Just thought I'd drop off another quick note before I head out for the day. The last few days have been overcast and cooler (but still in the mid- to high teens), but today is supposed to be back up to 24^C, so I don't want to miss out.

Yesterday, I got up and ran from the house here in the Garden District to Tulane University campus and Audobon Park. St. Charles Ave. is the main drag through MidTown, and it is simply gorgeous. There are huge magnolias and oaks lining the street, and the old-fashioned streetcars run up and down it from the French Quarter to the Universities (Tulane and Loyola). Most of the nicest examples of southern colonial style homes line the avenue as well, and they are all decked out for the holidays. The area where I'm located is between Downtown (the Central Business District and the French Quarter), and Uptown (at the universities and further west). It is south of St. Charles and an area along Magazine St. which is quite similar to Inglewood.

The directions north, south, east, west are meaningless here since the city is build on the curve of the Mississippi River and the streets turn in a fan pattern with it accordingly. The directions are Downtown, Uptown, Riverside (obvious), and Lakeside (towards Lake Ponchartrain). It's getting a lot easier to travel around once you get used to the lay of the land.

But I digress. After my run, I got home, changed and ate and headed back down to the Quarter to do some more souvenir shopping. I ended up in the Cabildo, which is a historic building now housing the Louisiana State Museum that dates back to the late 1700's. It's where the Louisiana Purchase was completed between Spain and France in 1803, and then between France and the U.S. 21 days later. Lots of War of 1812 ("The Battle of New Orleans" in 1814) and the Civil War information. The region has a fascinating history. I ended up spending about 3-4 hours there. I got back and ended up being a loser and renting a movie for the evening.

Today I either want to head Lakeside to the City Park where the New Orleans Museum of Art is, or head back downtown to the Confederate Museum and the D-Day Museum. I'm pretty much tourist trapped out, and have most of my souvenirs bought. I was considering going out for one last time tonight on Bourbon Street, but I might pass on that.

December 7th was the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, so the D-Day Museum hosted a huge event with parades, etc. There were jet fighters and bombers flying over the city all afternoon. I'm sure the Americans found it all very wonderful, but I found it sort of unnerving. There is also a huge aircraft carrier docked at one of the piers downtown that I've taken about a thousand pictures of. Very impressive piece of engineering.

I guess I'll take a bunch more pictures today, and that will pretty much finish up the trip from a image perspective. I'm trying to write down everything I do so I don't forget anything.

I don't think I'm going to have time or money to go on the Riverboat ($$$) or on a swamp tour. Apparently it's pretty off season to see any critters in the bayou, so I may have to go back to the Audobon Zoo at the Park to see some local flora and fauna. The amount of squirrels around here is ridiculous though. There as plentiful at gophers back home. And everyone owns at least one dog down here, while all the cats you see are strays. Weird....

Anyways, gotta go. I see the temperature is supposed to be -15^C when I get home...great.

I also see that the weather in Calgary has improved immensely. I also see that it is supposed to go back to shit the day I get back too. I was beautiful here on the weekend, but it has also cooled down here quite a bit in the last few days. I think it's 17^C here or something today. Here's hoping that it warms up again later this week.

Hi

It's Monday afternoon and I managed to get completely wrecked again last night....good for me! ;-)

I'm done that nonesense for the rest of the week. I'm going to get a good sleep tonight and get back on track tomorrow doing some sightseeing, etc.

I think I might take the swamp tour tomorrow - or do the riverboat thing. It all costs a bunch of money, but oh well. I've been spending way to much so far on all the wrong things. I still have to go to the parks, check out the museums (the Cabildo, D-Day museum, Confederate museum).

I did manage to get to the pool yesterday at Tulane University. Ed wanted to work out when him and Bill got back from Houston, so I caught a ride. Considering how I felt, I still managed to get 2000m done in the pool.

Last night there was a tea dance at the Bourbon Pub Parade, which cost $5 to get in and was all you can drink draft thereafter...you can imagine how happy I was about that! I went out with Bill and Ed for dinner last night to a really wonderful restaurant in the French Quarter called Irene's, and then they let me go free on my own. I managed to blow $100 (that would be $160 Canadian) yesterday, and that was the sign that I should stop spending like a freak. I still have to buy a lot of souvenirs, even though I have bought a few things.

Well, I'm going to relax for the rest of the day. Bill is going to cook a roast on the BBQ tonight, so that is what I'm looking forward to for the rest of my day.

