Not all those who wander are lost

Summer

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:55:05 GMT

Is here, beautiful almost 30 degree days and warm evenings with the sun out till 10pm. So nice,

Anyways so summer is starting out pretty damn awesome. I went to Adam's Cabin last weekend. The weather was gorgeous the whole time, no stress (not that I'm ever all that stressed) and just relaxing atmosphere the whole time. There's a little bakery and ice cream shop down the street and they have a bunch of bikes out there to mess around with.

Came back and played some baseball on Sunday which is always a ton of fun. Loving the laid back slow pich league, now I just need to learn how to hit consistently.

Linda started up ball hockey on Tuesday's which was a lot of fun last week. Hopefully it catches on and we can get some more people out with nets and goalies and such.

Work has been interesting lately. There are two reps in my department who are testing for a management position and I've been progressively taking over the duties for one of those reps. Which basically means i'm 9-5ish mon-fri which is a very nice change. I'm still adjusting to waking up in the mornings but having all my evenings free has been great. Especially since this happened last week and they "forced" me to take last weekend off allowing me to go to Adam's cabin.

This weekend I've got the half marathon coming up, and with my almost complete lack of training is probably going to kill me. Seeing as it's supposed to be 29 on Sunday I forsee a lot of walking and drinking in between the running. I'm looking forward to it though, I didn't really train last year and the 6 miles for the relay felt good. So we'll see how slightly more than double that goes.

I've also got my mom's birthday and father's day celebrations to fit into the weekend somewhere. And Cory and Conrad are off camping for the weekend so I've got the place to myself for a bit. Ooo the posibilities :)

I liked this last year

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:55:18 GMT

Well this was entertaining last year so lets see if anything's changed

Work – Work has been going well. I finally took one of the regular part time positions this year as I'm not going to school. Benefits are nice, a slightly higher guaranteed income will be nice during our slow time of year as well.

I really like my department as well, made a few solid friends here and it's never really a chore coming into work. Plus it's littered with attractive women unlike all the nerds Greg is stuck with.

Education - It's been a year very free of homework. Kind of in limbo right now as I wait to get into red river. Not the worst thing in the world as I make alright money right now, and it lets me do what I want. I really should do some more(any) traveling while I have the chance right now.

Family – Family is awesome, I've always been blessed in this regard. No crazy relatives or drunks or really any drama to deal with. My brother's done well playing poker this year with a big right before Christmas. Parents seem to be in good health and happy, getting anxious to retire even if they can't really afford it. One set of cousins are in far off lands and the other seem to be doing well, one in med school and the other just graduated. Will be nice to have a doctor in the family to borrow money from and there's always Cory to borrow from when I have to pay her back :)

Friends/Relationships – Friends are always solid, another area of my life where I've been very lucky. Known most of my good friends since high school or earlier with a few additions and subtractions here and there. All in all a solid group of people. Could use a few more women in the bunch but I can't really complain. Relationships are a different matter entirely. I find myself getting progressively more picky as I get older. I've met a few new women over the year, nothing's really stuck, haven't gotten that butterfly feeling at all. Maybe you grow out of that after a while, I donno, here's hoping for better luck in 2009.

Music – Been a great year for music, find myself being open to just about all genre's these days and finding gems among them. I've found myself drawn far more to folk/country type bands, banjo's and female singers also seem to be right up my alley. A few notable mentions would be Emiliana Torrini, Regina Spektor has some great and weird songs, Man Man (six demon bag in particular) and Elliott Brood. Went to folk fest this year which was a lot of fun, unfortunately the weather and my lack of preparation prevented me from seeing as much as I would have liked. I went with some people I didn't know all that well either which made it interesting, got to know new people and still love the atmosphere there. Definitely plan to do it up again next year, maybe bring a few people I know this time too.

Hobbies – Man I need to get one of these. Was considering picking up jiu jitsu again if there was a dojo near by I'd be there in a second but I think i'll give some kick boxing a shot in the new year and see how that goes. Other than that I think I'll just tag along with Cory for many of his adventure racing type escapades.

Holidays – Fucking awesome. I was feeling a little stressed going into them because I left all my shopping to the last minute as usual. But after I had everything bought I had a great time. Lots of food and family, good company, it finally warmed up after being -40 for pretty much all of December. Went out to Frostfire with Cory and Charlie for some progressively drunker snowboarding. It's amazing how much I improved after a beer or two. I think all snowboarding should be done with a healthy buzz, though it did force us to stop and hit the bathroom every few runs. This was compounded by the fact that their chairlift is possibly the slowest mode of transportation in existence.

Had a chance to get out on a rink a few days ago too, that was a lot of fun, I can skate well but my stick handling is atrocious. So something to work on, looking forward to messing around on some rinks on new years eve too. We've got a community club rented so there should definitely be some shenanigans going on.

