Month: June 2008

We arrived in London in time to miss a rainstorm heading our way.  Troy says that they get quite the bit of storms around that area.  We relaxed for the remainder of the day with some beer and chili that Connie had prepared for us.  Thanks Connie!  Troy brought out a few gifts for Connie from the West Coast and then we watched a slew of TV, mostly involving this show called Cock’d Gunns which is a hilarious mockumentary about two brothers in Brampton Ontario trying to make a rock band.  If you enjoy Tenacious D and Flight of the Conchords, I don’t think you will find this show disappointing.

The next day we set out to do some recording of 705.  I had these grand visions of getting it all done in the afternoon but I had no realized how long it would take to select the drums.  It is quite the process and took us most of the afternoon which is fine with me.  After getting the drum tracks down and a scratch guitar track, we also looked into getting the guitar tone right for the song.  I was looking for the old classic rock vibe that’s apparent in Mountain’s Mississippi Queen or more recently 850 Commando by Matt Mays (who can emulate the classic rock guitar wall like no other).  We finally settled on two tones and voila.  The song is born.

After dinner, Troy’s friend Darryl showed up and although it wasn’t as infamous of a meeting of the first time Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx met, it was close.  It was like musical geniuses entered the room together and created a force to be reckoned with.  Darryl had already added some amazing vocal and bass work on The Stomper last year and had helped Troy out with a few other tunes as well.  I was intrigued to be sitting in the same room with him watching what he does on the bass guitar.

In the end, seeing that he was flying solo that night, we decided to listen to 705 again and to lay down some vocal work.  I flubbed a few times as it’s very hard to sing the chorus perfectly with a high tempo.  It’s definitely hard to take a breath in between saying “In the 705, it’s good to be alive” four times in a row.  Darryl then took the mic duties for awhile and threw in three harmony parts for the entire song so we can decide what to do with them.  I am using Troy’s original demo take on the song as a template for what I liked and we’ll see if any other parts can be added to flesh it out more.  I definitely want to redo my vocals although Troy was really impressed with the majority of them.  I guess I’ll take another listen to them when Troy gets around to sending me the WAV files.  This time around, the plan is to really see how we can work on this virtually.  I’m going to have the WAV files sent to me, I’m going to load them up on my recording console, record a rhythm guitar track, maybe do another vocal take, then I’ll send it back to Troy so he can add his guitar work (and other vocals if he wants to take a crack at them) to it.  We’ll see if it works or not.  If it does, it will be the start of a more easier way to do things instead of me having to drop by London every year.

After that, Darryl, Troy and I jammed for a few hours which was also recorded.  There was quite the energy in the room that night as the three of us had finally come together.  It was like the joining of the two swords of Castle Greyskull in He-Man.  It just clicked.  I’m excited to hear the recording as we took a crack a few dozen tunes, along with some originals and they sounded great.  After Darryl left for the night, Troy was jacked up after having played an amazing session that we had so much energy an proceeded to watch a Motley Crue and Megadeth DVD that night until the wee hours of the morning.  I was all Corona’d out so we had to switch to rye.  We weren’t feeling too hot the next morning but we had had this amazing night and I’m glad it was recorded.  Mental note, I need to pick up an condenser microphone as it’s amazing for recording those intimate nights of jamming.

The next day we were feeling pretty rough so we headed out for lunch and I picked up the new Coldplay CD and then we headed back home to relax.  We definitely were not in much shape to do much of anything.  We were actually a little scared that our cousin Rick was dropping by for a night out at Chaucer’s pub.  Fortunately for us, the last time he went to Chaucer’s had scared him into agreeing that we only needed to go and have a few beers that evening.  Chaucer’s is famous for it’s atmosphere and more importantly; their sausage platter.  Filled with sauerkraut, three different sausages and beets, it is a delicious meal.  We had a few beers, talked shop about all subjects and then called it a fairly early night as Rick had to work the next morning and I was planning on leaving to go back to Ottawa.

