Funny moments from the Vancouver adventure
Sep. 4th, 2009 07:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agt_spookyWhew! Answered back another 100 comments last night. Only 95 to go! I'm getting there! :-) Oh, and I didn't have 42,000 people friend me, it was 20. *g* Welcome, everyone!
ETA: I had many people ask me what kind of camera I used to record all of the panels. It's a Canon EOS Rebel T1i. Expensive as hell (love my hubby!!) but it records in high definition. And those vids I posted were recorded with the lowest video setting. If I'd have used the highest each file would've been 12GB! Glad all of you liked the quality. *g*
I wanted to share some funny moments that happened to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
charityflint and I during our Vancouver vacation that I thought would give you guys a chuckle, too. :-)
• First, we had The Car of Random, as we nicknamed it. We were supposed to get a standard, mid-sized car, but they were out of everything but this giant Dodge Journey, which had three rows of seats, for crying out loud! I thought for sure I was going to hit something with this huge vehicle, misjudging my distance. Thankfully I didn't. :-)
Anyway, the car kept doing random things - the doors would lock by themselves after we started driving, but it was never consistent, like a consistent speed or distance, like my Jeep does. We'd be going fast, we'd be going slow, drive 5 miles, drive 10 miles, it didn't matter. The doors would just decide to randomly lock.
Same with the headlights. The automatic feature had the daytime running lights on during the day, but when it was full dark out they didn't come on! Totally bizarre.
The car also hated to go uphill, but man, going downhill it went like a bat out of hell. And you'd no more than press easily on the gas and the tires would squeal. And showing how observant Charity and I are, it took three days into the trip to realize the car had a sunroof. D'oh! LOL!
We had Manitoba plates on the car, not British Columbia ones, which was a source of endless amusement for us the entire trip, because we were "out of province". We must've heard that phrase a hundred times! Apparently it is VERY odd for B.C. people to see a car with out of province plates, so we kept having random people pull up next to us at a stoplight, lean out the window and ask if we were enjoying our vacation. :-) Happened to us on the ferry over to Vancouver Island, too! If only they knew HOW "out of province" the two of us really were. :-)
• Speaking of the ferry to Vancouver Island, as we were waiting in line, Charity noticed that there was an electronic counter on the ramp. As a laugh I said, "I say we'll be car 69!" And I swear to god, we WERE! LOL!
We also had to laugh when we noticed that Highway 1 ended at the ferry terminal, then picked up again at the port on Vancouver Island. We took the highway with us on the ferry! Ha!
asp hit counter
• We learned that Ambleside is Canadian for Rest Area along the highways.
• Seattle has nothing on Vancouver when it comes to coffee. I swear to god there was a coffee shop every 100 meters in the city! LOL!
• Vancouver's cement mixers are painted like fruits and veggies. We saw a giant strawberry and asparagus.
• Apparently Vancouver has a problem with runaway rubbish trucks, as we kept seeing these yellow warning signs that trucks could come flying out at us at any moment. :-)
• It seems that folks who actually live in Vancouver can't even tell you what the random flashing green lights on the stoplight mean. We heard several different stories, from pedestrians able to push the button to change it to red to that it means that cars from the opposite intersection can pull out if the lane is clear. Needless to say, we were cautious everytime we saw the flashing green lights, not knowing what might happen! LOL!
• We only saw two of those arrow signs, indicating filming was going on. One said GEP-CAP and the other said DWK, LTD. We still don't know what either of them meant.
• While wearing our Supernatural shirts around downtown Vancouver we had many people tell us they loved the show, from a bank teller to the gal selling tickets at Harbor Tower to a random guy at the food court. When we told them why we were here they were very surprised to find out a convention was going on just up the street! And I think the gal at Harbor Tower was going to go and get general admission on Sunday. :-)
We also had several folks in the elevator at the Sheraton ask us about the show and were generally interested in what it was about. One guy asked us for specifics on what day, time and channel. :-)
• On our drive up to Squamish we passed a sign for a community called Furry Creek. For some reason this name amused me greatly and I had to take a few pics:
• Lastly, here's a pic of me that Charity snapped at the 2400 Motel, with me standing at the door to Sam and Dean's room, wearing my Vancouver Canucks "ACKLES" jersey, just like the one Jensen was wearing in the Red Bull Derby race. I know, I'm dork. :-)
• Ok, this is really the last thing *g* - I just wanted to say how awesome ALL the guests were at the con. They were open and friendly and having a great time and gave all of us a wonderful experience. Especially Jensen and Jared. They were fantastic! I heard that the boys wanted to spend more time with folks in the photo ops line and it really showed. I've never seen them goof around or give so much attention to us. It was wonderful! And this was also the first time I never felt rushed going through the autograph line with the boys. It wasn't just "Hey, how are you?" get your item signed and move along. The boys were so chatty this time! It was the best experience I've had with them, honestly.
I'd also like to say how friendly and helpful the staff was at the con. At all the others I've been to the staff is a bunch of jerks, especially at Chicago. But at Vancouver (with the exception of one woman who is always cold and snotty) everyone was great! They didn't treat us like cattle and yell and shout, but asked us politely to do things. And if you had a question they actually helped you! I had a huge issue with my second J2 photo op ticket but they kept hunting down the right person until it was straightened out. So kudos to the staff and those hard-working volunteers. :-)
So...who's going to VancouverCon next year? I've got seat E20!
