We're Moving!

Tim just officially accepted an offer to join the team at Airtight Games in Redmond, Washington. He has always wanted to make video games and lately the urge has been getting stronger and stronger. They have a great team (heck, he interviewed with 20% of the company so he has a pretty good idea!) and "Dark Void" looks like it's going to be a very cool game. You can watch the early in-progress trailer here. It is a new company, working on it's first title, but they have an experienced team and a fantastic publisher (Capcom) so you will definitely hear more about them when the game gets closer to release.

It's a pretty big move in a short amount of time, but his work visa with R&H will expire on Monday and INS (aka "The Man") probably wouldn't be to lenient if we didn't get a new one right away.

Redmond is a beautiful suburban city just a few minutes east of Seattle. There is all kinds of greenery and trails so it'll be a great place to get our first dog - which we're hoping to do after Christmas. We are still in the process of hunting down an apartment, but many of them allow dogs up to 60 pounds (we refuse to get a little Paris-Hilton-accessory dog) so it should be okay.

Here's a little Google Earth view of the area with some of the nearby apartments marked. It's full of pretty fall colours now. Hopefully it stops raining long enough for us to enjoy it once in a while. :)

Sorry

Wow. It's been a while since I've updated this blog. Sorry about that. I have, however, uploaded some pictures to our Picasa account, so you can still see some of our adventures that have yet to be covered here.

Have a look.

Hollywood Blvd & the El Capitan Theater

Last Saturday evening, we saw The Jungle Book at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood. As we've mention previously, the El Capitan is owned by Disney. They were showing Jungle Book in honour of the 40th anniversary of its release. It was a lot of fun to see an old school Disney film, released long before we were born, on the big screen.

Since we were going to be out in Hollywood for the evening we decided to go a bit early and take some pictures of the area landmarks. The picture of us was taken at the mall. They have a few walkways that are open towards the Hollywood sign so tourists can take pictures. The little white line on the hill in the background is the HOLLYWOOD sign. We decided another, zoomed in, picture was necessary so that people could actually read it.
Attached to the mall is the Kodak Theater, home of the Academy Awards. We should also mention that Hollywood Blvd is lined with buskers and impersonators. This picture of the Kodak Theater is complete with a Snoopy, Batman, Hulk, Paratrooper and Darth Vader.

While walking around we kept our eyes on the ground for any stars of interest. We came across a few that were picture-worthy, but thought it fitting to put the picture of Mickey's star here.
The very orange picture (below) of a man playing the organ was taken in the El Capitan, just before the show started. He plays every night, entertaining waiting patrons with a medley of various Disney songs. The audience even sings along with the more familiar tunes.

Garden Update

This is the latest picture of the green pepper you met in our last garden post. Since then he has at least doubled in size and, at the rate he's growing, should be ready to eat sometime before Christmas.

In other news, our lone tomato finally ripened. Here we have the last known portrait taken before his untimely, yet delicious, death at the hands of an avacado... mmm, guacamole.

Beach Photo's

Two weeks ago, on a windy Monday afternoon, I decided to go to the beach for a couple hours and take some pictures. It took about 10 minutes to drive there and, after parking, I bought a Cafe Mocha at the local coffee shop before picking a nice spot to sit on the sand. There were lots of large waves breaking against the pier, sailboats passing in the distance and other people out enjoying the sand and sun. Thought I'd share a few of the edited versions for your perusing. Hope you enjoy!! :D

Our Little Friend

This little guy was eating a pine cone in a nearby tree yesterday (and dropping large chunks of it onto the walkway below). Lindsay went out to take some pictures of him and he came right down to a branch in front of our balcony to see what she was doing.

Rhythm & Hues

We've never posted a picture of Tim's work. So, without further ado, we present...

Tim leaving work for the dayThe uncomfortable expression on his face is due to the appearance
of a number of coworkers while taking this picture.

Labour Day Weekend

Friday evening we got some take-out from Panera Bread and went down to the beach for a picnic supper. We arrived in time to see the sunset. It was very nice.

Didn't do much on Sabbath or Sunday, just swimming, sunning and some shopping.
We went for a hike on Monday in Solstice Canyon. We had intended to get there to hike in the morning but, well, we're not really morning people and by the time we battled traffic it was noon before we started the hike. (Doesn't the rock in the picture on the right (above) look like a hawk?)

We decided to take the moderate-rated Rising Sun Trail in to the waterfalls. My goodness, was it ever hot. The moderate trail took us up the side of the canyon (which the map didn't indicate) and then back down again (the up seemed a lot longer). The sun was just beating down on us. There were no tall trees on the hill to provide shade and there was only a slight breeze. We could feel the heat bouncing back off the ground onto our legs. It was like an oven. Lindsay nearly died (note veins in forehead on picture above).

