Victoria housing rant - renting owning searching buying chapter 2 · 31 August 2010 by colin newell
I have been living with my wife of infinite patience in a really nice “suite” in the Oak Bay, Rockland, Fernwood area.
Digs are kind of nice… 1250 sq. feet. 2 BR. 2 Bath. Laundry on each floor. Mail delivery to the door. Has been called “mind numbing luxury” by someone we know who lives in Hollywood. So that says something. Something to do with the spectacular ocean and 220 degree mountain views. I guess.
Our tower is 16 stories tall and is the highest point in Victoria.
We are just wrapping up a complete window renovation. Single pane to double pane.
The work has been going on for 6 weeks. Has been invasive as heck.
But I am kind of resigned to the noise, the dust and the arrival of gangs of hunky young tool-belted dudes at 7:30AM in the morning. Often without notice… proper legal notice.
If you are a renter, you get 24 hours advance notice of an invasion. In the case of the 80 some tenants in my building… not so much. Not so regular.
It is a BIG project. I will give them that. And the building needs the upgrade. That’s life.
The only thing that really bugs me is the degree of contempt that the owners of the building hold for the tenants.
And I thought it was just me… being cynical and all…
The lack of notice. The 7AM to 7PM schedule. The unannounced arrivals of young dudes.
The dudes don’t bother my wife so much. So there is some upside and balance.
There were a lot of little things that the landlord could have done to ease the pain – like setting aside a quiet area for the many elderly residents. But no.
Maybe NOT working on Saturdays. But no. Giving legal notice with some consistency… but no.
So. We are calling them on it. In a big way. Might report on that as it progresses.
Point of all of this. In my 4 plus decades of life in Planet Earth, I have probably spent 20 of them renting… generally quite successfully. But I almost always get the impression that landlords don’t like their tenants much… always out to screw them.
Just me. Have had some good experiences mind you.
Anyway. Photo gallery of some of the action here labeled Window reno – enjoy.
Victoria housing rant - renting owning searching buying chapter 1 · 31 August 2010 by colin newell
My wife and I have been house hunting in Victoria B.C. Canada for some time now.
Rather not say how long.
Babies become children. Children become teenagers.
Well maybe not that long. But long.
And at this moment in time, I really believe we are on the cusp of a real estate melt down in Victoria (and Vancouver and Toronto and Calgary and…)
Now the CMHC and most real estate companies will wave their hands in your face saying “No, no, no, Colin, no, no, no! The market is brisk. It’s alive. It’s robust. Houses are selling, selling, selling. Prices are rising or stable. Buy now! Buy now!”
Truth is: There is a glut of houses, condos and town homes on a seriously bloated marketplace here in Victoria.
And some odd situations too.
Like stucco bungalows, that 10 years ago, would have been around 220G are now between 500 and 600G. Duplexes that are merely the above, slightly larger and split in two… for 500 and 600G… meaning that the “whole” house is worth 1.2 Million.
No. No, it’s not worth that. Condos for around 450G to 500G. Now why someone would buy a glorified apartment for 1/2 million escapes me… but whatever.
Town houses for 600G (that listed when new 1 year ago for 729G)
And dozens and dozens of houses that have been on the market for 60 to 120 days – many of which that have had “price reductions” of 10, 20, 30, to 60G… and still not selling.
Thing is – the market appears to have lost most of its thrust. And with that ensuing vacuum… there is only one way to go.
Down. But how far?
Stay tuned.
Summer Fun Food and Drink - Nachos - Chapter 22 · 25 August 2010 by colin newell
Did a vegetarian nachos tonight – and for a twist, in addition to the scratch guacamole, we whipped up a fresh salsa.
Fresh Salsa:
3 chopped Roma tomatoes (seeded)
1/2 purple Onion – finely diced
1/2 Serrano chili pepper – finely minced
4 stalks of green onion – finely chopped
Mix vigorously.
Salt and lemon juice to taste.
Colin’s Guacamole:
1 Avocado (seeded)
1 Roma tomato chopped (seeded)
1 stalk green onion finely minced
1 Serrano chili pepper finely minced
1/4 teaspoon Cumin
1/8 teaspoon salt (to taste)
Several twists fresh ground pepper.
Nachos:
Low sodium corn chips in casserole dish
1 cup sharp Cheddar cheese grated coarse
1 cup Monterey Jack cheese grated coarse
3 Mushrooms sliced thinly
1/2 Roma tomato sliced thinly
2 stalks green tomato sliced thinly
Chopped pickled jalapeno peppers to taste
Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees (F)
Serve with Irish Ale.
Summer Fun Food Drink and Gear - The Gin Virgin - Chapter 21 · 23 August 2010 by colin newell
If you think Victoria B.C. is coffee central, better get ready to add a new category for this little piece of West Coast paradise! Victoria Gin has hit town.
We spoke with boyish master distiller and molecular biologist Peter Hunt, 31 as he tended his copper pot still – the first one I have ever seen.
