Catching Up

Wow... have I ever been busy. Work has been quite overwhelming, well... almost. I don't know, between the deadline tomorrow and the heat over the past couple days, posting on the Tales has been put on the backburner, due to lack of desire.

I also haven't had any desire to take much for pictures... or any pictures for that matter, so there isn't going to be any here today.

Tuesday night... it was a few at the house and then a few at the Yardhouse. Chris and I went there after Jen had taken off for somewhere, I forget where now. It was super-warm in there, I remember, like it has been the last few days. Krystale was our server again, but we weren't quite sure it was her for the longest time. Ashley was about and was chatting with us on and off... she had mentioned how wasted she got with us with all the tequila shots. That was pretty good for a laugh. I'll probably head in there on Friday night to see if she wants to come for the England match breakfast... wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I had made mention of it on Tuesday, but we'll wait and see.

Yesterday was quite busy... a lot of the bigger annual filings were coming in and I was doing my best to sort through them and do the ones that I had received the day before. Fortunately, everything had worked out alright and the filings have been going really well.

Last night... the Royals won again! I think the final was 8-6 against CBA. I went 2-for-4, including a single, double and got robbed of getting on base in the last inning, beating the throw from second by a clear step, yet still getting called out by the ump who was standing behind short. Oh, I wasn't pleased. Still a good game nonetheless.

This morning was clearing up a lot of what was left behind from Wednesday. Two more larger annuals and then seven smaller filings that were really easy. There have been lots of edits and phone calls back and forth from my arch-nemesis of a client in regards to their annual. Actually, arch-nemesis is a little harsh, although they are trying. My arch-nemesis clients had switched law firms that dealt with me, but these new guys are doing their best to wind me up a little more with changes upon changes. It does sort of want to make you pull your hair out, as I'm trying to teach people again why things happen during conversion. Argh.

I can't really see myself going too nuts tonight with doing anything. Julie is back in town from Northern BC... I had mentioned to her that tonight might be a good night for a skate around the park. So I'm to give her a call when I get home to see what she's up to.

Tomorrow is deadline day, officially... and the last day before a 4-day weekend. Woo hoo!! If all goes to plan, then I should be out the door on time on Friday afternoon and I won't have to worry about anything until Wednesday morning. Get in!!

Saturday morning, I'm making breakfast. Chris said he'll probably come upstairs for breakfast and Jen will be up as soon as I am... hopefully Ashley comes by. Maybe I'll see who else can come later on. I think Benny might think about coming into town tomorrow night. I should give him a bell after work.

And that'll be that.

Cruisin' Along

Well, how 'bout them Cruisers, eh?? Still undefeated after a narrow-margined game, which I think finished 11-7 to the good guys. It was actually a pretty entertaining game and everyone had a good go, on both teams even. I think it was the Wildcats that we played last night, which were a pretty good team last year, as I overheard last night. A great first inning where we got seven runs and then the defense slowly got picked away. Everyone seemed to have quite a bit of fun, but it seemed like a few of the guys were a little sore from losing as it was their first loss of the season. Mwah ha ha!

Met up with Benny when I got to Langdon last night... hadn't seen him in a little while. He was off to the System of a Down concert at the 'Dome last night, so we only stayed for a couple. Langdon is soon becoming to me, the land that time forgot. Well, at least the Wildfire Pub may be. It sure is one of those places that just stays the same despite the ages. Granted, that sounds very vast, but it does have that feel.

Visited with Ma & Pa last night... didn't really get to stay too long. Just sorta caught up with everything that's goin' on, which wasn't too much. Mom's still pretty busy at the Bindery and not really getting up to too much otherwise. And well, I saw Pa on Saturday at golf... so, not much different there either.

The workload seems to be unstoppable here today at the office. Just when I finish a couple big ones this morning, another couple are already in the inbox. The June 30th deadline is fast approaching and the clients are doing alright for getting their stuff in in a reasonable manner. I got quite a bit done already this morning. I'll probably do quite a bit more to keep myself ahead of the game this afternoon.

Tonight will more than likely be a laundry night. I'll probably go get some buns for some hamburgers for dinner... maybe one of those large tubs of salad too. It could be a coleslaw kind of good time.

And then from the "Only In Forest Lawn" file...



I don't know what part of the woodwork this comes out of, but Lee has lovingly called this trio, "Jebediah, the Amish Pimp." That doesn't quite work, 'cuz of the rascal... but what else are ya gonna call it?? Comments?

Before I Really Post...

... I thought I would put on another one of those personality tests that I see around. I'm always curious what the snapshot of now produces.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion 56% Stability 63% Orderliness 53% Accommodation 50% Interdependence 43% Intellectual 63% Mystical 16% Artistic 50% Religious 10% Hedonism 56% Materialism 56% Narcissism 56% Adventurousness 56% Work ethic 23% Self absorbed 63% Conflict seeking 23% Need to dominate 30% Romantic 76% Avoidant 16% Anti-authority 36% Wealth 23% Dependency 23% Change averse 43% Cautiousness 63% Individuality 76% Sexuality 50% Peter pan complex 83% Physical security 83% Physical Fitness 57% Histrionic 10% Paranoia 63% Vanity 56% Hypersensitivity 16% Female cliche 43%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Not So Quiet

Well, Friday night didn't turn out to be all that quiet. It would have been nice to be a quiet one, since I was scheduled to go golfing the next morning, but no... it wasn't.

I called up Chris with the idea that yeah, we'd go out, but it'd only be for a few and that'd be that. Jen was going to go out to another bar with Natasha, Betty & someone else who was lurking in the house, but when Jen went to meet the girls at the Sunnyside station, I thought it was a perfect time to sneak out and get away. I went downstairs to meet up with Chris, but he was just a little too slow and the girls had arrived back at the house and Natasha was looking for a ride home so she could get her vehicle for the night. Much negotiating later, Chris and I finally got away and we headed over to the Yardhouse.

Upon arrival at the Yardhouse, we were met inside by Ashley. It was kind of busy in there, not overly packed or anything, but we found a table in her section and then it all sort of went downhill from there. We had sat down and she had come over to chat and take our drink order and then she mentioned it was a "tequila night." Well, Chris didn't quite believe her and was keen to call her bluff, so after she had come around with our first pints, he ordered a round of tequilas for the three of us. She was quite alright with that... downing the first one without any hesitation. Then Chris got to thinking, in a very enthusiastic way, that she wasn't going to do another one soon. He was absolutely convinced. But when we ordered another round at the beginning of our second pint, she was not hesitant again to drink it. Shocked... Chris ordered yet another one. We all had 3 shots of tequila before we finished our second pint of Keith's. You see what I mean about downhill?? It was so downhill, that the timeline started to get a tad fuzzy...

Eventually, the girls showed up tot drink with us. They were going down along Stephen Ave to a bar to watch ona band that Betty had interest in. She's in a band or something herself and was scouting some sort of talent, but they had come and met us rather early. I had suspected such and encounter and had mentioned it to Chris fairly early. So, I got a "I told ya so" moment out of it. Ha ha.



Jen & Betty (pictured) brought along Natasha and Inga (pictured below), but Natasha didn't really stay very long again. She's either very thrifty or cheap... 'cuz I think she goes over to Molly Malones where she has probably provided some entertainment to a bartender or two for free drinks all the time.



Inga is a traveller from Germany. I didn't quite catch how she met Jen and/or Betty and started hangin' out with them, but she was along for the ride on Friday night. She was visiting a few people in a few places in Western Canada, heading to Red Deer this week and then down to Abbotsford and Vancouver the week after, before heading back to Germany.

It turned out to be a rather uneventful night, yet mildly expensive... I think I dropped $95, not that I wanted to, but I did. So, that kind of sucked... especially for wanting a quiet one. Went home, made a drink and then passed out in bed, with the drink next to my bed. Ha ha.

8am came with a phone call... I had forgotten to set my alarm and was already supposed to be in Langdon for 8am, rather than just waking up. We had a tee time for 8:56am at Oxbow, which is just before Strathmore on the number 1 highway. Dad said to just meet him and the other guys there, Harold and Doug, part of the Crilly Close neighbourhood, were joining us for the 9 holes. So, I pretty much just put my shorts on and went out the door... pretty much wearing the exact same outfit that I wore out the night before, no shower, nothing. In my rush, I had to stop in Chestermere for gas or else I may not have made it out there. When I arrived, they had already got to the tee box with the carts and clubs in tow. Oh my.

I wasn't feeling my best, I'll tell ya that much. I was doing okay in the rush to get there, but once I stopped and sat in the cart, forget it! I slowly fell apart.



