TCM and I got our first place on our own April 21 2006. A townhouse condo in Castledowns. This is 8 moves in 6 years if your keeping count. I know the exact day cause it was the first playoff game of the Red Wings (My team) and the Oilers. (In the big playoff drive) My helpers demanded we have TV up and running to watch. We actually got this move done quickly to watch it. I am putting it out there. Oilers shouldn't have made it out of that first round but Rolly was amazballs. Either way our landlord was Cornelius. Of course he didn't use that name BUT he could have been Will Farrell. Literally, like he even looked liked him and could have been Buddy the Elf. He was super nice. For example, I was a dumb ass and locked the keys in the house. He lived a few blocks away so I walked over to his place and he laughed and let us in. Not that letting us in was nice but he offered me breakfast or coffee and was not at all mad.
Our neighbors were great too. A newfie couple. They watched our front door, like even when Cook and Chad showed up they wanted to know who they were cause we weren't home yet. Of course when they realized they were friends of ours they had no problems. The only problem was the sex. They did it every night and my god was she a screamer. Our bedrooms were side by side so we heard it every night. Then they always ended it with some sort of bang. So loud it always shook our mirror..... But the fact was this was a nice place.
Now I guess I could explain TCM, or what it means. TCM had been hunting for what to do with her life. She was at GMCC but not really in a program until she started Traditional Chinese Medicine. Meaning she was going to be an acupuncturist. So she was working part time for KTs dad and going to school.
I cannot believe I missed Stryfe in my last entry. Sister had a cat, The Electrician had a cat and we were cat sitting two cats. TCM and I had got jealous. So when one of the cats we were cat sitting had a litter we kept the pure black one. We called her Stryfe, if you read Marvel comics you would know who that was. We got a second cat, not on purpose. We had given TCMs mom an SPCA cat to help with her loneliness. But then she got a boyfriend. He didn't want a cat, so Fred came to live with us. Worlds most annoying cat ever. Funny story, I always got up at 2ish to feed them. Even a couple kernels to shut up. I went to Slave lake fishing for a weekend and TCM stayed home but tried to ignore his whines. When she did, he knocked a glass of water onto her in bed. I warned her not to ignore them....
It was at this house in 2006 we started a tradition that still goes on. Friends Xmas. Likely I think most groups of friends do something like this. That year was more random. I invited people from work, some friends all kinds of stuff. Did a pork tenderloin on the BBQ while we all sat inside and visited. If you do this have a lot of propane cause that lil piggy had to bake for hours! Now it has become a deep fried turkey with only close friend an kids and a gift exchange. As far as I can remember that was the first one, I am shocked thinking this will be the 11th this year! This also led to off shoots of Friends Easter and Friends Thanksgiving which is coming up.
It was Christmas when TCMs dad announced he was taking us all to Cuba. The truth is this made me nervous as hell. I hadn't left Canadian soil since I was a kid with my great grandparents. But I went and got the passport. We flew to Toronto on a nice jet and honestly the second jet to Cuba was scary and old. I want to say Havana was beautiful but it isn't. It is amazing but it did strike me as dirty. It reminded me of Vancouver harbor. I would say the tourism ads are not taken there. However we had rented a villa outside the city. This was nice! Had our own kitchen, livingroom, bedrooms and a pool out back. We had a "pool man" Pedro, he was awesome. Mostly he sat and drank rum with us. We had two armed guards out front. They creeped me out. One day they say hey bring us some rum. I said no, they said better think about that. We watch you as you sleep. BUT like right as they are saying this the Cuban military rides by. I waved at them and the guards backed right off. Never said anything else. But the truth was it was harder to sleep after having someone remind ou they are outside our house all night, watching.
Other than that it was a mostly great trip. I swam with dolphins outta Varedaro. We went to Havana a few times. The one time a guy says he has a cousin Charlie in Toronto. I said okay good. Do I know him? I laughed and said no. Then he says no, pay attention. And acts out doing a line of coke. Did I wanna meet his cousins Charlie. Said no and walked away. Pedro took us to small diners off the beaten path that were amazing. We also went to his town. It was an eye opener. I learnt Cuba has 3 major groups. The Cubans, The Blacks from Africa whose fore fathers came as slaves and the Russians. See Pedro was part Russian. I wouldst have guess he was Cuban if I saw him in Canada. PLUS no matter what Rebel Media says life in Cuba is far from bad. People aren't starving like Mexico. They love Che and Fidel. There is a thriving black market, I wont lie. I mean beside the cocaine offer when we were going to buy cigars Pedro said give him a day. He came back with authentic Cohibas. Still in packages but half price the store wanted. I was also told as a tip, don't order beef in Cuba, even on the resorts. Leave it at that.