Health – One of the places I've probably made the most progress this year. Come February it'll be a full year of consistent weight training. I wish I had before and after pics as I'm curious to see how I've changed. I don't think I look all that different, just a little thicker in places, and I have shoulders now. I've just recently started running again, gonna make a serious effort to train for the half marathon this year. Which I think is a far more attainable goal than the full right off the bat. Maybe work up to that in a few years if I can keep running consistently. Gonna be a good year at the beach though :)

fin

On a more positive note

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:02:20 GMT

I'm loving everything I hear about/from Obama if only both countries could get it right at the same time...

Fuck Harper

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:32:50 GMT

That is all.

Election day

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:43:25 GMT

So I voted Liberal and feel a little dirty, it probably won't matter anyways as Fletcher is deeply entrenched in my riding. Just too many old people in St. James.

Been a good week all in all, worked the last 9 days straight, got a promotion of sorts on Friday. There were two regular part time positions open in my department and I applied for one. I was supposed to get interviewed for it on Friday but my boss just pulled me into his office and told me he was looking over the applicants and is just going to give me the job. I guess 5 years at this place counts for something.

So I proceeded to celebrate on Friday, drinking for the first time since September long. It was a really fun night, had a good crew over and watched them play Quelf and I'm not a big fan of the game. Luckily Conrad and McGill also got bored half way through and we set up, played and tore down a 3 man settlers game while their game kept going on. I'm pretty sure that game never ends.

Seems I drank a bit too much that night because I get a call at 10:30 from work saying I was supposed to be in 30 minutes ago. Jump out of bed, and make it to work an hour after I was supposed to start. Good start to the new promotion, literally the next day... Also felt super hung over and Saturday and just slept/moped around all day avoiding people. Good times, oh well definitely won't be overindulging too much again anytime soon.

And now my break is over so it's back to work. Go vote, unless you're gonna vote for Fletcher... then die.

hrm

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:36:07 GMT

Sleep deprivation as a form of entertainment? We shall see.

49 minutes left

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:26:13 GMT

I am bored, so Sunday at work, only 5 of us in, no management. I've read everything there is to read online (yes I've read the entire internet). And now I'm sitting here trying to kill time. It's gotta be bad if I'm posting (that never happens).

So this weekend's been pretty solid so far. Spent Friday night chilling in a hot tub with some good friends.

Went to the Gym yesterday, did some upper back work for the first time in a month and it felt great. Then went for dinner at my dads for my Brother's birthday. He's 23 now, time's passing far too quickly. Had a good meal and played some cards. I rarely get to play real cards anymore, I should get a card night going and play some spades or something; but it was fun.

Went over to Nicks and watched the fights after that. It was a surprisingly entertaining PPV considering I didn't care about most of the fights. Few solid knockouts, one from a kick to the stomach which is impressive, Rich Franklin's just a beast.

And I've got a baseball game tonight as long as the rain holds off.

Oh and I'm loving this whole no drinking thing so far. No temptation to do anything stupid, and I'm thinking I'm gonna be saving quite a bit of money :)

Camping... Almost there

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:00:47 GMT

Well it's been a great summer so far. Feeling lazy lately and haven't been biking as much as I'd like but playing baseball again has been a ton of fun. If you're any good at hardball you're a fucking superstar at slow pitch (few more games left to end the season without being struck out once :)

I went to a party with a bunch of people from work yesterday which was quite a bit of fun, man I love hot tubs. I dragged Greg along since he went to school with the host and he met up with some old high school friends and seemed to enjoy himself. Got a fire going when it started getting cold out (first really cold night all month, looks like summers winding down) and that just got me itching to get out camping this weekend.

I've got a pretty slack schedule for the rest of the week, just have to make it through 3 more shifts, one of which I'm training someone so I get to sit around and listen to them take calls for a few hours, then 3 hours of training the next day and a nice short 5 hour shift to end the week.

Greg and I are heading out to Sioux Narrows a day early on Thursday and grab our own site for a night. Man I can't wait for the weekend, gotta start getting ready with food/booze soon too.

I also need to get out for at least one game of golf this year just to prove I'm still horrible at it... I'm looking at you Paul.

Folkfest

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:43:26 GMT

What a weekend, overall had a great time, listened to some good music, met some friendly people.

I left for the festival after work on Thursday. Got to the park around 9 and left all my camping stuff in the car and met up with Chelsea and Kara at the main stage just in time to hear the weakerthans start their set. They put on a good show and then Michael Franti came on and really got the crowd going. Kara was super excited to see him perform as well as this middle-aged guy in a white shirt who was dancing up a storm and so funny to watch.

We headed back to the camp site while I dragged all my stuff from my car. I left my car in the festival parking lot which they didn't seem to appreciate since they towed my car. unfortunately my rain jacket at tarps were in the car and were definitely required for the rainy miserable weather on Saturday. Thursday night we had a really nice light show. I just laid on the side of popes hill and watched the lightning coming towards us for about 30 minutes.

