A Not-So-Long Weekend

You know, I had no real ambition to post anything this weekend... but since my weekend is already over (yes, I'm at work on the May Long Weekend Monday), I thought I would drum up a post for the Tales and make up some time. My May Long Weekend will actually take place next weekend with the US Memorial Day... the EDGAR server will be down on the 29th for the US holiday, so I won't actually be needed in the office.

A quick recap of the weekend...

Friday night - At the Yardhouse with Chris, Julie & her mate Gaylene. 74 photos on the camera, lots to drink... and a very long sorta night.

Saturday - Not hungover. Went for only my 2nd time in the rollerblades with Julie in the early afternoon. Went back to the Yardhouse with Chris. Actually shutting the place down. Snakebites & cranberry juice was the drink of the evening.

Sunday - Not hungover again! Family BBQ at Donna & Bill's house. Bought Napoleon Dynamite's 2-disc SE DVD set... a new batting helmet for ball... and a mini soccer ball, for no apparent reason. And back home to watch Napoleon as well.

That really sums up the weekend in the least amount of words possible. Now I'll try and elaborate a little bit more, but some of you guys only show up for 20 to 30 seconds, so the quick update should be enough.

It was rather fortunate on Friday afternoon that it was looking rather dead. There wasn't a lot coming in for either Lee or myself and Fred decided to let us ago rather early on Friday... I being out at 3:30pm, after the deadline for filing and Lee out at 4pm. So, the traffic was fairly light on the drive home. I was even home in time to see Jen off to camp. I didn't honestly think I would be at all... but I was. I wasn't around for too long before she had to take off and then... poof! She was gone for the long weekend. She had told me to expect Carly coming around and looking after Maggie, feeding her and such. And then when she left, Carly had actually called the house, just a little too late. I had told her that she could come by anytime if she felt the need to look after the cat, but I think I had told her it wasn't totally necessary.

Once all things were settled, I gave Chris a call... no one picked up. So, I decided to start my Friday night with the Ringer. I still hadn't seen it since buying the DVD and thought a good laugh would best be employed. Then Chris had phoned back after I got into it, but only about 15 minutes... so he came up and I started the movie again. When the movie was done, then we decided to head over to the Yardhouse to start all weekend drinking festivities.

On the walk over, Julie had called and asked if she could join us and bring a friend. Willingly, I agreed... and we continued to head over. We got into the pub and the Edmonton/Anaheim game was on... luckily, we only missed the first half of the first period and that really wasn't too bad. We found ourselves a booth to watch the game and wait for the girls. Chris and I were already well on our ways by the time we had gotten there... we had a few while watching the Ringer. We were in pretty cheeful moods. Ha ha.

When the girls had shown up, we were gettin' sorta bombed, since they arrived just before the third period as we were finishing our nachos. It got a tad odd as well when the girls had finally arrived. Julie and Gaylene seemed to have alternate ideas to our just sitting and getting drunk idea... which was really, all we wanted to do. Our goal was to sit, get drunk and just admire the talent within the establishment... the girls, didn't really seem to have an idea that was similar to that. Julie had an interest in Chris all night... which seemed somewhat uncomfortable for Chris, but was a little too drunk and made the best of it. Since Julie is actually my ex, it was a little odd to see her hit on who I was with... and it did make me chuckle all night. I would lean over to Gaylene and say how odd it was... and for the most part, I was actually okay with the whole thing... if Chris was actually okay with it. Eventually, I had pulled out my camera from my pocket and then it all went into a flashbulb set of memories. There were 74 pictures taken, but they're all on my laptop, which I hadn't brought to work today, so I can't post any of the photos with this story. There were some pretty funny pics that came out of those 74... and a lot of blurry ones. There is a chance I'll post a few of them on my MSN space, then they'll be in a slideshow format.

We didn't stay too late in there... I don't think. It was getting quite late... oh yeah, we made through to last call. So, that was pretty late. Chris and I saw the girls off and then went back to the house for another beer downstairs at his place. Julie had called twice or three times... I can't remember what for... knowing that I had hung up on her at least twice. Ha ha. I don't have a clue what we talked about. Chris was quickly fading away to the boozey sleep, so I finished up my bottle of beer and took off for the night. I actually went upstairs and started Batman Begins. Needless to say, I couldn't keep my eyes open for too long either. I passed out fairly early into the movie.

Saturday morning came without the hangover I would have expected. I woke up on the couch, Maggie lying over me on top of the couch and I was free of any ill effects of the night before. Hooray! I actually didn't have much of a plan for the day... couldn't really come up with anything to do except try and find the right trails on the rollerblades to get to work. Julie wanted to come with and she was online waiting for me to arrive on MSN... and so we had made eventual plans to go for a skate. I wanted to watch all of the Hurricanes/Sabres game, but she had to work in the afternoon, so I had to go earlier, if I wanted some company for the skate.