This was a big year looking back on it. Evil and DB got married! Looking back it makes me laugh that in High School they had a big age gap but in the end it worked out. Evil asked me to be his best man since I had introduced them. I had to say no, figured his oldest friend should do it. But I was in the wedding along with Vicious. A great time was had by all. We were at the after party at the best mans house until almost sunrise. DB took Evil out early and squashed my attempts to get him drunk. In a strange surprise I woke up the next morning at my grandparents house upstairs. I always slept downstairs.... (they were gone for the weekend) Remember my highschool memory blog? The cook I called the Great One. He came up from my room downstairs when we were having coffee. Kinda forgot he was even there.... lol.
Also earlier that summer we rented a house boat! On that trip we had me, TCM, KT and Cook. Ditch, Sporty, Dreads, Bigby, Candy and a couple more from St. Albert. Let me be perfectly honest. It was a good trip. However when you do something like this A) don't fill it to capacity. We had 0 leftover room and one guy was sleeping on a fold out in the living-room. Which means he gets a shitty sleep first awake and last too sleep. B) Go with people you are sure you can get along with. I mean we could all get along but back then Candy was a bit much for me. One night we through bubbles in the hottub. I thought he was naked, which I could live with but when he wrapped his legs around me I lost my shit. Cook jumped in the hot tub in clothes to make sure it didn't turn into an argument or more. The St. Albert boys loved getting naked and jumping off the boat. I put up with it even if I didn't like it. I did try it a few times after a ton of booze.... Canada day that year we were on the boat. Ditch went out partying and brought back a girl that didn't fit into his cubby.(Yes it was full enough he was sleeping in a cubby) Of course Cook and I were extremely drunk and rude. TCM and KT made us sleep on the couch that night. Another night we found out it was a small world. We were all out walking and there was this group of guys dragging a drunk girl down the beach. It did look bad so we kinda walked over and said hey whats up. Basically they said fuck off. So now both sides are getting hot tempered. Someone tried cooling it down with small talk. They mentioned they were from Beaverlodge. That little town I took swimming lessons in years back (See childhood blog lol) I said I had family there, they said who. So I said the names. They said bullshit. I guess my cousin I mentioned was supposed to be here but cancelled at last minute. They wanted to call him to prove it. So I said sure and got on the phone. He wasn't happy to hear from us BUT he told me they were decent guys not rapists and the girl was with them. He told them I was his cousin and also a decent guy. So we all had a drink and went our own ways. It was a half joke, half truth at the end of the trip when we said we didn't wanna see each other for a few weeks!!
It was roughly about this time that my parents started their own company. Dad was working as a salesman for an Oil company and mom was a stay at home mom. So they bought a piece of equipment. One they could rent out. It kept them busy, so they bought a few more. And a few more until they couldn't do it themselves as a part time gig but had to hire a guy. For awhile dad was doing two jobs and mom was helping out not just with books but moving equipment from sites and shit.
I think I will call this douche move 1. I think that KT and Cook were having some troubles. So Cook decided to spend night on Whyte Ave drinking. I said yes I would stop by for one. One became two and you know how the story goes. Now at this time I think I had an old flip phone. I barely used it. So it wasn't charged. I had enough juice to make a single call. Now it was supposed to say hey things are fine. I am drunk I will take a cab home later.Which would have been fine. Cook however started arguing with a couple of douche-y looking guys. So I ended the call with Fuck I think Cook is gonna fight, gotta run. And it did almost became a fight in a parking lot, luck was on our side. Cook had been drinking all day there and early met some buskers. So as we were likely to get pounded by 3 guys all of a sudden a bunch of buskers came over. Wanting to know if there was a problem. Douche-y said carry on, but the buskers said no. If there was a problem they were going to deal with it. All of a sudden they weren't so tough and in fact douchers walked away. Well we bought them all a round in the bar and the party carried on. Now in that I forgot to call back AND my phone died. I had a fun night BUT I guess TCM was worried. Like calling hospitals looking for me worried. Lets say I was on good behavior after that for AWHILE! So yeah douche move 1.
