Big Blog Update

Man it's been a LONG time since I updated my blog hasn't it? Well been up to lots since the last update so I'm just gonna post one big entry.

Upper Canada Village (July 30th)

I dragged poor Tracy up to Upper Canada Village (she had fun) and took a tour. Its been at least 15 to 20 years since I was last there. It really hasn't changed much (why would it?) and the bread was a great as I remembered it when I was a kid. We were going to go to the Chrysler Beach but when we got there they had posted a sign saying "No Swimming due to high bacteria levels" that put a damper on swimming and renting khaki, oh well maybe next time. Got to go back for more bread some time tho. That night we went to see the movie "Must Love Dogs". It was a really funny entertaining movie that I really enjoyed. Tracy loved it.

Mamma Mia (Aug 6th)

We went and saw the Broadway musical "Mamma Mia" at the NAC. We had great seats and the show was really entertaining. Tracy LOVED it and now wants to see a lot more musicals. I thought it was really good, just not sure it's really my form of entertainment but I would defiantly go see another musical.

Camping - Bon Echo

The weekend of Aug 13/14 was another camping trip. We managed to get out of Ottawa by 4:30 and drove throughout the rain and got to Bon Echo by 7:30 and set up in the rain that was supposed to stop. We had a small camp fire and called it a night by 10:30. The campsite it's self wasn't great but it was pretty good and besides we were right next to flush toilets and that made Tracy happy - LOL. The next day we were greeted by sunshine and a beautiful day. We didn't do any swimming as there were signs posted about the risk of swimmers itch being high, but in Bon Echo there is lots to do and we took a walk around and saw the huge cliff walls. It gave us the idea to rent a canoe and paddle out but then we discovered for some reason they don't rent canoes on Sunday and we were out of time to rent them that day. In the late afternoon we took a drive out to see Tracy's brother, who had rented the same cottage we had rented earlier in the summer. It was only an hour and half drive there, and once there we decided to stay and drive back the next morning. We had a great time playing "bochi ball", eating supper, drinking beer (of course) and sitting by the campfire. We drove back to our campsite the next morning in the rain again, folded up the tent and started our long journy home. Even though I had a great time at the cottage with Tracy's brother and his wife, the next time we go to Bon Echo I'd love to spend more time in the park.

Anyway that's enough catching up for now - Later.

Camping at Fizroy

Tracy and I spent last weekend camping at Fitzroy Campground. We were really impressed by how nice our camp site was and how nice the campground all round was. We had a great “premium” site that was almost totally private, and the best part was NO IDIOT NOISY CAMPERS. This was the first time this year that we were able to go camping and not run into some group of morons that were up all hours of the night. The main beach was also very nice, with beautiful sand that you sank into as you walked on it. The water was also very clean except for the seaweed if you went out too far.
On the Saturday night we decided to take a drive around the area and see what Fitzroy Harbour was all about. This was a huge disappointment; Fitzroy Harbour is a really small town with nothing really exciting to it other than a fudge factory. The harbour is hidden behind houses and the only park that looks into the harbour consisted of a sign, a flag pole and a park bench and was located at the end of a dead end road.
After deciding that Fitzroy Harbour wasn’t much to look at we drove out to Constance Bay and stopped for a bit at the amazing beach they have. It too was hidden at the end of a dead end road, but it was well worth the stop.
All in all it was a great relaxing weekend I’m hoping that we get back to Fitzroy again soon.

Bluesfest is Over

Well it's been a wile since my last post so I thought I would catch up on last weekends events. Nothing really big, Bluesfest came to a close, Tracy and I went on Friday night and saw The Trevor Finlay Band. He put on a pretty good show. After that we headed over to the Grassroots stage and watched Steve Row from Montreal and then local blues artist Tony D, who put on a great show. After Tony D's show we headed over to the Acoustic Days/Cuban Nights stage and listened to some pretty good Cuban music. Don't ask me the name of the band, I don't think I could pronounce it and it sounded pretty long.

Sunday night was the end of bluesfest, Tracy and I just went to see John Prine play, he was pretty good, I'm not much of a folk fan so that must mean he was really good.

Here's hoping that Bluesfest is even better next year!

The War on Terror?

This Picture and caption really caught my attention today.

