Christmas in July

Amber and I had a little Christmas party last night. We spent a few hours on the internet planning our trip and then went tent shopping. Canadian Tire had a huge selection and several sales. The tent we bought is hexagonal and is really easy to set up. You just unfold it, lift up the plastic hub in the middle, and then pull down this locking piece and you're done. So easy, holds 4 people no problem...and only $99. We also bought an air mattress on our way out. Next we stopped at Chapters for a bit to check out books on the areas we're driving through. The hot spot looks like Rapid City, South Dakota. There are many sites and hikes to take in there. Hopefully we have enough time to see them all. Even thought it was still early in the evening we really wanted to set up the tent. There was no good spot at my place so we went back to hers and set it up under the beautiful view of her living room ceiling. Whatever. It took a while to blow up the mattress with the hand pump so I think we might buy and electric one before we go on our trip. Anyway, I lied down and was ready to sleep at 11:00. One of the best sleeps I've had in a while, it was so comfortable. One thing we won't have camping is an alarm clock. That was really annoying at 7:00 am but I'll probably naturally wake up around 6:00 outside.

One funny story about our shopping trip. On the top shelf above the rows of tent bags are small model tents so let you see what the full size one would look like. Amber saw these and said "Aw, look at the cute little tents they have for dogs." I tried not to laugh at her too hard but I had to get a few pokes in. I'm sure I've thought the same thing at one time or another but it was quite funny. She'll hate me for telling everybody this but I feel it's my revenge for a nice little nickname she gave me 6 months ago. Ah, fun times. Can't wait to use the tent again. Maybe after our party tonight I can pass out in there. Zip it up to keep the bugs and drunken roommates out. LONG WEEKEND, PARTY HARD!

Happy Birthday Peter...now you're one year older...

I have the brithday song by the Arrogant Worms stuck in my head right now although I can't quite remember how it goes. Meh, no biggy, my friends here wouldn't want to hear it anyway. So...15 eh? What was I doing what I was 15? I was a lot shorter, the growth didn't come until 16 or so. I was in grade 9, probably still had that crush on Katie Kohut. I was about done my first year of computer/regular school. And I had a 8 year old little brat brother named Petunia. Yeah, those were the days. Well Happy Birthday anyway bro. It's really too bad that I won't be around for it (I'm going to miss out on the birthday bumps, the brithday spanks, and the birthday punches to the head). What? You don't remember those? Hmm, maybe I'll save them up for when I get home in August. See, this is one of the things I don't like about being in Ontario. I can't be at my brother's birthday and that sucks. He might not feel the same way yet (YES, Mike's not here) but someday I know he would. My birthday present to Peter (and Terry, August 21st) is going to be a day of paintballing out at Millarville. I didn't think I would be doing it again so soon but I know my brothers would love it and I think we might even get my dad into it too. I'd like to invite Gerry and Stephan out since the live so close but they play with their guns so much it wouldn't be a competition. Maybe I'll invite them if they promise to be on my team.
 
Tonight Amber and I are actually going to get together and plan this trip. Last night fell apart due to other plans so tonight...yes...we're planning. Then later we might go down to the beach for a nice picnic snack. You know, take some fruit, maybe a Costco cheesecake, stuff like that and hang out by the water. I've also reserved the Hobie 16 for Saturday to take everyone out for a few hours. We're going to head all the way down to the islands this time! Yeah, only two and a half weeks left and the activity is just getting going. I think I'll bet more sleep tonight than I will for the last two whole weeks if things work out right! Peace y'all, have a great b-day Pete. Do some cool wakeboarding tricks for me, k?

Washed up! Oh, my freakin' back!

