JBR - But It Was Special

Beer: Banff Spring Lager, Big Rock Brewery, Calgary, Alberta
Date Tried: Friday October 16, 2020 during the bar's 'Rush Hour' so it was only $6, I ordered it for him while he was in the washroom
Location: Rundle Lounge, Fairmount Banff Springs Hotel
General thoughts from Jason, when asked for his review: "Nothing special." 

Why It Was Special: Even though Big Rock now has a bottle shop and dining hall in Liberty Village, Toronto and does brewing out of Vancouver and Etobicoke, as well as, Calgary - this beer was obviously a limited edition made specifically for the hotel.
Editor's note: My drink came in a monkey! A 'zero proof' cocktail that was very tasty.

Long Flight

I had been thinking that the 11 hour flight between Paris and Cape Town would be my longest in air. However, Jason kept mentioning my trip to Asia. However, I flew from Vancouver to Beijing so it wasn't as far as doing a direct from Toronto - I didn't think it had been that long.

Looking back in Always Standing it turns out he was right, that flight to China was almost 14 hours long. (According to what I wrote on July 25, 2010.)

Not Following Jack

Teri and I have done A LOT of road trips with each other. Sometimes with family, sometimes with other friends, and sometimes just the two of us together. I am so excited for our upcoming trip driving through the US along the coast of the Pacific. It is going to be epic!

One of the things we have done in the past is to read out-loud in the car. Teri can't read in the car because it makes her sick, and listening to music only gets you so far. I guess we could listen to audio books but I don't get sick reading in the car, so when not driving I sometimes read.

I can only really remember the time I read Tuck Everlasting out-loud because it was a particularly nostalgic choice; our Grade 5 teacher had read it to us. I am pretty sure that happened on the road trip out to Vancouver with Teri and her friend in the Spring of 2009. If not, than it was a few years ago, Summer of 2012, when Teri and I traveled around the Northeastern United States. Though maybe we picked a different book then, or maybe didn't do it at all.

Anyway, we have decided to revive the activity for this road trip and Teri suggested Jack Kerouac's On The Road which I am going to borrow from the library. Today I came across a really cool online article, called The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips, and On The Road was one of the trips that was mapped:

It looks like part of the novel will take place in San Francisco and the southern part of California. None of the books listed followed the route Teri and I planned, but some overlapped parts of it.

Itinerary Update - China

Pre-Scheduled Post:
As per my trip itinerary (bar any issues/changes/complications etc.)
I should be ....

Flying to China!!
On Air China flight CA992 leaving Vancouver International Airport (Terminal M) at 13:50 on Sunday July 25, 2010 landing in Beijing, China, Capital Airport (Terminal 3) on Monday July 26, 2010 at 16:15. I'm flying with Yen and since he cares about this type of thing I guess I should tell you we will be flying in an Airbus Industrie A330, I don't really know what that is beyond some type of big plane but some people pay attention to that detail. The trip is about 14 hours in the air, I'm glad I don't have any stop overs or connections to make.

LIVE UPDATE - # 5

Great reading from the wedding I just attended with Yen...

On Marriage

By Kahlil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

From The Prophet (1923)

Itinerary Update - Vancouver

Pre-Scheduled Post:
As per my trip itinerary (bar any issues/changes/complications etc.)
I should be ....

Busing to Vancouver!!
I have always loved driving through the mountains. I remember being just thrilled when we took the family trip with the trailer through the Rockies and last year the drive out to Vancouver with Teri and K was so beautiful. I decided that it would be really nice, and more economical, to take the bus from Edmonton to Vancouver. Leaving at 6:30am it is a 16 hour trip that gets to the coast at 9:35pm. K is going to pick me up at the station and I'm staying at her place for the night, I'm excited to party it up in Vancouver with her again!!

And It's A Go

I am booked for Russia!!! Last night I booked and confirmed my Gap Adventures train trip. I have bought my plane ticket with Air China from Vancouver to Beijing and paid for half of my 21 day train tour with Gap. I am now looking into travel bags/backpacks, figuring out what I'm doing ahead of time in terms of visiting Edmonton and Vancouver, figuring out timing for coming home, and planning my first week in China with Yen. It is all happening!!!

