My Two Pence Worth (an excerpt from the biography of Jimmy Ryan, fallen rock star)

My arrival in London was met with little fan fare. I had gotten used to porn queens and throngs of adoring women showering me in tidbits from their unmentionables drawers as soon as I stepped out, beshaded, from whichever plane I had arrived on.

My disappointment was palpable as grey skies loomed, threatening but failing, like The Bravery, to live up to their potential. My limo was nowhere to be found and I had to sift about the common as though I were but a speck amidst a dripping shower of colourless faces. Had I been forgotten in such a short absence?!?! My agent was so fired.

Celebrity is such a fickle and fantastic thing. The women, the blow, the cars, the complimentary face towels and pillow-top candies. Fick, what the shit was up? Culture had spun and lost me from a 45 to a 74 min crystalline coaster.

Somehow counter culture's 'Cid And The Smack Bunnies had pussied into a putrid slur of rhyme spinners whose talent couldn't amount up to the monetary worth their self-given names suggested. I want my 50p back. If not that at least a 20p spot to use the phone box. What about a mobile you ask, seems if you let lapse a bill payment or 5 they cut you off. Virgin ... Funny how with a name like that, one entity knows exactly how to fuck you.

Phone coinage in hand, its method of acquisition un-mentionable lest some equal rights, pro-soy milk conglomeration throw up their arms and hang me from the dangling pit hair, I rang up the only stupid c*nt I figured would be half arsed to pick me up. Funny enough, that's exactly what his nickname was in China when we lived there 6 years ago.

Jason answered and agreed on one condition, that I find him a father's day card for a man whose style I can only describe as Sahara-esquely dry. I acquiesced half thinking it would be fun to sort him out with a picture of a tot hugging his father with a caption underneath sayin, "this is a hug you rigid sod, would it have killed you to give me one growing up?"

After some consideration I decided against it, but had I known it would have taken me back into the bowels of Heathrow to find one, I might just as well have xeroxed my own middle finger and sent that off instead and watched with glee when the envelope was opened. The devil, I know.

After settling with a classic hot rod driving in gray and white glory into the desert, I set about finding my ride. I was half expecting him to have some sort of luxury sports car or something fancy so imagine my surprise when I found him with his car in all its green Mini glory. Mildly shaken, yet somewhat not stirred, it all seemed par for the course.

He hadn’t changed one bit since the last time I saw him; Disgustingly good build and looks of mixed heritage, a familial fortune waiting in the wills. Every friggin’ reason in the world to loathe him, yet a clown prince melded with panache and utter absurdity he was, and God was it good to see him.

I’d heard also that he’d gotten a proper gig with some degree of professional responsibility but I just couldn’t see it. This comedy of errors shackled with propriety… Like me given another chance, a fist full of money, locked in a room of sexy and seductive vices on one side and redemption on the other, it just didn’t seem at all plausible.

After a warm welcome and genuine hug (possible the only real thing I've experienced in at least a fortnight. Well there was Angelique and those were lovel... oh wait, nope.) I was loaded up, luggage wise, and we were off along the M25 to the house in Henley.

Before the all mind numbing, "how're you doin" could get asked, I was informed that it was my duty as passenger to keep my eyes open for any nursery that was open. I even had my limits when it came to a potential dating pool and I was in no way going to participate in anything that could see me back in the hag rags for all the wrong reasons. (again)...

After my slightest "what the fuck" protest, he explained that we had to find a flowering plant or two for his father's present. I thought the card would have sufficed especially since I had been the one to find it, and didn't even want to think of what I'd have to go through to la-botanize myself...

As we drove I began to wonder if strapping myself in was enough protection. I'm a firm believer in putting on a helmet when the situation deems it necessary... but I figured a trip down the motorway to pick up plants was a safe bet not to be one of those. As we flung again and again through the round-about while Jason consulted his mother which exit we should take, I nearly opted for the open door... surely death would be the end result either way.

After shopping for orchids and the what not we did the next most non-gay thing possible and hit up the vendors outside the nursery for ice lollies... "Ah sorry, out of money at the moment, do you mind?"... "Fuck you, Ok".

