Category: Trips

On Friday morning, Vero and I headed out to Kapuskasing and the trip was pretty good until the obligatory stop at McDonald’s in North Bay.  Why is it that I don’t eat McDonald’s until I hit North Bay?  It’s been imprinted onto my psyche that we must stop there.  Must come with the countless years of passing through and stopping there along HWY 11.

After North Bay we went to fill up with gas and were stuck behind a slew of trucks towing ATVs and sitting there chatting away at the gas pumps.  “Where you hunting this year?”  “Who has the tag?”

“Get out of my way and let me drive another six hours!” my mind screamed.

We did manage to finally get some fuel and Vero took over the driving duties for awhile.  God bless her.  I have grown accustomed to having someone drive for a few hours on the trip and I don’t know how my body would take driving the entire ten hours itself.

When I awoke Vero mentioned that she had been behind 6,261 different trucks towing ATVs and has passed the entire Ontario Provincial Police department who must be out on the road today.  That seemed a little extreme to me but sure enough, the cops didn’t let up that afternoon and neither did the hunters going out for the first big day.

We rolled into Kapuskasing around 5:15 and a tear came down my face as I had to drive through it instead of hanging a right on De L’Etang.  I was heading straight to Hearst this night and it was the first time in my life where I had an extra hour to drive to get to a destination up North.  *sob*

I was following a police officer all the way into Hearst and I thought it may have been Anne-Marie’s husband Steve but Vero pointed out that the person in front of us had hair, whereas Steve shaves his head.  Good point.  I’ll stop tailgating this cruiser.

We arrived, hellos were shared, we sat down and had dinner all around some grand news including the fact that Vero’s family were thinking of putting the house up for sale and moving to Ottawa.  They are not sure if they will do that or not, but they were thinking about that.  Personally, if they could afford to, heck, why not?  Who wouldn’t love to have their family in town?  I sure would but I also realize the financial repercussions of such a move.

The night passed along and I chatted with everyone and got to meet Andreane’s boyfriend Sam who seemed like a nice enough fellow.  We retired for the night where I found some cookies waiting on the bed (thanks to Vero’s grandmother I believe!) and the next day we went to the pizza joint in town to have lunch with Amelie and then headed towards Kapuskasing.

There was no real rush to get into town as Sam had phoned me that morning and let me know the schedule and we would only need to show up around 7PM at the church.  I dropped by their place to pick up a spare video camera that Samantha had borrowed from a friend and saw everyone getting ready.  Everyone seemed surprisingly calm and I realized that nothing could really go wrong that night.

Vero and I then headed home to see Mom and all I heard were complaints about how the computer wasn’t working most of the time.  I thought I had fixed it but it did randomly keep rebooting later that night when I got home after the wedding.  So we’ll have to see what I can think up to fix that problem.

After having some excellent home-made wango tango pizza, Vero and I loaded up all the video equipment and headed to St. Patrick’s church.  I have never been there before and it was a nice enough church.  It even had a second deck which was quite useful for filming.  Vero set up her camera up near the altar and we figured I would be the guy who roamed around looking for a good shot since we couldn’t manage to find a tripod for my camera.  Someone pointed out that I may want to film from upstairs and sure enough, I went up there to find dusty seats but a great view of everything.  The camera zoomed in well and I decided to stay up there while Vero held the floor.  I had a good laugh when she was making hand motions to me but unfortunately I a) Can’t see that far.  Must get glasses. B) Can’t understand video production hand signals anyhow!  It was like she was telling me to lower a crane or something.

The wedding started and an old acquaintance of mine, Mark, ended up upstairs with me taking photos of the wedding.  I got myself positioned in the best position possible but it was still…awkward.  To steady my filming arm I needed to lean up against the rail but to lean against the rail I had to lean off of the bench to the point of realizing that it was probably more comfortable to kneel.  Considering I was in a place to worship, I said a little prayer to grace me with a steady filming hand, or a magical tripod to fall from the skies.  That didn’t happen so I managed to have a decent surgeon hand going on.  In fact, Vero and I reviewed some footage I shot and it didn’t turn out TOO bad.  There was this one part where Vero was freaking out because the camera looked like I had dropped it but I was just moving to get a better angle of Samantha when the rings were being exchanged.

The wedding was nice.  Samantha looked great and Marc-Andre had this great white suit on which I thought was smashing.  His two brothers and Mike were up front playing guitar while everyone walked down the aisle.  Carol was also in the wedding party and she looked like a bridesmaid who was there to give a helping hand at any moment.  Danny said a reading which coincidentally appeared in Wedding Crashers (!).  Marc-Andre’s brother Simon and his wife sang a few tunes throughout the ceremony.  What else can I say about the ceremony?  Pretty standard fare and no kids were screaming their heads off.

Afterwards, we packed up everything and headed to the Centre des Loisirs.  When we arrived there, dire news awaited.  Fred asked if I knew who had the key to the bar.  Turns out that the bar was locked up and everyone was ready to riot!  Well, not really riot, but you know what I mean when you wait 30 minutes between a ceremony and when the bar opens.  We phoned around and I don’t really know who ended up having the key but sometime after the wedding party made their entrance, Fred announced that the bar was now open.  I filmed the mad rush of people charging towards the bar and it may be the best footage of human beings in their element at a wedding.

Mike’s dad’s band started up a set which was killer and Vero and I filmed a bunch of it.  Vero was sort of stuck with the camera in a corner because there were kids running around and we were scared that someone might crash into the camera.  So we basically stayed around the camera for periods of time and I roamed around with the free camera a few times during the night to capture some magic of the crowd.  Later on in the night Vero got rid of the tripod to get more mobile which I think was the better choice during the more ‘adventurous’ moments.  I still remember the cake coming out and everyone crowding around and poor Vero had that gigantic tripod trying to move amongst the crowd.  Ah well, we learn in these moments about what not to do next time.