Hello from N'awlins!

How are things? It's Saturday (December 8th) morning here, and I'm killing from a hangover (imagine that!).

It is so beautiful here. Everything is so lush and humid. It was like 25^C here yesterday, plus the humidity made it feel even hotter. I think I got a bit of a sunburn. I spent all of yesterday walking around to get my bearings. I spent most of the day in the French Quarter, but I also walked up to the Superdome and along the river to a huge shopping complex called Riverwalk (imagine that...) where I got to buy some souvenirs, etc. It's very touristy here, but luckily Bill showed me around a bit yesterday to some areas of town that are less frequented.

We went out last night to a bunch of the gay bars in the Quarter which was pretty fun, but everything's so damn expensive here. I ran out of money and came home with Bill, then proceeded to go back to the Quarter for a while longer by myself. It is crazy down there at night. The entire stretch of Bourbon Street is a mass of people moving around, socializing, and going from bar to bar. You can drink booze here 24/7. They even sell it in kiosks in the mall. Bill told me there are drive-thrus that sell daquiris here too. I find that a little bizarre. The traffic is insane, I don't think you need drunk drivers added to the mix as well.

I think today I'm going to do a bit more walking around and maybe take the ferry across the Mississippi to Algiers and Gretna and do some more exploring over there. The architecture and urban layout are so fascinating. Bill and Ed's house is at the east end of the Garden District, and it is typical of the homes here. Huge and stately....the main floor ceilings are 13 1/2 feet...and all the windows are SINGLE pane, if you can imagine that. I still plan on taking an evening cruise on the Natchez paddlewheel sometime next week (hopefully...if there's any money left). The dinner cruise costs (yipe!) $50US.

Audobon Park and Tulane University are very close by, so I'm going to start running tomorrow and get in for a few swimming/gym sessions at the Uni with Ed (he teaches law there).

Anyways, that's about it from here. I'm spending a lot of cash. I thought SOMETHING would be a deal here, but no chance. Even the booze is expensive. I'm having a hard time controlling my spending urges, since everything is there for the grabbing, however, I keep in mind that everything sells for a price on par with Canadian prices (again: THERE ARE NO DEALS HERE), and realize that I can end up buying stuff for cheaper in the long run when I get home, and that keeps me in control....so far! LOL

Don't forget the DJ Tiesto show is on Dec. 15 as well at Max Bell....Joe has to work, and tix will be a minimum of $40 now, so the adventure looks doubtful....

We did our last 30 min time trial in the pool on Thursday (Nov. 29). I'm happy to announce that I managed to swim 1600m in 30 min, a 100m improvement over the last one. That means I'm doing a 1500m in just over 28 minutes, which is a great improvement over the 35:00 clockings I was doing this summer....still about 5 more minutes to knock off before spring....

The last swim practice with UCTC is tonight. There is one more running session tomorrow night. Depending on how much packing, laundry, etc. I get done tonight will determine whether I go or not. It would be nice to go and say goodbye to everyone.

I joined the Fountain Park Fitness Club yesterday. $530! Yikes! At least I get $250 back from CPR. I'm SO looking forward to taking classes when I get back from NOLA. I'm still not sure what the itinerary looks like over Christmas. We still haven't decided what day to have the birthday party. I imagine a lot of people will be taking the 31st off, since it will be the only day that week some people will work, however, having it on Saturdya would guarantee more people coming out. Which means I'd have to be leaving Manitoba the morning of the 29th at the ABSOLUTE latest. I'm not sure if Ken will be up for that. If that's the case, I probably won't be heading into Winnipeg after all... :-(

Christmas party season started last weekend in high style. My manager John and his wife had a party on Sat. night for our implementation team and spouses (Joe was working again...). It was a good meal, lots of wine and laughs. I caught a ride back downtown with Boris and Hanna and went to the other party, which was an Apollo party at Don's place that moved to BT's around 11:30. The condo was packed full of people. Doug, Darren, Rodney and myself made a stopover at the apartment before heading to the bar - had to make sure we were nice and pleasantly pickled before we headed to the bar. Fun, fun, fun.

The night I get back from NOLA is Jeff's annual Christmas blowout. He typically has it on a Friday night for some reason, but this year his company Christmas party is on the 15th, so he has to have it on the 14th. Joe has the night off, so it should be a lot of fun. I'll have to jump in a cab and head home, drop off the bags, and head up to Jeff's.

