Had a great day. Rode to work: 4.5 km’s. Worked all day, then rode home (another 4.5 km’s).

Packed my stuff and headed back out the door. Back on the bike I rode over to the fields: 7.5 km’s.

I played Ulti, and had a great game. I felt strong throughout the game, and only felt out of breath once. The problem with our team is that we have too many people. There are just too many subs, so I don’t get to play as much as I would like to. Our team won the game which was the icing on the cake.

After the game I jumped back on the bike and rode home: another 7.5 km’s

Fun fun. After a quick bite to eat, and a shower, I am off to bed.

We found Jims friends in line, and were heading in when I got stopped. The guy wanted to see what I had in my bag, so I opened it. He took one look at my camera and said “You can’t bring that in here.”

My heart sank. I asked why. “Because we consider that a professional camera.”

I was too chicken shit to try sneaking it through another line, so I ran back to the truck, and hid it there.

Getting back in line I was steamed. Everyone else was already inside when I was stopped, so I just had to wait. Grrr. :grr:

When I finally got it, Jim met me, and we headed down to our seat. Woah. Great seats. We were about 30 feet from the ring. Other woah. The ring looked a lot smaller in real life than it does on TV.

The show started right at 3pm. I must admit I wasn’t sure what the show would entail. Seeing it on TV is one thing, but seeing it live, surrounded by lots of screaming fans is something else. And screaming fans there were lots of. The best dressed award goes to the guy dressed as the Ultimate Warrior (albeit with much smaller muscles). Hilarious.

Another highlight went to the seating arrangements. The floor seats were nothing but small folding chairs zip-tied together. I am not a big guy, and most of the guys in our group weren’t either, but each of us was sitting hip to hip with one another. We watched a large woman occupying two seats two rows in front of us. Trouble soon found her as another large woman was supposed to occupy the seat beside her. Not very comfortable for anyone.

To really piss me off, some guy a couple rows ahead of us had a very similar camera to mine. His even had a battery grip, and a longish lens too. More grr.

Anyway, the show was a lot of fun. The first match wasn’t all that great, but then they had a Divas match. Surprisingly this turned out to be quite entertaining. The moves that the ladies were throwing were quite spectacular. Remember how I said that the ring looked smaller in real life? Well, the womens breasts looked a lot larger in real life.

Then some of the guy wrestlers came out. Holy crap! Huge is an understatement when it comes to describing the muscles on the wrestlers.

Some of the wrestlers we saw

• Tomko vs Viscera
• Candace vs Victoria
• The Hurricane And Rosey vs Maven And Simon Dean vs Romeo And Antonio
• Benoit vs Gene Snitsky in an ECW Hardcore match.
• Jericho vs Muhammad Hassan
• Chris Masters vs Tajiri
• Kane vs Edge
• Christian vs Shelton Benjamin
• Batista vs Triple H vs Rick Flair

It was pretty cool to see live some of the moves done on TV. The body slams, the throws, the DDT’s, etc. Didn’t get to see Triple H throw down a pedigree though.

In the Shelton vs Christian match, Shelton was the good guy, and Christian (canadian) the heel. The crowd threw the whole match off by cheering for the wrong person, and by heckling Shelton. It was quite funny to watch how the wrestlers handled it, and played up the crowd.

The topper on the whole spectacle was just after Triple H and Batista finished their match (Batista won), some guy from the crowd jumped the rail, and jumped into the ring. As he was jumping for joy with arms raised, the ref got a running start and tackled the guy from behind. ouch! It looked like it would have hurt a lot. The ref shoved the guy out of the ring, and he was pounced on by security. A couple police officers were right there too, and so was Triple H. Triple H was trying hard to get a piece of the crasher, but security managed to keep him away.

In all it was over 3.5 hours of entertainment. Pretty reasonable for $55. Plus, as a bonus, we got to see some of the finest rednecks available in the Victoria area!

Yesterday was an eventful day. After lazing a bit in the morning, I headed out to do the grocery shopping for the week. Once that was complete, and after a little house tidying, I was off to watch the Bastion Square Grand Prix. The men started at 1, but I never got downtown until 1:30 or so.

When I arrived it was obvious that one guy had broken away from the pack, and was holding a sizeable lead. Slowly the main pack closed in on him, and caught him. There was one team that was pretty sizeable too. I think there was at least 6 riders, if not 7 on that team. I ran into Duncan and Todd, and talked with them for a bit. Todd mentioned that if I had the right pass, he could have taken me out. Before I knew it, Todd had to go work at one point, so I tried to get a few action shots of him.

Pics are here.

The last few days Victoria has been in the midst of a heat wave. I have been eharing a lot of complaining about how oppressive it is, and how unbearable the heat has been. I don’t get it though. The high for the past few days has hovered around 26-28 (Celcius of course). I have been thoroughly enjoying it. I think part of it for me is that I haven’t found it too hot at work. That makes a big difference. The building I work in doesn’t really have any useful air conditioning. In the middle of summer it can get oppressively hot in there. Makes working very difficult some days. So far though, it has only been warm in the office. Something that I can handle.

I have also noiced how quickly a heat wave can affect the environment. When I cut the grass on Wednesday, it was still lush and green. Two days of 28 degree weather, and it has mostly turned brown. I don’t mind the brown grass since I wont have to cut it as often, but I was sure surprised at how quickly it changed.

