I'm alive and well

Okay folks, I'm home and alive. Amber is also here and... just about insane. Poor girl, having to drive all the way across the United States with me in my car...and then meet a bunch of my family in Montana with no break in between. I'm impressed. Anyway, I'm back in Nanton now. We're going to head out and take some pictures of the town for my friends back east. Wow, I've never called you guys that yet...friends back east...or more, good friends back east. So yeah, we've got a nice little Tuesday planned here. Go to Calgary this afternoon, take Terry to the dentist and maybe do some shopping, we'll see. Maybe starting tomorrow I'll begin to recount my trip...and add pictures. We do have a lot. I won't write it all in one entry. I'm back in Nanton now, nothing exciting happens, so I need something to write about each day. Coolio. Time for some breakfast. Drop me all a line to let me know you made it through a week with out me...and Amber and Chris. We'll all be back online soon! Peace.

The end of an era...in Kingston

Well folks, this is the last day. I was actually quite busy today at Alcan. Lot's of running around returning things, saying good bye, finding out one of my old reports was never published and panicking trying to find out what happened to it. It was really sad to say bye to so many people in one day. I have a lot of really good friends there. Hopefully next year when I come back for Wakestock, I can stop by and visit a bit. But...tis life.

Tonight is party time. We're going to this Irish Pub called the Tir Nan Nog downtown. From there we'll either come back to do it up at the York Street Party House or possible make a stop at Stages first. The goal of my friends is to make it so I have to crawl home from the bar tonight. I'll try to resist. We're leaving early (9:00 or 10:00) tomorrow morning for Warped Tour. I don't think we know how everybody is getting there yet. We're hoping that Brenda will drive. There's a free ticket in it for her if she does.

I'm looking out my window down at the street now. Yeah it's a ghetto, but it's been my home for almost a year. It's funny how you really get attached to things. I know now that if I had to move out here for whatever reason that I'd be happy. I'd have to be in a smaller city (ie Kingston size) and near Lake Ontario. I'd be okay other places too but this is the really attraction to me here. Like, I'm going to miss this view out my window, but I miss the view out my Grandma's front window too. I miss walking around quad, wasting time between classes in the drafting room in ETLC, and I especially miss looking out the window at my grandparents' cabin at Wabamun. I'm probably going to get a chance to do some great wakeboarding this fall and snowboarding this winter. Yeah, I miss Alberta. I'm excited to go home. This is going to be an amazing trip across the USA with Amber...

Amber. I'm so happy that I don't have to say goodbye to her yet. That would have totally ruined my day. She's off writing a final exam right now while I'm doing my last bit of packing. We've become really good friends this summer and I can really act myself around her now (unfortunately for her). I'm going to have to see her off to Vancouver in a few weeks. It would be less than $200 to jet out there myself in the fall for a weekend. I just might have to do that. I'm going to miss her terribly, and I'm going to miss everybody here too. Most are from Vancouver and somewhat close by, but the others here in Kingston and Montreal...they might have to wait a bit longer for a visit from me. Wakestock, right guys?!

This is going to be my last blog for a while. It's going to take us about a week to get across the states and then we'll stay in Montana a few more days after that. I can't even promise regular updates once I get back to Nanton. When I'm at school I'll probably be on here a lot to complain about my classes and my profs. So, to everyone here in Ontario that I have been privileged to know for the past 8 months or so, thank you very much. I've had an absolute blast here. You guys have been amazing. I'm happy to have all the pictures to look back on. Even reading my past blog entries from time to time will be nice. I'm really really going to miss all of you. So rock on, keep the YSPH going hard (that'll be up to you Eric, Galvin, and Gina).

One more trip to our local LCBO for a booze run. Chris told me just to pick something up for him...tequila? sambuka? jack daniels?...hmm, no, he'll probably want something nicer like Malibu Rum..yeah, that'll do. As for me, I'm hoping to hit the hard H2O but I think I'll have to pick something else. Peace out y'all! Have a great week and I'll be back on here before you know it.

Quick Update

Presentation: Done

Still sick: Yes

Plant tour: Boring

Saying goodbye to friends at plant: Sucks

Realizing I'm going to be saying goodbye to a lot of people tomorrow: Really sucks

What should I do now?: Go find some food

Leaving: Immediately

Ahhh, now that everything is clear I can breathe easier, except that my cold prevents that. Later people!

My dose hasd da sniffews

Yeah I'm still sick. I feel a bit better know that I'm also getting those around me sick. I guess it had to happen eventually. I left work at 11:30 today though, never went back. I just stayed long enough to finish my presentation and return some of the stuff I've had in my office the whole time. Anyway I have a headache, couldn't taste the awesome food I made for supper, and can barely breathe through all this mucus...but Spike TV's 52 hottest women is on at 9:00. Now, normally I'd be acting like a good boy and spending the evening with Amber at Alcan, consoling her and keep her company as she works these incredible hours to get all of her stuff done...but I'm really sick...and it would just be unfair to her to make her sick too...so I think I'll just stay here and watch Spike with the boys. Sorry Amber.

