Month: September 2012

Beaus Oktoberfest 2012 was the highlight of my autumn. The weather was gorgeous for the first time ever which made the beers flow. Too bad they flowed a little too much for me and I left the grounds a broken man! But no worries, the road leading up to it was fantastic.

First stop was the brewery so I could pile the trunk full of beer. I got a few jugs of the Nightmarzen (my fave seasonal choice) as well as a sixer of select Wild Oats. I especially enjoyed the artwork of Dark Helmut so I decided to pick up a poster as well! Let us not forget the Oktoberfest mug. It was ceramic this year (not unlike last year). I have to say, I really enjoy my glass mug from two years ago more than the ceramic ones.

Guillaume, Andreane, Vero and I donned our Oktoberfest hats and entered the fairgrounds. We stumbled into Maren, Allan-Paul, Whitney and Christian whom we chatted with for a few minutes before heading off to get some beer tokens and check out the keg toss. The keg toss is always a fan-favourite activity to watch as they have both women/men divisions in the distance and vertical distance challenge!

Mike and Rachel showed up later in the afternoon as well as Krista, Jill, Ryan and Julie. There were tons of people I saw throughout the day, including Martin and Vero who turned out to be the stars of the event!

There were people getting their head shaved for cancer. Martin decided to trade in his Tarzan locks for a Professor Xavier look. I went up on stage with him to hold/feed him beer while he got his head shaved off. Kudos to Martin for doing this! I believe we raised $300 from the crowd to go through with it. Then, when it was all done, they asked for other volunteers and his girlfriend Vero jumped up on stage and said she would do it! Incredible! In the end, I believe we got $200 for her hair and they both can keep each other warm during the winter months. Two large thumbs up for the both of them.

The night descended into an evening of beer and more beer and before you knew it, I was back home after my lovely wife dragged my ass out of there. Mental note for next year: These are not 5% beers you are drinking!

Best Oktoberfest yet. For those of you who have not been yet, what are you waiting for?

Vero and I headed out to Perth, ON after work on Friday to celebrate Uncle Lynn and Greg and Aunt Mariette’s birthdays. Mental note for the future: It does not make much sense to try and get across the city during rush hour on a Friday. Vero and I ended up arriving an hour later than expected!

Other than the fact that Uncle Greg and Aunt Mariette didn’t show up until the day after, we had a lovely time over at Lynn and Sue’s place. It was a smorgasbord of food, nothing too formal about it…which is exactly how it should be when visiting friends and family! We met a few people we had not met before and at one point in the night I was described as being quite similar to Uncle Greg. I took that as a compliment (but I would never let him know that).

After a few munchies (and some amazing boneless chicken wings that Uncle Johnny brought), Lynn and I started a fire and it was a perfect night with the moon and the fire out to celebrate sixty years on this Earth.

SUPER THANKS to Uncle Greg and Aunt Mariette for the wedding gift in the form of a Patterson-made rocking chair! It literally rocks! Ha ha. It’s a really great gift that we already have fallen in love with. I can’t get Vero out of it! Coupled with the amazing blanket that Lynn and Sue made us, I see no reason to leave this one spot in our living room for the rest of our lives.

There have been rumours of Apple creating a high definition TV in the future.

Sure, it’s possible, but how are they going to make it DIFFERENT?

I think I stumbled onto a theory yesterday when I was interacting with my iTunes library via my iPad last night.

The iPad has a REMOTE application which allows you to see exactly what you see on your itunes library. So instead of taking my keyboard and mouse (caveat: my computer is hooked up to my television), I can grab my iPad, click on the REMOTE app and I see my iTunes library. I can control things like changing the song, putting up neat graphics on my tv screen, etc. The interface is super simple and it’s just so much easier using your finger on a screen than using a mouse. It’s intuitive.

Then it got me thinking about the Apple TV. What if Apple is going to release a TV with the iPad as a remote? You could either use your existing one, or perhaps for another $200 you could purchase the TV with the kickass remote control unit? Or maybe they will even go crazier and say “Buy the Apple TV and we throw in an iPad for free to use.” This could be possible considering the iPad mini concept starting to gain traction. Imagine a little iPad for you to use as a remote control? The possibilities are endless.

This would be television as we know it on its head. No longer would we be limited to rudimentary controls on the remote control to handle complex navigation (everyone remember setting a timer on a vcr? Imagine that as an application built into your iPad? I guess it would be similar to PVR right now.)

I have owned my Macbook for six years now which is well past the warranty period.

The battery decided to do something weird the other day.  It swelled up on me to the point where there was so much pressure on the lock mechanism on the Macbook that I thought it was going to break.  Luckily it did not.  As soon as I turned the unlock switch, the thing popped right out because it had expanded in size!

