My Easter long weekend started Wednesday (sort of). Chester, Duncan’s chocolate lab came to stay for the weekend! His parents were heading to Fairmont for the weekend. Yoshi was in love with him, and wouldn’t leave him alone. Poor Chester.

Thursday Sue and I went to an art show on the top floor of Victoria Eaton’s Centre (to be renamed Bay Centre). The local elementary schools had chosen two students from each class to do self portraits. Some of them were great. We were there to see one special one though. Jessica Timmins. Sue has known the Timmins’ for a long time. Again I took a bunch of pictures, but I haven’t posted them to my site yet. We had dinner out at Red Robbins. I had the Banzai Burger! The kids had the Mile High Mud Pie. Very yummy.

Friday Sue and I went for a hike with Yoshi, Chester, Jason, and Cathy at Thetis Lake. We took some trails we had never been on before. It was a pretty cool trail. I took a bunch of pictures, but I haven’t made them web ready yet. I will try to do that tonight. We were out for around two hours. It was a beautiful day out.

Saturday Sue and Yoshi left for Sechelt where her brother was in a dinner theatre play. It sounds like Sue had a good time. Chester and I had a lazy day. I spent most of the day on the couch watching TV, and Chester on his dog bed sleeping. I did get out for an hour or so to look for some new shoes for mountain biking. I didn’t find any, but I did have fun wandering downtown Victoria taking pictures (again they are not web ready). I finally got to see the big blue Johnson St Bridge go up! That was quite a treat. A large Tugboat and barge made their way under. Saturday night I rented The Transporter. It was a decent renter movie. Good action sequences with a thin plot. A good guy movie.

Sunday I was determined not to get stuck on the couch like I did Saturday. I ate breakfast, drank some Starbucks Sumatra then started on the house work. I managed to tidy the family room, the bedroom, the computer room, do 4 loads of laundry, clean the dishes, and fix the bathroom sink all by noon! I was on fire. I knew that if I sat at anytime, I wouldn’t be able to get up. I then got a call from Rhiannon saying that her and Steve were going to have people over to watch the Canucks! Woohoo! I took Chester out for a nice hour long walk right on the ocean. There is a beautiful boardwalk that goes from near my place over to Spinnakers. I didn’t make it to Spinnakers (or I would have stopped for a frosty BEvERage), but instead turned around at the half hour mark. Again it was sunny and warm. A perfect day for a walk on the water. After the walk I had a shower, then it was off to watch the game. I am happy to report that the Canucks won.

Monday I was off to work. I now realize, after typing this all out, that I had a pretty good weekend. I need to process those pics PDQ though. I never did catch up on my sleep. It didn’t help that Chester woke me up Monday at 5:45 am whining because he had to go out and pee. Oh well. At least I can function like a normal human now, and not the Zombie I was last week.

Note to all motorists: when you are driving near a pedestrian walking a dog, and they are carrying a small bag that looks like it has something squishy in it, it is not recommended that you piss off said walker in any way. The walker may retaliate with the aforementioned goody bag.

Today while walking Chester (a friends dog I am watching for the weekend), I had two instances where I was very tempted to fling the stinky poo bag at some cars because their drivers were being very stupid.

I am running on empty today. I have been on empty all week actually. I have been sleeping really poorly for over a week and it is starting to take its toll. I am exhausted. My mind is not functioning correctly. I cannot think straight. That is why there have not been many updates as of late.

For the long weekend I am dog sitting. I am taking care of Chester who is Duncan S’s chocolate lab. Yoshi has some weird fascination with him, and always wants to play with him. Maybe it is a weird form of dominance. Anyway, Chester is a little ticked at Yoshi and is always growling and barking at him. Last night we separated the two dogs by creating a barricade at the bottom of the stairs. Yoshi was upstairs and Chester downstairs. First Yoshi was whining because he wanted to play with Chester. Then Chester was whining because he wanted Duncan (I think). This was all at 11 pm last night.

This morning Yoshi woke up at 5:30 and was thumping around and whining. I couldn’t sleep. This woke the cat up and she was wandering around the bed. Sue got up and put Yoshi outside. I tried to get back to sleep but failed. At 6 am I was wide awake, so I got up and went to work.

Sue is going away for a couple days on Saturday, so everything should be fine then. Until then I will be pounding back the Starbucks Sumatra. Today is an exception. I started the day with a yummy Americano. I need some “Fueled by Caffeine” stickers.

This past Sunday I awoke to a huge rainstorm. I was planning on going for a bike ride, then watching the Freecross race at the dump. Well, the rain cancelled my ride. I was all about to cancel on watching the race when I said to myself “screw it, I am going”. I dressed in my best rain gear, grabbed the umbrella, and headed to the dump.

Am I ever glad I did. The race was super fun to watch, and I stayed mainly dry. Bonus! I took my digital camera, but never brought it out because of the rain. Too bad too. I saw lots of action.

The FreeCross race is basically a downhill race with time bonuses for hitting certain trail features. For example hitting the easiest line give no bonus, but a drop off the side of the trail may give you a bonus of 5 seconds. The rider with the lowest adjusted time wins. This give the rider a strategy to think about while doing his runs. Interesting twist on a simple concept.

Initially I balked at the idea of the race, but after arriving at the dump to watch the race, I wished I had entered it. It really looked like a lot of fun. I will be doing the Hammergest DH race in early May though.

Today I had Yoshi at work like I do every Thursday. At lunch I decided to take a walk over to Bosley’s to get him some tasty treats (all natural peanut butter and apple biscuits). I went to grab my leash from my backpack, but found it missing. I looked all over but I found I had left it at home. To top it off I had no vehicle today.

I did what any self respecting computer geek, MacGuyver wanna be would do. I fashioned a leash out of some extra Cat 5 cable that was of no use to the Voice Mob!

last night Sue and I had a wonderful dinner at Blighty’s Bistro. this is a small restaurant in Oak Bay that has the friendliest waitresses, a wicked atmosphere, and excellent food. while we were waiting for our appy’s (I highly recommend the mussels) Joy McPhail stopped by for some dinner. she talks very loud. she was seated next to our table, and even when the restaurant was full, we could hear most of her conversation. when the restaurant was empty though, we couldn’t really hold much of a conversation because she was so loud. oh well, the experience was still wonderful. get the lemon mousse!