Hot. So Hot.

As I sit here writing this, I am schwitzing like there's no tomorrow. It' only about 25 degrees out, but it's also 70+% humidity right now. It's really true when people say, "It's not the heat that gets me...it's the humidity".
Jay and I have a softball tournament tomorrow and I fear for my health. I like hot weather but hot is a relative concept. For me, hot is about 25 degrees, but with an ocean breeze and a margharita in my hand! And clearly, I don't dig the humidity thing.
Unfortunately, we will be playing in 27 degree, full sun, high humidity weather. Our first game is at 8:00am, which in itself is a crime, but at least the temperature and sun will be lower. However, our afternoon game(s) will be rough. I wonder if I could still play well with a parasol? Or, maybe one of those umbrella hats you see Chinese people wearing at parades, sporting events, walking down the street?

Now Where Was I? Oh Yes, the Rodeo

God, it seems like I've been writing about this forever. It's been so long now that I don't even remember everything. I have GOT to get a Macbook Air to travel with.

In order to get this done, I'm going to make point form notes.

• saw several events, barrel racing was my favourite, drank beer, drank vodka & 7Up, drank whatever was put in front of me
• competitor number 151 was by far the hottest one, have no idea what his actual name was, but is a name really necessary?
• roast beef in the dinner on the first night was ghastly...akin to chewing on a tire!
• barn dance on the first night was packed. Jay got too drunk and I had to take him back to the tent around 1:00am.
• neighbours in RVs near us formed a square and set up a dance party deluxe. Mirror ball, smoke machines and pounding music until 4:30am!
• I recall getting up to go to the loo at around 4:00am and the sky wasn't entirely dark, there was light on the horizon all night long. It was kinda freaky.
• next day, saw several more events, drank several more drinks
• had a nap with Jay & Klaus under a tree in the afternoon, beside a really drunk guy
• on our way back to the tents, we passed a motor home with a bar, an awning, picnic tables and snacks set up. The "bartender" offered us a drink and we ended up staying for a couple of hours. By then there were about 20 or more people hanging around and boozing. Really drunk guy (see previous point) showed up, hooked up with "Mr Hardline" and we can only assume, got his freak on later in the evening. That would have been a premier event. I mean, look at the guy.

• finally went back to tents and had hotdogs for dinner and a shower. (and no, that's not a euphemism)
• barn dance the second night was much calmer and smaller. All the Calgary rowdies (including our noisy neighbours) went back to Calgary because they had to work the next day and all the competitors showed up because the competition was over. Alas, no number 151 though.
• had a good night's sleep, got up in the morning, packed up and left for Fairmont

There now. I know it's not as pretty as my previous posts but I seriously don't care at this point. I just want to make sure I get this down before my early onset Alzheimer's strikes again.

F'ing PETA!

Those assholes at PETA have gone way to far with this ad. So far, only one newspaper has dared to print it "The Portage Daily" or some bullshit rag name like that. I used to have some respect for these people, but comparing the barbaric act that occured on the Greyhound bus near Winnipeg to the slaughter of animals for food is too much for me. Here, see for yourself.

Anderson Cooper Trash Talk

My hero of the week has to be Anderson Cooper for saying what most of us are thinking about Dina Lohan. His first salvo is fired while filling in for Regis Philbin and his second salvo is a day or two later on his own show. I love it!

Check out this clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVlWkld_kh8

Angry Klaus

Had a great little conversation with Klaus yesterday. Lately, he's been talking about starting his own blog as an outlet for all the irritations he has to suffer throughout his day. Basically, it would be a bitch blog. And knowing Klaus, it would probably be politically incorrect on the scale of Lisa Lampanelli.
We both mused about what the best title for his blog might be when it suddenly struck me. Given his heritage and his predisposition to be annoyed by almost anything, I suggested "The Sour Kraut".

There are Two Things I Hate About Monogamy...

Had a very fun Pride this year. Good times with old friends and met a few interesting characters along the way.
After the parade and festival on Sunday, Jay and I went with a few friends to a lesbian party. Met a girl there whose name escapes me, but I'll find out from Bev (the girl who invited us). She blurted out the funniest line I'd heard all Pride weekend. And I quote, "There are two things I hate about monogamy... The first thing is monogamy. The second thing is having to shower with someone."
WTF?
Everyone present for this little nugget of wisdom was silent for about, oh, I'd say, 2 seconds and then just burst out laughing.
Sometimes, I just love the shit that comes out of people's mouths after several hours of the drink.

Calgary Road Trip - Getting Settled at the Ranch

TRIED to follow the Googlemaps directions out of downtown Calgary to the ranch. What a fiasco! Do yourself a favour and buy a mapbook. The instructions got North/South right but missed the mark on East/West and on the names of a couple of critical exits off the highway. We ended up going in the wrong direction a couple of times and, before you say it, yes...we can all read maps. Finally, we stopped at a gas station adjacent to a mall and, as it turned out, we were only about 5 minutes away from the ranch. In all, what should have taken only about 20 minutes took us about an hour and frazzled the hell out of us.

When we pulled into the ranch, we immediately noticed that the camping area was packed. We parked at the admin office/general store and registered to camp. The two ladies behind the counter were just as frazzled as we were by this point because they had been registering people all morning and had lost track of whether or not they had any camping space left. After about a second and a half of thought, they came to the conclusion that they could "squeeze" us in. And squeeze us in they did. We followed some old geezer (I'll call him Joe) on a golf cart around on a 15 minute exploration of the camping sites to see what he could find. Eventually, Joe directed us to set up on the edge of a sand volleyball court. We parked the vehicles and set up the tents. The barrier you see behind us and the couple of other tents are the only thing that separated us from a very, VERY busy highway.

As a side note, I wanted to add here that we hadn't been at our site more than about 10 minutes when I heard someone calling, "Alan". It turns out that several Vancouverites come to this rodeo every year. Here's a pic of Luis and Brie (Klaus' favourite kind of cheese). But, they were not the only people we either recognized or met from Vancouver.

Back to my story...

It hadn't rained for awhile before the rodeo and as we found out when we tried to set up the umbrellas, the ground was so hard it was impossible to push the poles in. I, in my infinite wisdom, had brought a hammer for just such an event. However, I failed to bring something to place on the end of the poles so I didn't damage them while pounding them into the ground. "What did you do?", you ask? I folded a towel a couple of times and used that. Unfortunately, I had to use so much force that the pole started punching holes in the towel! It looked like Swiss cheese when I was done and the damn pole still wasn't in the ground!

Enter the lesbian...

Sue was at a site behind us and noticed we'd been doing the same activity for a very long time. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and came over with a 2x4 to help the poor gay boys out. It definitely did the trick. Both poles were in the ground in a matter of minutes. However, I actually split the 2x4 lengthwise with all the pounding! Finally, after much bru ha ha, we were set up.

More to come...(I can't believe this is entry #6 on this trip and I've only gotten to the ranch part now).