In Singapore, March 2008, I met a man known to many as Alabama Dan. We were both working on our photos and had just come from Indonesia, he from Sumatra and I from Java and inevitably began comparing notes. We went for beer later with a couple girls and further down the road met up again in Luang Prabang, Laos and stayed in touch as we both worked to get our Chinese visas. While I went home in August of the year, “Alabama” Dan Fritts kept on travelling, hiking in Nepal to Everest base camp, riding across Mongolia, heading to Egypt, Jordan, and then home. But coming home for him was simply a springboard to the next phase of his worldwide trip: The American Expedition. From afar he nagged me to join part of his journey. Photos of canyons in Zion, Utah; Volcano climbs and beach camps in Hawaii; Skiing the slopes in Colorado; A few weeks in Guatemala; I almost joined him on each of the latter two. Pictures would come my way, stories here and there, Facebook status updates, all means of persuasion. And finally, when he said he was coming up to Canada and heading to Alaska, I caved. Although we didn’t end up in Alaska due to the expense, a “Canadian Expedition” was planned from Vancouver to Calgary through the mountains hiking our way east and, for me, home.
The flight left Saskatoon August 17 at a bleary 6:10 AM and after finally falling asleep at 2 AM, I almost slept in. Thankfully, dad woke me up at 5:00 and I was packed and ready to go, so I simply had to get dressed, throw my backpack on my shoulders, and walk out the door. My dad had even gone to the trouble to make breakfast for me, cutting up some fruit and snacks for the plane ride. What can I say? I’m pretty lucky. On top of this, when I arrived in YVR and stepped outside and into Dan’s green pathfinder (with an awesome motorcycle on the trailer), he also had some breakfast waiting. We caught up on the drive through Vancouver north towards Whistler and more specifically towards Garibaldi Provincial Park. Three hours of sleep or not, we had a 9 kilometre hike ahead of us up and down a mountain to reach Garibaldi lake and the glacier that feeds it. Uphill was a bit rough on me, being both tired and somewhat out of shape, and I forgot my camera in the car which I thankfully discovered on our first kilometre and ran back to rectify. Not the smoothest start to two weeks of outdoor adventure.
Aside from that little snafu and the almost-sleeping-in however, everything went fine. After a seemingly interminable uphill slog we could glimpse that indescribable blue of the glacier lake through the trees below us. And then we began descending, finally reaching a clearing downstream on the Garibaldi River and giving us our first view up the river to the lake. The colour was nothing short of incredible and though in this age of cynicism everything beautiful has been photoshopped, I can tell you that I did not touch the colours or do much more than a little cropping here. Even had I wanted to, I don’t know what could be done to improve them, even if they fail to do justice to the spectacle in real life. We hiked the rest of the way to the lakeshore and set up camp and after looking around a bit and getting some photos we cooked up a sausage spaghetti primavera. Not bad for being in the wilderness, not bad at all.
The sun was beginning to set on Garibaldi which burned up our digital film with each minute change in shade. It was a perfect sunset in a perfect setting, the glacier ahead absorbing colour from the sky like ink on a white dress. It probably got a bit chilly in the evening but I don’t remember, I was so tired that I pretty much passed out instantly. That sleep was needed and then some, for the second day brought 24 km of ground to cover on foot, hiking up to the top of the Panorama Ridge which affords amazing views of the lake and glaciers below, the mountains distant, and the Black Tusk, an ominous looking spire of obsidian clawing at the sky. And we couldn’t have asked for a better day to do this hike. The weather was perfect, the skies clear, and the sun shining, and we set off again, up and up to the Panorama Ridge.
On the way, our eyes were peeled for bears. It is a sad Canadian that has not seen a bear in the wild, and I was tragically a member of this oft-scorned club. I was hoping to remedy this. No bears were spotted, but I did see two marmots, which was also a first for me. Soon we were at the top and it was better than I could have expected, bordering precipitously on perfection. I had reception on my iPhone and even photos taken from its poor camera had received plenty of praise by the time we finished hiking out. Our main goal complete, and a quick lunch of apples and peanut-butter sandwiches, we set off for civilization again, making pretty good time in the mountains at about 5 km / hr. Even when we’d reached the vehicle again, there was still plenty of ground to cover. There weren’t any really significant stops for some miles.
