C'mon Kumon

I always seem to have trouble writing on here after I write a eulogy.
I remember when Mike died it took forever for me to get something up here to take the place of his picture. I guess I just don't feel like writing much in times like these.

But I have to say that recent events have cheered me up alot. I'm still pretty pissed off about alot of things in the last 6 months or so, but in the last week things have taken a turn for the better. For awhile there it seemed like bad things kept happening, and I kept saying well it can't get much worse - only to see things get worse... and worse.

I actually applied for a job up in Ottawa last week, but the following day my boss offered me a substantial raise along with full time status, so it looks like I'll be stickin around London for awhile. I was thinking it might be time for a change, but I suppose a change that big will have to wait.

I've also had an unexpected rise in the female presence in my life. It kinda came out of the blue on me, to be honest.

In completely unrelated news, I find it incredible that this is the logo for a fuckin learning centre for children:
Are kids supposed to be proud that they attend this fucking place??
It looks like a bewildered and retarded kid without a nose. Who the hell though that up?

Not much else to say beyond "holy shit it's hot in my lab".
27 degrees today. What a piss-me-off...

The loss of an icon.

This past weekend my family, and the town of Penetanguishene, lost a great man.

My father's older brother, Henry Bisschop, passed away from cancer.

It was his third battle with the disease in the past five years, and each time he beat it, he couldn't come back as strong physically. But he always remained positive, even in his final days.

Henry was the type of man that everyone respected.
He was a straight shooter; always completely honest with anyone he came into contact with.
He was also a no-nonsense kind of man; very practical, and always productive. Even in his retirement he was extremely active in the community and with his family.
He was compassionate man who didn't discriminate or judge people.
He was a man of high morals and values.

He was the kind of man that had no enemies.

Henry was a teacher, a principal, a hockey coach and referee, a family man, a member of the church, a Mucker (the Mucker, in fact), a great story teller, and man that people loved to follow. And he was an amazing uncle who taught me many lessons as a child and as a man.


My dad was probably his closest sibling, and I know he's going to have many tough days ahead of him dealing with this loss. But my brother and I are very proud that our dad was able to give a heartfelt speech at his funeral. I really can't imagine how tough it must be, but I know it affects me too. I'm usually a rock with this kind of thing, but I've never lost someone this close before. I guess every rock will crack if you hit it in the right spot.

I could go on about how many people loved him, but the short list is as follows:


And that doesn't even scratch the surface of how many people's lives were touched by the man.

I can only hope that I'll have hundreds of friends and family members standing in line in the rain (because the funeral home was too full) just to pay their respects when I die.
I hope I'm able to raise my children as well as Henry did.
I hope I'm able to live my life with the same character that he always showed, even in the tough times.

Henry used to laugh that I never called him "Uncle Henry", it was always just "Henry". He used to say "I've got 45 year-old nephews that call me Uncle, but not Travis!"

Well I have to say Henry, I've never been anything but proud to be your nephew.
I hope you're resting peacefully now.

May Two-Four

Before it escapes me entirely, I'd better make a quick post about this year's May 24 weekend.

The weekend was supposed to have started on Thursday up in Bayfield at a couple of friends' cottage. I had taken the Friday off in preparation for two nights up there, followed by two nights up near Honey Harbour with the Muckers up at MacCrae.

But with all the knife-in-the-back bullshit the week before, I decided to hold out and come up on Friday with a few buddies who weren't involved in all of that shit (a few people who actually were involved were at the cottage Thurs night, so I think it was a good idea to hold off).

Friday night was good, but after a long day of drinking, and a big game strip flip-cup (in which I was crushing red wine instead of beer) I got blackout drunk and ended up falling on my ass when KP tried to grab a piggieback ride from me. I was put to bed shortly thereafter. hahaha

The next day James and I had a devastating 3 hour drive to Barrie, which started at about 8:30. Once we got there, he had another two hours to his cottage, and I had another hour or so in my parents' car followed by a 20 minute hike through mud and rock to meet the Muckers.