ETA: I had many people ask me what kind of camera I used to record all of the panels. It's a Canon EOS Rebel T1i. Expensive as hell (love my hubby!!) but it records in high definition. And those vids I posted were recorded with the lowest video setting. If I'd have used the highest each file would've been 12GB! Glad all of you liked the quality. *g*
I wanted to share some funny moments that happened to
charityflint and I during our Vancouver vacation that I thought would give you guys a chuckle, too. :-)• First, we had The Car of Random, as we nicknamed it. We were supposed to get a standard, mid-sized car, but they were out of everything but this giant Dodge Journey, which had three rows of seats, for crying out loud! I thought for sure I was going to hit something with this huge vehicle, misjudging my distance. Thankfully I didn't. :-)
Anyway, the car kept doing random things - the doors would lock by themselves after we started driving, but it was never consistent, like a consistent speed or distance, like my Jeep does. We'd be going fast, we'd be going slow, drive 5 miles, drive 10 miles, it didn't matter. The doors would just decide to randomly lock.
Same with the headlights. The automatic feature had the daytime running lights on during the day, but when it was full dark out they didn't come on! Totally bizarre.
The car also hated to go uphill, but man, going downhill it went like a bat out of hell. And you'd no more than press easily on the gas and the tires would squeal. And showing how observant Charity and I are, it took three days into the trip to realize the car had a sunroof. D'oh! LOL!
We had Manitoba plates on the car, not British Columbia ones, which was a source of endless amusement for us the entire trip, because we were "out of province". We must've heard that phrase a hundred times! Apparently it is VERY odd for B.C. people to see a car with out of province plates, so we kept having random people pull up next to us at a stoplight, lean out the window and ask if we were enjoying our vacation. :-) Happened to us on the ferry over to Vancouver Island, too! If only they knew HOW "out of province" the two of us really were. :-)
• Speaking of the ferry to Vancouver Island, as we were waiting in line, Charity noticed that there was an electronic counter on the ramp. As a laugh I said, "I say we'll be car 69!" And I swear to god, we WERE! LOL!
We also had to laugh when we noticed that Highway 1 ended at the ferry terminal, then picked up again at the port on Vancouver Island. We took the highway with us on the ferry! Ha!
asp hit counter
• We learned that Ambleside is Canadian for Rest Area along the highways.
• Seattle has nothing on Vancouver when it comes to coffee. I swear to god there was a coffee shop every 100 meters in the city! LOL!
• Vancouver's cement mixers are painted like fruits and veggies. We saw a giant strawberry and asparagus.
• Apparently Vancouver has a problem with runaway rubbish trucks, as we kept seeing these yellow warning signs that trucks could come flying out at us at any moment. :-)
• It seems that folks who actually live in Vancouver can't even tell you what the random flashing green lights on the stoplight mean. We heard several different stories, from pedestrians able to push the button to change it to red to that it means that cars from the opposite intersection can pull out if the lane is clear. Needless to say, we were cautious everytime we saw the flashing green lights, not knowing what might happen! LOL!
• We only saw two of those arrow signs, indicating filming was going on. One said GEP-CAP and the other said DWK, LTD. We still don't know what either of them meant.
• While wearing our Supernatural shirts around downtown Vancouver we had many people tell us they loved the show, from a bank teller to the gal selling tickets at Harbor Tower to a random guy at the food court. When we told them why we were here they were very surprised to find out a convention was going on just up the street! And I think the gal at Harbor Tower was going to go and get general admission on Sunday. :-)
We also had several folks in the elevator at the Sheraton ask us about the show and were generally interested in what it was about. One guy asked us for specifics on what day, time and channel. :-)
• On our drive up to Squamish we passed a sign for a community called Furry Creek. For some reason this name amused me greatly and I had to take a few pics:
• Lastly, here's a pic of me that Charity snapped at the 2400 Motel, with me standing at the door to Sam and Dean's room, wearing my Vancouver Canucks "ACKLES" jersey, just like the one Jensen was wearing in the Red Bull Derby race. I know, I'm dork. :-)
• Ok, this is really the last thing *g* - I just wanted to say how awesome ALL the guests were at the con. They were open and friendly and having a great time and gave all of us a wonderful experience. Especially Jensen and Jared. They were fantastic! I heard that the boys wanted to spend more time with folks in the photo ops line and it really showed. I've never seen them goof around or give so much attention to us. It was wonderful! And this was also the first time I never felt rushed going through the autograph line with the boys. It wasn't just "Hey, how are you?" get your item signed and move along. The boys were so chatty this time! It was the best experience I've had with them, honestly.
I'd also like to say how friendly and helpful the staff was at the con. At all the others I've been to the staff is a bunch of jerks, especially at Chicago. But at Vancouver (with the exception of one woman who is always cold and snotty) everyone was great! They didn't treat us like cattle and yell and shout, but asked us politely to do things. And if you had a question they actually helped you! I had a huge issue with my second J2 photo op ticket but they kept hunting down the right person until it was straightened out. So kudos to the staff and those hard-working volunteers. :-)
So...who's going to VancouverCon next year? I've got seat E20!
