Curse you, Food Network!
So, I’m sitting here, thinking about going to bed. There’s some thing about a clam chowder cookoff on the food network. Now, I want chowder!
It’s hardly a late-night thing: I don’t think I could head out into Vancouver at 12:30 and find clam chowder. I’d settle for seafood chowder, but I don’t think that’s the issue. Maybe I can find some tomorrow.
Where does one go for a good chowder in the city?
So, I spent the last hour drunk-driving.
No, wait… that requires some explaination.
I bought a Playstation 2 last week. And a steering wheel (open-box, half-price), and Gran Tourismo 4. I like racing games, and I figure Kat isn’t around to fight over the TV. I was right: I’m having fun with it.
I decided I felt like a rum and coke tonight, so I made one. Then I decided that it wasn’t strong enough, so I stiffened it up a little. Then I finished it and stood up.
Then I thought, “I wonder what driving drunk is like”. GT4 is, after all, a pretty good simulation.
Long story short, drunk driving is a bad idea. Even virtually. Races that I should have won handily took 2–3 tries to win; there was a lot more slamming into stuff.
Stay safe out there, kids. Also, stay in school.
Yarrr, it again be time for talk like a pirate day! If ye be unschooled in the ways of the pirate, watch ye a video of instructions.
Harr harr, this be fun! If only I could teach the scurvy dogs in such a way.
People, such as myself, who have spent approximately 1000 hours talking in front of a room of people start to think they know the score. I figured I had dealt with enough weird questions that I couldn’t be suprized by anything short of this.
But today, 30 seconds into my 470 lecture:
Me: “HTML… web… computers… ”
Some girl: “Excuse me, isn’t this native studies 100?”
Me: “No.”
Girl: “Did it change rooms?”
Me: “Nope, we’ve been here all semester.”
Girl: “Today’s Thursday, right?”
Me: “Buh… Monday.”
Girl: “Oh, okay.” Leaves.
If she had said “Tuesday”, I could have moved on with my life, but Thursday? That’s three days off. The best explaination I have: She did a lot of drugs last Wednesday and just came-to this morning. She didn’t really seem like the heavy-drug-use sort, though.
PS: Yes, 1000 hours is my approximate lifetime total lecturing. If you didn’t click on the link to YouTube above, you should.
Does anybody else ever get the impression that they might be too stupid to act as a functioning member of society?
I went to go out this morning and couldn’t find my wedding ring. There are only really two places I leave it when I take it off, and it wasn’t in either.
It wasn’t on the floor near those places. It wasn’t in the less-frequent places I leave the ring, or around them. It wasn’t on any surface near where I could imagine having taken the ring off. It wasn’t in or under the couch. It wasn’t in the pockets of the clothes I was wearing yesterday.
It wasn’t in the full bag of garbage that had been sitting for a few moments near the front door, where I usually put the ring. [Anybody ever carefully search a bag of garbage? Week-old chinese takeout containers, half-eaten fruit, old kleenex. Unidentifiable moisture. It took some intestinal fortitude.]
I decided to re-check the clothes I was wearing—maybe there were some pockets I missed. There was the ring, sitting under the shorts I was wearing. It was on top of the pair of shorts below, dead-centre, as if carefully placed there for safe keeping.
This is a pretty serious mystery to me. I replayed the day as I was searching, trying to figure out where I might have left it. I almost never put my ring in my pockets. I’m always paranoid about it when I do, so I would remember if it had been in my pocket during the day. How else does a ring get in with one’s clothes?
Underpants gnomes? Maybe they could only find my shorts, not the underwear, so they got pissed and hid my ring?
Or, like, it might have been a mouse or… something?
So, what have we missed?
We got back to Vancouver. Kat only had a week to spend in the city, so we were pretty busy. We had to see her family, see friends, and we both had a solid chunk of work to get done.
In the middle of it, my parents were in town. They had just taken an Alaska cruise, and decided to spend a few days in Vancouver after it. On labour day weekend. While Kat was back. And I was trying to get back up to speed to start teaching and admin stuff. And Oli and Tina got back to Vancouver. Wheee!!!
Long story short, we were busy, so no blogging. I dropped Kat off at the airport this morning to head back to NC. I’ll let her tell her own travel story.
Now, I’m back to work and busy. I got pulled into about four unscheduled meetings today and barely had time to breathe in a day that started with a half-hour scheduled. I’m hoping that was a backlog of stuff from the semester break. It might be, right?
We’re back to Vancouver, after a bit of a Rube Goldberg day of flying. I’m back for the semester. Kat is back for a week or so.
The remainder of Oli and Tina’s wedding festivities were very cool. Details and pictures will have to wait until I have a really firm grasp on what city and timezone I’m in.
We just got to Lunenburg. We checked in to the hotel and went over to Oli’s parents’.
What’s the word I’m looking for here… “remote”. It’s like an hour drive from Halifax to Lunenburg (where we’re staying) and another hour to Oli’s parent’s, all down nasty little two-lane roads. Driving back to the hotel at midnight remined me that I have gotten soft—that was a weekly thing when I was in high school, and I thought nothing of it. Now, I’m old and worried about hitting deer.
One of two things is clearly true: (1) there’s something cool out here, and they’re trying to keep it a secret, or (2) there’s nothing out here that anybody wants to drive to.
Since Lunenburg is a UNESCO world heritage site, I’m still holding out hope for (1).
But, Oli’s family is fun, and it promises to be a good few days with them.
Montreal has come and gone, and we have just hit Halifax.
Montreal was busy. We got in Wednesday, and went to dinner at Oli’s sister’s. On Thursday, our old housemate Mike drove in from Ottawa (where he is now gainfully employed) and we spent they day with him. Friday was the wedding rehersal.
Saturday was the wedding. I think it was successful by all accounts. It was fancy. Also, schmancy.
The ceremony was in an beautiful and non-air-conditioned church. To give you an idea: my water-resistant watch now has condensation in the face. I was sweating more than “water resistant” could take. Oli spent the ceremony counting drops of sweat that ran down his back. The count was very high—apparently, the men in his family are sweaters.
I took some pictures. And by “some”, I mean I filled a 2GB flash card with more than 500 pictures. It will take some time to wade through, but I’ll try to get some highlights together soon. There are definitely some gems in there. (Ever seen François and Oli hula-hoop? You will.)
Our schedule is much less full now. Basically: go to place X; do whatever we feel like doing.
For now I’ll leave you with these: (follow the link for larger versions)
So ends my summer in North Carolina. The cab to take us to the airport is coming at 8:30—a quite leisurely time compared to the flights I’m used to taking.
So, this may be a travel blog for the next two weeks, or we may be incommunicado.
All I know is that I set a vacation message on my email for the first time in about three years.