We stopped in Whistler, as I’d never been, and looked for a cheap place to grab a bite while we explored the small town. I didn’t realize that they used the mountains for mountain biking in the summer, this was a revelation that I found very exciting. Dan was meanwhile impressed by the sheer number of people using the lift, particularly those with high-end gear. I think that had we more time and money a day on the mountain here would’ve been in order. Instead we returned to the car and set off north towards Jasper. There was no time for cooking so we stopped for some pizza in Pemberton which, somehow, felt very familiar to me. I think I’ve seen a photo of my mom at the Pemberton train station before. At 10 we finally came to a recreation area where we pulled in, made camp, and called it another very long day.
Although we had been looking for somewhere to stop along the way, very little presented itself to us that next day. We took the road less-travelled and headed north to 100 Mile House on the old gold trail before turning east. I’m sure both of us will find ourselves on the southern highway again at some point, but up here, excuses are harder to find. We cut across the northern country and skirted some fires nearby enough to darken the sky, making our way for Wells Gray National Park. Thanks to the distance we had covered yesterday, we made it there early enough in the afternoon to drive and see some waterfalls. They were beautiful to look at, particularly Dawson Falls (I think that was its name) a wide, terraced fall. There were others that could have been captured in different light but it was not meant to be today. We debated coming back for some sunset photos but driving and hiking and, in my case, a lack of sleep precluded that. We instead had pork tenderloin for dinner while pouring over the maps, planning the next few days, grabbing a shower, and roasting marshmallows while admiring the impressive array of stars. Tomorrow, we would head to Mt Robson, sitting on the edge of BC and Alberta and boasting the tallest mountain in Canada’s Rockies.
After an action-packed January including Vegas, Chicago, and Mexico, the rest of the winter was Canada as normal. Maybe a bit colder than normal, or so it seemed. There is little to report here because, first of all, as I write this it’s nearly a year later, and secondly, little of lasting interest (that I can remember) happened. I worked, probably went out a few times, saw some movies (what was even playing back then?) and so forth. All the while, Alabama Dan, aka Dan Fritts, a friend I’d travelled with in Singapore and Luang Prabang, was urging me to join his American Expedition, crisscrossing his homeland in search of adventure. I’m not going to tell you it wasn’t tempting, jealousy evoking, or any of that. I just couldn’t get away at that point. The latest request had been Hawaii, where he’d found a very cheap fare (from LA) and planned to do some volcano hiking and beach camping with Rich, his English travel buddy. Though I definitely couldn’t afford that, he floated the idea of going down to Guatemala for more of what I just described in Hawaii.
Even before I came back, I knew that my next trip – and one I’d like to do as soon as possible for age and life sorts of reasons – was going to be to Central and/or South America. When you travel you invariably run into people who have done cooler things than you in places you’ve never heard of. In Australia, that was Southeast Asia . And in Asia, it was South America. And to a lesser extent, Nepal, but let’s not get sidetracked here. The trip to Guatemala was very tempting indeed, except, again that I wanted to do more of the area than one country, but it was a way to perhaps go now. What stopped me from doing this was the prohibitive flight costs from Canada. The day before I would have left to meet Dan and Rich in Guatemala, I discovered that it hadn’t stopped a friend of mine. Megan and Brin, both of whom had also done Australia at the same time as me, were heading down to Guatemala for one month on precisely the day I would’ve been, having discovered a cheap flight. Talk about a small world.
As photos came back from Megan and Dan, I got a bit more excited to make my way into this part of the world. Not to mention that Larissa was working down there and fluent in Spanish, something I was very jealous of. Gears began to turn, but money meant I wouldn’t be able for some time. Luckily, I had picked up Warren Buffet’s biography on a whim and finished it in Mexico. As I read more related works (the Intelligent Investor and then Ben Graham’s Securities Analysis) through the dull winter, his philosophy seemed to crystallize in my mind. It was so clear, so patently obvious, and so at odds with the voodoo spouted by most in that business and I couldn’t put the books down. Moreover, the timing was perfect. The economy, according to all sources, was spiralling down endlessly, perhaps irretrievably. I think some people thought the world was going to end. Certainly, it wasn’t pretty. It’s now November and it’s still pretty shaky. But value is value and with a solid balance sheet and assets, an important company today should, when the smoke clears, be important tomorrow. By March, I’d found the companies I was to invest in – in fact, I found more that were so undervalued as to be almost risk free than I could afford. So I did what any brash and arrogant young man might do. I borrowed from the bank and invested in these gold mines (well, actually mostly copper mines) I’d found.
