Too Many Titles To Choose From

What did this weekend solve if anything... okay, nothing. The only real result of this past weekend has been somewhat of nagging injuries. This morning, I have woken up with a jagged edge on my broken tooth, a bruised hip, irritated skin in my armpits and tired legs. You'd probably think that I had a pretty poor weekend... but no, it was pretty good.

Friday night was pretty good... Benny and I watched the Flames/Canucks game down at the Wildfire after dinner. I didn't really spend much time drinking, 'cuz I was hoping that Barbara would call after the game, since the lucky girl was actually going to the game that night. So I managed to keep my sobriety during a Canucks 3-1 win over said Flames... which made for a generally profitable evening. Greg paid me the $20 he bet me and John, the next time I see him will owe me $10... woo hoo!!

During the game, Benny was pretty hard on me on actually waiting for Barbara to actually call me... since he had his problems with Theresa and all, he was very critical. And rightly so, for that matter... hey, if he's not the one infactuated, he'll probably give the best perspective... no matter how many Mai Tais the guy had. So in his critical-ness, he wagered me that Barb wouldn't call within the hour of the game ending... of course I thought I would take that bet.

I lost the bet. Now, I wasn't really all that fussed, surprisingly... I probably should have been. I probably should have sat there and gotten drunk and depressed at the bar... which I didn't. Instead, I went and bought some mix and Benny and I headed over to his place to go sit in the hot tub for a while.

An hour and a bit later... only one drink inside the house... a good lil' chat about all sorts of shit... it was pretty much time for me to head off. We were still planning to head off to Banff on Saturday and since I wasn't really getting overly drunk that night, I thought I would head home and get a load of sleep.

Saturday came and went in a non-rushed, vaguely planned blur... which was pretty excellent. Was up and about around 9am... just milled about the house until 10am, when I finally started to get myself ready to go for the day. Between the 3 S's and preparing the car for the journey, I was pretty much done just after 11:30am. I picked up Benson and Jeff and we were out of Langdon just before noon. It's a shame that it took over an hour to drive through Calgary on the long expansive route that I decided to try... in error. Next time, it'll be like the first time... Glenmore through town, to Sarcee, and out the Number 1. Easy peasy, lemon squeezee.

Once we finally made it out of town, it was a pretty good sprint to Banff. I think we were actually at Lake Minawanka (spelling?) just after 2pm... but I could be wrong. It didn't take too long to get there in the car... the traffic was pretty low and what was in our way, quickly got out of the way... which is more than I can say about traffic on workday mornings.


We arrived to a blanket of snow on the ground and some pretty cool winds in the air. After all, it is winter in these hills, y'know.

I gotta say that this picture makes me look SUPER fat... but I was wearing two jackets... my Chelsea light one underneath the big black thing. Holy moly... the first picture in weeks and I look like something the Ghostbusters would blast.

Anyhoo... it was a pretty good hike through the snow. Not quite as tough as the one weeks earlier, 'cuz this one we weren't climbing any hills. We walked around the paths, occasionally leaving the paths to engage in cockney voiced snowball fights in the trees.

And you know that I am always good for a goofy picture of some sorts, right? Right. This trip was certainly no different. Hey, climb into those logs and make it look like you're stuck.

Okie dokie... I can do that!

Ta da!!

The wager for the day was if anyone was to slip and fall on their own power... then they'd be the one buying beers when we finally got into town.



Unlucky!!

Shortly after rescuing "Pouchy," we climbed off the rocks we were stationed on and the first one down, Benny, obviously lost his footing and landed in a good tuft of snow. It probably just hurt his pride more than anything.