Side note, somehow over the years the townhouse Pop Culture, Black and I had lived in had changed hands over and over until Cook was living there. Which wasn't a big deal, but the rental company still had it in my name! It had seen better days. The fact was the basement had flooded a few times. NO one cleaned much. I made numerous calls saying it wasn't mine anymore but I actually had to go down and sign YET AGAIN a paper saying I no longer lived there. The fact was they had no one on file living there..... Hell at some point even Couch Guy from the old house was living there.
Sadly yet again we moved.... Cornelius I guess had bought our place a few years prior. At a good deal. Now the Alberta economy was red hot. He was selling it, for 3 times what he had paid for it. Who could fault the guy. The profit off that alone would pay for both his kids university, which they would be attending in about 10 years he laughed. Here is why he was awesome though. He gave us 3 months notice that we couldn't renew our lease. For those three months he took half our rent off AND move out day he said no worry about a move out walk through just gave us our down payment.
So we found another place. On Saskatchewan drive just off Whyte. Again for those counting this is now 9 moves in 7 years that I had lived here. This move was a pain! We were unorganized and Cook and Chad showed up drunk to help. 16 hours to do 3 loads. We did live on the 16th floor though now. That was cool. I love cityscapes so the view was great. Our new landlord was something to do with the RCMP. Not a cop but something working out of that big building on Kingsway. We had no cheques so for the first few months I drove to the RCMP station with an envelope full of money, a few months in he said that didn't look good, so we actually got cheques to pay him.
I wanna say a bit about people. BY now I wasn't going to work to make friends. Yes earlier on I had been, most of my friends were from my job. Now most had either been fired or moved on. Like Chad and Cook were both gone awhile back. Cowboy had moved on. Actually he was doing good, it was about this time they opened another branch and had him running it. Black was long gone, he had a strange journey. For awhile he was "blind" even using one of those stick thingys. Than he was gonna be a gangster or something. Not sure what he was telling people about me. I met this one guy, who actually was not a nice guy and he apologized to me! I didn't even know for what. He just says hey, that shit that went down with Black, it will never happen again. I am sorry, I promise it won't. I just pretended I knew what he meant and said it better not. But that is a side story. Anyways with most of the people I was friends with gone work was getting lonely. I still had Ditch though and this is about him. Maybe this is a long winded life lesson. Its a big one, maybe a two or three parter but......
Don't go to work to make friends, at least not at your career. (Sure the part time jobs that really wont matter later on in life and you can goof of at is one thing) At work surround yourself with competent people. You don't even have to like them (I do like Ditch btw) just know that you can trust them and they do their shit well. Dunno how many times I asked him to get something done and then knew it would be taken care of. Now if life it is the same but different. Surround yourself with people you like, and people you trust. I as I grow older am starting to think having a smaller circle but with people I actually like is much better than having half a dozen different friend groups. Put people you can talk to as your friends. People you can rely on, when you really need them. I mean I have met a ton of people since I moved here. But the ones I actually talk to and have for over a decade, I guess those are your real friends. Not just the ones who wanna party with you but vanish when shit gets real.
My grandpa was in the twilight of his working years. And the quiet man who literally got up at 5 was gone by 6 came home at 7 watched a bit of TV and went to bed started getting hobbies. I think it started with wood carving and then moved to wine making. To me him doing things was crazy, other than watching sports on TV, I had never seen him do stuff. After he retired he took those thing up big time. Grandma well she remained the same. She kept running her store for another year or so until she found a buyer for it. I will get back to them and the retired life maybe in the next entry.
The hard thing about writing this out is forgetting shit. Then remembering it AFTER and where it should be has already been put up. Like I should have talked about the cabin earlier, but I guess we will get to that now. Like we are in about 2007 here but we had been going to KT's cabin since 2002-ish. KT has a cabin, it is two rooms. The living-room and the bedroom. There is power and a small kitchen but no plumbing. This is a problem for me, I don't like out houses. In fact I am willing to go on every beer run just to stop and have my poop in a gas station..... TMI? But it became our little get away place. I would say every second or third weekend we would go out. Get in fishing, swimming, quading and of course some drinking. Sit down at the beach and shoot off fire works. Once I actually pulled a 3 iron from the lake. I thought this was a monster fish, must have been stuck deep in some mud. I can't say how many nights we watched the sun come up. It was the first place I tried skinny dipping. I will admit whiskey led to that. The thing was everyone came out! My friends from work, the St. Albert people. It became a great mixing place for people and with that I should introduce a few more people.