My selections were educated, my timing was simply plain lucky. As the stocks grew towards what their actual value, as I estimated it, was, the major hurdle to a southern sojourn was lifted. Which, it now occurs to me, is a funny expression because lifting a hurdle would make it harder to jump over. In the meantime, I did do other things besides working and reading company reports at home. A few live acts that came to town included Said the Whale, an excellent Vancouver band that I really love accompanied by The Zolas, whom I also thoroughly enjoyed and later discovered employed the pianist from Lotus Child. That was a great show. Xavier Rudd, Australian didgeridoo dynamo was in town and though he was excellent, the highlight may have been our bartender, Gavin Labelle, doing the worm across stage, telling the opening act (with long hair covering his eyes) to “Let his face be known”, and later recalling his antics at Athena. Jason Webley, a sort of one-man Gogol Bordello, and others came, left their marks, and left.
Winter eventually did the same, and spring quickly turned to summer, though a very windy and cloudy one. Meanwhile, I’d promised Dan I’d take a trip with him even as I knew that before the year was out, probably in September or October, I’d be beginning a trip to South America. As the summer months disappeared all too quickly in the heaps of activities, from golf to soccer to biking the river trails, time was running out and talk was of Alaska. That decided it. I would do Alaska because I’ve always wanted to get that far north, moreso in Canada, but Alaska would do. Plus I’d just watched a documentary on Denali and was very excited. As we researched it more, however, the costs were too great and we had to come up with an alternate. He was going to be on Vancouver Island anyway so that alternative didn’t take long to become apparent. We would journey together from Vancouver to Calgary, stopping at any and every interesting place along the way for hiking, photos, and we would do it as cheaply as possible. This was a plan I could get behind. As summer was threatening to disappear without ever having really come, I booked my flight to Vancouver for August 17. I would accompany Dan through most of the Canadian portion of his American expedition, crossing the mountains from Vancouver to Calgary. This was after my sisters and I packed up the car and drove out to Edmonton for two days and one night at West Ed, for good times, shopping, and waterslides. And it was after an as-always great Folkfest weekend with lots of volunteering, ouzo, and dancing. And, unfortunately, it was before our final soccer game, which I had to miss. But the Pylons went on and lost without my help and all the pieces were set for a great adventure across western Canada. And you'd better believe there are more posts to come on this topic.
Perhaps tearing a page out of my book, my younger sister Larissa took a 6-month job dancing and working with the entertainment crew at a resort in Mexico, on the west coast city of Puerto Vallarta. And that was all the excuse I needed to make a January escape from what is probably the most brutal winter in recent memory with my other sister, Nicole, her friend Janelle, and my friend John. A very early morning had us in Calgary by 7 AM, which would’ve been fine but we had five hours to wait before flying to Puerto Vallarta which itself is a 5.5 hour flight. Why they don’t have another flight into Calgary at even 9 AM is beyond me – there’s one at noon which I’m sure is all but empty. And getting no sleep – which is what the girls did (I got 2 hours and John the full 8) – only to sit waiting in an airport is not exactly an award-winning strategy.
The girls took advantage of this by going shopping in town while John and I relaxed and watched the sunrise as planes came and left, discussing myriad topics of interest to us and probably not you. Soon, they were back and we were off on a much less comfortable 737-700 (the 600 we took up was downright roomy in comparison) watching the snow line disappear into the distance and Utah’s red desert unfold. On the way down I read the Warren Buffet bio I’d picked up at the library (Nicole had brought the same book, oddly enough) and watched – wait for it – Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Whoa. Before long our own excellent adventure was underway; we pushed the button at customs, four green lights, and it was begun. Time share agents to the left of me, hockers to the rights, we battled our way through and past the cabbies – even the ones offering us $8 – to the ones that were supposed to be cheaper across the freeway.
