Wow What A Weekend!

My weekend was so crazy I had to use Monday to recover, so I apologize to my loyal readers for not posting yesterday. Where do I start?

reaching back through the haze...(the screen now gets wavy and out of focus as I think back, and in the background, softly, you hear a harp)

Friday night I DJ'ed for a reserve army unit. I thought it would be lame but aside from one reeeeeeeeeeally annoying patron that harassed me non-stop to play songs that her and her three friends liked (but no one else did) The crowd was great. The food was (probably) excellent though I didn't actually get served. This sometimes happens at big events where they don't think to feed the DJ even though the organizers paid for my meal. Ah what can yah do?
The older folks fled early for the most part and I was left with a young appreciative crowd that thankfully had no use for country music. (The bane of my existence...2nd only to Mushrooms).
Good night though and excellent people.

Saturday my day began with Crappy McPooperton (aka my dog Tito) doing his dirty, dirty business in his crate...thankfully he ate most of it before I got there. My dog should go on Fear Factor.

Later my daughter had a choir performance with an adjudicator (apparently that big word means something similar to 'judge') present to give advice. Me being the mature person I am I managed to practice some Ultimate Fighting moves on my 6 yr old which in hindsight may have been somewhat distracting to the dozens of people around us that looked over as his feet flailed about...my bad. It's because I was an only child and only now have someone to beat on.

That evening was the event I had been waiting for. Ultimate Fighting Championship Pay Per view #65 "Bad Intentions" and the title fight between Welterweight champ Matt Hughes and Canadian Challenger Georges 'Rush' St Pierre who wanted to avenge his only career loss which came by submission to the champ 2 years earlier. Many doubted that the Champ could be beaten but I thought it would be not only possible, but likely. In fact I was convinced that GSP would destroy the champ...The added incentive of course were the disparaging remarks that Matt Hughes made about Canada. He needed to be schooled.

I showed up along with the usual suspects and we watched the fights and ate the food and laughed and laughed. Then the fight I had waited for finally started. GSP was beating Hughes like a red-headed stepchild and I was elated! Fists, feet, elbows, a veritable buffet of violence served up in bountiful fashion on Hughes' bloodied face. At the end of the round, after dropping Hughes like a bad habit and puncing on him the ref stopped the fight! I was so excited I leapt off the couch-and smashed my 5'10" head into a 6' support beam nearly knocking me unconscious. Quite embarrassing and after a 3 second period of seeing stars I realized the round had ended, not the fight. Thankfully GSP finished the job with brutal efficiency 1:25 into the 2nd. I since have made the picture of the final strike of the fight my desktop background. Beautiful!

Sunday I slept in a little and tried to get ready for Grey Cup. With pregame festivities at 3 and the kickoff at 5 I figured taking the 7 minute bus ride from my house to the stadium would be perfect and if I left at 3 I would be in my seat by 3:30 no problem...Boy was I wrong. EVERYBODY had the same idea and took the SAME bus as me I swear. The wife and I trudged along in our 40 pounds of warm clothes carrying sleeping bags for warmth and managed to squeeze onto the bus as it had close to 60 or 70 people on it. When we arrived and popped out of the bus like it was pressurized we walked (waddled) 3 blocks to the stadium where I saw the longest line-up ever (and I've been to Boxing Day Sales at Best Buy before). A helpful volunteer handed me a pamphlet that turned out to be about Scientology. I read it out of sheer boredom and decided I'd like to invent my own religion someday. Finally we got in to the stadium.

My ticket said row 82 of the temporary stands in the South end zone though I thought it couldn't really have 82 rows could it? After climbing stairs for 10 minutes I got to my seat and realized there weren't 82 rows...there were 85. So I am three rows from the top of what is now the 7th highest structure in Manitoba, and when I look West I can see Saskatchewan and possibly Alberta. Oh well it was free. As for my 3:30 arrival time...I missed that by nearly an hour but the flip side was now it was only 30 minutes until kick off.

The game was boring but the environment was electric. Canadian Idol Winner Eva Avila sang the anthem adequately and the player intros were good. At half time Nelly Furtado looked and sounded great...probably, though it was hard to tell from my seat on Mt. Everest. Add to that the fact there were no speakers pointed at us and it sounded like what you would hear outside a noisy club. When the game concluded my team (the BC Lions) Won, and we began our descent slowly, trying not trip on the beer cups and empty popcorn boxes. I briefly considered rapelling from the top but reconsidered.

The bus ride home was even worse and more cramped and by the time I got into my house I hadn't gone to the can in about 6+ hours so you could imagine my relief!

All in all a busy but fun weekend, my team won, my fighter won and I got to clean up more dog poop...ok maybe that last one wasn't so fun...

Until next time remember, no Payne, no gain!