I haven't been feeling the greatest this last little while. I'm not sick or injured, I think I'm just tired. I haven't had a really good sleep in a while. We're always doing things on weekends, staying up late, getting up early. Today I didn't really feel like going to the gym but I made myself anyway. After a short upper body workout I jumped on the tread mill, planning to burn off about 300 cal. After 200 I was almost done but just kept going. By 300 though I was feeling pretty good, warm and loose. So I just kept running, I felt like Forest Gump. I finally called it quits after 1032 cal, or 4.5 miles, because my shirt couldn't hold anymore sweat. I felt so great after that run, so away and energetic...what happened. I'm in my office, it's 2:30, and I feel like crap. My whole body hurts from the chest down and ALL of my energy is gone. Peter Wales already caught me sleeping for a bit in my chair. I didn't even know I'd fallen asleep. He's a cool guy, just laughed at me. I don't know what I'm going to do. I somehow finished my CASH line report. YEAH! Actually just realizing that now has made me a lot happier. Now I just have the APEGGA report, NSERC report, student presentation, Batch 7 experiment, and goniometer tests to worry about...hmmm, happiness gone.
 
One bright spot of my day will be tonight when Amber and I start planning our trip back to the West. We're going tent and air mattress shopping at Canadian Tire after work, and then do some internet searching later to find some cool spots along the way. I want to spend a day or two in the Black Hills of South Dakota. There's Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Jewel Cave, Wind Cave, and that Sylvan Lake hike is around there somewhere too. On the way into Wyoming I think we'll stop for a break at Devil's Tower too. Amber wants to see the home town of Wyatt Earp. I find this funny because she can never remember his name. She'll tell people "Guess what? We're going to see the home town of ...that guy...the cowboy...from the movie." "Wyatt Earp?" "Yeah, him! It's going to be great."
 
I think the trip will be great, can't wait to get started. The departure plan is changing slightly though. Instead of leaving as early as possible Saturday after the concert, we're going to come back to Kingston Saturday night with the other boys, chill on Sunday, and then leave Monday morning. No sense in wasting a perfectly good August weekend in the car when everyone else is on the road. Ok, maybe coffee will help...or some chocolate.

The Weekend...so sore...so good!

The last three days have been incredible busy. This is how I have to do my last couple weekends here. Anyway let's get started!
 
FRIDAY: The Ghetto Party. A really great idea by my friends. The main point of the evening was to make it as cheap as possible. This means drinking cheap beer (Colt 45, Old English) and eating cheap food (chicket strips, watermelon, kraft dinner). The music selection provided by Eric was great too. We danced in our living room to everything from Metallica to Coolio. Finally a party where no one was praying to the porceline god...or the floor beside it.
 
SATURDAY: The Alcan KRDC Picnic. I wasn't sure what to expect from this but previous reviews had been good...and they were right. I had such a great time. My job was the official photographer of the picnic. This meant I got to float around from even to event, take pictures, participate if I wanted, and then move on. No setting up, no taking down! The students dominated most of the events, either winning or injuring those who tried to beat us. (I have video proof of Eric trying to injure a poor little girl who beat him in the sack race) I think we were triumphant in almost everything except the wet sponge relay and the soccer ball relay. (Those darn little kids are so quick)  

   
 
Here are the student awards as I remember them
 
Corn Shucking Contest: 1st - Chris, Eric, Mike, Tyler, and Drew

Two-hands, one-let race: 1st - Chris Lim, 2nd - Eric
12-19 Sack Race: 2nd - Eric (yes, he's 19 and goes against the little kids)
20&Over Sack Race: 1st - Mike, 2nd - Galvin, 3rd - Chris
4-person ski race: 1st - Mike, Eric, Galvin, and Chris
Running Race: 1st - Mike, 2nd - Galvin
Waterballoon Toss: 1st - Ken and Galvin, 4th - Eric and Mike
Volleyball: 1st - The Volleyball, 2nd - Mike's head, last - Amber's face
Taking out the little kids: 1st - Amber vs Connor, 2nd - Eric vs little girl, 3rd - Molester glasses vs ages 5-12
 
If I've missed anyone please let me know. We were pretty sore and tired after a day of activity in the sun so that night we rented Starsky & Hutch (brilliant movie) and took it easy.
 
SUNDAY: The Paintballing. I'd never done this before and again, I wasn't sure what to expect. When you actually start putting on the gear your adrenaline starts to flow and you even think about whispering some prayers. 
 