When we got to the waterfall we sat on a rock by the stream and dipped our tired feet while eating lunch. While we were sitting there, we noticed a snake slithering in the rocks not too far away. At first we thought it was a Coral Snake, which is poisonous, but we looked it up when we got home and found out that it was just a California Mountain King Snake, which isn't poisonous. We have pictures, but didn't post them to save Lindsay's mom's heart.

When we were done eating and had exhausted the photo opportunities in the area we headed back to the car - this time taking the easy (paved and shaded) path.
Along the way, we came across a tree that had a colony of bee's living in it. It reminded us of Pooh's honey tree.

Just a note: If you click on the pictures you can see larger versions of them.

My Garden

Thought I'd share some pictures of our garden with you.










So far we have one lone tomato growing. There are a few flowers on one of the other plants, so I still have hope we'll get some more.

There are 4 green peppers growing right now and 3 more flowers. I hope that whatever is eating the leaves doesn't eat the peppers.

And lastly, there's the basil, which is growing quite nicely and apparently keeping some bugs well fed as I can hardly find any uneaten leaves...

So, does anyone have any suggestions for a non chemical/pesticide way to rid my plants of the bugs?

Just a few pictures

This is a picture of the Hollywood sign taken during our drive to church. We've been attending the Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church.




Here is a photograph of a fruit vendor. When you drive through LA you see quite a few of these. They seem to be a healthy alternative to the Hot Dog vendors of TO.








And now, for something completely unrelated, pictures of cats with bad English.

The Getty Museum

Chantal has been here in California for a while. On Tuesday, we went to the Getty Museum here in Los Angeles. It's situated on top of two hills and you have to take a little train up to the top.

We took two tours while there: one showing the museums best pieces and the other explaining the architecture.

This is a picture of one of the buildings from the garden. The trees below are in a perfect line. If you stand directly in front of them it looks as if there is only one tree.











Above is a wood carving of a monk that was painted to look real. Below are a couple pictures of the garden. The bougainvillea trees are created using rebar frames that work as a lattice for the plants to climb.

We made it...

Well, we made it back to LA. There are two of us, two carry on bags and oh, wait... only ONE checked bag.

Back in Toronto we had made sure to check in 2 hours early, like you're supposed to for international flights. We checked our bags, passed through security, went to our gate and waited to leave. The previous flight was late arriving so we were a bit late leaving. I think we took off about 15 minutes after we were supposed to and we had to fly around some thunderstorms, so we arrived at our stop over in Salt Lake City 20 minutes later than we were supposed to. The delay meant that we only had 25 minutes from the time we arrived to the time our next flight left. Luckily the gates were right beside each other, so we had plenty of time, but I was a bit worried about our bags.

We arrived in LA on time at 8:32pm, went down to the baggage claim area and proceeded to stand there for about 30 minutes waiting for our baggage information to come up on the board. It never did. We eventually went to the Delta baggage help desk and asked them where our bags were. They directed us to the correct carousel, where one of our bags was going round and round, but we didn't see the other one. We thought it might still be coming, so we sat down to wait for a little while, until the carousel stopped moving.

We went back to the baggage claim and told them Tim's bag didn't come. She scanned our claim tag and informed us that the bag had made it on the plane in Toronto, and that it had also made the connecting flight in Salt Lake City. So, where did our bag go awry? Well, the people at LAX decided that our bag should next go to Guatemala, despite the rather large tag that says LAX in big bold letters. Genius. The baggage claim lady tells us the flight hasn't left yet, she'll see if they can get it out of the plane, things will probably get stolen if it ends up in Guatemala. "I never check any bags, myself" she told us. Great.

We finally left the baggage claim office about an hour and a half after we arrived. We were about to get on a shuttle to our car when we realize that they hadn't given back our baggage claim stubs. So, we go back into the office and get our stubs. While in there another family comes in looking for their lost bag. They received a phone message saying that it had finally arrived... 14 days after they did and with some of the contents missing. Things were not looking good.

So, the next morning Tim looked up the status of his bag online, and noticed that they had our address entered wrong. So, we call to change the address and also end up fixing the phone number, which they have wrong too. The lady on the phone also checked the status of the bag and tells us it arrived at LAX at 10:30pm last night and that they will ship it here. It makes no sense for the bag to have arrived at 10:30 when they had told us that it was on our plane and very nearly loaded onto another plane well before 10:30.

After 24 hours we are eligible for up to $25 reimbursement for any essentials we had to buy in the meantime. Oh, but only if you're not at home (which we were) and even then the reimbursement check would only be mailed to your home so if we had been eligible for it we wouldn't receive it until well after we would have needed it. It's like they plan to lose or damage your luggage from the start. They even post signs that say that if your bag is damaged it's because you didn't buy durable enough baggage.