Fortunately the rain had only come on the Friday night, and held off for the rest of the weekend. But fuck me was it ever cold. So cold you didnt want to touch many of those cold beers. The wind was the worst part of it. Add up all of the bullshit back home, and I really didn't drink much at all for the rest of the weekend. Wasn't really in the mood...

Caught a ton of fish though. One little ballsy mofo was about the size of my lure:

My Bro ended up winning the trophy, but it was a small crew of guys up there this year, so the winning fish wasn't exactly a behemoth.

If I can remember now, I think we had: myself, my bro, my old man, Sean, Pun, Pun's bro, Neil, Baz, Overdrink, Zif (and his badass dog Aero), Anders, Jamie Doe, and Eddie who had to leave early cuz he got sick.

Scale of mintness for your typical May 24: 4 out of 10

We had some massive highs... we had some crushing lows

Every now and then I wake up after a night of heavy drinking and I feel fucking invincible.
It's a great feeling, let me tell ya.
It usually comes on when I don't have a hangover. And today is just one of those days. Yesterday I was brutally hungover from a ridiculous night of drinking on friday, but today I feel like a million bucks.

Speaking of, I did not win the lottery last week. Not even close.
But I feel like I'm due to win someday. $50 mil sounds like a nice round number to me.
I'll play the next big one.

This weekend was full of ridiculous conversations and terrible moments. At the same time it's the most fun I've had in awhile. I'm pretty much all over the map.
Massive highs.
Crushing lows.

If I hadn't received a phone call from a certain hungover girl on saturday I'd be on depression row at the moment. Fortunately the call came and I'm alright.

Last night ol' B-rad and I partied it up on the roof of the downtown Starbucks, at a friend's apartment. I had actually only met the girl once before, but she seems pretty cool. Too bad she's moving out of that pad in a week. It was sick. We had to squeeze out a window and climb on top of AC units to get to the rooftop. Lots of bitties at the party.

I made some terrible comments to the "cushy-ab girl" and I really need to call her to apologize for that. I might've just put the last nail in the coffin with her. We shall see...

I've come to the realization that once I get some booze in me, I'll pretty much say anything. And I mean fucking anything. My normally weak-sauce brain-to-mouth filter dissolves completely and I say whatever I want, regardless of the consequences. I should really work on that.

Saw Terminator yesterday, and that 3D Monsters vs. Aliens the other night too. Both were about as good as I expected. Gotta hit up Star Trek this week.

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

I always was better with a pen than I could ever be with the spoken word.

She told me I should be a writer, so here goes...

Tonight I've started writing the book I've been thinking about writing for years. It's going to be a memoir or sorts, running through the first quarter century of my life. All the regrets, the self indulgence, the stupidity, the great moments, the tragedies, and all the little things that piled up to spit out the over-analyzing fool you see before you today.
I'm gonna call it My Back Pages, circa Bob Dylan.

At this point I feel like it's going to end up as a mess of incoherent rambling and anecdotes that come out in no particular order. But organization can wait.
And once I get this behemoth written, I'll start into some fiction. Maybe a novel, maybe a collection of stories like Doghouse Roses. Get published with that, then bust out the personal shit.

Sell a million copies.
Make a million dollars.
Get the girl.

Who's the pitchers in this game?

Life never bothered to give me lemons. I just got onions instead.

Most days that I'm feeling shitty, I try to remind myself that we're all just tubes of meat held up by bones with blood rocketing through our bodies to keep us breathing.
We all have to eat, we all have to shit.
We're all just animals with overblown emotions that evolved into the things we now know as love/hate/fear/trust/jealousy/etc.

But some days it's a little harder to just accept that life as an animal ain't so bad. Some days things are as bad as they seem, and it's next to impossible to convince yourself otherwise.

Today was one of those days for me.

Everything may be coming up Millhouse, but nothing is coming up Mintvis.

