New House!

Howdy y'all. Chris and I bought a house!

We had been looking on and off for the past year and were in kind of an "off" phase. It felt like every house that we went to see was nice, but nothing really differentiated one from another. This place came up and it is perfect, so we jumped at the opportunity.

The new address is 738 East Pender, so it's a half block from out current place, just down the alleyway.

I've included some pics and descriptions of the parts that we're most excited about. If You want to see all of the pics that we received from our real estate agent, check out my Picasa album House!

The upper two floors form one suite and it's rented out right now. The bottom floor is another separate unit where the currents owners live. Chris and I plan to live on the bottom floor until we need the extra space.

A few pics from the upper two floors.

The master bedroom off the top floor has a great deck with a view of MacLean Park.

From House!

The master bedroom itself has a nice view of the park.

From House!

Strathcona is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Vancouver so it has a lot of history. In the 60s the whole neighbourhood was almost plowed under to make room for public housing projects. Only two of the projects made it in, but some other preparations were undertaken before the plan ground to a halt. As a result of these preparations, Strathcona now has some odd streets and houses.

The underlying topography of the neighbourhood is quite hilly, but the city came in and raised the streets where they were low; sometimes by about a storey. Raising the streets made sense at the time since after they wrecked the houses they would just build back up to street level. When the plans were scrapped a lot of houses were left below street level. The city offered to build houses back up to street level if the residents wanted it, essentially lifting the houses and inserting another floor beneath them. Some people took this offer and others didn't.

The houses that weren't raised either have a gang plank connecting the street to the second floor of the house or you walk down a storey from street level to the main entrance way. The houses that were raised look like they are flush with street level, but if you look closely, they actually have a board walk connecting them to the street with a lot of space underneath. Our house was raised back to street level and the next pic shows the boardwalk around the house. One nice consequence for us is that the ground level has 10 foot ceilings in places and is quite sunny, plus the house is fairly large as a result.

From House!

If you want to see an interesting Vancouver city planning video that goes through some of the plans in the 60s, check out this video and the next one in the series. It's funny that now the housing projects are more of a blight than some of the homes they were going to knock down.


Our new bedroom. Walk in closet out of view to the right. I'm not joking.

From House!

Our new bathroom. Both of the previous owners were wood workers, so a lot of the finishings are very beautiful.

From House!

The kitchen. Nice stainless steel counter tops. I'm looking forward to getting some good baking in this winter.

From House!

The common living space in our suite. The windows open up to the beautiful backyard.

From House!

Backyard woo! South facing. Just enough garden space. Low maintenance. Perfect for hanging out.

From House!

A photo of the backyard from near the garage. This gives a good perspective on the height difference between the street level and the previous ground level.

From House!

The garage! The beams are from logs reclaimed from the Fraser River. Much of the other wood is reclaimed as well. Very beautiful workmanship. There is a full bathroom with a cedar soaker tub, a bed up the ladder and a sink, but no kitchen to speak of. Chris is gunning for a pottery studio, but house guests might stake their claims first.

From House!

A closer view of some of the nice woodwork.

From House!

The bathroom with the ladder up to the loft.

From House!

The soaker tub and shower.

From House!

The rest of the bathroom.

From House!

Another perspective on the garage. You can see where the bed is in the loft.

From House!

That's all folks. Stay tuned for a house warming party later in the summer.

Summer Running

Last year the Wilson family ran the Canadian Death Race as team 5 Alive. The race is a 5 leg trail run that covers 125km of terrain near beautiful in Grande Cache, Alberta.

From Death Race - 2009

From left to right:

Kim Wilson (a.k.a. Sarge) Leg 4, 38km

Brock Wilson Leg 2, 27km

Dick Wilson Leg 5, 24km

Chris James Leg 3, 19km

Liana Estbrooks (Kim's friend) Leg 1, 19km

Carol Wilson, our awesome support team is not shown.

We had an amazing time last year running the race and also training for it. It was really great to do something like this as a family. Unfortunately, my Dad's doctor told him that if he wanted to keep the knees that he was born with he wouldn't be participating in this year's death race, so team 5 Alive is no more.

I had such a good time running it last year that I've decided to solo it this year. Yup. Trail running 125km in 24 hours. It will likely end up being one of the most trying experiences of my life, but I'm looking forward to the whole thing and I'll give it my best.