TBC'd

There's Something New

Ok Ok Ok

If you look slightly to the right and up a bit, you will find something that you all have been dogging me about.

Enjoy.

Ah Amsterdam... Part 3

The next day the American Crew saw the Anne Frank museum and it was incredibly simple, but completely moving. It's one thing to read about an event form history in a book but a completely different thing to be in right in the middle of it. Good on Amsterdam for keeping the house as it was and making sure her message was not silenced. I had seen the museum the day before yet somehow managed to forget to blog about it... I'm a dumbass.

In the mean time while the rest of them were checking Anne's house out. I wandered about and found a really vivid photo exhibit of wildlife. I don't know why it struck me as much as it did, but it must have been good for me to stand in the rain to look through it all. After that I went to the old town square and made friends with a horse. I don't know what its name was, but I assumed him to be my friend after I let him eat the apple I had previously been eating. Now I could be wrong, but how cool is it to have a horse as a friend, so leave me be.

After a couple of hours and the Texans managing to get lost around the corner from the brewery. : ), we all managed to meet up for the tour of the old Heineken Brewery. The cost of the tour is 11 Euros or $15.85 Cdn and $15.15 US for my southern readership. Included in the cost are tokens for 3 glasses of beer and 1 gift upon the conclusion of the tour. Upon entering the front door, we were greeted by a girl that was positively something wow. She had awesome wavey almost curly hair, really bright blue/green eyes and again had very natural and un-assuming good looks to her. So naturally I paid her a compliment and was quickly joined by one of the Texans, Kate who totally adored her hair. I think between the two of us, we made her freakin' year! I just figured we were off to a good start...

After going through some exhibits from the origins of the brewery to some of the advertising campaigns run throughout the decades, we came upon the first bar. It was rather normal and we had our one beer that our green token alloted us. After some interactive exhibits and a stop in the gift shop, we came to the last stop. Quite fittingly it was another bar, this one themed like a busy pub or club. The way it was SUPPOSED to work was that we had 2 orange tokens left for 2 more glasses of beer. Most of the other visitors had their 2 beers and left. We were not fully prepared to leave the cozy confines of our emerald chamber and were determined to mine more out of our 2 orange tokens. Cue the parade of good looking Texan women to the bar...

One round became two and eventually three. We came up with a simple system; When the guys had their rotation behind the bar, we sent in the women to do whatever they could (within the realm of decency) to get as much beer as they could with as little cost to the orange bank as possible. At its best, they would each come back with 4 beers in hand and still have their orange tokens. This day was progressing just swimmingly but it got just a touch better. The girl that was working the entrance when we arrived, paid us a visit when she finished her shift behind the bar. As she walked by, she very discreetly deposited a handful of orange tokens in one of the girls' hand. What was supposed to have been a 3 beer tour turned into a 9 beer blow out. Needless to say when the lot of us popped back out into the mid afternoon sun, some of us didn't exactly know what was going on. Not bad for 15 bucks and change.


After a well deserved siesta we caught dinner and wrapped the night up with a few more drinks in town. What you thought we'd stop there? C'mon. Though with the bars closing at midnight, I think we were spared a horrible next morning. We wrapped the night up and I think I arrived back in the room sometime after 2 AM. I had previously mentioned that I had 5 female roommates in my hostel room. I don't think any of them were happy to see me when I got back into the room. The girl on the top bunk closest to the door shot me a look that I can only compare to a vampire recoiling from the searing crack of the morning sun. I was mildly amused and scared at the same time. Or maybe I was just still swimming in it. I did feel bad though when I found out later the next morning that she had to be out the door by 6 in order to catch a plane to her next destination. That feeling didn't last too long. :)

Later that day, I said my goodbyes to the Texans. They were such a kick ass group and if any of you guys are reading this, I will be down to visit as promised. I met up with my friend Bryan who I had first met in China 6 years ago. As with my friend Christian in Stockholm, he was pretty much exactly the same as I had remembered him. The next couple of days were spent catching up and falling right back into the old ways. It's funny how time and distance can physically separate but purity in simplicity is the key to sustaining any friendship and the bond was just as strong now as it was back then. Bryan and I spent pretty much every day together in China and it was so nice to be able to see him again. Of course the conversation wasn't the only thing that was brought back en vogue from Beijing... We also reverted back to some of social habits that almost got me arrested in Tien An Men Square, but that's another story for another time. I'll just leave you with a photographic and typical goodbye from Amsterdam.