The first game was in the forest arena, with branches, logs, sandbags and rocks to hide behind. When they first said go and the bullets started to fly...I was scared. I started getting these images of Saving Private Ryan in my head. I didn't shoot anybody and the other team quickly knocked over our flag. The second game I was ready. Two minutes in, shot in the head...crap. After that things got much better. I found a perfect spot defending out fort (another arena) and managed to take out a few people. Then attacking the fort I got myself into the trees and bushes on the side and just started picking the defenders off. Most would say "where the hell did that come from". I guess they didn't think anyone could be over there. I recorded 5 kills that game, at least 3 in the head. The maze was another favorite of ours. Eric, Chris, Galvin and I banded together as our own SWAT team and moved from corner to corner in our little leap-frog method. Very fun. We'd get pinned down a few times and manage to battle our way out. Some poor guy walked around a corner right into the sights of Eric and Chris who unleashed about 15 rounds into him. The were still shooting after he fell. Near the end there was only Galvin and I left for our team (which started at around 12 people) and one of them. I jumped around a corner at the end of a long hallway, saw the bad guy, put one shot in his leg, and heard him yell "Mike, you ass, I'm on your team!" I'd just shot Galvin, where was the other guy? Whack! Right in the chest. Ah, there he is...double crap! In the end we had a lot of fun and came out with only a few marks. The one on my collar bone turned pretty red, Galvin had a bleeder on his neck, Eric's bicep is swelling, and Chris has a few red marks on his stomach.


 
To unwind that night we used the free passes we'd won at the Alcan picnic and watched the Bourne Supremacy. I really really liked the first movie and I must say that I like this one even better. The cinematography was amazing, so well that I actually noticed it and thought about it durning the show. Jason Bourne rocks! Well thats enough for a Monday entry. Hope everyone had a great weekend as well. We haven't made any plans for the August Long weekend coming up here. What can we do with 3 days off? Knowing what we did with 2 this last weekend, I don't think I can handle 3! Peace.

Off to war

Paintball today. I feel like this may be the last entry I write. Going off to war I am....and I'm late!! Talk to you later peoples...hopefully!

So sad to be happy...

I'm starting to feel really depressed that I'm leaving in three weeks. I hope that I don't start acting depressed too and ruin this last bit of time. I feel like I'm on an out of control rollercoaster, it's serious fun, but I can't slow it down. It just seems to go faster and faster and the end is coming so soon. I have quite a bit to do before I leave. Reports, parties, packing, parties, goodbyes, and one last party! Shoot, I just totally bummed myself out.
 
Hey Eric, Ghetto party tonight? YES, Mullet Mike is here! I'm happy, so happy! Also Bedouin is playing at Wakestock. Right now Eric, Galvin, Rob and I are going together, but now I think that Amber might have to come too. She really likes that band. She has her presentation and a final exam that week after, but I think if we keep up the pressure, she'll crack and joing the Kingston Connection to Wasaga Beach. ROCK ON! Where's my chicket and water melon?!

Ghetto theme party in the ghetto...can we do that?

Our regular YSPH parties are by no means boring. All have had their own special "flavour" to spice things up or make people take refuge in the fresh air on our porch. This week, though, we're having a theme party. It's Ghetto in the Ghetto! I don't know how that works. Aren't all of our parties technically ghetto parties? Anyway, tomorrow we're going really Ghetto. Tonight will be spent searching for great costumes before our last bit of culture for the week, Shakespeare in the Park. I think I'm going to try the big hair and the handle bar moustache. Maybe find some cheap army fatigues at the Army/Navy store. Eric is dreaming of a huge, blonde mullet. Galvin may get a real mullet if he passes out this time...someone bring the clippers. Eric's also been putting together a good collection of ghetto music: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dr. Hook, stuff like that. I'm trying my hardest to find some Mullet Talk and Brocket 99 on Kazaa. Yeah, it's going to be quite the event. My batteries are charged and my camera will be present at the party as well, wearing a beer stained wife-beater and some dirty boxers.
 
I think Eric and I will also reunite with the guitars as per Ahmbere's last suggestion. I'm sure I can play some terrible, plinky music to really set the mood. Can't wait to see you all there!

