friday night Sue and I headed to nanaimo to crash at my moms place since saturday we were planning on hitting Mt Washington for a day of sliding down the slopes

saturday morning came early as Yoshi decided that since the sun rises earlier so should he. we had our breaky, then hit $tarbuck$ for some caffeine to go (an americano for him, and a Tazo Chai for her).

heading out on the highway we made good time on our way towards courtenay. the only scare I had was the suicidal robin red breast. yeesh. birds aren’t that bright. maybe this one was depressed/ not sure, but as we were maching along the highway this bird darts from a bush into the front of my grill. I never saw it fly away, but I also never saw any remains. I am not sure what happened to the bird but I hope it gets some help!

washington was fun. the weather was all over the place, and the snow had the consistency of a slurpee. we slid in fog, rain, wind, a touch of sun, and general overcastedness. we hit all areas of the mountain, and I had a great day boarding. I had one wicked bail though. we were trying to cross an untracked field, so I kept my speed up. I hit it, leaned back, and was feeling pretty good. very quickly I hooked an edge (not sure how I did that), then did two complete sommersaults. I left a couple greg sized dents in the snow. when I sat up I felt like I had rung my bell a little. I was a little dizzy, but that quickly passed

also on the hill satruday was the big stupid bike race. imagine a dual slalom race with a few big berms, a gap jump, and a table top to finish. put it on snow. then make the snow really sloppy. people were crashing left right and center. I think that maybe next year I will try it out. 🙂

after we left the hill we went back to nanaimo. mom took me out for my birthday dinner. myself, my mom, my sister, and my sue went to Milano’s on Milton street. they serve italian and grrek cuisine. the location is an old converted house. the food was excellent, the wine was excellent, the company was excellent, and the ambience was excellent.

after that it was a quick jaunt down the island highway and we were home (very late).

if you have a cell phone with Telus Mobility the you should be advised to go over your last few bills with a fine tooth combine … err I mean comb. I have SMS text messaging, and this month I got double charged (last month too). luckily I caught it before I paid. I called them up (several times since their IVR system kept dumping me) and when I eventually talked to someone she reversed the charges. she then put me on hold and called another department.

get this, they know they have a problem, but haven’t told their customers yet. also, “they are working on it”. they hope to have it fixed soon.

I really wonder how many people haven’t noticed this yet.

driving to work this morning I saw a classic boneheaded driver move. heading along esquimalt road towards downtown there are two lanes. as the road approaches catherine st. there are signs that the left lane turns into a left turn only lane. the driver in front of me isn’t watching, is waiting for people in front of him to turn left, then realizes where he is. immediately he turns on his right turn signal to move over a lane. cars are passing him, then a bus comes close. this guy almost pulled out in front of the bus!

he decides to take the longer way and goes left. the irony? as we both pull around the corner I see that he has a big sticker on the back of his canopy that says “drivesafe” …

I took Yoshi for a walk at Macaulay Point park last night. It was a good walk right before dinner, but on the beach there was the above seal that was in the molting process. there were signs about warning people to stay away, and that the seal was fine. the sign also it’s appearance and breathing patterns may seem like he may be dieing, but that in fact the seal was very healthy. cool! I kept my distance but snapped a few pics.

later on in the walk there was a plane flying overheard. the engine drone is the sort of urban noise that I don’t notice anymore. in an instant there was a large bang, the engine sputtered a bit, then stopped! yikes. the plane started to nose dive, then the engine restarted. phew! scary moment. the plane turned around to head back I guess. a couple minutes later the engine cutout again. no nose dive this time, but the pilot got the engine started and kept on his merry way. certainly made the walk interesting.

these gents displayed some wonderful stockholder appreciation. to save their companies some money in lawyers fees, they settled their dispute in an arm wresling match.

woohoo!! my fixed cell phone arrived back recently. I am once again a mobile communicator! they resoldered a connection, and replaced a data cable. the LCD’s are working. the funny thing is that the day my phone got back to victoria, I had just called telus mobility and reactivated my old startac. the next day I had to call again and switch back. all is well now.

bumpy phone – a new cellphone for visually impaired people. this cell has an integrated braille reader, and has many of the features mainstream cell phone and pda’s have.

laziest case mod ever? – you be the judge. is this cool? is this stupid? is this real?

one for me, one for my pda – a new fuel cell that uses ethanol instead of methanol to develop its power. interesting. when fully topped up can a pda (or laptop) then interpret drunk speak???

that is what it feels like when you are screaming down a hill on a mountain bike with only shorts and a short sleeve jersey on and you are being pelted by hailstones.

sunday saw me riding with mark, hugh, and hugh’s dog digby. yoshi was feeling a little under the weather so he stayed home. when we started the weather seemed fine, if not a little chilly. we started out, and did our normal route in reverse though. we stopped a few times to talk and rest, and I was feeling alright. I realized that I desperately need to get in shape if I want to race at hammerfest again this year.

nearing the end of our ride it started to rain. I wanted to get back to the truck before I got soaked so I picked up my pace a little. by the time I hit the fires road it started hailing big time. I decided to push on and get all the way back to the truck so I could get the pain over with as quickly as I could. it was amazing that the hail started to cover the ground. when I got back to the truck I took some pictures before the hail melted. check them out

saturday we had a birthday party to attend. samantha patrick turned 2. yay!

the interesting part about the part was that there were 13 toddlers there, and only 2 of them were males! lucky guys!

another interesting thing, sue and I were the only people there that neither had kids nor were expecting. interesting.

this weekend was a busy one for me. let’s start with friday night. sue and I went for diner at the old bailey pub downtown, then on to the royal theatre for a Matthew Good conert. he is touring in support of his latest album titled avalanche (run out and buy this one if you liked audio of being).

the show was opened by a band from montreal called the dears. they dearly sucked. some bands have good music, but a bad lead singer. this band had a bad singer, bad keyboardists, medium guitar and bass, and a fun drummer. the lead singer was awful which made me want to look around the stage to see what else was going on. the bassist and guitarist basically just stood there and played, and the two female keyboardists looked like they would rather be gouging their eyes out with spoons. at least the drummer was entertaining. their set lasted way too long, and I was more than happy to see them exit the stage.

I was looking forward to matt good. I love his new album, even if some others don’t. he took the stage and proceeded to put on a good performance. I enjoy watching bands that play with their live songs and good did that to a T. he even played with some of his older songs including symbolistic white walls. when his set was up, I was surprised, and didn’t even notice the time go by.

the downfall for me was the crowd. since we were at the royal, it was an all ages show. their were tons of screaming teens that just wouldn’t shut up when they were supposed to. during 21st century living he had a prerecorded rant about the war. I dearly wanted to hear what he had to say but the crowd couldn’t keep quiet for me to do so. to top it off we had a bunch of drunk teens sitting beside us that kept screaming things like “you’re so fcuking sexy” (have you seen matt good???) and “you fcuking rock matt”

set the crowd aside and it was a solid performance. not great though. I love his music but the live show was definitely lacking some depth. during the days of the matthew good band there was a guitarist named Dave Genn. his skill was certainly missed on a few songs. without them they were a little flat. matt tried to fill the gaps but to me, he came up a little short.

all in all though it was a very enjoyable evening