It was still a little rainy on Friday but it was warm enough that I just wore my bathing suit and enjoyed it. The sun came out around one and we actually had a really nice afternoon for watching shows. We wandered around the festival for most of Friday, I started drinking a little too early cause I passed out at around 6 and missed all the evening main stage acts. Woke up when the main stage closed and everyone was coming back to the campground to get the party going.

They had this crazy saloon made of wood complete with tables and a "fake" bar as well as a little stage to perform. They had this really old amp attached to the mic which gave the singer a kind of haunting tone to his voice. We watched the people in there for a while then headed out to popes hill which was a lot busier than Thursday night.

Saturday was really a miserable day, very rainy and very cold. I did get to meet up with Paul as he was helping out at the slushy stand in between shows he wanted to see. I got a ride from Megan (one of the girls we were camping with) to pick up my car on her way to work. She works for the park and was stuck watching the gate from 4-12 pretty much every day so she missed most of the evening acts, but managed to hook us up with a bunch of free firewood which I put to good use on Saturday night to try to warm us up. I ended up putting a few holes in my tent from the embers, maybe it was a little too windy for how big I had the fire going...

They canceled or well they moved the main stage to a different venue because the constant rain had pretty much made it a lake. So we watched a really good bluegrass act play there until Chelsea got too cold and we headed back to the campsite for a fire and some warmth. A few of the people we were camping with bailed on camping Saturday night because it had been such a dreary day. Which is a shame because around midnight the clouds cleared up, the wind died down and it turned out to be a great night.

Saturday was the night I actually managed to find everyone I was looking for. I met up with Melanie for a bit at our campsite, we went wondering to popes hill which was packed. There were a few people riding a wheelchair down it and I got to watch some retards take some really nasty spills off that thing. A few people actually made it all the way down the hill though, was very impressive and stupid. I also managed to find a giant hole in the ground as soon as I started carrying the cooler full of everyone's drinks. Wiped out nicely and shook up a few beers :(

We went off in search of Scott at that point who was staying at the second brightest camp site you could see from popes hill. We went to the brightest camp site first which also included a Scott, just not the illustrious Mr. Wachal. So we finally found Scott who happened to be camping with Sam which was a nice surprise. Drank with them for a little bit then headed to the saloon.

They had one guy with a baritone, one with a trumpet, some guy playing a stand up base and the singer also had a guitar. They put on a really good show and I loved the haunting sound from the vocals on that amp. It was better than some of the performances I had seen at the actual festival.

We had just gorgeous weather today, dried everything out nicely. But after three nights of heavy drinking I just didn't have the energy to check out that much of the festival. I packed up and took off fairly early in the day.

Fucking great weekend though, I think I'm gonna have to do it every year now.

Deliciously Decadent

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:56:12 GMT

I figure I might as well post this before it all becomes a blur. Last weekend was fucking amazing. I haven't gone camping with my bike since I was probably about 12 or 13 years old. Greg, Cory and I went out to Falcon lake on Friday for a little camping.

The sites out there aren't bad, a little reminiscent of clear lake as there is pretty much a fully stocked grocery store, bar and restaurants within walking distance of the camp ground. They do however have an amazing bike trail complete with all the hilly glory of the Whiteshell. We don't have a lot of opportunity to bike on hills in Winnipeg and it's amazing how much harder/more fun it is. Cory and I did about 26k on the trail on Saturday morning coming across some beautiful views of Falcon lake (He's got a couple of the shots posted on facebook).

I spent Saturday afternoon driving back into the city for dinner at my Aunts. My Mémé is in town from Victoria and I've been trying to see her as much as possible. My aunt and uncle from Brandon were also in town with my two cousins. It was so nice to see everyone together as everyone's pretty spread out these days and it rarely happens.

There were some vicious looking clouds passing over the city as I was driving in, apparently it hailed here. Good thing we were busy camping where the weather was great and avoided it all :)

I arrived back at the camp site around 9:30 to find out Rene had already drank enough to throw up and pass out. Saturday night was so much fun, sitting drinking around the fire. Cory and Greg have these amazing little LED headlamps that sort of make you look like some kind of weird combination of a miner and a retard. They do however work amazingly well and Cory and I were tearing up the camp site for some midnight bike riding. We went through this trail that was actually pretty difficult (which I found out when I tried to recreate the ride with some light the next day) in the middle of the night and definitely not sober. We biked down to the big beach afterwards where Cory was getting all artistic with his camera and some slow shutter speed shots.

Sunday everyone was relaxing on the little beach while I biked around some more. Came home to win a baseball game. All in all a very solid weekend full of good friends and great weather.