My guitar is gently weeping

My poor guitar. I haven't played it in about a month now. I've just been plain too busy. No, I'm not watching TV, and this is the first time in weeks I've been on my computer at home. I just spend all my time outdoors, with friends...socializing. Another great potluck to night at Meagan and Michelle's. They said they'd have our pictures up soon. Just go to the bottom of the recipes page. I then jetted over to the Y for more volleyball. It was really nice tonight because they finally have the air conditioners in both gyms working at full capacity. I was able to call more plays tonight and my passing was on, just wish I could have put more smashes down on the wood floor. Ah, next time. I'm going to watch "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at some Shakespeare In The Park think tomorrow night. This is after Gina and I go check out JF's apartment. No, I'm not looking, but she is, and JF has been telling me about his place every time I go over to the plant. JF is my contact at the Williamson Plant behind our research labs. So yeah, busy week still, almost over though. Only three weeks after this! Yikes!

Ken's Buff Body

It may take me a while to get more Sandbanks pictures up on a geocities website so I'll put a few up here just to wet your tastebuds. Man Ken...have you been working out? 

Sweet weekend at Sandbanks

OH YEAH! What a great weekend. We had another great party at the YSPH on Friday. If I said that it was a perfectly healthy party and that everyone played it cool, I'd of course be lying. Kenny G and Ereek made their presence known that night by not being present for most of it. Ereek took up a permanent residence in the downstairs bathroom. Cupcake, Aumberr, Boys II Men, Jenny-asaurus, and Sparrow managed to play all of the drinking games to the end. I guess we just pace ourselves better. There were also appearances by Gina and Emil; Meagan, Mackenzie, and Michelle; and Bana and Kim. Our new roommate Kron was also there by the end of the night. Pretty packed place.
 
Anyway, the next day we packed up and left for our camping trip. After several U-turns, couple back tracks, and many failed attempts to connect with a cell phone we finally made it to Smuggler's Cove near Picton. Nice little campground. We set up the tents, went for a quick swim in the cold, rocky lake (part of Lake Ontario), barbecued up some hotdogs, and went back into Picton for the evening. It's a really nice town, about 4000 people. I can't describe it but there was just something about it that I really liked. We had some fun around the campfire back at the 'Cove, telling jokes, stories of same-sex lap dances, and other random personal tidbits. Good group session.
 
We left early Sunday morning for the Provincial Park to make sure we got a good spot on the dunes. We set up camp a couple of sand hills over from last time at a flatter and less crowded spot. The day here was just a blast. We played a lot of volleyball and football in the water. The girls paddled around on the blow up water mattresses they bought in Picton. We ate more hotdogs, watermelon, plums, chips...all that great Costco stuff. Galvin and I warned Eric many times that he'd burn badly without sunscreen. When he eventually listened it was much too late. Kenny got buried in the sand as payback for burying Jen last weekend. The trip home was pretty uneventful, just a nice peaceful drive for those of us who were away. Eric had Ozzy blasting in my car but it was still a peaceful drive. I wish I had about 10 more weekend to spend here. I know I'll be happy when I'm home, but I'm already starting to miss this place a lot and I'm not even gone yet. Hmm, I only have two more Mondays of work (August 2nd is a holiday). Better get cracking. My boss said I should have everything done a week before I leave so I have 13 work days to get it all done! Aughhh, crunch time...meh, I knew it was coming. KEN, HAPPY 22nd BIRTHDAY TODAY, good luck tonight, may you enjoy your liquor and hold onto your food tonight! Party at Whiskey Willy's, 6:30! Be there...or don't be!

Wow, is the rain ever coming down now. I can hear the water pounding the roof from anywhere in the building. We have glass pyramid skylights in the lobby that have a solid sheet of water on them. You can even see water cascading off of outside stair cases. I'm so so so so glad I drove today. I hope it stops for tomorrow. This will probably scare away some of the weekend campers and make it easier for us to get a spot. Cross your fingers.
 
I'm playing with the idea of getting my own web domain. It's not cheap but I'm tired of people not being able to view my pictures and I just hate using .geocities.com/michaeltenove this and .blogspot.com that.  I just want people to go to miketenove.com, that's it. Anyway, I'm not going to do anything about it over the weekend but sometime soon. Does anyone have a better suggestions for a name than miketenove.com? I don't think going with www.tenove.com is a good idea cuz there are too many Tenoves that might be offended by the content or lack of class of my site. Don't worry, I'm going to keep it pretty clean and PG. Have a great weekend people! I know I will, rain or no rain!

