Month: January 2009

For a person that has been seriously looking to buy a home since April of 2008, I’ve discovered how little I actually know about the “buying” part. I’ve gotten really good at looking at places, reading at feature sheets, and asking the right questions. The stuff you do when you and seller agree, well I wished I had made a dress rehearsal some time before this first.

I didn’t realize all the little things you have to do and all the paperwork you have to fill out. Here’s a protip on how to cut down on all that stuff: have a massive amount of money sitting in a single (non-RRSP) account. You can probably guess why it’s useful to have a massive amount of money. Having it in a single account though, it saves so much hassle. Your mortgage broker and/or lenders then only have to look in one place to see your assets. If you’re drawing from six different accounts, that’s six different accounts you have to get statements for, to prove you’ve got the money. Also, if those accounts happen to be RRSP accounts or stock accounts, you’ve got additional work to get at that money compared to a simple withdrawal.

I would also suggest asking your realtor to pretend that an agreement has been made upon. Ask him/her what steps happen next. Figure out how fast you can liquidate your assets and get at your money for all your sources. If you need to transfer money from one account to another, ask how long that will take. If you’re selling stock, ask your broker how fast that can be done and what fees are involved. With RRSPs, that might be the most hassle if you’re going to use them with the Home Buyer’s Plan. It usually takes a couple business days to cash out RRSPs and depending on what type they are, you’ll also have to pay fees on top of that.

The ability to close the deal in a relatively quick fashion can sometimes be the difference between getting the place or not. In this market, where some sellers can’t afford to even pay an extra two weeks of their mortgage, coming in at a lower price but offering a quick completion can allow buyers to get a bit of an advantage.

Last but certainly not least, ask your lender or mortgage broker exactly what documents are required to prove your worth. I didn’t have a great idea of what was required, so it’s taken me a few extra days to gather up all the paperwork. Since I’m working against a date where I need all this figured out, gathering and faxing documents every day has left me a bit stressed. Had all the papers been just sitting in a folder from day one, that would have a much more smoother experience.

Don’t be like me, be prepared!

On Friday night, a co-worker brought his wife to “cake and cheer”. I’ve met her before and knowing that she’s a fairly new public school teacher, I asked her how that was going. She is indeed enjoying being a teacher, which was good to hear.

Hearing about her experiences as a public school teacher cemented a conclusion I came to about a year ago. I don’t think I could be a public school teacher. I certainly like the teaching part. When I was a TA in grad school, it was one of the most positive and enjoyable things I did while I was there. In fact, I’ve always thought I’d try my luck at being a college instructor if I ever got out of the game industry.

The reason why I don’t think I can be a public (or I guess private too) school teacher is the strict schedule they keep. Teachers have a rigid schedule that they must follow five days a week. Teachers can’t be late for their own class, nor can they skip out early from teaching a class. I couldn’t do that. I get to work at varying times: 9:55am, 10:07am, 10:16am, etc. No matter what time I start, I just leave eight or nine hours later. I’m allowed to be flexible like that. Sometimes, I’ll take my lunch at noon or 11:45am or maybe later like 1:30pm. Teachers can’t do that. They have to take lunch whenever their kids do and they have to be back on time, no matter what. Once in a while, I’ll take an hour or two from my day to go to the dentist, doctor, or whatever errand I have to run. How can teachers do that? I don’t think they can, they have kids to look after.

I am totally accustomed to a flexible working schedule. Seeing the constraints that teachers must work within, makes me additionally value their desire to provide a solid education to kids. They do get that awesome two months free in the summer but the rest of the year isn’t that way. So no teaching for me.

My loyal readers, what you see above is a picture that my good friend Bryan sent me from Australia. He is suggesting how I might want to decorate my apartment when the time comes. Thank you Bryan for the ideas!

When you look at what’s he done, Bryan is not far off from what I actually had in mind. I was indeed thinking of putting my Xbox 360 to the left of the fireplace. Above the fireplace was where I would put some sorta high definition widescreen display. The orientation of the couch is the exact same orientation I would put a couch in. I also really have no need for the fireplace. Between you and me, I kinda wish it wasn’t there.

If I were to make “unlimited taco beef”, that’s also where I would place the mythical bowl on the counter top. If you were wondering, the “unlimited taco beef” refers to a gathering I once promised to a bunch of dudes, Bryan and Adam among them. When I was renting an apartment on campus in my last year of grad school, I had this idea where I’d make about 10+ lbs of taco beef with the accompanying fixings and have “unlimited taco beef” night at my place with the boys. That never happened for reasons I won’t get into here but the idea always seemed attractive to all of us.