And I think tomorrow is going to be one of those days that I just won't want to get out of bed at all.

I'll have to face a friend who's currently digging a knife in my back, a job that has turned into something it was never supposed to be, and a myriad of depressing realizations about my life that are pretty hard to take.
Then to top it off, in the evening I'll be seeing the girl whose heart I tore in two, for no apparent reason. And I still haven't made peace with that. Not by a long shot.



I already watched I Am Legend tonight, and I think it might be time for a little Cast Away.

Another day of decomposin' light

I have to say the recent change of scenery has done alot for my mood.
The past few days have been much less shitty, I do say.
I think the nice weather is helping too.
For the record, I think that bogus "disease" called seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is complete shit. James and I were talking about it the other day, and we got to thinking... if everyone feels shitty and depressed cuz it's cold, miserable, and dark all the time, how the hell can you call that a disorder? If we all have the same problem, it's not exactly special when one person bitches about it more than the rest. They're just complainers.

Anyway, the party last weekend was pretty solid. Killed a Texas mickey of Wiser's, which is kinda surprising, considering we had about half a dozen people at our place when the clock hit 9 p.m. I guess everyone was saving themselves for later in the night.
I can't say that I remember much beyond midnight, mainly due to the porchcrawler effect.

If you wanna make a porchcrawler, empty a can of frozen lemonade into a jug, fill that can with whiskey (or vodka if you choose) and toss it in, and then add 3 beers. Tastes like lemonade and it'll get you proper fucked.

My bro was gooned by the time anyone really showed up, and he paid for it in puke the next day. I think a few people ended up puking that night too, and apparently some dude took a wicked tumble out our front door and onto his face.

We even had birthday cake for James and Jake-hole.
It was kinda sad to be missing a few key members of our crew, but we had a great time regardless.

I thought I'd have trouble getting back into the work cycle this week, since every other time I've moved it's meant a change from school-to-job or vice versa. But it wasn't bad at all. I'm fairly motivated despite the lack of results I've been getting, and I'm hoping we sort some shit out in the next week or two. Mind you, a new project is starting up, so I might get pulled away from my main focus for awhile.

Back to the weather thing, I do love the summer dresses (see above) but when April ended I noticed a drastic drop in the amount of bitties running around this town. Sad tale, but I'm not exactly surprised. I'm sure there'll be a ton of girlies out on the patios this summer to gawk at.

I, myself, have even pulled my ass off the couch for a few runs already (hard to believe, I know). They last about 12 minutes since I have the endurance of a geriatric, but it's gotta improve. Can't get much worse than it is right now...

Exercise makes me hungry for secondary dinners.
Adieu.

Roll Out

It never seems to fail that I'm the last one to move out of a house.
All through university it was that way, and again I'm packing up alone.

It's kinda depressing to wander back and forth through this place while all the walls are bare and the rooms are empty. It's also a pain in the ass not to have a TV, but luckily there wasn't any hockey on tonight anyway.

I have to admit I'm glad to be leaving my current place.
Granted it was a good location, the price was sweet, and we dangled an 8 month lease out of the landlord, but the house itself is in pretty rough shape. The walls are crooked, the rooms are kinda tight, and the ants have begun to come out of the woodwork. I swear I've killed 20 in the last week.
Not to mention the whole "half an address" bullshit, since the house is actually behind the main strip along the road.

Plus this house has some shitty memories attached to it. I haven't exactly had the best time here, so I'm glad to be startin fresh in a new place.

Our new pad is pretty sweet, and it's definitely got more class and character than most of the places I've lived in. I'm lookin forward to throwing our party on Saturday, which may or may not involve a Texas mickey of rye. It's kind of a joint bday for James and Jake, plus a housewarming party for Mike, Jake, and I.
Should be a solid shit show.

I have many things to talk about, but for the moment I've gotta get back to laundry, dishes and packing.

It's all giving me mad AIDS right now.