Road trip to Canada

Dan and I had planned a camping trip somewhere on the North Shore or near Thunder Bay this weekend. A look at the weather forecast for that area showed a bunch of crap - cloudy, cold and rainy all weekend. Looking a little further west showed one nice day (Saturday) and not quite as much rain the rest of the weekend, so a last minute decision was made to head to Winnipeg and southwest Ontario.

We took off from his house around 9pm, and pulled into Grand Forks about 4 hours later. Yes, it should've taken close to 5 hours, but the speed limit is merely a suggestion to some of us. About the only excitement was seeing the sunrise over Fargo around midnight. If you've ever driven to Fargo at night, you'll know what I'm talking about. In Grand Forks, we made a quick stop at Sugar's Lounge & Casino for a beer and a Scooby Snack before closing time. Random observation #1 & 2: casinos in North Dakota are a joke (2 table games in a bar don't make it a casino) and it's best to drink a Scooby Snack without looking at it (a shot containing milk with an odd neon green tint is not appealing).


Saturday am: the sun is out! We make a run for the border and they let us through, eventually. The obligatory pitstop was made at the Manitoba welcome centre, with the obligatory photos of us in front of the sign. Random observation #3: they like to spell things differently in Canada, so I will follow suit but most likely screw things up.


There wasn't much to see from the border to Winnipeg. Once in the city we drove to our campground, set up the tent and headed into the city. After driving around aimlessly for a bit, we got out and ate at some little place on the river (which river, I don't know?). Had a couple beers, enjoyed the sun and watched some random people doing random things. With the randomness out of the way, we headed to a coffee shop and people watched for a bit.


That evening we went to the Blue Bombers game. If you don't know (and why would you, if you're from the U.S.?) the Blue Bombers are Winnipeg's CFL franchise. That's Canadian Football League, if you're completely lost. They were playing the Toronto Argonauts in a battle royale between the 2 crappiest teams in the league. Beforehand we ran into some nice elderly women in the parking lot who told us how much they hate the Bombers coach and other such things. We also illegally drank beer in the parking lot but we're foreigners so it's OK.


The game itself was fun - only 3 downs instead of 4, a longer field and a lot more passing than U.S. football makes for a good time. It also helped that we moved into Section S (the student section) after the 1st quarter. If you want to watch people get rowdy, crude and obnoxious, this was the place to be and was certainly more fun than watching the game. Nobody was ejected or arrested, but not for a lack of trying or enouragement from the fans. Bonus points for sitting under the upper deck which came in handy when it started to rain near the end of the game. I had my first encounter with poutine - french fries with cheese and gravy. Yikes.

After the game, we went to a birthday for someone we didn't know. Those are always fun because you're under no obligation to pretend to care about the guest of honor. We met a lot of friendly Winnipeggers, some friendlier than others, and did not get kicked out for any bad behaviour. (When in doubt, blame it on the foreigners, eh?) There did come a time when we decided to leave before being asked to leave, but that does not count as being kicked out in my mind. Random observation #4 and 5: Winnipeggers are very friendly (at least until their laptop hits the floor and is doused in beer), and gaydar apparently doesn't work as well in Winnipeg as it does in Minnesota. Ask me how I know this. :-)

We also had a random Adam Lambert sighting at the party.


Back at the campground, it was a short night. Going to bed at 3am does that for you. Apparently I slept like a dead person because I finally woke up at about 11am when Dan started dismantling the tent with me still in it. I wisely decided to get up and help. A little while later we were at a bar watching the Vikings game against the 49ers (the one with the last second crazy touchdown pass from Favre to what's-his-name). And that concludes our Winnipeg portion of the journey.

On to Ontario: We decided to spend the night in Kenora. I slept most of the way there so I can't tell you much about the drive except we didn't see a single animal. We saw some tree stumps masquerading as bears and wolves but no real animals. Unless you count ravens as being animals.

Kenora is alright, we made the obligatory pitstop to say hi to Husky the Muskie, then checked in and took a nap. We had dinner at some pizza place (I'm thinking Boston Pizza, which is an odd name for a Canadian pizza chain) then headed back to the hotel. Very exciting, eh?

In the morning we headed back along a very scenic section of highway, mostly winding along Lake of the Woods until we got closer to the border.


After a quick stop for lunch somewhere, we crossed back into the U.S. and made predictably good time back home, except for the brief stop at a real casino and another brief stretch when I was driving - which means we were within 10 mph of the speed limit for a change.

Photos are here.

