 8pm.

My alarm woke me at 6am the next morning and the tingling sensation in my fingers hadn't gone away overnight like I had hoped it would. I made my lunch, jumped on the bus, jumped off the bus, did the 10 minute walk to the site, ready for another day of vibrating hell. Fortunately the hammering was broken up by a bit of shovelling and vacuuming between little lunch and big lunch, but I was back on it after that for the rest of the day. That night, my body was aching in places that I didn't know that it could ache. Early night again.

Friday, day three, weekend tomorrow! I decided to arrive a little later than the 20 minutes early that I had been arriving. This would also allow me to catch the 44 bus, which leaves right out the front of my house instead of walking 6 blocks to the 99B-line on Broadway. I didn't have to ask anyone what I was supposed to be doing as I already knew. More jack hammering. I was determined to finish it quickly to give my back a much needed rest. I finished chipping the wall by big lunch and had a nice lazy afternoon carrying bucket loads of concrete to the rubbish bin. Anything to get me away from that over sized vibrator! We knocked off half an hour early as is customary in the industry on a Friday. I stumbled home and had a nice warm bath. It was warm when I got in but when I woke up, it wasn't quite so warm anymore. Rob (my room mate) got back from the island (Vancouver Island) and had a hire car so we all piled in and went on a bit of a trip around Kits. Just checking out the hood.

I had a sleep in this morning 'till 10am and decided to go for a jog to see if I could loosen up my aching muscles. After I jogged down to Jericho beach and back, I stopped off in the park at the end of our street and did a good stretch. I feel fantastic now. My back has been aching for a few months due to a snowboarding stack on my butt, but I think the jack hammering has loosened it up and it feels better than it has for ages. I'm working harder than I ever have in my life but it feels really good. Kind of like getting paid to work out. I don't think I'll be a shit kicker for too long, but I am enjoying being on the site and look forward to picking up some useful skills.

Had sushi for lunch with Mariko and Rob on Broadway which was delicious. Popped over to check my email and write this. Now we're going down to lay on the beach for the rest of the day. Hope everyone is well. I haven't been inundated by emails since my last post so I'll just assume everyone is fine.

Well after over a month of silence, I have finally found my way to a an internet cafe where the computers earn more per hour than I do. Acutally that's not true. I am unemployed, so I guess I don't earn anything! Oh well, hopefully that will change in the next few days.

I'm not sure whether I should start where I left off or just go with what has been happening this week. I think I will leave the catch up for another time. I need to get out the last week or so while it is still fresh in my head.

Around two weeks ago, I was busy working in the hut at Rendezvous (ie, I was throwing snow balls at Rob, the Coast Mountain Photographer who was also hard at work, trying to convince tourists to have their photo taken in a complete white out). We got chatting, after I almost knocked his head off with a long range bomb, and found that we were both planning on moving to Van on or around the 1st of May. We decided that we should look for a place together. Just as we made that decision, Mariko, my ticket validator friend from Ontario, slid up on her boardIt just so happened that she too happened to be considering moving to Vancouver. Two's company, three's a share house! We decided that we would all get together when Blackcomb closed (because we would all be laid off with nothing better to do) and find a place to live somewhere in Vancouver.

I spent the first day of freedom after Blackcomb Mountain shut it's lifts down for the last time this winter riding Whistler with the usual gang. It was so warm that Mike and I were down to our T-Shirts! I phoned Rob in the arvo and we decided to meet up on Wednesday (26th April) to check out some places online. We focused our search towards the Kitsilano area,which is just over the bridge (Burrard St) from down town. Not having been there, I was taking the advice of Katharine upstairs in Brio that it was a great place to live in the summer. We managed to sort through the hundereds of ads and find a good 5 or 6, 3 bedroom places that were within our price range. I booked a rental car for the Friday and we all headed down to the city. Kate decided to tag along with the goal of buying a snowboard bag, as every snowboard shop in Whister has sold out. And so began my first experience in Canada.

Highway 99 runs from Whistler to Vancouver and it is one of the most beautiful roads you will ever travel on. It hugs the water the whole way, with snow capped mountains to the left, and snowcapped islands to the right. As beautiful as it is, it is currently being upgraded for the expected increase in traffic for the 2010 Winter Olympic games. We spent about a third of the trip dodging pot holes and wiches hats and funny looking fat people with slow signs. Oh yeah, we passed the Furry Creek golf course which is where Happy Gilmore was flmed. You can understand why they chose that one when you see the view it has! We dropped off Rob's room mate Colin at Horseshoe Bay as he was off to Vanouver Island to visit his parents. It's only 5 minutes outside of North Vancouver, i'm sure I'll be making a trip over there in the not too distant future.

Highway driving is not too bad. You just follow the car in front of you. I got used to that fairly quickly, although I think I made Rob a bit nervous with my tendecny to hug the right had side of the road when my concentration lapsed. That is my normal view when driving on the left hand side however it's a bit different when you have an extra half a car to the right of you.