It was such a gorgeous day, as you might be able to tell from the picture. Just blue skies at 9am, just starting to warm up for the day. The four of us could sure talk a good game of golf, but we all managed to hit in the 50s for 9 holes. Me being the most handicapped of the bunch, the rest of them all being somewhat sober, got beat, but not that badly. I shot a 58 in the end and I think the lowest round was a 51 or something, so I didn't feel too bad. If I could have had any sort of judgement for my chipping and approaches, I would have done much better. My driving and putting were fine, if not better than normal, I just couldn't get it up and down on the green to save my life. I did end up with one par though, so, I can't be too disappointed about that.



Afterwards, the Saturday was pretty much just left to myself in the afternoon. Jen was at her Dad's house for a birthday BBQ again... I think it was actually her Dad's birthday this time, so she was away for the afternoon and most of the evening as well. So, I just sat on the couch, watched a bit of footy, fell asleep on the couch and woke up intermittantly and then watched the NHL Entry Draft at 4pm, falling asleep again for the last four picks of the first round.

Then out of the blue, Paul, the fiancee of Jen's friend, Jennifer (there are just way too many Jennifers around here) called me up and wanted to know what I was up to. He wanted to go for a couple brews and have a quiet evening. I managed to finally shower and lay in front of the couch for a little bit longer before he came by and picked me up. We went back to his place not too far away from our house in Kensington, had a couple beers at his apartment, watched a bit of TV and then went over to the Yardhouse, yet again. He had never been... him and Jennifer always went to Original Joe's, which is one place I don't really like. So, I showed him the Yardhouse and needless to say, he was pretty impressed with the talent in there. We only had a couple beers before taking off... it was an okay evening. Between the two of us, we had tons to talk about, but Paul is a guy that doesn't quite have the same sense of humour or really have one at all, so there isn't a lot of laughing, which makes for a little bit of an awkward situation from time to time. He's an alright fella, but a little tough to get along with.

Was up early again on Sunday morning for the England/Ecuador match... I got up and went down to the Drum & Monkey for breakfast, a couple pints and England winning 1-0 on a David Beckham free-kick. There's lots of support for the England side in all the pubs in town, it'd seem. I bet those are the matches that frequently get a ton of custom from the locals.

And then much like Saturday morning/early afternoon, I just died on the couch again. Jen had gone to work after her Christining that she went to. At 1:15pm, I remembered that I had a ball practice at 2pm, already blowing off (or forgetting) the Hooligans game that was at 1pm. After the last game with the Royals, there seemed to be a cry for a good practice this past Sunday, so I thought I would get to that instead of skipping it for the slow-pitch game. Well, I kind of wish I blew off the practice, because for a while there, I was the only one at the practice with Coach Tom. I think it was about an hour before Munden even showed up... he was having problems with his Mustang and didn't make it to the ball diamond before 3pm. It wasn't too bad though... I got to work on a lot of things that I thought I needed at second base and then when Munden showed up, we worked on a few more infield ideas and worked out a few more of the kinks that we may have had.

We kept our 4pm appointment at the batting cages, which was awesome. It was just the three of us for a half hour-45 minutes (or so) and we got to just swing away and work on our bunting. Fantastic! It was such a great day for that as well.

When I made it home after practice, Munden had called me up and said that his car had broken down and was walking towards his sister's place. I went downstairs grabbed Chris and we went for a car ride to pick him up and drop him off at his sister's, before we headed down to the pub again.

A few pints later, $20, to be exact... we headed home and it was a relatively quiet one. Finally!!

It was nice to be in bed at a decent hour, although the heat was quite something. Since it was warm all day yesterday, the house really bottled up the heat, despite the front door being open and the fan going all day. But by midnight or 1am, I had shut the fan off, while going in and out of sleep and that was pretty much that.

And now looking forward through the week... it's probably gonna be a busy one this week. This is the actual deadline for a lot of annual financial filings, if companies didn't do it for the SEDAR deadline at the end of March. There isn't a great deal of these companies left for me, but there are a few. I'm waiting on some documentation for a rush or two today, but they've only got an hour left before the filing deadline today... I'm kind of hoping that I don't really have to stay late. I got a couple others done that are due for tomorrow and Wednesday, but there will still be a few more left to conquer before the week is out, including a couple new clients filing their annual reports and such.

I've only got ball tonight and Wednesday night... with a possibility of playing Thursday as well, to still make up for that postponed game from ages ago now. I'm out to Langdon tonight to improve on their season and then against CBA with the Royals, a team we can defintely beat.

Yup, so that's pretty much it... just sort of waiting for the shit to hit the fan here at the office for now, I figure it's gonna be soon.

Sore and Uninspired

I'm beginning to think that the ball in the face caused a little bit more than just bruising... I'm almost thinking that it could be a fracture, if anything. It really kinda sucks. There has been quite a bit of discomfort the last couple of days, but nothing that a couple Tylenols couldn't solve for a few hours. Even last night, I got home and took a couple more Tylenols after work, but I was still up at 2:10am this morning taking a couple more. I should have had a couple before leaving for work, but I didn't. So I might have to find a drug store at lunch here to find some more. I grabbed some Tylenol Extra on Tuesday, but it does say more for migranes and not general pain. D'oh! The good news is, I haven't had a migrane...

Wednesday night, there was a good indication that I wasn't gonna play ball at 8:45pm... 'cuz around 6:30pm this came down here in Calgary...





I mean, the rain and the hail just came down in one huge dump for about 15 or 20 minutes. I would have thought the storm would have lasted for quite a while, but this is Calgary... and Calgary gets tons of spot storms. Hell, even in 3 minutes of the massive hail, this is what accumulated on the window sill...



I didn't have much else to do Wednesday night, but by 7pm, everything had cleared up and I still got dressed to be at the batting cage for about 7:30pm.

The ball game went really well on Wednesday night again. I didn't quite have the stellar game that I would have liked... 1 for 3 with a bunt single, but I got a hold of the ball in the two that I flew out with, but they were still outs. Not a lot of work on the basepads either, so it was a pretty quiet night for me. We still won 5-1 over the Boomers, a team we've had little trouble with this season. Our defense and pitching came out well again... Alan pitching the first 5 innings and Aaron closing the game out. The vodka & Rockstar and adrenaline kept my jaw from being too much of a nuissance as well, which was nice. I was chattering again, after being fairly quiet on Monday night.

It looks like I'll skip the game with the Hooligans on Sunday... the practice seems to be rather important with the Royals at 2pm... good thing the England match is on early on Sunday morning. A late start would really suck...

Yesterday was a pretty steady day at work... steady at doing nothing! I figure it's the calm before the storm, although today hasn't been all that busy either. The look for next week could be a tad busy, which is okay. At least I'll be prepared for it. Next week is the deadline for a lot more annual filings, rather than the March 31 deadline... the June 30 deadline is for the companies that don't file much with the Canadian markets... which there are still a few left, but I've filed 3 already this week, making next week a little less stressful.

Last night was a quiet one at home... just stayed in and finished off the beers in the house and watched some TV. The aching kept me on the couch and Chris was busy, so we didn't hang out at all yesterday. The rains seemed to avoid us last night, as they were expected through town... I think tonight it's supposed to storm again. Don't know what I'm doing, although Jen has made mention that she's goin' out with her speed-skating friend and all of her friends from Vancouver. Jen invited me to tag along... twist my rubber arm, eh??

The weekend could be a quiet one... with the injury and all, I don't suppose I'll get up to too much. Dad wants to go golfing tomorrow morning, which sounds good to me. We'll probably go to Oxbow in Strathmore for a round if we can book it. It'll be my first round of the season. Sunday will have the England match and ball practice... that'll be good.

I'll probably have a 4-day long weekend for Canada Day and Independence Day... get the 3rd & 4th off for the office closing... that'll be great.

Tegan will be here on the 8th 'til the 12th for the Stampede... go to the grounds to see Nelly Furtado and Sam Roberts, I think is the plan.

It's all coming together now...

Now Writing More

Yup... I've got myself a new Bloggin' job over at the Most Valuable Network, writing for Canucks Rush. I got a little bit of a reputable spot to write about the Canucks on a regular basis with it's own network of marketing and sports fans, instead of me just writing here on Blogger and being done with it. I don't think it'll actually be a part of the Opiated Sherpa Productions officially, but unofficially, that's where you'll find more about the Canucks rather than posting all my opinions about them on my day-to-day Tales. So, do head over there if you're lookin' for more about the Canucks.

Man, does my face ever hurt. My broken tooth seems to feel a lot better, that I knew would get better just fine, but the swelling in and around my mouth, not to mention the bruising really made sleeping uncomfortable last night. I was up quite a bit after 2am, finding new ways and places to sleep and then eventually taking two more Tylenol to try and calm down the thumping. That seemed to work just fine, 'cuz I was able to sleep until my alarm went off, plus a little bit more due to my lack of sleep. I thought I would give myself an extra 20 minutes in bed, to make up some of what I lost. I'm probably gonna have to grab a couple more Tylenols if I'm gonna play ball again tonight. Thank goodness tonight's game is the last one until Sunday. I won't be playing with the Cruisers as their game has been cancelled, due to the opposition pulling out of the league after the schedule was made.

