Saturday, November 29, 2008

In light of realizing that this blog was basically becoming a fishing blog I thought it would make sense to recap the trip to the Dominican for Jen and Ryan’s wedding.

We flew out of Vancouver around midnight on Wednesday. As with most flights I tried to sleep on the plane, which I must’ve done at some point but I still felt like crap when we landed in the Dominican. After we landed we got on a bus and headed out to our resort, the Grand Bahia Principe. To be honest when I first got there I just slept for 4 hours so I didn’t really see much that first day.

I could go into detailed reports about what I did each day but it basically worked like this most days: Sat on the beach, sat around the pool, drank free booze, ate, tried to fight off diarrhea, repeat. One kinda bummer about the place we were at was how adamant they were about not leaving the resort. Apparently the Dominican isn’t the safest place for naïve WASP-y Canadians like myself.

Given that Punta Cana is basically completely owned by foreign investors, the resorts don’t give a very fair view of how the Dominican actually is. In fact the closest real city was about 2 hours by car. I wish I could’ve explored the country a bit more, but it wasn’t really in the cards.

The wedding itself was a good time. One strange thing about it was that since it was done on the beach, there were onlookers who weren’t invited to the wedding itself. And given it was on a topless beach, well that just ups the ante. I don’t think I’ll ever forget seeing Jen and Ryan saying their vows while just a few yards away a 60 year old woman with giant floppy honkers hanging out is wiping away the tears. Magical.

Also tried to go out fishing while I was there. Unfortunately we didn’t catch anything, though judging by the size of the hooks we must’ve been going after some big fish.

On the way back to the airport I tried to take some snaps of what the Dominican might be like for real. Given the fact the country borders Haiti I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised with what I saw.

It was a great week. Nice and relaxing, and the tv down there has like 4 soccer games on at any time of the day. I watched some MLS as well as some Dutch Eredivisie which was cool.

Also a side note, while I was down there I read two books, both about football. The first one was “Boys will be boys” by Jeff Pearlman. It’s about how crazy all the cowboys were during their dynasty years, cocaine, hookers, masturbating in team meetings, it’s definitely a funny book. The second was “The Blindside” by Michael Lewis. It’s about Michael Oher a top Left tackle prospect and how he came from dirt poor Memphis and kind of got adopted by a rich white family. Anyways if you’re looking for books to read I definitely recommend them.

One other side note. Because Ryan is a volleyball player, him and all his friends are super tall dudes who are all in crazy shape. Being the short fat guy by default was a bummer.

Joking aside, it was a great time. Good dudes, free booze, wicked weather. Now I’m just counting down the days until I head back to the hammer.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Salmon Hayek

Just got back from the Dominican, it was a great trip and one of the best weddings I’ve been a part of. I was going to do a post about the trip today but I think I’m going to hold off until I’ve received some of the pictures other people on the trip took as I really didn’t take as many as I should have. I’ll most likely recap it all later this week.

This weekend was a great one weather wise. After a week in the sun I was hesitant about returning to the land of suffocating gray clouds and a place where the sun goes down at 4 pm, so it was nice to have a sunny day on Saturday. Given I was still a bit on Dominican time I got up at 7 on Saturday and decided to try to catch some Salmon before the season ends.

I tried my luck at a new river, the Stave. The first thing I noticed when I got there was this hilarious sign, which perhaps needs a bit of explanation. Basically something like every 400 to 600 years, because Vancouver is near a fault line, a giant earthquake takes place and some people out here are really, really paranoid about the next one. I know of two people at my work who even have earthquake survival kits at their desk. Another person at my work told me their parents moved to Burnaby because they were so worried about the earthquake destroying Vancouver.

When I first got to the river, I walked around for a bit to get a feel for the place. Because it’s near the end of the coho and chum runs the place stank like rancid fish for obvious reasons. Most of the people there were pulling out really gross looking half dead fish from more quiet parts of the river, but I saw one guy parked on a more active piece of water who pulled out a chum salmon that still had a ton of life so I decided to park next to him. The guy was with a friend of his and they had some pretty hilarious conversations, some of my favorite tidbits were:

Guy 1: You still got that furnace that runs on a battery heating yer place?

Guy 2: Yeah, but the car battery ran out.

