It's been a while since I've had a full photo of me, and since I'm all proud of my weight loss, I thought I'd caputre the progress so far. 26 down, 23 to go.
Our first stop was Canadian Tire. For those of you who don't live in Canada, it's basically a nation-wide hardware store that specializes in automotives but also sells housewares and gardening stuff. They also to camping gear.
I've lived in quite a few places in western Canada and CT often has a reputation that warrants its nickname, "Crappy Tire". They generally have young not-so-swift people work there. Last month we went to the CT in Courtenay and Dan was looking for a Thing. The guy Dan spoke to said the Thing didn't exist. Dan said "Of course it exists, I've used it". The guy repeated himself, no such product. Dan pointed out that on the packaging of another related product, the thing exists. They guy still denied it. ?? It's one thing to not be familiar with something, in which case the correct response would be "I've never heard of that, I'll have to look into it", but to deny that it exists suggests deeper issues.
Another time recently, a friend went to the CT in Port Alberni asking for a headlight for her 2008 City Golf. The guy behind the Parts Counter scratched his head and said "I'm not too familiar with Golfs, are they Chevrolets?" My friend knew then that there was no hope if the Parts Guy at the Parts Counter at the automotive parts store didn't know that a Golf is a VW. (Seriously, where do they find these people?)
All this is to lead up to the photo below. I was standing with Dan while he was asking about spark plugs for our Nissan. I noticed this memo to staff about how to do something with Batteries or Warranties, but it wasn't clear which:
Do you want to know what happened next? We went to Dollarama! We had been going to the Dollar Store in the same mall as Canadian Tire (with Mark's Work Warehouse in between), but we decided to go to the other dollar store for a change. We didn't need much, but a friend asked us to get some plastic bins. We walked in and were smacked with a really very good CANDY section. (O no). Well, we'd better get a basket.
We spent the next ten minutes reliving our childhood via the candy we saw in front of us. Fun Dip. Nerds. Remember Nerds? In impossible flavours? We somehow managed to get away having spent only $4 in candy. (At a dollar store. Quite a haul, really). Our other reason for going there was to replenish our depleted drinking glass supply. They keep on falling on the floor and breaking.
After Dollarama we went to a parts place for some very special spark plugs (Canadian Tire didn't have them). The parts place was next to a cheapy-cheap grocery store, so Dan went to parts shop and I went to buy cabbage. But I had no cash and I felt silly getting my debit card out only for a head of cabbage. So I bought a bouquet of flowers. And a couple of Oskri bars. And some drinks. Dan got his spark plugs and away we went. To Stamp Falls!
What you'll see in some of these photos here is a salmon ladder. This is a steep waterfall so when the salmon return to do their spawning, some of them can't quite make it up to the good spawning place. Humans have created this system of ladders so the salmon can get up stream, rest along the way, and not have to die trying to get past the 9m waterfall.
I found this sign rather amusing. I don't know why. Probably because of the "Caution" bit.
It isn't a very long trail and we were there for maybe half an hour. But the trail that goes in the other direction is an excellent day's adventure, I'm told, with a 17km round trip hike.
Our first stop was Canadian Tire. For those of you who don't live in Canada, it's basically a nation-wide hardware store that specializes in automotives but also sells housewares and gardening stuff. They also to camping gear.
I've lived in quite a few places in western Canada and CT often has a reputation that warrants its nickname, "Crappy Tire". They generally have young not-so-swift people work there. Last month we went to the CT in Courtenay and Dan was looking for a Thing. The guy Dan spoke to said the Thing didn't exist. Dan said "Of course it exists, I've used it". The guy repeated himself, no such product. Dan pointed out that on the packaging of another related product, the thing exists. They guy still denied it. ?? It's one thing to not be familiar with something, in which case the correct response would be "I've never heard of that, I'll have to look into it", but to deny that it exists suggests deeper issues.
Another time recently, a friend went to the CT in Port Alberni asking for a headlight for her 2008 City Golf. The guy behind the Parts Counter scratched his head and said "I'm not too familiar with Golfs, are they Chevrolets?" My friend knew then that there was no hope if the Parts Guy at the Parts Counter at the automotive parts store didn't know that a Golf is a VW. (Seriously, where do they find these people?)
All this is to lead up to the photo below. I was standing with Dan while he was asking about spark plugs for our Nissan. I noticed this memo to staff about how to do something with Batteries or Warranties, but it wasn't clear which:
Do you want to know what happened next? We went to Dollarama! We had been going to the Dollar Store in the same mall as Canadian Tire (with Mark's Work Warehouse in between), but we decided to go to the other dollar store for a change. We didn't need much, but a friend asked us to get some plastic bins. We walked in and were smacked with a really very good CANDY section. (O no). Well, we'd better get a basket.
We spent the next ten minutes reliving our childhood via the candy we saw in front of us. Fun Dip. Nerds. Remember Nerds? In impossible flavours? We somehow managed to get away having spent only $4 in candy. (At a dollar store. Quite a haul, really). Our other reason for going there was to replenish our depleted drinking glass supply. They keep on falling on the floor and breaking.
After Dollarama we went to a parts place for some very special spark plugs (Canadian Tire didn't have them). The parts place was next to a cheapy-cheap grocery store, so Dan went to parts shop and I went to buy cabbage. But I had no cash and I felt silly getting my debit card out only for a head of cabbage. So I bought a bouquet of flowers. And a couple of Oskri bars. And some drinks. Dan got his spark plugs and away we went. To Stamp Falls!
What you'll see in some of these photos here is a salmon ladder. This is a steep waterfall so when the salmon return to do their spawning, some of them can't quite make it up to the good spawning place. Humans have created this system of ladders so the salmon can get up stream, rest along the way, and not have to die trying to get past the 9m waterfall.
I found this sign rather amusing. I don't know why. Probably because of the "Caution" bit.
It isn't a very long trail and we were there for maybe half an hour. But the trail that goes in the other direction is an excellent day's adventure, I'm told, with a 17km round trip hike.
Stace, you look AWESOME. Congrats on all your hard work. And hey! A sunny day while you were sightseeing! Nice!
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