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