Got to watch the poor performance in the second half by England yesterday at work. There was such hope and excitement watching Joe Cole volley from distance and then put a great ball on Steven Gerrard's head to go up 2-1... but the set-piece defense was awfully suspect and cost the team dearly. There's gonna be a lot of practice of set-piece defense leading up to the weekend's match with Ecquador.

Pretty quiet night around the house last night. I didn't really get up to too much... Jen was in and out with Natasha and another friend of her's... damn... forgetting her name. I had just met her last night, so the memory slipped a bit. I'll remember sometime, I'm sure. The three of them had gone out for dinner and Natasha got pretty sloshed... so she was hittin' on me, both physically and flirtingly. What an odd girl.

I ended up watching Ocean's Eleven again before bed. That is an entertaining film. I saw a spot about making Ocean's Thirteen and thought to myself, I have Eleven on DVD, maybe I'll watch that, 'cuz there's nothing else on TV. That's pretty much all that was achieved last night.

A Win-Win Evening

Would you believe it? The rain stopped and it was actually quite a bit of blue skies. I got home around 5pm, watched some Simpsons and a little bit of whatever I could find on TV, then called Tom to see if the game was still a go. He said he drove by the fields, everything still looked alright and that it was sunny out around Shouldice, so everything looked good to go. D'oh!

It's pretty safe to say that I didn't really wanna go and play ball last night, the game was on. But I got myself dressed and took off for the ballpark around 6pm and started to get warmed up. By the time the ballgame was supposed to start, it was already 1-0 Carolina.

To no real surprise to me, the team we were supposed to face last night, didn't completely show up. Actually, there were two games supposed to go on the diamonds, but only one team on each diamond was actually full. We warmed up and then had a meeting on the mound, Tom said that we could go home right then, take the win, or play a makeshift team and the result would somehow count, win or lose. Well, I was quietly saying to myself, 'let's go home,' but all the lads aren't as big of hockey fans as I, so we stayed. Dave went over and filled the last roster spot on the makeshift team and we played ball.

Munden led off the game for us with a home run, 2nd or 3rd pitch, straight into the tree, right behind the left field fence. An early 1-0 lead for us. That was as much as we could muster for most of the game. Thankfully, Alex pitched an awesome game and the defense was pretty good, even a 4-6-3 double play in the 2nd inning... even after taking yet another errant hop in the face.

Finishing up the warm-ups in the top half of the second inning, Ryan threw down his practice throw to second, as if to catch a guy stealing second, but his lack of effort didn't even make the throw close. It moved me to my backhand and was so short that it had to take a couple hops, including one that jumped away from my glove and into my face... right above my mouth on the left side of my face. Man, did that ever suck. I was spittin' out blood from the cut in my gums, but I was still okay. There was a little bit of a ring, but nothing major. It actually took away the concentration of my bothering tooth for a while. Nevertheless, I stuck it out and it was that inning that we turned the double play.

In the top half of the fifth inning, still up 1-0, the makeshift team was starting to find ways of knocking around the first guy who hit on Alex. With a runner on third, one out, Alex came out for Alan to try and close out the inning, but unfortunately, there was a Sac Fly out to Derek which scored the runner on third and we were tied 1-1.

The bottom half of the inning, we could generate any offense. Top half of the sixth, I almost retired the side with one pop up in the infield and then a very slow liner to me at second, before Alan struck out the third batter and we were up in the bottom half of the sixth.

Top of the order came up, Munden, then myself, then Aaron... Munden grounded out to short, one out. I thought I would try and lay down a bunt to just reach base, but my first attempt down the first base line rolled foul. I watched strike two, which I thought was a little wide, but it was still called. Two balls followed. The 2-2 pitch I found and skyed it into the right-centre gap. Whoa!! I got on my horse and was moving... rounded first, rounded second and even got about half way to third before I finally realized that Tom was trying to stop me. I put on the brakes and as I turned around, the ball had already been thrown to third, so I was able to make it back to second without a problem. Aaron came up swinging and grounded to the second baseman, advancing me to third base. Alan was intentionally walked by the pitcher, so then it was first and third with two out. Alex was up next and he grounded into a Fielders Choice, but everyone was safe, including myself at home on an error by the shortstop... 2-1 Royals. Ryan then came up and the result was another groundball to the shortstop, who made no mistake the second time around, but we were up by one going into the seventh and final inning.

Well, Alan just mowed them all down. A couple more fly outs and struck out the last batter in the game and we had won it, 2-1. It was quite the game, I must say. Everyone seemed to play well and it was certainly one of the more memorable ones for myself. Everything worked well in the field and the bat came up clutch finally for me this season... so I'm pretty pleased.

Afterwards, I knew it was 2-0 Carolina with about a couple minutes left in the second, the last time I called Chris. After the game was done, I called him again and he said Edmonton had just scored to make it 2-1 with 18 minutes left in the third. So, I packed up quick and jumped in the car and headed home. Finally, got to the house and just went downstairs to watch the final 10 minutes with Chris. So, luckily, I got to catch the end of the game, Justin Williams scoring the empty-netter and all the celebrations.

A congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes for winning last night. Cam Ward was awfully deserving of the Conn Smythe, he certainly played some MVP hockey in the playoffs this year. When I woke up this morning, CJAY 92, the local radio station that I listen to was going on about a debate, although awfully late for political reasons, about club and country, when cheering in hockey. Now, I'm sure if Edmonton won last night, they'd be all happy & gay, but they didn't and they were justifying why that was okay. This is the same argument I've been asked about when people find out that I've been rooting against Calgary and Edmonton through the whole process.

Let's not forget people, I am a Canucks fan. In the Canucks' division, are the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers... they are considered rivals. I don't want to cheer for my rivals, despite both of these teams being based in Canada... and the fact I actually live in one of these cities. I am a hardcore, die-hard Canucks fan and nothing is gonna change that... not even a Cup run by a rival.

"Oh, but don't you want to cheer for Canada?"

Cheering for Edmonton is not cheering for Canada. Cheering for Canada in a World competition is cheering for Canada. Edmonton is a club team that has more than their fair share of European players. Both Carolina and Edmonton are a mixed bag of nationalities and walks of life, that they don't represent any one country. They only sing the Canadian and American anthems, because that is tradition for the countries that are represented by the cities. That's it.

So, I'm glad that Carolina won... I didn't want any division rivals to rub our nose in a Cup victory this summer. It would have made it all less fun.

Splish Splash

There's the rain!! C'mon, rainout!

Ugh! Ouch! Eh?

Oh man... I think I might keep the recap of the weekend a tad short. Yesterday's festivities have taken quite a bit out of me... and really, I don't feel like doing too much writing.

Friday night... I didn't end up going to see Nacho Libre with Natasha. She didn't show or anything and nor did I really want to go, to be honest. Instead...



Snakebites! Yes!



Jen, Chris & I sat out on the porch having drinks for a while in the evening. Here are the two, fighting to use the bathrroom. You thought they were hugging, didn't you? No, no... they're wrestling and trying not to piss themselves either... ha ha.

We all sat out and drank until Jen's friend Jesse came over with her boyfriend and some other guy, who were at a pub earlier. This Jesse girl is quite harsh... one of those big girls, who is just big. Big in size, big voice... just too much. Well, Chris and I were getting rather uncomfortable, so we headed over to the Yardhouse for a while.

There, Kendra told us about Danny and why he was fired... apparently it was for giving out lots of free booze. I knew I liked him for some reason. Actually, Chris and I always seemed to remark that we had some smaller tabs with him than with other people in there. Friday night was the only night that Ashley was working as well. She said hello and flirted a bit... but didn't show up when we invited her to come by after she finished her shift. No worries.

Saturday, woke up in time for the Czech Republic/Ghana match... what an upset that was!



Jen was on the couch with Skinbag for most of the morning... she was slightly hungover from the night before. She doesn't quite handle the alcohol as well as some. She watched quite a bit of the match with me, but got dressed and took off for a while. The match was still on when Natasha showed up with a dog that she was looking after. She hung out and watched the end of the match with me... then took off.

For the afternoon, I decided to head into the core for a while. I wanted to kill some time and pick up some CDs.

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I ended up buying Wolfmother and the new Snow Patrol album. When I got home, I started playing them... that Wolfmother is really good. Very sorta Led Zeppelin. Snow Patrol was okay... I do like the single Hands Open, but the CD might be a grower.

The evening's plans was to watch the hockey game down at the Yardhouse. It was pretty packed in there by the game started... we hung out at the bar and just watched the world go by. Edmonton found themselves on a roll and won Game 6, much to the delight of the Oiler fans and pseudo-Oiler fans. I was still sort of pushing for Carolina... I didn't want there to be a Game 7 tonight, since I have ball tonight. Sadly, the Oilers won... oh well. On another sad note, Chris and I didn't get blasted. We tried... but failed. Our tab was $100 between us... and we could perform almost every sobriety test, except for possibly the breathilizer. Not that we were driving... I'm just saying.