The next morning, I felt decent (although Rick looked a little rough as he left for work) and headed out around 10AM.  I thanked Troy for his hospitality and the good times we had in the past week.  I am excited that we have become closer than ever during the past few years.  I feel like him and I are like Dad and Uncle Brent were in the past…good brothers having a good time.  Here’s a special thank you to Connie for being a gracious soul while I stayed over and I give her a 9.5/10 for the hospitality this time around (the Crown Royal on the pillow definitely clinched it this time around!).  I didn’t get a chance to say good bye to her in person and thank her, so here it is for her to read.

Unfortunately for me, the trip to Ottawa was hell because the 401 had construction on it which brought it down to two lanes.  I literally spent 1.5 hours crawling from one end to the other.  It was horrible.  Don’t they usually have construction on the highways only at night?  If not, they should start.

All in all, it was a great little vacation.  It was more family oriented than ‘grand event’ oriented.  It was very relaxing and I enjoyed getting out on the bicycle every day for 15 kilometers along some great trails.  I enjoyed spending time with my parents as they drove me around the island and I enjoyed spending time with Nanny, Troy, Uncle Brent and Aunt Ree.  It was a great trip, no bad weather and it introduced me to the West Coast.  I would definitely go back in the future and I must look into what Aeroplan has to offer in that department.

Vancouver is amazing.  Truly amazing.  I want to return there now.

We hit the road early in the morning and made the early ferry ride back over to Vancouver.  We found our hotel in Richmond which is close to the Vancouver airport and decided to head into downtown.  Mom and Dad had a bad outlook on Vancouver after spending a night there the week before after the cruise returned.  Turns out that they ended up staying in the worst spot of town and there were a bunch of haggling homeless people (one person asked Dad for $2 instead of the $1 Dad gave him!) and vomit lined the streets.  Needless to say, not a good experience!

I am glad they got the opportunity to see what Vancouver has to offer in the daylight.  It was beautiful.  Downtown is situated around the water, near the forest and next to the mountains.  The architecture there was quite different than anything I’ve seen before.  I’m assuming it was Asian-inspired from any films I’ve seen in Asia.  Very modern looking.

Downtown was beautiful and the sun was shining and all was well in the world.  We headed to GasTown which is a strip of downtown where there are nice restaurants and shops.  We headed to the Old Spaghetti Factory for lunch.  We then picked up some good souvenirs.  You can’t go wrong with a $10 sweatshirt!  In hindsight, I don’t even think I bought myself anything while I was out there, but at least I got a couple of t-shirts from my parents from their Alaskan trip.

I wanted to check out the Art Gallery as I read about an exhibition on comic books, video games and other multimedia.  I was excited to see what it was all about but when we got there, it would have cost $20 each to get in and I knew very well that I would have wanted to stay there for a few hours at least and the others wouldn’t have been too interested.  In the end, I realized that I would rather go with them to the Capilano Suspension Bridge so I decided that the exhibit would have to wait another day!

We took a quick drive out of downtown to the Capilano Suspension Bridge.  I am scared of heights so I did not know what to expect.  In the end, I wasn’t freaked out too much by the bridge.  I had envisioned a bridge out of an Indiana Jones movie where it was rickety.  This bridge had 75 people on it and was in no fear of breaking.  In fact, at one point, I read how a tree had fallen onto the bridge during a giant windstorm a few years ago and they said the root ball was 60,000 pounds and it still didn’t break!

I really enjoyed the Capilano park as you go through this wooded area and you can walk from tree top to tree top along these bridges.  We spent a few hours there and I would have to say that it was the highlight of the trip as we got to see how big the trees where (as legend holds it) and got to find out things about the forests around BC.  We even got a certificate indicating we made it through all the checkpoints!

After heading back to the hotel, we went to a restaurant called White Spot which seemed very popular around Vancouver.  It was good food and reminded me of Moxie’s.  In the end, we retired for the night after a night cap and unfortunately, I don’t think Troy and I got much sleep that night before the flight.  Maybe my mind was racing with the fact that we had to get up at 3:30AM to catch our flight the next morning.