One of my favourite moments in the night was when John came over and said something like “Wow, it’s pretty nice to see an open bar.”  To this point in the night, I had yet to really stand in line for a drink.  I merely filmed the masses and went on my way.  Clearly I was unaware of the open bar so I moseyed over there to pick up a drink and it was a madhouse so I waited until later.  It was a wishing well type of deal where you pay whatever you think you will drink during the night.  I personally love that style of approach.  It’s got the open bar factor (always a plus!) as well as a nod to “Hey, we don’t want to gouge you on drink prices but at the same time, we wouldn’t mind recouping some of the costs.”  In the end, people don’t come out too bad through these things.  Mom said at the last wedding they were at, the bar cost the couple $2100 and they made $1700 of it back through the wishing well.  A $400 expense is the least of your worries at a wedding!

The next progressed well.  I didn’t know a LOT of people but there were a few familiar faces.  The band was great, the cake smashing (that’s right, smashing) event was grand and all the regular events of the wedding were hilarious to film.  I also managed to get in some good footage of the band playing and I’m hoping Vero did also.  For a little background, the band Bruce plays with has been around for 40 years, or at least most of the members of the band.  From what I know about them, they used to tour around the North quite a bit, maybe not all that far away from Kapuskasing, but definitely around the area.  Nowadays they play at the Legion and other events and I just think there’s a great history there and a great story to be told.  I talked to Vero about wanting to do some form of concert video/documentary type thing on the band and I mentioned this to Bruce.  We’ll have to see if the band is up for it or not.  I envision the next time going home, perhaps getting everyone in a room and interviewing them about the history, or maybe getting one-offs with each of the band members and their thoughts about the band.  I also think I can couple interviews with fans of the band.  I was talking to a few people about the idea and they had some great stories to tell about the band back in the 70s.

The meal at midnight was unreal.  They had a Thanksgiving dinner set up!  I found out that there was one hundred pounds of turkey cooked up for the event!  I wasn’t all that hungry at that hour but I managed to get Vero a plate as she was busy filming near the exit.  We got a few good responses during the ‘congratulations’ message portion of the footage.

At one point near the exit, we hear a smash of glass coming from the coat room and then we see some kids sneak out of the room.  I had a good chuckle at this but I told the kids that they should get a broom and bring it back.  I then nabbed Mike and told him about the glass and he swept it up.  When I got into the room there was a kid helping us clean it up but he kept saying “I didn’t do it, it was Johnny!”.  I reassured him that everything was fine and we’ll just clean it up and get it out of the way.  He kept reiterating that this Johnny (or whatever his name was) was the one who broke it and finally I broke down and gave him some manly advice that sounded like “Son, sometimes you have to be the bigger man and simply help out the people who are going to step on the broken glass and slice their feet.”  He gave me this puzzled look.  I’m sure I would have been puzzled also.

After everything wound down, I helped everyone load up the vehicles and close up shop and when I got home I dropped Vero off and headed over to the Losiers to help unload their vehicles.  I think I was winding up for another beer but soon realized that these guys had been powering on little or no sleep for the past week due to everything happening so they definitely needed some rest!

The next day I got up to fix Mom’s computer and I found a utility to transfer the videos I took on John’s ‘hard drive’ camera onto the Mac.  Somehow, the Mac didn’t like the MPEG format of the videos so I had to find a way to convert them.  No worries, I found them and managed to get some footage onto my Macbook.  I chatted with Mom for awhile and then had lunch and Vero and I headed to the lake where the Losiers were having a shindig at their cottage.  Their was a tent set up and some drinks and appetizers.  It was nice to sit and relax (and see Carol’s parents) and have a few drinks while watching Sam and Marc-Andre open up some gifts.  I warned Samantha to keep her ‘game face’ on; meaning that if she opened a gift that she thought was horrible, she should keep a smile on her face.  There’s nothing worse than seeing the dismay on someone’s face after a gift is given.

We headed back home after a few hours (sadly, we did not get to witness Bruce water ski in his suit, nor have I heard word if he ended up doing it or not) to go see the family for Thanksgiving dinner.  Friends and family gathered and I delivered a really bad Grace as I was trying to remember Mom’s usual Grace and let’s just say I got nowhere near it.  I did managed to scarf down two helpings of dinner and then we retired for the night in the basement trying to digest everything.

The next day Vero and I headed back home with a few of Maureen’s friends in tow and it was a decent trip (other than hitting construction around Arnprior which added an hour to the trip) and we were glad to get back to Ottawa.

It was great to see everyone back in Kap and Hearst for Thanksgiving.  I’m glad that the wedding was a success and I’m sure there’s a ton of stories I’m forgetting to say.  I’m sure most of them will be captured in the video…which I should start working on!

Let me say this about filming weddings.  If you were to do this professionally, you definitely can’t do it at your own family’s wedding.  You will be all over the place and you won’t have a moment to breathe.  We definitely didn’t mind doing for it this wedding as we only knew a handful of people anyhow and it’s a great feeling to have a part in their wedding.  But it would have been a different story if it was our own family’s wedding and we couldn’t live the moment with them.

Sadly, with all the filming all night long, Vero and I didn’t even find the time to take a picture of ourselves with the video cameras.  I’m upset about this forgetfulness so if anyone out there has a photo of us, let me know!

The summer is waning and so the itch to hit up Montreal took over my better senses.  I’m glad we went anyhow.

Mike and I hit the road after work to surprise Philipp at a housewarming party of his.  Knowing Philipp is of the easy natured folk in this world (a club that I also belong to), I knew that if we showed up with a sleeping bag and some beer, there would be no problems in staying for the night.

Armed with road trippin’ tunes and a tank of Ontario gas (only 10 cents/litre cheaper than Quebec!), we hit the road and zoomed to Montreal hearkening back to the days of Dad tearing a strip down the highway with more air under his tires than actual road.

A pitstop at the local grocery store got us some great Quebec beer and then we ended up at the Bell Center where I needed to offload Vero’s Celine Dion ticket.  This was the first of eight shows Celine Dion was having in Montreal and we have had no luck in selling the ticket to anyone.  This is quite unfortunate as Vero spent quite a bit of money on this ticket as a gift to her step-mother, only to have another date open on the tour so she decided to buy two tickets to the show so that her Dad could go as well.  Hence, she was stuck with a ticket to a concert she didn’t really want to go to.

