Well… it’s the weekend and I can’t wait, I had to work Tuesday to Friday this week. I don’t know how people do it, working 5 days in a row. Generally I work Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. They are 10hr days so I get an extra day off per week, and I always try and break up the days off so I never work more then 2 days in a row. But because of last weeks trip to the city I had to move my Wednesday off to Monday making it a long week.

There were also a few parties this week, Phil’s going away, Last night I had to film a male burlesque show (Mr Whistler). It was a funny night, with a bar full of nothing but excited women screaming with bills in their hands. It was also a late night getting home well after 2am and up for work first thing this morning (needless to say I didn’t make it to the gym this morning) .

I have also started drawing this week, freehand with a pencil and paper. I guess I was inspired from a Photoshop tutorial I have also been working on this week. I have a feeling that it will be sometime before anything good comes of my effort.

Tonight I am planning on a movie night I have ‘Grandmas Boy’ and the ‘Ringer’. Although it’s Friday, and to avoid going out I will have to dodge phone calls. I also have to start ripping the video I shot from the camera to the computer (I’m really not looking forward to editing).. but no matter what I will need a nap before I do anything.

The forecast for the weekend looks like the weather will suck, so I might get some more work done on the site.. I hope to get my movies back up soon. Some of the photos I have worked on and a few ad’s that I have done.

Tonight our neighbor Creekside Phil is moving to Pemberton. I think he is having a small gathering in the backyard to mark the occasion tonight. But where does a guy named after the part of town he lives in go.. Pemberton Phil is nice, but not really the same. You can rest easy knowing that he is moving to Creekside in Pemberton so he can keep the name.

Rock On Phil, and we will see you tonight

What a weekend –

Saturday, Mark and I rented our car we got a nice sporty convertible from Avis. Drove down to Squamish to go White Water Rafting down the Elaho. I have been out rafting a few times before but have never seen water like this. Sitting in the back of the boat there were more then a few times that the people in the front of our boat were a full boat length above me.

The Elaho has some huge surf and deep holes, our head guide rated the water as a class 4 – 5. I was very impressed with the river, it was action packed as soon as we launched the boats we were in the Devils Elbow. Following that we stopped for some cliff jumping, only about 30 feet, but the climb up was a little hairy with 60 people watching and trying to get a good hold with a full wetsuit life jacket and boot. The cliff jumping was short lived as the water was FREEZING.. I have been in a lot of cold water, but this made it easy to see how and why people die in cold water..

I jumped and landed 15 feet from our boat and could instantly feel the effects of the cold.. it took seconds for things to work, I would start to swim, but my arms were not moving strange feeling.. then when I started to swim my hands started to burn.. then I could feel the burn move up my arms and legs.. I don’t know much about how the body work but I’m assuming that the burning was my body going into a self preservation mode stopping the blood supply to my arms and legs to keep my vital organs running as long as possible.. one thing I know for sure it that I was very happy to get the hell out of that water..

The whole trip was very exciting with great views and lots of action, the only time the river let us rest our guides pulled out some hot chocolate and Oreo cookies, it really hit the spot boosting our energy levels right back up. When we got back to the ranch we had some real food, BBQ chicken, a few salads, and beer to wash it down.

From there we were off to the city, Mark got us a great room at the Delta walking distance from BC place. We checked the car into valet parking and checked into our room. We were not in the room more then 15 mins when the hotel sent up some complementary beer and snacks. Before diving in we each took some HOT showers to get the Elaho cold off of us. Mitch arrived and we started priming for the night.

Walking around down town we went into a few pubs and ended up running into our friend Eva at a restraint called Clearwater or blue water or something like that. I was amazed it looked and had the same feel as Araxi here in Whistler, travel someplace new to end up in a place that you could go to everyday.. It was still a good night, playing with the huge crabs and some of the city’s wild life ‘ cougars’ who knew

We walked back to the hotel that night, Mark finding a full pack of smokes on the ground and giving them to some homeless guy further down the street. When we arrived back at the Delta we orded some food and watched office space on TV.. the food was 45 mins late.. sounds like a big deal during the day but when you place the order at 2:30am an hour and a half is a realy long time to wait.. I passed out waiting.. Mark woke me up when the food came. He passed out.. Mitch and I ate.. I’m sure I would have made it though the night had I skiped the 4am meal.. but booze make you do some strange stuff..

The next morning we rushed to check out of the hotel and get to BC place (we just left the car in Valet parking thinking we would come back for it later) we took a cab because we were running a little late, and we were a little hung over. I was a little surprised at the size and lay out of the Vancouver food show, but we made it and went to check in as BBQ judges.

Now that our passes were on, we took a quick walk around to see where everthing was as vendors franticly set up their booths. Near where the judging would talk place we ran into the pepper man.. insisting that we try his bbq heat!... this guy does a great job, I didn’t expect to start my day off with spicy chocolate but there we were.. getting into it.

It’s 11am and the beer tent opened up, we got some quick tickets for samples.. but we knew we would only need a few. We stalked the area for friendly vendors that looked like they would enjoy some good BBQ.. we struck gold at our first booth, Ron had his Anarchy Ale and some other great beers. We sampled his product and like what we had found, we were up for our first round of judging, so hurried back to the other side of the arena.

Mitch and I were up first with pork, the field was very mixed.. you could tell that some people were new cooks and the pros were showing their stuff.

Mitch and I took our extra meet back to our friend Ron, he felt that the 10 pounds of pork was worth its weight in beer, we spent the rest of the day on the same path eat and then back to drink, our judging duties were over by 3. So we parked ourselves in the beer tent where they were doing wine shows, and got to know some of the volunteer girls that were poring the wine. As you can expect they asked us to join them at a night club later that night, they were heading out because a friend of theirs was leaving town.

The place was shutting down and our beer friends had given us some cans of beer to talk away with us. We decided that driving was not a good option so we got our room back at the Delta, walking back seemed like a good idea after eating BBQ and drinking all day.

At the Delta we got cleaned up, had a few more drinks and headed out to the Tapas bar Mitch works at Bin (401 or something like that?). We ate and drank there for about 2 or 3 hrs. Then took off to the night clubs to meet the Aussie girls from the food show, after drinking all day is it a surprise that I don’t remember the name of the bar?

Whatever it was called the line outside was HUGE, I’m not sure why our how but they could tell that we were VIP’s and got us in before the line. One of the girls from the hotel went to meet us there as well and stood inline for an hour and a half.. so we really lucked out.

It club had a nice atmosphere with a combo DJ and bongo player, they seemed to complement each other well.. one side seemed to have a little more show and the other side of the bar was more dance… we spent sometime on each side but mostly on the showy side where it was a little easer to talk. We finished up there around 2 and Mitch and I took a cab back to the hotel – we somehow lost Mark –

After getting back, I think we sat and had one more beer each.. then passed out.. we woke up and were relived to see that Mark found his way back to the hotel.

We rescued our car from valet parking went out for breakfast and did a quick little recap of the last 2 days.

Rafting VIP trip $0
More BBQ and anyone can eat cooked by some of the best BBQers in North America $0
Traded leftover meet for beer (11 – 5:30 .. 30ish beers and a case to go) $0
Dinner and Drinks at Mitch’s Tapas place $0
Booze for our hotel room $0

We rented a car for 3 days just under $200
Hotel room with comp upgrades 2 nights $150

I’m sure I am missing a lot of detail, you can check with iammyers.com and see what he has to say.. I’ll also post some photos soon as well.. What a weekend.. I have to say I’m glad I’m back at work..