Larissa’s resort, Hola Puerto Vallarta, is about eight minutes from the airport towards downtown. And while it isn’t five star, both John and I instantly agreed it was a big step up from where we stayed when we went to Cancun (and quite a bit bigger too). Basically one step out from the cab and the bellhop recognized us as Larissa’s family. We waited around the lobby and then all of a sudden there was Larissa. It may not have been all of a sudden, I may have been looking right at her as she was walking towards us, but I wouldn’t have recognized her anyway. Between the dark from working everyday in the Mexican sun since October and her getting so much exercise kayaking and doing water aerobics 6 days a week, she looked very different from when she left.
In either case, it was a nice reunion but she had to run off to dance and we had to recuperate from the WestJet diet (Bits and Bites) with a buffet meal. The girls weren’t too fond of the food, but we all agreed that the fish was excellent. It was too late to use it on day one, but the pool looked inviting and I was quite looking forward to stretching out on a lawn chair with the cheesy Spanish music playing, the sun beaming down, and a cocktail in my hand. But of course that would have to wait until tomorrow, for tonight we were all pretty wiped (especially with some food and wine and very little sleep) so we visited with Larissa in the lobby and went to sleep.
What a glorious way to wake up. Opening the door of our balcony, the pool languished below, just beginning to catch the morning sun and now that it was day, we could see the Pacific ocean spread beyond a thin strand of beach, umbrellas, and palms. We met the girls down at the restaurant for breakfast, or at least tried to, but I had no sandals – so I had to go shopping before I could even eat breakfast. Aside from the hiccup and breakfast on my own I was soon on the beach doing exactly what I’d planned to. And despite my late arrival my lack of sunscreen meant that I had to get out of the sun early in the afternoon. Sound like a bummer? Well, no problem at all, I grabbed a drink and sat on my balcony watching the pool action unfold. Todo tomorrow: Water polo.
But tonight they had Latin Night, which frankly was just in time. John and I wandered down to the beach where the show was and got a table right in front of the stage with some other prairie folk. Actually, it was pretty interesting that almost everyone we met at the resort was Canadian and specifically western Canadian (aside from BC). Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Ontario? Nada. Quebec? One couple. Anyway, I say it was just in time because the girls were getting pretty down on the food here, and tonight it was fantastic. Fresh fish, beach barbecue, it was Malaysia all over again but even cheaper thanks to the magic of all-inclusive. And all while we ate, Larissa and the crew got up on stage and did some dances. Pretty awesome and I felt like a celebrity’s brother having Larissa up there.
Any pride quickly turned to embarrassment however, when John was pulled on stage, stripped down to his bikini top, and had to dance like a girl. Two words: Hi and larious. And he won a bottle of champagne for his excellent efforts, and then back to the crew dancing again. Finally, we got to meet all of them as they sat with us after their show, and I was very happy to see that they all seem like nice and fun people. And so the days, for the most part, went. Larissa took John and I to lunch at a little Mexican restaurant for some unbelievable Shrimp burritos – it doesn’t sound so good, but combined with all the fresh dips and salsas, well, we were stuffed halfway along and had to finish it because it was so good.
We took one day excursion for $78 US on something called Vallarta Adventures that I was pleasantly surprised by. Not to sound pompous, but to put it in perspective, I spent two months in New Zealand doing anything and everything that ever fell under the category of outdoor adventure in much less supervised fashion. And while this didn’t get my blood pumping like some of the other things I have done what it was was fun. Good, old fashioned, flying through the trees fun. And pretty good value even if you find yourself paying full price. They take you on a boat to Banderas Bay whereupon you load up into old Merc troop transports and bounce up the mountain. When you can go no farther, you trade for a donkey and after that and a short hike you trade that in for a zip line and bounce back and forth between the mountains. Then you’re rappelling down a waterfall and off a hanging platform that looks like it is hanging from the sky. Before you know it, it’s over and they’re trying to charge you waaaaaay too much for photos. If they were more reasonably priced, I’m pretty sure they would’ve sold to everyone, but instead they were greedy and didn’t sell a single photo.
Moral lesson learned, we stopped in for some tequila tasting (as if we hadn’t done enough of that in our lives already) and to see how it’s made. The rest of the holiday was just that, but there were a few more notable events before running back to Saskatoon. The dancers put on an international show and the Mexicans attempted to dance Zorba, which was a good if ill-fated effort. It was nice to see them struggling since they blow away anything I could ever do with every other one of their dances. We went to watch Mexican volleyball championships which two of Larissa’s friends were in. We watched the sunset every night. And we karaoked so that we knew that good or (more likely) bad, we’d left our impression on the place. I’m sure we were missed on the Water Polo games after our departure. I’m sure the bartenders were happy not to have to do cerveza con limon. And I’m sure glad that we didn’t end up having to sleep in the Calgary airport on our way home, though it was close.