Tats, one of the St. Albert girls had moved to BC earlier and had moved back. Somehow she met this guy and he became her roommate. I didn't like him and he isn't important but his girlfriend was. Lets call her Amazing. I will admit it wasn't a right away friendship. I thought she partied even too much for me. BUT the thing was she smart, creative and funny. She is gonna be around so ya that was my first thoughts on Amazing.
Next there was the Frenchman. He is like Shy Guy from that earlier post. One of those guy you dislike cause he is good at everything. Sports, work just overall successful. He worked in our shop, he was quiet but Ditch talked to him a bit so that kinda how he came along.
Next there was the two J's Crazy J, and Slutty J. I honestly have no idea how we met Slutty J or SJ for short. But KT and TCM worked with Crazy J (CJ).
Some other background shit, KT bought her house. For a few years we referred to it as the Home for Wayward Women. She has had a few roommates over the years. Most of them she helped out as they didn't have any other place to go. I can think of at least 6 friends who have lived there.... And I mean she has always had it, but KT was bitten by the travel bug and started travelling a ton more. This will come into play, so remember it!
Oh and Sporty she started dating the Ducthman. Did I introduce him? He was Patty D's cousin who moved here. He and Chad were living together. Chad was unemployed and him and Sporty spent days just chilling out. I think it made the Dutchman a bit jealous...... Anyways that's what the world was like.
So we were living on the 16th floor of a condo. I wasn't a creeper but we could have been, the building beside us we looked right into. Although one time Evil did come down and we used a laser pointer into the windows across from us. People react like cats! There really isn't a big deal about living by Whyte unless you actually go there. We would walk over to the farmers market but I think only once did we go to a bar at night. Within the first week I got into a fight with my neighbour. The day we moved in we were to "loud" so she came out and yelled at us. Which I give her, my helpers and myself were drunk and loud. But then the next day I fire up the BBQ and she comes over to yell it is making her condo smell. Like fuck off. BUT I took the high road and moved it to the other side, admittedly I swore very loud the whole time. So then this woman gives me a thank you card. Split personalities much??? The fact is while we lived here not a ton happened. Trying to think of some stuff! It was a quiet year.
Lets call this one douche move 2! See my dad called one Wednesday night asked me if I wanted to go to a box game with him and some guys from up North. It was against my Wings so I said fuck ya! All the free booze one can drink? Bad idea, well not if you moderate but I didn't. It was awesome, last clear memory Cook was in a box a couple boxes down. So I hopped through boxes to get over to his. Everything is blurry, we took a limo to Diamonds. I guess they still tell the story of my ride there.... AT some point I got in a taxi home. Then trying to explain I did NOT get a lap dance, got TCM a bit angry sounded like I DID get one. She slammed a door with my toe under it. I lost my big toe nail. To this day it hasn't grown back proper...... Truth is it wasn't that douche-y except for the fact she had finals the next day and I kinda woke her in the middle of the night. She was fine, did great on them. I spend the next few weeks explaining why I was wearing sandals in December with my big toe wrapped up. My parents got the truth not sure if hers did....
Since I introduced them lets talk about one CJ first of all. She was from somewhere out East. Sorry to any Easterners I know but she was IMO, all the bad things people here say about them. For instance the first night we met her was a fire at KTs place. KTs house had taken over as were everything happened then. She gets sloppy ass drunk and is gonna drive home. I will not lie, I was really bad for having a bit too much and thinking I could drive, and I was okay with letting other do this. But I could tell she couldn't so we took away her keys. All my friends from St. Albert are rather good at being against drunk driving, so that city is doing something right. SO she turned into a belligerent bitch. Screaming at us. KT said on the couch. I say take a cab (I want the couch) She wants me to set up my tent trailer out back. After hours of fighting she sleeps, I think on the couch. We shouldn't judge by a single meeting but I said this chick is a bitch both TCM and KT said leave it be she was just drunk. SO I let it go, but at that point I was not a fan of hers.