Last but certainly not least the “exersize” pole is pretty much self-explanatory. No apartment is complete without a brass pole made for dancing around. It’s a conversation starter for sure. Also, it reinforces the ceiling from a structural point of view.

Oh, by the way, the seller signed the contract which means this thing is getting pretty damn serious. I have perhaps one, maybe two opportunities left to flee to Mexico and change my identity.

So if you’ve been following this dog and pony show that I call a blog, you’ll know that I’ve been looking to buy an apartment from approximately April of 2008. From what I hear from a lot of you, that’s apparently a long time to be looking. Slightly off-topic but just between you and me, I actually intended to get a real estate agent and start looking at places in early February of 2008 but I procrastinated so much, I left it to April.

Anyways, last week I went to look at an apartment in New West at a development that had just completed this month. In fact, people are still moving in right now, so it’s completely new. It was nice enough that it met a lot of the criteria I had for a decent purchase. As such, I made a reasonable offer last night. Before doing so, I had already knew what my upper limit was because anything beyond that just didn’t make sense financially for me.

So after just two counteroffers this late afternoon, I got a call back from my realtor. In short, she told me the other party had agreed to my last counteroffer. When I heard that, there was the briefest flash of panic in my mind as resisted the temptation to drop the phone and run away with the circus. I calmed down and all I could say was, “um, really?” Yes, in fact it was true. So my realtor dropped by the studio to get me to sign my part of the new contract.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because I went through this exercise at the end of August, when I agreed to another seller’s price and signed the contract. Having sent it off, the seller delayed signing his part and another offer came in, which he ultimately accepted, leaving me holding empty dreams and wishes.

So that’s where we currently stand here. I am actually not sure if the other party has signed the contract. I do not have confirmation from my realtor yet. I will contact her tomorrow morning. So by me writing all of this now, I am really tempting fate here. Am I prematurely counting chickens here? Let’s just say I haven’t moved any of money around yet. I also have not looked at furniture online, which I did the last time when nothing was set in stone yet.

In any case, here’s the description of the unit, taken right from the real estate web site:

“Priced for quick sale. Brand new. No GST. Spectacular view. large balcony. Excellent finishing throughout. Granite counters, S/S appliances, fireplace and more. One covered parking and one locker. Close to Skytrain. 24 hr concierge. Includes free Telus internet and cable first year. Includes built-in deep fat fryer.“

I may have embellished one detail above. If you’re interested, here’s the web site for the development. It’s the one-bedroom in the first tower. Here are also some pictures from the apartment, the last two pictures are of the fitness centre and the activity room, all of which still need all of its equipment to be delivered. The deal isn’t final yet, so I’ll keep everyone up to date.

After meeting with my realtor in downtown Vancouver tonight, I had the option of watching the rest of the Canucks game at the studio or just going home. I chose the latter option which was correct choice given how the ‘Nucks played tonight.

I caught the bus home and was in the last two kilometer stretch of the Barnet Highway when I noticed the bus driver slowed down considerably. I looked up from my porn on my laptop and saw it was entirely pitch black around the bus. The only illumination was coming from the bus’ headlights. None of the street lamps that dotted the highway were on. Given that this whole area is entirely industrial there weren’t many lights to begin and those were off too. It was very dark and everyone was looking around trying to figure out what had happened.

I tried to look into the distance but it basically pitch black with a few distant orange lights. In the immediate area, it was just vehicle lights breaking through the darkness. I thought it would be a temporary thing, local to just a small stretch but minutes went by and we were still rumbling along in the darkness.

It was at this time I thought now would be a really bad time to have the bus breakdown. I also thought that if the bus indeed did breakdown, it would be also a bad time for the zombie apocalypse to begin, involving my bus as well.

Luckily, nothing happened but our bus did pass several police cars and a fire truck near the edge of the power outage. Once we got into Port Moody proper, that area all had power and not even a single traffic light was affected. Only once I got home did I figure out from the BC Hydro web site that a power line had come down and left about 500 customers without power. The outage is estimated to be resolved by 4am PST, so it has probably been fixed by the time you read this.

Last but not least, if you’re interested in how one man is actually preparing for the zombie apocalypse, read this blog. I refuse to comment as to whether or not I know the blog author personally, except to say his family is lucky to have him.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZkKTTZuxO8&hl=en&fs=1]

The above video is the entire last press conference for George W. Bush in his role as the President of the United States. I don’t expect any of my readers to watch the whole thing but it’s there for you to view. In exactly one week, President-elect Obama will be sworn in and he will take on the responsibility of running the United States.

Reading about Bush’s last press conference today made me pause for a minute. Dubya has been running the show for eight painfully long years. Perhaps narcissistically, I began to think about what I was doing eight years ago. First, I was still in my mid-20s when Bush took power on that sad day in January 2000! Wow, I was just a young whipper-snapper back then!

