It's My Life

Me: Hey Mick, have you got your boy kicking the soccer ball around yet?
Mick: No, I've gotta get him swearing first.

This Mick guy I work with is hilarous. He's Irish, big into soccer, and swears all the time. All of us at the Citizen expect his four month old's first word will be "fuck". Mick went on to say he would also teach him the basic self defense technique of kicking other guys in the junk. It's so cheap, but at the same time, very effective.

I can't believe how quickly the summer has gone by. The fact I'm leaving on Sunday just blows me away, it doesn't feel like it's been over four months since school ended. Man oh man. I always hate leaving places. I enjoy arriving to new places, but I hate leaving old places. Saying goodbye is never easy, especially after returning to your home town and living with your parents all summer. Oh well.

I do have a few things to look forward to about arriving in Kamloops. One is my new computer I paid for at Future Shop in Prince George. They shipped it off to the Future Shop in Kamloops so I wouldn't have to try cramming it into my car with the rest of the stuff I'll be bringing down on Sunday. In addition to that, I'm leaving at a good time. The weather is starting to cool down up here and I'm driving to warmer weather. I've also got a week off both school and work beginning on Monday which is going to rock! And my friend Dusty is in Kamloops for the night Sunday so we're going to go out for a few drinks. I could use it after driving six hours and unpacking, that is for sure. All I can say is Kamloops, be ready for me because I've got a week off and I'm ready to make the most of it.

It's hard leaving because you try to see as much of your friends as possible and cram in as many activities with them as well. I'm planning to go bowling and then possibly the bars tomorrow night, which will be a nice way to say goodbye to many of my friends. Saturday night I'll probably be taking it easy because I want to leave reasonably early Sunday.

In addition to friends and family, leaving full-time work to go back to school is never easy. I hate being broke, and I'm going to do whatever possible to make sure that doesn't happen come September. While we all complain about working and the lack of leisure time it leaves us with, we all need the money. As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as too much money.

Farewell Prince George........and Kamloops, see you soon.

Randall (using grocery shopping as an analogy to how some sources try controlling the interview with the media): You see other food and better deals down other aisles trying to drag you in, but you're only in there to get specific food. Get only what you need and don't get distracted.

Another work week come and gone, and another medal for Canada! Yeah, that's right. Karen Cockburn of Toronto won a silver medal on the trampoline, increasing Canada's medal count to an impressive two!
As Canadians, we should be supporting every medal we get, and while I'll admit the sports we're winning them in aren't the most commonly played, they do take a lot of talent which people are forgetting about. I mean, syncronized diving is tough. It's hard enough pulling flips in mid air and holding a perfect form, leaving a little splash in the water, let alone doing it in sync with a partner.
And the trampoline? I sure couldn't do flips, twists and turns in the air and land square on my feet every time, all while getting 20 feet in the air.
What I enjoy about the Olympics is it gives TV viewers and live spectators the opportunity to watch sports which you don't see on a regular basis, especially in Canada. What I don't like about the Olympics is the damn Americans winning every time.
But then my city editor at the Citizen Randall Heicht mentioned the possibility of blind archery, or something like that coming into the Olympics. Now wouldn't that be stupid. That's as bad as having deaf people entering a music competition. Now they just need the blind commentators as well to call the play by play.

- Speaking of music, Sam Roberts is performing at Sport Mart Place on September 3rd, so anybody who wants to go should let me know because anytime there's a live concert cabaret style I'm game.
- My parents returned to Scotland yesterday, after flying for about 12 hours - ouch! They were generous enough to buy me a Celtic soccer jersey. For those who don't know, Celtic is the number one soccer team in Scotland. The jersey is sweet too, it's green and white with a four leaf clover on it. I'd still of rather been in Scotland with them, but the jersey isn't a bad deal.
- I don't know for sure if I'm leaving to Kamloops on the 29th, it might be the 30th. Either or, who really cares right?
- I saw the Borne Surpremacy last night. I thought it was a great movie with lots of action scenes, very entertaining. Go watch it if you can handle guns, blood, punches, action packed drama from start to finish. Or just go expecting a romantic comedy, or cartoon and knock yourself out.
- This is my 82nd post, which isn't a lot considering I've been using blogger for 16 months. That's an average of only five posts a month, or just over a post a week. I think Nick posts a little more frequently.
- I've decided to do the list thing because, like Nick, I enjoy lists. Also, who better to follow from than Nick right?