Ah Amsterdam... Part 2

So after having met a porn goddess, an earth dwelling angel and then being punch lined to death by a store-front hooker, I found myself wandering back to the hostel from the train station as all sensible forms of public transportation ceased to operate after 12:30 AM... For a city that has such a good public transport system, I found it odd that it all seemed to shut down, leave a few buses which I had no plans on boarding lest I end up in some remote part of town to be captured and enslaved in an underground clog finishing factory. Lost among all of that excitement, I even forgot to tell you that I had visited a sex museum. Seriously...

Upon my return to the hostel, I ended up meeting a couple of guys who were from the States and had been back packing throughout Eastern Europe before arriving in Amsterdam. They suggested I join them to check out the area around the hostel and partake in some of the allowances afforded by the liberal culture... I figured it would be a good way to meet and get to know some new people so I figured why not. As a testament to the quality of the Canadian product, I would have to say from what I remember from those hazier days that our homegrown is a spot better than the local fare sampled to me on that night. At any rate they were a couple of cool cats and we made plans to hit up a few sites later the next day.

As it turns out I ended up spending the first part of the day exploring the museums on my own as the other two had already seen what I was planning to the day before. Eventually I ended up at the Van Gogh Museum. I had hatched a plan well before hand to see the exhibit in an enhanced sensory mode. I figured when in Rome... So in due time a fungal fantasy became an artistic reality where colours melded and images entranced and almost 4 hours passed by. The Van Gogh collection itself was spell binding, but there was also an additional exhibit by an artist surnamed Maxwell. His style, dark carnivalesque images with dark coloured bases, accented with sharp, bright colours and that only added to the entrancement.

After a nap back at the hostel, my body having seemed to have been returned to me in my sleep, I set about trying to find Pete and Jay. Forward thinking would have seen us exchange room numbers the night before so we could find each other at the agreed upon meeting time. As it was though, that wasn't the case. To make things even better, the hostel had 5 floors with about 5 rooms on each floor. I didn't exactly feel like knocking on each door to find them. I picked the forth floor and ran into a big group of people, who from some of their t-shirts, were from Texas A&M University. We exchanged the typical hostel questions of where we were from and where we had been and how long we were staying. Then I explained that I was looking for 2 other Americans, but had no idea which room they were in.

Normally this would have been rather awkward, but one girl, Megan volunteered herself to find them for me and went about knocking on the door she guessed Pete and Jay were staying behind. As it turns out there were two American guys in that room, but not the two I was looking for. In the end, I gave up looking for them and was quickly adopted as an honourary Texan and pseudo Long Horn for the night. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as this lot was a laugh a second pretty much. We ended up across the road at an Italian restaurant and I don't know how the waiter didn't lose his mind serving us. We were easily the loudest group in the joint and even broke a few decorations during the course of our dining. The destruction wasn't limited to inanimate objects as a couple of the girls actually managed to injure themselves while eating and telling stories. I swear, it was one of those things you just had to be there to witness.

We eventually met up with Pete and Jay and had a few beers in the main square of the bar district. I was shocked to find out though that the bars in Amsterdam all closed up around midnight. I figured that was a touch odd for a city with the reputation it did. It was suggested that most people are so stoned / spent that there really isn't any point for the bars to stay open past midnight. As it turned out, there were clubs still open into the wee hours, but seeing as how none of us were club people, that did us no good. We ended up calling it an early night having consumed a reasonable enough amount of alcohol during the course of dinner and in the square to see us off to dreamland in a happy state.

Ok, this is getting a bit long so I guess there will a part 3 coming up shortly.

HOME

So it would seem that I've arrived home and have already gone through 4 days back at work. The trip was a blur and I will update the rest of Amsterdam and get onto London, Dresden, and Geneva in due time.

At this moment, I am working on uploading the photos and figuring out how the hell I am going to show them all to you.

Looming Large Over London

So there's nothing quite like waking up and finding out there was an active bomb ticking away no more than 5 minutes away while I slept... So that was the reality of my morning today. Good thing the good guys caught on and defused the thing before it went off. Not a good way to cap off the trip.