I'm sure that many of you have tried to view my new Sandbanks pictures and instead received a page saying I've exceeded my data transfer limit. The first thing you must do is go "Boo Geocities". Secondly you must wait. I'm sorry, but there's enough pictures up there that only a few people can access them each hour. I'll try to think of ways to change that but for now you'll just have to keep trying.
 
Work is going pretty good today. I was super busy the last two days, missing almost all of my breaks, getting dirty, and not even having enough time for a full workout at lunch. Now I know how the rest of the students feel. I was very productive though. Did stamping (a new job) for Rob and rolling for John. The new stamping job is actually just stressing the metal to change its mechanical and chemical properties. We then etch them electrochemically to eat away at the metal and see if increasing the stress will help the metal corrode faster. There are many uses for this and its been tested a lot but not with this particular alloy I think. On the rolling side, I've had mixed success. There is transfer of my patterns but there is also plastic deformation of the aluminum sheet as a whole...not good. When we back off the rolls a bit there is less deformation, but barely any transfer. I guess we'll just have to find a happy medium there. We'll know once I start some contact angle tests with the Goniometer. Okay you non-engineers, WAKE UP! Sorry about that, I need a wordy outburst every once in a while. Oops, time for ping pong! Tomorrow...SANDBANKS! Later.

Ok, there, just made the deadline. Well it took several hours but I finished it. Please enjoy some more pictures. These ones are from our trip last Sunday to Sandbanks Provincial Park. I won't say anything more now because you can read all about it on the site. I'm am also extremely tired, from this and from beach volleyball earlier. Time for some sleep! Good night people!

Ah, another good night of volleyball at the YMCA. I was thinking of taking my camera tonight but it's just too new to have it stolen from my bag while I'm on the court. Plus, who there would take pictures of me? I've been playing a lot but it's just not getting old, I love it.

I did do something else new tonight though. We were all invited to a potluck dinner to night at Meagan's place. Every Wednesday they have this dinner from 6-8 and just invite anyone they meet. People on the way to work, people on the Wolf Island Ferry, or lonely Alcan students looking for some good food...and lots of it. Eric and I took up the invitation and went down there with a Beef Enchilada Casserole and some Bison steaks. There were a couple other lasagne looking dishes, some quiche, lentils, bread and dip, and some very very good apple pie. I think about a dozen people were there, more than they usually have. I had to learn so many new names but somehow I actually remembered everyone that I was introduced to. There are Queen's students, CAMM students, exchange students. And the food was so good. Another cool thing is when you arrive they take your picture with your dish and put it up on their "potluck" internet site later. They also put up recipes, comments and other stuff so after that night you can go on their site and find out how to make one of the tasty dishes you tried there. I think this is genius and I'm definitely going to start my own potluck club back in Edmonton. Thanks Meagan and Michelle. Hope to see my crazy picture up there soon.

Well I'm going to do a bit of work on some of my webpages. Talk to you folks later!

I think that I really like volleyball. I mean. I've played for half of my life, I've usually been pretty decent, my body kinda grew into it too. For a long time though I played not really because I liked it, but more because I could and thought I should. Last night, playing at the YMCA, I realized that I was really having a blast. I like the rules and the plays, I just love the sport. I hope I can find some kind of league to keep playing in when I get back to Edmonton, I don't even care if it's off campus. That's thought number one.

I've also been thinking about engineering. Here is something that I'm still doing because I can and feel I should. I know that I have to do something for a living that I love. There's no way I could keep working here at Alcan in this "student" job for my whole life. I don't mind it, but I sure don't love it. I'm starting to wonder if my job will be as a mechanical engineer. I'm going to finish my degree for sure, too much time and money invested so far to stop now. But what do I love to do? I love to be active, I play as many sports as I can without going crazy. I love having a job that changes, even if it's only every few years. I love Canada and my family, so I know I'll be sticking close to Alberta. I love entertainment, like movies and performances. For a while I was trying to find out if Cirque du Soleil ever hired student engineers. How cool would that be, to travel, watch performances. I don't think I need to do something safe. I don't mind having a job with a small company that might go under, I would live in another part of the world for a few years if I had to. That's why I'm going to learn spanish. Hmm, the possibilities. What do you want to be? Brendan? Nevin? Mom? Jeff? Dad? I know some of you are (cough)old(cough) but if you could still switch, what would you be doing?