I hit up the first scalper I could find and he blew me off when I asked if he wanted to buy my ticket.  I wanted to know why and it turns out that all the scalpers have excellent tickets (front row, etc.) but they couldn’t get rid of them.  He said the first show of eight is always the worst to try and sell tickets and the fact that there are eight shows means that a lot of people already have legitimate tickets.  He suggested that I ask the guys in front of the stadium but he didn’t think I would fare well.  I thanked him and went on my way to the next scalper.

On the way I was tying my shoe and this leery guy comes right up into my face without saying a word and then gives me a punch on the arm and says “Allo boss.”  Man, that freaked me out.  I just said hello and went on my way.

Unfortunately, a couple more scalpers confirmed the worst…there was no way they were buying my ticket.  With the knowledge that even a scalper couldn’t sell their own tickets, I realized that I probably couldn’t sell my own so I went to Plan B which Vero laid out and said “Maybe even give it to someone in the streets when you arrive to Montreal if we can’t sell it at this point. Might as well make someone happy if we’re not gonna sell it.”.
I didn’t really know how to approach this.  I didn’t want to just hold a ticket in the air and say “Free ticket to tonight’s show!”.  So I started walking back to the car and I heard a few women walking away from the stadium sounding disappointed about something so I asked them if they would be interested in a free ticket to tonight’s show.  Turns out that they had two tickets to the show but it was for the next night but they thought it was Friday night!  They thanked me for the offer but declined and with that I realized that the adventure was hopeless and I stuffed the ticket into my pocket and met up with Mike and we headed to Philipp’s.  I even offered up the free ticket to everyone at the party but oddly enough, there were no Celine Dion fans amongst us…
We found Philipp’s new pad easily (as it is right off the highway…highly convenient for me!) and we climbed the stairs with our cases of beer in tow.  Unfortunately for me, as I bent over to pick something up I heard a ‘rippppp’ and realized that my jeans had split down my ass!  That has never happened to me and I was shocked considering I had purchased these jeans a few months ago on our outlet mall trip!  Come on!  Mike had a good chuckle as my ass was hanging out of these jeans.
We entered Philipp and Gregoire’s place and surprised the hell out of them and I went to get a new pair of shorts to wear for the night.  Philipp was excited to see we made the trek up and commented on how strange it was that I had not replied to his invitation.
A good sized crew showed up during the night and I met a lot of new people, including fellow Germans; Marc, Thorbun (sp?) and some other guy I can’t remember the name of.  They taught me some new German words and now I have to remember that when I clink a beer together with someone, I should say “Bier und frauen unten”.  Don’t even ask me what it means because I kind of missed the translation and the story behind what it *should* mean.
They had even invited all their neighbours so we got to meet a few of them.  One neighbour clued us into the fact that we can easily go up on the roof so we went up there a few times during the night.  Unfortunately at the end of the night, Philipp wasn’t thinking straight and proceeded to drop a beer bottle down one of the black pipes sticking out of the roof.  Lord only knows where that pipe leads to and Chris and I were shocked that he did that.  Only time will tell if we can ever find out where it leads to.
Philipp had also made up this amazing ‘mudpunch’ which consisted of ice cream, fruit and various alcohols.  It was quite tasty and in twenty minutes the entire bowl was gone.
Not much else to say about the event other than it was a hat themed party and I especially liked how Mike borrowed my Oktoberfest hat for the event and I had my nifty new hat from Gaspe.  Everyone had a grand old time…I had a nap for awhile but awoke in time to see some new neighbours invite us over to their apartment and then Chris, Philipp and I retired to the roof for one last drink around 4:30AM.  Philipp also took this time to blow up my air mattress which was much appreciated!
The next morning I awoke around 10AM to move my car down the street.  I wasn’t feeling too hot so I was glad to see my sleeping bag on the floor when I got back to the apartment.  It was a late night for all of us and we awoke a few hours later and cleaned up the house before heading over to Chris’s so we could get a smoked meat sandwich.
We ended up at Nickels diner which was alright but not amazing in the smoked meat department.  It did not matter as we were all starving by 3PM.  After Nickels, we piled into Chris’s car to go to the brew shop to get some ingredients for brewing our own beer.  Chris actually works in this field (studies of yeast on brewing…that sort of thing) and Philipp and him had been delving into the creation of their own beer for the past year.  I managed to have a nap in the car along the ride and we made it to the store at 5PM but the store-owner was gracious enough to open the store up again and let us buy the necessary yeast and malt to make porter.
When we got back to Chris’s place we tried out one of their home-made beers and it was quite tasty and throughout the night I commented on how most of them were better than any other store-bought beers!  We then went through the process of preparing the new batch of beer which is to mix some malt in with some boiling water and then over the next few hours, add various hops (which give a beer it’s aroma/bitterness) while stirring it for the next two hours.  We all took turns at the stirring duty and I marvelled at this concoction that we were creating.  In the end, water is added and then poured into a bucket and yeast will eventually be added and allowed to ferment.  I am interested to see how the entire process works and hopefully will see the final product one day.  May I point out that the porter they were making was called “Port-o-Palmer” porter?  Excellent!
We hung out and had some good laughs during the night but I think everyone was tired from the night before (at least I was!) and we headed back to the house at a reasonable hour, went to bed and hit the road around 10AM after a great breakfast by Philipp.
Thanks to Philipp and Gregoire for the excellent housewarming party!

*note my attentive audience*

Well, August 3rd turned out to be my birthday and it was a miserable rotten weather day. I had high ambitions to go out biking, but alas, it was not meant to be.

We made the best of it and played some euchre during the day, and I organized my guitar songs so I could perform that night for everyone. During the day, Uncle Greg explained some key concepts of photography to be (f-stops, zooming, etc.) and while I can say that I can’t remember a thing he told me from that day, it made me think that I should pick up that amateur photography book that Mike has and try his SLR camera out sometime. We tried to snap a shot of a falling raindrop without much success.

I had a lovely birthday dinner consisting of fried bologna. The joke of the night was when Dad had asked for a few pieces to be made extra crispy (just the way he likes it!) and then Aunt Mariette picked the pieces up for herself not knowing that Dad wanted them! There were some good laughs at that.