I didn’t really plan it that way, but January just wound up being a busy and altogether pretty great way to kick off a new year. After a couple weeks of work, dad and I flew down to Las Vegas for CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Only E3 ranks higher in the list of tradeshows I’ve ever wanted to visit, so this was very exciting. Not only do we get to go to Vegas, but I’m going to be seeing all sorts of techy gadgets before most of them are anywhere near a store. That said, we spent only an afternoon at the show, but we saw some incredible, paper-thin TVs (some of which are already out, though not in the sizes they were showing), Intel’s new processor at work on a Minority Report-esque display, all sorts of new set-top boxes integrating computer-based media collections and DVRs, and so much stuff that it’s hard to even recall it all. I specifically remember being impressed with a TV that could make any 2D video 3D just by crunching some serious numbers. Convincingly 3D. It was pretty incredible. And of course I remember Panasonic had their ‘green’ room with all the things they were producing to help reduce energy and water consumption. One of the things the spokesman was talking about were compact-fluorescent bulbs, and my dad stumped him when he asked whether exchanging CO2 for mercury (which is in every CFL bulb) was such a great idea. I tend to think it’s not. But listen to me geeking out on you; at least now that’s out of the way.
When we go to Vegas, we usually stay at the MGM, which I like just fine, though I’ve never really stayed anywhere else. One bonus I was to discover this time, though I don’t especially like slots, was the Majestic Lions. I just had great luck with them. I never kept track of the first couple days, but I can only remember one time where I cashed out less than I put in. On our last full day in Vegas, while my dad was taking a nap, I put in $100 to one of the lions. It was teasing me and teasing me, the lions would always be off the line just a hair. One time I would’ve won had I bet the max, which is a very frustrating feeling. Still, I kept betting though my supply was dwindling. 12 dollars left out of that hundred and I spun. Sure enough, it was teasing me – three lions (which, if they were all on the line, would mean I’d win the progressive jackpot of $1115 or so) but one was just off the line for the umpteenth time. Oh well, this was one time I wouldn’t be winning. I went to spin again. Nothing happened. The reels didn’t spin. Then I noticed that my machine was making a lot of noise. I looked up to see my light flashing. Huh? A closer look at the screen and I realized it wasn’t teasing me at all. I had just won the jackpot!
Yeah, that was pretty exciting. And then very awkward as I sat and sat waiting for somebody to come and pay me, all the while the lights and sounds are going and I’m sitting in the machine with nothing to do but grin stupidly. Somewhere between five and ten minutes later, the attendant came and paid me that wonderful sum of money and confided to me that the machines usually pay out right after they’ve paid. I thanked her but thought to myself that she was a good casino employee. Yes, sir, please throw all the money you’ve just won back into the casino. I had twelve credits left, so I figured I’d play those out and go tell my dad the good news. Two more spins and bam, I won two hundred dollars. I spent the last six credits and cashed out my nice even $200, then woke my dad up and took him for sushi. You wouldn’t think it, but I had better sushi that day in the desert than I’ve ever had anywhere. After sushi we wandered around a bit then sat at the blackjack table. When this game goes well, it’s a great time. You sit back, win some hands, lose a couple, chat and joke with the others at the table and the dealer while the waitress brings drinks. We played until the wee hours of the morning and both walked away well ahead which only makes it that much better.
Finally, we took a drive down to Lake Havasu in Arizona to look at real estate in the housing bust’s ground zero. The town itself was not particularly nice and there were definitely plenty of empty or half-started lots, but the best part was the drive through the countryside of Nevada and Arizona. Early in the morning following our return home to Saskatoon, I was on another flight to Chicago. Littelfuse, the company that had bought my old employer, Startco, was looking for someone to work in their Chicago office that knew the Startco products pretty well and could start working on sales in the US. It was an exciting prospect, and as an added bonus they flew me down to Chicago to have a look around the city and at apartments for the weekend before a round-robin of interviews all day Monday. So I landed in Chicago, grabbed my rental car, and let my iPhone point the way to the hotel which was located nice and close to Littelfuse HQ. After settling into the hotel it was already mid-afternoon. I hopped on the train into town, which took about an hour. The train took an hour. I realized right away that I would have to live somewhere that was close enough to work to keep the commute reasonable (half an hour or less) and somewhere close enough to the city that I wouldn’t make excuses not to go in. And of course, it would have to be somewhere along the transit lines so I could easily get to work or town without driving and parking. But I digress. I went for dinner in Greektown, which was a bit disappointing in the food and size departments and walked around a little before heading home. It sure was cold.