There was also some tense anticipation Saturday night, 'cuz I thought I may had lost Maggie... I went to go visit Chris before we headed out and the back door swung open on me when I was downstairs... and i couldn't actually find her when I looked around. But I didn't actually feel that obligated to look... rather making up excuses in my head as to how she ran away. Luckily, when we got home, Jen was already in bed and not stressing at me... so I knew she was still in the hosue. Phew!



Sunday... got up for the Brazil/Australia match, which was mighty good, I must say. The Aussies should have done better than to lose 2-0, but that's football for ya. After the match, I was dressed and out the door to visit the folks in Langdon. I took them for lunch at the Wildfire for Father's Day... had a couple with the ol' man and Ma. Went back to the house and lubricated some squeaky spots on the car and then went off to ball.

The Hooligans won again, 13-7 against the Creatures. I played a few innings, going 0-for-2, flying out twice. For the rest of the game, I kept score and had a good laugh. A guy who was umping for the Creatures at-bats was totally trying to make bad calls... including one in the last inning. With a girl on first, there was a groundball hit to Jim at second. He placed a pretty hard tag on her and finished the double play by lobbing it to first. Well, buddy behind the plate called 'no-tag' and everyone on the field was dumbfounded by the call. This girl, rubbing her chest in discomfort from the tag, began to walk off the field saying 'I'm not gonna help him,' knowing full well she was out. Oh man, I laughed my ass off... that was just too funny. He even glared at me, 'cuz I was laughing so hard. A few guys from another team who were watching were also having a good laugh at his expense.

So, by the time I got home, I was already 5 beers in... 2 with Pa & 3 at the ball game... and I got bored really fast playing poker downstairs with Chris. So, I persuaded him to go to the bar with me. He slowly concurred, thinkin' we'd only be there for a little while. As we walked past, Natasha leaned out of Starbucks and gave us shit for going back to the bar. She then eventually showed up and we were there for a few more than a couple. Crikey.

I'm getting the feeling that Natasha is beginning to chase me a little bit. Why?? I have no idea. She does have a weird way going about things, which is probably the reason why I'm not in a big hurry to let her get too far. She's been a tad promiscuous in her young career, which is both intimidating and a tad unreliable. She doesn't hide this fact either... rather, she does boast about how horny she gets. Hey, I get fired up quite often myself, but I'm not exactly going around announcing it to the world. Ah well... live and let live, right?

There's a 60% chance of rain tonight... so there is the possibility that I might not play ball tonight and end up watching Game 7 after all. I will have to make a phone call after work to see if we're playing ahead of time tonight.

My broken tooth is killing me today. I can't wait to get home and get some Sensodyne on it and maybe a couple Tylenols. This slurpee isn't numbing the pain at all. Well, I think I'll go watch the Spain/Tunisia match now. Since I've gotten everything done so far today.

Rain Here, Gone Later

The miserable gray is still upon us. The overcast sky, the rain... but I can't say that I'm really miserable. Actually, it's making the grass green and it's got a sense of renewal upon it... and that's much better than the dry grass. Besides, I'm still in the office, so it isn't like I'm playing outside and it's wet out.

Yesterday's adventure to sort out my broken sunglasses was a little bit of a laugh. I drove home and decided to take the train down to Chinook, before heading to the pub with Chris for a couple. It was payday yesterday, so it was time to sort out what needed to be done.

At the Sunglass Hut in Chinook, I was sorting out my new pair of sunglasses when all of a sudden Randy, Sue & Amita were giving me a hard time. I was talking to Randy earlier in the day and they were down at Chinook looking for sunglasses and then to check into the Dell kiosk which happened to be right outside of the store. But while sorting out my shades, I was told on the phone that they didn't have any of the specific model of glasses I had just broken in Canada, so I would have to settle for a new model. I wanted to stick with the Nike's, because of the orange lenses. I really like the orange... what can I say? So I picked out another pair of Nike glasses with orange lenses, which looked awfully similar to mine.

Actually, Jesse, when I was driving him home on Wednesday night, he was telling me that he was looking for a pair of my glasses a while ago... he works for his Mom at Crown Optical, where you get glasses, of course, and said that he wasn't able to find them and the closest thing he could find was one's without interchangable lenses.

Well, I thought when I looked at these new ones, these must be the ones that Jesse was talkin' about. But when the girl who was helping me took them up to the desk, the obviously more senior girl working there asked her if she grabbed the other set of lenses. 'Ummm... nope.' I was actually greatly relieved to hear that there were interchangable lenses, but then the next question sort of shocked me... 'do you want to keep the old lenses as well?' I was like, 'will they fit?' I popped one of the old lenses in and wah-bam! She then leaned over and said, 'these glasses are exactly the same as your old ones, but see the swoosh... this is silver where yours were orange.' They were the same model, different swoosh... so different model number. I waited a week for a silver swoosh that they had in stock already. 'This place is run by monkeys,' she said apologetically. Too funny.

Afterwards, I hung around with the Gore's and helped Randy purchase his new PC from Wayne, the Dell guy at the Kiosk. Then... had myself a bite to eat, since I didn't quite feel like cooking before goin' to the pub, with the Gores. Had a small chat with them all... all good fun. Then it was back to the train for me.

Got on... and didn't even make it to the tunnel before 39th Ave Station when the train just stopped. I thought to myself that we were gonna switch tracks or something... you know, a maintenance sort of thing. So, I sat and read a Blues Festival brochure/magazine for in town... but that only kept my interest for so long. I had Clap Your Hands Say Yeah goin' in the mp3 player... that was okay at least. Then over the C-Train intercom, a timid East Indian voice came on and said we'd be sitting there for a while as they try and sort out what we were doing since there was a line down at the intersection at 36th Ave SW. There would have to be shuttle buses launched and blah, blah, blah... so I gave Chris a call and his unsympathetic ear was laughing his ass off at me... but was also kind enough to come down to Chinook, where I eventually ended up, to pick me up. Then it was out to the pub for us!

At the pub, Ashley was very intent on telling me that she was watching the England game yesterday morning. It was quite sweet... she also sat down and chatted a bit with Chris and I. We only stayed for a few... unlike most times... ha ha. We got to know the names of a few more who worked in there. His favourite, Definition Girl, is named Kendra... it was so funny that drunkenly mentioned the nickname we had for her. I almost pissed myself. We had also met Jamie, a very cute bartender in there... curvy in all the right ways... and super-nice too. See... this is why the Yardhouse is so good.

Afterwards... we grabbed a slice of pizza and was done with it for the night. I stayed up and chatted with Jen a bit... then she went to bed. Watched some TV... then went into my room and chatted with Julie on MSN until something like 2am. Ridiculous. The drunk setting in quite well that the decision making was a little hindered. I think I just passed out not long after 2am... or before.

Today was a long day... getting up to the soothing sound of rain falling, didn't really make me want to get up. Especially on 4 hours sleep. But I did drag my ass up... yawning all the way to the shower. I was out the door a little later than usual... but no biggie. Work hasn't been much of a challenge. A few projects kept me relatively busy all day... getting some filing work sorted for a new client of mine. Some complications, nothing major to hurdle over. Since this morning, the sun has come out... the sky has cleared up a bit... and it looks like I'll be usin' my sunnies on the way home tonight. Yay!

Tonight, by the sounds of things, Natasha wants to go to see Nacho Libre tonight. I certainly want to see it, but it seems rather odd that Natasha wants to go with me. Oh well... sounds like a good enough excuse to go see it then.

Until later...

No Rain Out Last Night

Royals 9 Us Guys 4. Aaron pitched some solid innings and then Alex (pictured) closed down the bottom half of the last inning to give us our 7th win of the season. We're now 7-6 on the season, but I think we can even be a bit better than our record says we are. Alan put away a huge three-run homer in the first inning, which sent the bench absolutely nuts... Dave almost knocked his first out of the park last night, but it dropped against the fence and onto the warning track... Menzies hit the warning track as well, unfortunately his was caught... Josh had a really strong bat... and everyone seemed to hit.

I had a pretty good night before getting pulled for the last half of the game. I actually made it up to bat 3 times in 3 innings... going 2 for 2 with a sacrifice bunt, a double and a run scored. The pitcher wasn't coming in with a lot of pace and I seemed to do alright with him. I did end up going to the batting cage last night before the game... Jen wanted me to give her a back rub and I wasn't really up for it. So instead of listening to the nagging, I left the house early and went to the cage for 100 balls.

I took a few more shots with the camera after getting yanked... Jesse was back from a knee injury last night and played 3 innings as well. Then it was me and him on the bench...



It was good to have him back... although he was rarely used in the game.