I ended up receiving an excellent orange cake (my fave! Vero take note!) and everyone devoured it. I also managed to get some excellent gifts from my parents…some fishing tackle and they wiped the debt I owed them over some time. It was a very appreciated gift although I must admit that part of says “Can I not save enough money to even pay back my own parents?!” What kind of person am I?
The most unexpected gift was in the form of my Palmer Platter t-shirt…a one of a kind that Dad was using as his paint shirt! They managed to get the paint out of it and it looks brand new! I was excited to hear this as I didn’t even realize I had left it at home and Dad thought it was an old t-shirt that can be used for other means!

The night moved along and I played guitar for a few hours trying to sing the songs that everyone knew. Aunt Lois sure didn’t care for anything she didn’t like and tried to flip my song book pages while I was in the middle of the song! But she turned out to be an excellent singing partner along with Mom for most tunes.

When I stopped playing I managed to make it back to the table and realized that Dad had had his fair share of wine! I didn’t even realize what was going on behind me but sure enough, Uncle Fred’s wine was having effect on a few people that night. It was quite funny and I’m glad that Dad emerged unscathed the next morning. I also emerged unscathed after having a great slumber inside the trailer for the night. Thanks to all for the excellent 30th birthday party!

P1070432, originally uploaded by palm0014.

Mom and Dad arrived Friday night with a gift in tow for my birthday…a tent for Vero and I to use! I was pretty pumped. I had a good laugh when I took a look at it and it was an 8 person tent! We decided to haul it out of the box to see how big it was and it took up the entire backyard! Dad and I didn’t bother assembling it as we knew very well that it was way too big for our needs. The thing was large enough to park the Mazda inside! It even had a front porch! We did end up returning it that night and Vero and I will find another one in the future (perhaps there are sales on at this time of year?).

Before I forget, Vero got me an excellent Chuck Norris t-shirt as well as Monty Python and the Holy Grail (which, unfortunately for her, I already had, but I appreciated the thought!). Once I returned from vacation, she gave me a more personalized gift in the form of a collage of the Top 30 Facial Expressions put on by me. It was quite hilarious as she labeled each one with names such as “The “I Need to Pee” Look” or the “I am the front man for AC/DC” look. I shall have to take a picture and post it up some day soon. I wonder where I can put this amazing photo in my house? It shall not be buried in some arcane spot.

Saturday morning, we arose and headed out on the road. Dad had said we would wake up around 6AM but I believe he woke me up at 5:15AM, that bugger! However, I got to sleep until Montreal which was fine. We were towing a trailer with an ATV on it this time around so it was quite the load and the gas consumption wasn’t our friend. I could literally see the gas meter going down as I drove down the highway.

One of the highlights for me was to stop in at Trois-Riveres (or was it Riveres-des-Loups) for some St-Hubert. I love St-Hubert and I learned to love it after many summer holidays to Gaspe. We pulled into the parking lot and ordered ourselves three quarter chicken meals. Let it be noted that one should always look at the menu for any special deals when at St-Hubert. For example, our meals came out to $30+. There was a family meal deal which was essentially the same thing we ordered and it was $23. Then there was also a lunchtime meal deal (The Chef’s Special) which is $6 for a quarter chicken meal but the chicken is a surprise (as in, it’s the Chef’s choice whether you get a leg, breast, etc.) so for the three of us, it would have come out to $18. Caveat Emptor people! We ended up eating on the trunk of the car as we felt waiting in the restaurant would take too long for our 12 hour trip, plus it let us keep an eye on the trailer! We had a good laugh about eating out in the parking lot but I’m glad to be amongst a family who doesn’t mind doing that sort of thing!

The ride down was quite foggy all the way. It was quite surreal. I read through Benoit’s copy of “The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told: Volume 2” which was interesting. I never grew up on Batman so this was my first introduction to him. The stories were the older variety and were quite campy in that in some stories you have Batman battling aliens! We listened to Johnny Cash, the Beach Boys, CCR. I managed to smuggle in some Sam Roberts and Matt Mays while I drove during the last part of the trip. The ride through Murdochville was windy road heaven and was an interesting experience while towing the trailer, with thoughts of it snapping off and the ATV going down a cliff. Actually, it wasn’t that bad at all. The Honda Accord has some balls to it and wasn’t too hard to manage.

We pulled off the road right before the cottage so I could hop on top of the ATV while it was in the trailer. It was quite funny and we all had a good laugh when everyone in the cottage looked out the door to see me being towed into town. Pictures are always available within the Flickr site if you want to see the daily happenings.

I got to see Uncle Fred, Aunt Judy, Kelly, Aunt Lois, Keri, Heather, Heather’s two kids Breana and Kyleigh (sp?), Uncle Greg and Aunt Mariette and the always lovely Nanny. I managed to score the trailer in the neighbours yard to sleep in which was amazing as I had the privacy and the ability to sleep in late in the morning without being awoken by the happenings of inside the cottage. Every night I would bring the laptop outside and either read some old Spider-Man comic books or play some old Sierra games (Leisure Suit Larry 5 was working fine until I encountered some sound driver error. Doh! That always happens right in the middle of the game! I don’t even remember finishing this particular game so I believe this may have happened in the past half way through the game and I gave up, ESPECIALLY reading about how I will need to run through the game after it’s patched. Argh. I may as well just wait until Quest For Glory 2 is remade into VGA (which is coming up close!)

We had a few drinks until midnight as I wanted to stay up for my birthday. Uncle Fred and family were nice enough to get me a six pack of Stella for the week and Uncle Fred and I enjoyed it.

Weather Report: Downright dirty with the rain falling.

DSC_1101, originally uploaded by losi0003.

On Friday night after work, I took a nice nap for a few hours and then Vero showed up and ruined that. 😉 We then sat down and watched some episodes from Veronica Mars. I really enjoy the show and I like how Vero enjoys it as well as she doesn’t care for a lot of the shows I tend to watch. It is difficult for me to go ahead and watch all the episodes when she is not around, but I stick to the plan and only watch them when she comes over for a visit.

Unfortunately, we did not end up going to dinner with Amelie and Daniel. We never got in touch with them so in the end, we had some fish around 8PM and watched a few more episodes of Veronica Mars.

The next morning, we packed up the car and headed out to Deep River to visit Maureen and Shannon. We picked up Duncan and Kristen along the way and we were on the way to an excellent road trip. I was commenting to Mike that a two hour trip is ideal for a weekend jaunt as it’s not too daunting of a drive. Although I do have memories of going to visit Joe in Brockville when he moved into his house and let’s just say someone else had to do the drive home the next for me!

