What a Ride

They say a picture says a thousand words. Here is a summary of the last two weeks on my life (not work life, but real life).

Legislature buidings in the snow

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Snow storm hits the west coast. I unfortunately was in Vancouver at the time, but had to get back to Victoria so braved the really bad roads. The trip home took me 6.5 hours of white knuckle driving. Almost 2-3 feet of snow fell over a 2 day period and the temperature dipped to -15 degress. Victoria was a ghost town, with an official "snow day" called on monday.

Tuesday - Sunrise in the frigid weather. -20 degree with windchill. I put on my snow boots, 3 layers and a puffy winter coat and walked into work.

Wednesday the snow started to fall again, and they were calling for another 25 cms. Our team at work was commited to being in Vancouver the next day, so we headed off early before the roads got too bad.

Thursday evening I jumped on a plane leaving the snow behind and headed to LA to visit Natasha, Earl and baby Xander (littlunberkeley.blogspot.com). It was soooo nice to be in a warm climate and have the sun caress my wind burned cheeks. We had a relaxing weekend visiting in their new house in Panorama City. On sunday (my birthday) we woke up to a power outage which lasted most of the day, but it was gorgeous and sunny so who could complain?

Tuesday I returned home to find the wood floor in my dining room all buckled. I talked to my landlord and we both figured it was from the snow melting on my balcony. It's hard to explain without having been here, but the floor actually squished out water as you walked on it. It was absolutely disgusting.

Then this morning (thursday) i noticed that the floor was getting worse and on closer inspection found that there was water accumulating underneath and on the floor boards. Yet there was not more water on my deck to explain where it was coming from.

I immediately called my landlord, who rushed up to my apartment and exclaimed "oh my god" when he saw the state of my floors.

As it turns out 9-10 months ago when they renovated the apartment, the carpenter put a nail through a pipe and it has been slowly leaking even since. The freezing weather must have agravated the situation and so once it thawed the hole got bigger. When Don, my landlord took off the baseboard water started shooting straight out.

So now the floor is ripped up and the walls cut down, and I am waiting for the restoration people to come tomorrow. It's going to be at least a couple of weeks before things are back to normal.