The field last night was pretty wet, with a few puddles, namely in the on-deck circle... the infield was just solid clay and the shale just wasn't really movin' at all. I took a groundball to my forehand, just coming up a little short, 'cuz I just couldn't slide on my knees to pick it up. I actually had a pair of grounders that went that way, the second one had so much spin it was hard to pick up and bounced out of my glove and I had to chase it a bit afterwards. A more forgiving ground would help so much more.

After the game, we had ourselves a little bit of a team meeting... but I was in such a rush to catch the end of the hockey game. I had been on the phone with Chris on and off when I was on the bench getting updates. After the meeting, Jesse and I went over to the closest pub to the diamonds and watched the end of the game. He needed a ride home and I said I'd give him one after the game. The game, going into overtime, but only lasting 3:31, was pretty exciting. We got into the pub with about five minutes to go. It was quite good.

I dropped Jesse off, he doesn't live too far away from the office, in actual fact. We had a good chat about sports and moving out and all sorts of other stuff. I was tellin' him about my trip to England and stuff like that as well. He's only 18 years old... good kid. Plays a ton of sports, a lot of baseball and football. American football, that is. (Gotta remember who my readership is...)

Man, did the rains ever come down last night. It was only starting to sprinkle when I pulled into the house, but when I went to bed, the thunder and lightning kicked up a good storm and it poured almost all night. There was one point that I remember waking up because it had stopped raining and there was a significant drip-drop sound going on outside my window. How annoying. It was easy to get back to sleep, but crikey!

This morning, it is just pouring rain again. Coming down in buckets, if you will. Memorial Drive was full of puddles and traffic was relatively slow this morning. Bunch of sissies.

It doesn't look like I'll be watching the England match this morning. It kicks off in less than an hour and well, I didn't get the okay to miss the morning at work, which I'd have to do to watch it at one of the pubs downtown. Dammit! Listening to it on BBC online radio will have to do, I suppose. Well, time to get what I have to do done... then I'll probably update the playoff pool... it's good we're gonna get a Saturday game... that way I can watch the whole thing. Come on Carolina... I don't wanna be playing ball for Game 7.

Some Pics on Bloggers Day

Greetings to all ye fellow Bloggers... this is my 2nd International Bloggers Day and I've gotta say it's much like the first one. I really don't have much feeling... a sort of numbness about the whole thing. For me, Blogging is one of those things that I like to do, more for me and people who want to keep up with what I've been up to. I don't have the greatest of memories in the world, so when I can write everything down and illustrate them with pictures, then it brings everything back so much more. Maybe one day, I'll be a famous something or other and people will find the Tales and say, "hey... this newly-famous guy had this Blog and now we can know all sorts about him." That would be good too. We all know how in-depth people like to get about their celebrities. So, to actually have an International Day celebrating Bloggers and Blogging, it makes me wonder... is the world actually that depressing that we need to celebrate every little nuance on Earth?

Anyways... that's my little rant for the day. It kinda feels nice to spout off a bit like that. Plus, that's the first thing anyone will see when they surf me on the Exchanges. Ha ha. Nice.



Well, the Crilly Close Cruisers are now 5-0 after a good 14-11 win in Langdon last night. We played a pretty good hitting team, but really didn't have too much for defense... and our defense just did enough to keep them from scoring the necessary runs it would have taken to beat us. All in all, it was a good game.

There were also a couple good action shots taken that I'll share here...



When I was behind the plate umping the game, Cory came up and I got this shot of him hitting a stand-up triple. I can't believe how good it turned out.



Dad got this one of me knocking a groundball up the middle. I think I had an RBI on that hit as well. Last night I went 3 for 4, 2 RBIs and a double.

That was pretty much the only action for the night as well. I went home to see the folks after work, played with Dewey (the bird) a bit. The bird does remember me... takes a while after not being home for a few weeks, but then she's hangin' out with me as per normal. Mom's still workin' away at the Bindery... they have lots of big jobs on the go. She part of a little gang at work, aptly named by one of the stitcher operators, called the Bindery Bitches. Apparently, there might be some t-shirts made up. Ha ha... that'd be so funny.

Oh geez... how 'bout the storm last night in Calgary. Thunder... lightning... rain... and lots of it. It came over the house just after midnight... or just before... whichever... and rocked the house. For a while there, I thought Jen might try and sneak into my room 'cuz she'd be getting scared. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. It was a doozy of a storm... too bad it happened so late or else I would have been outside tryin' to get some shots of it.

This morning, it was pretty dreary on the way into work. Really dark and misty rain came down. I'm beginning to wonder if we'll be playing at all tonight as there is more rain in the forecast, although I have heard from Trevor that it might clear up this afternoon. I'm kind of torn... I would like to play ball tonight, but I'd also like to watch Game 5 tonight... as it might end tonight. I'll have to call Tom after work to find out what's goin' on.

Anyways... probably gonna go watch the Germany/Poland match here soon. Get something to eat first and then sit down in front of it. Should be a gooder.

Less Winded

Well, I don't think today's entry will be quite as long winded as yesterday's. Man, that was a long weekend. And there's no better way than to recover from a long weekend than watching World Cup football at the office. Yesterday, despite the few filings that were left for me, I wrote my long-winded post and watched the Czech Republic whomp on the USA. Fantastic! I sure do like those Czechs... good footballin' nation.

Today, I got to watch the France & Switzerland and pretty soon I'll be watchin' the Brazil & Croatia match. France was absolutely shit this morning... or afternoon in Germany. I thought it would a little bit better of a match... hell, Switzerland shoulda beat 'em.

Last night's excursion to the Yardhouse for the Oilers & Hurricanes game was alright. Didn't stay too long... didn't spend too much. Kind of a shame Carolina won though... I don't want to miss the deciding game on Wednesday as it looks like I probably will. Dammit.

Looks like I've gotten myself another writing job... online. I will write more about it when I get a chance. For now, that's all I'll give ya...

Got a MySpace message from Karly yesterday... she was sorta apologizing and wondering if we were still friends. I'm like... 'yeah, why wouldn't we be?' Oh yeah... Jen. Ha ha. Nah... it's all good... I really didn't feel quite as strongly as Jen... nor did I wanna be included in her rants and raves about everything.

Got an e-mail this morning from Sue... Hi Sue!! She's still popping by the Tales for the read. Good to see. When I get a moment after the match, I'll be writing her back. Just in case you see this beforehand, Sue... the reply is coming!!

And otherwise... that's pretty much that. Two good games of football on TV today... can't complain. Doesn't look like I'll be able to watch the England game on Thursday morning. It's on Sportsnet at 10am... so, a) I won't be able to sleep in THAT late... and b) we don't have that channel at work, so I'm outta luck there. I'll probably listen to it on the BBC site while I work away.

Tonight... off to defend the perfect season in Langdon. The Cruisers are supposed to be playing tonight, barring too much rain.

And today's picture... the office building I work in. My office is in the top-left hand corner of the pic. It's a corner office! It's the EDGAR office, but I'm the only one in it. So... its mine! If I knew I was gonna write about where I sat in the building, I would have paid more attention to detail in the photo...

Long Winded

This weekend didn't really feel to me to be a good writing weekend. So, what I did was last night, I just saved a draft of an entire outline of what I did this weekend so I could write about it at work. Today, I only have four small filings to look after for today and one slightly bigger one for tomorrow morning. So, I think I'll have all sorts of time to complete what I did this weekend as the day goes on. I didn't really grab many pictures from over the weekend, but there are a couple down the way, so I'll start the streak up again here and now of posts with pics.

Alright, so I think I'll get started this piecing together of the giant puzzle. Well, it really isn't a puzzle, it's just gonna be quite a bit of writing today. It's a good thing that after I wrote that first paragraph, I did what I needed to do for today. Woo hoo!

Okay, so Friday night was gonna be a quiet one for me... or I was gonna die trying. Ha ha. I needed to do laundry really badly and I wasn't gonna let too much stop me... unless it was a damn good offer. Jeff had MSN messaged me about possibly going out with the lads, Benny & John... but I didn't think that was at all gonna happen.

I got all my laundry started, but I then noticed that I didn't really have a great deal of laundry to do exactly. It was only a couple loads... but it still needed to be done. I was hangin' out with Chris as Jen was still sleeping upstairs. We were having a few beers and then she decided to get up... we could hear her through the floor upstairs, with her heavy steps. She's a really big heel walker. She came downstairs and whined that she wanted to get a new outfit at Old Navy... and whined, and whined and pleaded that I took her. I couldn't say I was really keen on going out anywhere, but I did finally realize that I needed to get to the Sunglass Hut in Chinook to see what I can do about my broken sunglassses.

We piled into the car and braved a bit of the tail end of rush hour traffic to get down to Chinook. She shopped for ages in Old Navy and finally got herself an outfit. I tried my best to help her out picking something out as she was a tad slow and I didn't really want to hang around in there, as I find it's a bad store to hang around in. After she had finished up, we went down to the Hut and I checked to see what my options were. The girl there said I was still within my warantee, by a week, so I should call Nike and if they can't do what I need, I can replace my shades by paying half of what they're worth, which is $90. So, now I know.

