Ladies Oregon Road Trip
Currently, one of my best friend's, Kathleen, is visiting Tyler and I. Kathleen is a friend who I met about 5 years ago through nursing friends, who is a nurse herself. We instantly hit it off and she has been one of my best girlfriends ever since, we even spent one full year working/traveling Australia together in 2006/07. Me and Kathleen holding baby Kangaroos, Alice Springs, Australia Me and Kathleen playing with Red Ocher, NE, Australia Kathleen now lives in Ontario, where she is originally from, but is out to visit her former home, Vancouver, for 2 weeks before embarking on a almost 3 month trip to New Zealand and Borneo. She and I are heading off to Oregon for about 6 days to spend some quality ladies time together. We are planning to camp and are spending 3 nights at Crater Lake and 3 nights on the West Coast of Oregon. … Continue Reading »
Who’s the Baby Seal?
This weekend one of my best friend's, Jenny, invited me to go with her on a by-donation tour of Vancouver Aquarium's Marine Mammal Rescue Center. Jenny is a member of the Nature Vancouver and they arranged this by-donation unique tour opportunity. The Vancouver Aquarium's Marine Mammal Rescue Center is located at the Main Street Docks, which is a very inconspicuous location at the Vancouver ship yard terminals and is fenced off by a green gate for privacy. For over 40 years the facility has been rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing sick, abandoned, and injured marine mammals. They mainly take care of harbor seals, but will also take sea lions, elephant seals, sea otters, dolphins, whales, and porpoises. On our tour they only had harbor seals but earlier in the season they had taken care of an elephant seal named, 'Cow', who was released back into the wild and a porpoise named, 'Daisy', … Continue Reading »
Woodwards Building Condos Up for Sale
// An Unknown Author expressing local resistance by writing on a Woodward's Sign prior to it's Deconstruction in 2006 - Photo by Eyeye On the heels of my last post, Gentrification of Vancouver's DTES and the impact on our local Hospitals, I wanted to quickly mention the recent completion of Woodward's first of two towers this September 2009 ready to sell on Vancouver's housing market. I was inspired by this image as it is truly speaks about Gentrification in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. I came across this image while browsing for photos on Flickr for my last post. The image was copywrited but I asked to use it and its owner, Eyeye, kindly gave me permission. Eyeye says on his Flickr page that it's actually a quote of the song "Common People" by the band Pulp. This picture was taken in June 2006 prior to the Woodwards building being turned … Continue Reading »
Blogservations – The Impact of Gentrification in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side on our Local Hospitals
In my many observations of Vancouver, one controversial and relevant to me, is the Gentrification of Vancouver's Downtown East Side (DTES). Wikipedia defines Gentrification as, 'the socio-economic, commercial, and demographic change in an urban area resulting from wealthier people buying housing property in a poor community.' Gentrification of our city's DTES has lead to higher rates of homelessness and displaced peoples in this already marginalized demographic group of the poor, mentally ill, HIV positive and drug addicted persons. Homeless - Photo by Ed Yourdon Personally, working as a Registered Nurse in our city's biggest Hospital I am confronted with this issue of displaced people from the DTES everyday I go to work. New condos and a lack of subsided housing for the poor and mentally ill have made our DTES residents flock to our local hospitals, desperately asking for the Hospital System to provide them with some sort of housing. They will … Continue Reading »
