Something amazing happen? Suddenly got lots of free time? Nope. Neither. But, as I just came back from a coffee break where I was playing poker with a co-worker, I remembered that Carole and I went to a poker tournament of Friday night that I forgot to mention. Neither of us did very well - I think I was out in 5th or 6th, and Carole was out in 3rd or 4th... oh well, it was nice to get out for the evening, even if to just realize that we need more poker practice!
I also just got reminded that next payday is bonus time - so two weeks from now, I should be getting a big fat cheque - that was a pleasant surprise, er, reminder! as all my debt is payed off (well, except for the car and mortgage) I'm not really sure what to do with the windfall - I could sock it all into RRSPs, I could pay off the car, thus saving myself $800 a month for the next year, or I could put a downpayment on something I've always wanted... like a boat, or waterfront acreage in the interior... or, I suppose I could get my basement finished and carpeted, and put a pool table in... oh, the joys of a wandering mind!
Ah - best/worst idea yet... fly to Vegas and enter the world series of poker - I'll either lose it all, or come home a millionaire - sound like a plan?
On Thursday, I was told I didn't have to work on Saturday, but then on Friday afternoon I was asked to come in anyway - so, once again, so much for any hopes of getting a weekend off. But, Sunday was a great day... I had a four hour hike, followed by a three hour cruise.
On Sunday we got our first rain in something like 45 days... It started with a drizzle, and quickly became an out-an-out downpour. Not a good day for a hike OR a cruise, but they were planned, and I was determined! In actuality, both turned out to be awesome. My friend Bob and I setout to conquor Eagle Ridge, directly behind my house. It's a four hour hike, and despite the rain, it was a warm day, and the wetness didn't really affect us much at all. In fact, when we finally got to the East viewpoint of the ridge and stopped for lunch, the rain magically cleared, and the clouds lifted. We could see east to Surrey, Langley and beyond, and we could see West to the Vancouver waterfront, and the north shore. We also did a 20 minute detour to Cypress Lake where we briefly searched for a geocache that hasn't been sighted in two years... we found exactly where it should be, but it's definitely gone. No worries, it's always great to get up to that secluded lake. We also met up with some mountain-bikers who were taking insane jump down the absolutely hellish terrain - as we were coming up the hill one biker lauched off a cedar ramp, a good 20 feet into the air, and landed (safely!) at least 60 or 70 feet down the hill. Amazing! I had my camera, but it all happened so fast, no time to take any pix...
When we finally made it home, I had one hour to clean up before Carole and I were to head downtown for a dinner cruise on the Horatio Hornblower. We actually got there 45 minutes early, and though it was raining (hard) again, we spent some time in the Westin Bayshore until the Coal Harbour cruise was ready for boarding. Dinner was really nice - roast beef, hot-hot-horseradish, potatoes, veggies, ceasar salad, potato salad, fusilli, all sorts of awesome stuff! Drinks were a modest $5 eash, and we both had a few. Too bad it's a crazy downpour outside, right? Well, you'll never belive this... as soon as dinner ends, and we're rounding third beach, the rain stops, the clouds part, and the most amazing sunset is about 15 minutes from it's apex... we go out onto the open upper deck to find it calm and pleasant out. It's a beautiful, peaceful momment - which the other passengers soon clue in to, and begin filing onto the upper decks. In fact, the night becomes so nice that the DJ brings his whole rig to the upper deck and starts the party! Absolutely perfect! For two hours we slowly cruise past Granville Island and around False Creek before making our way back past English Bay, Stanley Park, under the Lions Gate Bridge, and finally back to Coal Harbour by 10PM.
I had to be at work by 6AM, and the hike had really tuckered me out as well, so it was all over in the perfect amount of time (under different circumstances, it would have been great to just party all night long on the yacht!).
After a good 5 1/2 hour sleep, it was back to work this morning - BUT - THIS TIME, I'm REALLY supposed to get this whole weekend off.. so after today, that's only 4 days to go! I plan to make it an eventful weekend, though I don't know if I can easily top the time I had yesterday.
Yup, it's Sunday again - I've been at work for an hour now, and the sun has finally come up, so I can see that damned gas station's sign now and it says $1.141 per liter. But, while this is the highest it's ever been, I'm not terribly upset because I filled up yesterday at $0.984 (well, that's the posted price for regular - I actually paid $1.074 for premium... but at today's prices, I would've paid $1.251!!!)
Yesterday was my day off, and we made the most of it. We were up and out of the house early, heading north of Hope where we were to meet a friend's family at a campsite for a few hours of dirt-biking. Unfortunately, after a two hour drive through th crazy Abbotsford Airshow traffic, we made it to within 2 kilometers of the campground, but had to turn around. Just one small section of the "access" road (read: logging road) required a truck, and my little beamer wasn't makin' it. I was close, but with big boulders and ruts in the road, I knew I was going to bottom out at the crest, and we opted to back out and go back to the highway. Yeah, I supposed we could have parked and walked the rest of the way in, but it was already 33 degrees, and that was a HOT, dry, dusty, steep logging road - we would have been drenched in sweat and caked with mud before we even got to the campsite.