I finished up my laundry when we got home... Chris had to work Friday night at the hospital, doing his electrician stuff... so I was pretty much by myself. To no surprise, Jeff didn't call me back when I was out or back at home, so I knew I was in the clear for doing nothing all night. I just bummed around the house, Jen took off around 8ish to meet up with Tony to go to A Bar Named Sue, supposedly meeting up with others to make for a good night.

I packed up and went to bed around 10ish... seeing as though I wanted to get up for the England match in the morning. Unfortunately, by 11pm, Jen and Tony arrived back at the house, awfully early, which sent Costas nuts 'cuz Jen was home, squeaking his stupid toys... which made it kinda tough to get to sleep, but evenutally I nodded off. I was about ready to toss the stupid dog off the back porch... I had some pretty evil thoughts when that squeak-toy was being squeezed.

Saturday morning arrived at 6:30am... when the alarm went off. It took me a moment to finally realize why I had my alarm going off at that hour, but when I finally clued in, I was pretty quick to jump into the shower and get into my England shirt. I was out the door just before 7am, with the idea that there shoudl be somewhere playing the game in Kensington. I walked down to Kensington Road to find that none of the bars were open, let alone showing the match. So, I had to run back home and climb into the car to find somewhere else to go. I quickly drove down to 17th Ave... thought the Rose & Crown would have it... nope. The Ship & Anchor had it, but I couldn't get in the door after 7:15am. I thought maybe Shanks would be open... drove all the way down to Heritage... nope. Another bar on the way advertised World Cup Soccer... nope. Only replays. So, drove back into the core... I heard someone say Drum & Monkey... sure enough that was open. I did manage to finally get in there for the second half, which the only goal (the Paraguay own goal) was scored in the first half. Nevertheless, now I know what's going on for matches. I got a pint in as well... hey, everyone else was!

The result for England was a positive... they got the 3 points, which is key, but I guess the general consensus is that it could have been better. They could have scored a few times, but sadly, that wasn't the case. From the second half, I thought Lampard's strikes towards goal were the better chances. I won't really buy too much into the weather being a factor, although it may have been hard, but both teams had to deal with it.

After the match, I went straight home... found Tony & Jen on the couch watching the Producers. I had only seen the first bit with Jen when she rented it, so I sat with them and watched the remainder of the flick and had some coffee. It was still only like 10am, so it was still rather early.

A trip to Safeway later that morning uncovered a pleasant surprise... I found Black Currant juice concentrate (or squash, for my English mates). Hooray! The small bottle of it still ran me $7, but it was totally gonna be worth it when I make Snakebite & Blacks.

Jen took off for work around 1pm... she wanted to study a little bit more for school before she got started. And then I went to go see what Chris was up to downstairs. He wanted to head over to Home Depot to pick up something and that would be his only chore for the day. So, I waited for him to get ready by watching a little bit more of the World Cup upstairs... I think it was the Argentina/Serbia match that was on at the time and by the time he was ready to go, Argentina was already pretty much set with the win. So, Chris and I headed up to the Home Depot on 16th Ave, not far from the SAIT campus and then over to the liquor store to pick up some pre-drinking drinks. The plan being that we'd sit and have a couple Snakebites and then maybe go to the team BBQ or maybe head over to the Yardhouse to watch the Oilers game, to be decided later. It was a good plan. We picked up some Strongbow and a case of Sleeman's and headed home.



The Snakebite Crokinole Challenge was on... I brought out the board and mixed up a few drinks and we were off. I made up a makeshift table of boxes and we played on the front porch, while watching the world go by. Chris rather handily won the first game and I took the second game, by a much closer margin. We actually played at a reasonable competitive level... which made for tons of good laughs. The board is quite old and has its quirks, which makes it all the more fun. But once we got goin', our games actually lasted for quite a while each time.

By the end of it all, I had decided to skip the BBQ and watch the game with Chris. I knew if I was to go out with the lads that it would end up being a crazy-expensive night and with Chris at the Yardhouse, we may drink, but we'd only be paying for our own and it wouldn't be too crazy. When we showed up, we had about a half hour or so before game time, which was the plan, 'cuz we wanted to be sure we got a good seat that WE picked... not so much having our seating dictated by the number of people in there. Chris reckoned that we sat just away from Ashley's section if she was working... which she was, so we actually sat at the bar, which proved to be a very advantageous position... both for the hockey game and talkin' to Ashley. She had come over and said hello... she had done some homework on the World Cup and stuff like that and she was more than willing to tell us all about what she learned. By the time the game had started, there were people sitting in the seat separating myself and the drink pick-up for all the girls. Still, nevertheless, I got in the sly little smile everytime I could.

The Oilers pulled out a narrow victory, even after being the best team for all of the 60 minutes. It looked as if Carolina wasn't going to have any of it in the third, after tying it up, but the Oilers held on and took advantage of an Oiler bounce to win the game. To be honest, Chris and I did a good number, for a reasonable price, and the game is a little bit fuzzy... but I do remember it being a half-decent game to watch.

During the 2nd intermission, I remembered that I didn't do the little bit of dishes that were left in the sink. Chris had given me the peer pressure lines to leave 'em, so I did. So, I was gonna run over to Starbucks and just warn Jen that they weren't done. Unfortunately, when I got there, she was already gone. Natasha was sitting in there doing some homework and was actually talking to Jen on the phone. She had already been home a while and did the dishes... she was expecting some company, but appreciated the fact that I would try and cut her off at the pass. When I got off the phone, I invited Natasha over to join us when she was finished up with her homework... and she did.

Natasha was being quite odd on Saturday night. She would come over and say hi... not have something to drink... disappear for a bit and then come back, sit down hum and haw over a drink... and then finally, Chris decided to just get her horrifying shots and pretend that they were really good so she'd do them. Ha ha... evil. Chris had actually bought her a Prairie Fire (Tequila & Tobasco) and I managed to get her reaction on the camera when she did it...



Priceless. That's what you get for leaving, coming back, leaving and then coming back again. Oh we laughed and laughed... especially when I brought the picture out again. It was totally worth it all... even the stern talking to we received afterwards from her. Ha ha. The bill for Saturday night wasn't too bad... I thought it was gonna be a lot worse. Thankfully, we got taken care of by Danny, one of the bartenders there. He's a pretty cool dude.

Again the way home was a little sketchy for memory... but I'm pretty sure we did the pizza thing again. It's so convenient and after a few hours of good drinking, we do need a little bit of a snack to tide us over until the next day. I remember getting back to the house and sitting downstairs in Chris' half of the house... and we weren't there more than 5 minutes before Jen rang me and told us to keep it down. Yeesh... we didn't even have a chance to get loud at all. I didn't stay downstairs too long... I think I just finished up my pizza and took off.

I went upstairs, found the computer still on in my room and Julie was online on MSN. Since she's been at camp in BC for work, she's been workin' some really odd hours. So, I was drunkenly harassing her, not to mention being a tad... oh, whats the best word for it... suggestive? Yeah, that would work. I might just leave it at that.

Sunday morning at 8:30am... woke up to the cat pawing at my door looking to get in. I was more exhausted than hungover... actually, the hangover didn't really exist at all. All I wanted to do that morning was just stay in bed and keep to myself... even though Jen had already gone to work and the house was pretty much all to myself. I still wanted to stay in bed. I relented though... I think I stayed an extra hour, got up to watch some more footie and debated whether or not to go play ball with the Hooligans. Since I had actually said to Wayne the last Sunday that he could expect me most weekends, I thought I'd do as I say and show up.

I didn't leave for the 11am game until 10:45am... it doesn't take me long to get to the ball park, especially on a Sunday morning. It only took me a few moments to get up there... but even when I did get there, I was going to be a sub for the game anyways. So, instead of getting my cleats on right away, I kept score. The game was very close... the Hooligans just pulled ahead 6-4 when the rain and hail came in the middle of the 5th inning. The substitutions had been named, but since we were going to take the field as the away team in the bottom, I didn't get to play until the storm stopped coming down so hard. When it did finally stop... we resumed play and then the team decided to turn it up and beat the crap out of the other team. The scored finished up being 19-5... a few good scoring innings in the back half of the game... I went 2 for 2 at bat, getting caught in another rundown the second time on base... but scored a run on the double I hit earlier. I was actually pretty glad to get out and do it... especially, since I wasn't feeling too bad in the morning.

I had a missed call on my phone from Coach Tom... there was going to be a batting practice at the cages for 4pm... which wasn't going to be a problem. So after the game, I went home and died on the couch. I turned on the TV and sort of dozed off to the footie that was on, in and out of sleep until Jen came home from work just after 3pm. She was off to her Dad's place for a BBQ and birthday dinner. So, she wasn't home very long... in and out the door.