After going for a brief walk, I decided to walk through Trafalgar Square. I was enjoying a stroll when all of a sudden a hockey game broke out right before my eyes. Being a good Canadian boy, this brought a tear to my eye. Ok, it didn't just break out. It was actually part of the 2'nd annual Canada Day celebration in London. They transformed the whole of Trafalgar Square into a Canadian theme park. Hell, a free concert to boot with Sam Roberts playing will be a good end to a turbulent day in the city.

Just a little hi and hello to let you know Indie is well and good despite people trying to blow up his fun.

Will catch you up proper with all of the events before London shortly.

Stay sexy.

Indie

Ahhhhhhh Amsterdam Part 1

Last I left you, I was in a mad scramble from the personal abode of a hockey club's admin girl back to my friend's and then to the airport. So hurried was I that I completely forgot to mention the lovely Mariella, a very intelligent and attractive Greek girl, not that we should hold that against her, on the bus to the airport. Who knows, maybe I've worked out a place to stay should I ever visit Greece. Now which one of you fellow bloggers is responsible for turning me into a man whore? Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm? Seriously, I hope more men figure out that all it takes is to say hi and just be happy to meet someone.

So I arrived in Holland and a quick train and tram ride later, I was at my hostel in the middle of the bar district and not too far from the museumplein or district as they'd have you refer to it as. I checked in to my room, which I had signed up for as a co-ed shared accommodation for 6, and was a little shocked to find 3 girls asleep seemingly waiting for my entrance to wake them. I figured, hmmm, the guys must be out already. I'll meet them later and we'll have a good night. Wrong. As it turned out, my other roommates were 2 other girls. So me and 5 girls. You'd think that my stars had aligned yet again for me, but alas, no joy.

No worries though, I grabbed my trusty camera bag and after I filled you all in on Helsinki, set about discovering the city. The layout of the city is awesome and everything is planned out by sections, seemingly like they were twinned with a side of a rolling dice, your destination set forth by a chance roll and delivered by an incredibly easy tram system. I went for a walk up the main road in the area where I was and as I did so, I nearly threw my neck and back out as she caught my eye as she walked in the opposite direction. Now girls, you know it's true... you know damn right what thin white pants look like when you put them on... so that's all I'll say on that. She was just incredibly fit and I just said to myself, wow.

Upon returning down the street from my brief adventure, I stopped into the pharmacy to pick up some shampoo and tooth paste. Easy and boring enough, until I went to pay for said items. Once at the counter, I took a look to my immediate left as I noticed out of the corner of my eye that there was a rather tall woman standing beside me. At first glance, she looked like Tera Patrick, who for those of you who don’t know, is a very famous porn star. I had an amused and quizzical look about me and thought, nah… Only one way to find out so I allowed myself for ever so brief of a moment to look at her boobs, as they are her natural claim to fame. After just barely noticing her assets, I noticed the sizeable diamond ring she had on. I then noticed her slightly bigger and way more tattooed male companion lurking close by. She and I smiled at each other. She knew I knew who she was, but must have been relieved that I left it at that and didn’t make a scene. Celebrity has never really fazed me before and I wasn’t going to let a porn star change that, though it would have been a reasonable exception. Can’t say the same about the guy lurking about outside as I left though. I knew then that my stay in the city would be an eventful one.

Down the road from the pharmacy, I happened upon a candy shop and a la Homer Simpson, I twiddled my fingers and said aloud, "Oooh, candy". I went inside and what should I see before me but the girl in the white pants. I couldn't help but look again as I set about filling my sweets bag with sour apples, jelly bellies, cola bottles and the what not. This time around I managed to see her face and it was angelic and un-assuming, the heart meltingest kind in my books. She was ahead of me in line and paid for her bag of candy, and I did the same and figured that I'd say something to her since I was there and hell she was just something wow.

