Well we lost our game against Ontario over the weekend, thus ending our ARC campaign. To be more specific we didn't just lose, we lost badly. A descriptive sportswriter may have called it carnage; 32-5 was the final. Simply put they played well and we played poorly. It was fun while it lasted.
Meanwhile, on the way home from my return flight to Moncton, I was a party to what a descriptive journalist would have dubbed "Carnage on Route 105". On my drive on that section of highway between Jemseg and Lower St. Mary's I would estimate I killed a hundred frogs. Big frogs, little frogs, all sizes of frogs. I honestly tried my best to avoid them without going off the road but I was only marginally successful with them hopping all over the road like that. It really begs the question, which that same journalist would present to his science expert, of why, exactly, did the frog (attempt to) cross the road? We'll never know of course but what we do know is that Kermit was right:
I am in Toronto with the Rock for our last game of round robin portion of the Americas Rugby Championship. We are playing the Ontario Blues and, based on the results so far in the competition, it should be a close game. It will certainly be a tough one; Ontario fairly sees themselves as a rugby power and their team is currently sitting at 0-2. They won't want to go 0-fer in front of their home crowd. We need to win or lose closely to earn our trip to BC for the final. Now that would be sweet.
As I was heading home from work last night I noticed a maple tree whose trees had already changed to bright red. I thought to myself that it was awfully early for the leaves to change. I thought about it for a second and remembered that today was actually the first day of fall and those leaves were about right on time. I had lost track of time somewhat because the last couple of months have been busy with rugby so it certainly didn't feel like summer is already gone. Alas, it is. Fortunately the forecast this week calls for summer like temps so we that should help. Neverthelass, fall officially starts tomorrow and those leaves will keep going through them changes.
That whole paragraph was really just an excuse to play this song:
I have this album in my vinyl collection and it's sweet.
Two weeks ago in Calgary, the 6 of us not travelling back to Newfoundland after our game there missed our flight because we went to the airport with the rest of the team when we should have checked-in an hour earlier. None of us checked our tickets, we trusted that the manager had taken care of that for us. Real adult behaviour there. This is of course nothing new for me; the Calgary airport alone has been the scene of a couple of epic airplane misses and, although they are clearly my fault, I still feel as the YYC owes me almost two full days of my life back. There are countless other misses, most notably the flight I missed by 15 minutes...and one day. But for every sad miss there are countless other near misses that end happily. Today was one of those days. Brent and I arrived at the airport at 6:50 for a 7:15 flight and the nice people of Westjet in St. John's rushed us through security and on to the plane. In the security line we bypassed the BC squad that beat us (8-7) the day before. Among this mob were some good friends from my days in BC and they had some catcalls as we skipped the queue to catch our flight. This, obviously, drew some interesting looks among the 'civilians' in the airport. They were enjoying the show; the circus coming to town.
Meanwhile back in Freddy, the Blues Festival was wrapping up. It, (way) more than any other weekend in our sleepy little town is like the circus coming to town. And I was sad last night knowing that the headliner was Los Lobos and they sing a great song about just that (sadly I couldn't find their version on YouTube so the version I knew first will have to do):
The circus is gone now and I missed it but it will be back and so will I.
I've spent much of the last couple of months with Le Big Dumb Dog Jebb Sinclair and he has been repeatedly asking my why he hasn't gotten any more face-time on the blog. The simple answer is that us sitting in a basement with me watching him kill Xbox zombies just doesn't make for good content. Fortunately he has now given me some fodder. The picture on the left appeared in today's Telegram in St. John's. Besides being an obvious diva, Jebb is also a quote machine and the associated article contains a couple classics. He is especially effusive of the digs we've been sharing at the Doctors Parfrey house. The Ritz-Carleton of Newfoundland he calls it. It's not far from the truth, save one key differentiator; the price.
Jebb also offers his prognostication of the game and will need to back up some of that bluster tomorrow. He does have the potential to do it. When he's on his game he can manhandle people and, as Malcolm MacAfee has always told me, it takes a man to wear pink.
Pace out.
Update: Interestingly, Saturday morning's Telegram had a picture and story on Chincy O'toole, the other New Brunswicker starting on the flank for the Rock. Chaunce is the quieter of the two National team Newbies (anyone would be) but reading the paper it appears he paid more attention during his media training. Jebb sells papers though. Sadly, no love for Pacey from the Newfoundland press.
I made the mistake today of reading some friend's facebook status' and letting them tell me just what I was missing while I was in Newfoundland for last night's practice. Everyone raved about Susan Tedeschi's show so I went on a quick YouTube tour and found out that it appears I missed good one.