The heat certainly affects out pets though. Both Yoshi and Aphro feel the heat. Yoshi spends most of his time flaked out on his side relaxing, boviously not as energetic as normal. Aphro spends a lot of time sleeping too, but we have noticed that when it is hot out, she tends to sleep inside her cat tree. This thing she sleeps in is a little cat house on the top of her perch. I can’t imagine how that would be cooler than sleeping on the floor, or under the bed. She seems to think so.

Of course with increased warmth comes increased outdoor activity. The last few days I have notcied a dramatic increase in the mosquito population. Thursday I went for a walk with Coreman and OTP out at Island View beach. The mosquitos there were horrible. Even as we were walking at a brisk pace, the mosquitos would land one me and bite. Aaargh. I hate mosquito bites. Also, since it has been warm, Sox and I have been having some of the windows open in the evening to cool down the house. The little buggers fly in the open windows (which do not have screens, something that a house we buy will definitly have, or soon have). I hate the noise of themflying around my head as I am trying to sleep. As soon as I hear it I cringe. Everytime I feel a little tickle on me I have to scratch it in case it is a mosquito. Friday night I could take it any more. It was 1 am, and I had to turn the lights on, hunt down the mosquito and kill it before I could fall asleep properly.

Small price to pay for such glorious weather though.

Tuesday myself, Sue, kaptaink, JJ, and Jim all headed over to Vancouver to go see Collective Soul play at the Commodore. The road trip started when we took the 3pm ferry over to Vancouver, dropped our stuff off in Tsawassen, and had dinner with the kaptains parents who were house sitting.

The doors opened at 8, and we planned to get downtown just after 8. When we got there, we were greeted with a huge lineup that was at least a block and a half long.

Once we finally got in the doors I was pretty impressed with the club. It has a huge dancefloor, lots of seating, and a few different bars to get drinks from.

The opening band was the Waking Eyes. In a word, they were awesome. They blew me away. Opening their set I was prepared for a mediocre band. As they tore into their first song, the lead singer was barely audible. I looked over at their guitar tech who was gutting himself laughing. A few seconds later he ran out and started picking at the mics. Apparently someone from Collective Soul had placed condoms over all the microphones as a prank for the Waking Eyes’ last gig of their tour. The lead singer quipped up that that was the first time he had ever had tasted a condom. He also swore that he would get them back.

Musically the Waking Eyes were excellent. Their songs were great, and their on stage presence was very strong. They were putting out a lot of energy. This was especially evident during Taking the Hard Way. The lead singer was jumping around, and every time he shook his head the sweat created a mist that surrounded him.

At the end of their set, they were greeted by the Collective Soul bassist and drummer who had a tray of shooters for them all. Very nice.

There was the prerequisite break between the bands. I hate waiting around like that.

Collective Soul took the stage and the crowd went nuts. Now I don’t know their song names very well, but I do enjoy their music. Their set was very good, but I couldn’t get over the lead singer. He was rather exuberant on the stage, and it was just weird. A lot of his hand motions, mic stand playing, posing, and jumping seemed very forced and unnatural. As this review stated, it was creepy. Once he got a guitar strapped around him, everything was good though.

They did a mini acoustic set that was pretty awesome too. He played Satellite solo acoustically and it was an excellent rendition. I kept hoping they would play Under Heaven’s Sky acoustically, but it was not to be. After they brought out the electric guitars again, they then payed the song I was waiting for. It was good, but I think it would have been better acoustic.

I was pretty happy, when they started playing Gel, one my favourite Collective Soul songs. That was when the drummer from the Waking Eyes made his appearance. He was clad only in his boxers that had been fashioned into a g string. Nice image. On his chest was the word Gel, and on his butt cheeks were CS. Very nice. The band continued to play, but the drummer went around dancing and strutting around the stage. Soon he began humping the legs of the Collective Soul band members. CS was cracking up, having a great time.

When they left the stage, the crowd erupted. It was pandemonium. The lead singer Ed Roland had promised we would be there a long time, and he was definitely right on that account. When they came back they picked up where they left off. During one song the entire Waking Eyes band came back on stage with another tray of shooters.

After their drinks Ed started noodling around playing a riff from AC/DC. The crowd liked it, so, on a whim, the band started playing Highway to Hell. The Waking Eyes, came out on stage and sang back up. It just seemed like a lot of fun. Everyone up there looked like they were having a great time.

When the show was finally over I picked up the Waking Eyes CD on my way out the door. It was late, and we had a long drive back to Tsawassen. Having been on my feet for over 5 hours was not treating my back right, and it was letting me know.

Good concert, great time.

Hopping on the bike a few minutes late was not a good idea. I pushed it to get over to Thrifty’s to drop off the flick at the movie store nearby. Then from there I zipped up to Lansdowne.

It seemed that every road either had a head wind, or a very bad cross wind. This made for a difficult ride.

Arriving at the field I was quite surprised at the lack of Frisbee’s. I was the only one there. I had overheard at the last game that there definitely was going to be a pick up game, and I was really looking forward to playing. Big disappointment to not see anyone there.

Later that afternoon Sue and I headed over to the house of some friends of ours to show each other pictures. They wanted to see some wedding pics, and we wanted to see their trip pictures.

After that it was off to Jims BBQ. At 5:30 we realized that it actualy started at 3. Oops. We jumped onto our bikes and joined the party. Another good time. It was fun to catch up with folks we hadn’t seen/talked to in a long time. It was also good to meet some new people, and share stories.

Yesterday was certainly a busy day.