Guy 1: I told ya to get those 2 golf cart batteries while ya had the chance, ya fucked up.

Guy 2: I didn’t wanna pay the cash.

Guy 1: They were $35 bucks ya fackin idiot.

And:

Guy 1: So I told Carl that if he wants to live in my cabin, I’ll buy the wood and he can fix up the kitchen for me.

Guy 2: How the fack is he going to fix the mold ya got growin’ in there?

Guy 1: I told ya, it ain’t mold, it’s just water marks.

Guy 2: Yer a facking idiot, you’re going to tell me a ceiling that’s been leaking for 5 years ain’t got mold? It’s facking mold.

Guy 1: Fack you.

Regardless, the guys were both great fisherman, and really friendly guys. As they left they gave me some tips on spots to target and how to adjust my rig. Low and behold I finally caught my first salmon of the year. It was definitely into its river colors but it was a nice fish, still healthy and great color, not too big, probably 7-8 pounds or so, but regardless, the first fish monkey is off my back.

After leaving the Stave, I went home and got ready for the reception for Jen and Ryan’s wedding. It was at a Sushi Restaurant and was all for free. All the free Sushi and Sashimi I could eat. Not to mention the beer. Holla!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Remembrance Day

In BC we get this day off. took advantage of the extremely grey day to run some errands before the trip. stopped by a good record store here called Zulu, then went out to the capilano to try some fishing. I got skunked but it's nice to know there's such an awesome river 20 minutes from the city. That's definitely the strength of Vancouver, you can be downtown to crazy wilderness in no time. It's not for everyone, but for people who like the outdoors it more than makes up for the lack of a great night life. Or maybe I'm just getting old and boring.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Black Metal Simon

First crack at a blackmetal logo for my name, more to come.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

So I started this thing because I figured I should probably make a better effort to stay in contact with all my friends and families and I’d been falling behind in sending emails and calling people. To be honest, I stole the idea from my buddy Ben, he’s been doing this since he moved to England and it seemed like a good way to keep contact.

Halloween came and went. I went as an 80’s metalhead, which was super easy because I already had everything I needed in my wardrobe. I don’t know whether that’s bad ass or sad. I kinda beefed it because I ate a crap load of Mexican leftovers before I went out. As a result instead of focusing on celebrating evil, I was thinking about all the evil things brewing in my stomach. Regardless, good time, went to a party that a dude from work threw. Then went to a big ole house party with the usual gang.

Saturday got up early, shook off a bit of a hangover and drove out to Chilliwack for an afternoon of river fishing in the Vedder. Hooked into a chum salmon but panicked, put my finger on the line and it snapped. After fishing for bass for so long, it’s weird when you see a massive 10 plus pound fish you hooked jump up in the air..

Snow is starting to develop on the top all the nearby mountains. Once snow starts to show up on the tops the mountains look so much more bad ass. Unfortunately it’s been so grey lately that you barely see the top of the mountains.And when you get out of work at 4:45, it shouldn’t be this dark.

Fast forward a week of working on an awesome project at work and looking at stuff on the internet a lot. I’ve always been really into Black metal logos, I think I might try making one for myself, they look awesome and kind of remind me of wildstyle graffiti a bit. Made a wicked mussel dish one night and a wicked pea soup another night.

Also been reading up on the renos they plan to do to BC place if they get an MLS soccer team. The pictures look pretty amazing, but I’ve been there, and I just can’t imagine that concrete dump being a cool place to see soccer. Especially considering they want to put in a subroof to section off the entire top level of BC Place off.It sounds kind of like how the Montreal people envisioned the olympic stadium roof being able to liftoff with some pulleys and wire, and that didnt work out too well. Who knows.

Charlie and old friend came into town this weekend. He came with his girlfriend and some of his friends to see a show on Saturday. It was good seeing an old friend. Got drunk and went out on Friday with him, his friends and Christy to see the Secret Machines, who were extremely mediocre. I had to leave early because I was too drunk.

Today was quiet.Enjoyed the Vikings win over the Packers and my man crush for Adrian Peterson got even more intense.

Wednesday go to the Dominican with Christy for Jen and Ryans wedding. Gnar Gnar! I’ll do a post on that eventually as well as one on the trip to Tofino me and Christy took over the thanksgiving weekend.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008