Happy thoughts...

Okay so this is not the entry I was going to post tonight. I had a somewhat lengthy blog about my views on my relationships past, present and future. It seemed to be getting a bit heavy and I felt it really wasn't saying anything but was potentially sounding whiny.  The draft is saved, it may yet turn up but I decided to go a different direction tonight.

I need to blog about the good stuff in my life. I haven't been lately. Okay, I know I haven't been blogging at all lately. but I seem to have been blogging some pretty heavy stuff and it's time for some random events instead of random thoughts.

So this past weekend was my 45th birthday and I celebrated with my friends. Friday night was a birthday party for myself and two other August babies. Happy Birthday to Calvin (August 21) and Stephen (August 30). Hosted by Matt and Chris it brought together a bunch of awesome people to be sure. Pre and post party hosted by Eric, always a good time.

Saturday and Sunday brought good times with more friends, Saturday morning coffee and movie with Colin, sushi dinner with Rob, hanging out with Shaunna and Harlee for a bit (Ninjering called on account of rain).  Sunday morning coffee with Kim and dinner with the parents. Throw in Happy birthday calls from my sister and my ex-wife (a whole other story) and you've got the makings of one of the best weekends ever.

Some other random good stuff in my life right now: Jessie, the best dog ever. Yoga. Starbucks Vanilla Lattés.  Aussibum Underwear.  Summer. 

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.

Happy Birthday to You...

...Lady GaGa

Happy Birthday to you. So we headed up to Ottawa last night to see Lady GaGa in concert. It was quite a good show, well the main event was. The two opening acts sucked. The Lady herself is a show person, nine songs, three male dancers and four costume changes. I wasn't sure how well it would go given her currently limited material. She pulled it off. The high point was the torch version of my least favourite of her songs Poker Face which was interrupted by the entire audience singing Happy Birthday to her. She seemed genuinely touched at the sentiment stating that after that she couldn't even get through the "fucking chorus" though in the end she did.

On a humorus note: I was amused by the number of parents who were forced to be there with their pre-pubescent children. Then even more amused when the two opening acts threw in "fucking" this and "fucking that all over the place as well as mention of penis somewhere in there. The only new song by Lady GaGa had lyrics to the tune of "f-f-f-f-fuck you as hard as I can..." I am kinda thinking that there may have been some parental discomfort out there which does amuse me.

On a side note, for those following up on Penny, we started her on Prednisone yesterday before we left for Ottawa and by the time we got home there was already a noticeable improvement. Some of the swelling has gone down to the point that she can eat with less discomfort and she is barking again. Yay! Prednisone is a steroid and the treatment is basically to make her more comfortable. As I understand it it's kind of like a false remission. The vet told me to make sure I didn't take false hope from it and I'm not but it is good to see her a bit more as the old Penny. It's all still just a matter of time. Really though isn't that the case for all of us.

Mission: Imposible

Alright I am now on a mission. I am going to find an attractive lesbian for Meghan to date. Surely there is one out there that will fit the bill.

On the whole, lesbians are a mystery to me. Judging only by what I have seen, excepting Meghan, they have little care for their outward appearance and instead focus their energy on social or political causes. There is also equal interest in emo poetry, acoustic guitars and Birkenstock sandals.

I will give you that the above are broad generalizations (like the one that says gay men are all about outward appearance and sex-Oh wait, that one IS true) and I would really like someone to prove me wrong.

So this weekend we will be going to the Circus at The Grad Club and I am going to be looking for a 24 to 32 year old attractive, in shape, intellegent, funny lesbian for Meghan.

Wish me luck...

Looks like the "Sliding Scale" got stuck at the top...

There was a benefit event for HARS held at The Grad Club this weekend that we attended. Dan's sister and her boyfriend were down and came with us along with, of course Meghan and Tim. The night started off with dinner at Woodenheads then Drinks at Tango where Meghan and Tim joined the party. Good times and gummi-worms there as usual.

