Arctic Mark in Stanley Park

NEWS BULLETIN FROM THE "WHAT THE $%&# WERE THEY THINKING?" DEPT.:

There was a bizarre news item making the media rounds here last week. It seems some geniuses at the Vancouver Park Board decided that Stanley Park, that beautifully verdant natural scenic highlight of the downtown area, is in dire need of a marketing makeover to draw in even more tourists, especially the paying variety.

What was their brilliant scheme?  Simply this: build 25-30 giant, life-size animatronic dinosaurs and place them in the park near to the petting zoo and miniature railroad, and watch the tourists and their $$$$ flow into city coffers. Build them and they will come, apparently.  Never mind that this herd of giant Robo-Dinos would look a little anachronistic (to say the least), would have nothing to do with the history of the park, and would likely disturb the enjoyment of the many people, both tourists and local residents, who come to this world-renowned park seeking an inner-city oasis of natural tranquility and beauty, not some tacky Disneyesque theme park. Many local media commentators, politicians, and members of the general public have been scratching their collective heads over this whole idea. But amongst all the local media hoopla over this plan, not one single critic that I've heard has mentioned the most pressing concern which this plan raises in my own mind: Did these Park Board people learn nothing from "Jurassic Park"??

In other news, the recent lack of the activity here at "Arctic Mark in Stanley Park" has been noted by several friends and family members, and I can only make my usual excuses: 1) my feverish preoccupation with finding a teaching job before I was forced to seek employment as either a Tim Hortons coffee-jockey, a Jehovah's Witness canvasser, or a male escort;  2) My very brief (5-day-long) career as a supply teacher for the West Vancouver Board a couple of weeks ago;  3) Getting hired on Sept. 27 for a full-time job teaching English at South Delta S.S. in sunny Tsawwassen, a lovely little town about half an hour south of Vancouver in the Fraser River Delta region, very close to the U.S. border, and also more widely known as the more southerly of the two main ferry terminals in the Lower Mainland, where one can catch the ferry over to Victoria on Vancouver Island;  4) Doing a one-day, three-hour apartment search in the Marpole neighbourhood of South Vancouver, where I landed a newly-renovated one-bedroom apartment with hardwood floors and all new appliances, etc., on Shaughnessy St., which I am moving into this Saturday, Oct. 13.  My head's still spinning over the amazing fact that I managed to find a new job and apartment in the same week!  5) Oh yes, and things have been rolling along nicely on the social life front, as the more observant among you may have deduced from the September Photo Gallery ;-)  So, all in all, it's been a pretty crazily busy and exciting month since my last post, although I did find time to post a batch of photos a while ago in the Sept. Photo Gallery. 

Speaking of which, I have a bunch of new photos from this past weekend's very fun voyage with Bryn and my cousin Corey to Mom & Gary's place in Arbutus Ridge north of Victoria, which means I need to create the October Photo Gallery first in order to have somewhere to put them, so I'll sign off here by wishing everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving!  I'm certainly feeling very thankful right now for a whole bunch of things.  The pieces of the puzzle of my new life in Vancouver seem to be falling into place pretty darned quick these days....so in other words, it's safe to assume that no blog activity means lots of life activity....no news is good news!  (Note: This does not mean, however, that a flurry of blog activity necessarily means that my life has become boring, uneventful or miserable :)  In essence, there's no rhyme or reason to any of this, and I'm still amazed that anyone would want to read my rambling, self-absorbed ruminations when there's so much high-quality reality-TV out there to keep you both entertained and informed.  (Facetious? Moi? Never!!)

Well, folks, g2g, so I'll ttyl,

Mark