Vancouver, British Columbia

I made a beeline to Tim Horton's this morning and drank about a gallon of their piping hot coffee to clear the cobwebs. It's not the fashionable espresso, dark roast brew that most places serve now, just a regular cup of joe, big, smooth and not a trace of bitterness, the kind of coffee you drink black and it tastes great. Old time stuff. Came back to the hotel and spent nearly three hours on this computer mopping up e-mail. That's too much time spent in front of a screen, especially with my attention span of about 10 minutes. Completely bleary eyed when I finished and shocked by the clock...2 in the afternoon! Straight down to the gym which I think might be a winner in the loser's category for worst hotel fitness centre. A tiny room, one treadmill and a couple other aerobic machines, a crap selection of free weights and one of those very dangerous 'universal' type weight machines, the kind that incorporates several different machines into one that doesn't do anything very well. These machines are seldom very stable and lack proper back or leg support. I try to avoid them at all costs. Over the course of my workout, Tim and Pete our tour managers arrived as did Mark. It's a closet of a space to begin with, so it was a full house of pain with the four of us in there. Following that, there was nothing left to do but wander back to Horton's for another coffee and egg salad sandwich. Time to shower and get ready to go to the gig.

As Matt appropriately said, today was a day off with a gig...meaning, we were already in town and didn't even drive to the venue as it was just a couple of blocks away, we all ambled down one at a time from the hotel to the theatre on foot. The Orpheum Theatre was built in 1927 as a vaudeville house and at that time was the largest theatre on the Pacific coast with a capacity of just under 3,000. The city of Vancouver purchased the Orpheum in 1974 and began a three year restoration project that returned the theatre to it's former opulence. The Orpheum is home to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as well as hosting music concerts and speakers. I suppose this is getting tiring to read every day about the show being well played and the audiences tremendous, but the theatre sounded fantastic, the stage felt warm and friendly, the audience couldn't have been better and it all added up to us having a helluva great time and show. Thank you Vancouver.

Another 'walker' back to the hotel, two in one week! Matt and I hoofed our way back and were stopped often by folks who'd been to the show and told how much they loved it. Back to the very inviting bar for another couple of burnt martinis and call it a day.

So long,

Richard