Picture Time

I visited the folks' place for Father's Day. While the frozen roast was turning into something fairly delicious, I wandered around where I grew up and took some shots. For the 90 minutes I was outside, I only got a few pictures, but it was, as intended, a learning experience.

There's a Mulberry tree in my parent's front yard. I'm fairly sure it was there before me, and is one of those fixed points in my memory. I remember my oldest friend and I playing in the front yard and her grabbing a berry from the tree and eating it. I told her they weren't edible, and she told me they were. So I ate one. It was good. I ate more. My dad snapped at us for eating the inedible berries that were "bird food". I didn't eat the berries for years... until my Godmother's husband told my dad that he made jam from the tree in THEIR front yard, which was a smaller version of ours. My young self shot my dad a look that got an immediate mea culpa years after I'd first tried those berries. Now I make a point of grabbing a couple when they're in season and I'm walking under her boughs. They stain your fingers like you wouldn't believe... also pants, shoes, shirts, and cars.

Once, years after that, I was coming home from school and walking under the old familiar tree. I looked into her twisted limbs and saw a bump that wasn't there before. I looked closer... the bump had feathers. The owl turned its head and opened its eyes a slit, and I was amazed. I'd never seen an owl outside of the zoo before, and here was one looking right at me in my front yard! I told my brothers and the nanny about it, and they didn't believe me until they came out to see it themselves. The owl couldn't be less interested. It was gone by the next morning, never to return.

I've passed this tree thousands of times in my life. It's older than me, and I hope it always will be.

(click to embiggen)

Ba Da Ba Ba Ba

I'm McLovin' it.



Hey, the 16th is TODAY. 9pm CDT (or 10pm EDT for the more normal people out there) is TONIGHT! About an hour after 8pm CDT!

Also, I have it on good authority that Ronald McDonald is one of the clowns who DOESN'T eat kids. So it's not like his house is a supplier of tender soylent green. Mmmmm.... people. *drooool*

Sorry. Right. Ronald McDonald house provides a place for families to stay when visiting hospitals. I know *I* was confused about what they were for a long time. Then I looked it up on the Internets and found out it totally wasn't where Mayor McCheese retired to after his term limits were up (and his popularity down due to his inability to get Officer Big Mac to catch the Hamburgler).

Anyway, it's $10. So it's actually $1 cheaper than The Mookie, and 50% of it goes to a good cause. The other 50% goes to some donkey who sucked out on you after you got it all in pre-flop with AJo and he only had QQ. I mean really, who the hell thinks QQ is good after you push all-in from the button with 3 big blinds against his 20? That douchebag, that's who.

Unless that total dick gives his winnings to the cause as well, then he's not so much a douchebag as a tool with a good heart.

But hey, the world needs tools. So invite all the assholes you know! Also, your family. Unless your family are assholes, in which case you already invited them. And your friends, who while I assume they're assholes, I won't say that because you're my friend and I wouldn't want to offend you... asshole.

It's like a gaping convention in that last paragraph.

Right, kids... charity. Lots of people, jerkwads or not, means lots of money for a good cause. Buy yourself some good Karma. Is Karma capitalized? Beats me. All I know is that if you don't like donating to charity, then you should think of it as donating to your soul. That's selfish, but also selfless.

I signed up yesterday. Why didn't you? Obviously, you hate kids.

Hey, if I win, I'll donate my winnings to RMH Canada. Because I have a good heart.

And so concludes the most horrible post ever promoting a children's charity.

NY Bound

My buddy E (bald Korean dude some of you met/played with in December) came to a realization last year that the majority of his non-business trips over the past few years involved me. Banff, Whistler, Vegas a few times, and Israel. Most people would be sick of me and strike out on their own. E? He calls me up and asks where I want to go this year. He suggests Oktoberfest or New York City. I've done NYC a couple times in the past, but wasn't feeling the Oktoberfest vibe, and decided that NY needed me back.

Fast forward a month or so, and it's all booked up. I'm heading out to that little, unimportant island in late July. I hear summer in New York is quite tolerable and not humid and gross at all.

So, outside of the usual touristy things (Empire State Building, maybe go up that Liberty chick's skirt, Guggenheim, MoMA, etc...) what's there to do? Any locals feel like showing a few friends around your podunk hamlet?

Should I bring my camera? Anything photo-worthy that way?

Oh, and I might want to eat whilst there... any good restaurants?

Man, I can't wait to ask people where Hewston street is, and where Times Square is while I'm accepting coupons to comedy clubs. Maybe I can see Bob DeNiro and keep asking if he's talking to me...

At least you have Tim Horton's.