An Eventful Weekend (A Rare Occurance)

Its been a pretty evenful weekend. The pace is pretty fast and it's still keeping up as the work week begins anew. So heres what happened this weekend:

Friday, July 21st
Fun times. I got off work a little earlier than usual, since it was dead and no one was in the office except for me. I met Mike (BCM) just outside of my office in CSB and we headed over to the Health Sciences Center for a LRT trip to the downtown core. There, we walked and shopped (,although nothing was bought,) around for a few hours waiting for Tmo. On the way, we played a bit of arcades at the movie theatre.

In haste, I forgot to zip up the compartment on my bag that held my cell phone and it dropped out and was lost to me for the rest of day and half of Saturday. Needless to say, it was quite a inconvenience without it and hassle trying to get it back.

When Tmo (finally) called, we headed to a local French restaurant by the name of Bistro Praha. The food was awesome and exquisite. I basically had a 3 course meal (though the food was so delicious I felt I could of had 4 or 5): A salad (with just the right amount of cheese sprinkled in), Lamb Chops with Pan fried potatoes and vegetables (boiled with butter and water I might add) and to top it off a Kiwi and Orange Liqueur Crape. The service matched the taste of the food and all this for 30 something dollars was quite a steal (I had a Stella Artois beer as well).

Around 9:30 or so, we headed over to Louis' restaurant for a night of DS...I mean, Poker. It was nerdy but fun nevertheless. I decided to head home around 1:30, to get some shut eye and wake up early and fresh to go volunteer for Kingsley at the Grand Prix.

Saturday, July 22nd
I woke up at 8:15 and proceeded to get dressed and picked up Joho in the west side, then swung back east to pick up BCM and another Mike. We went to Timmy Ho’s for breakfast and then headed to the municipal aiport, where the Grand prix was held.

Finding parking at the Grand Prix was an adventure in itself. It took us about 20 minutes of wandering and reckless driving to find the damn place. It didn’t help that this day was so fucking hot (I think it hit a high of about 37 degrees Celsius at 8:00pm according to my car's temperature gauge, but those things can be off by a degree or so). All I can say is thank god my car has A/C, otherwise my head would’ve blown up.

After parking we walked 20 minutes out in the blazing heat to the Invisions Auto Main site. It’s amazing how much energy the heat can drain out of you, so we had a little sit-down at the main tent and eventually Mike (BCM) and I got sent to the smaller Invisions site.

The problem with the smaller site was that it was setup like a full tent, with a roof and walls made of plastic tarp. No wind flow and radiating heat basically meant that it was a giant plastic oven in which to roast in. I could cook hot dogs in that tent and sell slightly less than other vendors were selling their hot dogs (usually about 5 dollars, 6 if you wanted a fracking smokie from Fat Franks). It was that hot. However, it did make for a great conversation with potential magazine and lanyard buyers.

Just like K-days, or CapitalEx I should say (or Sex if you wanna refer to it in a cool way), the food prices were outrageous. Aside from the formentioned, Lemonade (not really, since it was just lemon and water) sold for 5 dollars. Sure the cups looked big, but it didn’t really help when 90% of it was ice, I’m never buying “lemonade” from Lemon Heaven again.

The best deal for food was probably the kettle cooked popcorn, although it wasn’t so much of a deal as it was just plain tasty. This stuff was sweet yet salty at the same time and very addictive. They gave away free samples, and once I tried a handful from a bag that our co-volunteer bought, I was hooked. I bought myself a medium sized bag for $4.00 and began munching away. Those free samples were the advertsing power of that booth and, boy, it work.

During Mid-day we met up with the boys again and went for a stroll around the grounds. Sadly, I saw very few hot girls (even during the whole show). Joho however, managed to get his mack on with his Umbrella and “Would you like some shade” ploy. Good tactic and he was in a prime location at the main site (EZ motorsports girls hang out there -_- ).

At 6:00 we packed it all in. In the end I felt that the main site was the better location to be in. It was cooler, had more cars and girls than the smaller site ever saw throughout the course of the day. However, it lacked the entertainment of Dallas, one of our cohorts, who was constantly doing funny things and provoking cops. I suppose, that in itself was time well spent.

We went back to Edmonton Centre to pick up my lost phone (Thank you manager of the movie theater). It was a hassle without the phone since nobody could ask me when I was coming to pick them up at the start of the day.

That night’s plans involved going to Rum with BCM, so I dropped off the east side boys and waited at BCM’s house for him to shower and change. We then went to my house for a shower and change of clothes. Wasabi was the restaurant of choice that night with me ordering the Chirashi (It’s just assorted sashimi on rice). I tried takoyaki, which was a unique and gratifying experience.

