aka: Bowen & NIN
I worked Saturday, but on Sunday Carole and I headed back to my parents new place on Bowen Island. We had a nice visit, did a nice 8km hike around Kilarney Lake, had a couple drinks at the Bowen Pub, then had an awesome chicken dinner to celebrate my Dad's 59th birthday. The bottle of Crown Royal Special Reserve we got him went over well, but I had to be at work bright and early Monday morning, so we made it on the 9PM ferry (which didn't leave until 9:30 for some reason) and we were home before 11.
The next night would be another late one - the Nine Inch Nails concert! I picked Corole up downtown after work and we headed back to Pacific Coliseum for the concert. We were an hour early, so we went to Tom & Jerry's for dinner ... that's becoming a bit of a tradition for Pacific Coliseum shows.
The opening band was Autolux, a trio from L.A. with a chick drummer. They've got a Sonic Youth/Smashing Pumpkins meets Radiohead 'sonic wash' vibe. The next act was none other than Queens of the Stone Age. Their set got off to a shaky start with some tempo problems (the drummer had some big shoes to fill, replacing Dave Grohl) but the 2nd half of the set was awesome. NIN played for exactly 90 minutes, and had a really intense show with some really cool visual effects - including a silk screen that hung all the way around the stage, enclusing them in a 'mosquito net' that began to fill with smoke. Once it was full, video and laser shows were projected onto the screen while floor pots shone up at the band members, making them the only things visible inside the box. It was very cool.
We met up with our buddy Remo there, he got free tickets - second time in a row! Lucky guy...
Tonight the new season of Amazing Race starts... tomorrow is Lost, then the Day after that is Survivor - sigh - I love/hate this time of year... great new TV, but that means I don't get anything done for 13 weeks... oh well! I am SO hooked on LOST right now, I just bought the first season DVD box set, and have watched 20 of the 24 episodes in the last 3 days - now THAT is unproductive...
Yes, The Piscids... at least that's what I think it was... my google search for meteor showers visible in September returned several posiblilties, but The Piscids seemed to be the most likely candidate. Huh? What ama I talking about? Why only the most spectacular meteorite entry into our atmosphere that I've ever seen, that's what! Last night at about 8PM, looking due west over Vancouver, I saw what looked like an orange roman candle streak straight down from the sky, explode into dozens of pieces that all continued on their own paths, and then in an instant it was gone. No more to be seen. I've seen lots of shooting stars, and as a kid living far from the city we used to lay out at night and watch the big seasonal meteor showers every year. So I've seen my share, but nothing as spectacular as this! I don't think I've ever seen one burst into pieces before - and that was way cool!
Soooo... other than that, what have I been up to for the past two weeks? Well, this past Sunday, Carole and I went to Bowen Island to checkout my parents new pad. Yup, that's right, they've moved from the interior to a tiny island - quite a change, eh? I was a nice day, we had a relaxing visit, caught some sun, and what trip to Bowen would be complete without a stop at Doc's for fish'n'chips and a couple of pints?
Monday was my other day off this week (yes, it's true! I get two days off a week now!) and I took the chance to finally do a little more geocaching. Of the three I tackled that day, I located two - one of which has been a thorn in my side since my first week of caching... it was a stubborn hide that I've looked for 5 times with no luck, but Monday, after about 90 minutes of hunting the same location, I finally found it! And it was 78 meters from where the GPS said it should be, so I don't feel too badly about takign so long to get it... actually, I feel rather vindicated!
On the past Friday night, we went to a small poker night at Carole's dad's place, and I came in 2nd again. It was a good night though, as we played an hour of blackjack after the poker tourney, and I placed 2nd in that too... so coming home having broken even, and with another nice night with family under your belt is just fine.
Wow... what did we do the week before that... well, we went to the movies and saw "Red Eye" - um, I don't reccomend it... what else... Carole, help me out! As you can tell, my brain is still slightly mushy from working 8 weeks straight with only 6 days off (never back to back days off either) in all that time. But the overtime bucks paid off all my debt, so mushy brain or not, I'm thankful for that.
If I think of more to write about, I'll be sure to post it.
Ciao for now!
Okay, I admit - our weekends have been anything but boring lately...
Saturday morning Carole, her father and I, went on a hike starting at Bunzen Lake, and heading up to Diez Vistas. Well, actually, we only made it quatro vistas, as it would have been a seven hour hike to see all ten - not that it mattered though, as it was pouring all day. Right up to the time we got to the first vista, which was just about 2 hours into the hike, the rain was light enough that we weren't getting drenched - but by time we got to Punta del Esta, we were in the midst on a good ol' West Coast downpour. As the trail we were hiking up had become a river in less than 20 minutes (no, seriously... a river...) we decided to head back - which made the hike 3 and a half hours long anyway, so we didn't actually take much time off - in fact, we probably would have gone only to one more lookout even if it had been a great day.
One unexpected pleasure I got out of this trip, is that as we neared the first peak (maybe 400M away) a geocache location popped into view on my GPS receiver... wow! I hadn't even investigated whether there would be any caches on this hike, and it turns out we're heading right for one! Without knowing any of the cache details or clues, we figured it would be a crap shoot as to whether we actually locate it - but as the GPSr zeroed out at Punta del Esta, the cache was right there... it took perhaps 60 seconds to locate - so that was exciting! I got to increase my cache count by one.
We all made it back down in one piece, though we were drenched head to toe, and I had shredded my shorts (It was pretty funny... I won't tell you where the gaping hole was... use your imagination, you'll probably be right.). The next day, Carole had a sore knee, but other than that, it was a good long, fairly steep, fairly strenuous hike, but we made it through with very little hitches. And at the end of it, I think we all agreed that it was a really refreshing, down to earth experience to be out with nature in all her splendor and glory.
Other than the hike, on Friday night Carole and I saw Wayne off by going to the Fireside Pub for a couple of beers - Wayne headed out for P.E.I. early Saturday morning... his first trip back since moving to the west coast 15 years ago! After saying buenos noches to Wayne and Patty, Carole and I were in the rare mindset to actually go to a bar and have a few more drinks- so we headed to one a little closer to home, and Carole watched me lose four games of pool, very badly, and very quickly.
On Saturday, we made up a household shopping list, and picked up over $600 worth of 'nic-nacs' and 'little things' that were needed around the house. I think the biggest stuff was a new leather office chair, and three new CD racks to replace my ugly old black towers ... anybody need an ugly old black CD tower? The rest of the night was spent assembling everything we had purchased.
I had to work the holiday Monday, but didn't mind, as this was actually my first two-day weekend over 6 weeks! STAT Holiday overtime pay isn't too shabby either...
Lots more happened, including our fun-filled, never-a-dull-moment purchase of an electric scooter, but I'll save tha tfor another time... the story is still unfolding!