Oh and Cory's farts are deliciously decadent...

drunk

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:03:14 GMT

Well I haven't posted in ages and I'm a little intoxicated for the first time in about 3 weeks. Been a shitty February as usual, I figure I've got maybe 4 more years here before the winters drive me nuts. SO SO damn excited for the spring, gonna be 23 on Monday and I almost wanna run to work if I wouldn't be so sweaty when I get there.

I went to the dealer awards tonight, nothing like drinking on MTS and generous dealers :) It was a fun night as I expected it to be, had a few activators crash the event at the end and put a few more faces to voices. I wish I didn't work in 6 hours as I'm already running on very little sleep. I tried to change my rhythm to become a little more of a day person and that seems to have backfired horribly and now I can't get to sleep before 5am for the life of me.

It was a good night all in all, interesting test of how I feel about someone. Good ol cryptic live journal posts, oh and Ani Difranco is fucking awesome, still...

2008

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:20:29 GMT

Goal #1: Learn how to snowboard -> Complete :)

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:38:03 GMT

Well I must say the first 25 days of 2008 have been pretty fucking good so far. The new year itself was a little fucked up, but it was mostly a misunderstanding and a couple fight happy roommates of Aaron's.

I started school again this semester. Back in the sciences which is really where I belong as far as subjects that interest me anyways. It's been a while since I've been in a chemistry class/lab in a couple years so I'm a little rusty. It's nice to be able to flex my math muscle again though. Toxicology has no lab and no text book, which makes it pretty much the perfect class if money is tight.

Work is more or less the same. They offered a pretty much as much overtime as you wanted during the holidays which I've never seen happen before. I didn't take advantage of too much of it because after 6 months of full time I had grown pretty sick of the place. Come the new year, new management steps in and that all changed drastically and suddenly. Being back in school I'm not too upset about it but they cut hours across the board. It basically angered a lot of the staff and we're WAY behind in what we need to get done. I figure it'll go back to business as usual once enough people get upset about how long it takes to get anything done... great way to run a business.

I've spent the last two weekends learning how to snowboard. First I went out to Holiday "mountain" with Cory, Greg, and Nick. We met Annie, Heather and Marnie out there for a day of pain. It's rough learning how to snow board but by the end of the day I managed to figure out how to balance on my toe edge and was doing some basic carving. It's a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.

We rented one of the little A-frame cabins out there and started drinking as soon as the they shut down the lifts (which was around 5). It made for a very fun and very drunken night of debauchery. We ate at the lodge there which was surprisingly good considering the food they had available during the day was absolute shit. We took a couple hundred photo's to commemorate the night and it was a blast.

It was probably the best time I've had in a while, everything was ideal which led to the decision to spend last weekend driving out to Lake Louise for a day of real snowboarding on a mountain. We drove out on Friday, left the city at around 7AM after loading up the car and picking everyone up. Spent 30+ hours in a car with Nick, Hummer and Cory who're pretty good company to have on a road trip :) Nick got to try his hand at driving a stick for the first time which made for some interesting parking jobs, but he did ok most of time, minus a stint on the wrong side of the road (I'm not exactly qualified to criticize on that front though...)

We arrived at Scott's around 10 (thanks again for letting us stay), grabbed a brew and a quick bite to eat in Calgary then called it an early night to get up early for a big day on the mountain. I got to drive from Calgary to Lake Louise in the morning. It was dark for most of the trip through the foothills but the sun was coming up once we got into Banff. I had a big grin on my face the whole time we were driving through the mountains, fuck I love it out there.

I probably should have skied out there instead of trying to snowboard, it was a bit frustrating at first and a lot more exhausting then I though it would be. Taking 30 minutes to get down the mountain takes a lot more energy then I thought it would. I regressed a little when I got there too, I spent the first trip down on my heels and eventually remembered how to carve the second time down. I was getting the hang of it again and going at a pretty good clip for a while there, basically trying to keep up with Cory.

We went down the back side of the mountain a little after noon and checked out some of the runs there. It was a lot flatter for a chunk of those runs and I had to take off the snowboard and walk/slide a bit. That's where I really wish I was on skis where I could just use the poles and skate along. It also would have been nice to explore some of the more challenging runs. If I'm out there again anytime soon I'm definitely gonna ski and check out some of the black diamonds.

I lasted till about 2:30 and I was done, too tired to make another run and still be able to carve properly. I rested up at the lodge for a bit and wanted to do one more run before they closed down for the day but someone ganked my rental. They haven't called me about it so I assume it was just a mistake and someone eventually turned it in.

It was amazing out there, reminds me how much I want to live there one day. Give me and ocean and some mountains and I'd never get bored. Spent another 15 hours driving back on Sunday. I had baked some special cookies a while back and they really help kill some time in the car, just a really mellow way to spend a road trip and let your mind wander. Made it home safe and sound for work on Monday morning.