I had forgot to mention I bought a tent trailer. My uncle had one he had used with his jeep to go god knows where but now he bought a toy hauler. So I purchased something from my work at cost and traded him straight across. The fact was we both got a great deal out of it. We would pull it out to KTs cabin or TCMS cabin. It was very basic but hell it did the trick!
Well lets call this a wrap, a bunch more shit started happening but this one is starting to run long. MY guess it is now spring-ish 2008. Have the next adventure up shortly......
Our neighbors were great too. A newfie couple. They watched our front door, like even when Cook and Chad showed up they wanted to know who they were cause we weren't home yet. Of course when they realized they were friends of ours they had no problems. The only problem was the sex. They did it every night and my god was she a screamer. Our bedrooms were side by side so we heard it every night. Then they always ended it with some sort of bang. So loud it always shook our mirror..... But the fact was this was a nice place.
Now I guess I could explain TCM, or what it means. TCM had been hunting for what to do with her life. She was at GMCC but not really in a program until she started Traditional Chinese Medicine. Meaning she was going to be an acupuncturist. So she was working part time for KTs dad and going to school.
I cannot believe I missed Stryfe in my last entry. Sister had a cat, The Electrician had a cat and we were cat sitting two cats. TCM and I had got jealous. So when one of the cats we were cat sitting had a litter we kept the pure black one. We called her Stryfe, if you read Marvel comics you would know who that was. We got a second cat, not on purpose. We had given TCMs mom an SPCA cat to help with her loneliness. But then she got a boyfriend. He didn't want a cat, so Fred came to live with us. Worlds most annoying cat ever. Funny story, I always got up at 2ish to feed them. Even a couple kernels to shut up. I went to Slave lake fishing for a weekend and TCM stayed home but tried to ignore his whines. When she did, he knocked a glass of water onto her in bed. I warned her not to ignore them....
It was at this house in 2006 we started a tradition that still goes on. Friends Xmas. Likely I think most groups of friends do something like this. That year was more random. I invited people from work, some friends all kinds of stuff. Did a pork tenderloin on the BBQ while we all sat inside and visited. If you do this have a lot of propane cause that lil piggy had to bake for hours! Now it has become a deep fried turkey with only close friend an kids and a gift exchange. As far as I can remember that was the first one, I am shocked thinking this will be the 11th this year! This also led to off shoots of Friends Easter and Friends Thanksgiving which is coming up.
It was Christmas when TCMs dad announced he was taking us all to Cuba. The truth is this made me nervous as hell. I hadn't left Canadian soil since I was a kid with my great grandparents. But I went and got the passport. We flew to Toronto on a nice jet and honestly the second jet to Cuba was scary and old. I want to say Havana was beautiful but it isn't. It is amazing but it did strike me as dirty. It reminded me of Vancouver harbor. I would say the tourism ads are not taken there. However we had rented a villa outside the city. This was nice! Had our own kitchen, livingroom, bedrooms and a pool out back. We had a "pool man" Pedro, he was awesome. Mostly he sat and drank rum with us. We had two armed guards out front. They creeped me out. One day they say hey bring us some rum. I said no, they said better think about that. We watch you as you sleep. BUT like right as they are saying this the Cuban military rides by. I waved at them and the guards backed right off. Never said anything else. But the truth was it was harder to sleep after having someone remind ou they are outside our house all night, watching.
Other than that it was a mostly great trip. I swam with dolphins outta Varedaro. We went to Havana a few times. The one time a guy says he has a cousin Charlie in Toronto. I said okay good. Do I know him? I laughed and said no. Then he says no, pay attention. And acts out doing a line of coke. Did I wanna meet his cousins Charlie. Said no and walked away. Pedro took us to small diners off the beaten path that were amazing. We also went to his town. It was an eye opener. I learnt Cuba has 3 major groups. The Cubans, The Blacks from Africa whose fore fathers came as slaves and the Russians. See Pedro was part Russian. I wouldst have guess he was Cuban if I saw him in Canada. PLUS no matter what Rebel Media says life in Cuba is far from bad. People aren't starving like Mexico. They love Che and Fidel. There is a thriving black market, I wont lie. I mean beside the cocaine offer when we were going to buy cigars Pedro said give him a day. He came back with authentic Cohibas. Still in packages but half price the store wanted. I was also told as a tip, don't order beef in Cuba, even on the resorts. Leave it at that.