New pictures for your viewing. We've been playing beach volleyball since the beginning of May. There is a really nice beach court down by the lake on the Queen's Residence grounds. For a while we were playing at least three times a week. Maybe we'll have to get a good net set up at Wabamun for the beginning of the fall here!

Shhhhh! Listen carefully, can you hear that? (Sizzle sizzle) Oh, nevermind, that's just my back. I feel like I slept on a restaurant grill last night. Most of the Alcan students are sporting some bright red skin today and are either guzzling coffee like me or just giving up and crawling under the desks in their cubicles to sleep. How did this happen,you ask? Well yesterday we were caught in the middle of an intergalactic war with an alien race that used these super-hot ray guns to decimate Kingston. We escaped but...oh, must have been a dream. Then what about these burns?? OH! I remember now. Yesterday we went to Sand Banks provincial park. It's a little over an hour away if you're driving the whole time but we were stopped for about two hours on the way there waiting for the ferry. That actually turned out to be a lot of fun. We left a little space between our cars and just passed the volleyball around. A couple stray bumps would hit our cars or other nearby but nothing serious until we landed the ball and hedge and but a large thorn in it. I think we finally got to the park around 2:30.

We went to the sand dunes section of the park, very cool. The dunes are really big, like 40 feet, and are really steep. Of course this led us to the idea of rolling down which we did often during the day. The water was a little dirty, much like Little Bow, but a really great temperature. We passed our slowly deflating volleyball around for a while, played jackpot with the frisbee (Chris took it on the head twice and chest once), dug holes in the sand under water, swam out to the marker buoys, made a ball obstacle course on the side of our dune, made mermaids and a Jen-asaurus, ate chips and hot dogs, and just lied on the sand in the sun. I really miss these beach trips. I wish we had a beach like this in Montana instead of just rock. There are already plans to go again next weekend, and make it a two day camping trip. I really wanted to go to Montreal again before I leave, but I think that maybe a few more of these trips would be better. Guess we'll see.

There was also a couple of great evenings here in Kingston this weekend. Friday night at our place we played some drinking games until too many people showed up to keep them going, then we sat around outside for a while "babysitting" Galvin. (Thanks for getting most of it in the garbage bag dude!) I also finally watched Eurotrip, very funny movie. Saturday night the girls went out to AJ's but Galvin, Chris and I just kicked back at home...much too tired to go out again. Glad I saved my energy for Sunday.

So Jeff? Are you coming out August Long weekend? To everyone else over here, are you coming to Wakestock the weekend after the August Long weekend? We're going to buy tickets really soon, let me know!

I don't know if I should feel happy or sorry for you people but something terrible happened to me today. I took some time out of my super busy schedule today to write you a nice entry about my trip to Montana. It turned out to be one of my longest entries ever. Then my internet crashed as I was posting it...I LOST IT. So, since I can't write it all again, here's the condensed version.

Wednesday night we left Nanton for Montana. My friend Nevin came down from Lloydminster for the trip and we headed south from Nanton around 11:00 pm. It was hard driving so late a night but there was a huge lightning storm all the way from Fernie to Lake Ashley to keep us awake. The rain was pounding down on the cabin when we got there but I still fell asleep in less than 2 minutes. It rained off and on for the rest of the weekend but we had some sunny and calm stretches to get out on the water. Jeff landed quite a few backflips and rolls, I consistently landed my cross-wake 180s, and Nevin...well...let's just say he's lucky not to have broken ANOTHER bone. Good times. The fireworks rocked, I tried to burn the canvas off of our boat, but they were still awesome.

The way home was not so good. We left early enough on Sunday so I had plenty of time to catch my plane, until we got to Eureka and I noticed I didn't have my wallet. Oops! That added an hour and a half to the trip. There was also a long lineup at the border and many slow moving campers. I ended up missing my flight by a few minutes. Nevin and my dad tried hard to get me there on time. Anyway I had to switch to a flight the same time on Monday. Turned out to be really good. I cooked supper for Jeff and one of his roommates that night, went back to Nanton and had breakfast with Dad the next morning, did some camera shopping with Terry Monday afternoon, and showed my Aunt Sandy my pictures from Ontario. The camera I got is the Canon Powershot S1 IS. This camera rocks.