All in all it's been a pretty fucking good start to 2008, actually getting outside a bit in the winter has felt great too.
</lj>

Weekend Warrior

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:17:34 GMT

3100.1 Kms in a car in 3 days for 6 hours on a mountain and a great little get away. Just got home, fucking tired as hell. Gonna start downloading the UFC I missed and post a more detailed account when I'm not retarded.

Happy Fucking New Years

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:42:45 GMT

So New Years eve started off really nicely this year. I went to see Juno with Cory and a few others at the globe. It was actually a pretty good movie, definitely worth a watch if you get a chance.

Greg and I then proceeded to get some supplies for Kristin's pot luck. Being the gourmet chef's that we are, I brought a bottle of wine I'm not sure anyone touched and Greg proceeded to purchase his contributions from Superstore. We got there a little early and heated up Greg's meat and chilled with John and Kristin for a little while. The food there was delicious and a nice fun and relaxed way to start the evening. It was nice to be able to see some friends who weren't heading over the Pich's that evening and welcome in the new year and such.

I headed over to Chelsea's after that, hung out for a bit and played a rousing game of settlers. I was gonna try to make it to Pich's for midnight but the game went a little long and ended up ringing in the new year over there. It was fun, I got to meet her sister and her sister's boyfriend. They seem like very nice people and I enjoyed myself there.

I headed out to Pich's after that, not really knowing what to expect. All the house parties I've gone to recently have been pretty weak. But I got there and the place was packed. It was fun, tons of people I didn't know, and a few kegs going. Found the boys playing beer pong in the basement so i hung out there for a bit. The night progressed and I was having fun, Corey ended up passed out on his ass in the basement with his head resting on a work bench. Which ended up being slightly problematic later in the evening.

Everything was going along normally until I head outside and see some guy bloody and knocked out on the front lawn. I pick him up out of the snow and try to put him in a cab so he can go sober up somewhere else. He ends up just standing in their front lawn for about and hour. I go back inside and the guy who knocked him out grabs me by the throat and my glasses get knocked off. Charlie comes up and grabs him and I get free. There's a big commotion in which Charlie got his earring ripped out and now and my glasses are somewhere on the floor. I can't get to the guy who knocked them off so I figure fuck it I'll find them when things settle down. I head into the living room and there's some guy on the ground on top of someone I know (or at least I think I know I can't see very well at this point but it might have been Pich). I jump on the guy and choke him till he lets go. I've got 4 chicks pulling me off the other guy and I go off to try to find my glasses.

At this point we're getting kicked out, Pich is asking us to leave because he knows we'll defend him and apparently this is a bad thing. I'm pissed, punch the door handle on the way out and ended up smashing the window and cut my hand up. The only damage I took is my own fault...

I'm waiting outside, the guy who got knocked out earlier is still out there with a couple buddies. I'm waiting for the rest of my friends to get out of there so we can go home. Greg was good enough to drag Corey out of the basement and get him in a car.

And now I'm hung over and my hand is cut up, Happy fucking new years indeed.

****Update****
So after talking to Pich there were 2 guys who showed up but weren't really invited. They were arguing about having to pay the $10 to get into the kegger and were just looking to cause trouble. I think that was one of the guys that was knocked out on the front lawn. I went back inside and apparently Pich was holding his roommate back from trying to go after some other guy and they fell down. So it looked like his roommate was attacking him, and this is when i chocked out one of the hosts of the party. Then Pich got up and got punched in the face by his other roommate. Just a freaking shit show...

Dereliction of Duty

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:53:25 GMT

Well it's been a while since my last post. It was probably one of the best summers I've had in a while, went by far too quickly though. It was so nice to get to enjoy most of it outside, good times with good friends.

Things have been going well lately, I took the fall off of school to try to pay down some debts I accumulated over the summer. My car decided to break down every second week with some new and fun/expensive problem. Luckily this is the busy time of year at work and since it looks like they're trying to phase out my department they don't want to hire any new staff. We are getting killed at the moment so they're offering me all the overtime I want which is helping :)

I've actually really been enjoying work recently, mostly due to the people I work with. I think I've come out of my shell a bit at work over the last year or so and I get along really well with pretty much everyone in my department. At least well enough to joke around with a good majority of them, which is keeps me sane and enjoying the work.

I finally got a bit of time off last weekend and booked it down to Minneapolis for the weekend with a friend from work. It was exactly what I needed, get away from the normal grind I've been in. We did a bit of drinking and caused some trouble Friday night, spend most of Saturday in the mall of America, me driving around trying to find the science museum before it closed (I failed by the way, looks like it will take me 3 trips to finally have a look at that place... one day, one day). We then went on a mission to find a casino so I could get my poker fix in for the weekend.