Let me tell you, there’s no sense in rushing to an early flight.  We got there and the ticket counters weren’t even open!  Once they were, we went to security and they weren’t even open!  I was dozing off fast.  I slept most of the way on the way back and watched Jumper (which is a decent flick if you enjoy the sci-fi.)  We got back into Toronto where Uncle Richard and Aunt Dinah graciously dropped off my car and then we headed out to London ON for the rest of our vacation.

The rest of the trip in BC is currently a blur as I had not written down anything about it.  In fact, I can’t even remember what we did on the Wednesday!  On Thursday, we took a trip out to Jordan River which was…lacking.  There was nothing there!  I think the point of it was to hopefully see some surfing going on.

We did end up at the Castle for the last few days.  The Castle was a nice old pub built 100 years ago and Uncle Brent knew the owner Kenny very well.  The most exciting part about this place was the price of beer…a round of four drinks came out to around $11.  We were all impressed with the price and the beer (Labatt Winchester which we had never heard of.)

Here’s another beer related story…out here in Sooke (if not all of BC), you pay more for your beer in the store if it’s cold!  I thought it was odd when the woman at the register asked me if my beer was cold or warm.

On the last night, Uncle Brent, Troy and I ended up at the Castle in the early afternoon and after a few pints, Dad came in with us as well and before you knew it, we were playing darts and asked the women to join us for some Chinese food.  We were all having a grand time and even Nanny got up to try her hand at darts.  I was not used to Troy’s camera so the pictures of the event are a little blurry.  The Chinese food was excellent as well.  We headed home where we gave a concert for all and Dad outfitted us with some chef’s hats that they got from their cruise.

Uncle Brent and Aunt Ree showed us some great hospitality while we were there and I had a grand old time hanging out with the family.  It’s not often that we get together but when we do, it’s smiles all around.  I really enjoyed going to Vancouver Island for the week and can see myself returning but I think I would like to check out some camping sites along the way as I don’t know if running over to Chemainus would be exciting again.  I would definitely like to return to Victoria and spend a few days there as there was a lot more to do there.

I don’t know if it’s the fresh air or the time change but it caught up to me by this point.  I think I’ve already needed to have a nap in the afternoon each day and when we woke up around 6:30 to head through Vancouver Island, I was dead tired and slept most of the way.

We headed up North into Duncan where we stopped at a farm that the Mustard Seed Food Bank had purchased.  It is used for multiple reasons; to store all food being shipped for use in Vancouver Island, to grow food on the farm, and to be a form of rehabilitation center where patrons stay a minimum of a year in a house on the property and work on the farm while receiving the aid they need.  I was very impressed with the operation.  They don’t have a large operation as of yet but it will turn into something that is self-sustaining which I personally feel is amazing.

We then headed up further North to Chemainus which is a small town which have painted murals all over the place to attract tourists.  It was neat to walk through the town but that’s that.  Nothing mindblowingly exciting about the place to report on.

He headed back into Duncan where we stopped into a Chiwakan Native area where they had a bunch of totem poles.  We started off in the area going to watch a film but something went wrong with the projector so a man came in and said he would give us a tour around the area until it was fixed.  This was excellent as there usually aren’t guided tours.  He was very insightful and gaves us good stories about the history of the Chiwakan Natives and the stories their totem poles represented.  My favourite story (which has inspired a song) is of an old woman who would hunt down children who were out after dark and then would either eat them or burn them.  Then in a Hansel and Gretel inspired turn of events, the children manage to burn her.  I thought it was an interesting story from their culture.

We got back home and it was a relaxed affair with us munching on some shrimp and hot peperoni, swapping stories and watching Honey Wrestling and the Real Catfight with Troy and Dad.  I also chatted with Troy for quite a few hours into the night along with a nice bottle of Crown Royal that Dad had picked up for us while on his Alaskan cruise.