We arrived to see people getting breakfast ready and we chatted with Mike and Mel who spent the night on Friday. Unfortunately for them, they took HWY 7 instead of 17 to Deep River and it took them four hours to get there the night before! That is unfortunate. After watching people eat breakfast (and checking out Shannon’s new toy – a Sirius Satellite radio), we headed to the grocery and beer store while Shannon was packing up the boat. We picked up some corn along the way but alas, we discovered that corn season is a few weeks away as some of the corn were smaller than your average sausage size!

After picking up the necessities, we headed to the marina and got to the dock where Shannon was waiting to drive us over to the Quebec side of the river. There was a giant storm brewing so we hopped in fast and furious-like and and managed to get to the other side before anything hit us but it surprisingly passed to the right of us. There was a gamut of people who had come to the beach…Mike, Melissa, Duncan, Kristen, Vero, Mike, Matt, Karilee, Alex, Holly, Shannon, Maureen, Shannon’s friends Jamie and…ah, I can’t remember her name. Either way, there was a bunch of us and the day was spent in the sun, playing volleyball and I got to test out my new rod and reel that I got last year for my birthday. Jamie had some tackle so I tried it around some weeds offshore and proceeded to snap my line so I tried another jighead which was supposed to navigate the weeds better and it did. A few people tried out the reel but it is a pain to learn if you are not used to the open reel concept as the line can spool out of control if you don’t stop it after you cast. I think we spent more time untangling it then actually using it!

Mike and I mistakenly only brought a couple of beer for ourselves but Mike saved the day when he went on a trek with Jamie down the river to some beer selling facility and arrived with a cold one in hand for me when my mouth was parched. For this, I thank thee Mike. We did manage to have some good sandwiches and salads on the beach and I ended up playing a bit of volleyball against this one team who were really great, but pretty cocky. They were way too serious into the game and didn’t even laugh at one of my jokes!

I also took Alex for some wake boarding on his boat. It’s nice to be able to drive a boat around. I really enjoy it and I also realize that there’s certain things that I don’t think about because I don’t drive a boat all that much. For example Alex reminded me to not go to close to the house boats along the shore as they may not appreciate the wake the boat is creating.

We ended up coming into shore real fast as there was another storm approaching. Shannon loaded up his boat and headed for sure but we decided to stick it out on the beach as we knew we would get caught in the lightning storm coming our way. Vero and I headed to the point of the beach to watch the storm come in and it was quite intense. At one point the wind picked up and we were getting sandblasted. I think a layer of my skin peeled off from the sand hitting us! It then started to hail on us! We saw a poor canoe trying to make it to shore in the storm and I must say that I thought we would have needed to go out in the boat and save them at one point but they did make it to shore alright.

The storm passed and we packed up and headed back to the marina on the Ontario side and headed home. Vero and I husked some corn and commented on the small size of the corn. All was well in the world as a BBQ was prepared and tents were set up and fun was being had. We, unfortunately, had to wait for our veggies to cook which was near impossible with all the other action on the BBQ. We didn’t end up eating until around 9PM and by that time the energy was sapped from Vero’s body. We did have a lovely feed of chicken drumstick which, coupled with the corn, potatoes and carrots turned into the ultimate meal! Success!

I was surprised to see that my birthday was being celebrated along with Shannon’s as I was not expecting it at all. Melissa ended up making a couple of cakes and one of them even had a heart with Shanon and my name in it. Awww…thanks Mel! I ended up getting a sweet gift card to HMV which is always welcome and music is my life! The cake was super good too.

The night progressed into some campfire and poker playing while another faction (led by Vero, it seemed) stayed in the living room and played charades all night long. Mike and I were trying out a few new beer that night and I am writing about them here for historical purposes:

Spitfire: Recommended by Dave at work, both Mike and I didn’t really care for it. Like any beer, we won’t shy away from it, but I personally felt that it didn’t have a great taste to it.
Innis and Gunn: I’ve already had some introduced to me by Troy and it’s a great beer, oak aged and it has that great smoky flavour to it. Mike had ended up putting these in the freezer and I didn’t know if the taste would be lost but it actually turned out quite good and I actually prefer it to the warm draft that I had before at Chaucer’s.
Lakeport Red: I had picked up some Lakeport Red a few weeks before and it was decent. However, I don’t know if it was due to us drinking this beer after our palette had had so many higher-end beers touching it, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t the greatest tasting thing in the world. However, the verdict is still out as I have had it before and I didn’t mind it. I will put it through a few more tests before offering a final thought.

The next morning we went for breakfast at the Petro Canada station and had a delicious Clubhouse sandwich. We then packed up the car and headed into town and I had the itch to check out The Dark Knight on the IMAX screen and once again was dismayed at the lineups. I ended up talking to the staff and they said the lineup to the IMAX screening is around two hours long (!!!) but I also confirmed that the film should be in the IMAX theatre for another 2-3 weeks so I will check it out in the future.

Another great time was had in Deep River. Shannon and Maureen are always welcoming in their houses, whether it be with a ton of dogs (which I compared to our eventual children running around the house), a bunch of drunks, or just some general chaos for 24 hours! I always enjoy my visits and I am thinking of heading back out to make a proper fishing trip out of it in the future.

P1060373, originally uploaded by palm0014.

On Thursday morning, Vero and I headed up North to go to her friend’s wedding. Vero was part of the wedding party so there was a lot of work to be done. We hit a bunch of construction past North Bay which was a pain but we made it home in one piece. She kept driving to Hearst and I stuck in Kap for a few days where I can relax and go fishing. I ended up playing Skip-Bo with the family on Thursday night in which Maureen won the game. It’s quite the long game…I think it took us a couple of hours to complete!

On Friday, the weather wasn’t looking the best but we decided to hit up the Kapuskasing River to try our chances at fishing. There hasn’t been too much luck during the summer so far considering there was an enormous amount of rainfall. We went to Rick’s place where we loaded up his boat and then we went to McDonald’s for a bite (bad timing seeing that it was 12:05PM on a Friday!) and finally made it out to the river. The clouds didn’t break all day long but we only had a few drops hit us during the entire time. We ended up getting our limit in a matter of two hours which is great and we spent the rest of the time trying to get a few larger fish, but that was a challenge considering the majority of them were over 16 inches long. If you unaware, in Ontario, you are allowed four fish per day in which one of them can be over 18 inches. So once we had our three 18+, we had to throw a few back which was disappointing!