When I finally came to and realized that I should leave, I got myself together, put on my hat, grabbed my wallet, put on my jacket and went out the door. After I locked and shut the front door... guess what... I fuckin' locked my keys inside the house... AGAIN! This horrible sense of guilt began to wash over... as I had to call Chris, wake his ass up from his lazy napping and get him to pick the door open. He was able to give me an overview of how lock-picking actually worked, which was quite interesting. Maybe if I get myself a set of lock picks... when I get a couple more keys cut... and a can of WD-40... and I'll learn how to figit with locks myself. I do have a fear that my unsteady hand may work against me in those sorts of situations... but its worth a few bucks to try, since I haven't been very handy with my keys of late.

Chris got me in the house finally... I grabbed my keys and headed out to the cages. The team was giving me a hard time about not showing up to the BBQ on Saturday night, but I told it wasn't my best interest to be driving after the amount I had to drink after starting while the England game was live in the morning. Not completely true, but not completely false either. I was able to hit a few balls and hang out with the guys for a little bit, but it didn't last too long.

Then the highlights of the rest of the evening was signing up to Doyle's Room online poker... the site that Chris plays on all the time and played a few hands with some play money. I was actually doing pretty well until I made a dumb move and tried Jeff a game and lost to what I thought may have been a pretty major bluff. I was wrong... but it was only play money. If you want to find me on there, you can IM me there... my handle on there is osherpa.

That in total was my weekend... pretty long winded, I know... but that's what I'll do if I outline it for myself first.

Didn't Really Wanna Post

There hasn't been a great need to post today... I haven't really felt obligated to do so either. But here I am, posting... again. A slurpee on my desk, the keyboard in my lap and not a lot else on the go leaves me with nothing better to do than post. Unfortunately, today my streak of posts with a picture will be snapped... it wasn't very long, so I'm not all that disappointed, but it does make a big difference to have some sort of illustrations to go with the stories.

The low natural light outside has lessened my motivation for working and writing... in the office we don't really turn on any lights, we're much more comfortable with them off... except for maybe Ernest. He'll usually have the light on in his office. But since I have 5 windows in my corner office... or the EDGAR office... I get lots of natural light and don't really have to worry about the flourescents.

Last night actually turned out to be a pretty good night... although a tad costly. When I was on the way home, I gave Chris a call and we made plans to go for a couple again (snicker, snicker) and just have an easy one, but first I would have to start a load of laundry. As soon as I walked in the door, Jen walked in through the back door... she finished putting a load of laundry on. D'oh! In lieu of these developments, I sat down and started watching the Simpsons until Chris called and said he was ready and sitting on the porch waiting for me. Shoes on... keys in pocket... no camera... and we're off.

We ended up at the Yardhouse for about 4.5 hours last night... when we got in, Ashley flagged us down to one of her tables and was quite intent on serving us. She was very flirty, which is quite nice as she is quite hot, and very attentive as I turned out to be more thirsty than hungry. Surprise, surprise. The bulk of the evening was pretty much staring at her wonderful self... she was wearing a black ensemble... a nice one-piece dress that when she took off the shawl over her shoulders, it revealed her shoulders and a little bit of her back, which is actually somewhat of a turn-on. Vroom. It was damn-near impossible not to look. It would almost be criminal not to look.

Chris was pretty sure Ashley was flirting with me the entire time last night... I didn't really think so, as I'm not really that greedy, but there was lots of eye contact and smiling, which makes ya all warm & fuzzy inside. So, Chris' main points of interest was how to play 'the game' with Ashley and he had come up with a lot of rules and a good plan as well. He is about 10 years my senior... so I'll take heed to some of his advice.

So... when it was time to go... which was two drinks prior to when we actually left... we paid up and just headed straight home. I passed out before setting my alarm last night. Yeah... whoops! I slept for an extra hour than normal, which only put me to work on time this morning. Probably another reason why I didn't want to post this morning. Ha ha.

I'll be heading home in about an hour now too... woo hoo for an early day. I'm hoping to get that laundry done. Jen is supposed to be heading out tonight, so I might just relax with a beer or two and hopefully get a load of sleep and be up early in the morning for the England/Paraguay match at 7am. I'm gonna have to find somewhere to watch it... Ashley said that they'd probably be showing it at the Yardhouse, so I might have to walk over there tomorrow morning.

It's A Tad Wet...

On a rainy Thursday morning, one of the few things I didn't really feel like doing was working with the network to get mine and a couple other machines back online here in the office. It's a good thing that I get in so early... it makes the panic a little less stressful when not many of our clients think we're open that early.



I come into the office this morning and my computer isn't on the network and isn't accepting any new e-mails. That's the mess that I have to sift through to plug & unplug routers, hubs and modems to get everything back up and running again. It just looks like so much fun, doesn't it? I suppose it could be worse, but it's hard to think how.

I'm glad that there isn't really anything to do this morning... I worked on four filings that were due for today and all but one are filed... and it's just on 1pm. Woo hoo! There's a good chance that I'll continue doing my hockey pool statistical review for next year. Preparation is almost as fun for me as the actual doing of the draft and the pool. Weird, I know.

Last night was Royals vs. Rusty's again... and what a game it was. Rusty's is the best team in our league, I've heard that they are undefeated in the league thus far in the season. We wanted to come out and avenge our loss from the previous week, where their ace pitcher kept us off the board... period. Well, last night... the ace was back and we had the task of trying to hit off him again.

The first few innings were a bit of a slow start. We couldn't seem to get the bats working... a little bit of this and a little of that, but we couldn't generate any runs. Defensively, we were fine... except for me. I haven't honestly taken enough grounders with runners (quick runners at that) to really be confident enough to throw ALL of them out. My glove works fine... I'm knockin' them down or scooping them up, but I had another bad throw last night which led to an unearned run and possibly the second of the third inning. But once we got up to bat in the third, we got it going again. Munden hit a great triple into the gap and I brought him home on a sacrifice bunt. The ol' squeeze again... and it worked like a charm. Then were only down 2-1 after three innings. The next few innings were tight again. But Alan pitched a strong game... the defense again were pretty good... and we held them until the 6th inning, where the team got on the bats again... Alan came across to score as did Aaron on Ryan's RBI single... we were up 3-2 going into the Top of 7... the last inning. A groundball through the middle and a big hit to the right field corner tied the game up at three... and then Alan just sort of lost all control, Munden came on in relief, but by the end of the inning it was 7-3. Unfortunately, we got mowed down in the bottom half and that was the final.

Jun 5 - Royals - Win (13-2)
Jun 7 - Royals - Loss (7-3)
Jun 11 - Hooligans @ 11am

My line last night was 0 for 3, sac bunt, RBI, 2 Ks. Not overly impressive... I found it really tough to see the ball out of the pitcher's hand all night. The reaction time is cut so short due to the small distance between the mound and the plate. It's not like the fastball pitches in the cages... the distance is far greater, which I can see all the way in and I can take 20 pitches at once and see them all clearer.

Yay!! I just filed my other filing that was due today. I think after I finish posting this, I will send a few e-mails reminding people of some outstanding filings that need to be done and then get some billing done. I have to earn my pay somehow.

When I got home last night, Jen had gotten the keys back from Karli as the Three's Company experiment had been completed, without much fanfare. Lately, Jen had been feeling rather clausterphobic with Karli coming in and out of the house at will, since she had keys it was really easy to do. Jen had given her keys to look after the cat once and Karli never gave them back to her, especially after Jen said that Karli could hang out at ours until she finds somewhere new to live. So back to Jen being clausterphobic... and mildly paranoid... this is what I've gathered in fly-on-the-wall situations (as I don't need to ask, I'll just be told or overhear Jen, as she's kinda boisterous from time to time).

1. Karli and her new boyfriend Dave like the drugs. Not just the minor ones, but the real head-fucking ones. That I kinda already knew from hanging out with Karli from time to time.
2. Karli "lends" money to Dave for said illicit drugs, because Dave doesn't work to support his habits, so I am to believe.
3. Karli has less-frequently shown up to work at Starbucks.
4. Karli and either Dave or her ex, Mike hang out at the house when neither of us are around... Mike being the one that Jen can trust and Dave... not so much.

So these were sort of the points of concern for Jen... and to some degree myself. Let's face it... an unemployed drug-user historically doesn't have the best record in the trust department. There are stereotypes for a reason, people. Now, I wasn't totally aware of all of this until yesterday, 'cuz I didn't think Dave was that bad of a guy, but did sound rather faulty due to some of the backstory I had overheard. But I'm not really nieve this way... eventually, due to lack of job, he'll get desperate. And since Karli hadn't shown up for a long period of time for her shifts at Starbucks, she had gotten the boot from there... so the desperation math keeps on growing. The blanket of trust was looking rather vulnerable around the smoldering desperation of chemical dependency.

