The events of the past few days

Well this will be another mouthful as the events of the past few days have once again been in their usual Dawson's creek fashion.

Thursday, was Skimpy's convocation and after getting a butt load of work done, her FlippyDan and I all went out to dinner at Curry Original. The meal itself was fantastic. I have not had good indian food in a while and it was a nice treat to have something so delicious. Overall it was definately A.

After dinner, we caught up with Jumpy at the Nog and had quite a few pints. We also did some kareoke which was quite a bit of fun. FlippyDan sang Jeremy and then the three of us sang a remixed version of American Pie. I don't know how everyone's eardrums didn't burst as it must have been terrible to listen to. Skimpy and I finished off with like a prayer which saw my voice crack almost a dozen times trying to do Madonna. Twice, during the course of the night, creepy guys jumped up on the stage to sing with us because they were hot for Skimpy. That wasn't cool by any means as it cramped on the fun. C'est la vie.

At some point that night, the Bop showed up randomly to see FlippyDan and bought us all a round of drinks which was totally awesome of him. But as quickly as he showed up, he left which was mysterious.

We headed to Stages at that point for a little bit of jammin in the name of the lord. It was wicked sweet to just jam with some dancers for the course of the night as I'm usually with the K-town boyz at Stages, most of whom don't dance very much. And so the pure sweet dance of it all was wicked. Oddly enough though, the same creepy guys that were hitting on Skimpy at the Nog found their way to Stages and managed their way over to us again. Weird. I think FlippyDan was ready to burst about it though. Thankfully he didn't.

Came back that night and had some cake and went to bed. The next morning we got up quite late and after a lot of slow movement, we headed out to the Epicure for breakfast. They need a larger breakfast selection on their menu as I was not sufficiently filled.

After bidding adieu to the two of them, I spent the rest of the day getting ready for boot camp!!! BPIC and Jumpy arrived here about 530 or so to get me and then we headed off to the beer store. In my mastery of art buying talent, we managed to get 42 beers into our possession for $54. After that, we loaded ourself up with delicious Wendy's and headed off for Kinmount.

We ended up getting lost about three of four times because we were following our own little mystery route but each time our natural senses lead us back to the right course without too much lost time.

BPIC's knee was hurting him and so I drove for about an hour or so. BPIC at that moment decided to waste no time and decided to light up with Jumpy. This sucked... a lot... to just have to sit there and watch them blaze up while I needed to be responsible. Poop.

We eventually arrived and after pitching shop, we headed out to the fire to drink and be merry. And merry we got, so much so that the next morning was terrible. All that aside, we ended up watching jitsu videos, eating cookies and drinking lots of beers. Good times all around. The night itself was freezing and I was glad to have a winter sleeping bag otherwise I would have transformed into a brown popsicle.

While in the rot of feeling terrible the next morning, I was christened T-Boneo (in an australian accent) and was given a background which consisted of me being found in the bush and being taught to speak and train. Even in my pain, I laughed at this as it was tres comical. Seven and a half minutes later, I chundered. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Thankfully, I felt much better after that and got some good training in. The bad weather stayed away and we were able to get a good amount of rough housing in there. When training finished up, another night began which eventually led to hanging around the fire. This night, I behaved a little bit more and just did a bit of story telling and comedy skit reinacting (sp?). The night concluded and once I again, I slept in the cold tent but was smarter this time and had a few more ways to stay warm lined up.

We finished the next morning with some weapons stuff then packed up shop and headed home. The ride home was pretty chill with a few open forum chats and farting. Blame the farting on chili the previous night, sausages for lunch and then taco bell for dinner. But it was all guys so we were cool with it. We rode into the sunset just like cowboys and in the end, it was good to know that the one of the last road trips with Jumpy was memorable.

While on the subject, I would like to take this time to acknowledge Jumpy since he'll be leaving the scene for a while. I'm going to address him without his alias to pay proper tribute.

I met Stu about three years ago when he promptly burst onto the jitsu scene as one of the proverbial keeners from the novice group. He was always one of the visible faces who was laughing and willing to spend his time making people laugh. One of my favourite memories of Mr. Dan was the day he learned Peg Legs and proceeded to do them that night into every snow bank he saw that night. He was crazy from day one and fit into our community perfectly.

Now, I'm not going to just rant on about all of the good times because there are too many and I'm sure Stu would like that too much. Instead, I'd just like to tell the world what I told BPIC after we dropped him off yesterday which is that in the face of events which would have seen many act selfishly with hate and anger, Stu choose a high road of sincerity and forgiveness.

It's no secret to most of the crazy love triangle that existed last year and most people in his situation would have likely just stopped talking to the guy who kept interferring with his relationship. But to his credit, he never let it overcome his actions and instead chose the higher road and treat me with the same courtesy which he gave everyone else.

I have said it many times that I am fortunate to have known some fantastic people in my life and Stu Cooke is certainly one of those people. At his very essence he was and is just, sincere and honest with everyone around him and I am glad to have been able to know him and wish him the best in the future.