Let me tell you a story about getting your Outdoors card. First of all, it would have been smart if I had remembered to bring it along with me. Another smart idea would have been to bring my actual fishing rod! I am so used to not having a rod (I received one last year for my birthday) that I completely forgot! It’s a nice open-faced reel also. Anyhow, seeing that I forgot my Outdoors card, I figured that instead of buying another one for $6, I would call the Ministry of Natural Resources, confirm that I actually have a card and get them to issue me a day pass to go ahead without it. They said that was possible and I went to the MNR but then after processing the order, the person there indicates that I should cut up my old card as a new one will come in the mail! What the heck? This doesn’t make any sense? In the end, the MNR cannot help you if you forgot your card. They can only issue you a new one for $6.

We headed back into town and I spent the evening filleting the fish. I found it hard as the electric filleting knife was larger at the handle so it kept hitting the cutting board sometimes which made me not get all the meat from the skin. Also, it was hell with all the flies around me! Argh. I enjoyed it though and felt satisfied after seeing my work result in something we could cook up.

Cook up, we did indeed. We had a small fish fry and then I hopped in the shower and headed over to Maureen’s new apartment where everyone was playing Rock Band. I had a few beer, Jeff broke out the tequila and all was good in the world. I even became a more proficient drummer in the process!

The next day I went downtown to get my hair trimmed before the wedding as it was getting a little shaggy around the ears. Dad hadn’t returned by the time I was done so I decided to jog back home. It was little warm in my jeans but so be it. Exercise is not for those only dressed in the appropriate outfits…it’s to be done at a moment’s notice! I did end up running into the Losiers which was a welcome sight as I had thought I would miss seeing them thinking they were at the lake all weekend long.

Mom ironed my suit and I had a sandwich before heading out to Hearst in the parents new Accord. I was pumped as this is a sweet vehicle indeed. I had the sunroof down and AC/DC blaring. I grew tired of AC/DC after half the trip and switched to the other CDs but quickly realized that the rest of the CDs were Johnny Cash. While that’s not a bad thing, I was a little dismayed after getting riled up from some straight out rock.

I rolled into Hearst around 1PM, showed up at Vero’s Dad’s place and we chatted over a few beer. I ended up calling Ryan (Vero’s friend’s boyfriend) and Melissa (her cousin) and made plans to pick them up in order to get to the church by 2:30. While finishing off my beer around 2:10 I realized that I had five minutes to pick up Melissa! Woops! Luckily enough, we were in Hearst so it only took me 2 minutes to drive over there and I arrived right on time. This was a crucial start to the day as Melissa was mine and Ryan’s date for the night as Vero and Emilie were part of the head table. I succeeded in scoring the first point of the day by showing up in time and we headed out to pick up Ryan at his Mom’s place.

All was going according to plan and we ended up at the church with A LOT of time to spare so we hung around in the beautiful sun, chatted and headed into the church eventually to find ourselves sitting on the wrong side of the church and we had to get up and move. It was a nice church and the Priest looked like a jovial fellow. From what I heard later in the ceremony, it sounds like he has been in Hearst for the better part of his life so it’s nice to see the same Priest who baptised the bride be the same person to marry them.

The ceremony was fine, Vero’s hair looked fine (as opposed to her fears of having a ton of hairspray!) and all went well. Nothing out of the ordinary happened other than the fact that I went up to get some bread and Ryan and I wondered if they ever lace it with something like LSD so we pay attention to the ceremony.

Afterward, we headed back to Vero’s parents, picked up the Mazda to drop off at Canadian Tire, hit up the beer store and headed over to Christina’s place for a few drinks before heading back to the reception. It was good to see a bunch of Vero’s friends again as I have only done so at a New Year’s Eve party a few years ago.

We then headed for the Knights of Columbus hall which was quite large and found a table near the stage. There was bottles of wine around the tables which aided us in our quest to seek the holy grail of good times throughout the night. The wedding party arrived, the DJ’s speaker sounded like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoon and we had to fight our way into getting something to eat at the buffet. It was one of those things where the DJ would call out “I need a white sock!” and the first person who brought a white sock won dibs at being the next in line for the buffet.

The buffet was decent. There was lasagna, pizza and salad. Not too shabby at all. I ended up seeing Al and Annie along the way (two persons I met in the Dominican trip) and they were doing fine. Al was into the ‘cuba libres’ already so I knew it was going to be a good night. Speaking about a good night, Vero was nice enough to present me a gift of six beer tickets! Bonus!

There was quite a gap between the time we had supper (6PM) and the time the speeches started (9PM) but I found out from Vero that they were waiting for Amelie’s grandparents to show up from out of town before starting everything up. The speeches were good ones and Vero and Emilie’s turned out to be a hit one. While I don’t agree with the fact that all they did was rib into the groom and not even offer up ONE good quality about him, it still went over well and I enjoyed their back-and-forth between themselves with the speech.

The party started, the lights dimmed and a bunch of people went to the stage where a grand montage was set up so you can take pictures in front of. Unfortunately, I found this to be an awkward setup as the stage is up high so you needed to get on top of a chair to get a decent picture and even then, if someone wasn’t looking towards your own camera (which was the case most times because the professional picture taker (the Chinese food diner owner nonetheless!) then it didn’t turn out all that well.

Moments of grandness throughout the night:
Seeing Anne-Marie and Steve and having Steve invite me out in a ride in the cruiser the next morning. Unfortunately, that never happened as he got called away but still, it’s the thought of me in an OPP vehicle that was good enough.
Posing/sneaking into a photo of all the girls. This was quite funny in my mind but I guess the girls didn’t care for it too much as I was hauled out of the photo by one of the other guys.
The garter belt toss. Actually, this wasn’t much at all considering I did not get to add one to my collection. 🙁
Chatting it up with Kevin about his self-sustaining, off the grid, house which is 20 clicks away from Hearst. It was quite neat to hear that he powered his house through solar and windmill energy.

