June was very busy for me with work on the
VAST Challenge that was due on June 29th. In July, there's been Canada day on Saturna Island, camping in Osoyoos, a house warming party and a Cranium party.
I was pretty tired at the end of June so I messed up many of my travel plans. On June 30th, I tried to get to Saturna but I should have taken an earlier bus because my bus was scheduled to show up just on time but didn't show up at all because of an accident in the tunnel. So I missed the ferry and instead took a ferry to Vancouver Island and slept at my grandpa's place in Sidney. He was already asleep when I got there but I visited with him briefly in the morning before taking a ferry to Saturna. My brother, aunt, uncle and cousin were on the ferry. When we got to Saturna my dad was driving the bus that brought us to the field by Winter Cove where the BBQ took place.
I forgot to take my camera on the trip but the Canada day was much like the
past Canada days on Saturna excepted it rained a little - for the first time since the 1986 BBQ. There was a lamb BBQ of about 15 lambs cooking around a bonfire. There was a used book sale with 3 paperbacks for $1, bingo, and many games including the dunk tank my sister and brother went in, and the ring toss called Hook on Saturna that my dad and grandma ran. I visited with my family and tossed the frisbee around with my brothers. I believe about 1000 meal tickets were sold despite an island population of 350 and the food was quite good. It was lamb with a mint sauce, coleslaw, and spanish rice. All too soon it was time to get back on the ferry and head out. Normally I would stay at least one night, but I had a busy exciting weekend ahead.
I got home around 8:30pm, and immediately got ready to leave again at 7am on a greyhound bus from Langley. I was going to Osoyoos to meet a girl named Toni who I'd met online. She was there for a week to visit her dad who is working there. We had managed to get a campsite booked for a couple nights only a week early because I guess someone canceled. I talked to her online while I packed and planned and I got a bit stressed out because I really didn't have room to take anything to cook or store food. I also realized my air mattress was still on Saturna. So I just ended up packing essentials like the tent and a sleeping bag.
My greyhound travel was ridiculous. I do not want to take greyhound again anytime soon. They failed at exchanging my ticket, they failed at remembering to transfer my luggage and when I was getting back to Langley during the start of the heat wave they failed at having air conditioning working.
So anyways I got to Osoyoos safely and met Toni and her dad Jack. Toni and I had an awesome weekend although I don't have that many photos of it.
Jack gave us a tour of Osoyoos including some good views and we drove up the hill to where these new streets had statues of animals at their entrances.
Toni and I camped here, right next to the lake. The land across the lake is the US and we saw fireworks there on July 2nd and 3rd. During the trip I went swimming in the lake a couple times and it was warmer than I thought it'd be. We ate some dinner on a patio right on the edge of the lake. We also went for a long walk in the sun and sat on a dock splashing our feet in the water.
We went on Jack's friend's Dave's boat and boated around the lake and ate some good food out in the middle of the lake. Then we went to this beach that's on native land where teenagers go and party and make a huge mess. We stopped there for 10 minutes to clean up all their bottles and cans. I'm not sure why the natives don't care about the assholes littering all over the place.
We watched one of Toni's favourite movies, The Lost Boys, on my laptop in the tent. She's seen it so many times but I never have and she fell asleep beside me. We played cards, crib, and Toni beat me by a small amount. We threw my frisbee around on the grass by a beach and Jack and Toni are both quite good with the frisbee. It was pretty windy so that made it tricky to not hit innocent bystanders.
We watched the first Lions football game at a pub as they beat the Eskimos. We had some drinks at a bar where Jack played some pool and Toni taught me a game called hockey using three nickels. I really suck at it.
We slept out under the stars on the lawn on the roof of Dave's house with a clear sky and a view of all the lights of Osoyoos down in the valley. We went inside when it started to rain.
Then, all too soon, I had to catch the early morning Sunday greyhound home. I was so tired I kind of messed up the goodbye in that there wasn't much of one. Fortunately, I saw Toni again for half an hour at the airport on her stop there on the way home to Edmonton. We had a much better goodbye and I am sure I will see her again sometime in the future. I really wish she didn't live so far away.
After saying goodbye to Toni I went straight to Nate and Erin's house where they were having a house warming party. They just moved into their nice new home in Surrey and there were about 15 friends there to check it out and have a good time. They've got a pretty big crawl space under the main floor which is apparently pretty cool for playing games in....except they might as well play games in the living room, since they own the whole house. We played Guesstures and my team lost despite having an extra person.
The next night I met 5 friends at Q and Rob's place downtown for a Cranium party. We won a contest by sending in footage of ourselves playing Cranium and so we moved onto the 2nd round. They wish to make a Cranium commercial featuring real people playing Cranium. For the 2nd round they sent me a brand new unreleased Cranium game, a Flip HD camera, $100 for snacks and 2 8GB memory sticks. We used the $100 at Costco to buy way more food than we needed (don't shop hungry!) and then filled out all the release forms. Then we shot ourselves playing Cranium. Hopefully they will use some of our film in actual TV commercials.
This month I hope to not just have a good time, but also get lots of work done. This weekend I've just been working on some programming to prepare for a user study for my thesis. I hope to get the study all ready by the end of the month and I should be starting an internship really soon.
For the party I went and got some toy guns and dressed up
I also made a cake to bring to the party. I wanted to make something interesting that could pass for an alien dish, so I made a spicy chocolate cake. It contained cinnamon and jalapeno peppers and it was quite good. Not sure I'd make it again though since I prefer just a straight chocolate cake. It looks messy but lets say that was all part of the plan.
Nate and his brother were both dressed as aliens with these creepy masks.
A lot of us came as Men in Black. We are a pretty cool bunch.
The place was also decorated with some UFOs,
There was lots of good snacks there, some of which followed the alien theme.
Rob wanted to do some more physical activities so he setup this bag on the floor and you had to try and pick it up in your mouth but you were only allowed to touch the floor with one foot and no hands. It was really hard but I eventually succeeded.
At the party Mike broke one of my guns. It was no longer making the noise and lighting up. Even though it only cost $1.25 (dollar store inflation) he wanted to fix it, so he opened it up with a screw driver. Then he fixed it with some tape. It's not as good as new but it works. On the firing mechanism there was a phone number! I wonder if people often call that. Perhaps they make firing mechanisms for more complex things too.