Around midnight we headed to The Grad Club figuring the party would be in full swing by then. The cover was suposed to be $7-10 but they just took the $10 per person without asking. I suspect that had to do with the shitty attendance of the event. It was quite obvious that there was some other event on somewhere as there was a total lack of gay guys there. There was an above average female presence there though I got the impression that the majority were not even queer. The dance floor was totally lacking in energy though the music was pretty good. We missed the drag performance by Miss Tyffanie which was a drag but we also missed the poetry slam which was definitely a good thing. There was an art exhibit upstairs which actually had some nice pieces along with the usual trash that comes from people who think they are artistic. I guess to be fair art is a very personal thing and even though I saw no merit in some of it, likely someone did.

All in all we did have a good time but I am happy that the cash went to HARS because we could have stayed at Tango and had just as good a time. That being said the "Circus" is in town this Friday and we are off to The Grad Club again. Here's to Queers!

The Queer Community

Well Reelout is done and gone for another year and though they had some (major) bumps along the way they did manage to pull together a decent festival. If you don't know what Reelout is you should check out their website.

Amonng my Kingston family (Meghan, Tim, Dan and I) the festival this year sparked an interest to get involved. Well it did for 3 out of the family at least. We will be attending our first Reelout board meeting on February 24th and barring any major issues I believe Meghan, Dan and I will be full on members of the Reelout Board of Directors for the 2010 Kingston Reelout Queer Film Festival. We believe we have some good ideas to contribute to Reelout and hope that we can make a little bit of difference within the Kingston queer community.

We have had a lot of conversation lately about the Kingston queer community and how fragmented it seems to be. There seem to be many groups with many interests but there seems to be very little to bring those groups together. We are really hoping that we can find ways to get more of the community out to things like Reelout. Grad Club dances can be fun but they are not for everyone. I guess that could be said for any queer event in Kingston, hence the fragmentation.

Well time to go get ready for Brunch, my favourite part of Sunday. More to come on my thoughts about the Kingston queer community.

Brush with fame...

So if this guy hit on you in a bar would you walk away awkwardly? Thats what I did. DOH!

Here's how it went down. We went to The Grad Club for the Reelout Opening Gala on Friday. Preceding that was the screening of Were the World Mine which was a lot of fun. We went straight upstairs to the more loungy part of the Club. Dirty loungy but still loungy. We grabbed some couch space and settled in. I headed to the bar to grab us a drink. Stood there for a bit waiting for someone to show up when a cute boy came up to me and asked me how I enjoyed the movie. I said I though it was a lot of fun and he said it was his favourie on "the circuit" right now. The circuit should have been my first clue. At that point I pretty much ran out of things to say and thankfully my phone rang. It was Dan from about 20 feet away telling me the upstairs bar was not open yet. So I awkwardly excused myself from the "conversation" and headed to the downstairs bar for those drinks.

Only about 20 minutes later did Miss Tyffanie inform me that the cute boy was Charlie David, writer and star of the following nights feature screening Mulligans, as well as a regular on Dante's Cove and several other movies and television shows.

So now that I have all that out, I should add that Charlie probably wasn't hitting on me but I like the story better this way. Except for the part where I awkwardly wander off.

Here's to Tracy and Dan Wood

Well last Saturday was the big wedding of the season. Tracy and Dan finally made it legal. The ceremony was brief and to the point. The reception was a great time.

I was a bit sketched out by the whole Trenton thing. Holiday Inn is a bit like camping for me after some of the places I have stayed in the last few years. Surprisingly the hotel was actually quite nice. The room was nicely updated and oddly the towels were nicer than some of those other hotels in that they were quite soft and did not smell of industrial bleach. Also, it seems we were the only ones who's reservation didn't get fucked up. I love having good travel karma.

The event itself started off quite nice in that when we got to the church we were greeted by Dan's mom, Janice. Janice has never met us but she knew exactly who we were and told us she has heard so much about us. That scared me for a bit but she seemed to have only heared the good stuff so it was okay.