This was a big year looking back on it. Evil and DB got married! Looking back it makes me laugh that in High School they had a big age gap but in the end it worked out. Evil asked me to be his best man since I had introduced them. I had to say no, figured his oldest friend should do it. But I was in the wedding along with Vicious. A great time was had by all. We were at the after party at the best mans house until almost sunrise. DB took Evil out early and squashed my attempts to get him drunk. In a strange surprise I woke up the next morning at my grandparents house upstairs. I always slept downstairs.... (they were gone for the weekend) Remember my highschool memory blog? The cook I called the Great One. He came up from my room downstairs when we were having coffee. Kinda forgot he was even there.... lol.
Also earlier that summer we rented a house boat! On that trip we had me, TCM, KT and Cook. Ditch, Sporty, Dreads, Bigby, Candy and a couple more from St. Albert. Let me be perfectly honest. It was a good trip. However when you do something like this A) don't fill it to capacity. We had 0 leftover room and one guy was sleeping on a fold out in the living-room. Which means he gets a shitty sleep first awake and last too sleep. B) Go with people you are sure you can get along with. I mean we could all get along but back then Candy was a bit much for me. One night we through bubbles in the hottub. I thought he was naked, which I could live with but when he wrapped his legs around me I lost my shit. Cook jumped in the hot tub in clothes to make sure it didn't turn into an argument or more. The St. Albert boys loved getting naked and jumping off the boat. I put up with it even if I didn't like it. I did try it a few times after a ton of booze.... Canada day that year we were on the boat. Ditch went out partying and brought back a girl that didn't fit into his cubby.(Yes it was full enough he was sleeping in a cubby) Of course Cook and I were extremely drunk and rude. TCM and KT made us sleep on the couch that night. Another night we found out it was a small world. We were all out walking and there was this group of guys dragging a drunk girl down the beach. It did look bad so we kinda walked over and said hey whats up. Basically they said fuck off. So now both sides are getting hot tempered. Someone tried cooling it down with small talk. They mentioned they were from Beaverlodge. That little town I took swimming lessons in years back (See childhood blog lol) I said I had family there, they said who. So I said the names. They said bullshit. I guess my cousin I mentioned was supposed to be here but cancelled at last minute. They wanted to call him to prove it. So I said sure and got on the phone. He wasn't happy to hear from us BUT he told me they were decent guys not rapists and the girl was with them. He told them I was his cousin and also a decent guy. So we all had a drink and went our own ways. It was a half joke, half truth at the end of the trip when we said we didn't wanna see each other for a few weeks!!
It was roughly about this time that my parents started their own company. Dad was working as a salesman for an Oil company and mom was a stay at home mom. So they bought a piece of equipment. One they could rent out. It kept them busy, so they bought a few more. And a few more until they couldn't do it themselves as a part time gig but had to hire a guy. For awhile dad was doing two jobs and mom was helping out not just with books but moving equipment from sites and shit.
I think I will call this douche move 1. I think that KT and Cook were having some troubles. So Cook decided to spend night on Whyte Ave drinking. I said yes I would stop by for one. One became two and you know how the story goes. Now at this time I think I had an old flip phone. I barely used it. So it wasn't charged. I had enough juice to make a single call. Now it was supposed to say hey things are fine. I am drunk I will take a cab home later.Which would have been fine. Cook however started arguing with a couple of douche-y looking guys. So I ended the call with Fuck I think Cook is gonna fight, gotta run. And it did almost became a fight in a parking lot, luck was on our side. Cook had been drinking all day there and early met some buskers. So as we were likely to get pounded by 3 guys all of a sudden a bunch of buskers came over. Wanting to know if there was a problem. Douche-y said carry on, but the buskers said no. If there was a problem they were going to deal with it. All of a sudden they weren't so tough and in fact douchers walked away. Well we bought them all a round in the bar and the party carried on. Now in that I forgot to call back AND my phone died. I had a fun night BUT I guess TCM was worried. Like calling hospitals looking for me worried. Lets say I was on good behavior after that for AWHILE! So yeah douche move 1.
Side note, somehow over the years the townhouse Pop Culture, Black and I had lived in had changed hands over and over until Cook was living there. Which wasn't a big deal, but the rental company still had it in my name! It had seen better days. The fact was the basement had flooded a few times. NO one cleaned much. I made numerous calls saying it wasn't mine anymore but I actually had to go down and sign YET AGAIN a paper saying I no longer lived there. The fact was they had no one on file living there..... Hell at some point even Couch Guy from the old house was living there.