NAGAAA World Series wrap-up

Friday am: Had to be up early to make the long drive to our fields for the 7:55 game against Tampa. It was foggy and cold - we haven't been up this early to play and weren't really prepared for the temps and wet fields. We had a rough first inning and eventually fell behind 14-3, but came back at the end to make it a somewhat respectable 20-15 loss. Not really the way we wanted to go out as we did not play well at all. It's always disappointing to lose when you know you could've played much better. I had by far my best game of the tournament, at least in terms of hitting, but it wasn't enough. Too bad it took me that long to wake up and start hitting, as we may have done a little better had I not sucked most of the tournament.

Afterwards, most of the team went to the other fields to watch our B teams play. I stayed behind to watch C games and socialize with out of town friends. Inevitably, beers were purchased (before noon) and it turned into a rather long day. Some of the details are lost, others are better off being forgotten, but it was a lot of fun to hang out and watch games, socialize and meet some new people.

Friday night was the block party, preceded by beer and food at the Hilton - shocking to see us there, I know. The block party was decent, nothing exciting except for getting swept up by the Madison crowd and taken to a bar. After escaping I think Chris and I went to yet another bar, but the details are somewhat fuzzy and that may have been a different night. It's all starting to blur together now.

Saturday, most of us went out to the championship games to watch the Edge and Swingers play - the Edge finished 4th in C, the Swingers were 3rd in D. After a couple hours of watching games, I was pretty much over it and left, but not without chatting up the Austin C team and deciding I would most likely go down to their tournament in May. Seems like it would be fun to go somewhere new and check out the city, so plans are underway to do just that.

I thought about checking out early and head home on Saturday afternoon, but sloth caught up to me and I stayed. That was a good idea - the closing party was OK but the bars afterwards were a blast. We drank, danced (some of us shirtless in a cage) and generally had a great time. I believe it was some time after 2 when I finally got back to the hotel.

Beyond that, not much to report. We are looking forward to Columbus in '10, hopefully we'll qualify for the tournament now that the team has had a taste of the fun/craziness that is the World Series.

Photos are on the way.

NAGAAA World Series Day 3/4

We wound up winning our first game in bracket play yesterday (barely) by coming back and scoring a couple runs in the last inning with 2 outs. That took us a matchup against a good hitting Seattle team, and we just didn't hit well enough to stick with them. The loss put us in the loser's bracket with an 11am game today (Thursday).

Between our 2nd game yesterday and this morning, we went over to the host hotel for 'a beer'. Since they had a special buy one pitcher, get a free pizza it wound up being 5 hours of beer and pizza. Lots of fun. Our waiter was quite friendly. We were quite friendly. All in all it was a good night.

Somehow we all managed to get up on time and make it to the hotel lobby this morning. We had just one game at 11 against Phoenix, and as is becoming all too routine, we had a close game which we pulled out in the last inning. That sets us up for a potentially hellish day tomorrow (Friday) as we play at 7:55 am (leaving the hotel at 6am), and have the possibility of playing 8 games in one day if we keep winning. I'm not thinking about that right now.

We also went to the Mitchell Domes this afternoon - 3 domes of plants/flowers near the hotel. It turned out to better than everyone expected so that was good. Afterwards some of us went back to the host hotel bar, others went out to eat, and I am just now getting to my room and headed to bed. The alarm will be going off in approximately 8 hours. :(

NAGAAA World Series Day 2

Quick update and then I'm off to our team dinner: we won our only game of the day and finished pool play 2-1. I would guess we'll wind up somewhere around the 15 seed out of 50 teams.

More to come later.

Latest update: we wound up seeded 20th and have our first game at 10am. We are leaving the hotel at 7:15 am - the fields are approximately 30-40 minutes away and that will give us time for a warm-up/batting practice before the game.

Backing up a bit: last night was a good time at the opening ceremonies and beyond. I can't really say as I watched the entertainment since the people attending were entertaining enough. At some point I realized my entire team had left - I figured this out as I wandered around looking for them in a somewhat enebriated state. After a number of text messages I located them (at a bar) and left. That was slightly tricky as I didn't know where I was going but managed to safely get back to the hotel and hang out/drink/socialize for awhile before heading off to bed. We played at 1:15 today so we had plenty of time to recover.

Our game today was our best so far, and we are hopefully peaking at the right time. Afterwards most of us hung out watching games and socializing some more. The last stragglers made it back to the hotel around 6pm and had a quick shower before heading off to our team dinner at 6:45. We are now back at the hotel and getting ready to call it a night.

