Monthly Archives: February 2007

Rob's Bachelor Party Weekend

Thumbnail: Aaron
Thumbnail: Aaron
Thumbnail: Jeff

As far as bach­e­lor par­ties go, Rob’s was a low-key deal. Seven of us in all. Half were from out of town, so we drove to Kingston to meet up.

Thumbnail: Lincoln Town Car
Thumbnail: Lincoln Logo

The first stop was Aaron’s dad’s house. Parked in his dri­ve­way was a 1980s Lincoln Continental Town Car, before they start­ed to down­size the series. It’s a mas­sive car, with what looks like a com­plete couch in the back. As the coupe, it was­n’t even the full-size mod­el. This is the only car that pimps teal.

Most of the day was spent giv­ing each oth­er welts in speed­ball, which I learned is a testos­terone fused ver­sion of paint­ball. All speed and all accu­ra­cy. I was­n’t used to a lack of con­ven­tion­al cov­er (in favour of inflat­a­bles), or the small play­ing area, but man­aged to sur­vive with­out any body hits.

Of course, being his bach­e­lor par­ty week­end, we had to put Rob on his own team, though he did­n’t quite find out until it hap­pened. This fol­lows the tra­di­tion of oth­er frat­er­niz­ing cel­e­bra­tions, such as birth­day beats.

It was back to the hotel to get changed, and off to Rob’s favourite place to eat, which was a Chinese buf­fet. It also hap­pened to be Chinese New Year, so they had an entire roast suck­ling pig, though no one else dared to try it until I assured them it was safe.

More time was spent back at the hotel, in the hot tub, play­ing pok­er pok­er, break­ing elec­tric heaters in the exer­cise room.


Before leav­ing the next morn­ing, we went across the street to the con­ve­nient­ly placed Golden Griddle, an all-you-can-eat break­fast buf­fet for the glut­to­nous mass­es. I’ve nev­er been one to get their mon­ey’s worth out of buf­fets, but I’m sure that Rob and Aaron more than made up for my rel­a­tive­ly small por­tion. I can’t imag­ine putting such lead into my stom­ach every week­end. Unlimited bacon and sausages should be reserved for bach­e­lor par­ties, busi­ness con­tracts, and maybe the occa­sion­al bris.

Drinking was lim­it­ed; Rob was still recov­er­ing from strep throat, as can be heard in the videos. More ener­gy was spent mak­ing sure Sergio had a suc­cess­ful blind date; a tes­ta­ment to how much Rob takes care of his homies.

The Many Faces of Bronwen

Bronwen is my orig­i­nal muse. We hap­pened to meet short­ly after I got my SLR cam­era, and ever since, she’s my pri­ma­ry mod­el when doing pho­to­graph­ic tests and exper­i­ments.

These were tak­en over the course of about a year. From before we start­ed dat­ing to passed the break-up.

Every angle cap­tures a dif­fer­ent side of some­one.

Thumbnail: Dark and brooding
Thumbnail: The hoodie attitude.
Thumbnail: Against the wall
Thumbnail: Classy cleavage
Thumbnail: Cute mode
Thumbnail: Emo.
Thumbnail: The trustworthy companion look.
Thumbnail: The innocent look
Thumbnail: Bronwen revolution.
Thumbnail: The porcelain doll look.
Thumbnail: The cozy look.
Thumbnail: Trusting

Looking back on these reminds me of how much I miss it when she had red hair, which she dyed for me (but did­n’t like to admit it). Too bad I can’t con­vince her now to do it again.

The Old Boys of '99: Providing Ignorance as Bliss

I decid­ed to pri­va­tize the pro­files in my “Old Boys of ‘99” series from now on. Much like this blog, the series was meant to be a sort of mem­oir, a way for me to rem­i­nisce about the past. A low-key deal.

One of my fel­low Old Boys found out, and it appears that word-of-mouth is spread­ing like wild-fire. Visits have increased con­sid­er­ably as links are being e‑mailed back and forth.

Funny that my hum­ble opin­ions and obser­va­tions have gen­er­at­ed such an inter­est.

I nev­er thought that I made any kind of impres­sion on any­one at Upper Canada College, or that any­one I went to school with would actu­al­ly care to see what I wrote. Evidence of this fact is that I only keep in touch with two peo­ple from those days in high-school.