When I woke up, I had some cereal and decided to hit the trail with the bike for a long bike ride.  It has been a few years since I’ve had a great bike ride and was excited at the prospect.  I ended up riding for 12 kms and it was slightly tough going out on it but then I realized I had been biking on an incline the entire 6 kms and so when I came back down it took me less time.

After the bike ride, I settled in with the guitar and created a new chord progression in the key of C that I worked on a bit with Troy.  We had these grand aspirations to write music while we were there.  It worked out decent for us over the week as we developed a little musical number based on a riff that Troy developed.  I think it has potential.

Today was the day we headed into downtown Victoria to see the sights.  Aunt Ree took us around the area where we shopped a little and we ended up getting some Dim Sum for lunch.  Mom and Dad had never been to a Dim Sum restaurant before and while it was a enjoyable meal, I don’t think they will return in the future.  Dad didn’t care for the rubbery texture on some of the items.  They also didn’t appreciate that I ordered something that probably was a bull testicle.  It was quite disgusting and it left a (literal) bad taste in our mouth afterward.  YUCK!

After traipsing around Chinatown, I dropped by the Service Canada Center for Youth to see where I could find the main Service Canada Center to say hello to a colleague of mine.  After finding the center, I phoned Kathleen but she was out of the office.  Turns out she was out of town for the week which was unfortunate.

Random side story: I was passing this guy on the street and he had what looked like a red menu and he was standing outside a Chinese restaurant.  When he started speaking I just assumed he was an employee of the restaurant and I said “No thanks, I’m full.  I already ate today.” and he starts laughing and cries out “That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard!”.  Turns out that he was someone working for Amnesty International!  I did feel bad for brushing him off like that but we all had a good laugh.

We saw a guy called Plasterman who was one of those mimes that move around when you pay him.  He was pretty interesting to watch.  This was right in front of the harbour which is an amazing sight to see.  It was also right in front of the Empress which is supposedly a grand hotel to visit but they were going to charge us to walk through there and we said ‘Nay” to that prospect.  We ended up in Big Bad John’s pub where we could eat peanuts, throw the shells on the floor and look at the bras and underwear hanging from the walls and ceiling.

On Father’s Day, I started out taking a job on the Galloping Goose Trail which is a 50km trail starting from the city of Victoria and running across Vancouver Island.  It was quite inspiring to hit the trail in the nice cool forest as the trees sheltered the effects of the sun.  I passed by forest, trails and eventually ended up at a bridge overlooking a river below.  It was quite nice.  Dad and I headed back on the trail later on in the day with some bicycles (mine having some amazing streamers off the ends of the handlebars) and I enjoyed that time with Dad on the trail seeing that it was Father’s Day.  It was also inspiring to come back and work alongside Uncle Brent and Troy who were attempting to fix a clothesline.

I also gave Dad a copy of Drunken Covers Volume 1 which I envision to be a series of live albums whenever we actually hit record on the machine.  We are also trying to figure out an easy way to distribute this to anyone who wants it.  It’s a recording of Troy and I playing some covers last year in London.  We popped it in the car stereo when we headed to Victoria and I was proud when Mom thought it was the radio playing!

We headed into Victoria for some fish and chips which were amazing.  One thing that struck me about Victoria was that everywhere you went, the landscaping was amazing!  You could have a rundown apartment complex in the welfare area of the city but it had shrubs and flowers and nice lawns!  I found it quite intriguing.  Uncle Brent also took us up Bear Mountain which is this new housing development up on this mountain outside of Victoria.  It was quite amazing to be so high above the city.

At night, Troy, Uncle Brent and I played crokinole which I had never played before.  Clearly Uncle Brent had played before as he kicked our ass every time.

Troy and I then discovered that Uncle Brent had the Fight Network on his television and we decided to see what was on.  Hilariously enough, at 10PM, we stumbled upon a show which had Russian girls wrestling in honey.  Beautiful!  We had some good laughs at the show as the commentator was hilarious.  The girls had some great names like “Black Widow Spider” and “Angel Dust”.  So the commentator would say “Black Widow Spider is slowing down due to the viscosity of the honey.” or “Angel Dust needs to spend more time wrestling than adjusting her top.”