The reception, at the Trenton Legion was a blast dispite the venue and the surly, dried up old serving ladies who always wanted to take everything away even if you were not finished. When we don't know many people in a group Dan and I tend to be wallflowers but Tracy's mom Brenda was very quick to drag us away from the back wall. Brenda is awesome as is the entire family. I can really tell where Brandon, Tracy and Margaret get their sense of humour.

I just want to say that I am so happy that Tracy found Dan and vice-versa. I am pretty sure Dan is the only straight man who can really appreciate Tracy's epic sense of funny. I love you both.

Recycling the past...

So since nothing really interesting happened today let me dredge something up from the summer of no blogs.

The 3AM border crossing on the way to Pittsburgh...

Looking back I guess I should have known that 4 guys crossing the border on their way to a furry convention are going to get pullled over for sure. At least we had the big fursuit dog head in the trunk to back us up. Well after a half an hour answering random questions we were back on our way to the land of Anthrocon. Anthrocon was more fun that I ever expected. It kind of reminded me of the Star Trek conventions I attended in my younger days except the Anthrocon attendees were much less serious. Let me tell you that you have not lived till you have seen 30 furries do The Time Warp. Ego Boost: Mikey was hit on by a "straight" boy (and a 6 foot skunk from South Carolina). Good times.

I have to say that Pittsburgh surprised me. It was so very much like Chicago but with less art. It was reasonably clean, at least the areas we were in were clean. There was lots of good architecture and some good museums, most notably The Andy Warhol Museum. There was also no tax on clothes and shoes. Gay heaven to be sure. Mikey came home with a new pair of Pumas.

I am definitely looking forward to going again next year. At least next year it doesn't happen on the same weekend as Toronto Pride.

PS: To whoever found that lost SD Card outside of The Warhol Museum. I was not defiling that teddy bear, we're just close that way.

The event of the season...

Tracy and Dan's wedding is coming up. Saturday is the big day and I am really looking forward to it. Thanks to Emma's help on Bloor St. I am going to look GOOD. I know it's suposed to be all about the bride and all that shit but seriously, I look good in a suit and the new shirt and tie are going to cap it off nicely. Add to that the fresh haircut. I can picture it now. I'd fuck me. Bring on the cougars, there are going to be some broken hearts.

Had a good weekend. Hung out with Meghan and Tim for most of it. Ate out the whole weekend. Drank a bit. Brunch this morning then work. Even work went okay. No complaints. 4 more days till the weekend. YAY!

More book-talk

New book on the go. Finished "Running With Scissors" and am now reading "Dry" also by Augusten Burroughs. It is the third of his auto-biographical books I have read along with his novel which is also very funny shit. Only Augusten (yes we are on a first name basis now) can make rehab funny. Seriously grab one of his books and give it a read. If I like you I might even lend you one of my copies. Once I finish this one I have a couple other books I plan on picking up. Different authors, I guess it's good to branch out a bit. I'll probably blog about those later if they are worthy.

So I'll be back in Trenton on the 27th for Tracy and Dan's wedding. That should be interesting. The wedding will be a blast. Trenton will be pretty much the same as when I left I figure. Most I have done since I left has been the odd hit and run, stopping at the Hospital to see some of the old coworkers. We are staying at The Holiday Inn, the ultimate in classy.

Oh and just something to ponder: STRAP ON is NO PARTS spelled backwards. That's a little something for my lesbian readers out there.