This is a first for me. There were a few times that I con­sid­ered pass­word pro­tect­ing my posts, sim­ply because I thought cer­tain things would be too embar­rass­ing to admit or talk about, but I’ve always forced myself to be hon­est and open.

This series, on the oth­er hand, is where I’m hon­est about oth­er peo­ple. Some of them took offense to what they read in one entry. They lashed out at me, because they did­n’t like what was being said.

It’s hard for some to accept the truth.

They’d rather live in denial, or stay obliv­i­ous about what oth­er peo­ple think of them, and can only cov­er it up with anger. I’ve made the deci­sion that it’s best for them not to know.

Those who know me well will know the pass­word. Those who don’t may apply.

The Old Boys of '99 Series

  1. Introduction
  2. Another Perspective
  3. Seeto and Bunston
  4. Mungovan and King
  5. Providing Ignorance as Bliss
  6. My Perspective

A Change Of Tea

So I was­n’t being com­plete­ly hon­est when I said no more tea. I’d sim­ply switched from black to orange tea. Even that did­n’t work though, and a mild pan­ic attack had me down to even lighter, Chinese tea.

A warm, relax­ing mug can be rather addict­ing.

Thumbnail: Green tea
Thumbnail: Longjing
Thumbnail: Rose green tea
Thumbnail: Green tea mug
Thumbnail: Leaves macro

The great thing about tea is that it does­n’t just taste good, it serves a pur­pose. Cleanses the palette. Aids diges­tion. Combats the Yang of greasy foods with Yin. Green tea in the morn­ing serves to awak­en the sens­es. Longjing calms the mind at night.

The steep­ing process is beau­ti­ful. Green tea is espe­cial­ly prone to scorch­ing, so the water can’t be too hot, or the tea will turn bit­ter. Not hot enough, and the leaves won’t ful­ly release their flavour.

Note: Each frame of the video is a dif­fer­ent pho­to­graph, tak­en five sec­onds apart. About thir­ty min­utes in total.

To Eat And To Forgive

It’s Friday. Pizza day. At Louise’s house, the par­ents don’t feel like cook­ing, and the kids get a treat.

The slices are out. The sal­ad’s in the serv­ing bowl. Everyone has an accom­mo­dat­ing fork, nap­kin, and slice. I see Eric move a hand to his face in the cor­ner of my eye, and assume that he’s start­ed eat­ing.

As the guest, this means I’m allowed to eat too. I take a bite out of my slice, but before I can even chew, I real­ize that Eric was just scratch­ing his beard. With a smile on his face, he says “Don’t for­get about grace, Jeff”.

It’s a dou­ble wham­my.

Not only am I a rude guest, mis­tak­en­ly eat­ing first, but I’m a hea­then too, dis­re­spect­ful of their reli­gion.

It remind­ed me of some­thing that hap­pened when I was a teenag­er. Matt was over. Pizza night. As the guest, Matt got the first slice. He wait­ed while the rest were being hand­ed out, but my dad, with­out any sense of for­mal­i­ty, took a bite as soon as he had one. Neither of my par­ents noticed, but there was a star­tled look on Matt’s face. He quick­ly closed his eyes, held a fist to his face (not a clenched one, but as if hold­ing the beads of a Rosary), and said a prayer in his head.

I always imag­ined that it went, “ThankyouGodforthispizzaandformygracioushosts”, because he was done so quick­ly.

It made me won­der, what was in that look? What do those who ask thanks of their meal think of those who don’t? What do Christians think of those who don’t say grace? What do Muslims think of those who don’t fast? Are we unap­pre­cia­tive? Do we take our food for grant­ed?

Eric’s tone is kind though, not con­de­scend­ing or judg­men­tal, as if to say, “We only ask you to do this for the sake of our kids”.

Louise asks Sarah if she’d like to say grace. She sings a song that bears a strik­ing — excuse the pun — resem­blance to the melody of the Westminster quar­ters (along with chore­og­ra­phy).

Hark to the chimes (arms held upwards and open)
Come bow your head (hands togeth­er in prayer)
We thank thee lord (arms upward again)
For this good bread (hands togeth­er again)

But as a sev­en-year-old, Sarah does­n’t know the right words. She says “heart” instead of “hark”. “You” instead of “thee”.

No one men­tions it though. Not every­one is per­fect. One can be for­giv­en.

Even me, I hope.