So why are we here?

The wonders of weeknights off!!!

After a pleasant ramble through points Maine-ish and Quebecois with Mandy over the weekend (see pictures below) I've been revelling in the new-found ability to go where I want when I want after 5 pm. Of course 3 of the last 6 nights that's been up here to the lab to get caught up on work, but still... it's only 'cause I could choose to do so.

On Wednesday the routine was broken up by wine bottling with Howard and Linda. Two new batches to add to the wine cellar/gymnasium/sewing room/darts emporium. Some of those things probably aren't meant to co-habit, no problem for the Renaissance couple, though. H & L take quality control quite seriously so much scrubbing, filtering, sterilization was involved. The process post-pre-clean is dynamically perfect for three people: 1) Howard on racking (or bottling) 2) Me on corking and 3) Linda on labelling. The final step is the application of the plastic seal... the shrink-wrappy thing that goes over the cork... I did that with a super-heating paint stripping gun... worked a treat.

Each momentary pause between steps of course calls for a sip of the wine from a newly decanted bottle. Only when the process is over (we did 2 batches of 28-30 bottles each) do you realize how wrecked you've gotten.

I capped the evening off with a walk home... which is about an hour from their place to mine... across the river... but it was a nice night and I had my CD player (you may remember portable CD players... they were early prototypes for mp3 players). The only little bit of unexpected fun came as I got to the South side of Westmorland Bridge. There was no traffic so I crossed over the road to the City Hall side of the bridge and walked down the on ramp to the riverside. I crossed the Westbound lanes to the central median when I noticed a set of headlights approach under the bridge... so I stopped to wait for the car to pass. However when I stopped the car stopped. So I thought a thought halfway between Hmmmm and Oh Fuck. As soon as I started walking again the car sped forward... propelling me further in the Oh Fuck direction. Soon enough I could see that it was a police car and they pulled across from me blocking my path.

Cop: How are we tonight?

Me: Doing OK, thanks.

Cop: Where are you off to?

Me: Just headed home.

Cop: We saw you just standing by the road... what were you doing?

Me: I was waiting for you to pass so you wouldn't run over me.

Cop: Oh. Alright then.

[speeds off]


The other little bits of synchronus silliness at the store this week consisted of not one or two but three different organizations calling or dropping in looking for junk vinyl to decorate for parties/functions they were planning. All of them essentially hoped we'd just hand over something no questions asked. My favourite of the three was the Marriott call centre chick. Now the Marriott is, I believe, a fortune 500 company... million/billion dollar revenue jokers, y'know? The lady's pitch was that they were having "Associate Appreciation Hootenanny..." or something to that effect... with a retro rock theme. She wondered if they could "borrow" some of our records with the promised they'd return them in the same shape at a later time. My response was propelled from the Oh Fuck (off) direction.