Saturday the 15th is the Frontrunner's Christmas brunch after running. I hope I'm not in too bad of shape for that. The following Friday is Greg and Marion's Christmas party (21st), the evening before everyone is taking off for the holidays. Joe also has that night off, so we will be able to have a last fun evening together before I take off to Grandview with Vonnie and Louis.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to do some updates in New Orleans, although if not, I'll keep a journal and update this when I get back.

Until then, have a happy mid-December, especially you chumps who are here in the gross, frigid Prairies. I'll be thinking of you while I'm hanging out in shorts and t-shirts on Bourbon Street and getting sunburn while feeding the crocodiles in the bayou.

It's almost December. What the hell?...Why are the years going by faster and faster? I don't understand it.

Anyways, I'm heading to New Orleans next week. I'm so excited! It's going to be a lot of fun. I've gotten my tour books and maps, learning as much as I can before I go. I get into NOLA on the evening of Dec. 6. I'm staying at Bill and Ed's, but they have to head to Houston on Saturday night for Ed's Christmas party. So I'm alone in the Big Easy (is there a confluence of spirit here? -- I'm not implying anything). Anyways, I have posted a few messages around on Yahoo!, etc. to see if anyone wants to play tour guide with me on the weekend. I've heard back from one guy; I'll be trying to get a hold of him possibly tonight or later in the week. I have feelings the culture down there is much different than here in Canuckland, however it can't be called "The Big Easy" for nothing. I'm expecting the people to be really laid back like Montrealers...really out for a good time. They certainly have a lot of institutions and events that would indicate such truth (Mardi Gras, Halloween, Cajun cuisine, etc.).

With the bars being open 24 hours a day, and a lot of deep fried food (which can fortunately be avoided), I'll have to maintain some semblance of a workout routine there. I'm joining Fountain Park Fitness Center here as soon as I get back. I plan on hitting the gym in the mornings before work 3x a week, doing fitness classes at noon (spinning and pilates), and core strength in the evenings before hitting the pool at Lindsay Park 2x a week. I'm looking forward to getting back into a hard-core schedule ASAP. My membership with UCTC ends next week. I really got to enjoy swimming and running with the people in this group, however, getting up the University four nights a week will prove to be torturous now that the snow is flying and the temperatures are in the minus double digits.

I get back on the 14th from NOLA, work a week and then head to Manitoba for Christmas. I'm hoping on getting into Winnipeg for a few days after Christmas to visit with Ryan and Lynn, Mike, Heather, and hopefully get in touch with Byron and Anita.

Then it's back here for the big 3-0 and New Year's. I'd like to have a party much the same as last year, with early evening cocktails and eats at Ming, and then dancing at Detour afterwards. I hope some people can come out for it.

The focus right now is getting the work stuff out of the way and getting ready to head south. I have quite a few things to get ready, and quite a few things to bring back from NOLA. I have a video at Bill and Ed's that I couldn't get across the border, so I'll have to sneak it across, and I also ordered some dance and exercisewear from a retailer in New York that I have to avoid duty on. I'll be coming back with bags quite a bit heavier than what I had taken with me. Good for me!

Update to come soon. Hopefully I'll be able to run a log about the adventures in the south as I did in Montreal.

Just a note....last weekend was the Ekiden run in Banff. We had three Frontrunner teams from Calgary and one from Edmonton in attendance. Everyone did very well. The team I was on ended up 30th out of 190 teams. Our best place team beat us by seconds, in 29th place. I came over the rise at the finish line and saw Doug about 100m ahead of me. I poured on the speed and came in right behind him. I did the 12.4 km leg#5 in 49:50, good enough for 10th best time on leg#5. I was really happy with my time.

Swimming with UCTC is going good. We had our first timed swim last weekend, and it was the first time I've ever swam 1500m in under 30 minutes. I hope to lose another 5 minutes off the swim by next spring. My membership with UCTC is done in December. I think I'm going to join the club at Lindsay Park after that, not because I don't like the UCTC, but for convenience's sake, if I could do a gym workout in the morning before work, swim at lunch hour and run/bike in the evenings, it will make my days more organized, and won't require me riding my bike to the university and back in January (perish the thought....).

I'm heading to New Orleans on December 6. I'm really excited about the trip, and I've rationalized the fact that I'm going there in a non-tourist season time will be a good thing. Bill informs me that N.O. is insane during Mardi Gras in February and Halloween in October, and it's preferable that the locals vacate the city while all the drunken tourists flock into the French Quarter. Much like the Stampede in July here in Calgary. It's just too much redneckism and country music for most sane individuals' likings.