Ottawa "Pride"

So we went to check out Pride weekend in Ottawa. I figured it would be safest to go in with as low expectations as possible in order to not be dissapointed. Turns out that actually worked. Ottawa Pride was not half bad. Really Pride was just the Sunday. Apparently they still can't afford to do a 2 day event. Okay, to be fair there was stuff going on on Saturday we just were not interested in attending any of it.
We headed out of Kingston In the morning and of course hit the Ikea on the way in. Then to the hotel, rooms were not ready. We split up with Howie & Neil for a bit. Dan and I headed to The National Gallery to see the Renoir Landscapes exhibit. Not my thing at all. After that we hooked back up with Howie & Neil, checked into the rooms. We had adjoining rooms and it really worked out great, it's the way to do it. A bit later Kathy showed up and we headed off for a walkabout. Dinner at Tucker's which is an all-you-can-eat buffet place that used to be called Mother Tucker's but they changed the name because people used to call it Mother Fuckers. Too funny. After dinner back to the hotel for a round of mini-putt and a swim/hot tub. Then we headed out to Centertown Pub for a couple drinks then off to Edge for more. Pretty much just hung out and watched the dance floor at Edge for the couple hours we were there. Watched one boy quite a bit. Made some good eye contact. It was fun. Gord and Rob showed up. Chatted with them for a bit then headed back to the hotel. Had hotel sex.
Sunday morning I was up before everyone else of course. Thankfully the hotel had a Starbucks so I headed down, grabbed a latte and sat in the lobby for an hour before heading back upstairs to shower and pack up. We brunched at Dunn's then headed to watch the parade. The parade was not Toronto but it wasn't that bad. After that it was off to the Pride Party on the front lawn of City Hall. Venders and such there as well as a stage with some drag performances including The B-Girls, which we watched before heading back to the car and then back to Kingston.
We got home, unpacked then hooked back up, Mark included and did the buffet at Panda Gardens. Two buffets in one weekend, I do not recommend this as a habit.
Now back to work tomorrow. Two more weeks of days then I start my new overnight shift. Yeah I haven't blogged about that yet. Well now you know. I'll keep y'all posted on how that goes.
Ciao for now...

Boy gone wild

So it was my birthday weekend. I have learned in the last few years to expect fun and adventure on my birthday. It just seems to work out that way.
Bryan and Ryan came down which is great. Saturday we all got together here and had an awesome breakfast cooked by Dan. We then did a bit of shopping and then went to see the new BOURNE movie. It was awesome. Well I sure liked it. Also there were 5 previews before the movie started and I want to see them all. Its going to be busy.
Saturday night we gathered at Tango. I had a great time. Good drink and good food. And the best friends ever.
Now is where it starts to get crazy. Sunday morning started off innocuously. Sunday brunch same as always, good times. Good turn out. Mark brought the boy he is dating. After his first encounter with us he doesn't like us. We can be opinionated, and we are hard on Mark. Not sure what he thinks after his second encounter. Then off to Howie and Neil's...
Wasn't there 2 minutes before I was doing a B-52 and then I never saw the bottom of my Cosmo after that. Needless to say that after so little food I did get pretty drunk. To the point where I have memory lapses involving falling up some stairs and possibly accosting Mark's boy.
Dinner time came and Silver Wok was the choice. Dan decided we should come home and let the dogs out. Good thing because I went up stairs and had a good session puking up what little I had eaten. Yeah we didn't go out. I parked myself on the couch and didn't move much till I headed to bed.
By morning I was pretty much recovered though there was one quick incident in the middle of the night. I remember waking up at some point and for some reason, as only men would do I reached for my privates and could only locate one testicle. I remember a bit of panic before the other one came out of its hiding spot to assume its correct position. I'm not sure if that story would have been any different had I been sober or not. Good story to tell the grand-kids though. Thank goodness I will never have any grand-kids.
Anyway, Monday, my actual birthday was much more low key. We drove to Whitby to get our passport applications in. Dinner at Cambodiana with Howie & Neil. Thats about it really. Today was back to work, 3 more days to go.

At least I remember most of it...