I did a little research on some forums to see if it was a common occurrence.  I found some mention of a replacement program back in 2009 for A1185 batteries but that time had since passed.

I have had amazing service from the Apple Store at Rideau Center in the past (free replacement earbuds a few times when they just weren’t working any longer) so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to see what they could do for me.  A new battery from the Apple Store costs $160 whereas on Ebay it looked like I could one cheaper for $60.

I arrived at the Genius Bar appointment and it was a packed house at 12:20 in the afternoon.  One gentleman was helping another Macbook client but was running some scans so I propped the Macbook on the table and showed him the battery and asked him what my options were.

He proceeded to get a new battery and tell me that this shouldn’t happen at all and gave me the new battery, no questions asked.

I have often wondered if Apple has a customer satisfaction policy which basically states “Don’t bother asking them about the warranty on the product, don’t bother asking for some money…just get the problem fixed so the customer can exit the store being happy.”

Happy I am.  Extremely satisfied with the service I always get at the Apple Store.  How many times have you seen something of yours break and the first thing you think about is “Oh my Lord, is it still covered by warranty?”  Imagine if we lived in a world where it just didn’t matter?

That world is the Apple Store.

Thanks.

At the Sound of Lions concert the other night, I saw the most curious thing…a sign on the merchandise table that read “Pay what you want for the merchandise.”

Huh.

My immediate thoughts at looking at the CD and the t-shirt available was immediately “Man, if I wanted these two items, I would easily drop $40 for them both.”

I wonder if that’s the general consensus on these types of things and in the end, they actually make MORE money by leaving it up to buyer’s choice?

Granted, this was their existing CD and a t-shirt.  They are currently testing out new songs so maybe they are clearing out some old stock before they order new stock?

Either way, it’s a really fascinating concept and I would love to pick their brain to find out the thinking behind this as well as if they are at least breaking even.

On a related note, I wonder if had anything to do with passing her a twenty the previous time I bought their album and I told them to keep the change to support the band?

Seriously, I didn’t have many doubts when walking in there..JF and Jon are accomplished musicians…but man!  I was blown away at what we came up with after three hours!

Showed up to Jon’s place and unloaded my gear around noon and we were up and at ‘em after a few technical problems (why isn’t my microphone working?  My printer ran out of ink!).

The moment was upon us…the first song to play together.  We decided on Diggin’ a Hole and took it from the top.  I think all of us were looking at each other with trepidation.  Was this going to be awesome, or was it going to suck?

As soon as the drums started up and I strummed along, I could feel it.  The electricity was there.  I am not talking about JF’s massive JCM800 in the corner of the room.  I’m talking about how you know it’s going to be a good afternoon!

Then BLAMMO, JF enters in with the electric guitar in the way the electric guitar blows you away when it makes an appearance in Big Sugar songs.  It was off to the races for the rest of the afternoon.  I was so impressed with our first attempt that I immediately switched to bass guitar to see if we could make the song rock even harder.  That took awhile to get used to, but I thought it turned out a-ok.

Alive was the next tune we tried.  It was going good but we stopped once in awhile to fine tune it.  But once we got it down and we entered into JF’s solo I was mesmerized.  It was like I was standing in front of Mike McCready himself!  I can’t get over how sweet JF plays lead guitar.  He practiced like hell and it paid off.  He mentioned that his wife figured that the other guys probably didn’t even practice as much as him.  I gotta say that from the sound of us all in the room, we all put our heart into it and it was paying off in spades.

After that we noodle around with Jet Airliner which was decent and we let Jon play around with learning the drums on Hold Me In Your Arms.  JF and I chatted and noodled around for a bit and broke into Sixteen Saltines which sounded pretty darn decent even without the drums.  Later on, Jon came in with the drums and I gotta say, it’s a freaking sweet tune to just have some fun with.  It’s definitely different practicing on my own with the acoustic and hearing how it sounds in my basement vs. when the electric and drums are also with it!

Yellow Ledbetter was a highlight of the day as it’s one of my faves and we did pretty decently considering we never practiced it.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up over what we came up with that day.  Here’s to hoping Martin can join us the next time (I believe he may have been working) and here’s to hoping we get together sooner rather than later!!

Benoit and I each bought a Star Wars stormtrooper costume last year in hopes to wear it to every Hallowe’en party for the rest of our lives.

I would say that we have been assembling it (otherwise known amongst us as troopin’) about five times now.  We have got a lot better at it compared to the first day last winter.  We are hoping to have it done by Hallowe’en and I’m confident that we will get 90% of it done and the remaining 10% is simply some fine tuning (or back orders of boots!)