I will still have a few days of vacation left, so I'll take the rest at Christmas, including my banked time, and hopefully also have Dec. 22 to January 2 free. I'll head back to Manitoba, and also hopefully get into Winnipeg for a visit as well.

Next year, the plan is to go back to Montreal for Diverscite in August, and take a week before or after that to check out Ottawa and possibly Toronto. Joe is planning on going back home to PEI in the summer, so the current plan is to meet in Montreal and travel back together.

Work is going okay. I could go on about the good and bad at work, but I'm sure most of you aren't interested. Frankly, neither am I.

I signed up for four months with the University of Calgary Triathlon Club. The training starts in September and ends in December. I was considering going for the full eight month plan, but I didn't want to commit to something that was going to cost me so much money when I may be looking for something different. Needless to say, that cost me almost $200, and that doesn't even include gym/weight room priveleges. I may end up getting a membership at Fountain Park afterall. I hate thinking that I'm going to have to pay another $3-400 for a gym membership, but it has to be done. I'm already figuring on scheduling weight room workouts for the mornings before work and heading to the Uni for the evening swims, bikes and runs. It should be a pretty intense autumn.

Vancouver was an absolute blast. We didn't do anything too spectacular. We were staying at the residence at UBC (only $60/night on the long weekend), so we would cab downtown (transit was still on strike), and walk around downtown all day. We met up with Cheryl-lee and met a few of her friends on Friday evening, then we went downtown to the Odyssey on Friday night, the Pride Ball ($40 ticket) on Saturday night, checked out a T-dance at the West End Community Center and another gay bar (Numbers) on Sunday. The parade was on Sunday and started nicely, however it started to rain, and by the end of the parade at 2pm, the rain was coming down pretty hard. There were over 100,000 people out watching it. It ended up raining for the rest of the day, which was too bad since the festival on Sunset Beach would've been a lot of fun had the weather cooperated. We also got to see the Celebration of Fire fireworks on Saturday night from the main beach downtown. Spain was presenting on Saturday night, and it was incredible. The fireworks were so beautiful. There were SO many people there. I think the media said around 250,000 people turned up around English Bay to watch them.

On Monday, I had the chance to catch up with Grant and Alana. It's been so long since I last saw them. We had a really great visit, but unfortunately, it was too short. I plan on returning to Vancouver soon enough, so hopefully I'll be able to visit them longer, as well as all the friends I missed visiting. Cheryl-lee drove us to the airport, and after a short hour flight we were back in reality.

Last weekend I was pretty cool. I had the Lake Chaparral Tri on Sunday so I didn't go out Saturday night. There was a farewell party for Perry on Friday. He's heading to Toronto to do his MBA at York. We'll sure miss him.

This weekend, I don't have much planned either. This is my first completely unplanned weekend since early June, so I figure I'll take it easy and catch up with some friends I haven't seen in awhile. Team Calgary's having the Zodiac Challenge at Moneypennies on Sat. afternoon, and I have to organize the Corporate Challenge running team this weekend as well. We have a run on Thursday, Saturday, and Monday next week, just to get everyone out and meeting each other. A few of us are also planning on having a big bike ride on Sunday as well.

I'm supposed to be working with one of the CP programmers on the weekends over the next little while. I have to get that organized also. Too much to do.........

Okay, I wrote a note to Scott Rhodes, and here's the meat of it, since I'm pretty much summing up what I've been doing over the summer (since school finished in May).

Losing my computer at home really messed things up for me. I lost all of my email addresses, Office documents, webpages, and pirated software I've collected over the past four or five years. Much of it I'll never be able to recover, but I did manage to find a company that was able to recover and burn off 7GB of MP3s for me. The biggest problem (I learned after it was too late, of course) was that the version of Windows 95 I had on my PC was a customized version (apparently a lot of the big PC manufacturers get certain aspects of the O/S customized for their hardware - go figure). The guy that burned off my MP3s had to go on a big hunt to find an add-in that would communicate with my O/S. Even when he found that, all of the MP3s were burned off without titles, so I've been spending the last few months trying to figure out who sings what. For those songs that I have three or four remixes for, it's been particularly cryptic. However, the fact I was able to recover almost a thousand songs makes the whole venture worthwhile.

