Monday, February 26, 2007

Another Wonderboy weekend and another year that I didn't win the trophy. I was 2nd in ping pong (KJ & I lost to Alain & Alex in the final), but wasn't playing well at darts, and couldn't draw cards worth a bean in euchre and poker. Colin won, the first repeat winner in nine years of Wonderboy.

There was more drinking than usual on both nights, and so it was a bit of a struggle to keep the events on schedule. We try to finish the round robins of darts and pingpong on Friday night (42 ping pong games and 30 dart games), but it's hard to get someone to pay attention to a schedule when they've been talking to the Captain*. Saturday was no different, and we didn't get around to dinner until midnight, and crowning the winner around 3am.

(* rum reference)

Saturday we played hockey out on the lake. It's my favourite part of the weekend. There was about 2 feet of snow, but Kirk has a plow hooked up to an ATV, which helped. This year was the best ice conditions we've had. We played in boots, although we could have played in skates.

I drove up with Panko, who's now working out of Chicago. We missed the Hwy 115/35 cutoff from the 401, so took a different route straight north through Peterborough. It would have been faster except my provincial map doesn't have a detailed blow up of Peterborough, so we had to fudge our way through looking for the exit highway. On the way back we again unsuccessfully tried to find the Peterborough bypass. After driving through downtown, I mentioned to Panko that I was going to look it up on GoogleMaps when I got home. Only then did he remember that he can access the web on his Blackberry.

Between Peterborough and Gooderham is Hwy 507 -- which is now my favourite driving road.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Today's been a pretty lazy day. We took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill (I spent most of yesterday going through boxes in the basement, and filled four large boxes of stuff. One box was already packed -- it contained odd glasses and mugs that were extra when Heather and I moved in together, and it sat in the basement for a year). We had dimsum at the Grand Restaurant in chinatown for lunch. Normally we go there for dinner (it's all-day dim sum), and there's only a handful of other customers, but on Sundays it's packed at lunch. Then we came home and took a nap.

Last night we went to the Firkin and Flatiron for wings and beer. Met up with Marissa (she lives close to the Flatiron). We had a few Keiths and cabbed it home around 1am. We hadn't been out for a while because Heather's been working on her chapter late into the evenings most nights. It was a fun night.

Last Wednesday I almost missed my Ultimate game. I thought the game was at 9:30pm. I got home a little late from work, but still with enough time to make porcini risotto (I wanted to finish the leeks in the fridge). I always underestimate how long it takes to cook, but we were eating by 8:15pm, and gulped it down, leaving an hour before my game. However, when I checked my email to confirm the game time, I discovered the game actually started at 8:15pm. Heather helped me rush out the door, and I managed to get there for 8:45pm (so I only missed half the game). The other team wasn't that great and we won pretty easily. I scored a callahan, my first one ever.

Thursday I made sure that I had the right time for hockey. We scored one goal yet again, but this time we won!! 1-0. I got an assist on the goal (Craig scored on the rebound from my shot), so we're still tied for the team lead in points. Craig and I had a beer after the game and mostly talked about Ultimate.

I finished the Iliad the other week, and was supposed to start reading the Odyssey today but instead had the above-mentioned nap. Well I should get ready for Ultimate.

Monday, February 05, 2007

I was a little hungover today from Superbowl partying last night. I woke up feeling okay, got to work and started to feel not-so-good, and called it a day around 1pm. I came home, had take-out lunch from B&B Fish'n'chips and took a nap, and felt much better.

Ram organized the Superbowl party at Harbour Sports Grille (across the street from work). It was a pretty exciting game, with all the turnovers in the first quarter. I won the 4th quarter square in the pool at work, and a number of side bets. Overall I was up about $40. The Superbowl's one of the few things I bet on, it makes watching the game more fun. I won a couple prop bets with Ram -- whether Manning would throw an interception or touchdown first, and whether the Colts would score a touchdown the first time in the red zone. Bernice was there too, but with a different group (I think her poker friends).

My hockey game was on Friday last week (two games a season are on Fridays because there's too many teams, not enough ice team). We haven't won since we were bumped up a division -- and we've only scored one goal a game (we lost 8-1 on Friday). I thought I might get the 2nd assist on our goal, but they just gave a single assist.

Heather and I had our dinner on Saturday. Because I had more time to cook, I thought I'd give the cornish hen recipe a try. The cornish hens at Loblaws seemed a bit large (800g), but I wasn't sure how much meat was on the hen, and the meat guy said one wouldn't be enough for two people, so I bought two of them.

Heather cleaned the hens and I cooked up a storm. It took quite a bit of time (over two hours), and at one point we wondered if it was going to be worth the effort, but it came out really really good. Plus, the wine (a Malbec) recommended by Sheri at the LCBO matched everything. The stuffing was my favourite part. ...It was almost like a Christmas dinner, with cornish hen instead of turkey, plum sauce instead of cranberry, and lots of leftovers (one cornish hen was enough for the two of us).

We won our Ultimate game last Wednesday, and we're now 4-0. I think we stand a pretty good chance of going unbeaten, if we can win against our nemesis, Ultimatuum. For some reason we've always played poorly against them in previous seasons. We're the better team, but seem to tie or lose by a point when we play them.

Wonderboy is coming up on February 23-24-25. That's the annual guys tournament that Kirk started in 1998 with our university friends as the core. There's about 24 guys every year, and we have a mini-Olympics of darts, ping pong, euchre, poker, 2-man log saw, and tug-of-war. All the event are two-person teams to even out the teams, with the exception of poker (everyone for themselves), and tug-of-war (two teams). It's very competitive: statistics are kept year-over-year, there's a trophy and even opening ceremonies (when we draw for partners for each event, and re-crown the previous year's Wonderboy). My favourite part is on Saturday afternoon when we play pick-up hockey on the ice. The ice usually has pressure cracks which makes it dangerous for skating, so we play in our boots. Here's some pics from the 2005 Wonderboy:

Discussing tug-of-war strategy on the lake on Saturday morning


Two-man log saw. Winning time was 45.3 seconds


Shoveling the snow for hockey. Kirk's place is in the background


The guys. The clip-on purple tie that the 3rd guy from the left (front row) is wearing is a la the Masters and the green jacket. There's also a green tie that the current leader wears a la the Tour de France and the yellow jersey


Well that's it for now.