Just to add to all the fun, I've entered the Knee Knackering North Shore Trail Run, and just found out that I was selected in the lottery draw. The Knee Knacker is a 48km long trail run that follows the Baden Powell trail along Vancouver's North Shore Mountains. The Baden Powell trail is one of the Lower Mainland's classic trails and I've always liked the idea behind the Knee Knacker, so I figured that this would be my year.

The Death Race is on the August long weekend (July 31-August 1) and the Knee Knacker is on July 10, so if anyone is looking for me between now and August, I'll likely be running. If anyone is looking for me afterward, I'll likely be sitting on the couch eating potato chips. If anyone would like to go running, let me know. It's always nice to have company and it's easier to get my butt out the door when I have someone else kicking it.

Kitten Update

The kittens are getting bigger, so we've started calling them mini-cats.

As they've grown older, they've developed an interest in politics and current events.

From Kittens! 2010

They've lost most of their kitten teeth. Here is Three with a total of four fangs on top. At one point she had eight fangs.

From Kittens! 2010

They both love piles of laundry. They both instantly start purring as soon as they come in contact with either laundry or the bed.

From Kittens! 2010

From Kittens! 2010

Face push!

From Kittens! 2010

There are a few more photos in the Picasa album.

Fly Tying

Chris and I took a fly tying course from Pacific Angler. According to Chris, fly tying is "the perfect combination of nerdy and artsy craftsy". Our fellow classmates more likely thought of fly tying as a manifestation of their ability to provide food from a minumum of resources and a connection to a simpler life. However you look at it we all had fun.

From Fly Tying

From Fly Tying

More photos in the Picasa album.

Ashlu Creek Run of the River Hydro Project

Our original intent was to ski up Cloudburst, but I forgot my skins so we reverted to plan B which was to explore the recently completed Ashlu Creek run of the river hydro project. In my mind, "run of the river" sounds like they just take a tiny bit of water out of the creek, send it through their power plant and then return the water to the creek. In reality, the project is much larger scale, and much closer to a traditional big dam hydro project.

Thank you Lynda and Josh. Those certainly are skins and yes, I forgot mine.

From Ashlu Run of the River

Our first stop was the power plant and the tail race.

From Ashlu Run of the River

Here is a pic of how much water is still in the creek.

From Ashlu Run of the River

And here is how much water was coming through the power plant. Probably close to 50:50 at this time of year, but likely the creek has more water flowing through it than the power plant.

From Ashlu Run of the River

I think that this is what's known as the tail race. It's where the pipe comes out of the ground and into the power plant.

From Ashlu Run of the River

This is what the inside of the plant looks like. The building was completely unlocked and all the gates were open. We tried to find people for a tour, but nobody was around.

From Ashlu Run of the River

We drove about 10km up the river valley to the head race. This was my first surprise. We drove really far! A tunnel runs underground for this whole length. My second surprise was that the head race isn't just a small diversion of water. It's a dam and a lake. The creek is completely blocked at this point and the landscape around the head race is very much different than it was before the dam was in place.

Miscellaneous shot of the head race.

From Ashlu Run of the River

This is a weir that can be adjusted up and down as needs require. The big black things are inflatable balloons that are used to control the height of the weir. At this low flow, there was no water flowing over the weir.

From Ashlu Run of the River

A fish ladder.

From Ashlu Run of the River

A close up of the fish ladder.

From Ashlu Run of the River

This was most of what flowed past the head race.

From Ashlu Run of the River

This is the lake created behind the dam. It probably extends for about a kilometer up the valley. A significant change to the river.

From Ashlu Run of the River

Some cool hoar frost that formed on the head race.

From Ashlu Run of the River

From Ashlu Run of the River

New Kitten Pics

It's official. Chris and I are now "Crazy Cat People". I think that I'm the only one in the way of Chris owning a dozen cats and a lot of lace doilies.

In the old Kittens! album, starting with this pic.

From Kittens!

And some from a new album started for 2010 kitten pics.

From Kittens! 2010

D-Wave In The News

Google posted some information about some of the work that D-Wave has been doing with them. Pretty cool stuff and lots to look forward to.

In somewhat related news, you should check out Google Goggles.