Instead, we opted to head back into Hope, get a Subway sandwich to eat in the park, then we headed to Kawkawa lake for a bit to put our feet in the water, catch some sun, and to look at some of the property that's for sale around the lake. After that, we went to the Othello tunnels for a nice walk and scenic diversion. As many times as I've been here in my life, Carole swears I've NEVER taken her here before... amazing! I got to tell all my old childhood stories about experiences at the tunnels again, oh joy!
We started to head back home at 3:30, as we had a poker night to attend at 7PM. Back through the airshow traffic, and at least three accidents, and we made it home with exactly enough time for a really quick shower before heading out.
It was a really strange poker night... everyone at the table took a turn at being the chip leader at least once, and after I had knocked out the first person (Carole's dad) with my pocket aces, I had a huge stack and thought for sure that I had the first place pot in the bag. But over the next hour or two, my stack dwindled, and dwindled and dwindled. I lost three big hands (one to each of my remaining opponents) and each one ened with my two-pair being sucked-out on the river by a chased flush or straight. When I was finally down to my last $700 in chips, Carole put me all in. I had a pair of kings with a jack kicker. Any jack would make me two pair, any queen would make a 9-K straight, any king would make trips, and there was a flush draw as well... it wasn't going to get any better than this, so I went all in on the turn. It turns out Carole had the queen, and an ace on the river sewed up her win with a nut straight. She was on a draw! And I was out. At this point Carole took the lead, and yet she was out soon afterward. Her final hand played out almost exactly like mine, except she was up against a habitual bluffer who just happened to turn trip kings that hand. After that, the two remaining players were practically even, and agreed to all-in each hand until someone won. It was only two hand later that Carole's sister in law walked away with the night's $100 prize. Good game! There were a lot of great hands that night - especially Bron's four sevens on the flop!
After driving all the way back from Kits, I had exactly 6 hours before I had to be at work. Thankfully Carole drove - I was TIRED. Yawn, so here I am - hard at work (cough, cough) on Sunday morning - but thankful for a really full day off!
PS - did I mention it was 33 degrees yesterday? That was another new record for that day.. previous high was 29 in 1977.
So I'm looking out my window at work right now (yeah, I know... It's Sunday morning, no need rub it in...) and the gas station across the street just put the price up to $1.086 for regular and $1.196 for premium (which my car requires)!!! Ouch! My gas light came on, on the way in to work this morning (YES, I KNOW it's a Sunday, thank you very much!) so I'm going to have to get gas at these crappy prices if I want to make it home this evening.
On another note, Carole and I DID get a chance to spend some of my hard earned overtime money yesterday - we bought a 5 man tent, a portable DVD player (for camping, traveling, in the car, etc), and a photo printer that hooks right up to my digital camera - no computer required - and it prints right to glossy Kodak paper... photo quality. we also got me a really cool leather heavy-metal guitar strap, some DVDs, and some misc household stuff.
We found a REALLY cool geocache yesterday too - this was the best hide I'd ever seen - the person who made this cache must work in special effects for movies because I've never seen a 'prop' element blend into the wilderness so perfectly - you could stare right at it, and not even know it was there... really cool.
Most of the day yesterday, I just hung out in the back yard. Gardening, watering, BBQ'ing, making the most of my day off...
Weather has still be awesome every day. Temperatures over 28 every day, and I'm loving it! The days are getting shorter though, and today was the first day that it was dark when I got up, and the sun oly started to rise while I was on the road to work... sigh... it was only Friday that I was still putting my sunglasses on for the 5:30AM drive to the office...
Ah well. I ain't complainin'.
Wow, everything has been so busy lately... since the last post, I've been working a lot of overtime and work has been, to say the least, hectic. We've managed to get out a couple of times though, I found another geocache, we went to the movies and saw "The Island" (good movie) and we got to a BBQ at Carole's step brother's place.
The weather has been absolutely gorgeous for the past two weeks - between 26 and 31 every day. Grass is starting to turn brown now though, so maybe a quick shower or two wouldn't be too bad, but I'm loving the sunny days all the same... despite the fact that I'm working straight through most of them...
The price of gas just hit $1.04 a liter - I think that's the highest I've ever seen it here - lucky for me I filled up a few days ago at $0.869 - so, yeah, there's still quite a bit of swing in the price-at-the-pump, but this upward trend is still disturbing. At the current price, it's $60 to fill my tank now. To think that two years ago, when prices were already starting to climb to crazy heights, I was filling up for $42.
Carole's mom and step dad spent the night at our place on Monday, as they were heading to the airport early the next morning. Brian gave me a really nice new Driver to add to my golf clubs, so I've got to get up to the driving range i the next day or so to try it out. Hard to believe the driving range is a 12 minute walk from my house, and yet I've only been there once this year!
Well, I know this is a quick one, but I've gotta go. I'll try to get back and write more really soon!