So I caught up to her just outside the front door of the shop and just said outright and not even knowing if she'd understand what I was saying to her, "excuse me miss, I just wanted to let you know that you had caught my eye and I just wanted to let you know that I thought you are absolutely stunning." You'd think my next thought would have been, shit what have I done, but that actually didn't happen. Her face lit up even more than it had been before and she said back to me, "wow, thank you, I'm really flattered by that, you completely made my day". Actually, she had just made my day, but that's neither here nor there. She asked where I was heading and upon me telling her, she said that she was going in that direction to catch the tram to her ailing mother's. So we walked and talked for a little bit. Actually I think I floated over on a thin cloud layer. We said our goodbyes, exchanged no more than smiles and I found out that Dutch people kiss cheeks 3 times to send people off.

Later that night after I had let myself come down from the bliss that Roseanna had sent me about with, I caught a bite to eat and made my way in to the infamous Red Light District. From what I had seen of the rest of the city, I thought to myself that Amsterdam's reputation as being a complete gong show wasn't deserved. That was until I ventured into the streets and more so the alleys of the infamed district. Holy God. This place is an absolute zoo and a world removed from the norm that's for sure. I still can't get over window shopping for hookers. Like think about that. I wandered pretty much all of the alleyways and thought to myself that some of these women were way too good looking to be hooking out of a display window. Then I saw some of their co-workers who made me almost lose my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I honestly think I walked by one window and said aloud to myself, "now Jimbo, that was a dude".

Seriously now, they pay rent for the window and room space. Girls or guys like that must surely lose money plying their trade. Cause if they actually do enough business to pay the rent, I am going to lose it. (again) The area is truely something that you all have to experience for yourselves if you haven’t yet already. Live blazing red adverts for live sex shows, porno shacks lining pretty much every corner. Temptation was everywhere and anything you could ask for was available to you. Walk by drug dealers offering in broken french-english if you wanted eggstazy or coken amused me at first but then quickly became annoying. I even had to resort to playing the dumb Asian tourist with the camera out, pretending not to understand English…

Ok, I hear you all moaning now, pictures, pictures pictures… I will do my best to upload a few tomorrow. No promises though as I am on a borrowed computer. But for now, that was only day 1. I have to still clear some more haze and figure out what the hell days 2 through 5 did to me.

Quote of the night...

"Come here, talk to me. where are you going?"

"I'm just going for a walk"

"You go to a forrest for a walk, you go to the Red Light District for a fuck!"

Till later, stay super,

Indie.

Hey Now Helsinki.

Hello Helsinki, at least that was what I said when I got off the plane. I don't know what it is but in Scandinavia so far, there has been an absolute breath taker waiting in line at the baggage carousel. It's the perfect way to welcome someone to the city that's for sure.

So I found myself in Finland, not knowing what to expect. Having been to Stockholm and finding out that the sun doesn't hardly ever set, I knew I was in for long days. That was all fine and good for me as I had to fit a lot into the two days that I was going to be visiting. This time out though, I had no guide to show me around. My friend Kirsi, was supposed to have been there, but after I had planned my trip, she was sent out to a work trip in West Africa. She was nice enough to leave the keys to her apartment with a friend and he met me at the train station when I arrived and set me about on my way. She had an amazing apartment too.

After I got settled in I did a quick tour of the city. It's small enough that you can literally walk around it in an hour. Suited me just fine and I got to take some good pictures without the hustle and bustle of a tourist crowd. Now Steph if you're reading this, this is akin to your story about borrowing your friend's digi-cam. After I got home and settled in for bed, I wanted to put some clothes away into a proper cabinet instead of having it bunched up in my backpack. I opened the bedside cabinet and happened to find a small plastic bag... The contents of which were pleasurable... Again, in case this is read by my friend, and in all likelyhood it will, let's just say, "you go girl, at least you know how to have fun with yourself". I always thought she was so prim and proper. I even refer to her as the definition of a lady. Oh how I should have known. :P

So the next day, I set about going to Hartwell Arena to visit the home rink of my favourite Finnish hockey team, Jokerit (team logo above). I thought I'd go and pick up a souvenir from their team store for my brother as one of his favourite players is from Helsinki and played for that club before going to play in North America. To my shock and dismay, the arena was closed and the shop barren. I called the number for the store that I had been given in town. I nice sounding girl named Riikka answered and I explained that I was a crazy Canadian on a hockey sojourn and was looking for something to bring back to my brother. She told me to come into the arena office and she would see what she could do.