We went to this pretty crazy casino just south of Minneapolis which did not have any poker tables, but gave us $10 to gamble with (which was nice of them since as soon as we had our $10 we booked it out of there to find a card room). I found a really nice place at the Canteburry horse track, they only had limit tables but it was a nice set-up, would deliver beer/food right to the tables and had a masseuse going around (which I only found out about as we were leaving). I really wish we had anything at all like that in Winnipeg, the tables at regent are just such garbage in comparison.

I feel kind of stalled at the moment though, until I get into red river I'm not really making any progress getting where I wanna be in 5 years. Looks like some of the hard lessons I've learned have changed my outlook and goals. But I'll bang out a degree next year just so I have something to show for all my time in school and join the large segment of people who have degree's they don't use. Almost makes me wish I was a philosophy major =P

I should really get some sleep now, somehow Greg convinced me to drive back to Grand Forks at 5 in the morning so he could pick up a copy of rock band and I haven't really slept today... I'm gonna be on a first name basis with the border guards if this keeps up.

Odd

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:37:20 GMT

What an odd day, I was fucking angry as fuck at work, which is weird cause I'm usually in a fairly good mood there. Though I've been moody lately which normally would be odd but seems to be the norm these days. I used to be so level all the time, it took a lot to get me riled up. These days I'm all over the place.

I wish I could stop obsessing about chicks so much, I think it might be better if I had someone to pursue at the moment as that would give me some kind of focus instead of all the random thoughts that keep occupying my mind. I Wonder if I've actually learned anything in the past little while.

and now for something completely different (I wonder if anyone even gets Monty Python references these days)

I went to Shannon's after work with a buddy of mine from work. It was a really good time, got to check out this bluegrass/folk artist who had an amazing voice, i was really impressed, in fact I'm listening to her CD right now.

3 in the morning ramblings

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:12:36 GMT

It's been an entertaining little while. Half way through my final vacation of the summer. I got to go out to Sioux Narrows last weekend which was a ton of fun. There were storms pretty much every night which is a shame since there was never a big drinking night. The storm on Saturday put on a really nice light show though. Cory has some pictures of it on facebook and there's definitely some impressive lightning in the album. You didn't even need a flashlight that night, you just had to wait half a second and you could see your way from the lighting.

We broke tradition this year and everyone who swam out to the island made it back and we didn't have to send a rescue mission. It's a nice little swim out there, made me realize how pathetically slow I swim, but my knee was acting up a bit and I couldn't kick much. It seems I mostly swim with my arms anyways though so it wasn't so bad.

We went out to rushing river on Saturday but unfortunately i didn't get to go hiking. We got a bunch of other people who wanted to come out to swim there. The swimming there is pretty pathetic though, it's kinda fun to mess around in the rapids but the river was so high this year you couldn't go in them without getting swept away. So I got to sit around and watch everyone mess around in the ice cold water for a bit instead of going hiking :( Aw, well, there's always next year I suppose, or August if I can make it out.

I went for a little bike ride down to the forks today and my god did that feel good. I don't realize how much I need to get my heart pumping and see the sun. It didn't seem to bug the knee at all which is great. I think it'll be at least a month until I try running on it again though, that had me limping for a week last time I tried it. I have to test out the roller blades too and see how I fair. I don't think they'll be that bad since there's not much impact. It also made me realize how quickly my cardio has regressed since the injury. I got a lot of work to do to get where I was a month ago.

It also looks like I won't get to go anywhere big for my vacation, mostly due to lack of funds. Nick has access to his cabin though so hopefully I can get out there for a couple days this week, then be back in time for folk fest. So it should be a pretty good vacation anyways. The Osborne street festival starts up tomorrow too. I'm gonna head out there and hit up some beer tents tomorrow, we'll see if I'm lucky enough to catch Samantha dancing with fire too.

However it is three in the morning and I'm gonna catch a little rest for tomorrow's festivities.

It's coming whether I'm ready or not.

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 19:00:25 GMT

So the half marathon is next weekend. My knee is finally strong enough to start exercising a bit again. I biked to work and it doesn't feel too bad right now. It's no longer painful to move just a little stiff so I'm hoping that means it'll be completely healed by next week. It's also a lot more expensive to register then I thought, $85 for the half. I think it's cheaper if you register earlier, guess I'll know for next year.

I'm also really hoping to head out to BC at the end of June. I've got 2 weeks vacation coming up that starts on the 22nd when we head out to Sioux Narrows. I’m really hoping I can convince someone to take a few weeks off and head out with me; as I haven’t had a chance to get out of Manitoba in any significant manner in years. I also really miss the mountains and I bet my cousins are getting huge. I’ll have to pay them a visit and see if I even recognize them. It’ll be amazing to drive through the mountains again too. If I don’t come back I’ve gone off to become a mountain man, fighting bears in the wild.

