I had low expectations, and they were definitely met. I am, of course, talking about my 10 year high school reunion this past weekend. In my mind I had envisioned me doing exactly what I always do in a large room of strangers, namely finding one or two people to talk with for part of the time, then eventually just sitting back watching people, getting bored out of my skull.

Friday night was a drinks and appy night at a sports bar in Nanaimo. That was fun. I caught up with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while, talked with a few people I hadn’t really talked to much in high school, had some food, then decided it was time to head out. I left fairly early, but I could sense I was getting bored. I had a good visit with my friend James though (he came all the way from Ontario for the reunion).

Saturday night was the dinner/dance thing. I visited some more with James, talked with some people who weren’t at Friday nights thing, and revelled in the fact that I am such a different person from the Greg Fox that went to Wellington Senior Secondary. Dinner was pretty good, but the hall we were in was pretty warm. I kept having to step outside to catch my breath a little. The DJ started up, and he was playing some of the hits from ’93. Spin Doctors, Ace of Base, and a few more I couldn’t remember. I got dragged into a picture of people from Rutherford Elementary school. With the DJ playing such loud music, I found it difficult to talk with people (I hate having to shout to be heard). I ended up just watching people talking, dancing, drinking, and having fun.

It suddenly struck me that once again, I was on the outside looking in. Hmm, interesting. I said goodbye to James, then headed out.

I don’t associate with very many people from high school any more (James is one, even though our emails have been a little spotty lately ). On top of that, most of the people I hung around with in High School didn’t show up. I ended up looking in on the group just as I had envisioned, so I lived up to my promise to myself, and left when I noticed that happening. I was home to my mom’s by 9:15.

I have absolutely no regrets about going. I had a great visit with James, and got a good dinner out of it. I am not sure if I will go to the next one. I have heard from lots of current friends that a lot of people skip the 10 year and go only to the 20 year. I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

In a little over an hour from now I will be leaving work and travelling up Island to attend my 10 year high school reunion. I comtemplated long and hard about whether I really wanted to go or not. In the end I decided that if I didn’t go, I think I would have regretted it, and always would have wondered how it was. I have really low expectations.

This week Sue and I have had some visitors. Sue’s brother, his wife, and their son have been in Victoria since Sunday. Cary, has been attending some courses in Duncan, while Geoff and Alexander have been vacationing. Sue and I took Monday and Tuesday off to spend some time with them, and let me tell you, they were a couple of jam packed days!



Monday we went to the bug zoo. I love the bug zoo. There is lots of information about exotic bugs. They house a bunch of different species, and will even let you handle some of them. They have a large leaf cutter ant’s nest, millipedes, scorpions, spiders, cockroaches, and many more. I held a bunch of bugs including a scorpion, and the millipede. Most of them are incredibly light, and never really felt them until the guide removed them (most have sticky feet). Lots of fun. Check out the pictures I took in there.



Monday afternoon the four of us went out to All Fun Recreation Park. We played a round of minigolf, then Geoff and Alexander went watersliding for a couple hours. Sue went for a run, and I biked home. Although it was scorchingly hot that day, I quite enjoyed the ride home.



Tuesday we got up, went for breakfast at John’s Place, a well know, and excellent restaurant in the heart of downtown. Breakfast was good, and the service was outstanding (it can sometimes be spotty there).



After breaky we made our way to the Royal BC Museum to see the Dragon Bones exhibit. Totally cool! Most of the skeletons were not real fossils. The real deal are so heavy that the floor of the museum would never have been able to hold them up. There were lots of different dinosaurs depicted in a variety of poses. They even had one gentleman working on extracting a real fossil! There were a few fossils from local areas (even some up Island), but for the most part they were depictions of fossils originally found in China (including the Szechunasaurus ). I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit, but desperately wished I had brought my tripod. Lots of my shots are a little blurry, but looked great on my camera’s LCD. The rest of the pictures are here.



We then did a quick tour through part of the normal museum exhibits. We also did the Open Ocean Adventure. Lots of fun. The pics are here.



Today I am at work, with Yoshi, wanting to be on vacation still. Isn’t that always the way?

Cats are crazy. This does include our cat Aphro. Yesterday morning she provided more evidence of this. At 5 am I was awoken by a loud scratching noise followed by a thump. I was groggy, and confused so I listened for it again.

It happened again, but this time the scratching was more insistent, and the thump louder. I bolted upright, in time to hear the scratching again, and see the cats head appear behind my dresser. The face disappeared, and the thump followed!

My dresser sits at an angle in a corner. Somehow the cat got herself trapped behind it, and was trying to get out. She was knocking stuff off my dresser, and making a lot of noise. I jumped out of bed, ran to the dresser, just as she leapt one more time, got to the top, and sunk her claws into my nice oak dresser .

I gave her a shove which sent her flailing back to the floor. I moved the dresser away from the wall, she bolted out of the bedroom, and I was left wondering about how my cat got behind the dresser.

Not a very nice way to wake up is it?

First off, Happy (belated) Canada Day everyone!

Yesterday was quite a busy day, I went and saw Artis the Spoonman, checked out the Folk Fest venue, wandered through a couple open air markets, went and watched Charlie’s Angels, then ended the night with the fireworks. I was pretty pooped by the time I crawled into bed. I will review more a little later.

I just found out today that tomorrow, Artis the Spoonman is playing at the Folk Festival here in Victoria.

For those that don’t know, Soundgarden did a song about him on their album Superunknown. They even took him on tour in support of that album.

I am going to try and get out to that show. Tomorrow 1pm at Centennial Square.

On a side note, the festival’s website has a few issues with the year. Evidently someone wasn’t paying attention when the site was uploaded.