"The body of an Iraqi civilian at a hospital in Kirkuk. A study by Iraq Body Count and the Oxford Research Group found that almost 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since US and British troops invaded the country two years ago, an average of 34 every single day.(AFP/File)"

Bruce Springsteen Concert!

Last night Bruce Springsteen brought his Devils and Dust Solo Acoustic Tour to the Corel Centre and what an awesome show it was. I had awesome seats for the show being only 8 rows from the stage. Tickets said the concert start time was to be 7:30 but The Boss didn't make it out onto the stage until 8:20 or so, not that anyone minded at all. He opened up with "My Beautiful Reward" and it just got better from there. He followed with a "distorted" acoustic version of "Reason to Believe" which I thought was really good, then played the title track from his "Devils and Dust" CD. Other notable performances (they were all notable - lol) were a lively rendition of "Lonesome Day", "Long Time Commin' " and "All the Way Home".
Before performing “The River” on piano he observed that it took him 14 years before he wrote a love song because his father always told him that love songs were just government propaganda designed to get you to settle down and pay taxes. Bruce Springsteen’s humor also came out after his performance of Reno when a power outage at the Corel Centre was experienced. When the house lights came back on he was sitting in front of the piano and just shrugged and laughed “I think we are in the middle of a fuck up.” He then commented that the power outage would be the best part of the show and couldn’t help noting that the next song seemed fitting considering it was called “I Wish I Were Blind”. The gremlins were still out when half way through the song he switched from pump organ to piano only to discover the piano’s sound wasn’t on. In true Springsteen fashion he just laughed and joked “See this piano’s supposed to be on”. After finishing the song he joked “When the lights go off the people behind the stage just get scared ‘Why did the lights go off’, there just back there running around scared right now”. After the next song, “Racing in the Streets”, he announced “They tell me it was lightening that caused the lights to go down”.
The rest of the show when off with out any more problems. He did great acoustic versions of “The Rising”, “Spare Parts”, “This Hard Land”, “The Hitter” and “Matamoros Banks” before leaving the stage for just a few minutes.
His encore included a lively acoustic version of “Ramrod” and “Bobby Jean”, then before rapping things up with a great acoustic version of “The Promised Land” he commented “We’ve had a great time tonight, the lights went out, they came back on, they went out again, they came back on, we were stuck by lightening…….what more could you ask for in an evening?”.
This wasn’t really the end of the show however, as Bruce Springsteen was taking his final bows and shaking hands with people by the stage he suddenly picked up his microphone and said “OK, I’ll do one more song”, which was a great performance of “Dream, Baby, Dream”. With that the night was over, Bruce had spent two strait hours entertaining us with one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, even Tracy (who wasn’t much of a Springsteen fan) thought it was a great concert.

Here is a complete set list below:

My Beautiful Reward
Reason to Believe
Devils and Dust
Lonesome Day
Long Time Comin'
Silver Palomino
Tougher Than the Rest
The River
Part Man Part Monkey
All the Way Home
Highway Patrolman
Reno
I Wish I Were Blind
Racing in the Street
The Rising
Spare Parts
Jesus Was an Only Son
This Hard Land
The Hitter
Matamoros Banks
Ramrod
Bobby Jean
The Promised Land
Dream, Baby, Dream

Bluesfest Lastnight

Was all ready for a good night at Bluesfest last night, but it wasn't to be. Got there just in time to see David Gogo hit the stage and as usual his act was great. He's blues player from Vancouver and always puts on a great show.
ZZ Top hit the stage with their usual enthusiasm and started out with crowd favorite "Got Me Under Pressure". I was only able to listen to a few more songs and then Tracy got pretty sick and we had to leave. She's fine now.
I'm all pumped up today, Bruce Springsteen brings his solo acoustic tour to the Corel Centre and I can't wait to see him. Picked up the tickets this afternoon, should be an awesome concert.

Bluesfest Break

Took a break from Bluesfest last night and spent a quiet night at home watching one of my all time favorite movies "Meet the Parents". Ben Stiller does such a great job in this movie, the sequel was just as funny in my mind.
Back at with Bluesfest tonight, David Gogo and ZZ Top are performing, can't wait!

Sunday at Bluesfest!