Holy Crap

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 03:14:30 GMT

So I biked out to birds hill today, took me a little under 2 hours to get out there against the wind and an hour and half with the wind to get back. Holy crap am I tired, we'll see how sore I am tomorrow. I've never actually had a chance to look around birds hill before, it's a pretty nice park. It's a shame I was so tired when I got there or I woulda looked around a bit more but the daunting task of biking all the way back made me save most of my energy for that.

Bleargh

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:52:03 GMT

Well it seems plans for the weekend might be falling through. I was supposed to go out to Clear Lake and do some camping since it's finally nice out for the first time since my week vacation started. I was gonna head out with Greg tomorrow and Charlie and Cory were gonna try to make it out later or Sunday. Unfortunately Greg got a call about an opportunity to manually masturbate a horse for 8 hours tomorrow, and knowing Greg this is not an opportunity he can pass up. At least I think that's what he said on the phone, it was a little fuzzy.

Sooo bleargh, I might try to head somewhere closer to the city so I can leave a little later with Charlie and/or Cory and Greg can join us when he gets cleaned up. We'll see what happens, everything is kind of in the air at the moment.

My vacation has been very nice so far, been a little bored and unable to get outside as much as I wanted to seeing as it was raining pretty much every day. I went biking in the rain a few days ago and it was actually a nice little adventure. I got myself lost in St. Boniface for a while and found my moms old elementary school. I was trying to find my grandparents old house but ended up finding for Gibralter instead. I had no idea it was even there so when I turned the corner and saw this huge climbing wall and oldschool fort in the middle of no where it was a little shock. There's this really nice park just north of there too. It was just laced with little monkey trails heading every which way. I'll have to go back when it's not so muddy and explore a little, as it is I was covered in mud when I finally got home.

I went for a little trip down memory lane after that, biked around East Kildonan for a while. Went by my old house, school, community club, etc. I love traveling by bike, it just gives you a little more freedom to kind of go wherever you want but still be traveling quick enough to get somewhere.

Well if nothing ends up happening tomorrow I might just bike out to Birdshill for a bit. Lindsay's camping there this weekend and I can pop by to say hi and check out the trails for a bit. I figure it'd take about 2-3 hours to get out there and the same coming back be a nice little trip. I've been doing something cardio related pretty every day for the past week so I figure I could handle it. I'm pretty I'm in the best shape I've ever been in right now, still got a little fat to lose but I'm definitely getting more definition, and my legs are getting fucking huge. I'm pretty sure most of the weight I've put on is in my legs.

I've got termed up to full time hours until the end of July too which is great, be able to pay off some bills and debts from my stupid car dying. I'm almost looking forward to going back to work on Monday, you start to miss all the people you like there when you're away for a while. Life's been good lately, a little lonely but I think I'm finally feeling normal again for the first time in a long time. Damn that feels good.

Hanz and Franz will "Pump You Up"

Tue, 22 May 2007 18:34:51 GMT

Holy shit, so I don't normally weigh myself because it usually varies ~5 pounds depending on what you're wearing/when you last ate. However I weighed myself this morning and I'm a little over 190lbs. That's crazy, I was ~170 a few months ago (I'm gonna go back and find the post about it actually). I guess working out regularly pays off but still 20 pounds in a few months is nuts. I don't really think I look that much bigger either, got a bit more definition here and there, didn't think it was that much though. Aw well, marathon here I come :)

May long was pretty fucking awesome too. I worked Saturday but it was shitty weather anyways, went home and had a really cold and small BBQ. No one seemed up for it but it really wasn't BBQ weather anyways, I made some very tasty chicken. Completely against the BBQ spirit Cory made some salmon stakes in the oven, which tasted damn good so he can be forgiven. Went to Nicks afterwards for about 8 hours of poker which was lots of fun even if I didn't come away with a win.

Sunday was more rain, we were supposed to go golfing at Blumberg (my first time on the links in 2 years) but decided against it because of the weather. We went to speed world instead, freaking fast little go-carts and had a blast. It took me a race or two to really get a feel for the track and a knack for finding spots to pass people. The last race I was 2nd out of the gate (I'm clueless for racing terminology) and passed the first guy on the first turn (fuck he was horrible). I kept the lead for most of the race but every time I looked back Charlie was right on my ass. We went for about 7 laps without him being able to pass me. Then the fucktard I passed in the first lap decides to put his cart into the barrier. They remotely kill all the engines and I look over to see Charlie coast by me. I then decided to flood my engine in frustration so when they start us up again I gotta wait for them to re-start my cart while Charlie laps me.

The Detroit game was on in the lobby too so we caught Anaheim scoring with 1 minute to go to tie it up and then win it in OT. Bwahahahaha!!

