The boil water advisory is lifted and businesses and homes can now run their taps.
Now, another thing is happening. The forecast calls for -20 degrees C weather PLUS windchill! Driving should be an adventure.
BRRRRR.....
Now that I've talked about the snow, I now want to lead you on to another problem most BC people have had to deal with for the past week and is still ongoing. Boil water advisory is still in effect for the Vancouver area and Burnaby as their water is still murky.
The heavy rains we have had plus the harsh winds last week was a result of the Philippine typhoon that happened the week before (See my bro's blog for more details on that typhoon). It caused landslides and two of our major reservoirs were affected. Water in the Vancouver, Burnaby, North Shore and some other areas had to deal with brown smelly water coming out from their taps. As of now, it's getting better, but still not where it has to be yet.
News Link - Boil water and heavy winds in BC
In my area (Richmond), as well as most of Coquitlam did not have the same problem. Ever since the torrential downpours, we hadn't had to deal with murky water. But I still boiled my water just in case. There was never a boil water advisory in our area. The reason was that we get our water from the Coquitlam reservoir. The Capilano reservoir and the other one (I'm not sure of the name), were directly affected by the landslides, since it was near or around the mountains.
I got to see first hand at work, how bad it was that people were scurrying to get all the waters we had on hand in our store. I heard in Costco it was even worse, people were climbing over each other and lining up outside to get good clean water. And the stores were all cleaned up in no time. Many people were angry, flustered, and it even made front page news. Heck, even my sister in Toronto heard about it and I never even mentioned it (I wonder what they have thought over there. *hint* *hint* comments please!). It rivaled the lineups outside to get the new Playstation 3!!!!!!! Some people also camped outside for water.
The panic is less now but we still get cleaned out of bottled water and jugs of water everyday, even though we order a lot of skids to make up for the advisory. Water companies are sure making a lot of money these days. I hope the people in the affected areas have water back to normal very soon. Oh yeah, we also get cleaned out of snow shovels and salt (see below) lately.
For somebody coming out of the Philippines, it actually doesn't seem new to me. We have to deal with this same kind of thing every day over there. No way should you drink from the taps as you can get dysentery. Water is always boiled or filtered before drinking. Of course you can use the water to take a shower and brush your teeth, just that water needs to be filtered or boiled before drinking. Sometimes I cannot understand the panic down here, but it's understandable since we take many things for granted over here.
For BC people who don't get much snow (or at all!), when we get more snow than usual, all hell breaks loose basically. The bad drivers come out, and our city is not prepared for something like this. Eastern or northern Canada would consider snow by these standards, "wimpish". I went outside and measured the snow. I don't consider it too bad... 6 inches? but it is bad in BC standards for a province that is not prepared for unusual amount of snowfall. Here are some pics.
When I came home from work, what an adventure. The day before, I didn't know it was going to snow so I brought the conventional car. This time, however, I had to bring the SUV. I'm glad I did. There were so many stalls on the road due to cars and trucks on the road that were either stuck or had a little fender bender. Some of my friends told me that they drove around and saw worse accidents around their area. I'm just glad I came home unscathed, no bumps and bruises, on myself OR the vehicle.
For those of you that read my blog and are in the Vancouver area and are students, double check your schools to see if they cancel. Kwantlen doesn't have any school today, and I hear UBC and SFU are cancelled as well. As for other schools, please call or check your school's webpage for more info.
For those of you that have to go to work, please be careful out there. Here are some tips when driving on the snow (automatic transmission)
This is a very useful link for winter driving. If you have a stick shift, this is a good read
The Lions win the Grey Cup! Woohooo! Reminds me of the time when Gabby, my bro, and I watched the Lions win the Grey Cup many years ago on a field goal by Lui Passaglia. Haven't watched a game since but I'm still happy that the Lions won the Grey Cup.
I am a big basketball fan. When I came to Canada, I used to dislike hockey because it took time away from NBA television. The Canucks making the finals with Trevor Linden (still is my favorite player), changed all that and I started to like Canucks and hockey. Also, the departure of the Vancouver Grizzlies still left a bad taste in my mouth especially when they made the playoffs last year.
Sportsnet showed a lot more NBA games for the past 3-4 years if you have digital cable. But I couldn't believe what I saw today however. Raptors NBA TV is now part of the digital cable package! I'm so happy!!! The premise is basically this, NBA all day everyday! I also heard that they will show some college basketball as well. IT'S ABOUT TIME WE FRICKING GOT A BASKETBALL ONLY CHANNEL!!!
Weee!!!!!! I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!
If you guys know that Billy Joel song, "We Didn't Start The Fire", here is a good rendition of all the stuff he sang about with images. The creator even added some sense of humor to it as well. Check it out. It was actually pretty educational. Check it out!
http://home.uchicago.edu/~yli5/Flash/Fire.html
And oh man, this is so cute! Check out the skateboarding dog!!!!!
Yes my mom would be 60 today. I always feel she's up there watching us, and behind some of the great events that happened recently.
My niece learns how to walk! Im sure Mom and Dad are so proud of Cara (me too!) with this milestone and to get it on video! Surely to make you, awwwwwww!!!!!
She could be the next WNBA player crashing into cameraman going for loose balls or maybe a girl NFL player getting a touchdown! Check out my bro's site for more!
My Bro's site
Thanks Gabz for getting me addicted to Fantasy basketball. It's almost as bad as my old times when I used to forego everything to stay home and score basketball games. Being a stats guy, guess that explains why I like the accounting program as well.
In the 3 leagues that I am in, all made by Gabby and our cousins, I am doing pretty well in one league because I had one of the top picks in the draft. I had the last pick and the second from last pick in the other two leagues so I didn't have much to work with. Unlike the first league where we have 8 players, there are 12 players in these two leagues.
Thanks Gabz :p