After we met up with Gugenz, Louis and Hiromi at OJ’s downtown. Damn is that spot hard to find, or maybe I just didn’t have luck finding things with my car that night (My direction sense sucks, oh well, its fun driving around and getting lost sometimes).

Going to Rum, I met with a couple friends that I haven’t talked to in a while. I really should talk to these people, other than I’m just a lazy/shy bum who can’t message people on MSN -_-. I’ll change that I promise…well…ok I will. I’ll try to be more interesting too. At times, I feel like I’m boring people to death. After chatting, a few hugs with my friends (yay, girl contact) and sitting by myself, feeling like I got hit by the tired train, I left for home with Mike, but not before hitting the casino for a quick bathroom break and gamble at the slots (which I told I won 3.50 after I put in 2 dollars, but lost it in the end). I have no fracking idea how slots where sometimes.

I went to bed in preparations for next day’s volunteer work.

Sunday July 23rd
Woke up a little later than the day before, all thanks to Kingsley who went to pick up Joho so I wouldn’t have to. I picked up Mike and Mike and we went to McDonalds for breakfast and Esso for a 1.5 L Jug of water. The breakfast was the most gratifying meal I’ve ever had on the road.

Got to the grounds around the same time the day before and took the same 20 minute walk. Only this time, the weather was cooler since there was more of a breeze.

Again BCM and I camped ourselves in the little tent. Learning from past experience we opened up the back of the tent to let the nice breeze come through. This cooled down the tent better than we expected and the heat was more bearable than yesterday. With the shade from the sun and a breeze through our tent, this made the smaller site the place to be. Sure the main site had girls, but ours was optimal.

Tried to watch drifting that day, but couldn’t really see much, as we weren’t allowed on the grandstands. Atleast we got to see the drift cars as they pulled out of the track. I’ll have to get the pictures from Mike and post it up on the blog.

Again we bought popcorn and munched down. Yum!

All in all, this day seemed to end quicker than the previous day. When we were packing up everything at the conclusion of the event, (which took forever; I had to sit and wait for 1 hour, but atleast I wasn’t doing anything except playing tetris on my DS,) we were offered free hot dogs from Fat Franks (the guy had cooked too much, but I’m not complaining). This made my day.

I took a Rotora lanyard as my reward for 15 hours of volunteering. I also got 3 sunburns on my shoulders and neck. Apparently to Kiyoshi my sunburns make it look so that the rest of my body is wearing some sort of funky shirt. Cool...but painful.

We took the long 20 minute walk back to my car and I dropped off Mike and Mike. I got home at 7:00pm took a shower and crashed on my bed exhausted like the previous day. However the day was not over yet.

Team Tsunami’s hockey game started at 9:30 and I planned on being there an hour before. However, my intended nap extended till 8:30. I quickly rushed out of bed (after contemplating going to hockey or not), and sped down to Clairview Arena (30 minutes away from my house).

The hockey game turned into a scrimmage when the opposing team’s goalie didn’t show up and they were forced to forfit the game. Simply put, it means that I didn’t even have to show up, however, I was glad to play hockey against my team (the opposing team needed a few players, I volunteered). It was insightful to get to learn about the inner workings of a rival team.

I drove BCM home again (he had gotten a ride off Hiromi), and went home and crashed in my bed again.

It was a really tiring weekend and I’m sort of disappointed that I didn’t get to party as much as I wanted to. I’m also disappointed in not meeting hot girls, but that’s the way life goes sometimes (most of the time if your shy like me -_-).

Monday, July 24th
Back to work (yay… -_-). For lunch I bought chicken wings at Mac’s again for the tenth time in 2 weeks (bad…). I’ll probably go there today too.

After work, I met up with Hiromi and Mike and we walked Whyte ave. I, also, got my skates sharpened so that I’ll be ready for the Tomorrow’s game against the Wing Nuts.

We went to Sexposition (CapitalEx) after a meal at OJ Riverbend (BTW they closed 23rd Avenue, do not take that route). It was pretty fun. I saw my cousin and found out he was soon to be a father. I congratulated him and saw that he was pregnant too (not really, he just has a big stomach which I teased him about0. We played Bingo for half an hour and I scored a teddy penguin by breaking 2 plates with 2 balls. Gugenz went crazy on the gambling, but eventually I had to be the party pooper and get people to leave the sexposition so that they could drive me to Hiromi’s house (where I parked my car).

I find that it’s the same shit every year. Maybe I’ll go back to the sEx or probably I won’t. I didn’t find it too exciting. Maybe I need to buy a ride pass.

Wow, this entry has been 4 pages long (in Microsoft Word). All written at work while I’m waiting for faculty to reply to my emails. Great fun..great time killer. Hopefully I’ll update with pictures soon.

By the way, Nelly Furtado is awesome. She got some great songs on her new CD.