All in all, the wedding was fine. Actually, in hindsight, it was probably better than expected considering I still don’t know a lot of Vero’s friends well. There are a few that I tagged along with during the night to keep me company but there was one time where everyone disappeared for awhile and I had no idea where they went.

Oh yes, another comment. The only beer on hand was Bud Light, Sleeman Clear and Coors Light. I am definitely not complaining considering I don’t mind the Bud Light, but I thought it was odd to only have light beer as a choice. Is that the new norm at a wedding? That’s news to me.

At the end of the night, I started cleaning up the place to help out and a tear came down my eye every time I had to throw out a perfectly full beer into a bucket. I was wondering what the concoction would taste like (wine, liquor, beer) but luckily someone showed me the sink to dump it out in before I could experiment! In the end, we didn’t even have to stay and clean up…turns out that the hall staff does that and it’s included in the price!

Unfortunately, Vero had rolled her ankle while dancing at one point so she was in no shape to go out to the bar so we dropped Ryan and Emilie off and got home. Another unfortunate incident was the fact that all the doors were locked! That was strange! In the end, Vero was trying to climb through the kitchen window when Danielle woke up wondering what the heck was going on!

The next morning, I awoke to some sunlight streaming through the window and laid there for awhile. I showered, got dressed and called Canadian Tire to see what was going on with the car. They balanced the tires and said I got 25% off the price because it was the grand opening of the store that weekend! Great! I picked up the car, it seemed alright (in hindsight, the steering wheel shakes a little cruising around 100km/h) and drove it back to the house and tried out some Blue Magic polish on my rims that Rick had suggested. It worked wonderfully. Better than any other polish I’ve tried before on the rims. I’ve fought a losing battle on those rims and the brake dust.

We were in the middle of washing my car when Steve showed up with Vero’s grandmother in the cruiser. Anne-Marie soon followed and we settled in for a great brunch out in the solarium. Everyone was slow moving that morning and I couldn’t get enough liquid into me. Vero and I then packed up and headed down to Amelie’s parents where they had a BBQ for everyone and a gift opening. Considering Vero mentioned that they had 300 people show up the night before, I was surprised to see the utter lack of physical gifts. I guess money is the new thing to give (which…I have an issue with). The BBQ was fine, the couple was fine and the weather was fine.

Vero and I then headed back to Kap for supper with my parents and Maureen and John. We had some good pizza (wango tango style!) and headed over to Maureen’s place for a bit to show Vero their place. We then went back home and chatted with Mom and Dad for awhile before hitting the sack.

For those going up to the North, a word of advice. If there is a road that bypasses HWY 11 from North Bay to New Liskeard (which I have heard is true…Dad said it adds another 25 minutes), TAKE IT. The construction is horrible and we arrived into North Bay an hour later than expected. This is not cool when there is a 10 hour drive ahead of us. We did drop into Swiss Chalet (a pale, pale comparison to St. Hubert) for some lunch and had a nice drive back home.

We did try and get to the theatre to see The Dark Knight and it was sold out (and subsequently sold out the night after as well. I believe I shall wait until next week to try and see it) so we went back to Vero’s place for supper with Vero and Mel.

All in all, a delightful weekend back home. There’s quite a few miles being put onto the Mazda, but it’s worth it considering I get to see the family a little more often.

Congrats to Amelie and Daniel on a wonderful wedding.

On Friday, Alex and I firmed up plans to do some camping this weekend.  I had originally suggested it on Monday and by Wednesday I was hesitant after thinking of my wallet but then Alex convinced me it wouldn’t be too much to go camping (that was an understatement…I don’t even know why I thought it would cost a lot!) so the plans started taking shape and Saturday morning we were planning to leave.

Friday night I spent meandering about the empty house and watching 24.  I had taken 1.5 years to watch the entire first season and was nearing the end where it was gaining steam.  I then packed up the camping gear and we were good to go for the next morning.

Alex and I hit up the LCBO before heading out and then we hit the road with Alex and Holly towing the boat and Vero and I following.  We dropped by Matt’s parents house to see if we could use their launch for the boat.  May I point out that Matt’s parents are amongst the best out there.  We hadn’t even mentioned using the boat launch yet and his father said they needed to leave to go to a wedding but feel free to use the house for the night if we wanted to.  I was floored of the generosity of this family.

We ended up thanking them but saying we just needed to use the boat launch.  We drove back down the highway for a short side trip to a flea market and then wenb back to the boat launch.  We brought the boat down, loaded our gear into it and took a quite trip across Big Rideau Lake (stopping along the way to get ice) to arrive at Colonel By Island.

I was surprised to see that Colonel By Island is federal managed land by Parks Canada.  There were two docks to park at and people simply buy a permit to stay on the island for the day.  They have nice campsite areas right on the water and there is a working washroom.  It was beautiful.  I was amazed that we could manage to get a campsite like this.  Alex said the campsites were first-come, first-served so it was a good idea that we arrived early enough.  The people already there seemed nice enough and it seemed like a transient community that simply forms when they arrive at the island.  Alex and I commented that maybe this was the way of people who spend a lot of times on the river in their big boats.  As soon as we arrived on the docks, there were people there helping us tie off the boat and talking to us and asking where we were from.  It was quite welcoming.

We set up our campsite (picked out by the lovely Holly and Vero) and cooked up some sausages.  I also brought out le piece du resistance of the weekend…bologna!  I hadn’t had my bologna last year since the US Border Guard threw it out.   I was looking forward to frying up a few slices on the open fire.

After lunch, we hit the lake with the boat and swam for awhile and just enjoyed the weekend weather.  Might I add that this was probably one of the nicest weekends we will see during the summer.  It was fantastic!  So warm, so sunny, so amazing.  After getting cold in the water after a few hours, we took the tube out and I took some hilarious videos of Holly and Vero trying to stay on top of a tube while dragging them across the lake.