Eight years ago, I was working for EA, as I am now, but I was a video game tester and I made $10.50 an hour. On the day of Dubya’s inauguration, I was at work testing a game called Triple Play Baseball for the PC. EA doesn’t even make that game franchise anymore.

Eight years ago, I hadn’t even thought of going back to school, let alone thinking grad school was an option. I didn’t even know what St. John’s College was and had nearly forgotten what it was like to eat dinner off a plastic tray.

In eight years, I’ve done a lot of things that I’m quite happy with. In those same eight years, Bush has done a lot too but I’m not sure he’s happy with his list. Now obviously I’m biased but here’s a very comprehensive list of executive branch failures in the American government since 2000, also known as the things Bush screwed up while in power. Some of those items pale in comparison to some missteps that will likely define his legacy: Iraq, hurricane Katrina, and Afghanistan.

One more week before the White House is under new management.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqIyA9sGZHI&hl=en&fs=1]

Damn, I am looking totally awesome in the above picture. Do you remember that trip I took to Honolulu, Hawaii last July? I went mainly for the wedding of a close friend but I wound up doing some interesting things while on the island paradise. One of those things was riding in a helicopter for the first time.

It was last full day of my time in Hawaii and my roomie for the trip, the best man, had already gone home to Vancouver. I was thinking of something to do before I too returned home. Leafing through this travel guide the hotel had given us, I went over the many touristy things I could do. After reading through the luau section, I came across the helicopter tours. I am fascinated by all sorts of modes of transportation, especially flying ones, so this stood out for me.

There were a few offerings but I decided to go down to the concierge desk to figure out which one they recommended. The nice lady at the desk told me that Makani Kai Helicopters would be the best bet given they were reasonably priced and would also pick me up and drop me off at the hotel which was definitely convenient. We settled on the Pali Makani tour which was a 30 minute excursion around the island with the highlight being several dips into the crater of an active volcano. I may be lying about some details of the tour but that’s not important. The hotel concierge did all the arranging with the tour company and even was able to accept my payment there. She printed out my voucher and told me when to go downstairs to wait for the shuttle. It was extremely easy to book the whole thing.

At the appointed time, a shuttle bus arrived and picked me up. I was the third person on the bus and we went around several hotels picking up about six more people, including two very attractive ladies. The bus then took us to the airport where the tour company was located.

We went inside to a waiting area where there were already some people waiting. It turns out we’d be split into two groups since they could accomodate six people at a time on the single bird they were using today. I was hoping I’d be flying with the fine ladies but I got an aerial weiner block unfortunately. It turned out I’d be going up with a family of four from London.

While we waited for the first group, an employee told us the preflight procedures, how to approach the helicopter, get in, buckle up, use the headsets, and then how to exit the helicopter. We were then also given a float device to wear around our waist like a belt. It was obviously not inflated but we were told what to do if we ditched in the water. Then it was time to wait and they put on a DVD on a TV for us to watch. It was some production that showcased aerial tours of the islands. I spent the time mainly leafing through some periodicals they had lying around.

Pretty soon the first group returned and it was our time get in the air. We were also assigned specific seats on the helicopter because the aircraft had to be evenly weight distributed. That’s is why each booking must be accompanied by your honest body mass. We approached the bird single file, all the while watching the “deck officer” for final, non-verbal instructions. By the way, the whole “ducking” while you approach a helicopter is completely unnecessary. We were told the blades of most helicopters are so high, there’s several feet of clearance even for your average basketball player. So all of us just walked normally to the helicopter and then climbed into our assigned seats.

Now since they don’t shut down the bird while they change groups over, the helicopter is still running. I never knew exactly how loud helicopters can be when you’re right next to one. It’s not exactly deafening but you need to shout loud to be heard outside of one. Once inside we all buckled in and then grabbed a headset so we could listen to the pilot. The particular helicopter we were in that day was the Eurocopter AS350. The AS350 has both civilian and military uses, with many US law enforcement agencies having it in their fleets. I was hoping they would be flying decommissioned Apaches but that’s for another day.

With everyone secure, our pilot greeted us and then began our “taxi” to the flight line. Taxiing in a heli means the pilot just lifts the bird just several feet off the ground and then flies slowly forward. The second we started to move, I thought it was already a pretty cool experience. Having just experienced air travel in planes all my life, it was odd to go from sitting still to airborn and flying in just a few seconds, without the need to scream down several hundred feet of runway first.

