I’ve been visiting Portland OR and Vancouver WA for the past 3 years – at least 1 trip per quarter.  As a result, I’ve had a chance to visit some very nice restaurants here.  Here are my recommendations

Tommy O’s – Hawaiian-esque cuisine, great sushi and Ahi Tuna.  Desserts are tasty!  I’ve been downtown and at a location in Vancouver (Washington, not British Columbia).

Elephant’s Deli – And don’t forget their PDX airport location, Flying Elephants.  Great lunch – I highly recommend the Kale salad, any of the sandwiches, Mac & Cheese (best I’ve ever had), the chocolate mousse and anything from the bakery.  The staff are friendly, and you’ll see a lot of great Pacific NW beards here.

Red Onion – Great place for quick Thai at lunch.

Toast & Pho – A quick hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurant, family owned.

Mother’s Bistro – We stumbled on this when we went for walk around the city.  You can get half sized portions of their main entrees so you can try multiple dishes.  Admittedly, despite being half the size of their portions, it’s still quite a bit of food.  Still, if you’re diet conscious, go for a half portion and you’re set.  Try the spiced plum tea – it’s awesome.

Beaches Restraurant – The only restaurant I’m mentioning that’s located in Vancouver WA.  You can get a beautiful river view table.  The fish and desserts are awesome, and the staff are friendly.

Scott and I are back from our honeymoon hitting Walt Disney World and our Cruise to the Western Caribbean visiting Eleuthera Island, The Bahamas; and Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos.

Check out out wedding blog for more details.  Meanwhile, some pictures:

Scott and I have talked about me learning to cook in the kitchen.  It’s not that I can’t cook in the kitchen.  I can cook basic things like eggs and bacon, I can bake, I can follow directions on a box, I can make a basic spaghetti sauce, I’ve roasted turkeys and chicken.

But I’ve not done it enough in certain circumstances for it to be second nature (turkeys, chicken come to mind).  I don’t know what things I could substitute.  I feel I should know how to do a basic white sauce so that I can then kick it up with something tasty.

Along with redoing the kitchen, with the graciousness of some of the wedding gifts we’ve received, and with an amazing deal we got on pots and plans that we bought before the renovation was completed – we’ve upgraded some of the tools we have in the kitchen as well.

I’m intimidated by the kitchen!  I tried frying an egg in a new frying pan and almost burned breakfast!  ARGH!

We’ve been talking for a long time about me learning how to cook things how to do things in the kitchen, and we started tonight.

We picked up a pasta maker yesterday, and set out today to pick up supplies to make fresh pasta.  This was Scott’s first time making pasta as well.

The vision – stringy cheese macaroni and cheese with 4 kinds of cheese (Gruyere, Fontina, Mozzarella and Old Cheddar).

What really turned out was more a pasta bake (which we’ve always done) with turkey and red pepper.

It turned out amazingly!

It was also our first night eating with our new china and the Ralph Lauren Highball glasses.

Sort of.

I got a call on Thursday while I was working from home from Bell doing their typical, “How do you like the service, is there anything we can do better.”

I like Bell – I’ve never had a real problem with them and given I know a bit about the technology they’re using to run the phone network, and also know the upgrades they have made our area.

My only complaint is that the service can be pretty expensive.  Of course, when they call, there’s nothing they can do because I typically have the lowest price packages, everything is bundled, etc…  Right?

Well… they finally had an offer for a long existing customer.  Our services that we had were:

• Home Phone Choice
• 1,000 minutes North American long distance for $15/mo + $6.95 network access fee (whatever that is!)
• Bell Fibe Internet 25/10
• Our condo fees include Rogers cable, something like up to 3 or 4 terminals

With what we had, you either pay $30 more unlimited internet… or pay $30 more for unlimited internet and Bell TV!

The offer became

• Change our long distance plan to unlimited for $10/mo – Saving $11.95 per month
• Change our internet to an unlimited plan for $10/mo ($30 – $20 package discount)
• We got a further discount for packaging three items.  I have mobile phone as well, however that doesn’t count towards the bundle, I think… That is odd if it doesn’t.
• Add TV for an additional $30

So you’re thinking – Iain, you’re a fool, you could have stuck with Rogers for free.  Yes, but then I wouldn’t have unlimited internet, and I wasn’t willing to pay for unlimited internet unless I got something else, honestly. $30 is a complete rip off for unlimited internet, and I do believe the plans need to be better.  Still, this was too good to pass up.

What about the TV service?

This is exactly why I didn’t want to pass up this deal.

In short, Rogers is shit:

• The amount the signal is compressed on Rogers,
• The colour black looks like blotchy grey and even whites are blocky depending on the channel,
• The channel layout is horrible,
• The set top box from Cisco is way too slow,
• The technology is dated

Prior to moving to the condo, Scott and I had Bell ExpressVu.  The satellite we had was GORGEOUS.  The signal was so clear and that was prior to high definition television.  Cousins of mine also have Bell TV satellite service and it’s still gorgeous.

Interestingly, I actually have never seen Bell Fibe TV truly in action.  I had seen AT&T U-Verse in action and was pretty impressed by that.