We passed through the Downtown area without incident, just in time to meet our first landlord and take a tour through his lovely Kitsilano address. The place was a three two story place on W10th and Arbutus and was divided into two seperate appartments. This is a very common house layout over here, where you have a basement and an upstairs appartment. The place was a bit run down, great location, quite pricey at $2200p/month. We stayed around after the landlord left and popped around the back to talk with the existing tenant, who was sitting on the grass out the back smoking a duby with her boy friend. She pretty well summed up our impressions of the place. We decided to keep it as a posibility and go and see the next place on our list.

On the way to the basement suit on W10th and Cypress, I had a bit of a driving malfunction. I found that my brain could not take the pressure of driving on the wrong side of the road in a city that I don't know where I am going with conflicting directions coming from the back seat. First I was going left, then I was going straight, and finaly I ended up going right. Unfortunately the car behind me in the right lane had already decided that he was going straight and so when I turned right, there he was. My lightening quick reflexes were the difference between an embarising phone call to Avis and a small amount of blue paint that Rob had wiped off with his sleve before I got around to his side of the car. That was as near a miss (well, I'm calling it a miss, even though technically it was a hit) that I want to be a part of.

Although we didn't have an appointment, we turned up at W10th and Cypress for a sticky beak. An old lady was sitting upstairs so we decided to go up and say hi. Molly was quite happy to show us through the basement appartment. It was currently occupied by three (or four, or maybe 6 if you count the tent that was set up in the kitchen) students. It was pretty untidy (that didn't worry us as the students were moving out), had relatively good light for it's underground location, slanted floors (that was a bit off putting), but the main drawcard was the price. $1260p/m plus half utilities (probably about $100p/m). We were pretty excited about that place and decided to head off and grab some lunch.

Lunch for me consisted of a lamb sandwhich (my first lamb for 6 months!) and a few pints (don't worry, I decided that I should let Mariko the Canadian drive for the rest of the arvo). It was nice not having to pay Whistler prices for a change. After lunch, I walked up the street and got a cell phone in the quickest time ever. My new number is +1 604 725 3602. Feel free to send me an sms!

We dropped Kate off at the snowboard shops on W4th and headed off to see the third place on our list. W4th and Alma. When we arrived, there were two Aussies and a Kiwi signing up for the basement suite. It doesn't matter where you go, you still end up running into them! That was the one we had come to see but we decided to have a look at the main floor. It had just been renovated, new paint, new bathroom, new kitchen (with new fridge and oven), large bedrooms and a really nice lounge room over looking Alma St. The lounge room is West facing so it gets great sun in the afternoon. We also had a look at the two bedroom place upstairs just for fun. Equally as nice. We asked the landlord for the price of the middle floor and when he said $1900, instead of $2900, we were all very interested. Compared with the two places that we had seen previously, this place was the Ritz! The landloard said he had a lady with two kids who were interested. Without sounding too excited (my heart was beating hard), I asked a few questions and summoned up the courage to say we would take it.... for $1800. The landlord thought for a bit and said that would be fine. Hell yeah! He said that he would rather put us youngsters in than have a family in, probably because of the noise that he expected out of the boys from downstairs. We ran across the road to the teller machine in the BiLo shopping center and each withdrew our half month's rent damage deposit. Settled. Most people that we talk to can't believe that we found a place in Kits in half a day but we did. Such a good feeling.

Kate called us to tell us that she had found a bag (no we didn't forget her) so we went and picked her up and went back down to have a look at the beach, just 4 blocks from our place. There is a nice little park at the end of Alma, as well as a pier where people were crabbing. They were catching quite a few so I'm not too sure about swiming around thre. Might have to take the 5 minute walk down to Kitsilano Beach. Apparantly that's the place to be seen in the summer time.

We headed back to Vancouver, stopped off in Squamish for some subway and I decided to drive the 50Km or so back to Whistler. That was one of the scariest drives I've had for a long while. Rain, no lights, no lines or reflectors, just the tail lights of the car infront of you, who is driving like a bat out of hell to keep up with the tail lights of the car infront of him. We made it home safely and I slept like a log that night.

Spent the weekend getting ready to move. Went for a ride on Sunday, last time as a Whistler resident. Had a few beers at the Crystal Lounge on Sunday night to say good bye to a few people. It was Phil and Liz's last night in Whistler too. Sad to say good bye.

I just worked out why the internet is only $3.50 per our. The monitor of the computer next to mine just blew up. I mean it actually popped and started smoking! hehe. I've never seen that happen before.

(Time to start summarazing, my fingers are getting tired).