Friday night was the first time that I felt that it really came together.  We are only missing the thigh and shoulder pieces as well as some little extras (like the belt).  Cinthia was having a big laugh when we came out from the basement in nearly full gear and ran around the house living out Star Wars fantasies.  I’m not sure why being a stormtrooper is a dream of many, considering how ridiculously hard it is to see out of that damn helmet!  I’m trying to figure out how to drink some beer during the night.  I think I may have to invest in a camel pack on ice!

Two thumbs up for the gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches we had that night!  I was introduced to a grilled cheese with fried apples, peppers, cranberries and cheese!  Too bad I forgot the olives!

Friday morning I drove to work so I could drive to Benoit’s afterwards…unfortunately for me, it resulted in a dent on the passenger side fender and some nice paint which does NOT match the existing paint job.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I got out and paid the attendant, then put it into reverse while looking out the back window.  However, with the rain pouring down I didn’t really see out my side mirror and all I heard scrraaaapppeeeee.

Sure enough, there’s this nice cement post painted in blue that I hit with the car.

The best part is when the attendant comes out and says “That’s the third time this morning!” and here I’m thinking “Buddy, maybe you should paint this a brighter colour for those rainy days.”

So that’s that…another dent/scrape to add to the old girl.  I’m not too concerned with it because I’ve grown to become fond of my other scrape on one other side.  I also feel that this will give me the challenge of learning how to fix these things myself!  With the helpful phone call to my father of course!

Troy wanted me to talk about this a little more to capture some memories of my time in a band, so here goes.

First off, am I in a band?  Maybe?  Maybe not.

A few years back, JF, Jon, Mike and I got together one night to jam.  It was a chaotic experience with everyone all over the map.  For a drummer, Jon must have been frustrated.  But who wouldn’t be?  This was the first time ever getting together without even thinking of what songs we would play.  All in all, a fun night fueled by beers and cheers, but it was just that.

Fast forward a few years and we decide to jam once again.  So we pick a few songs and play them a few times and it’s not bad.

Fast forward another while and everyone convenes for Vero and my wedding and everyone has a great time.  When we get back home, an email awaits from JF saying “Hey, we should get a band together!”

We get together one night and hash out approximately a billion songs that we would be interested in learning.  It was a little ridiculous at one point!  But we also discussed the fact that we just want to get together once in awhile (like every three weeks) and play some songs together.  At this point, there’s no end goal in sight of playing in bars around the area or anything like that.  Martin seems to be the seasoned pro in being in a band (from what I can tell, maybe the others have all been in groups before) and he said we need minimum a year together to be able to play proficiently together.

Challenge accepted!

I like the setup of the group so far…we have Jon on drums, JF on lead guitar as well as Martin on lead and myself taking up the acoustic and vocals.  There has been talks of needing to bring the bass guitar in there somewhere so we may switch up positions depending on where it is needed.  Here’s to hoping the bass guitar doesn’t come around my side too often considering I don’t know how to play it and I think vocal duties will be severely diminished if I took it on!  But, everything comes with practice so I’m not afraid to try it out!

So here we come upon the three week mark and I have a few songs I’ve been learning in prep for the jam session.

Digging a Hole (Big Sugar): So this was an interesting one to learn.  It’s all bass guitar at the beginning!  So I gave up on it for awhile until JF just pointed out that we could strum an A chord instead.  Bingo bango, didn’t have too much trouble with this one.

Sunshine of your Love (Cream): The bane of my existence is to pick some notes and sing at the same time.  Give me some chords any day and I’m fine.  But have me pick and sing at the same time?  Well…it takes a little more practice.  A fun song to play and it just outlines how simple some classic songs really are (until you get to the solo!)

Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band): Great tune to strum to.  I’m glad I had to practice this one because I’ve played it a few times but only from memory so I know I missed a few details over the years.  Part of me likes making a song my own, another part says “Learn how to play it correctly, damn it!”

Sixteen Saltines (Jack White): A vote from JF as he loves this song.  It was the first time hearing it so it is taking me awhile to get the hang of it.  Plus, Jack’s vocals are on the screamy end of the sprectrum so it’s taking a little getting used to.

Hold Me In Your Arms (Trews): Oh man!  Talk about a vocal killer!  Collin can NAIL the awesome classic rock high end vocals whereas it’s taking me everything to get up to that level.  I used to be able to sing really high but nowadays…not so much!  Not sure how this one will work out.  I may have to bring it down a key.

So that’s that.  Practicing is going well and I’m looking forward to the upcoming jam session!