[UPDATE by Tim]
So around 9:00pm the following day I get a phone call from the delivery guy saying he has my bag and he'll meet me outside. I'm expecting UPS or FedEx or even just an official truck from the airport. Nope. It's some dude in a pick up truck (STUFFED to overflowing with bags they've ineptly misplaced) and he's parked literally in the middle of the road so that I have to brave traffic to approach him and exchange my signature for my bag.

My first shake in LA (sorry you missed it Linds)

Something moved 30 miles away and 3 miles underground and it shook our apartment last night at 1am. The earthquake was a 4.5 at the epicenter (about a 3.0 in LA) which is strong enough to clearly NOT be just a fleet of big trucks driving by, and besides, we're not next to any major streets. It kind of felt like the whole apartment was driving like a car. It had the small fast vibrations like a rumbling engine, plus the somewhat bigger bounces and sways of the road. It wasn't that strong though. It didn't like tip stuff over or shake stuff off of the counter or anything. It wasn't all that dramatic, but it was clearly a case of things that shouldn't be moving, doing just that. Maybe it was just God saying, "stop playing with your new camera and go to sleep, you idiot." So anyway, that's what I did.

Noise

It sounds like there's a gas-powered generator in my kitchen.

What is in my kitchen, you ask?

An old fridge that's seems to be dying (and is refusing to go quietly).

We can't tell if it's still working and cooling the fridge. Things in the freezer aren't as frozen as they should be, nor are things in the fridge as cold as they should be, but it is still quite cold. It's been like this for a day and a half now, so I would think that it wouldn't be cold anymore if it wasn't working at all. Hopefully the ice I bought will supplement any inadequacies.

[update] Apparently the fridge was on strike. Lindsay turned it off for a while since it was making such a racket and wasn't cooling stuff anyways. Well after a few hours hiatus the fridge returned and has been working fine since. It's union must've struck a deal.

Welcome Party & Summer Pool Party

The Meadows (our apartment complex) is pretty good at doing community-building events. This past Wednesday, they held a meet and greet for all the residents who moved in in the last 3 months. They also invited residents who have lived here for more than 10 years.
There were snacks set out and a two hour time was allotted for people to chat and get to know each other. We sat with a girl who is about our age (who, we found out, lives on our floor) and a staff member, who is also a resident. We met several other people throughout the evening: a few ladies who have lived here for the past 13 years, a new gentleman who is an entrepreneur in several different fields and some of the other staff.
The gentleman told about himself and some of his business ventures. We even got to see a cell phone video of his daughter and son doing the west coast swing. He sells a juice that helps you feel younger and is in the process of starting a business to promote "healthy and earth friendly lifestyles." He *may* even have some freelance work for Lindsay.

This weekend was the summer pool party. There was a big barbecue with chicken, burgers (including veggie burgers) and lots of different (and delicious) salads. They had Lei's for everyone and hired a DJ who also organized games (primarily for the kids) and handed out prizes. We were actually surprised by the number of residents who came out. We could hardly find a place to sit when we first arrived.

Our Apartment

Welcome to our apartment. As many of you know it is a studio apartment, so we only have one main room that works as dining room, living room, bedroom and office.

















When you walk through the door, to your immediate right is the closet, dressing area and washroom. There are a few drawers there and a space for a laundry basket as well. Our closet is very tall and has quite a bit of "extra" storage at the top.



When you leave the dressing area, the next "room" you encounter is the kitchen. Appliances and counter "space" back onto the dressing area wall and there is a bar separating it from the rest of the room. We bought a couple of stools at a thrift store so we could use the bar for a dining table. The apartment didn't come with a fridge, but we were lucky to find someone just a few doors down that was moving out and had the correct size of fridge for sale. (There isn't room for a full-sized fridge)













Looking out from the kitchen, along the right wall, you will see our "bedroom" and what will eventually be a seating area (once we have furniture). Technically, we already have a bed frame, however, we're still working on staining it, so our mattress is still on the floor.










To the left is our office, library & entertainment center. The desks and bookshelf are from Ikea and the chairs are probably from the dormitory of a local college (we got them at Goodwill and had very similar ones at Southern).
Beside our office is the door to our balcony (also our only window). There you will find Lindsay's bike and "garden" (which cost a lot more than we expected at Home Depot). We have one pot with flowers in it (Cyclamen & Spathiphyllum which - surprise! - turned out to be perennials) and one pot with vegetables/herbs (Tomatoes, Red & Green Peppers, Basil).













Our apartment building is at the back of the complex and the emergency access road runs below our balcony. There are also some built-in barbecues to the south of our apartment, (those brick things that you can see on the side of the path) but the last time we checked they weren't in usable condition.

We hope you enjoyed the tour. Feel free to stop by anytime!