I decided to post tonight because it has been awile since my last post, but not as long as Shaun. Ha ha. Well, I shouldn't be laughing at that. Shaun did win our little consecutive posting contest earlier this year.
From what I've been hearing from other people, this summer hasn't been the most eventful for them. I'm definetely in the same boat, and that's my reason for not posting very much this summer. I really haven't had a lot I could post about other than regular stuff, like how work was and how I spent my weekend and things like that.
There has been a lot more on my mind lately though with school around the corner, my work term coming to an end, and my time in PG winding down. This very well could end up being my last time living under my parents roof. But then again, who knows. A lot can change over a year. Me and Roberto have talked about possibly moving to get a place in Alberta after I graduate, be we know things change all the time. Hell, I might even have a girlfriend by then. I haven't had one of them in a while.

As fun as Prince George has been, I'm looking forward to Kamloops myself for a few reasons:
1. The partying - while I still think the people in PG do party harder than people in Kamloops, during the summer this city is lame. With school comes university parties, Thirsty Thursdays and the odd trips downtown. And with the first week of school there will be serious drinking going on, and of course, the famous Welcome Back BBQ.
2. Living on my own - although I haven't had any major conflicts with my parents this summer, I still like the freedom of not having them around nagging me.
3. Covering sports for the Omega - that section is going to rock this year, and I'm getting tired of promoting community events for the Citizen. I'm looking forward to watching the Sun Demons in action again.
4. My week off - I get a full week off to forget about anything to do with journalism, move my stuff down, drop off a few resumes around town, and party a few times.
5. Seeing all my friends in Kamloops again - It'll be great seeing the journlism students again as well as all the other people I met returning to study at the university.
6. With money permitting I hope to do explore the nice Kamloops golf courses, snowboard at Sun Peaks, and catch Blazers hockey games. And I can't forget CUP 2005, which is in Edmonton.

In other news, my parents and brother return from Scotland from the World Bag Pipe Championships on Thursday. Ha ha, suckers were rained on while they were over there. But I'm sure that's all the beauty of Scotland. I still wished I could have gone. It sounds like they had a great time, and the band finished fifth out of 24 other bands in their division, which is real good. I also plan to buy a computer before I move. I'm going to be looking at some this weekend.

A WEEKEND AT THE LAKE

Mike (reminiscing about a girl he hooked up with after a few drinks): When I looked at her face I thought 'holy crap I'm making out with E.T.'

I went to my friend Darcy's cabin at Norman Lake (located southwest of Prince George off Hwy. 16 to Vanderhoof) this weekend, and boy was it worth it. I hadn't done much relaxing this summer but out at his cabin I was able to do that, and drink a lot of beer while I was at it.

There were probably about 20 people there throughout the two days. We had a lot to talk about since a few of them I've known since kindergarten (the Foothills boys). When I wasn't drinking, I went wakeboarding, kneeboarding and tubing. I went wakeboarding for my first time today, it was so fun. Being a snowboarder already helped. It didn't take me long to catch on. Kneeboarding was also great. We had two people once and three the other time. I just spent my time doing 360s and spraying my friends with water.

Dave: We should rename this lake Beer Lake.

There is a reason why he said that and it isn't because we like to get loaded when we're there. It's deeper than that.
On Saturday night, Dave and my other friend Dusty, having consumed a few wobbly pops that night, decided to take out the canoe. They took a while to come back, but when they did, it wasn't in the canoe. It was in a boat. They apparently tipped the canoe, had to get picked up, and lost all their beer. The next morning, I joined them in Darcy's boat on a cruise to see if the beer was there. We found them, all 13 of them floating in the water, so we picked them up and drank them. Ah yes, gotta love the aluminum cans. What a savior.

Dave clearly drank the most out of any of us on the weekend. But it caught up with him. On Sunday at 2:30 p.m. he passed out, beer in hand, in the middle of a conversation. He was okay; he took a six hour sleep that evening.

I got home an hour and a half ago, ready to relax and stay out of the heat for a while. But what a weekend, filled with moments I won't soon forget.