New Link

Curly Jenn or Jenn From Work has just started a blog. She was chosen, after a year long application process, to be a volunteer at the coming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. She is blogging about it and then hopefully will just continue the blog afterwards. Jenn is a fellow English Major, and I don't know if it is because she graduated from Ottawa U or that it is just Jenn but her writing is incredible, much better than mine. A fellow co-worker, Pat Walton, helped her with her awesome banner, he is a photographer and graphic artist, she talks about it in this post. Jenn's Blog or JBlog: My Journey to the 2010 Winter Olympics is now a link on the right, I'm sure you will enjoy it!!

BC Videos

I still haven't worked my way through all the photos from BC but when I was last home Teri gave me these videos from our whale watching trip. Video was a way better idea than trying to take pictures!!

The first video, which is 2 minutes long, is part of the half hour long sealion kill we watched. You can't see the sealion in it and actually during the kill we didn't see it very often either. I was glad for that because it was very sad.

In the second video, which is after they killed the sealion, the male leader does this really cool tale flapping thing. The whole experience was just really intense and I'm so glad that we went.

Changed The Book

I looked up what classes I wanted to take for the summer a long long time ago. I wrote it all down so Steph could register for me since I was on my BC trip. I also wrote down and tried to get as many books as possible ahead of time so as to get a start on the reading. English as a major is pretty reading heavy. Anyway, I got three done while I was out west with K and Teri. Two for one of the classes in the first half and the third for my Science Fiction course which doesn't start until next month. The one I read for that was Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. It was a really awesome book, I loved it. However, this weekend when I went to go and check the course outline again for a friend and the book list had changed. We are now going to be reading Neuromancer instead, by the same author. So I'm not as ahead for the second summer semester as I thought I would be.

Vodka Salad

This is one awesome cocktail, and really unique too.
A guy at a party in Vancouver had it and I have since tried it at home.
-Vodka
-Water
-Ice
-Cucumber slices
My friends tried it and they all said the same thing:
"Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."
Trust me it is good, I really like it.

Road Trip

I am on a road trip. I will return to blogging when I get back.

X & Y

The past few weeks I find that I have been repeating a similar statement to my friends. I keep saying; To Z, 'Have a great time X, I will see you when I get back from Y.' At the end of this week I am going with Teri and her friend out west. We are spending the first few days driving out, Road Trip! On the way, I get to stop into Edmonton to visit Erin, Anne, and hopefully Little Brother Mike. Teri's friend lives in Vancouver so Teri and I will be staying with her and touring the city for a little over a week. We are planning on spending a bit of time in Victoria as well before we fly back to Ontario on May 10th. In the above statement I am obviously referring to this trip, but I word it a number of different ways. Y = 'Vancouver', 'Out West', 'B.C.', 'My Vacation', 'My Road Trip.' While Y is fairly random, logistically in this statement, X is dependant on Z. Obviously the location (X) I'm wishing my friend (Z) to have a great time time in is directly connected to which friend I'm talking to and where they are going. So the remaining variables for this statement are:
If Z = 'Heather', Therefore X = 'In Pittsburgh', 'With S'
If Z = 'Anna', Therefore X = 'In Mexico'
If Z = 'Taylor', Therefore X = 'In Europe', 'On Your Trip'
If Z = 'Kristen', Therefore X = 'In Europe', 'On Your Trip'
What this has made me realise is that my friends and I travel alot. It confirms that I'm really excited about my trip and have been probably talking about it with alot of my friends. This also shows that helping Taylor study for statistics last night has really made me look at the world from a more mathematics standpoint and that I'm totally lame.

Seriously - No Time

My schedule is jam packed over the next week and a half. Leading up to my trip out west I work every weekday except the Wednesday of my exam. Leading up to my exam I'm meeting with my study group everyday. I'm trying to see a bunch of my friends before I go since I really haven't seen many of them this crazy exam month and I want to visit before I leave the province for two weeks. I'm really not good at balancing school, work, and social at the best of times but now everything has been cranked up a notch. I really need to see my friends, especially those who won't be in Ottawa when I get back in May. Also, work projects are really big right now and since I have been screwing up at my job so much I really need to step it up. Of course school is first priority and exam time even more so. I don't feel overwhelmed or stressed, just busy. Really busy!