The next day I took the opportunity to really explore Chicago. I took the train downtown and strolled all over the place, recognizing landmarks like the House of Blues, the Trump tower, the round building from that Wilco album, and all the more obvious ones like the John Hancock building and the Sears tower. I know it was Saturday but until I found my way to the Miracle Mile I felt like I was in a ghost town. In fact, I felt like I was in the movie Hancock. Just empty, deserted, and windy. It was unaccountably eerie. On the mile, I did what any good Chicagoer would do. I shopped and walked, made my way from end to end, and then came back to go visit downtown proper once more and of course the Sears Tower. Nicole has a friend that manages a club in Chicago and I was supposed to meet him later in the evening but Google Maps steered me wrong, to a street of the same name in a suburb near the hotel. Not thinking that suburbs would have streets of the same names, in fact not thinking at all, I grabbed the train back to the airport (from which I had to get an airport shuttle to and from the hotel), realizing too late that I had googled poorly. So I stayed in again which wasn’t so bad a thing after such a long day and in fact a long week. Sunday, I took the car for a spin to Littelfuse (I had to make sure I knew the way, of course). On the way, I very accidentally passed the first ever McDonalds chain and ate at their not-so-successful competitor, which was actually a fun and very Americana moment. I drove into the city which was pretty smooth on a Sunday and toured the two-level downtown streets before making a stop at the Adler planetarium which was pretty cool and had the added bonus of offering a nice panorama of downtown Chicago. Then, the man who would essentially be my boss took me out to a nice dinner at a French restaurant.
Finally, Monday was dedicated to interview upon interview. Certainly you can’t blame them – they had spent plenty to fly me out and meet me, they should definitely get their money’s worth out of me. I think I had eight interviews that day, from people I’d met plenty of times in Saskatoon to people I’d never met including their CEO. While up until this point I was feeling like Chicago might be a bad idea, I was really struck by how much I really felt like I clicked with the people interviewing me. They were all good people which was very much how I’d felt at Startco. And, if I may say so, I think the interviews went pretty well although I felt like I’d perhaps talked the CEO’s ear off in my excitement. Some eight interviews and a couple aptitude and personality tests later, I was done with one evening left in Chicago. So I drove straight into town to see some improve and grab a bite. The drive in was actually not TOO terrible even in rush hour. An hour and a half if I recall, though if you were doing that daily you’d go nuts. I got my tickets for Second City and was treated to an exceptional performance of old and current cast because, luckily for me, I managed to be there for one of the cast’s going away show. And then before I knew it, I was on a long flight home. That wasn’t the last trip in January, but it was the last one to the States. One week later, I was off to visit my sister in Puerto Vallarta. But that is a story for another time...
What can I say? It's been a while. Although I've been meaning to update this for some time, finally being on another journey has moved this effort to the top of the priority chain. More on that journey later (well, okay, I'm doing 6 months in Central and South America). So here we are. When last we spoke, I had just landed after a year in Australia, two months in New Zealand, and six more in Southeast Asia and China. That was August 5, 2008. August is a busy time in Saskatoon, probably my favourite month of the year. The weather's hot and there's always plenty to do. First up was the Exhibition, a town fair full of rides that are a lot more fun when you're younger and food that's a lot more tasty when you're skinnier. I took Mariah, my youngest sister and spent the day with her wandering the grounds, trying to keep up with her frenetic ride pace and using food as an excuse to take a break from the next one. It was a long time ago, but I remember the day well, it was so nice to have Mariah to myself for a whole day, especially after such a long absence.