I went out to see Lindsay dance afterwards too. It was an interesting show, kind of neat to see what kind of idea's can be expressed through non-verbal communication. It's a lot harder to portray any kind of complex thoughts but very effective at portraying emotions or provoking an emotional response at least. This part is happy, sad, funny, etc. It was very different from anything I've been exposed to before, it's not something I'd go see on a regular basis but it was definitely interesting see.

Victoria day was actually had some good weather, everyone coming back from their dreary camping trips got to come back to a beautiful day in the city. Hit the gym for a bit then biked to Paul's and came home through the park. All in all it was a great long weekend.

Live Journal's dead

Sun, 06 May 2007 07:12:09 GMT

Well it seems everyone has moved to facebook and nothing substantial gets posted on here anymore. Well I still have a little to say anyways, definitely not as much as I used to. So being broke and lacking other options I got drunk and played some Tekken/chess with Cory tonight. It was actually a really good time, talked about a bunch of shit as usual, always entertaining.

And now onto my drunken ramblings :P It occurs to me that as far as humans are concerned the true trick to life is finding the right people to spend it with. All the meaningful experiences in life seem to come from people you can connect with. Whether it be just great conversation, area's of interest/study where people have researched idea's you find fascinating, or art, where you find a deep connection with someone's work be it music, painting, etc. Being able to find those people who share some kind of common idea/interest/experience and have been able to articulate their experience in a way that's meaningful to you is a very special experience. It's funny because everything you can go through in life has in all likelihood happened to many people before you and it's just a matter of finding those descriptions/stories/songs that seem comforting for some reason.

I guess humans are truly just very social creatures when it comes down to it and need that feeling of connecting to something or someone. It's never such a bad experience if you've got someone to share it with, misery loves company as they say. So here's to all those connections people have been lucky enough to find, and here's to all the new one's you'll find throughout your life. As your situation/lifestyle/attitude changes so do the things you find meaningful, I suppose that's what growing up is all about. It's still a fairly profound experience if you can take a step back and see it happening in your life. Just looking back and thinking about what you valued 5 years ago or more and how much things have changed since then. Life will continue to be full of surprises, I'm curious to see how everyone is doing in another 5 years as the 18-25 year old are busy preparing for the rest of their life and then the 25-30 year olds are either building that previous experience into a career/family, or like myself are still trying to figure it out, and then I suppose we'll spend our the years between 30 and 35 transitioning into it.

I've definitely got off the track I had set for myself, which doesn't seem to be such a bad thing anymore. Don't get me wrong I was really looking forward to it, but it's funny how life kind of throws a monkey wrench into things that wouldn't have been quite as good as you thought. Forces you to take a look at yourself and what you truly want out of things.

Anyways, i'm gonna go pass out now, we'll see if any of that made sense in the morning.

Good Times

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:29:25 GMT

Yesterday was quite the day. Spent the first half of it running around getting supplies for the "housewarming" party. Got all stocked up and then had a little BBQ to start the evening. Man that food was tasty, we'll definitely have to have a few more of those.

The party went really well too from what I remember. The place wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be but the fire and the need to smoke kept a lot of people outside anyways. I actually got my brother to come out too which was nice. He's gotten a lot more social too. He had a few other siblings to keep him company too.

I took my bike to pick up more beer and wood half way through the night. Those bundles of wood are heavier than they look and I lost 3 beers on the way back. No one called the cops, had the fire going pretty much all night. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves, and minus Cory getting his digital camera stolen, I'd have to say it was a very successful party.

I spent most of the day cleaning up the house/sleeping. I wasn't as hung over as I thought I'd be, I did end up waking up in my clothes in my bed with my door open and the lights on though. I don't really remember the tail end of the night too well, so we'll see if I hear any stories of shenanigans over the next couple days. All in all it was a really good time and there was quite the turn-out.

Life

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 22:17:18 GMT

Well it's been an interesting little while filled with quite a bit of reflection and soul searching. I broke it off with Lindsay, I feel bad about it because she's such a sweet person. I was rebounding and looking for companionship, it was just bad timing. I feel like I need some time to myself to be completely selfish for a while. It's been a long long time since I've not had to worry about taking care of anyone but myself. This will be the summer of Marc and I'm looking forward to it.

I've also decided I fucking hate the management classes and am getting out of the faculty. I know why I applied in the first place. I was looking for a degree with lots of well paying job opportunities at the end. I was looking for something stable to start a family with. Turns out I would have fucking hated the school work, most likely hated the job, and the relationship (had I continued to be naive) would have been garbage as well. So really I'm glad everything happened the way it did. I'm going to take next year and bang out my general sciences degree and join the masses with useless pieces of paper. I can't get into the electical program at RRCC until at least 2009. This also works out conveniently as I will have something to show for the rediculous amount of time I've spent at the U of M. The classes will also be a LOT more interesting

Things seem to be coming together, and I find myself more content with everything than I have been in a while.