I'm pretty much all packed up now. Yeah, it's all going to fit in the car. It's funny though, my room doesn't really look that much different with all of my stuff taken out of it. Guess I never really had that much stuff. Coolness. Later peoples!

More from Wakestock!

I finally took the pictures off of my other memory card last night. That's about all I accomplished. I started feeling a little sick at volleyball, left early, kept Amber company while she stressed out writing her report at Alcan until 11:00, then took most of this morning off because I felt terrible. I'm at work but I'm leaving soon. I hurt, can't think, and don't want to spread it around. But! Before that I'll give you a few more sweet pictures from this weekend.

This is from last Wednesday. We were about to head out to The Trews concert. We wore our aviators there. Kind've hard to see with them in a dark club but they look cool...right?



Here's Rob and Eric enjoying the "view" at Wakestock. We had our chair right at the water's edge in front of the biggest trick rail. What a sweet show.

Again some boarder I don't know. So hard to remember all of the names. I can only recall the famous ones. This guy is obviously still very good.



Oh, and this is one of the freestyle motocross that we could see a couple times a day. They jump for half an hour or so then take a long break. I have some sweet videos, unfortunately I can't put them on the internet.

Enjoy people. I'm going to do some quick work on my presentation then go home.

WAKESTOCK WAS AWESOME!

I'm sorry but that had to be shouted. This weekend was one of the most unbelievable weekends of my life. I sustained several injuries; mainly my jaw dropping to the ground and my eyes bulging out...for many reasons. First off, the wakeboarding. Soooooooo good. All the well known boarders were there. Parks Bonifay, Chad Sharpe, Shane Bonifay, Darin Shapiro, Cory Saunders. Here's Parks finishing a rail...unfortunately he didn't land it. Still pretty cool to see him wipe out right in front of you.



These guys kicked some ass. We set up our chairs in the beer gardens right along the water's edge. The boarders were hitting rails about 10 feet in front of us. They were throwing tricks that just can't be possible. I took a lot of pictures, got some video too.



Next, the girls. Sorry Amber, but I have to talk about this out of fairness to the rest of my guy friends that couldn't be there this weekend. Dudes, this is the most incredible weekend in Canada. Eric, Galvin, and Rob spent the whole weekend looking for a girl uglier than a 10 out of 10 while I spent that time looking for a girl hotter than Amber. Anyway, I'd say that 90% of these chicks reside in around the 14-15 out of 10 range. And there were some good sights for the ladies as well. Lot's of guys around too. The Ms. Reef bikini contest was awesome. 25 girls from across Canada up on stage shaking their bums (and some can do that really good). Galvin and I were front row for the whole thing, right up to the stage. A girl from Vancouver took the title. Kelowna came in second. The Calgary girl made the top 5 or the top 10, whichever the last cutoff was. This place is awesome. Basically the most tanned skin I've seen north of the 49th parallel. So yeah...I took a lot of pictures, probably got some video too.



Everything else. The music here was sweet. The only bands I went to see were The Ataris and Andrew WK because I was up front for the bikini contest anyway. I got kicked many times by passing crowd surfers. My cheapo sunglasses got mangled. My toes are all purple and sprained. But I had a blast! There were lots of other great bands: Moneen, Crowned King, Bedouin, The Trews, but I could hear them from the beer gardens while I watched the events. There was also some sweet Freestyle Motocross. They had the dirtbike ramps set up facing the water and these guys were getting some amazing air doing crazy tricks. I got a few on video but I missed the backflips. Should have been a bit more patient.



There's so much more to tell about this weekend. We stayed in a small town called Elmvale, about 15 minutes from Wasaga Beach, at the Hub Motel. Now this place was sketchy. We think the old lady running the place may be on crack. We partied there a bit on Saturday night with some other people staying in the rooms beside us. The girls there tried to kidnap Eric and Rob in the middle of the night, don't know how successful they were. The clubs in Wasaga Beach are awesome too but you have to be there really early to get in. We actually did get into one on Friday around 6:00 but only stayed there for a game of pool and a $20 pitcher of beer. When we came back later the line ups were hours long and the lowest cover is $20. We didn't need the clubs though, the better parties are elsewhere. We're already planning our trip next year. We want to get one of the small cabins at the Georgian Inn, right at the entrance to the park. I'm bring my brothers and anyone else that wants to have a sweet time. Terry won't be 19 so I'm not sure what we're going to do with him. He'll probably stay up late and not wake up until around 2:00 anyway so it shouldn't be a problem. I can't wait though. It gets better there every year. WAKESTOCK 2005, YEHAW!

