Tag: Life

Stag Day

What a weekend. I’m exhausted, covered in mosquito bites, feeling burnt, and have a huge smile on my face.

This weekend was the stag for a buddy of mine, and we rented a cabin up on Cowichan River. The place was awesome, and we spent all of our awake time outside (even when it was pouring). There was a gazebo that had a woodstove in it, picnic tables, wood piles, bbqs, pretty much everything you need to have a great weekend.

The best man stocked the place with all the snacks and food you can imagine. There was also a bit of beer (4 kegs and a flat of cans).

Killer, killer weekend. Friday night I went a little too hard and finally hit the sack around 2:30. I unfortunately woke up at 6:30 then dozed a little bit. I was very hungover, very tired. Sunday I need to jet out pretty early, so I didn’t drink very much at all. This was actually fine with me, until the beer pong started. I had to flat out refuse to play, even when the groom to be asked. I felt bad about that, but I couldn’t afford to be hungover when I was leaving at 6:30.

Sadly, this may be the last stag I go to. I can’t think of any other friends of mine who may get married one day. This was definitely a good weekend to go out on though.

Pinged Entertainment

I went out to Hecklers last night for the first time ever. Gotta say I had a good time. Sox had the kids out at a friends so I pinged a bunch of people to see if anyone was free and a buddy suggested Hecklers.

We showed up early, grabbed a table and ordered some food. The burger I had was excellent and the fries that came with it were perfect. We chatted for a bit until the show began.

There were three comics that were all pretty good. The second guy was my favorite. Something about his demeanour. The last guy was just way over the top. Too much energy, and he messed up the punchline on a few of his jokes.

Good, inexpensive entertainment. Can’t wait to go back.

Different Skills

Last night Sox and I had a night out. We had tickets for Cirque’s Dralion. So far, Sox and I have enjoyed the Cirque shows we had gone to. Each one has been completely different from the last. The topper was O, which we saw while in Vegas.

Well, O was the topper until last night. Dralion was amazing. As the show progressed, their abilities kept making me more and more astounded. My favorite was the tramploning where it looked like they were walking up the walls. Incredible.

They ended the show with jump rope. This was not any kind of jump rope though. They had 3 ropes on one person, they had 5 people in one rope. They even had a 3 person pyramid in a jump rope. Mind blowing.

One thing I liked is that they played up their skills more than any other show I’ve seen. Many times when a performer finished a stunt they would face the crowd and raise their arms, or wave at the crowd, or do something to show their enthusiasm.

The clowns they had played an important part, and were funnier than other shows. The guy they picked from the crowd (who turned out to be one of the cast) played the part wonderfully. One of the skits the clowns did was a definite mock of the regular performers. At the end of the show all the performers came out.

At the end of the show all the performers came out. The thing that stuck out was that the same group of performers were in all the skits. This was very different than other shows where the performers were very specialized for what they performed. This made the show more incredible.

I can’t wait for their next show here in town.

Basement Island

It almost looks like we are moving, but we aren’t. We had been storing a bunch of unassembled Ikea furniture in our basement for quite a few months now. This weekend we delivered it to a cabin on Saltspring Island.

We stayed the night there, and had a wonderful time. Yesterday we went out for dinner at the Treehouse cafe, which was excellent, and also meant we didn’t need to cook, bring the food to cook, nor clean up after cooking.

Today I got a bit of a sleep in, then the kids brought me some Fathers Day presents that they had made. Very nice!

We did some research and decided on a walk at Duck Creek. After a bit of trouble finding the place, we started our walk. Heart had a great time, and the kids got to run around quite a bit. The walk followed a meandering creek on way, then the return had us walking through some large meadows. Lots of daisies could be seen.

After lunch at the cabin, we headed back to Ganges for an ice cream cone and a play at the playground. All too soon we packed up our stuff and headed for the ferry. I’m looking forward to many more weekends on the small island.

Jumpship Boosts

Jumpship was today. Well, the Jumpship finals any way. What’s Jumpship? Jumpship was a barge covered in dirt jumps. The riders start on a 20 foot scaffold, drip in to a step down, then make their way across a set of dirt jumps to a quarter pipe, then back toward the start line across another dirt jump.

There were two days of practice leading up to today, but today was the only day I could make it down to watch. I had seen the barge getting prepped ahead of time, so I sort of knew what to expect. Still, the calibre of riders they had was excellent (Graham Agassiz, Tyler McCaul, Jarret Moore, Kurt Sorge, Mitch Chubey, Brandon Semenuk). Some of the tricks they threw down were amazing, and to be so close to the action was pretty cool.

Originally they were going to anchor the barge in the middle of the harbour, but instead they docked it at Ship’s point. This worked out better since the people were able to be closer to the action.

As a photographer it was difficult shooting conditions. The sky was overcast, so all the riders turned out dark. I switched to shooting in RAW mode, so I may try some faking out some HDR shots. We’ll see if I can make time for that. Any way, here are some of my favorite shots. You can see the rest of my shots here.

It was a very cool event, that I hope boosts riding in the area. I hope they can bring back the event next year, or something similar to it. It was a lot of fun and very inspiring to see these athletes perform.




Vegas Buffets

Vegas was a blast. We spent four days there and got to do almost everything we wanted.

Our flight down was spectacular too. We got bumped to first class, and that was the first time I had even been in first class. Drinks in real glasses, real food on real plates. Friendly stewardesses. Perfect way to start the trip. Then when we hit Vegas we grabbed a limo to the hotel. Sweet!

While in Vegas we went out for a nice dinner, followed by the O Cirque de Soleil show. We had a pool day. We went riding. We went up and down the strip. We went to Freemont Street. I played poker. We played the slots. We bet on ponies. We bet on a Vancouver Canucks game. We hit buffets.

