Note: Surrey (popn. close to 400,000) is only a 20-minute drive away from Vancouver, and folks from other parts of the city normally diss Surrey folks as Surrey Jokes are a combination of White Trash Jokes and Blonde Jokes... Heck, it has been named the weird crime capital of Canada... But this story happened in LAX instead of Surrey... http://www.canada.com/vancouver/story.html?id=22dc2e89-a65f-4d5d-8dd1-0c7f16277c85 Missing Surrey man found naked at L.A. airport Thursday, November 04, 2004 VANCOUVER -- The mystery of a Surrey man who went missing a week ago has been solved. U.S. authorities arrested the man at Los Angeles International Airport after he climbed naked into the wheel well of a 747 jet bound for Australia. An LAX spokesperson says the man told authorities he stripped off his clothes to protest the airline's decision to deny him a ticket to Australia. Surrey RCMP spokeswoman Corporal Diane Blain says the Mounties had followed his trial to Toronto before he turned up in California. The RCMP has a warrant out for the man's arrest under the Mental Health Act. © Broadcast News 2004
Good thing he got caught. It'd get mighty cold in the wheel well on a trip to Australia. Not something I want to do naked.
I know the following story is not from Vancouver, but nonetheless I do not want to start another thread on dumb crooks... http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../ap/20041105/ap_on_fe_st/botched_bank_robbery Police: Man Tried to Rob Bank Being Built 13 minutes ago Strange News - AP KENNESAW, Ga. - There is little money to be gained from attempting to rob a bank that is still under construction, police say a Marietta man learned on Wednesday. Michael Donald Marshall, 39, entered the Bank of America and demanded $500 from the tellers while threatening that he had a gun, according to the Kennesaw Police Department. The employees then told him the bank wasn't open for business and there was no money. Kennesaw Police arrived as Marshall exited the building empty-handed, officers said. The suspect is charged with armed robbery. During their investigation, police also learned that Marshall had an outstanding warrant for shoplifting in Cobb, Kennesaw Police spokesman officer Scott Luther said.
Here's another funny story that is sort of about Surrey. On our honeymoon, my wife and I went to BC for a couple of weeks, and our first three nights were in Vancouver. I looked around on the net and found this place that looked pretty good for the money--AND it had a casino in the hotel. www.royaltowers.com Anyway, I booked all three nights there. My wife was less than impressed. The room wasn't bad, but the area (right near Surrey) seemed a bit rough. The so-called casino was about the size of a taco bell. In Surrey's defense, my wife really wanted to be closer to downtown Vancouver, so we only spent the first night there before she made me move to the four seasons.
The hotel is located in the area of New Westminister, but if you get a room overlooking at the Fraser River, you will see the baddest part of Surrey, the area of Whalley (the source of all the Surrey jokes) on the other side... But the mayor of Surrey has vowed to revitalize that area into a mini-downtown with residential and commerical towers, similar to the Metrotown entertainment and residential complex in Burnaby, another region within Vancouver (that is, if you still remember the places in Vancouver)... However, nobody is moving into the shops, rendering the megamall and commercial tower that is supposed to be the center of Downtown Surrey into a big white elephant... The main problem with this fiasco was the lack of residential development nearby, which should be built first before constructing the megacomplex... The Metrotown area has 1 mega mall, around 5 medium-sized commerical towers, 1 Hilton and around 30 apartments... I do not know if Surrey has the space to build them all...
Pole, your wife was right... Staying in Downtown Vancouver and enjoying the beautiful sights and scenes (especially in a former five-star hotel like the Four Seasons) is way better than staying in Royal Towers... In addition, our wonderful Downtown is now a mecca for city planners in North America, if not the rest of the world, as cities such as San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, and Minneapolis are trying to model what we did in revitalizing the downtown core... It will also be better if our city can find solutions to the notorious Downtown Eastside, which dimmed the beauty of Vancouver in some sense (Sorry for the blabing ...)