Photo right: From L to R – The Hemp Vodka, the Oaken Gin and the Pure Gin.
Peter did his B.A. and Masters degree in Micro-Biology at UVic and seemed as surprised as my wife and I to be tending and managing the intricate discipline of distillation. One of his former vocations was community development work in Africa – but now, at this very early stage in his career, he is doing something completely different – if not just as equally satisfying.
This was our second attempt at finding the operation (they have added some more signs!) and adjacent to a small vineyard in Saanich, the distillery and tasting room are in a barn, giving it that cottage industry feeling that you find in many small wineries.
I learned a lot about distillation and the process of making gin and vodka while checking out their neat operation. A mash of juniper berries and 10 “botanical” additions are used in this handcrafted spirit. Watching it “boil” away at just over 80 degrees © was cool – as well as seeing the condensation towers “perking” – with a gentle little stream of refined “brew” ending up in a steel tin.
Wild organic herbs and spices plus natural spring water create the complex flavor profile of gin – and it is not entirely lost on me, an avid coffee taster. In some ways, it is even more challenging. In the sample room, there are martini glasses laid out with samples of the botanical pallet they use. So much for secret ingredients!
We sipped several varieties of the Gin, one Oak aged and one pure as well as the hemp vodka – and bought a bottle of each. Because I was driving I kept my tipple to less than 1/8th ounce sips with each sample – but the flavor was all there.
Some extra things I learned…
The German-made, 120L copper pot-still produces a “batch” in an attention grabbing 4 to 6 hour distillation process. Intense knowledge of biology and chemistry is key because you do spend a lot of time stripping off ingredients you really do not want in liquor – like acetates and methanol, the blindness inducing byproduct of careless distillation.
Summer Fun Food Drink and Gear - BING Bots suck - Chapter 20 · 18 August 2010 by colin newell
Misfiring Microsoft search bots at BING.com have been hammering my site so much lately I had to put an HTACCESS block on them – not to stop the site being overrun with their crazy spiders… but to save my pocketbook.
Looking at my detailed web logs, it appeared that I was being scanned by “20-30 bots every few seconds”, appearing much like a denial of service attack.
The IP addresses of the bots – Had almost 90,000 hits on my website yesterday – came from 65.55.25.149 – the culprit Microsoft.com in Redmond.
Those people are not only incapable of developing a stable operating system; VISTA or Windows 7… but also, they haven’t a clue about running a search engine.
So guess what?
You’re blocked!
Microsoft gobbled almost 8% of my monthly web bandwidth in one day – thanks a lot folks.
Now piss off.
Colin Newell is a Victoria area resident, food writer, blogger and multimedia engineer – when he is not working at a local University, he is on the hunt for the perfect cup of coffee…
Summer Fun Food and Drink 19 Cafe Conversations · 8 August 2010 by colin newell
Good cafe conversations are like a mountain stream – your best bet is to sit on the edge and listen to it babble gently – and occasionally toss a small stone in and watch the ripples.
And I had a lively converse over cups of exotic HABIT coffee with writer and raconteur Brennan Storr this afternoon.
Brennan Storr is a twenty-something amalgam of a Mickey Spillane character with a bit of Hunter S. Thompson’s DNA thrown in for good measure. Razor sharp social observation and witty quips and retorts fly randomly like a scattered stacked deck of playing cards.
And that is before the first sip of superb single origin what-cha-ma-call-it from somewhere in central Africa. Sorry hipster HABIT coffee brewers. Not paying attention.
Brennan is the kind of guy who is just as comfortable in a hipster cafe as he is at an anonymous motel room on Main Street, Big City, Canada – up to whatever writers and raconteurs do in their spare time. For the faint of heart – you probably don’t want to know. Let’s assume that he, like me, likes to wander the streets of Vancouver, Los Angeles or Toronto draped in the cloak of anonymity that only the large urban melange can afford.
Mister Storr is also better known, perhaps, for his twisted and quirky food writing on Largely the Truth – A site that relies as much on being alert and prepared when you are reading it and also maybe holding a glass with a finger of Scotch and a Cuban cigar with your free hand.
It is heavy reading at times but rewards the reader with a wild-card or two of genuine funny with the tasty aspect of his muse and impression of Food in Western Canada.
Brennan is also a regular on the social medium known as Twitter – and if you are not following him, you are not really living. He is funny, spontaneous, irreverent and unpredictable in 140 character measure. Drinking coffee with the man has its occupational hazards – unless of course you mind being subjected to the free form style normally reserved for open mike comedy night.
Which I am always up for – because I like conversational stimulation – like I like my coffee… hot, fresh and from a mysterious corner of my cerebral cortex.
And as it has turned out, Twitter and social networking has turned out to be beneficial. I find inspiration in the oddest places and it takes me to the next level in my writing – wherever that might be.
Meantime, watching the mountain stream… making its way to the Sea.
Long time resident of Victoria, Colin Newell, eats drinks and lives popular culture on an Island called Vancouver – and finds the life and times of the Cafe Modern most interesting.
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