My other great loss was all of my personal webpages. My Cadvision DSL account expired about a week after the computer crashed, and at the time I didn't even think to save the webpages from the server before the account was closed. All that work - two years of creativity - gone. What a shame.

Anyhoo, on a lighter note, I've been pretty busy with triathlons and training this summer. I competed in two triathlons, one duathlon, a 10K road race, and a team relay so far this year, and I still have two team relays yet in the fall. I've done fairly well, but there's still a lot of room for improvement, especially my swimming. I have room to lose 10-15 minutes off my swim time which would very easily throw me into top 20 rankings in any of these events I enter. My goal is to be in peak form next fall. I'm planning on going with Team Calgary to Sydney, Australia for the Gay Games next November to compete in the triathlon. It's going to be the trip of a lifetime, but I don't think I'll be able to get more than two or three weeks off work, which is unfortunate because I'd really like to tour the country while I'm over there. I'm definitely going to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef though...that's been a dream of mine since I was a kid.

The new job is going okay. It's a lot of the "hurry up and wait" mentality here as well, but not due to the fact that something fucked up in the field, but due more to something being held up in the bowels of bureaucracy somewhere in the company. There are a lot of factors screwing up processes in the company right now, the biggest one being the breakup of CP Ltd. happening in October. There have been a lot of IT projects that have been put on hold until the CP Rail IPO is completed on October 1. I think what happened was that they hired a bunch of us last December with good intentions to throw us on project teams once we started working in May. However, when the breakup was announced in February, a lot of those projects got put on hold, and when we started in May, they were scrambling to find places to put us. I got moved from one project team to another and moved to three different floors in the first couple of months that I was here. There have been 500 layoffs including 250 in the office which have also screwed things up. My manager had a web server ordered before I even started working here. It was discovered a month and a half later that the person that was in charge of ordering was one of the people that was laid off, and the server request was still sitting on their desk. Needless to say, they finally got the server a month or so ago, but then it got lost again in Receiving for a few weeks, and just got installed and initialized about a week or so ago. How's that for efficiency???

I'm designated as an API/Customization programmer for the Electronic Document Management/ Product Database Mgmt/ Workflow Mgmt System (EDM/PDM) that the company is phasing in. The software is called Centra 2000 and it's a hierarchy-based document storage and management application that runs on an Oracle DB. Right now, we're bringing an Intranet version into production company-wide, and eventually we're planning on moving it onto the Internet. This is where I'll be working mostly - building custom code to facilitate the communication between the web server and the Oracle database. This wasn't really what I expected to be doing here (programming....BOOO!), but it will be a great experience, and I'll be able to learn a lot about the company and IT that I probably wouldn't be able to see had I been put onto a team that was doing a more local or specialized projects. Since there are so many departments in the company that are planning on implementing the EDM/PDM, I'll get to see the work processes involved in a wide variety of departments here. Eventually I'll be able to analyze the processes and design the customization requirements needed, but for now I'm the lifeform at the bottom of the food chain, so I get to do the coding.

Okay. I just wrote a another big blurb, but it got lost somewhere. I wish it wouldn't keep doing this to me. My first draft is always the most interesting....anyways, I'll write another one when I get home after work.

Test--I'm still alive

Montreal is very old, and it is interesting to see the mix of old with new all together. Montrealers love lifestyle, fashion, and the good things in life like good cuisine, festivals, partying with friends, and showing guests a good time. However with the age of the city and the state of the economy, taxes are out of control, and the infrastructure is in dire need of massive improvement.

Calgary, like all the Western cities, is very new. There is no mixture of old and new because there is nothing old. Calgarians are the epitome of people that love money, affluence, status, and the good life that money can bring. This is definitely the entepreneur's paradise, with tax levels nothing compared to Quebec, but we also lose something in the lack of culture and activity that also helps to define what a community is. Maybe in a hundred years, Calgary will have some of the class that Montreal has. I wouldn't give up the opportunities and lifestyle afforded by living in Calgary, but I loved Montreal's charm and cosmopolitanism and is something I would really like to return to soon too. With the distinct culture that has developed in Montreal, with big Canadian city affability and European influences in style, art, an fashion, I would also safely say that Montreal has got to be the "gayest" city in North America as well!