Sadly yet again we moved.... Cornelius I guess had bought our place a few years prior. At a good deal. Now the Alberta economy was red hot. He was selling it, for 3 times what he had paid for it. Who could fault the guy. The profit off that alone would pay for both his kids university, which they would be attending in about 10 years he laughed. Here is why he was awesome though. He gave us 3 months notice that we couldn't renew our lease. For those three months he took half our rent off AND move out day he said no worry about a move out walk through just gave us our down payment.
So we found another place. On Saskatchewan drive just off Whyte. Again for those counting this is now 9 moves in 7 years that I had lived here. This move was a pain! We were unorganized and Cook and Chad showed up drunk to help. 16 hours to do 3 loads. We did live on the 16th floor though now. That was cool. I love cityscapes so the view was great. Our new landlord was something to do with the RCMP. Not a cop but something working out of that big building on Kingsway. We had no cheques so for the first few months I drove to the RCMP station with an envelope full of money, a few months in he said that didn't look good, so we actually got cheques to pay him.
I wanna say a bit about people. BY now I wasn't going to work to make friends. Yes earlier on I had been, most of my friends were from my job. Now most had either been fired or moved on. Like Chad and Cook were both gone awhile back. Cowboy had moved on. Actually he was doing good, it was about this time they opened another branch and had him running it. Black was long gone, he had a strange journey. For awhile he was "blind" even using one of those stick thingys. Than he was gonna be a gangster or something. Not sure what he was telling people about me. I met this one guy, who actually was not a nice guy and he apologized to me! I didn't even know for what. He just says hey, that shit that went down with Black, it will never happen again. I am sorry, I promise it won't. I just pretended I knew what he meant and said it better not. But that is a side story. Anyways with most of the people I was friends with gone work was getting lonely. I still had Ditch though and this is about him. Maybe this is a long winded life lesson. Its a big one, maybe a two or three parter but......
Don't go to work to make friends, at least not at your career. (Sure the part time jobs that really wont matter later on in life and you can goof of at is one thing) At work surround yourself with competent people. You don't even have to like them (I do like Ditch btw) just know that you can trust them and they do their shit well. Dunno how many times I asked him to get something done and then knew it would be taken care of. Now if life it is the same but different. Surround yourself with people you like, and people you trust. I as I grow older am starting to think having a smaller circle but with people I actually like is much better than having half a dozen different friend groups. Put people you can talk to as your friends. People you can rely on, when you really need them. I mean I have met a ton of people since I moved here. But the ones I actually talk to and have for over a decade, I guess those are your real friends. Not just the ones who wanna party with you but vanish when shit gets real.
My grandpa was in the twilight of his working years. And the quiet man who literally got up at 5 was gone by 6 came home at 7 watched a bit of TV and went to bed started getting hobbies. I think it started with wood carving and then moved to wine making. To me him doing things was crazy, other than watching sports on TV, I had never seen him do stuff. After he retired he took those thing up big time. Grandma well she remained the same. She kept running her store for another year or so until she found a buyer for it. I will get back to them and the retired life maybe in the next entry.
The hard thing about writing this out is forgetting shit. Then remembering it AFTER and where it should be has already been put up. Like I should have talked about the cabin earlier, but I guess we will get to that now. Like we are in about 2007 here but we had been going to KT's cabin since 2002-ish. KT has a cabin, it is two rooms. The living-room and the bedroom. There is power and a small kitchen but no plumbing. This is a problem for me, I don't like out houses. In fact I am willing to go on every beer run just to stop and have my poop in a gas station..... TMI? But it became our little get away place. I would say every second or third weekend we would go out. Get in fishing, swimming, quading and of course some drinking. Sit down at the beach and shoot off fire works. Once I actually pulled a 3 iron from the lake. I thought this was a monster fish, must have been stuck deep in some mud. I can't say how many nights we watched the sun come up. It was the first place I tried skinny dipping. I will admit whiskey led to that. The thing was everyone came out! My friends from work, the St. Albert people. It became a great mixing place for people and with that I should introduce a few more people.