We maneuvered past buildings and parked aircraft before we made it to a smaller runway where the pilot descended and put us back on the ground. He appeared to be talking to the control tower for perhaps five seconds and then we were airborn again, this time in earnest. We had been given clearance to leave the airport so we were climbing for real. The sensation of being on the ground to being 200 feet in the air in just a few seconds was awesome. The grin on my face must had been dumb looking. I really enjoying it.

It was at this time I realized how much vibration helicopters can have. It was distracting or bone-rattling but we could certainly tell there were massive blades rotating quickly above us. Now you can read the tour details with the link I provided but essentially the pilot took us to many but varied spots around Oahu. It was amazing having a nice big window to look out at the beaches and the ocean. They took us high enough to get a good view but not so high that the details couldn’t be seen. On a swing through the Waikiki Beach and the surrouding ocean, I could still see individual surfers, all in a line, catching the same wave. Awesome!

The pilot narrated the whole tour, telling us how high we were, what we were seeing, and where we were going next. The great thing about the helicopter is that you can just hover whenever you want. Several times the pilot pulled back on the stick and brought us into a hover, just so we could sit in the air and get a clean look at something. You can’t do that in a plane.

For just half an hour, it seemed we went everywhere. The pilot showed us the touristy areas first, like Waikiki proper but then he started showing us the lesser known areas of the island. We floated by the pricer homes on the island, along beaches that are secluded from the busier areas. He showed us a few smaller plantations. We travelled over the interesting highway system on Oahu, where roads twist around moutains and at times, go straight through them. We were then shown some interesting hiking areas, in a mountainous region of the island. The pilot traced for us a spectacular trail that led up some towering ridges. At one point, we saw a hiker, so the pilot put us in a hover and we got close enough to wave at the hiker. He waved back. While our view was incredible, I was thinking the hiker’s view from that ridge must have been breathtaking, with impossibly green mountains below him and the bright blue ocean in the distance. We also got to fly by Pearl Harbor, getting good views of the USS Arizona memorial as well as modern naval vessels anchored in the port. Having viewed the USS Arizona memorial up close, it was interesting to see it from the air.

Well before I knew thirty minutes had passed, we were headed back to the airport. As we landed and left the aircraft, I was quite pleased with my very first helicopter flight. I took many photos and videos but here’s one below for now. You can tell how strong the engin
e vibrations are by how shaky the picture is. I’ll try to post more later.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp32S0qJm6E&hl=en&fs=1]

http://videomedia.ign.com/ev/ev.swf

It’s 3:30am and I really should be sleeping but I am not. I am not in bed for two reasons: I don’t have to go to work tomorrow and the demo for Skate 2 just arrived on the Xbox Live Marketplace less than two hours ago. The video you see above is from the demo itself. Even though I’ve played through the demo about a dozen times at work, I still wanted to play it on my own console at home. It always weird to play the game you’ve worked on at home for the first time. You get the sense you should be seeing these images while at your desk at the studio but instead you’re at home in your underwear.

Anyways, the demo still plays great. I’m really happy with how the game turned out and I believe we made a quality title that gamers will truly enjoy. So far, initial impressions of the demo have been quite good. Just in the last hour I’ve done a quick read through some of the message boards and feedback has been nearly all positive.

You can download the demo right now on the Xbox Live Marketplace. For PS3 owners out there, I am sorry but you’ll have to wait an extra week before it hits the PSN. If you’re curious about what I’ve been working on for the last year and a half, please grab the demo, I think you’ll have lots of fun!

I know we’re well past Halloween and Thanksgiving but I just wanted to write about a gastronomical adventure I had with a pumpkin pie. It was sometime in late October and I was working some OT on a weekend. The catered dinner that evening was less than impressive. The main course appeared to be some sorta boiled pork chop mess. No one was a big fan.

For dessert though, there was a large silver platter of reasonably sized slices of pumpkin pie. Next to that was a bowl of freshly made whipped cream. Now it is my recollection that I’ve had pumpkin pie maybe a handful of times in my experience, perhaps less than five. Each time, I came away with the impression that pumpkin pie just wasn’t for me.

Despite my reservations and because I hadn’t eaten much of the boiled pork, I decided to sample a small slice of the pumpkin pie, along with a dollop of the whipped cream. After returning to my desk, I had the first bite of pie and cream. The resulting taste was a pleasant surprise, the complete opposite to say, a random punch to my testicles. The taste and texture of the pie filling was unlike anything I sampled before. It was just perfect. The crust they used was also great, not too crumbly but not too oily either. The topper, so to speak, was the whipped cream. It had been somehow infused with cinnamon, possibly at the molecular level, making each bite the highlight of dinner.

Before the end of the evening, my final tally was three slices, with each one bigger than the previous. I have not had pumpkin pie since, partly because I’m not sure where to buy it not but also because I have high standards now for pies of the pumpkin variety.