I’ve been a little lacks in my updating duties (according to some sister of mine who will remain nameless, Wendy), and the only excuse is that I’ve been busy with things. Oh, and none of it really seems to be worth writing about. I’m sure my loyal fan base doesn’t want to hear of my daily trips on the C-train with all of the other faceless masses in some sort of weird tribute to the opening credits of Joe Versus the Volcano... Seriously! How many movies has Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan starred in together? Why don’t they just get a room or something? It would be cheaper than wasting millions of dollars on another movie that my wife’ll force me to watch because of the obligatory tears and sappiness and getting in touch with my feminine side? Does she really want a feminine husband? Because I gotta tell you, most feminine husbands aren’t married to women!

Ever since I learned the meaning of digression I seam to get caught in it quite a bit. Actually, that’s not entirely true. If it was, then I learned the meaning of digression in grade two.

Last week I took a little trip up to a little place in our big province. The little place was called Redwater, and it’s located just to the North East of Edmonton. The most exciting part of the trip was the fact that it was around 3 and a half to 4 hours of driving one way, and I had to do it without falling asleep. Those of us behind the wheel like not dying; it’s just one of those things. However, it started to snow on the way up, the roads got pretty slick and the rest of the traffic still maintained a steady 140 km/hr in the thick fog that rolled its way in. Yeesh! Talk about hairy! We passed an accident going up there on the other side of the highway. Traffic was backed up for miles, whoops, I mean kilometers (Canadian, remember?) with seven emergency vehicles on scene and three more passing us on the way by. Not pretty! I didn’t read about it the next day so I don’t know what happened. It was gone when we came back.

Redwater is rather small, as I’ve made mention above. I’d really like to tell you what I did up there, but I’m concerned for your well being and if I can avoid making you fall asleep and smashing your face into your keyboard (unless your reading this on a handheld which is even more dangerous) then gosh darnit, I’m going to hold that story in for bedtime. I did, however, see a rather tidy facility up there, and I was treated to some really terrible Chinese food. It stayed with me for a long, long time, but thankfully my stomach endured a little bit of culinary redemption with a visit to Joey Tomatoes for supper. My project manager took me there once we got back into Calgary, and, since I wasn’t paying (my company was) I thought I’d try something a little different. I tried the Bombay butter chicken which came in some sort of curry sauce, basmati rice and something called garlic naan. A quick search on Google tells me that garlic naan is the bread I was eating. Mmmmm! Garlic!

Thankfully I didn’t actually drive back to Calgary because my eyes were fighting a losing battle with my eyelids to stay open. One thing dad taught me when I was growing up is that if two people are in a vehicle for what appears to be a long trip, it is rude to sleep or read if you aren’t the driver. It is the passengers responsibility to keep the driver awake, in other words. I was doing a poor job about halfway to Calgary, and at one point my eyes closed. I was vaguely aware that my project manager, who was driving, had just asked me a question. Fearing what he’d think of me if he knew I had nodded off, I just stuttered, “Th, that sounds good to me!” Apparently I had agreed to go to dinner with him, so it didn’t turn out too bad. He took me to Joey Tomatoes, I got some really good food and he got to ogle all the waitresses. Seriously! If there was any place that had questionable hiring practices that wasn’t a Hooters, Joey Tomatoes would be it.

Michelle worked the weekend, and Rylee got me all excited about making pancakes. I found pancake mix but no eggs and a serious lack of milk, so I did what any normal parent would do. What? Go to the corner store and pick up some eggs and milk? Nope! I took them to Denny’s. Apparently everyone else in Calgary had the same problem because there seemed to be standing room only at that particular fine dining establishment. Seriously, the Denny’s in Victoria is known for its debatable cleanliness, but the one in our area of Calgary actually seems to be on the brighter side of “okay.”

Long story short: got a table, Rylee spilled her hot chocolate in my lap.

Yup! I got to sit in a very busy restaurant with a seeping brown stain on the front of my jeans. I cleaned up as much as I could, but it was very apparent that the huge wet spot wouldn’t dry before it was time to go, and ravenous customers were growling for any available table. I saw one guy who was just sitting down for coffee ejected from a window by a family of four. Rough place! They served the girls hot chocolate in medium size plastic glasses. What’s the deal there? Denny’s hot chocolate doesn’t belong in a coffee cup? That’s very dubious. I’m actually convinced that if the hot chocolate had come in a coffee cup that my lap would have been saved a searing. Leaving the restaurant was very fun as standing revealed all.

Shameless plug time: I would like to point your way to the TILAH page where you will find a little bit of almost-finished art work that will hold our website till its launch on January 1st, 2007. I will send warm fuzzy thoughts to anyone who tells me which character is whom and what the symbol is on the only ball cap in the picture. I still have some shading and detailing to do, but besides that, I’m pretty happy with the way it’s turning out.

Wouldn't it be great if Nutrigrain Bars made you feel this good? I mean, GREAT!!!



Anyway, I have to get along little doggies. Apparently I have work to do, people to save, and subway trains to stop from launching off of incomplete bridges. Wait! That’s spiderman, actually. I just have to work!