Anyway, it was a really good trip back home. Terry's grad was great and he got a letter that week saying he's accepted to the University of Alberta this fall. That rules! Anyway I'm back in Kingston now, the week has been going good. I got home from the airport around 3:45 am. Played beach volleyball after work the next day, watched Spiderman 2 on Wednesday, just took it easy tonight. Tomorrow night we might have a little party at the York Street Party House here, Saturday I'm going to work on my car, Sunday we're going to Sand Banks. Ah, time for some fun...like I need any more. Later peoples!

I am super excited. My Montana trip will have to wait one more day. I just found out from Brendan's PunkCanada.net site that Wakestock is going to be at Wasaga beach here in Ontario on the August long weekend. I don't need to know anything more, I'm already sold. The pro list includes Parks Bonifay and Chad Sharpe (I think only Jeff would care) but Parks is probably the best wakeboarder in the world. The competition goes all weekend. I'm going to get tickets this week and see about camping there near the competition. I really hope some people from here go with me because it would really suck to go alone...okay so it wouldn't but I still want my friends to come with me...for their sake. I think the parties would be absolutely amazing. There are concerts every night, a couple of bikini contests, pro wakeboarders and kiteboarders. I can't wait...I...I can't breathe. Where's my brown paper bag? Brendan, thanks for the heads up, sorry you can't be there with me. I know you would enjoy the wakeboarding, and the bands even more. Jeffy, want to fly out here for the competition? I'll pick you up and drop you off at the airport. I'll even throw in $100 for your ticket, see if you can get mom and dad to pitch in a bit too. Seriously, that weekend would be so sweet with you here. Just too bad you can't enter the intermediate competitions, they're already closed. Beer gardens! Save room!

I feel I have committed a crime. I have deprived my adoring fans of my witty entries for too long. That's right people, I'm back!

Way too much happened this last week to put it into one entry so I'll be spreading it out a bit for your sake. First, the Grad Party! There was a family/student/teacher barbecue at our place Saturday afternoon but already many of the grads were looking pretty rough, having been up the whole night before. The actual party started around 6:00 pm and was kicked off with...well...a kick-off. Most of the guys in Terry's class showed up first and we got a game of football going in the back yard. Several injuries were sustained but luckily none to my brothers and I. Those that were hurt were back in the game after a few quick beers. The party went all night with people out on the back lawn, dancing on the patio, hanging out by the fire, throwing horse shoes and frisbees, playing ping pong in the basement (Yes I beat Peter again but not by much this time), standing around the beer counter, and trowing up in the creek. All in all, an excellent party.

Clean up the next day was pretty easy, or at least that's what I hear. I left just after I woke up for a round of golf with Terry and a friend of his. Did pretty well, shot a 44 for 9 holes on a par 35. Some of you may laugh but that's about a quarter the handicap I usually need. I think my biggest accomplishments that game were making a nice drive on the first hole where everyone was watching and then using the same ball for the whole round. We also went wakeboarding at Pine Coulee that afternoon, extremely cold, Curtis jumped in the lake with his wallet AND his cell phone still in his pockets...dumb ass.

Ok, I'll leave Montana for another entry but here's a few more things I did back in Alberta. Monday I did a little shopping in Calgary, returned the huge stereo equipment from the grad party, picked up Jeff and Brendan from work, and then went and watched the Chronicles of Riddick with Brendan, Dan, and Mike. Good movie, I know Spiderman 2 will kick its ass though. Tuesday morning I went golfing with Terry and Dad at 7:00 am. Not as good as my Sunday game but that just means I was closer to my usual playing level. Tuesday night was dad's make-up birthday party as the real one was a week earlier. Brendan and Jeff came down, we had a round of golf in the back yard, and we ate one of Terry's salmon. Good stuff. Well it's already lunch time here. Wow, the day goes so fast when you don't show up until 10:30. Time for some baseball or picture taking, which ever I don't care. Later people!