Anyways, it's back to my normal practical life yet again. I start the new job tomorrow. I did nothing all weekend other than work, and today Joe is moving his stuff in. Cheryl is not planning on moving until tomorrow or Wednesday, so the place is looking a little chaotic right now. I'm going out biking tonight, and getting prepped for the big day tomorrow. I'll write on my thoughts about my entire situation later in the week when the ust settles....Ciao

On Friday, I got packed and headed downtown with my luggage to the bus depot. I put it in a locker and wandered around the Village and Ste-Catherine one more time. I jumped on the airport shuttle around 4pm. We left Dorval at 6:50pm EDT and I was coming into my apartment at about 11pm MDT. It was the end to a great trip, and I hope to return to Montreal very soon. Everyone there was tying to convince me to come back for Divers/cite in August, but Joe and I have already committed to going to Vancouver Pride, which is the same weekend. Next year will definitely be a consideration.

Some things I learned about les Quebecois and les Montrealais in particular:
1. If you're a pedestrian in Montreal, you can forget any inclinations you had in believing you had any right-of-way over vehicles, bikes and other pedestrians.
2. If you're an alcoholic and find yourself here, you are in BIG trouble. You can buy beer at the gas stations for chrissakes!
3. If you like rich fatty foods and you smoke, then you should be here
4. If you like lots of culture, history, art, or nightlife, then you should be here.
5. If you would like to visit a very cosmopolitan city with non-stop things to do and see, people that are friendly, accommodating, diverse and tolerant of everyone else, then Montreal is the place for you.
6. If you like paying insane amount of sales and personal income tax, then this is the place for you.

I guess it goes with all things, for the things you gain in some places, there are always things you have to give up.

After a nice sleep in on Thursday, I called Rejean up to see if he wanted to go for a few more cool ones on the patio at Cafe Europeen that afternoon. He agreed, so I picked him up on the way and we sat on the patio in the hot sun all afternoon people watching and telling each other crude stories about our friends. I had to race back to Jerome's to meet him, and then we got ready to go out. Tom came by and picked us up around 8:30. We went back to the Village. Tom and I checked out BPM, the DJ supply/dance music store. Can you say "vinyl"? We ate at Bato Thai, a really great restaurant with really good service. Afterwards, we stopped by Tom's so I could see Jerome's art pieces I hadn't seen yet, and I got to wow over Tom's impressive CD and video collection.

We didn't stay long since Jerome is allergic to Tom's dog, so we walked up to Mont-Royal Park to meet up with Wendy and crew. They were sitting in the big gazebo. We moved down to the Jacques Cartier statue. We weren't there long when the cops came along poured out the beers of the people in the group who were drinking, and told us to leave. We all went back to Jerome's, then the group went to a bar across the street. I was pretty tired so I stayed at Jerome's and crashed.

Well, I'm back in Calgary and my computer's acting up. I had a blig blog to post last night with details of the rest of the trip, but for some reason, my IE disconnects and I can't communicate with the Cadvision server....weird. anyways, here goes attempt two. I'll try and keep the entries shorter so I have less of a chance of losing them.

Wednesday(25) after I got home from my run, I got ready and headed to Olympic Park. I got to see the stadium close up. It really is an architectural marvel...the Biodome next door is a continuation of the same sweeping lines. It used to house the Velodrome, but is now home to the botanical gardens. I didn't do much touring around figuring if you've seen the interior of one stadium and botanical gardens, you've seen them all. I didn't know there was an observation deck at the top of the support tower for the stadium which would give you an awesome view of the city, however it was also $10-15 to ride up to the top too.

I hopped on the subway again and headed back downtown. I wandered around, checking out Simon's again and the men's clothing shops in the Peel district, and from there I walked up to McGill University and wandered around the campus for awhile. Can you believe that the students center is named after William Shatner? There is also another FineArts building named after Captain Kirk. The business school is nowhere near as nice as Scurfield Hall, and it is named after Samuel Bronfman. There was no massive student's center, I'm assuming that since the campus is right downtown, there is no reason to locate all the services on campus.

Anyways, I headed up to Jerome's again, and when he got home, we got ready to go out for supper. Jerome's coworker, Fernand organized the meal at le Bistro P'tit Bonheur in the west end. It is part of a massive remodelling job of one of Montreal's oldest theaters, being opened sort of as a dinner theater. Very nice. 25% of the bill amounts from the evening were being donated to the Montreal AIDS foundation, and 80 restaurants were participating, so it was for a good cause. The meal was exquisite as well. Fernand got 14 people together for supper. The conversation flip-flopped between French and English all evening, so I only picked up on parts of the conversation, however I did get to meet some new people.

Afterwards, Jerome went home to sleep, and I went out with Sergio, Rejean and Barry to La Track. Beers were cheap and plentiful. We had a fantastic time, and at the end of the night, Rejean and I were the only survivors. I ended up getting home at 5 am.

It's Wednesday morning and I thought I would type down a few lines before I head out for another run this morning. Monday I ended up doing some more shopping. I didn't get up too early since I've been totally abusing Jerome's movie collection all week, and staying up until the wee hours of the morning watching movies I haven't seen before. After my run I headed back home, quickly got ready and went out to check out some of Montreal's bike shops. I became a transit guru, essentially taking the metro from one end of the city and back again, since one of the shops I wanted to check out was on Boulevard Decarie off the Cote Vertu station. On my way back I took the Blue Line back instead of the Green Line which goes on the north side of Mont-Royal to the Jean-Talon station, instead of heading back through downtown. I got home in time to let Jerome in when he got home from work, athough he did get home before me. He had been a little worried. I guess the last time Bob Flynn was in town, he had Jerome's apartment keys left for the day, and locked Jerome out of his own house for twelve hours or so.

I finally got to meet Tom, and the three of us went for a late dinner in the Village. Tom's an accountant and has been crazy busy with income tax season, so hasn't had any opportunity to get out for awhile. He's really nice, and him and Jerome seem to get along extremely well.

That was the end of Monday. Tuesday I went back downtown and toured Vieux Montreal et le Vieux Port. There is some amazing architecture down along the river, and some well-preserved buildings from the late 1600s and early 1700s. Wow.....so many period pieces of architecture standing side-by-side to each other. I got lots of pictures of such landmarks as le Basilique Notre-Dame, Rue de la Commune, Rue de St-Paul, and l'Hotel de Ville. I then went back downtown to do some more shopping. I went back to Simon's, checked out all the men's clothing stores at Ste-Catherine and Peel, and headed back to the Plateau to get home before Jerome. Last night we stayed in and Jerome made some fanastic pizza.

Today I'm going to Parc du Maisonneuve, where the Olympic Stadium, the Botanical Gardens and the Biodome are located. I officially finished shopping yesterday, being WAY overbudget, so this is a nice quiet sightseeing day. Jerome and I are invited to an AIDS fundraiser where 80 different restaurants are holding some type of dining event. I don't know any details yet, but it sounds like something interesting to do on a Wednesday night. Tomorrow I have absolutely no plans, but Tom is supposed to be taking me shopping at BPM, a huge dance music store (something Jerome avoids like the plague), and tomorrow night is supposed to be a farewell party for Wendy (and I guess me as well.....:-)....). So there's still a lot to do before I leave.

That's all for now. I gotta get running...literally.

TTYL

Bonjour de nouveau! It's Monday morning now. Jerome's gone to work and I just got out of bed, so I've got the run of the apartment for the rest fo the day. It's supposed to get up to 21^C today, so I'm about to get my running gear on, grab the camera, and head up to the top of Mont-Royal. The panorama is supposed to be awesome! I made up my list of bike shops and such to check out today, so that's my agenda until Jerome gets home.

Saturday was a pretty crazy day. Jerome and I went downtown and checked out Rue Ste-Catherine, the main shopping district. The sidewalks were clogged with people, and the streets were clogged with cars. This mayhem went on for miles. It was quite an experience to see that many people in such a small area.

We went to lots of stores, most noteably Simon's and Urban Outfitters. They had fantastic clothes (and cheap too). I bought a new jacket and a shoulder bag at Simon's. Jerome bought his new "flame" belt at U.O. - and yet another pair of pants. We walked down to the other end of Ste-Catherines into the gay village and checked out some of the stores there as well. We stopped for a beer at Cafe Meteor and ate at Club Sandwich. We had to make a stop at the legendary Priape on the way back to Berri Station to catch the metro back to the Plateau.

I had a quick snooze while Jerome finished his newest painting (yet unnamed - a mosquito/nurse hybrid), and then we got ready to go out. We got down to the Unity Lounge around 10:30, and headed upstairs to the club around 11. It is a huge bar with the main dance floor on the second floor, and then two other bars on the third floor. There is another bar that goes out to the rooftop patio on the fourth floor but it doesn't open until later in the season. Anyways, one of the third floor bars was full when we got there (apparently a lot of the all-night clubbers pre-party here until they head to Stereo or FOAM) while the rest of the bar was empty. About an hour later, the place was packed. We moved between the main bar and the other third floor bar all night. The main bar was playing a lot of the cheesy gay standards later on, while the other one was playing some really soothing house and ambient stuff all night, and was my environment of choice. The main bar became a little more trance-y as the night went on and the shirt started coming off. I swear there wasn't a chest hair to be found among the several hundred men (and women--thankfully) on the dance floor. We ended up the evening in the other upstairs bar, which was packed as well and had a lot less pretentious attitude. We grabbed a cab home after closing the bar down, and immediately crashed.

Sunday morning should have been more sleepy than it was, but Wendy called at 9:30 to ask why we were still in bed. Jerome had done the same thing to her on Saturday morning, so I guess it was sweet revenge. We got up, went for breakfast with Wendy and went over to her place to install a light and get her bike dismantled for her move to Toronto on Friday. We helped her move her apartment-size washing machine down the stairs. She traded it with some neighbors that were holding a crappy item sidewalk sale out on the street for a set of shelves. As we were bringing it down, Wendy let her end slide down the stairs instead of lifting it up, and the top broke off. We made a good attempt to hide the broken top, and got away with it to start with. Wendy had to run across the street to borrow some tools from her DJ friend Tony, and as we were coming back, the husband who was running the sale was running toward us. Wendy was screaming "Run!" since she thought it was about the broken lid while I was laughing so hard at the idea that neighbors were trying to screw each other! The guy came up to us, and in his Greek/French accent claimed that the machine wasn't working. We went over there again, and showed them that once you plug it in, yes, the pump runs, and that, no, the wash cycle doesn't start until the tub is full of water.....too hard to figure out I guess. Anyways, I guess you had to be there to find the situation funny.

Afterwards, Jerome and I walked towards downtown again, and checkout out some of the retro furniture stores along Amherst via Av. Papineau and Parc la Fontaine. We ended up in the Village again on Ste-Catherine, and did a bit more looking around but didn't do any buying since a lot of stores were closed. I bought a CD in Archambault's (the big record store). Jerome was complaining about his sore legs, so we took the metro back home and I spent the rest of the evening lying in bed and watching movies while he did some emailing and went to sleep.

Greetings from Montreal! I got here safe and sound yesterday afternoon. Jerome met me at the Berri/UQAM station and we dropped my stuff off at his apartment before we went out shopping (didn't waste any time there, did I?). I bought some cool shirts at a retro store (Retro Rage) on Ave. Mont-Royal, and as we went down Rue St-Denis (fantastic shopping - apparently there's a LOT more on the Plateau Mon-Royal where Jerome lives) we found some excellent buys at a few shops. I got a nice sweater on sale at Senso Mio and some new shoes at Pegabo. We went looking for a jacket for me, but to no avail. I have an idea of what I want in my head, and we weren't able to find it anywhere yesterday. We brought our wares back to the apartment, and got ready to go out. Jerome and I took the Metro back downtown to the Village and went bar hopping. I was floored by the sheer size of the Village. It's HUGE! and all gay, which is amazing. Certainly some liberties going on down there that you will NEVER see in Calgary. We checked out Sky (just newly reopened and remodelled. - very nice inside, lots of eye-candy too), Stud, Le Drugstore (HUGE bar, with a great rooftop patio wherre I"ve already eyed a spot for people watching this afternoon), and Campus (where do these grow these specimens? - especially Darren, the geographically-challenged stripper..."Calgary, Ontario?"). It was a pretty casual evening. Got back to Jerome's around 3 and crashed. We want to save our energies for shopping tomorrow afternoon, and dancing at Unity (THE Montreal bar) and Stereo (afterhours - if we're still alive) tonight. It's gonna be crazy! I'll sign in tomorrow again and let you know how things went......

Hey..it's me again. It's 2:30am after Bermuda Shorts Day, and I just woke up from a long-deserved sleep. I've been sleeping very little the last week trying to get everything done. I can't believe it's all over! Yesterday was pretty fun....the beer gardens at school took a lot out of me. I came home about 8pm, went to bed "for a couple of hours" and ended up waking six hours later! I bought a ticket for the BSD party at Desperado's' which I've ended up missing. What a waste of money that was! Oh well...I have a few more hours of e-commerce to do today, and that's it. Weather permitting, I should go for a bike ride today. Bob's birthday is tonight and I'm supposed to be heading up to Signal Hill for that. Joe has to work tonight, but I may go over to visit him later today.
I'll write more later....