It sounds like we are playing a team that went 0-3 in pool play so it should be a manageable first round game. Beyond that, nothing will be easy. I'm excited to finally get to the real tournament games and get this thing started.

NAGAAA World Series Day 1

Our day got off to a bit of a late start, which is always a good thing in softball. Rather than getting the 7:55am game like our poor roommate (Orlando from Tampa) we were fortunate to have games at 12:20 and 2:30 this afternoon. That allowed us to stay out a bit late last night and enjoy some adult beverages and socializing. I joined the Edge (the other Minneapolis C division team) at a great restaurant called Elsa's for dinner, as my team hates me and tries to avoid being seen with me in public. Somehow I convinced my teammates to meet me at the hotel bar later (probably because I promised to buy them beer) and we would up having a good time. Dan and I were amazing at darts and won by a lot. I won't divulge the final score as it's a bit embarassing for the losers (Jay and Jason) if everyone knows they lost by about 200 points.

On to softball: we had a good warm-up/practice which didn't really carry over to the first game. After falling behind 4-0 after one inning, we played Nashville Fury even the rest of the way but lost 7-3. Not many games will be won if we score 3 runs, so hitting will have to improve if we're to do well.

Game two was close (5-5) until we went ballistic and scored 9 runs in the 5th inning. Our defense held them to 3 runs over the next 2 innings and we won 14-8 to finish the day at 1-1 overall. Tomorrow we play at 1:15 against Philadelphia TBD.

We're off to the opening ceremonies in about 1.5 hours. I'm pretty sure there will be more adult beverages consumed and more stories to tell, although I doubt many of the stories will be suitable for this blog. I'll stick with the basics as that's safest for all involved.

Updates on other Minneapolis teams: really, who cares? If you're reading my blog you shouldn't care about them. :)

No photos from the day. I was hoping to take some shots of a few other team/players that I'm friends with, but was busy playing and our schedules didn't really mesh very well so I have nothing. Perhaps when bracket play begins I'll be able to get my camera out.

Off to get ready for the ceremonies.

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

One thing I love about my new apartment is the location: it's close enough to downtown I can walk there, it's near the Wedge so I'm in the middle of lots of stuff, and there aren't drug dealers and prostitutes prowling the streets and alleys all day/night. Now I just have random hippie people wandering the alleys, but those don't bother me. :)

I walked to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (next to the Walker Art Center) today. I've been there before but hadn't paid much attention to it as I was only there for the mini-golf that time. It's an interesting place, although the roving gangs of schoolchildren this morning detracted a bit from the experience. I was mostly able to keep away from them and really enjoyed wandering around and taking my time to look at things.

The north end has a small garden/walkway area which was pretty cool. Not a lot of sculptures down there but very pretty nonetheless.

One of the sculptures slightly south of the garden area:

The famous/iconic spoon with cherry:

At the south end is a rectangle formed by marble topped benches, each with a different inscription. Some are a bit bizarre, but I laughed out loud at a bunch of 'em. They're so random that they catch you by surprise. I'm still laughing because they're just so random and kind of stupid - but that's what makes it so great.

I think these 2 are linked in a way.



This one is serious, timely and oh-so-true.

And this is one is just kind of random. Not much more I can say about it.

Since the Walker is only 10-15 minutes away on foot, I'm sure I'll get down there again on a routine basis. More photos are here.

Green Day concert

Not really a trip but definitely an adventure. Thanks to Bryan's friend who couldn't go, I got a free ticket to one of the best concerts ever.

After the four of us had dinner at Buca, we walked over to the Target Center and took our spots on the floor. The opening act was The Bravery and were actually pretty decent, with a lead singer who sounded like Robert Smith from the Cure. Their 30 minute set seemed much shorter than that.

After a 30 minute break to change out the stage and stuff, Green Day took the stage and went crazy. I don't even remember all the songs and the order, but they were awesome. One of the more political bands around, they've still retained their sense of humor (unlike Bono and U2). They pulled random fans onto stage to sing and play guitar and just generally enjoyed themselves up there. Even the obligatory covers they did ("Let's Go Crazy" by Prince, "Shout", "Stand By Me" and others) were fun and entertaining instead of distracting and indulgent. The show lasted about 2.5 hours, including a 40 minute encore, and I believe they could've played awhile longer without dragging things out.

I don't have photos - not much point in that as a concert is all about the music and the moment and a few random snapshots can't convey that spirit. If you ever get the chance to see Green Day live, go for it.