Sunday afternoon once again found us at Bluesfest! Man what a HOT day. Luckly we found some shade to sit in and enjoy the show. We showed up just in time to see Omar and the Howlers take the stage. I saw him last year at Bluesfest and he was just as good this year as he was last year. His show was followed up by classic blues artist Carl Weathersby. Weathersby put on a great show in his trademark orange suit. My only complaint was his set was too short! An interesting fact that I didn’t know was that between his last show in Ottawa (in 2000 I think) and this show he has suffered a stroke and was told he would never play the blues again. Thank god they were wrong!
After Weathersby’s show WC Clark took the stage and kept the blues coming for the crowd. WC Clark played an awesome set of blues music.
Tracy and I decided to take a break after WC Clarks show and returned later in the evening to see K-O’s. We didn’t realize that he would only be doing a hardcore rap concert, which neither Tracy nor I like. After about 4 songs we wandered over to the Grassroots Stage and listened to the Neville Brothers. Their area was so packed that they couldn’t let anymore people into the drinking area. The non-drinking area was not as full due in large part to the fact you couldn’t really see the stage. The Neville Brothers were putting on a great show, and if we could have seen the stage and we might have stuck around for more than a couple of songs.
We then checked out the Black Sheep Stage and listened to Do Make Say Think perform a few songs. This is a really neat band that I would encourage anyone to check out. They are all over the place musically with a violist, a couple band members on various horns, as well as band members on acoustic guitar, electric guitar and base guitar, not to mention the drummer. There wasn’t any vocals, just mostly instrumental music. It all comes together in a very interesting and surprisingly entertaining package. If they are back at Bluesfest next year I’ll likely go check out an entire show.
Before we left for the night we stoped by the Acoustic Days/Cuban Nights stage and listened to a bit of the Havana Ensemble (they are on stage most nights at Bluesfest) which was quite good and we plan to go back again some evening and listen to more.

"Mr. & Mrs. Smith"

Saturday night Tracy and I went to see the movie “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. I was really surprised by how good this movie was. I was expecting a mediocre action movie with today’s hottest stars as the main attraction with a bad plot. Instead what I got was a really funny comedy/action movie with some pretty witty comedy and some pretty good action. This is a great movie to go see, not that it has to be seen in theaters.

Black Eyed Peas @ Bluesfest

Last night was Black Eyed Peas turn on the main stage at Bluesfest and man what a show they put on. Tracy and I met up with our friends Brent and Joyce and it was a great time. The opening act, Talib Kweli, was horrible. I hate rap so I may be a bit bias but it all just sounded like noise, and judging for the reaction of other people not many were really interested in what he was doing.
The Black Eyed Peas were supposed to hit the stage at 8:45pm but didn't show up until 9:45pm and I don't think anyone really minded much at all. They hit the stage with "Hey Mama" and kept the energy up all show. "Where is the Love" had the crowd hopping. One annoying thing was the constant repeating of "Ottawa" by the band members. It was like they were trying to remind themselves where they were!
The show had a 15 min break after an hour or so and then they were right back at it with more enthusiasm. "Don't Phunk with My Heart" was great and the last song of the night "Let's Get Retarded" was also great and a lot of fun. The Black Eyed Peas put on a great show and finally left the stage after the City of Ottawa turned on the lights around the park.
As Tracy and I were leaving we saw the biggest stretch Hummer limo either of us has ever seen with New York plates, weÂ’re sure that was the limo for the Black Eyed Peas.
Probably gonna be back at Bluesfest again tonight - LOL

Bluesfest Opening Night

Went to Bluesfest's opening night last night. The big performer was a band called War. Their big song, and judging from the crowd, the one everyone was waiting for was "Low Rider". They put on a great show and had quite a few other tunes that I liked and recognized, songs like "The World is a Getto", "The Cisco Kid", "Gypsy Man", "Why Can't We Be Friends" and "Slippin' Into Darkness". All in all a great start to Bluesfest 2005, can't wait for Black Eyed Peas tonight!

London Bombings Update

The top picture is of an American Police Officer "patrolling" a subway car in Washington D.C. The Bottom photo is a picture of people evacuating through one of the subway tunnels in London. The death toll from this horrible tragedy is now over 50 with more than 700 injured.
One morbid bit of humor for me yesterday was the over reaction of the U.S.A. They actually had police officers patrolling subways and subway stations armed with machine guns in several cities! Come on really? It doesn't make me feel any better or safer.
My worst fears now is George W. Will use this as an excuse to step up his "war on terrorism", and they will link it to Iran and then start bombing the crap out of them. I don't know why the Americans can't see that the more they run around "imposing" them selves on other the more people hate them. If they really want to free people, go after North Korea! They have weapons of mass destruction and have said several times they would use them.

London Bombings

Just thought I make a quick comment on today's terrible attack on the city of London. I can't imagine the horror and pain people on those subways and the bus must have gone through. The photo of the bus and the picture of the blood splattered building across the street really hit me. Right now the death toll sits at 37 with more than 700 injured.

World's Biggest Catfish

World's biggest catfish - caught in Thailand. Man that is one big fish!

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The Week at the Cottage

Tracy and I had a great week at the cottage despite the deer flies, mosquitoes and dragon flies! Most of our days consisted of getting up around 9:30, eating breakfast, canoeing, eating lunch, relaxing, napping from 2:00 until 4:00, drinking, eating supper, drinking some more and then drinking some more wile sitting by the campfire, then going to bed and doing all over again the next day. It was great.
The cottage was just at the southern tip of Algonquin Park on Benoir Lake. We got to the cottage Saturday afternoon and unpacked. This is when I dropped the beer and smashed most of the bottles. This forced us onto our first road trip to Wilberforce (which I constantly miss pronounced much to Tracy's displeasure - LOL) to find the LCBO. This is when we discovered that it likely would have been a better idea to just buy our food and beer AFTER we got to the cottage. Once back and our beer supply was up again we fired up the BBQ had some burgers and then lit a nice campfire. The campfire didn't last as long as we had hoped. Either the mosquitoes don't care about fly repellent or it just doesn't work up there, but we were eaten alive and by 10:30 we ran back into the cottage.
Sunday was a great day, sunny and low 30's temp. We had a canoe ride in the morning and basically sat around all day and relaxed, went for a swim, took an afternoon nap. We found that we only got one radio station and luckily the Moose, as it was called, played perfect music for sitting around at the cottage. The advertisements on the station were of horrible quality.
Monday was more of the same basically. We decided to venture into Bancroft (we figured it might be big since they had a radio station) after we had gone canoeing. Bancroft isn't all that big but it seemed like a really nice town. We did a bit of shopping and then took a look at an hawk lookout that was supposed to overlook the entire town and you may be able to see a hawk too. Well, it didn't overlook the town and we didn't see a hawk (it never occurred to Tracy and I to actually look up in the sky tho, we kept looking in trees - LOL). The view from the lookout was really nice tho.
Tuesday was another day of canoeing, relaxing, and swimming and at this point the 2:00 to 4:00 nap was fully entrenched - LOL.
On Wednesday we got really ambitious and decided to go for a bike ride in the morning and a hike in the afternoon in Algonquin Park. We got the park permit and parked at the High Falls parking lot and that's when I discovered that I didn't bring the keys for the bike locks so we decided to walk to high falls and go for the bike ride in the afternoon. I think we got maybe 10min down the walking trail when the mosquitoes and deer flies got so bad we couldn't walk any farther. We decided when we got back that the bike trail later in the day would be just as bad so we abandoned that idea. We did take a drive up to Kingscote Lake a do a bit of sight seeing. We got back and rested in the afternoon and then after supper took an evening canoe ride where we paddled up close to two loons that were on the lake. They are really beautiful birds.
Thursday was another day we attempted to do something. We decided to try golfing at the golf course that was 5 min down the road. We paid $30.00 and managed to play one hole of golf before the deer flies, dragon flies, bees and wasps became just too much and took the fun out of golfing. I shot a 7 on a par 4. After the golf and hiking experiences we decided that horses back riding that we had planed to do on Friday afternoon wouldn't be much fun since the bugs were just driving us both nuts, so we canceled the horse back riding.
Friday was another beautiful sunny day and we decided to make the most of our last full day at the cottage by doing what we did best on this vacation. We relaxed and drank beer - LOL.
Saturday morning we got up and watched the sunrise and went back to bed then woke up and packed and left. I couldn't help but to feel sad that our vacation was over, it was the best and most relaxing vacation I've ever had.
There are a few pics on my MSN Spaces site if your interested http://spaces.msn.com/members/darrellfisher/