Michael R. Barrick

My commute is the best part of my working day. This almost makes up for sitting a cubicle for 40 hours a week:

My Street

This is my street. It's the only two-way one-lane street in Vancouver. My building straddles the block so my official address is on the next street up, but this is where I come and go from.

From the Park

This is my bulding as seen from the park across the street. I don't actually know the name of the park. People just call it the Sesame Street park because there is a giant "100" in the middle of it.

A Pond.

This is from the Granville Bridge pretty much directly over the entrance to Granville Island. I think this little fresh-water pond up next to False Creek is very pretty. A nice touch my whoever did the landscape architecture for the associated building.

The West End

Vancouver's West End as seen from the bridge. That's the Granville Island market below, where I occasionally get my groceries. The tower where I work is on the far side of what is visible here.

A Granville Is. Ferry

At this point I am at the apex of the Granville Bridge, looking west toward the Burrard Bridge. Below is one of the little Granville Island ferries which I've thought about using on the way home to make it more convenient to stop by the market to pick up dinner, but given my money hassles of late this hasn't been an option yet. Maybe this week since a little bit of money came in on Friday for me from one of my old clients.

Downtown

So here is downtown. Straight ahead down Granville Street is a clock tower (too far away to see in this small picture) where I can pretty much gauge whether I'm going to be late or not (not that it matters much). The bridge is pretty long and I'm about a third of the way to work when I have finished crossing it.

Wall Centre

I'm on my way through town now. This is Wall Centre. The red brick building in the distance is St. Paul's hospital. By cutting through Wall Centre I cross through a double-sized block diagonally with cuts about five minutes off my total walk, plus it is a gorgreous shortcut as the following pictures will attest. The next three pictures are all from the courtyard area of Wall Centre looking across Burrard. This would be the view I mentioned a few days ago.

Cathedrals through the trees

Cathedrals

Cathedrals again

Burrard Street

And now back to the journey. Now I've cut through Wall Centre and am walking along Burrard St. The tall white tower with the black window bands is the Royal Bank tower (incidentally the tallest building in Vancouver, everyone thinks the tallest bulding is the Scotia Bank tower but it only appears taller because it sits on a hill... although I think the new Sheraton Hotel tower that is part of Wall Centre might in fact be higher by either measure. I'll have to check into that at some point.). Peeking out to the left behind the Royal Bank tower is the Bentall III, one of the three towers that make up the Bentall Centre. The tower I work in is adjacent to the Bentall Centre, just behind the Bentall III tower you can see here. Why on earth do I know all this useless stuff like the names of buildings?

My work

Here is the tower where I work, as seen from the back alley entance. You can see Benall III reflected in the glass.

Keyboard

And this would be an accental picture of my keyboard and coffee mug that snapped when I put the camera down on my desk upside down.

I also took photos of the walk home, but this entry is already rather lengthy and I pity anyone who doesn't have a fast connection for what I've done to them already with all these pictures.