I got buzzed into the arena and made my way down to the office. I was greeted by a lovely girl who tried her hardest to find someone and something to give to me to take home from the hockey club. In the end though, her efforts were for naught. I was disappointed so I setted for the next best thing. If I couldn't get something from the hockey team, I'd just take one of their employees instead. So I asked her if she had plans for later, and she didn't so I had myself a date. Long and short of it, is that we met up had a nice walk about the city and then made dinner at my friend's place. We started up a movie and then got called out to a park to chill out with some more of her friends and have a few drinks in the open air.

The night or morning ended off at about 4AM. My flight for Amsterdam left at 9:30AM... So at 6 I made my way back to Kirsi's to shower up and tidy up her apartment before I left. I was aiming to be back at the train station at 7:30 to catch the shuttle to the airport. Things ended up taking a little longer and I ended up missing that one and reset my aim for the 7:50 shuttle. I ended up missing that one as well and was a little concerned because the next one departed at 8:10 and wouldn't arrive at the airport until 8:45 leaving me a grand 45 minutes before scheduled take off time.

By the grace of God, I made it onto the plane. I promptly fell asleep a short time after take off and splet pretty much the whole flight over. I woke up in time to catch the landing as opposed to my arrival in London when I realized we were landing when the thump of the wheels woke me. A train and tram trip later I arrived at the hostel and that's where I will leave you. There will be plenty of stories to fill the next blog whenever that happens to get written.

Happy in the high times or happy in the high times,

Indie

You Had To See It For Yourself.

Why Planes Crash - The best free videos are right here
So hellooo from Stockholm! Tomorrow I actually leave for a quick few days in Helsinki, but first the news up until now. As is tradition for me, I was not completely prepared for this trip as I was essentially packing my ass out the door when it came time to leave for the airport. Hell, I didn't even feel as though I was even on vacation. My mind was not into it yet. I'd just that day, finished working 20 of 22 days in a row and a total of 26 out of the last 32...

In the end, it looks as though I may have over packed but oh well, I'll survive. The flight over to London was great as I had a nice girl named Chelsea sitting beside me. Too bad, or lucky for her, I spent most of the flight sleeping while she drank coffee and watched movies. We also had a stewardess serving our section of the plane who looked like she would cry if she was forced to smile. Sad but funny at the same time. Damn just wasted material for a 5 pt'er.

I had to transfer airlines and as a result terminals to catch my connector to Stockholm. After I picked up my big travel sack, adorned with very large and obvious Canadian flag, I sweated my way about 15 minutes through a labyrinth of tunnels to get to my departing terminal. Once there, it all seemed easy enough. I checked myself via the automated process and all I had to do was drop off my bag at the counter. That took much longer than it looked like it would seeing as though there were only about 15 people in front of me.

There was an English fellow about in his mid thirties who was lined in the queue just behind me. I thought I'd be nice and make some small talk about the delay. He agreed something to the like and then stood back. I was in the middle of thinking to mysel.. "wake me up before you go-go" What the f... The dude starts singing something that sounded like it was straight out Wham or Duran Duran's track list. I looked quizzically from my spot in line and was oh so close to blurting out, "easy there Simon, you should have stopped with Ordinary World (or maybe sooner) ".

The flight to Stockholm was a breeze as again, I spent most of it sleeping. When we landed in Sweden, I thought I was hallucinating because I thought I'd heard the captain say that the local temperature was 30 degrees Celsius. WTF, I just knew that couldn't be right. How ever would the reindeer make it? Sure to his word though it was. I'd heard the stereotype about gorgeous Swedish women before I arrived, but it couldn't be completely true. Well, I was wrong. All I will say is that she set a very high standard for the rest of this trip and that's saying a lot. At the baggage carousel of all places too.

I was picked up by my friend Christian whom I haven't seen for 6 years in China. It was very much like old times again. We went out the first night within a few hours and proceeded to have a night out in the posh part of town with all the beautiful people. They were tall, their hair was long and perfectly blonde, their skin was glistening and their eyes crystal blue, their looks were easily model calibre. That was just the men!!! The women were more than their equals in that department but good God were they some of the most vapid bunch of self-attributing worth whores out there. Note the distinction from attention seeking fame whores. Those we like around here. I guess that was the price of going out in that part of town. My mind hurts, but my eyes are singing.