Picked up the min-van at 8:30 Monday morning and headed up to staff housing to pick up Mariko (and her half a ton of gear!). Dropped off my key, sheets and launry card to the staff housing office and headed down to pick up Rob. As expected, Rob was asleep, but fortunately he was relatively packed. We chucked his gear in the back, took what ever cutlery and crockery that we could fit in the van with us and headed down to my place to unpack the van, and start again with my two snowboard bags (fully packed and barely liftable), backpack and a few radom plastic bags. Somehow we got it all in and we were on our way. We stopped in a the re-use-it center to drop of a few unwanted items. The re-use-it center is overflowing at the moment as it is this time every year. We had lunch at the best fish and chip shop in BC (can't remember what it's called) which was quite good. I'd still take the Fisherman's Co-Op in Wynum over it though. Made it down to Vancouver by about 2pm. The landloard had left the place open for us to put our furniture in, but we couldn't get the key until 5pm. I got talking to a girl who lives behind our place and within about two minutes we had a futon bed and another matress to borrow until we get sorted out. We headed around to some of the second hand stores (called thrift stores) to see what we could pick up for the place and ended up with a lamp for the lounge room (which has no ceiling lights), a cabnet for our T.V. and DVD player (thanks Phil!), and Mariko got a chest of draws. Rob and I will still have to pick one of them up because there is no space in our wardrobes. We got the key at 5pm, paid a month's rent and crashed out on the couch to do some people watching. We must have looked like zoo animals because everyone kept waving and smiling at the three of us.

After a bit of a rest, we headed over to Main St to pick up some things from Mariko's cousin's place. Kerry cooked us up some dinner (which we were so greatful for as we were starving by this point) and we left with a three seater couch and few other various items that were gathering dust in their basement. When we got home, Rob went out to visit some friends, and Mariko and I went and picked up $200 worth of groceries. We dropped them home and then went for a walk around the block. There are so many restraunts around so we look forward to trying them out (just as soon as we get a job and some money!). Got home at about 11:30am and crashed out on the futon.

I got up early this morning and dropped off the hire car on Broadway and Oak St. I was going to jump on a bus back to our place but decided to take a bit of a walk. I walked east down Broadway until I hit Cambie St. Turned left down there and crossed False Creek over Cambie St bridge into Downtown. I followed the sea wall around to the Burrard St bridge. There are some specatcular places along the creek and some nice boats too. I sat at the mouth of False Creek for a while, and then headed over the bridge to Kitsilano Beach. It's a pretty dingy beach from Australian standards, kind of like Thompson Beah, but instead of looking out to Coochie, you have snow capped mountains. I walked along the beach for a while and then cut along Burheim to Broadway. And now I am sitting in the Java Internet Cafe.

I've applied for a few more jobs but haven't heard anything yet. I'm still just applying for engineering jobs at the moment but will move onto anything I can get jobs next week. It's a beautiful day, I'm still wearing a wind cheater though.

So this begins a new chapter in the life of Justin. I'm really looking forward to the summer. I miss you guys heaps and look forward to hearing how you all are.

So I wrote this post after the previous post, but it has info from before the previous post, so it goes here.

There hasn't been a lot of action here lately, sorry about that. I have had less motivation to post since my camera has been out of action however today I have some news worth posting.

I won an Ipod!!!!

Apple have been giving away 24 iPods per day on each gondola as part of the Tellus World Ski and Snowboard Festival. The promotion was called "Fresh Tracks For Your Fresh Tracks". The rest of the gang got one on one of my days off so I made it my new goal to win one by the end of the festival. Unfortunately I only left my self two days to complete my goal, however I was willing to do what it took to win. I had a bit of inside info that the iPod lady tended to get on the first few gondolas of the day, but there were no guarantees. Mike and I decided to line up at 6:30am on the Saturday morning as we would surely be in the first gondola. Unfortunately, 6 other people had the same idea and we ended up being in the second gondola at 8:15am. The first gondola won iPods, the third gondola won iPods, we didn't!!! Damit!!!

The next morning, I was 5th in line at 5:30am, only to be proceeded by three Aussies who got there at 3am!, and Phil who came along to keep me company (Thanks Phil!!!). We hung around until about 8:10am, and we decided that we definitely needed to have 6 people in our gondola or we would miss out. We asked the guys behind us if they wanted to come through but they wanted to stay together. We managed to get a guy from a bit further back in the queue. We hopped on our gondola and crossed our fingers and then it happened. The iPod lady got on our gondola and told us that we had won!!!! It's a black 1GB Nano. So sexy. I'd show you a photo but still no camera.

I managed to steal a few photos from Mike and Lisa so I'll pop them up with a bit of a description.

A few weeks ago (actually it's more like months now!), we entered a team into the McConkey cup, which is the annual staff down hill race. Some people really compete, but it's more of a fun day as you can see. Mike, Lisa, Ross and I were team Carve. We actually placed 3rd overall in the snowboard class, thanks to Mike and Lisa who were second and forth fasted respectively. I fell on the first gate and Ross nearly missed the last one but at least we didn't get disqualified. We spent the rest of the day riding in our uniforms. Fun day.


Ross adding the final touch to my costume


Team Carve


We decided that steak was on the menu for lunch


Ready to race


Some of our crazy competitors


......


That's Mariko, my new room mate on the right (she doesn't always dress that way)