As it turned out (or as the story goes last night from Jen), Karli had shown up to Starbucks to relinquish the keys and Jen confronted her about all the issues that I had noted above. Now Jen can come off rather abrasive in her upfront, take-charge sort of attitude, although she does mean well and doesn't always want to offend a lot of people. Unfortunately, 20 year-old Karli couldn't see past what looked like a scathing attack. Granted, I wasn't there... I don't know. But it does sound relatively possible. Jen was pretty worried yesterday that since she had notified Karli of the troubles or worries she'd been having that Karli would come by when Jen was at work and I was at ball and do something really silly. So she employed Chris to look over the place while we were out. Ahhh... what a great situation to be in.

Thankfully, by the sound of it all, it could be done now. I'm kinda hoping so.

Tonight and Friday night, I'm hoping to have quiet ones. I don't necessarily want to go out. My bank account saw some pretty good hits over the last couple weeks and could see some more painful excursions in the near future. Saturday, there is a team BBQ at Tom's house, from where the lads wanna go out into town afterwards and party it up. Eek. I would really like to go out and ham it up real good, but I don't want the financial burden of it all coming back and biting me on the ass. We'll see. Maybe I'll play good guy and drive a few of them around... it makes much better sense to me. Let them do all the work. Ha ha.

Not this weekend, but the Father's Day weekend... Alan has invited me out to Carstairs for a ball tournament with his team. That sounds like a gas... don't know what the costs are around that and I don't know if there is anything going on around here to make for sure plans. I'll probably call the folks on Sunday and see what they're up to at least.

Another tournament is getting looked into for the weekend of the 24th of June in Sicamous, BC as well. Alan is trying to organize that for the team and I've gotten the okay to take the 23rd (the Friday) off. That could be expensive between travel and hotels... eek. This is sorta what I want for the year... quite a bit of ball. I'm a tad unsure of how serious I wanted to be, but the team is looking pretty keen to go, so why not?

Anyways... I think its time for some billing to do and then maybe some more hockey pool work. Man, is it ever miserable outside.

As Benny Always Says...

"I hate stupid people."

This poll question was found on the Jam! section of Canoe.ca this morning. This really winds me up a bit. Let me ask you this question... how many times did the Fonz jump the shark.

The answer: once.

Happy Days never recovered from Fonzie waterskiing over the shark... so the term was coined. If a TV show is still "long-running" and with no plans on stopping, have they really jumped the shark. No.

If the term "Jump the Shark" is going to become a cultural phrase, let's make sure that everyone understands the meaning of it... and if you've tried to answer the poll question here on the Tales... please... put your helmet on.

Karma Was Against Me Yesterday

A series of unfortunate events... some are costly events.

I don't know if it was Karma in the end or something like an energy meter in a video game, since I was pretty down-trodden all day yesterday about the mildly outlandish text message I sent Barb on Monday night, everything just seemed to feed on each other, creating a small snowball effect that really didn't do me any favours.

I couldn't say work finished too horribly though. I really didn't have any idea of what was going to happen upon leaving the office. There are those days where I have the "Impending Sense of Doom," but it wasn't yesterday.

The plan for the evening was rather simple... I picked up a game of "orthodox" or half-windmill fastball with Alan last night and that was basically going to be it. Meet him and Munden and the batting cages at Shouldice for about 7pm and we'd go from there. Okay, no problem.

The commute home was actually pretty decent. Not as many idiots as the average day might suggest. The day was quite nice and I managed to sneak a quick pic of the core from Memorial Drive, right before the 4th Ave. Flyover.



It was awfully bright out yesterday... and that picture really tells the story. It is sort of bland without any rain for the last week or so. Nothing is really green... it's just dry.

Anyways... went home, made dinner... Karli was at home with her "ex", Mike... didn't seem too ex-like, really. They were talking in that tone of voice which was low and somewhat intimate, although the subject matter didn't really match up... but hopefully you know what I mean.

It occurred to me that it was Tuesday and that the Be Your Own Pet CD would be out... so I ate up in a hurry and packed up the car and drove up to Market Mall. I had never been up there before... lived in Calgary for so long and never had been to Market Mall. I was always wondering why people talked about it so highly... then I found out. It's actually a really nice mall... and it has all the stores I really like... like Jersey City, Play, HMV and a few others. I checked in both HMV & Play... neither store had it, which led me to believe it was a US release only yesterday and it hasn't been released in Canada. It's been in the UK for ages now... but I want it here! I think a trip on eBay will do wonders for me. I really gotta sort that out.

So, without a CD in hand, I went down to the ballpark, stopping at 7-Eleven for a slurpee first... only to arrive there fairly early. I think I was about a half hour early... so I toured around some of the parks, watching some of the ball I was to be playing and some soccer as well. It didn't seem like too long before Alan showed up at the cages, so I walked over there, chatted with him a bit, grabbed my car, brought it down and we chatted a bit more. Munden had called saying he wasn't gonna show up... so that just left me and Alan. Not knowing what time it was, 'cuz I didn't have my cell phone on still, I grabbed my batting stuff out of the trunk and wanted to go hit a few. But for Alan, it was 20 after 7pm and he usually likes to get to the park early to start throwing as soon as possible. So, instead, I turned around to put my stuff back in the trunk and then...

'Oh shit.'

'You didn't?' Alan replied.

'I think I did.' I felt around my pockets... 'Yup, I did.' I had locked my keys in the trunk. Dammit. So it begins. Alan and I poked around the car trying to find the easiest way in. The trunk release wasn't working, it started that a couple weeks ago, so it wasn't as easy as that. Alan didn't have any good tools in his truck at all. We couldn't figure out if we could get the backseat out. Man, talk about frustrating. In the end, Alan let me have his keys to his truck after I drop him off at the diamond to go get my spare set from the house.

I drove home, waited for a bit... turned the phone on, called Chris, see where he was. Then realized, well, I should just go get the house key, since mine were in the car, from Jen at work, so I took the truck over to Starbucks. I would have walked, but I couldn't figure out how to get the key out of the ignition... it seemed like there was a trick that I just wasn't getting. As it turned out, when I shifted the truck into Park, it didn't go all the way, hence the ignition wouldn't lock and I couldn't get the key out. Argh. So, I went over, grabbed the key quickly, back to the house, got the spares, drove back to the ballpark, dropped the truck off, took off back to the car and there on the car, was a parking ticket. Fuck! A $40 ticket since I wasn't technically a customer of the batting cages. No shit... I knew I should have said something to the guys at the desk. Fuck! So, I unlocked the door, then went back to the trunk... the spare key was a service key that wouldn't let me into the trunk! Fuck! That was my only spare key. Now what?!? So, I drove home no problem, played around with the trunk a bit more and then went to speak to Chris, the expert lock-picker. He was busy on the phone, but would come and speak to me after he was done.

So, now I'm utterly dumbfounded by the way the evening had gone. I had no idea when or how I was gonna get into the car's trunk, I was still rather depressed from the text debacle and I honestly thought it couldn't get any worse.

Chris finally came up and we chatted a bit. We looked at the lock of the trunk and inspected the service key and Chris went back down into his place to see some theories about how he could get into the trunk. It wasn't too long before he came up again and suggested that we could try to pick the lock on the trunk and I was alright with that, since my passport (aka. wallet) was in there as well, not to mention my camera and some of my ball stuff which I would have needed for today anyways. We went back to the car again and he took his tools and went to work. I went into the backseat to investigate whether or not for sure I could get through the backseat and into the trunk. My sunglasses were bothering me on the top of my head... I don't even know why I was still wearing them, as it was quarter after 9pm and the sun wasn't exactly overhead. So, I put them into the little holder in the middle console of the car. I investigated and Chris picked... and he beat me! Hoorah! As I sit back to get out of the car, my ass caught the corner of my sunglasses in the console and as I slid to go out... SNAP! FUCK! ARGH!

The resolution to the big problem, which probably would have cost me $50 to fix... now cost me my $180 sunglasses. 'I can't win!!!' I yelled when I get out of the car. I got my stuff out of the car, we investigated the trunk release switch from inside, Chris figures I just have to lube it up a bit, thanked Chris for his hard work, promised him a beer, he promised me a lock picking lesson and went inside to stew over my now sunglasses problem.

I sat and I stewed for a while... Jen headed off to bed at 11pm, so I thought I would too, knowing full well that my restless state that I was in was not gonna get me to sleep any time quick. I just laid down, listened to my mp3 player and eventually, when I don't know, but eventually, I got to sleep.

This morning came way too soon... I picked up my stuff and went out the door. Came to work, no problem... well, besides to no sunglasses... and worked diligently to finish up what was due today and one or two things for tomorrow. I'm thinkin' I might head down to Chinook tonight and see what I can do about my sunglasses. I really like those sunglasses... so I'll see what kind of warranty I had on them and see if I can abuse it a little. That would make me feel a bit better anyways.

Game tonight at 6:45pm... maybe I can take my frustration out on the ball.

I do need something to flip my luck around a bit. Somehow, I don't think it'll be Barb... don't worry, I don't think I will be mentioning her too often anymore.