Books or Blogs, I can't seem to manage both

I have been reading a lot lately, mostly at my favourite reading spot which is the front window table at Starbucks. That is also my favourite place to blog. The books have been winning out though, hence no blogs lately.

The book I am reading right now is about the Bible and homosexuality. It basically covers literal and historical context interpretation of the writings. Literal interpretation favoured by the fundamentalist is obvioulsy just plain scary.

My biggest revelation however has been that an otherwise intelligent, educated person can truly believe that god actually wrote the Bible, albeit through man.

Yeah, yeah, I'm slacking...

I know I haven't even blogged part three of my New Brunswick Family Holiday, AKA The Voyage Home. Nor in fact have I blogged much at all. Here is a little tidbit for you all to keep you going.

Subtitle: Wanted: Dead or Alive, 2002 Pontiac Sunfire, Bright Yellow.

I have been pulled over by the cops 6 times in my life. Three of those times have been in the car I have been driving for just over a year. One of those times was for speeding which was totally legit. The second time I was questioned about the vehicle and who owned it and was let go. The cop told me he thought it was a different vehicle. The third time I was pulled over was only semi-legit. The cop who pulled me over did a u-turn to follow me then stopped me because my tags were expired. That was a $110.00 fine. Something made him want to follow me which led him to notice the tags. Makes me wonder what criminal is driving around town in one of the few other bright yellow Sunfires.

Incidentally the expired tags was a procrastination thing. I went to get them only a few days into September but then discovered I needed an E-Test. I had one scheduled for 2 days after I got pulled over.

So perhaps $110.00 will keep me from procrastinating in the future but I doubt it.

Part 2.5 or Stories from Halifax

So my good friend and tour guide Stew reminded me of something I have to blog about. This is something that shows the difference between people from Eastern Canada and those of us from Ontario. Oh, I apologize in advance to homeless and kind that I may be about to offend.

While wandering about Halifax there were two encounters that I found humorous. The first encounter involved a man who approached us in a park for money so he could get shelter at The Y. Incidentally there apparently is no Y in Halifax. The second encounter was more creative. Two girls approached us looking for cab fare because the one’s boyfriend got drunk and took off without them.

Neither of these incidents are humorous in and of themselves. What I did find funny was the effort they put into trying to get money from strangers. The stories were not elaborate at all yet they were totally complex compared to what I am used to. What you get here is the minimalist approach to panhandling. The most you will get in Ontario is a line asking for spare change. That’s if you even get that. Many just sit with their hat or Tim Horton’s cup. Not that a message is required as we get the picture.

So in the end, for me, the humor is in how the down-homers are all friendly and provide you with entertainment for your money. They are natural born story tellers. Here in Ontario they just don’t seem to put in the effort.

About Time For Part II

Picture it: PEI, August, 2009...

Two fags board the boat (Ferry, actually) from PEI to Nova Scotia. The ferry was big, it's been a long time since I've been on a boat that big. The trip was totally uneventful though. Kinda boring actually. We got to Nova Scotia and drove in to Halifax. Dan got pissed off at the GPS because it didn't take us in the way he did it previously. Despite this we did make it to the Prince George hotel. With Dan's past history with the hotel we were upgraded to the "Crown" floor, very nice room. I was totally looking forward to a nice swim and soak in the hot tub knowing that the set up would be nice in such a good hotel. Totally dissapointed that they chose that particular Tuesday night to close the pool for maintenance. That made me unhappy.

After checking in we gave our friend Stew a call, then the three of us headed out for dinner. Now four days in the Maritimes you would have thought we would have had seafood but we still hadn't. Well this was the night to remedy this. We finally chose a place right on the water called Murphy's. I am not a fan of fish so my idea of seafood is scallops and lobster. My order was easy, bacon wrapped scallops to start and a lobster wrap as my entree. I prefer lobster cold and already out of the shell. Whole lobster is way too much work for me. As we were waiting to order I heard these fateful words from the waitress to the patrons at the next table: "We are out of the bacon wrapped scallops." Just my luck. Well the lobster wrap was fantastic so I did get over it. Dan had the whole lobster. Carcass on a plate, creepy. After dinner we wandered and ended up at Starbucks, great end to a great day.

On Wednesday we met up with Stew at the Starbucks and he gave us an insightful tour of the downtown of Halifax. Insightful because our guide, Stew, works for the city and has lots of inside info that most wouldn't know. Like how many garbage cans are around and why there are no benches on the sidewalks. Who knew they were unsafe? Lunch was at a local pub, and there I got my bacon wrapped scallops. After that a bit more touring around then it was back in the car for the trek back to the cottage in New Brunswick.

I thought Part II would complete the saga but it looks like this is going to be a trilogy. Stay tuned for more...

The long Awaited Family Reunion Post...

...or Highlights From My Trip to the Maritimes. Part I

Friday July 31st we headed out for the long drive across Quebec. We made stops only for gas and to stretch our legs. Jessie was awesome, she spent most of the trip sleeping in the back seat. She complained less than Dan to be sure. We finally arrived in Edmundston NB and checked in to our pet friendly room at the Best Western. The room was well set up for pets, no carpet, and it had patio doors to the parking lot. That made it much easier to deal with the luggage too. We went for a swim. Okay I didn't swim at all but did enjoy the hot tub even though it wasn't as hot as I would have liked it. After the swim we headed downtown for a walk and a bite to eat then just relaxed.

Saturday morning we headed out to the nearest Starbucks which happened to be three and a half hours away in Moncton. Best discovery ever was that there was an H&M in Moncton, there would be shopping before we left. So we grabbed our Starbucks and headed for the family. In the end it was nice to see everybody and it was all pretty low pressure. We just hung out.