I decided to try the tube out next and the first time we started up, all was going well and then I simply lost my grip and slid backwards off the tube.  That was quite lackluster!  The next time I got back on, Alex sped the boat up and I was holding on for dear life!  It was exhilarating and I was doing my best to balance myself on it but the forces of nature were against me and as I was coming out of a turn, I hit the crest of the wake and blammo!  Vero and Holly said I looked like a skipping stone across the water!  I must have hit my foot against the water first as it was pretty sore.  The funniest part was that at one point my bathing suit got ripped off my body!  I made a grab for it and when Alex turned the boat around, Vero had the video camera on and filmed me in the water with my shorts in my hand.  We all had a good laugh and I needed a break after a wild flip like that so I hopped in the captain’s seat and took Alex out wake boarding.  It was quite choppy and it was hard to get used to the boat and getting the right speed out of it so he could enjoy the wake boarding.  I would like to think that I did a decent job in the conditions I was in.

After that excitement, we anchored the boat and relaxed for awhile.  It was around 6:30 – 7:00 and out of nowhere Alex pulls out a box and goes up to Holly at the front of the boat and says something that I didn’t really catch.  In fact, it was a marriage proposal!  I may have known a little about this beforehand, but Vero had no idea so she was shocked.  Judging from the look on Holly’s face, she was shocked as well and I’m happy to say that Holly has accepted Alex’s hand in marriage.

We headed to shore and work spread quickly that there was a couple to be engaged on the island and people were dropping in to talk see the ring.  We cracked a bottle of champagne and started up the supper of some steaks and potatoes (with a little fried bologna for good measure!).  It was a great night and it only got better considering there was a fireworks display across the lake that night that we didn’t know about (although Alex confirmed that he did in fact arrange it for this night to be even more special for Holly).  The only complaint of the weekend would be when the mosquitoes came out in full force when the sun went down.  Yipes!  They were nasty!

The fireworks went on for a LONG TIME.  At least 45 minutes.  We headed to the fire next to our campsite, chatted with some people from Montreal.  We ended up trying to teach Vero how to play euchre but she didn’t seem too interested.  I then marveled at the stars in the sky and wondered aloud about aliens and at that point I think everyone was tired so they headed to bed while I stayed up for a little while longer and took it all in.

The next morning, I awoke to find myself half off the mattress.  Turns out that we parked our tent on a slight hill so we kept slipping off the mattress!  May I take this moment to talk about Holly and Alex’s tent for a moment.  Mike was gracious enough to lend us our tent and it turned out that Alex and Holly had bought the same tent the week before!  Well, ALMOST the same.  They picked up the two man tent while we had the four man.  We all know how tent sizes really are and Vero and I had a good laugh when we saw that their air mattress was busting the tent’s seams once they got inside.  Let’s just say there wasn’t much room for anything else.  They found it cozy though.

We cooked a late breakfast of English muffins, eggs, bacon, bologna and fruit, packed up the site a little and headed out on the boat for the afternoon to see the nice houses along Big Rideau Lake.  We also took a little swim, napped a little, headed back to shore for a beer and then decided around 3PM that it was a good time to pack the boat back up.

We arrived back at the Masse’s house, brought the boat back up (unfortunately Alex hit his prop on some rocks and will have to grind it down a little), helped Matt’s dad with his patio and then headed back into Ottawa while stopping in Smiths Falls for a bite to eat.

It was an amazing weekend to be on the water and to be in such great company during a momentous occasion!  It will probably be the highlight of the summer for me.  Thanks to Alex and Holly for inviting us out (and convincing me to do so!).

If anyone has access to a boat, I highly recommend staying at Colonel By Island sometime.

On Friday night after going to the gym, I headed over to Vero’s place where we waited for her sister Anne-Marie to show up.  She was coming down for a week of fun and we were excited for the festivities.

She arrived, we had some excellent stew made by the lovely Vero and then we hung out on the balcony for the rest of the night.  Judging that a storm front was coming our way for the entire weekend, they decided to reschedule their skydiving plans from the Saturday until Wednesday.  It was a smart move on their part considering the monsoon that hit us.

We decided to head out into deep Quebec to visit their grandmother and family.  We hit the road around 10:30AM and even though we were running a little late, nothing could stop what would be a great impromptu road trip.

In Alfred we stopped in a yard sale and I scored an entire box of comic books for $15.  I was perusing the box and picking out a few Wolverine comics that caught my eye and after ten minutes this guy comes up and says “Tu veux un ‘deal’?”  I asked him how much and he said $15 for the whole box.  Steal of a deal!  There are quite a bit of older Uncle Scrooge, Flintstones and Yogi Bear type comic books that I’m not OVERLY interested in reading but you never know if someone will be.  I did get a good pile of Wolverine comics and a few Spider-Man comics as well.

We then kept trucking along, hitting some traffic in Montreal and stopped into A&W for a taste of poutine (not recommended).  The trip went by fast as we played Highway Hypotheticals for most of the trip and around Quebec City we got NAILED with monsoon rain for a good half hour.  It was insane.

We took a wrong turn off the highway but it was a blessing in disguise as we stumbled upon a life size replica of Johnny 5!  What a coincidence that we had been talking about it the week before!  Vero jumped out of the car and got a picture with the only robot she will associate herself with.

After readjusting our navigation, we rolled into St-Jacques de Leeds to find her grandmother in good spirits.  I ended up taking a nap before Vero’s cousin Valerie showed up with her baby Gabriel.  We then had supper along with Valerie’s boyfriend Stephane who is always a good time.  After a few drinks and watching some wedding videos we let their Grandmother sleep and we headed over to Valerie and Stephane’s place for a night cap and watched their great video from Cuba.  It was quite the miserable night outside due to the weather so I was fine with hanging out inside for most of the night.

The next morning we awoke to find that their grandmother was still asleep even though she had told everyone breakfast would be on at 9AM!  I perused my comic book finds and then Vero and I took a drive around the country which turned out to be a little longer than we had planned but we didn’t have a map with us and got misdirected.  I really love this area of Quebec as there are rolling hills and forests all around for miles.  It’s quite nice.

We arrived home and we started helping out with breakfast when Vero’s aunt, uncle and cousin showed up for breakfast.  It was a good feed and we chatted for awhile and then around 1PM we figured we better hit the road soon enough as it’s a five hour drive back to Ottawa.  Along the way, we stopped into Alfred to get a poutine and Vero ended up buying this amazing leather biker jacket at a yard sale!

It was a fast impromptu road trip but it was nice to go see her family again.

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.