At 10:30PM, “The Real Catfight” started up and it was a bunch of Asian women wrestling each other.  Usually they were dressed up in some crazy outfits and it was a hit and miss show.  Sometimes they would not wrestle at all, sometimes they went all out and we cringed at their antics and sometimes it was a little crazy as you would have the girls getting bonus points for various acts.  Considering this is a family friendly zone, you can talk to me in person if you want to know what was going on in the show.  We found the shows highly entertaining and watched them every night and had a good laugh at it.  Dad even came down one night to see what the fuss was all about and he had a good time.

Awaking early at Aunt Dinah’s on Saturday morning, I grabbed a bowl of cereal and we hit the road around 5:15.  Connie dropped us off and we went through the motions of checking our luggage.  I inadvertently almost sent our luggage to Asia as there are two separate check-in counters…one for Asia and one for the rest of the world!

We had plenty of time left before the plane took off so we hit up Tim Horton’s and then headed for the plane.  They started boarding as soon as we arrived so that was good timing on our part.  We flew on a 767 and I must say that this is a high-tech plane.  They had these interesting pod like seats in first class.  Troy and I ended up in Row 21 and Nanny was a few rows back in Row 24.  All was good in the flight until Troy’s video screen wouldn’t load up any movies so we ended up splitting a set of headphones between the two of us and watched “Shine a Light” which is the new Rolling Stones documentary by Martin Scorsece.  It was pretty neat although it’s more of a concert than a documentary.

Let me not forget to mention how amazing it is to have your own video screen in front of you!  I have always been stuck looking at video screen across the hall and watching the one movie they have on board.  These personalized video screens allow choice to be at your finger tips!  I could listen to satellite radio or any new albums that were out, I could watch a ton of TV shows (we even watched a good episode of Ali G after the movie), I could watch the news, tons of movies…it was great!  I wanted to stay on the plane even longer!

After disembarking the plane we made a bee-line to the washroom.  This is when the hilarity of the trip would start for us.  Troy grabbed a urinal and I grabbed a urinal next to him.  I unzipped and then said “Ah, my little friend” referring to the urinal that I’ve been dying to use.  Troy gave me an incredulous look and then I realized that my comment could definitely be misconstrued and not be meaning the urinal!  With shock and laughter I said “No, no I was talking about the urinal!”  Meanwhile a gentleman who came into the washroom behind us scooted outside of the washroom after hearing my comment!  Ha ha…this started the trip off right and Nanny had a good laugh when we told her the story.

Luckily, Uncle Richard’s estimation of when Mom and Dad would be getting of the cruise ship was wrong and we only had to wait 30 minutes for them to pick us up instead of the original timeline of 2 hours.  We piled our luggage into the car (we still had to throw a suitcase on top of both Troy and I) and we headed for the ferry to get across to Vancouver Island.  We were lucky and made it into the 11AM ferry with only a few cars to spare (otherwise we would have had to wait 2 hours and then spend another 1.5 on the ferry.)  We grabbed a bite to eat and then sat on the deck.  It is a great trip to Vancouver Island.  It is difficult to peg the scenery here…I feel that it offers the best of both the East Coast water views along with the Northern elements of Quebec/Ontario.  It is very beautiful.  Many pictures were taken along the way.

Once we arrived into Sydney we met up with Uncle Brent and Ree who showed us the way home.  Their house is in Sooke which is about 40 minutes outside of Victoria.  It is a small town and their place is very secluded which is very nice.  When I talk about it being secluded, I mean it in that you cannot see the neighbours and there is much forest around the property.  There are also many deer sightings during the day which is amazing.  I also love how their house is very cozy and I felt welcome there right away.

We met Ree’s daughter Jennifer who is a lovely woman training to be a hospice nurse and we also enjoyed a good meal of cabbage rolls.  Afterwards into the night we ended up having a few beers and closed out the night playing guitar for a few hours and starting out what is hoping to be a good week of guitar playing.