Oliver Black Kicks Some Trews' Butt

The days are really flying by fast at the end here. It's already the last work day of another week. Thursday? Yeah, I know...I have tomorrow off. I worked my butt off these last two days, even putting in small amounts of overtime. (Small as in 3-4 minutes over regular hours, which is saying a lot because I usually don't stay for the whole day anyway) I'm pretty much finished most of my big reports and letters and stuff. Just have put the results of my goniometer tests in a spreadsheet to make sense of them and finish my student presentation, plus a couple dozen other small things before I leave. But yeah, I worked hard and asked Dmitri yesterday if they'd need me around on Friday. He said "I don't see why we would" and the arm pumping and air punching began. YES! So Eric, Galvin, Rob and I all have tomorrow off. We're going to stick around here tonight, mail a few boxes, go to a nice dinner, then tomorrow morning we're heading out.

Oh yeah, and about Oliver Black and The Trews. Last night I went to a concert at AJ's with Chris, Eric, and Galvin. The opening act was a local Kingston band, nothing special. They were called the Harpies. Next up was this band called Oliver Black. They are a punk/rock band with a female singer. These guys started playing and it just got more and more intense after that. The two guitarists were amazing but it was the energy of the singer that got the crowd going. They all just looked liked they loved being up there and loved what they did so much. They had a drummer but he was in the back in the dark and you never noticed him. The Trews came up last as the headliner. They were really good...until they started to play. I didn't need Eric to tell me that the mixing was all wrong with this group. The bass guitar was turned up way too loud. I felt the volume was just too much in general. My pantlegs felt like they were balloons filling up with air, vibrating like crazy to the music. After 45 minutes of being harassed by this bass guitarist and not being able to hear any of the other instruments Chris and I decided to call it a night. The walk home was nice and peaceful, not because it was a quiet night, but because our eardrums were so shot that we couldn't even here the cars coming until they were right beside us. Strange feeling. The Trews will be playing twice more at Wakestock, I hope they get their volumes figured out at that one. Hmm, must...work...a little...more....ahh, done. I tied my shoe! Have a great weekend peoples if I don't get a chance to talk to you before Sunday night. Peace!

Wednesday is Workday

Augh! I can't believe I didn't find time to post yesterday. I have so much to tell from the weekend, and now even more. Ok, let me be brief...and you can be Charles. (must be early) So yeah, Friday night we had another little party in our Ghetto. We watched this sweet movie called Donnie Darko (I wont say anything more except that everyone should see it). Highlight of the night was taping Ken up with duct tape (pictures up soon) and then attaching him to the banister in the hallway. Saturday was going to be our sailing day but I woke up at 8:00 am to a major rain storm...boo. We kept pushing the time back further until we realized that we just weren't going to get out on the water that day. Instead we did some shopping at HMV with our gift certificates from the Alcan picnic. I bought the new CD's by Maroon 5 and Hoobastank, good music.

Saturday night was another party but I couldn't stay awake. Amber and Jen were off at AJ's and the boys were having a super loud game of war (card game) downstairs but I just needed to sleep. I started tossing and turning in bed around 3:00 am and then suddenly woke up around 5:30 Sunday morning with this incredible pain above my stomach. It was actually hard to breathe. I tried to wait it out a bit but then as it got worse I thought I should make the trip to the hospital. I went downstairs, gasped at the destruction in our living room from the night before (Thanks Amber), made sure Amber was comfortable on the couch, knocked on Chris's door, and asked him to drive me to the hospital. It took us a while but we got there finally. The doctor asked a bunch of questions but my symptoms didn't seem to point towards anything. After lying on my bed for a while though the pain started to lessen and I could take half breaths again. I kept feeling better throughout the day but it hit again at supper. Oh well. Supper was down at The Merchant. We ate on the patio near the water. The marina was packed with all kinds of neat boats. There was also a live band playing songs like "Love Shack" and "Celebrate" at the Holiday Inn. I went to bed even earlier that night.

Monday we took one last trek out to Sandbanks. I really love that beach. We put on thick layers of sun screen, let it soak in, and then had a blast. More volleyball and swimming in the lake, tanning on the beach, staring at people through Eric's aviator glasses. Yeah, good times.

Last night Amber and I started the extremely daunting task of packing up all of our stuff. Or more, I helped her with her stuff. I guess it is going to be a lot of packing in the end but one of us has to keep a level head and not freak out, I guess that can be me. I wasn't able to help much with the actual packing, but I did fold a lot of clothes and give her a hug whenever she said "augh, there is so much!" Poor girl, she has a really busy week coming up, hope I can be supportive. We also tried to have a Ninja party on Ken's roof last night. You can climb out of his apartment window onto the roof outside. Cool place to lounge, but people keep spilling their drinks and food and stuff down the shingles. I don't think I really get to rest again until we're some where on our road trip through the States or even at Lake Ashley in Montana. It's just going to be go, go, go for a couple weeks here. I'm ready for it! Later peoples!