Sing it Susan:
There should be no surprise; she is married to Derek Trucks so she's got some cred. She also has some extra cred from me because I noticed her name in Diane's album collection years ago. Speaking of people I missing...Tonight is the Downtown Blues Band's regular midnight slot and, although I just can't enjoy them quite as much without Diane, I still love seeing them and the fact that Barry Hughes continues to put her feather boa on his cymbal. It's still her festival to me; which makes it doubly wonderful that, for the third straight year, Will's band, T-BonE, is playing a couple of gigs at the festival. Again, speaking of things I'm missing...
Last night I got to go see my one show of this year's Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival. I'm off to Newfoundland as I write this for a game against BC on Saturday. This is the first time I'm missing the whole Harvest weekend since 1998. It is, without question, the best weekend of the year in Freddy and it's been the highlight of my, non-rugby related, fun since I first volunteered at the 2nd Annual in 1992. Needless to say I'm disappointed to be missing most of it. Having said that I am excited about this game on Saturday, and, as a saving grace, I did get to see a great Joel Plaskett show last night.
Nevertheless, when he played this song I did find myself wishing that I could have done both:
When I was in grade 8 I was really stuck for a topic for an oral presentation I needed to do. At the last minute I decided I would speak on my love of singing in the shower. My argument was quite mostly that there wasn't much else to do in there because you were all alone (it was grade 8) and because the acoustics were great. As it turns out we aren't all alone and it appears that a shower head is as dirty as a toilet bowl, or close to it.
Personally I think this is just a (fairly transparent) ploy by the Washington bathroom fixture lobby to force us to buy more shower heads; the recommendation that follows the warning is that people replace their heads every 6 months. No shit. Rinse, lather, and repeat.
I wasted my Tuesday at the Calgary Airport waiting for a rejigged flight plan. That makes 2 full days that airport now owes me thanks to another such mix-up a few years ago. Days like that make you appreciate just what a day means. That was timely when I read this article extolling the virtues of the four day work week. Utah, of all places, saw great success with a pilot project of government employees. They found that the 4 day 10 hour model had benefits for both employer, employee, and environment.
I can vouch for the benefits as I worked 4 day work weeks in the 90's while working summer at the GM warehouse in Moncton. That Friday off allowed me to have some fun in Moncton on Thursday night and take my time coming home on Friday. It was sweet. I remember claiming at the time that the long weekends were good for the local economy (entertainment, tourism, etc). The argument now is of the green variety, stating that the day off reduces the enviromental footprint. Either works for me...I'd just like Friday to be Freeday.
In the history books this may end up being remembered as the flashpoint of a cross border war between the countries with the longest undefended border in the world.
It appears that a dispute between transportation officials in Canada and the US will make multiple charter stops in the other country illegal. This will mean that teams would have to return back to their home country before flying to the next road game. This might not affect the US teams that much because all of their destinations in Canada are relatively close to the border. But when the Habs go on their west coast road swing thy will either need to fly back and forth to Canada, fly with the masses on commercial flights, or go back to their junior or minor league days and ride the bus.
This is clearly a travesty. I believe this to be a conspiracy by the Yanks to give a competitive edge to their teams. No wonder we haven't heard a peep from Bettman on this. You do not mess with Hockey in Canada. Deadspin nailed it.
This might be the only thing that could actually unify the country to mobilize. A call to arms and a reminder to keep your sticks on the ice.
My week's "vacation" at the Regent St. Resort in St. John's is now over. There was tons of good food and good drink but there was also a fitness test and 1, and sometimes 2, rugby practices everyday. This week was being used, in conjunction with a weekend camp in Freddy in July and the week in Walesto pick the Atlantic Rock which is the region's entry in the Americas Rugby Championship. The team was picked on Wednesday and tomorrow morning we leave for game 1 in Calgary on Labour Day. Brent, Jebb, Chauncey and myself and the latter three of us made the starting squad. That works out to a fifth of the starting squad from NB. The coaching staff has done a good job of making this squad feel like a team but before our game I do need to give a nod to NB rugby for putting its stamp on this team. And because that makes me happy, this song seems appropriate beyond its title:
Amazingly, today is September 1st. This summer has absoulutely flown by; partially because there wasn't much summer weather to speak of and partially because I was busy as hell playing rugby. The latter continues (I'm currently in Newfoundland trying out for the Atlantic squad in the Americas Rugby Championship) while the former has gotten a bit better of late and I'm hoping that we are in for a nice long Indian Summer.
Either way, not that I am officially no longer a student, September no longer means I have to deal with the dread of heading back to class. Now I can relish that fall for all of its wonder. Sweater weather, fall rugby, and this song:
