The Weekend started on Thursday and didn't end until Monday morning

Thursday

On Thursday evening, after running a few errands and completing a few
house-sitting related tasks, I made my way over to Bitters to co-host
the weekly trivia night. Though there weren't all that many people
there when I arrived the place began to fill up over the next hour.

Just after 9:00 my co-host arrived and we soon started to get down to
business. Unfortunately, the PA had not been set up so we were forced
to shout to reach the members of the eleven teams that were competing.
This task was made even more difficult because of the design of the
facility, which clearly not designed with acoustics in mind.

My first round was a general current events round, mainly because I
was having trouble coming up with good categories. For the final
question I asked who had recently won the Bellagio Cup IV. As it
turned out Mike Watson was in attendance giving the question a
slightly different feel than I had expected. I was then able to give
the answer by pointing at Mike as he walked by. Sadly, I think that
most people didn't quite understand what was going on or the
significance of the win.

Friday

Because of a co-worker's impending retirement a number of us went out
for lunch. My co-worker requested that we go to the buffet at the
Fairmont. While I was initially somewhat hesitant about the
destination, and worried that the food wouldn't be to my liking, my
fears were eliminated almost as soon as I saw the dish listing.
Though I didn't know it, Friday is jig's dinner day at this particular
establishment. This meant that I was able to have a set of dishes
that I would otherwise almost never get a chance to eat.

While I did have some of the available salt beef, I didn't
particularly load up on this dish. I was a little more generous with
the fish and brewis (salt cod and hard tack), and certainly more
generous with the pease pudding (a particular favourite of mine). I
found it strange, though apparently I shouldn't have, these dishes
(and a few I haven't mentioned) were accompanied by roast turkey.

Though I didn't go back for seconds, or even take advantage of the
desert selection, I was pleased with the meal and very satisfied with
the company. I got the sense that people had a very good time and
really enjoyed the food.

Eventually we went back to work. Not surprisingly, everyone was a
little more sluggish in the afternoon than we were when we departed.

That evening, after dealing with a few of my house-sitting
responsibilities and a few other errands I started to prepare myself
to head over to a party that was being thrown to celebrate Mike
Watson's recent WPT win.

Upon leaving the house (on bike) I rode up to the liquor store at the
end of Elizabeth Avenue. Once inside I picked up three cans of
imported beer. My selections were largely influenced by price, though
I did decide to stay away from some of the super strong beers and all
of the North American beers. In the end I ended up with three 500 ml
German beers, all in the $3.00 range. The total price was less than
$10.00, which was several dollars cheaper than a six-pack of domestic
beer.

I then started bike ride to party location, which was almost at the
other end of Elizabeth. As soon as I arrived I found everyone in the
back yard. Soon after taking a drink of water I decided to tap into
one of my beer. Sadly, I managed to forget that a bike ride might
shake up the beers a little. The beer successfully spurted out of the
can and all over my hands. Fortunately the explosion was controlled
and not that much beer was lost.

Almost as soon as I arrived I was able to congratulate Watson (though
I had already done this when I saw him at trivia on Thursday).
Eventually I settled into a spot at the picnic table and began talking
with a few people I hadn't seen in a while. I learned that one of
them will be at a wedding I will be attending in August.

Once the flies came out we moved from the picnic table to the kitchen.
Eventually we were all gathered in the kitchen for a 'surprise.' It
turned out that the surprise was several bottles of high-end
champagne. After a few photos with the bottles and once everyone had
a drop there was a toast of sorts and an outpouring of energy.

As the night progressed people moved between the kitchen, the living
room, and the back porch. I spent much of my time on the back porch,
likely because it was a little cooler.

At one point while I was outside I ran into Ed and he encouraged me to
attend his band's show on Sunday evening. When I told him that I had
to work he informed me that the start time had been selected to allow
those working 9:00-5:00 to attend. He also indicated that he would
send me an additional reminder (as I suggested that I would likely not
remember otherwise).

As the hour approached 2:00 people began to make a move for downtown.
I am not such a big fan of such manoeuvres, nor did I have any
interest in going downtown, so I just stayed at the party. On the
other hand, the mass exodus was a good indication that it was getting
late. As I wanted to get at least a few hours of sleep I decided to
head out.

The only unpleasant part of the bike ride home was that the bolt
holding my seat to the seat post had become lose, allowing the seat to
slip back into a somewhat uncomfortable position. The nice thing
about ride home was that much of it was downhill, making things go
more quickly than on the way to the party.

Saturday

Recently my parents I spoke about a place called Mistaken Point, a
great place to view very old fossils. Over the years my parents and
sister have visited several times. During this conversation it came
out that I had not yet had a chance to visit the site.

During dinner on Friday we made plans to take a trip to the site on
Saturday morning. The site, which is near Trepassey, takes a some
number of hours to reach. It was decided that we would try to be on
the road by 10:00 if we wanted to be back at a reasonable hour. The
early start was the reason for my desire to get some sleep the
previous night.

When I arrived at my parent's house on Saturday morning I found no
signs of life. When I eventually made my way upstairs at 9:30 I found
that they were just getting out of bed. Amazingly, we managed to pull
things together and head out just before 10:00.

After a quick stop for coffee and tea we made our way to the highway
(not of the divided sort) and to the Southern part of the Avalon.

Almost as soon as we left the St. John's area we encountered dense
fog. In many instances it was hard for us to see much beyond the
shoulder of the road, and in almost all circumstances we were
prevented from seeing the scenery that we were passing. Fortunately,
fog really suits the barrens, and that is where we were.

Though we passed through a few communities we didn't stop until we
reached the beach at Point La Haye. Though we stopped at a beach
area, it was actually the peat bog that attracted us to the region.
Where the peat bog meets the beach one can see a cross-section of the
peat. One of the more impressive sights is seeing cross-section of
the almost immediate transition from peat bog to standard soil.
Within a foot or so the transition is complete.

My father and I took a few photos of ourselves next to the peat wall
as well as on the bog. We also found a few rather impressive plants
both on the bog and on the beach next to the bog.

After the brief visit to the peat bog we continued on our journey. At
some point in time not all that long after leaving the peat bog my
mother requested that we stop so that she could use the toilet.
Fortunately we found tourist information centre after only a few
minutes.

As we were approaching the centre we noticed all kinds of people
fishing on the shore. We then realized that they were participating
in the cod food fishery. Our question then was "what is the boat
limit if you don't have a boat?" We also noticed a few people in
boats just off of the shore. In most instances they seemed to be
casting their lines towards shore, at locations that they surely could
have hit from shore.

Once we reached the tourist centre my mother left the car to find the
facilities and I left to try and take photos of the food fishery
participants. As my father waited in the car he saw three local boys
come out of the tourist centre with ice cream cones. Shortly after
their exit a man in an SUV pulled in. The dog in the SUV stuck its
head out of one of the windows and two of the young boys proceeded to
offer it a chance to sample their ice cream.

Not only does it seem strange that two boys would share their ice
cream with dog, it seems particularly strange that they would do it
with what appeared to be the dog of a stranger. Anyways, this story
gave us quite a few laughs as we returned to the road.

At some point while we were driving through the barrens my parents
reminded me that we were in caribou territory and that I be on the
look out. After a not particularly long or vigilant search my father
pointed out a set of three caribou on the side of the road. We parked
the car and got out to take pictures of them. The heavy fog and our
relative photo taking ineptitude prevented us from getting any really
great photos of these animals (even thought they weren't all that far
away).

Eventually we reached Trepassey and decided to stop for lunch. Our
destination was a hotel/restaurant that my parents, sister, and
grandmother had visited some number of years ago. After a brief
examination of the menu, as well as an examination of the plates of
other customers, we decided to all go for one form or another of
deep-fried seafood. My mother and I went with fish and chips while my
father went for the seafood platter (which included cod, cod tongues,
scallops, and shrimp).

When my food arrived I was shocked to find that not only did it come
with coleslaw but also with a portion of boiled vegetables and a
tomato slice as garnish. Unfortunately, the coleslaw was not in a
separate dish and managed to leak and contaminate many of my fries and
some of my cod. Fortunately I was able to make a few side deals with
my contaminated food so very little of it was wasted.

Once we finished lunch it wasn't all that long until we were on the
gravel road that would lead us to Mistaken Point. While I knew that
this would be a several kilometre trip I wasn't expecting to take as
long as it did.

Eventually we made it to the parking area. Almost as soon as we
started down the path we encountered a few individuals who were making
their way back from the fossils. They informed us that the river we
would have to ford was not particularly high and certainly crossable.

As we continued on our way we encountered a wide range of plants. We
were continually guessing which of the plants my botanist aunt would
find the most intriguing (though I am not sure if we ever reached a
conclusion). Eventually we came across a few bakeapple plants, which
is the only type of plant I was really looking forward to seeing on
this trip. Unfortunately, while many were bearing fruit, none of the
fruit was yet ripe. In several spots we found these plants to be
quite plentiful.

Once we reached the stream my father immediately crossed at the
narrowest point by jumping from one bank to the other. I quickly
started looking for a route that would entail at least a little bit of
hoping from rock to rock. Almost as soon as I found such a route it
became clear that my mother would need a similar route because of her
bum ankle.

After ditching my pack on the far side of the river I made my way back
to help my mother. Rock by rock we made our way across. The crossing
was without incident.

Not all that long after crossing the river we reached a fork in the
paths. My natural inclination would have been to keep to the left,
though now that I look back on things I am not so sure why I thought
this. My parents thought that they recalled that we actually needed
to keep right. Their suspicion was proven correct almost immediately
as we soon saw the fence surrounding the site through the fog.

Basically as soon as you stand on the rocks you can see the fossils.
With just a little searching a number of varieties can be spotted.
What may have actually been more impressive, or at least equally
impressive, is that it was quite easy to see that this had been ocean
bed. The ripples in a sea bed that are caused by the movement of the
water were quite visible. Somehow the former sea bed that we were
standing on had been covered (I presume this happened quickly) and
then moved and thrust upwards so that it now juts out from the ocean.

It was quite disheartening to see that some number of fossils (which
are older than those found at Burgess Shale) had been forcibly
removed, leaving a pock-marked former ocean bed. What was most
frustrating about these thefts is that they were likely unsuccessful.
Based on the rock holes, I can't imagine that many people were able to
actually remove intact specimens.

On the way back we spotted a number of caribous tracks along the path.
Shortly after discussing the possibility of seeing caribou on the
path I mentioned that there were some directly in front of us. Upon
closer inspection it turned out that instead of caribou these animals
were actually cows. I think we were all quite surprised to see three
cows grazing in the wilderness far from a farm.

As soon as we made it back to the car we started our return journey.
Fortunately, as I was somewhat sort on sleep I was able to sleep for
much of the ride back to St. John's. I eventually woke up for good
just as we were on the outskirts of town.

That evening, after taking care of a few house-sitting related duties,
I got together with my friend Greg. After stopping by the store for
some beer we picked up Nikita and made our way to the video store to
rend a video.

After a few minutes of indecision we settled on a movie that I hadn't
seen before. As we couldn't find a copy of the film, a popular comedy
from a year or two ago, we asked a staff member. After a quick search
the individual was kind enough to inform us that the movie had been
checked out and that the last previously viewed copy had been sold
earlier than evening. We decided that we would go to the competitor
across the street.

Almost as soon as we reached the competitor's store we realized that
it wasn't likely that they would have it either. In this case the
staff member came to the appropriate section and stared at a shelf
full of DVDs for a while before reaching the conclusion that they
didnt' have it. In the end we settled for another film with the same
star.

Once at the house Greg and Nikita had some pizza and drinks while I
stuck to beer (though I consumed only a very limited quantity).
Though it wasn't the movie that we wanted to see, and while it had a
few weak points, it did manage to make us laugh in a number of
instances.

Sunday

While I was able to sleep in a little on Sunday I did have a few
things to take care of. One of the first things that I did was head
back out to the pet store to buy more dog food. It turns out that a
five pound bag doesn't last all that long for a greyhound.

I was pleased to find that the store was open and that they did have
something that I was able to buy. As far as I can tell the main
difference between what I bought the first time and the second time
was the kibble size. The second bag had pellets that were much
smaller (though this doesn't seem to bother the dog).

Instead of heading back to the house-sitting house, I made my way to
my parent's house. Once there I started to bake bread. This was
necessary as we were just about out of the last batch of bread.

Things progressed quickly on the bread-making front. As usual the
process was marked by a complete unwillingness on my part to measure
any of the ingredients. Actually this lead to a slightly larger batch
because I started with more liquid than usual.

By mid-afternoon the bread making process had drawn to a close and I
was left with 8 loaves of bread and 5 mini-loaves. My hope is that
this will be enough to last until I leave for Halifax at the end of
August, though it is more likely that I will have to make one last
batch.

In the evening I made my way to the Ship to see the Dardanelles play
as I had promised Ed I would. It should also be noted that Ed sent me
an additional reminder as he promised he would.

When I arrived at the bar I didn't really know anyone other than Ed
and another member of the band. I spoke to them for a while before
taking a seat at the bar.

As I was driving, and therefore not on the sauce, I ordered a water
and a cranberry juice. While I normally wouldn't order juice I am
somewhat aware of the dynamics of bar work and thought it would be
prudent of me to order something with a cost.

Shortly after the band started a number friends arrived and I joined
them by the pool table. While standing around the pool table Colin
and I became quite engaged in a conversation about the nature of being
offended and whether or not being offended is a choice or an instinct.
While we agreed to disagree I think we both had a great time during
the discussion.

I guess I should say that I really enjoyed the band. Not only were
there no electronic instruments (that is not to say their was no
electronic amplification though), most of the content was exclusively
instrumental. I think it is safe to say that I would recommend this
group.

As it was a work night I had to leave before the show was over, though
I did stay much longer than I intended. My recollection is that it
wasn't until just after midnight that I left (but that could have been
the time it was when I made it home). Anyway, I certainly didn't make
it bed until some time after mid-night (early Monday morning).

The weekend was certainly much more action packed than my typical weekend.