After the first period, I got myself changed and put my blades on and went to meet Julie at Eau Claire for our skate. So, we cruised East on the paths at a mixed pace. The sky was very overcast on Saturday afternoon, but it kept the warmth in and it was actually really good weather for a skate, until it really started to spit some rain here and there. The Bow River Parkway, the path, would be such a great skate if it wasn't home to all the transients and homeless near all the C-Train tracks along the river. The huge homeless shelter isn't far from the River and all the drunks & druggies hang out at the park, usually minding their own business. Julie and I met it to the Blackfoot Trail interchange which is where I'd find the bridge to skate over to Forest Lawn in about 25 minutes from Eau Claire. There were times that we were at a crawl pace as well, so it shouldn't really take that long to get to the bridge and then I don't think it'll take too long to get from there to here at the office. On the way back to Eau Claire, the rain started to spit more and more, making the ground a little more slick and it was certainly not gonna be good for the bearings, so we skated with a little more pace on the way back. Fortunately, we really didn't chat about the night before... which still would have been a tad odd. It was just to pass along a "hello" to Chris when I saw him next.

I made it home in time to watch the last few minutes of the hockey game that I had left earlier. Caught Carolina's second goal to make it a little closer, sadly, they couldn't get the tying goal to make it 3-3 and lost 3-2 to Carolina. I hung out at the house, sort of expecting to hear from or see Carly... since I hadn't seen her by that time at all this weekend. But that wasn't to be either. Instead, I just cranked the tunes, made some burgers and waited for Chris to finish up his running around.

Blah, blah, blah... and then Chris had shown up to my door with a couple of beers and the willingness to do something the same, but only a little different... no ex's. Ha ha. So, we got to the Yardhouse and found ourselves a decent table to view a good portion of the pub, yet not all of it, regretfully. But our waitress, Ashley, was great to look at and there was all sorts of talent in and around the place, so we didn't starve ourselves from the eye candy. Actually, we probably actually made up for what we lost in entertaining the girls the night before. The drink of choice for the evening was Snakebite and Cranberry Juice, which was actually really good. Since there isn't Blackcurrent Squash in Canada, to my knowledge, I had to change the Blackcurrant to something else, since they didn't have grape juice either. Cranberry it was... and I wasn't disappointed. Chris and I ended up closing the place down... Ashley was putting up chairs and we were few of the last one's there. We went back to the house and tried to watch Batman Begins again... and failed... again. I had passed out... Chris had killed the DVD player and went home, I was to find out last night.

I awoke in the morning to a lack of a hangover again... and again, little to no plan for the early part of the day. Maggie decided to cough up a major hairball and vomit on the carpet. That awful yellow shit and is just horrible... to look at, smell... ugh! I managed to use the BBQ tongs to move the hairball into the trash... I wasn't hungover, but that was really starting to make me feel sick. I tried to get what I could out of the rug. I looked underneath the sink and didn't find anything for carpets, so I still haven't really gotten the spot out yet. Plus, I was just out of the door to head down to Donna & Bill's place for the BBQ. I wanted to make a couple other stops as well to pick up some stuff and did that as well.

I picked up the latest issue of NME available here and Napoleon Dynamite at HMV and did a run to Sport Chek and found a mini soccer ball and new batting helmet, since I don't like any of the helmets that the ball team has.

The day for the BBQ was quite warm and sunny. A great day for a Sunday BBQ. Mom & Dad had shown up, Chris, Graham, Grandma and Uncle Dale's Mom, Pat (or Jamma, to the boys) were all around for dinner. Graham and I kicked around the soccer ball for a good part of the afternoon, played a little NHL 2003 on the PlayStation and hung out all afternoon. As it turned out, this was somewhat of a birthday BBQ... as the cake had come out after dinner. All the upcoming birthdays really did escape my head... Graham's birthday being today, he's turning 9... Dad's birthday is on Wednesday and Mom's is on Thursday. I'm sure if we didn't get together, I would have forgot until Friday, where I would have had to do all the guilt-full belated birthday wishes. Yikes.



Pictured, you can seem Mom & Graham blowing out the candles on the cake... Dad is behind Mom and managed to hide from the camera pretty well. Yes, I did bring the camera and got this shot as the only good one of the three.

It was a pretty early night... I had left around 8pm and was back home to enjoy a load of Simpsons and Family Guy episodes before loading in Napoleon Dynamite and Chris came up for a beer and the movie. And that was my weekend.

You can sort of argue that the lack of work going on today... that this is sort of a weekend day as well. But I did have to get up this morning, which I really didn't feel like doing at all... so... that negates that in any way, shape or form. I'm not too sure when Jen will be home, but I am sort of hoping that I can get some rug cleaner and make it home to clean the cat stain from the carpet before she gets home. I don't think I'll be that lucky.