Tats, one of the St. Albert girls had moved to BC earlier and had moved back. Somehow she met this guy and he became her roommate. I didn't like him and he isn't important but his girlfriend was. Lets call her Amazing. I will admit it wasn't a right away friendship. I thought she partied even too much for me. BUT the thing was she smart, creative and funny. She is gonna be around so ya that was my first thoughts on Amazing.
Next there was the Frenchman. He is like Shy Guy from that earlier post. One of those guy you dislike cause he is good at everything. Sports, work just overall successful. He worked in our shop, he was quiet but Ditch talked to him a bit so that kinda how he came along.
Next there was the two J's Crazy J, and Slutty J. I honestly have no idea how we met Slutty J or SJ for short. But KT and TCM worked with Crazy J (CJ).
Some other background shit, KT bought her house. For a few years we referred to it as the Home for Wayward Women. She has had a few roommates over the years. Most of them she helped out as they didn't have any other place to go. I can think of at least 6 friends who have lived there.... And I mean she has always had it, but KT was bitten by the travel bug and started travelling a ton more. This will come into play, so remember it!
Oh and Sporty she started dating the Ducthman. Did I introduce him? He was Patty D's cousin who moved here. He and Chad were living together. Chad was unemployed and him and Sporty spent days just chilling out. I think it made the Dutchman a bit jealous...... Anyways that's what the world was like.
So we were living on the 16th floor of a condo. I wasn't a creeper but we could have been, the building beside us we looked right into. Although one time Evil did come down and we used a laser pointer into the windows across from us. People react like cats! There really isn't a big deal about living by Whyte unless you actually go there. We would walk over to the farmers market but I think only once did we go to a bar at night. Within the first week I got into a fight with my neighbour. The day we moved in we were to "loud" so she came out and yelled at us. Which I give her, my helpers and myself were drunk and loud. But then the next day I fire up the BBQ and she comes over to yell it is making her condo smell. Like fuck off. BUT I took the high road and moved it to the other side, admittedly I swore very loud the whole time. So then this woman gives me a thank you card. Split personalities much??? The fact is while we lived here not a ton happened. Trying to think of some stuff! It was a quiet year.
Lets call this one douche move 2! See my dad called one Wednesday night asked me if I wanted to go to a box game with him and some guys from up North. It was against my Wings so I said fuck ya! All the free booze one can drink? Bad idea, well not if you moderate but I didn't. It was awesome, last clear memory Cook was in a box a couple boxes down. So I hopped through boxes to get over to his. Everything is blurry, we took a limo to Diamonds. I guess they still tell the story of my ride there.... AT some point I got in a taxi home. Then trying to explain I did NOT get a lap dance, got TCM a bit angry sounded like I DID get one. She slammed a door with my toe under it. I lost my big toe nail. To this day it hasn't grown back proper...... Truth is it wasn't that douche-y except for the fact she had finals the next day and I kinda woke her in the middle of the night. She was fine, did great on them. I spend the next few weeks explaining why I was wearing sandals in December with my big toe wrapped up. My parents got the truth not sure if hers did....
Since I introduced them lets talk about one CJ first of all. She was from somewhere out East. Sorry to any Easterners I know but she was IMO, all the bad things people here say about them. For instance the first night we met her was a fire at KTs place. KTs house had taken over as were everything happened then. She gets sloppy ass drunk and is gonna drive home. I will not lie, I was really bad for having a bit too much and thinking I could drive, and I was okay with letting other do this. But I could tell she couldn't so we took away her keys. All my friends from St. Albert are rather good at being against drunk driving, so that city is doing something right. SO she turned into a belligerent bitch. Screaming at us. KT said on the couch. I say take a cab (I want the couch) She wants me to set up my tent trailer out back. After hours of fighting she sleeps, I think on the couch. We shouldn't judge by a single meeting but I said this chick is a bitch both TCM and KT said leave it be she was just drunk. SO I let it go, but at that point I was not a fan of hers.
I had forgot to mention I bought a tent trailer. My uncle had one he had used with his jeep to go god knows where but now he bought a toy hauler. So I purchased something from my work at cost and traded him straight across. The fact was we both got a great deal out of it. We would pull it out to KTs cabin or TCMS cabin. It was very basic but hell it did the trick!
Well lets call this a wrap, a bunch more shit started happening but this one is starting to run long. MY guess it is now spring-ish 2008. Have the next adventure up shortly......
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