The cottage was rustic by my standards but much less rustic than it could have been. Because we had Jessie with us we ended up with one of the better rooms. The upstairs was all pretty open but there were two bedrooms downstairs with doors and we got one of them. They also had the only two double beds so that was another bonus.

The rest of Saturday was pretty relaxed, just hanging out and drinking. Walks on the beach with the dog. Enjoyable. In fact when asked later about my favourite moment the first thing that came to mind was those walks and runs on the beach with Jessie.

Sunday we headed in to Moncton for a bit of shopping. No great finds but Moncton does have an awesome mall. The rest of the afternoon and evening was the reunion. Reasonably low pressure and fairly painless.

Monday was a random day trip to "the dunes" which turned out to be fairly pointless in that dogs were not allowed. We went for a quick look around while my sister looked after Jess. Then came out and just hung out with my sister, my dad and some family member from Boston. That turned out to be more fun than the boardwalk on the dunes.

Tuesday morning we headed off to PEI. My sisters partner, Andre was not feeling well so he stayed behind and looked after Jessie. Somehow I ended up being the lead car on the trek but thanks to the GPS, I managed to get us to the Confederation Bridge which was a pretty awesome structure. We headed in to Summerside where we left the family in order to accellerate the tour as we needed to be at the ferry in time to head over to Nova Scotia. From Summerside we headed to Charlottetown and wandered around downtown. Had ice cream at Cows which is an East Coast thing. Awesome parody t-shirts there. I bought one and found one I wanted that wasn't available there but a quick BlackBerry message to my Sister-in-law had one purchased for me on their visit to Cavendish. After that we headed for the ferry and then off to Halifax NS.

More to come in Part II. Time to go get groceries now.

I make boys and girls cry...

Last week was full of drama at work. Drama like I haven't seen since grade 4 or 5. Some of it goes back a couple weeks so I'll start there. Apparently morale is improved by having monthly themes. This month is a Hawiian theme. Regardless of the theme our cubicles end up looking like a dollar store threw up on them. Just lots of tacky shit everywhere. So the drama starts because Jay and I tend to make fun of all the tacky crap. Jay is way more hardcore than I am in that he will not participate at all and will remove stuff from around his desk. I on the other hand will simply not make any effort. I'll chip in a bit of cash for the dollar store crap and let the others decorate my area, though only to a degree. There is only so much tacky I can handle.

Moving on from there. One of the girls decided to collect some money to buy one of the other team members a birthday present. I chipped in (remember this part, it's important later). Jay was totally unaware of this collection. In the past, when people's birthdays came up someone would buy them a card and the whole team would sign it. Well the girl who took up the collection, the one that Jay didn't know about, sent out an email to the team. The email statedthat there was a card and anyone who chipped in could come sign. Jay, thinking it rediculous that she would be collecting for a card had words with her and made her cry.

I was off that day, the next day within minutes of me getting to work I was approached to sign the card as I had chipped in. I told you that part was important. Well maybe it was just noteworthy as opposed to being important. Anyway after having heard about all the drama from the day before I had decided that I would no longer participate in anything work related that was not actually work. So when the card was handed to me I simpley shook my head declining it. "But you paid" I was told. Again I politely declined saying it was okay. I sat back down at my desk to continue logging on to my computer and I hear sobbing from the other side of the cubicles. Yup, apparently I made her cry too.

That certainly validated my decision to stop participating.

Jay got a talking to by our supervisor. I was expecting one but it didn't come as both supervisors dissapeared mid day. Rumours abound as to why but it seems like they may have been suspended for unrelated infractions. We'll likely find out more this week.

More drama that a gay bar. Oh, if you want to know about me making boys cry... If you ask me nice maybe that will be one of my next blogs.

Furries know how to party

It has been a busy couple of weeks. Definitely good busy. Working backwards I'll start with Pittsburgh.

Last year we tagged along when our favourite furrie went to Anthrocon in Pittsburgh. Anthrocon is a furrie convention. If you don't know what a furrie is I will let you do your own research on that. So anyway, we tagged along last year and got a one day pass for the con and spent the rest of the time checking out Pittsburgh. I really did not expect much from Pittsburgh but I was surprised. I refer to it as a little Chicago, and I LOVED Chicago. So we decided this year that we would go back mostly to get some of the pictures we lost when one of our SD cards went missing. We also decided that we would go for a full weekend pass since the price was only a bit more than the one day pass. It was a great move. We did get out and get some more pictures, museums and some shopping, but the bulk of the weekend was spent with the furries.

The highlights were the dances which put any dance here to shame. Awesome music, awesome light shows and so much fun. I danced my ass off, sadly mostly by myself. I missed my little straight boy who I was grinding with last year but I still had a blast.

We also got to watch the most incredible fireworks show from the roof of the convention center. Sadly next year's con is not on the 4th of July weekend again. That would have been a big draw for me.

Last big thing of the weekend was Saturday night's dinner. We happened across a place called The Sonoma Grille. I had an asparagus salad to start and a stuffed pork tenderloin. I can't even describe how good the entree was. Definitely worth going back for. For desert I was deciding if I would go with the Creme Brule that I knew they would have or if I would go for something chocolate for which I was having a craving. Eric, our waiter brought over the desert menus and started giving us some suggestions. The first thing he mentioned was their chocolate creme brule. I stopped him there and went for it. It was perfect.

As for the con itself, it very much reminds me of the Star Trek conventions I attended years ago. For a people watcher like me it is a very interesting environment to spend a weekend in. Freaks, geeks, weirdos and the odd normal person.

Next post I will go further back into the past and write about the previous weekend which was Toronto Pride weekend.