The rescuing of Pouchy though is worth another story... when climbing on the rocks, I was in some prime positions to get some really cool shots on Jeff's Aunt's digital camera. Jeff threw down the camera to me and when I was trying to take a picture, the batteries in the camera had died. So, the batteries were in the camera pouch that Jeff was to throw down to me as well. Moments earlier, the ice that was frozen over top of the lake had begun to crack and cave into itself... which was quite cool. A tad concerning since I was out on the rocks on the edge of the lake. Needless to say the rescue of "Pouchy" needed to be done when Jeff overthrew me on the rocks and the camera pouch landed on the frozen lake. Jeff wouldn't listen to Benny and myself try to dissuade him into saving Pouchy, but he was determined to get the pouch with the batteries, just so he didn't have to go get a new one. Benny and I were concerned that we couldn't reach it with anything or walk out and get it on the obviously weak ice that covered the lake... still he had to try. We did manage to find a giant, heavy stick on the ground... Jeff climbed down to work the poking end... he got it over Pouchy and dragged it in. I climbed down to the jagged ice as well to go and pick it up... we had rescued it, finally!

We climbed back up to the rocks in a big hurry though... the ice was starting to creak underneath us. Yeow!



And one more picture to illustrate the hike. Ha ha. We eventually turned back about an hour and a bit in, 'cuz we saw some pretty big Mountain Lion tracks on the ground. Jeff figured they were fresh and wasn't gonna stick around.

So, into town we went for the remainder of the afternoon and early evening... a stop for a couple beers and a walk around town before heading to the Hot Springs for a dip in the pool. Had dinner and watched the first period of the Oliers/Canucks game at a pretty lousy pub along the main stretch and then proceeded to head back to Calgary for the night out.

The night took us to the King's Head Pub... to Jill's house to pick her up... then to Ranchmans for a few hours there... then trying to get back into the King's Head and getting rejected... to heading downtown to the Bar Fly and watching one tune from Jill's heavy metal mate's band... to dropping Jill off back at her house... and then taking our weary selves back to Langdon for the remainder of the evening.

Now... what did I forget. Oh yeah... after the hot springs, we visited an ice sculpture castle. A life lesson for you kids... don't slide down and ice castle's escape slide unless you absolutely have to. I mean, the walls to keep you on the slide are good enough to bruise your hips if you're not careful... trust me.

When at the King's Head... Barbara did give me a ring and told me she got exceptionally drunk at the Flames game and hence didn't call. She was also heading home for the night as she was really tired as well... and that she'd call on Sunday between her choir practice and work. Okay, good... that was taken care of.

It was a pretty entertaining day and evening... everyone was well-behaved and nothing went terribly wrong.

Sunday was fairly lazy... didn't really fancy getting up to too much... which I didn't. I went and filled up the car again, since I did 428km the day before, thus consuming most of the fuel in the car. I thought I would fill the car up, just in case I got a chance in the small window on Sunday to go see Barbara... that way I would be prepared and ready to go if it were to be true.

It wasn't.

She texted me after lunch saying that she had woken up feeling kinda ill again and wanted a nap before heading to work in the afternoon. I'm again beginning to wonder about her...

For the Super Bowl, I was over at Jeff's for the afternoon and early evening... drank a few Brandy/Red Bulls and then a few more bottles of Keiths... ended up getting fairly drunk, but not too bad. I got home at a decent hour and was not hurting this morning... except for the injuries already mentioned.

Oh yeah, my tooth... while watching the halftime show and having a bread bowl with chili, my tongue got caught on a jagged edge... which was my broken tooth. It seems that a piece of it came off during dinner... and now it's really bugging me. I guess I might actually have to go see a dentist finally to have it removed. About the only thing I think Dentists are actually good for.

Dental hygiene is a scam in my eyes.

My tooth was broken because of a sports injury... the rest of my teeth are fine without dentists.

Well... that was my weekend. The week looks unclear at the moment... don't really know whats gonna happen. Tuesday night, I have a practice with the Street Hockey team... the tournament is this coming weekend. I'm gonna need some pics from that... that's for sure. Thursday is floor hockey again... another good tune-up before the tourney. I might have to go get some new equipment for the games... we're gonna be using frozen orange balls... and well, that might just hurt a little more than normal.

Adios!