Cloverdale's Brick Yard Station

For the past year or so construction has been underway on a new shopping mall in Cloverdale on the northwest corner of Highway 10 and Highway 15. Across the street from the Husky/Mohawk station and about a block west of 176th Street.

Banner shows several stores will be opening there: Staples, Starbucks, CIBC, Vera's Burgers, Clancy's Meats, etc.

About a week ago they paved the parking lot. Today it looks like they're putting in some big paver stones on the side next to 57th Avenue, near where Starbucks will be. The whole area is still surrounded by a blue temporary fence, though they had a few sections down today to work on the pavers.

The Staples sign is now on the building with an opening soon banner. I checked the website but there is no mention of what date "soon" means.

When Stapes opens for business they usually have some good opening day specials, though the numbers are limited. The Staples in Langley opened up about 12 years ago. We were interested in getting a leather office chair for $99 and my father also wanted the same chair. I think they had 25 available. It was summertime and we went down around 6 or 6:30am to line up. There were about 10 or 15 other people in front of us. Most of whom wanted the laptop computer that was on sale, available for the first 20 people I think. The other opening day special was each person would receive a box of paper. Yup, a whole box. That is 10 reams of paper each holding 500 sheets (8x11).

As the line up grew a woman somewhere further back in line kept showing up to count people ahead of her. I guess she must have been around the cut off for 50. About 20 or 30 minutes before the doors opened a couple of employees came outside. Amazingly enough a few people who had been sitting in their cars doing whatever now suddenly showed up to join their friends/family already in line. The employees had tickets for each of the door crasher specials printed out in the exact amount of how many were available - according to how they'd advertised in their flyer. They came down the line and asked what you wanted. We each got a ticket for the office chair plus one each for the box of paper. Further back in the line I heard arguments break out. There was that woman who had been counting the people in line in front of her. There were no free boxes of paper left and she was arguing that she'd counted the people in line ahead of her and knew that she was inside 50. But nope. Once the employee's tickets were handed out they were gone.

We went inside and each bought a chair and put the box of free paper (kind of heavy) on each chair and rolled it out of there. Fortunately we'd brought the truck! As we were loading out items in the back we could hear people in the line up saying: "Look. They got 2 chairs and 2 boxes of paper."

First come first served!

I've noticed for subsequent openings of Staples around the Lower Mainland that the opening day special now consists of one ream of paper for free.

Out of those 2 free boxes we did give away a few reams but that paper lasted us for many years.

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax Held over until March 22, 2012 at the Clova

I walked past the Clova earlier today and Dr. Seuss' The Lorax will be held over for another week until March 22. Only one moving playing. Starts at 7pm and lets out around 8:30pm. Admission is $8 or $15 for 2 people. Add $4 for each extra person.

Pancake Breakfast at Cloverdale Legion Saturday March 10, 2012

The Cloverdale Legion is having their pancake breakfast tomorrow, Saturday March 10 2012 from 8am to 11:30am. Cost is $4.50 for pancakes, eggs, sausage, coffee, tea, and orange juice/drink. Across the street from the firehall. Address is 17567-57th Avenue in Cloverdale.

I'm happy to announce that my novel Ringer will be available on April 13 2012, published by Musa Publishing.

Don't bet on an imposter!

When Holly and Matt come into possession of a Standardbred racehorse and the ringer horse that’s been racing in its place in an elaborate scheme to manipulate the wagering odds, the race is on to stay one length ahead of the horse’s former owners who will stop at nothing to ensure a big pay day at the track.

Playing at the Clova from March 2 to March 15, 2012

Playing at the Clova from Friday March 2 2012 to the 15th:

7pm - Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

Yes this is a new release which means the Clova's contract is to play it for 2 weeks without any other movies.

Movie ends at 8:27pm.

Admission is $8 or $15 for 2 people. Add $4 for each extra person. Tuesday night is $5.