I'm presenting the demolition of the old, neglected Vancouver Special across the street from the V.I.A. office not as an obituary to mourn the fact that it's gone nor to cheer about it, as I'm indifferent to it's demise. I wanted to post it simply due to the fact that the guy operating the backhoe that did it deserves a gold medal for precision and care.
It's not like taking down this old building on East Pender was as complex as one of those Las Vegas-style implosions where they've had to figure out how to blow up (or would it be blow in?) a massive, 30 story hotel without disturbing the people gambling in the adjacent casinos situated 3 metres away, but I've got to say that I was super impressed watching this backhoe absolutely terrorize this old Vancouver Special without leaving but a scratch on either of the buildings that were practically hugging either side of it.
I kid you not, when I first arrived there was a girl sitting out on one of those balconies on the left calmly eating a bowl of cereal and watching as the backhoe ripped apart the neighbours old 'Special.
At the end of the day there was no question that the driver deserved to park that thing on top of that pile of rubble and put his feet up on the steering wheel... or lever... or whatever is actually in the cockpit of it. Well done, backhoe dude!