After the Ex and some rides along the riverbank alone and with friends to keep myself semi-fit, there comes Folkfest and specifically the Greek pavilion. This is a three day party with great food, Greek music, dancing, and of course Mythos/Ouzo. Larissa was dancing and was amazing as always (though everytime I watch it's like I've forgotten and am amazed anew) and I have to admit I was jealous not to be up there and dancing too. I made up for this by doing a bit of volunteering, keeping the food lines stocked, bartending, and clearing plates, but this didn't quite cut it. So on the last night, Saturday, I definitely got on the stage and danced like a man who, not-coincidentally, had too much ouzo.
There are other things going on in August, too many to mention really, but the other major ones I like to attend are the airshow (now discontinued) and the Fringe. I think between catching up with friends and exploring the city in the same way I had found myself doing countless other places across the globe (it's a hard habit to break), the month disappeared. The night after I got back I had drinks with some of my closest friends on the Athena deck (always a favourite summer activity), and ran across Megan, whom I hadn't seen since our accidental run-in in Byron Bay Australia. This was yet another chance encounter in a long long list of them. I suppose that's probably uninteresting unless you know the whole improbable list, and I won't unleash that upon you.
It does however, create a great segue into September. We did finally get to have a proper visit in September when we sat and I traded her some nice Greek salad and our new September special (the creation of which had recently fallen to me) for some of her mango chutney. I think I got the better end of that deal. Maybe she knew it, too, because I didn't see or hear from her for several months afterwards. Karma got me back when Dan asked me to help paint his house. Well, no, not really, that was actually quite a bit of fun. My birthday also falls in September and was the surprise "welcome back" party I never had, organized as always by my way too thoughtful sister Nicole. Friends, family, and well, I guess what else is there, all came out and I have to admit to being genuinely surprised. I opened the kitchen door and saw a table of friends so I went to say hello to them. As I did so, I heard everyone say surprise and I widened my focus and realized the whole bar was full of people I knew. A better birthday gift I couldn't have asked for.
I also started work in September, and of course the summer winding down puts a hamper on things, so there's little to say from here on out (lucky you!). Most significantly were the weddings of two of my good friends, Dan and Darren. At the former I wound up videographer (leave it to Dan to delegate everything!) and it was a great time at the Top of the Inn, complete with fireworks courtesy of the Saskatoon Fireworks Festival. At Darren's wedding, I was the loudmouth who, upon missing a close putt by a large distance (to get the bride and groom to kiss), walked briskly to the ball, and strode back well off the putting green to a place where nobody could've expected me to sink it. Darren loudly proclaimed that if I made the putt from there, I could kiss the bride. I tested the wind and putted it straight in to huge laughter and applause then strode directly to his new wife, Chrissy, as though to collect my winnings, and then shook his hand instead. I don't know if this or the Russian dancing was the highlight of the wedding for him, but given my involvement, it was definitely one of them.
October I attended Gene Hattori's farewell party. Gene is, though he would deny it, one of the best photographers in Canada and someone I feel privileged to have known and been friends with. He has moved to Ontario to live closer to Marcie and the grandkids but we still see him from time to time. And he always had time to look through my endless photos and offer insight into things I was doing well and things I could look for. My sister Larissa also took off to work at a resort in Puerto Vallarta. It was luckily only a six month term, so it wasn't too hard saying goodbye. I suppose I've also gotten better at the goodbyes after my ridiculously large part trips. Plus I knew I'd visit her soon, so at most it would be three or four months. Aside from that, I was one of the many who went as Joker for Halloween after finding a purple trenchcoat at Value Village. I did my own makeup and, if I do say so myself, I did a great job. I also practiced that lip-licking OCD thing he did in the movie to the point that I was genuinely freaking people out which is always fun.
I'm sure that there was at least one interesting event in November, but for the life of me I can't think of one. December, too. It was a lot more Christmasy with snow and friends and family around, though I won't say that I didn't love my boxing day party in Australia. On a boat in 40+ degree weather wearing a swimsuit and santa hat, drinking champagne and fine wines and eating incredible food. Nicole hosted Christmas this year though thankfully Grandma and Grandpa did the cooking. And then it was time to gear up for New Year's Eve, always a fun party to have. This year we did a red carpet theme complete with limo (well, it became Escalade but that's another story) pickup and paparazzi shooting everyone as they arrived and throughout the night. Yep, I was the paparazzi. It was a great night and I really think that everyone there, working or not, had a lot of fun. A fitting cap to a great year.
