It occurred to me a while ago that I was working almost right next door to a place where I worked in 2008 for about 8 months: Waterstreet Technologies, located on (you guessed it) Water Street in Gastown. I couldn’t remember the exact address but figured I’d recognise the place, so I went up and down Water St a couple times; but nothing rang any bells in the 300 block where I thought it used to be. Eventually I gave up and checked out their website, and… it’s at number 55? Really? I guess the 300 was just the suite number. The place still didn’t look familiar, and part of me is still thinking they moved in the last 9 years. But no, it’s just my weird brain playing tricks on me.
Anyway, I then decided to take the scenic route home through SFU Woodward’s, where I snapped a picture of coloured flags on… power lines? Is that what they are? It seems I’ve been noticing them a lot more recently.
Wednesday is volleyball at David Lam, so I took the usual pretty shots of Yaletown and False Creek. But it was the building under construction at Pacific & Richards that caught my eye. The Charleson, I think it’s called. Which is also the name of a nearby park right across the water from David Lam.
Thursday night a lot of queer (and other) nerds congregated on Jim Deva Plaza for a few hours of tabletop gaming. I’d made plans to meet a couple friends, but what with one thing and another we kept missing each other, and everybody already seemed to have their own boards and their own groups. But not to worry! Turns out playing giant Jenga is a great way to meet people. It’s loose and fast-paced, a lot of it is spent standing around either judging the active player or shouting suggestions, and when the thing comes crashing down, we all get to commiserate, and welcome new players. Hella good fun.
Friday I kept up the theme of “exploring Gastown” and on my lunch hour snapped this and that, finally deciding to post a nice picture of trains, with Canada Place and some cruise ship in the background. That‘s a blast from the past too: I took the West Coast Express for about two years when I worked downtown but lived in PoCo (including those 8 months with Waterstreet) and took many, many photos that I posted on Flickr. A few times I toyed with the idea of taking the train out past PoCo to see what life was like in the far-far suburbs. Which I did do once, stopping at Pitt Meadows, the next station over. It wasn’t that interesting, just more… suburbany. I didn’t like it.
Although I did like the ride, crossing the river in the still of night… I do like trains, but until my Europe trip only went on them a handful of times. It’s not something you can really enjoy out here.
And hey, speaking of blasts from the past. On Saturday I went into those same burbs for a games night with friends, and I had a hankering to check out my old stomping grounds. I stopped at the Shaughnessy Station Mall and hiked up the pedestrian overpass—I remember when they installed that thing!—and enjoyed the intensely suburban panorama. And then I got artsy. So that was fun.
Who knows, maybe I’ll take the train out there one of these days? But nah, I drove through Mission 10 days ago. I’ve seen the place. I’d rather not spend the night there if I can help it.