Needless to say, I’m gobsmacked at

• How clear the signal is.  There’s very little compression.
• How fast the channels change.  It’s WAY faster than the old Cisco “Nextbox” from Rogers.
• And the fact that it’s essentially streaming over the internet through our ADSL modem.  The set top box plugs into our modem via Ethernet!  That is cool!  It could actually connect over coaxial if we wanted, but we decided not to.
• The wireless second receiver ($7/mo additional or $199) is a nice touch.  I can put that receiver in the bedroom (where it resides) or in the man cave.

The only draw back we have is that we had to move all of our networking equipment into the living room:

• The ADSL modem,
• Apple Airport,
• The hard drive we use to back up our laptops, connected to the Airport,
• A new 5Ghz Wifi network extender for the wireless STB in the bedroom

The outcome is that our wifi signal is low in the bedroom.  So it’s to be determined if it’s going to be a big issue or not.  I could re-wire the condo so that the STB is in the man cave, and the wireless terminal is on the main TV – which works beautifully too, that wireless terminal is responsive.

But, if I choose not to use the wireless terminal in the future and just use Rogers in the bedroom – after all we still have Rogers “for free” (really, it makes up $35 of our condo fees) – then I’d like that option.

So, first 5 hours with Bell TV – I’m hooked.  I really like the service, and I think people should consider it as an option, more so than Rogers, once it’s available province-wide.

Now that said, I am surprised that cable has not followed the lead of what Bell and AT&T have done.  There’s no reason why they could not go with an IP-based TV solution over cable with the same picture quality.  And all the features that Rogers has, Bell could have as well.

*shrugs*

Blah:.android mathan$ adb kill-server
Blah:.android mathan$ adb devices
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached 
015d4363803fe80d device

I have a gripe with Canadians.

Canadians love to shit on the national airline – Air Canada.

What those Canadian’s don’t know is that Air Canada truly is one of three, current, North American airline to achieve 4-stars from Skytrax – the world’s largest airline review site.  The others being Porter and Virgin America.

How can that be?

Easy – just fly any other airline in North America. United, American, US Airways, Southwest, Delta – they cannot compare to the level of service and professionalism you get on Air Canada.  Save maybe Porter and Virgin America.

United has vastly improved it’s service, and I see it on the way up with it’s merger with Continental.  It remains to be seen what happens with American after the merger with US Airways.

What about Westjet and Porter?  You know what, relative to the US-based airlines, they’re not bad.

Westjet, I really don’t care for because they act like Southwest yet their prices are just as high as Air Canada.  No frills?  Yes and you pay the price.  They don’t even have business class, and their mileage program is not affiliated with OneWorld or Star Alliance so why would I fly them?  They’re just not my cup of tea.

Porter, I’ve only flown once and I really enjoyed their service.  They would be my second choice, though again, their mileage program is not affiliated with OneWorld or Star Alliance.    The service is excellent, I love what they have done with the Toronto Island Airport.  I honestly have nothing bad to say about them.

There was a discussion that occurred today that started with a picture of, what looked like, a great meal in Air Canada Executive First.  Someone pointed out to me this fact after I had said, “And people in Canada like to crap all over Air Canada. They don’t know what they have until they fly on other carriers.” responding with, “…AirCanada economy blows, like the economy class of all other North American carriers.”

Food-wise, I have to say Air Canada is one of the best with Westjet on-par for food.  I heard Porter was really good but I wasn’t impressed when I flew to Chicago over a year ago.  As for the rest of the airlines in North America – this quote from me says it all: “Try any other airline – except maybe Virgin and Porter – who have better food choices. You can’t.”

Now I’ve had some amazing experiences on various airlines – British Airways First and Business class blows any experience I’ve had in business class, away.  Yes, I agree, Air Canada doesn’t compare when flying internationally, but I would hardly say they are sub-par and I wouldn’t say “they blow” like this one person did.

Then it got into providing bi-lingual service.  He was sitting in a section on a Frankfurt to Montreal flight with a flight attendant who was fluent in English and Mandarin.  He implied he wanted service in French and there was no one on board that could provide him with service.

For the record, the Service Director announces what languages the flight attendants can be of service in, and two of those, by law, have to be English and French.  As the official languages act says, service in Canada in Federal offices and on Air Canada has to be provided in both languages.

That’s not an issue, Air Canada guarantees this.  All this guy had to do was speak up and request service in french, and they would have got him a flight attendant who speaks french.

Personally, I don’t expect every flight attendant on an Air Canada flight to be able to speak both languages, but I do expect them to have an appropriate amount. Believe me, I love hearing the announcements in both languages and it helps me to remember some of my french.

Seriously, people, stop shitting on Air Canada.  Take off your blinders and if you’re being self entitled, maybe you need to show some humility.

We got word that tomorrow will forever now be known as… Counter Top Day!

Normally it would be May Day, especially in Morris Dancing tradition, and yes my family would try to get me up at an ungodly hour to watch them dance.

I digress.  Between 11 and 2, our counter top will be installed.  Thursday will be backsplash day if our contractor can get the tile guy in, and plumbing will also be Thursday – Working dishwasher and water for the fridge.

It’s all coming together.

In the meantime, I leave you with a video featuring dancing goat heads.  The new Pet Shop Boys single – Axis: