A 'lil HooHaa

Montreal ‘05

“For memories to last forever, they must first be created.”

It was something I said at some point during the weekend and it came true fully. I’ve made nine trips to Montreal and this one was the best I’ve made. We had a great group, went for four nights, had a lot of laughs and drinks and really did things up well.

Five of us went up. Of them, it was my ninth as I’ve said. One had made it eight, one seven and the other two were making the second.

However, because I’m not a fan of writing really long-ass blog entries, here’s what I’m going to do. For the next three-four days, I’m going to write up each day and night as a separate entry. This way I don’t lose what I was writing again.

So here it is: day one of the trip. Aug. 3, 2005.

We leave Delhi around 10:30 and make our way toward Canada. About an hour into the trip, it seems to get warm in the van we have. Remember, this is after leaving my Jetta home. Oy! Eventually, the AC is blowing out warm air and it’s apparently the compressor. So down go the windows and we do it the old-fashioned way. Good times! But the worst part of all this is that we can’t hear the people in the back, so talking is hard. Even hearing music is hard.

So we get through Albany and the Lake George area and then it starts. If you have ever been on 87 up through this you’ll know what we’re dealing with. Rolling mountains, green _ a really pretty drive.

So where’s the problem, you might ask? Well, allow me to tell you.

It never ends. Seriously. The exits are barely near one another, the mountains get bigger, and you wonder if it will ever come to an end. For you outdoorsy people, this must be pretty solid of a drive. But when you’ve made it eight other times, it gets kind of boring. And it’s about 190 miles through all of it, give or take. Crazy.

Either way, we get through it all and know that because it starts to get flatter up around Plattsburgh. We stopped for lunch, made it up to the border and through in about two minutes. People should really make sure they have birth certificates or passports _ it makes life a lot easier.

Anyway, we exchange money (the rate was only 1.19, which kind of sucked) and get to our hotel, check in and hang out. We visited a place we usually like a bit, Dundees, ate dinner and grabbed a couple of cabs to the Casino. What sucked was MY cab was slow and chicken-shit, and we got smoked by the other taxi. Bastards.

Or to quote Hustle: Balls.

I did win about 50 bucks at the casino, betting at the OTB. Good times. That was OK. Made it back to the hotel, two of us went to a strip club and the others went to a bar. The guys should have joined us at a strip club. We only made one the whole weekend and the one we picked was well worth it. Some great looking women and pretty good talent, for the most part!

We were set to meet at midnight at one place we usually go to. An hour and half later, we head out (11:30), and go to the one bar. A phone call is placed and it turns out these other guys are in a packed bar with a huge line, so we’re not going there to meet them.

Instead, we meet a table of three girls. Sit down and had a wonderful evening chatting. The others eventually joined us for the rest of the night. However, we got pretty bombed, which was a blast.

In fact, it was just the start of four nights of many beers. I’m sure this wasn’t that exciting, but I’ll try and spice it up as I explain each night. More later at some point…

Unless you’ve been living in a hole here on HooHaa, you know I’m leaving for Montreal on Wednesday.

The weather looks OK, pending where the hell you look. But the Canadian weather places make it look decent. Only a chance of rain on Friday, so hopefully that holds (or changes to no rain) and we’ll have a good weekend up there. All I need is to get rained on. That would suck.

This vacation of mine couldn’t come at a better time.

Just seems like things haven’t been awesome on this end. Or that I just need to get the hell out of dodge and hopefully get recharged. I’ve found myself to be getting annoyed a lot more easily lately. Whether it be work, softball shit, or anything else, I just get annoyed. And the blood pressure goes up. Not good stuff.

So I venture off to a place north of the border and hope it can get me back to being less annoyed. I have six days off from work, with Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday spent in Canada. We head back sometime Sunday and I’m off Monday to just veg. Then back to the grind, but I’ll be covering baseball most of the week I come back. Which is fine.

Eventually we’ll be shifting into fall sports again and I’ll be roaming the sidelines for football season.

Seems like the cycle has once again gone full circle.

But until then, all I’m thinking about is the trip to Montreal. And how much fun and relaxation I’m going to have up there. No worries or cares in the world. And nobody to worry about, that’s for sure.

Oh, and the car kicks ass. I’m glad I went with the lease and the VW. It’s absolutley the bomb. It’s so fun to drive it. For those that understand driving stick, I had it up around 80, in third gear. And I was only at about 4,500-4,700. Crazy. If I don’t watch it, I’ll get a ticket. I’ve been smarter the second week I’ve owned it and actually know how to drive it so I’m not in jeopardy of a ticket.

Anyway, just some ramblings. I’m bringing the laptop with me and might do some early morning updates here or at least try and upload some photos while up in Montreal.

Two more days. That saying will be enough to get me through the night. Wednesday, at this time, I’m hoping to be approaching the border.

I know I shouldn’t look ahead. Especially not to next weekend, but how can I help it?

The one weekend a year I look forward to more than the rest is our annual trek above the border and into Montreal. It’s like visiting Europe in North America and it’s as fun as it comes.

So I started looking at the long-term forecasts weeks ago. One of the sites I’ve always checked (it’s a link in my sig) is the weather network. I believe its based in Canada. Anyway, there’s a 14-day trend on the forecast. And, like every other forecast, it’s changed every day.

But with things getting closer, I’m hoping things start to show sun.

Today, it shows good weather the whole time we’re up there. Yesterday, it showed rain for the Friday and Saturday.

The weather channel still shows rain Fri-Sat in Montreal. So one is right, one is wrong. Shocker. Hopefully the nice day is the winner.

I only ask for good weather for a few weekends a year.

– Montreal trip
– States
– Nationals
– County golf tournament
– Maybe one other…

So hell, even if it’s five weekends a year, that 47 others that can find a way to be nasty, if so needed. Not that I’d want it to be that way, but I would like it on the ones I really need.

I know you can’t change or create the weather. But here’s hoping Mother Nature is in a fine mood next weekend and will give us four days of great weather in Montreal.

What an absolutley shitty day Tuesday turned out to be.

Here’s the rundown.

Go to work, it’s all good. Go to softball game, take 5-3 lead into 6th. Lightning. And more. Ump won’t pull us off the field. The other team scored a ton. Still batting when the ump finally calls it. So now there’s a big hub-bub of what’s going on, who wins, what happens, etc.

That’s not even close to the worst part of the day.

As I’m heading back to work from the game, and it’s pourning now mind you, I notice the area where the office is located is pretty dark. All I can think is ‘great, another power outage.’

Sure enough.

Those of you who work/worked in newspapers will understand the next part of this.

I get to the office, power out. Who knows when it will be back on. This is like 9:15. Our deadline is 11:35.

Power back on? A little after 1 a.m. Last page sent at around 3 a.m. Yeah, screw that lightning. And give me some overtime.

I hate it when crap like that happens. Needless to say, I wasn’t the happiest camper in the world. Especially getting home at 3:30 a.m. Ugh.

And of course, Tuesday all started with almost losing HooHaa.com. Something I have owned since like 1998 and plan on owning for a long, long time!

Aug. 3 can’t come quick enough for me.

Holy smokes did we have a close call today. A little too close for my liking. And thankfully, it ended with no problems.

I got up this morning and went on the computer. Went to HooHaa and I get a godaddy page. All it says is my domain expired and I better renew if I want to keep it. Right next to it, the page showed something about “Want to purchase HooHaa.com? Go here!” Or some crap like that.

Well, as you can imagine, I freaked.

So I go to the website, trying to renew my domain. I can’t remember my customer number. I also can’t have it e-mailed to me, because the e-mail they have on file doesn’t work anymore. So now I’m really freaking. I mean, hell, I’m thinking I have like 10 minutes to renew or lose and there are like 50 people there looking to swoop in and get the domain (don’t laugh, maybe not 50, but I’ve had several people offer to buy the domain from me).

So I run to my laptop, which of course takes like 5 minutes to turn on, and get into my emails. I can’t find the info. So I call them and the first number tells me that their mailbox is full. Goodie, I’m thinking, I’m gonna lose this domain because they can’t answer their phones.

Then I call billing and get someone, who is quite helpful, even though I must have sounded annoyed and anxious. Anyway, within 5-10 minutes, he had me all up to date, renewed for two years (so we won’t have to worry about this until 2007), and a promise my site would be up within 24 hours. For me, it was 30 minutes and hopefully for the rest of you, it will be quicker than 24 hours, too.

Anyway, thankfully things are back to normal, kind of. Now I can go get some things done today!