the Unexpressed Advantage

Here come the words, as promised…

Note: Pics in this blog, click the "Read On" link to see them

The last couple of weeks have been pretty insane in Vancouver. In particular, I mean weather-wise. The word I'm using to describe all of this is "Turbid." Now; I'm not exactly sure what the word Turbid means, for some reason when I read it in a newspaper article last week it registered blank in my internal dictionary. So, as I usually do, I derived meaning from context. Given the immediate context of the word and the nefarious conditions in the city, I came up with the following definition:

After I finish this blog, I'll look up the actual definition and post it at the end.

The first instance of Turbid-ness or Turbidity (as the newspaper referred to it) was a situation with the water. Due to an intense amount of rain, apparently the ground soil in our water supply resevoirs was stirred up to render the water undrinkable. We were given a "boil advisory" and told that if we drank our water we would die of bacteria poisioning; or something like that. So for the past couple of weeks we've been boiling water in the kettle and then filtering it with the brita filter so that it doesn't taste like crud. It was kind of a nuisance, but I found myself going to extra lengths to make sure that I didn't drink the water or brush my teeth with it. Luckily, my roommate Michael's fiancee Adrianna brought us some "safe" water from her parent's house in Abbotsford, where they aren't having turbidity problems.

Michael has been drinking the water from the tap the whole time. He's convinced that because we live in West Point Grey, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods on the west coast and one where most of the Vancouver politicians live, that our water is given extra special filtering priority and is subsequently safe. He may have been right, because our water never became gross and brown, as did the water for most of the folks I know living in Vancouver. Regardless, the turbidity boil warning is now lifted and the water is is safe again.

Then came the snow.

The weather has been fierce the last couple of weeks. This weekend it snowed somehting like 18 inches. It shut down the town, while simultaneously giving us a fun winter wonderland experience. This is one of the things I love about living in the northwest. This is my third winter in Vancouver and including two in portland, I've experienced 5 winters of snow suprise. I really love it. It brings me back to my childhood days in Lake Tahoe and Michigan.

Because of the snow, school was shut down yesterday. I found out the hard way when I showed up for class at 9:30 and then had to spend an hour on the bust to get home. My car was frozen shut with my phone inside, so I basically spent a day holed up in my room.

So I've decided that due to all the chaos it caused, I'd call the weather turbid as well. Not sure if the definition really transfers, but it makes sense to me.

Here are the pics of the damage it caused:

My frozen car in the driveway at the back of our house. My phone is frozen inside. Also note the cool new drop shadow and borders applied to the images.

Somehow, I was easily able to convince my roommates Joash (left) and Michael (right) to pose for snow pics in their summer clothes. Note that Michael is wearing flip flops.

Joash is also wearing flip flops. I'm not sure why he has that shovel, he didn't use it to do anything.

View of the neighborhood from my back door. The Turbidity has left us trapped in our homes.

Michael took this picture of the front of our house from the street. We put up those Christmas lights last week. They rock.

Here's me standing in front of the house. I look happy, but my feet are cold.

So that's the turbid life we are leading this week. Here's the dictionary definition of "Turbid" as promised:

Oh well, I guess I missed the point of it. Better luck next time. – dan.