I'll admit though that most of the ladies were doing their mother country proud. About doing their actual mothers proud, I'm not sure of that. They also have this thing with the high school graduates all getting little sailor's hats as a sign of their graduation. So it was a bit of a site seeing scores of these good looking (albeit high school) girls running around in their white outfits and their drunken male friends in tow. Yes, at times I felt dirty. Damn this getting older thing.

There is one thing though that I can not get over at all about this country. On the first night, I was sitting outside on the porch enjoying a beer with Christian when I noticed that the sun was still up. I swore to myself that I had recently looked at a clock and it had said 10PM. Turns out the sun doesn't fully go down until well past 11PM here. That was odd. Imagine my shock then when upon exiting a club at just after 3:30AM, the sun was already well on its way to coming back up! I have a picture of a clock tower just before 4AM and it's almost broad daylight!!!

The city of Stockholm itself is beautiful. I encourage you all to get out here at some point. Some of the design and architecture is grand and very eye catching along with some of the other sights. I do have to wonder though what attributes, beyond their genetically blessed looks some of these girls have to offer and what they expect from the world. There were two drop deads outside a soul and groove bar last night and Christian asked them about the white outfit one of them was wearing and if it had anything to do with graduation. Mind you they looked a bit older but it seemed within reason to ask. The blonde's response, "um, move on". Seriously. I bet there are few of you ladies who may have started swinging upon hearing that one. I thought about the old headbutt to the perfectly shaped nose, but I thought I'd be the loveable Canuck and leave it be. But seriously...

Ok, sleep needs me, or vice versa... Will catch you sexy bitches later.

Till Next Time

Hey all, I'm off to Sweden!
Catch you soon from Stockholm.
Crash, how far is that from G-Town?

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane

So I was thinking to myself that I would come back from a little blog absence with a poem that I've been thinking of crafting for a while. I typed a line out but then that idea quickly faded and died as fast as a burning ember cast forth from the core, unwanted, and denied lasting sustenance. Uh yeah...

I then thought of adding another "5 Point Post" but then I quickly realized that I didn't have my material freshly served up and ready to go as I usually do. I didn't feel like barfing out a sub-standard version of the installment. I tried to think of something but I was too distracted by trying to plan out my trip.

This trip is going to be my salvation but in the mean time, it is quickly becoming my death. As the saying goes, the only person you can really rely on is yourself. In this case, I am finding that to be truer and truer, the more people who take their time getting back to me as to whether or not I'll be able to stay with them when I launch my ass over to Europe.

I hatched an idea last fall that this spring or early summer that I would reward myself for a year of hard work, broken heartedness, rainy Cuban escapes, sad losses, and other foul piles of bull shit with a me, myself, and I European adventure. Not one of those package jobs, but a personal little journey to places where I've never been before.

Ok, it didn't start that way exactly, just a trip to Europe. I figured, I was single, there are loads of things to do out there, and scores of European women to meet. They alone would be a sweet departure from the sometimes upity, tight-arsed "ladies" that comprise the female exposure I am subjected to here in Toronto. As time went by, I realized that I had a completely amazing group of friends scattered throughout the European landscape.

So it was decided that I would take on a trip to England, Sweden, Finland, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland. Those are the set in stone options as Scotland and France are still on the radar, but on the outside, looking in. Of that group, I've only been to England so my eyes are going to be opened for sure. Lucky me too though, that I have friends in each of those countries so I basically just have to get my ass over there and the rest "should" be taken care of, providing that they all get back to me on time.

Back in 2000 / 01, I lived in China for 7 months and I was very fortunate to meet and make a very close and fascinating group of friends. We all pretty much stayed in touch and these are the poor saps who have to contend with me when I get to haunt each of them. So, I'm hoping they all get their ducks in a row so I am not left out. Oh hell, even if I am, nothing improvisation and a cheap ticket to Rome or somewhere else won't fix.

Cute, Cheezy And Random

Ha ha, this could even be an add on Craigslist...

