The NIH may be cracking down on “the dog ate my homework” excuses, but luckily other people are more forgiving.
I was ever so slightly late for my own meeting this morning, but everyone accepted my proffered excuses. I’m sure every city has its specific reasons for being late that everyone who lives there understands, and today I used two Very Vancouver Excuses:
- I came out of my house at the exact moment when the gorgeous orangey-pink light from the sunrise hit the Lions (mountains to the north of the city, currently covered in snow), and it was so beautiful that I had to stop and take a photo;
- I then had to detour around a movie shoot.
Exhibit A: photo that I passed around at the meeting
The iPhone photo doesn’t begin to do it justice, of course, but it was good enough to prove my point at the meeting!
The bright, almost neon glow of sunrise-reflected-on-snow was gone within two minutes of the photo being taken, but it was amazing enough to make me smile all the way to work. Nothing like starting your week off right!
I must have left after you, as I missed the neon lions, but it WAS a fantastic sunrise this morning. However, my excuse this morning was the insane line up at commercial/broadway station stretching through the hall, out the door and down the block. I guess everyone was a little late this morning from having stared at the lions a bit too long…
Yeah, that’s another one that anyone who’s ever had to brave that station will understand! I used to live on Commercial and took the #20 bus and then got on the 99B-line at Commercial and Broadway, and at some times of day it’s an absolute zoo. Now that the Canada Line’s up and running, I actually find it much less crowded and stressful (and almost as fast) to take the SkyTrain to Waterfront and come back up to Broadway on the other line!
Hah – that’s exactly my route in the morning. I’ve tried just about every possible combination of routes and still find the best is biking to work… but only on warm sunny days. (-:
Yes, I’m your dreaded fair-weather cycler!
Today was perfect biking weather! Granted, my face was totally frozen when I got to work and I couldn’t talk very well for the first five minutes or so, but it was much nicer than getting soaked like I did every day last week!
No pity on your frozen face–we’re having a blizzard visit us today…
BTW-so that’s where the “Lions” from BC Lions comes from. I should know that as an expatriot…
yep – and also the Lions Gate Bridge and Lionsgate Studios / production company!
So I’m the only one who sees an UberViking rising from the flames when I look at that picture?
Ok, I’ll be over here then *whistles*
I guess I’m the only one that sees an Über Viking rising from the flames in that photo?
Ok, I’ll be over here in this corner then *whistles*.
Nice to have location specific excuses. My favourite is from using the trolley/tram service (alas now defunct) to travel into town from my lab. It’s about 1.5 miles, but in 100F weather you don’t wanna walk.
on the way back, the trolley stopped, the driver put the chocks under the front wheels. Then went into a restaurant to get food. He was gone almost 10 minutes. No one on the trolley said a word 🙂
Hermitage, I laughed at that – I know a few people who say they can’t “see” the two lions (I can), and say the twin peaks should be called the viking helmet instead!
Tideliar, “it was too hot” isn’t a common excuse around here, but I’d say it works in your climate!
I’ve had bus drivers hop off the bus to post a letter, but I suspect there’d be a riot if a driver disappeared for more than a minute or two!
Beautiful photo!
I totally know what you mean about location-specific reasons to be late. Here it’s the traffic. Everyone knows it’s really variable–sometimes by an order of magnitude–so you can’t always “be responsible” and “leave enough time”. I think it sounds way nicer to be late due to movies shoots and beautiful sunrises. Maybe I should move to BC!
Ah, but we have very specific traffic issues here, too… “the bridge was closed” being the most common (there’s so much water around here that almost every journey of more than a few miles will involve going over at least one bridge!)
You should still move to BC, though 🙂
I actually got caught at a draw bridge once here! Fortunately, the movable bridges don’t move very often.
I’d really like to visit BC. One of the Old Field meetings I wanted to go to this year will be in the Vancouver area, so I’m extra bummed I can’t go this time. I’d love to see Vancouver and it would have been cool to meet up. But, I’m going to a New Field meeting instead, and I might get to meet some bloggers there, too.