Great weekend!
Highlights of the weekend include: Kingston's Gay Pride Parade (such as it was), shopping, Pride Party at The Grad Club, Brunch, Coffee with Kim, dinner and Ocean's 13 with Howie and Neil.
The parade was small but at least we have one. The weather was outstanding for it.
Shopping was very good. Tim is my new good luck charm when it comes to shopping since I found 2 camouflage items that I have been looking for for a while now.
The Grad Club was good for a change. Great crowd. Saw a few people I haven't seen in a while. Could have stayed later but what the hell.
Coffee with Kim and the most animated story about Aunt Lee to date. Every family has to have one and Aunt Lee must count for about 10.
Stopped by to see Howie and Neil while we were in the neighbourhood which of course turned into dinner and a movie. Ocean's 13: Not as good as 11 but better than 12.
So funny story about The Grad Club outing. I had my first total did-something-I-don't-remember-doing-even-after-being-told-I-did-it moment. Apparently Tim and I dropped our pants to show off our matching underwear. Yeah, totally have no recollection of that particular event. But it doesn't surprise me.
So it was a totally full and fun weekend. Two more like it to come I think. YAY!

What the hell!

So I haven't posted in ages. I have no clue why that is. Lazy I guess.
Not a whole lot to report. Work is the usual up and down affair. Usually down. The more apathetic I become the less any of it seems to matter. So, enough about work.
I'm not going to go back and cover what I've been doing the last few weeks. I've had some fun I'm sure. There was a weekend in Toronto. Shopping at H&M with Emma, we know how that turned out. Fabulous of course. And expensive.
This weekend is Kingston Pride. Next week Laura is throwing a pre-party before heading to The Joy Supper Club. Then the weekend after that we head to Toronto for Pride. YAY! So much to do, so little time to do it. Hope we can fit it all in.
Okay thats it for now. Stay tuned for more...

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

Infiltrate the United States and liberate $30.00 worth of Cheez-its...

Okay, so Thursday was dinner with Howie & Neil. We started out at Montana's but they were out of chicken. Yes, out of chicken. So we went to Swiss Chalet. They were NOT out of chicken. Friday we did the gym and our usual Friday night tea with Howie and Neil at Sipps. Bryan and Ryan joined us too which is cool because they are going to be gone soon so we won't be seeing as much of them.
On to Saturday... Started off pretty innocently. I woke up, checked my email, washed the bathroom walls, you know, the usual stuff. Then we picked up Howie and Neil and headed to the Kingston Home Show. Yeah that sucked so off we went to get Mom and Dad's car started after sitting all winter. Boosted it and it started up like a charm. Now here is when things become blurry. We were deciding what to do next and road trip came up. Next thing you know we are at the border being interigated by the border guard. Then into Watertown for an hour or so, strolled the mall, grocery store, drive through town then back to Canada.
So on the way back to Kingston we stopped at the Casino. So my new game is Craps. After pocketing my initial $20.00 I was up to $50.00 in winnings at one point but in the end walked away from the table with $30.00 in chips. Fun game.
Today is brunch then tonight we are having ribs with Bry and Ry at Howie and Neil's. Gonna be so good. What happens in between brunch and dinner is anybody's guess, though Dan says we are coming home. We'll see.

Weekend update

Well it has been a few days since I last blogged so here I am.
The weekend flew by as it always seems to. Didn't do much until Saturday afternoon when we met up with Howie & Neil and Steph & Lily for a bite to eat before heading off to the casino to burn $20.00 in under 3 minutes. After that we watched Howie play Craps for a bit then half the party set off for Lyndhurst for Dinner at Meghan & Claire's. The second half of the party soon followed. Had a good evening out in the country. The house is coming along very well. I am sure I don't have half the ambition they have. I am not country folk by any means but it was nice sitting by the fire. Would have been even better with a latte from Starbucks. Oh well. Food was very good, and plenty, as it always is when Claire cooks. At the end of the evening, home we came.
Sunday was traditional brunch at The Goat, some wandering around town, the almost installation of a toilet, and a movie. The movie being 300. Pretty good movie. Definitely lots of action. and lots of mostly naked men. Definitely a good time.
So, one day down, four to go. Hard to say if I'll make it.