So I was recently thinking about a girl who I met many years ago during a trip to Orlando. Her name was Jaime Carter. My family was staying at a resort called Orange Lake Country Club (how posh) and there were always tonnes of kids running around the place so it was easy for the younger folks to meet new friends all the time. I can't remember how old I was exactly but I put the number perhaps around 16.

There was a group of girls from Wisconsin and a cool kid from Buffalo and we all hung out pretty much every night that we were there. The attention getter of the group was named Jean. (perhaps that's when the seed for the fondness of that name was planted but more on that in another post) The girl I liked to spend time with was Jaime. From what I remember, she was a year or gasp, even 2 older than me. She was rather pretty in her own right, but kinda more quiet and grounded than some of the other girls.

We hung out during the afternoons and I even remember spending an evening just chatting in her villa and then out under the stars while most of the rest of our group was busy making out with each other. Yeah, they made out, we talked... moving on. We ended up doing the pen pal thing through part of my senior year in high school. She sent me a few pictures which caught the eye of some of my house mates. No they weren't those kind of pictures. Though at that age, that would have been a nice ego booster. Wait we're men, that applies to any age.

Eventually we lost touch and familiarity become more of a warm and nice memory. I'd think about her now and again over the course of the last 10 years. Cripes, 10 years already... We never heard from each other though. Then tonight as I was packing my hockey bag for a game, I picked up an old journal and I found a couple of pictures within the pages which were facing each other. I pulled them out and apart and who should I see but the lovely Miss Carter in a cute skirt and the classic 90s girl's cut with the bangs and in the other a group shot of her family.

That brought a fun smile to my face as I remembered the first time that I got those photos. I wonder now though what happened to the one that got all the guys talking... Hmmmm. At any rate I used to have her address but I guess one of the reasons that I stopped writing her was because I lost it. I kept the letters somewhere, but she had her address on these little yellow bird stickers that she'd stick on the letters and somehow those all fell off or got lost over the years.

I recently read a post through a link from Megan's page. The post was by Dooce and it made mention of something called Sarah's Cringe Book. It made me think of some of the cheezy things I must have written to her as a love and awestruck mid-teen boy.

From that idea, I started looking for some of my old poetry and written thoughts which I made with such angst and emotion all that time ago. ; ) As I was going through a cabinet, I found a bag containing old cups and mugs which I used to dump loose change and stack pens in. I had always wondered where my beer glass from my 1993 championship hockey season had gone to and now I knew. Beyond finding busted pens and corroded batteries, I found a few souvenir coins from the Magic Kingdom. Again, that made me think of Jaime. As I'm sorting through those, a small piece of white paper, a bottom right corner to be exact, came loose.

I would have thought nothing of it, had I only seen the "Kwik Kopy Printing" tag on the back. Instead of that though, I saw the above with an un-familiar area code of 715. Curiosity got the cat and I almost locked mine in the cabinet as I closed it to check on my trusty MacBook to see where exactly the area code 715 was. Needless to say, I knew right away whose phone number I had found when the search came back.

So that's my story as of now. I still haven't decided what to do but I was thinking of maybe writing for old times' sake. For all I know she's married now, maybe even for the second time and has kids! : P Who knows. All I know is, it was fun, at least for tonight, to re-live those formative moments of the older girl with the great smile.

Any thoughts or suggestions are more than welcome on this one.

This might be a good indication...

There are some days when you just know that nothing is going to go your way...

I may have missed this little cloud formation as I slept during the take off of my flight to Cuba a couple of weeks ago, but had I seen it, I would have been ready to accept my fate...

I was part of a group of 49 people going to visit Fidel Land for a nice beach-front wedding and a deserved getaway from the grind of the streets. It was supposed to be a nice sunny vacation lasting a week...

Instead, the song lyrics "A three hour tour" kept repeating themselves in my head as the week went on... 5 hours of sun over the course of the week set that feeling in stone. Alas not all was a loss... Ok, the wedding got rained out and forced indoors, but it was still a beautiful experience and the bride and groom made it through and as far as I know, they're still married 2 weeks later... They passed the Britney test.

Ok, that's the first one out of the way. Heed the weather warnings, both through the news and what you see in the sky.