We would have liked to seen the Stratosphere up close, and I would have loved to gone up the Eiffel tower to get some pics from up there. Gotta save something for the next trip!

One of the highlights for me was the first breakfast that Sue and I had at Bon Ami Gabi. I chose the Lemon Pancakes with Strawberries. Yum! So good that the next time I went, I ordered the same thing.


The view from our room!

The rest of my pics are here.

Elk Air

Sunday I took the kids and Heart out to Elk Lake for a walk. Heart needed some exercise really badly and this seemed like a great way for her to get some. It turned out to be a great walk. The kids and I had a lot of fun, Heart ran around lots and played with some other dogs, and I got some fresh air. We walked over 3kms too. Elliot walked the entire way, and Amy walked most of the way (I carried her for three short stints).


Smashed Report

Today was one of those days. I started a new contract today, so with it being my first day at a new job, I really wanted it to start smoothly.

Well, that was shot down when Sue opened the living room curtains and called out to me that the truck window was broken. At first I thought she meant there was a large crack in it. When I looked, the passenger side window was smashed.

I went out and found the contents of the glovebox strewn about the passenger seat. Glass pieces were everywhere. From what I can tell, nothing was taken though. My CD’s were left untouched, my change (penny) collection in the ashtray was untouched, and the stereo was left intact.

As I was cleaning, someone walking by stopped and told me his brothers car down the street was also broken into and some things were taken from it. I cleaned up as much as I could and talked with my neighbour (who happens to be a police officer) about it. He was saying that it was unusual since there was nothing of value in plain sight, and I don’t exactly drive a high end vehicle.

We filed a police report, and started looking into my insurance. Thankfully I have a low deductible for glass, so we can get it fixed tomorrow. I was supposed to take the kids to daycare this morning, but instead Sue did while I cleaned up. She lost a couple hours of her day to this. What a pain.

Missing Resources

This past month I went over on my data plan for my cell phone. It cost me an extra $20 + tax. I was caught off guard by this overage since Telus is supposed to send me a text message when I am around 75% of my data usage, then again and 90%, and last month I did not receive those messages.

I called Telus today to ask about the missing messages, and to find out if I can get more details about my data usage.

The Telus rep said “Telus does not guarantee that you will receive those text messages”. The reasoning was due to network congestion, and or routing issues. Hello? Telus is in the business of sending text messages. If it doesn’t send for some reason (say network congestion), send it a little later. They are a telephone company and should easily be able to guarantee sending of a simple text message. Ludicrous.

The rep also mentioned that their website tells me how much data I have used. The big problem there is that they have rolled out a new version of their site and it is ridiculously slow, and sometimes doesn’t load, or doesn’t respond. Nice. I can also call them to find out where I am with my usage. Maybe I should call them every day to check. Nothing like wasting precious/expensive resources to get their attention.

Incidentally, all their website says about the text messages is:

Some plans are not eligible to receive TELUS Data Usage Notifications. Enabling TELUS Data Usage Notifications may not work for your plan.

Then I asked about getting more details on my data usage. I was hoping that if I could find out the urls that were being loaded most often, then I can figure out what apps I was overusing and scale back accordingly. The rep said that all the details are on their site, yet when I checked yesterday, the most detail I could get was a date and time, a size, and how much it cost.

time 		item 		amount 	details 
4:32:51 PM 	190 Kilobytes 	$0.00 	AirCard

The rep said they don’t have the ability to track this information. Yeah, right. This means there is no way I can double check with any certainty that their billing system is accurate. I have to trust them on this, and when they can’t reliably send a simple text message, why should I trust them on something more complex like tracking data usage?

Reasons Acoustic

I am looking forward to this album.
I have a bunch of concert bootlegs and I love Soundgarden’s live music. I’ve also seen them live in Vancouver, which is one of the reasons I am can’t wait for this album (look at track 6).

1. Spoonman
2. Searching With My Good Eye Closed
3. Let Me Drown
Tracks 1-3: Recorded live at Crosby Hall, Del Mar Fairgrounds, Del Mar, CA – November 30, 1996
4. Head Down
Recorded live at Mercer Arena, Seattle, WA – December 18, 1996
5. Outshined
Recorded live at Crosby Hall, Del Mar Fairgrounds, Del Mar, CA – November 30, 1996
6. Rusty Cage
Recorded live at Pacific National Exhibition Forum, Vancouver, BC, Canada – December 7, 1996
7. Burden In My Hand
Recorded live at Salem Armory, Salem, OR – December 8, 1996
8. Helter Skelter
9. Boot Camp
Tracks 8 and 9: Recorded live at Crosby Hall, Del Mar Fairgrounds, Del Mar, CA – November 30, 1996
10. Nothing To Say
Recorded live at Mercer Arena, Seattle, WA – December 18, 1996
11. Slaves And Bulldozers
12. Dusty
13. Fell On Black Days
Tracks 11-13: Recorded live at Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, Oakland, CA – December 5, 1996
14. Search And Destroy
Recorded live at Mercer Arena, Seattle, WA – December 18, 1996

15. Ty Cobb
Recorded live at Crosby Hall, Del Mar Fairgrounds, Del Mar, CA – November 30, 1996

16. Black Hole Sun
Recorded live at Mercer Arena, Seattle, WA – December 17, 1996
17. Jesus Christ Pose
Recorded live at Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, Oakland, CA – December 5, 1996

I’m also really looking forward to when Chris Cornell visits Victoria in late April for a solo acoustic show. That will be pretty amazing I think. The tickets I got are pretty awesome too. About tenth row, centre stage.