Chochocoaune River, QC

Well I'm back from a 6 day trip down the Chochocoaune River in Quebec. We had a blast! Weather was great (other than the first day), fishing was excellent, and even though the water was low we were still able to run everything. Here are just a few of the pics from the trip...

















Can you tell it's all about the white-water?

Carp Airshow

Showed up a little late last Sunday for this event but still managed to see an awesome show. Some pics...









This next photo was thanks to the mirrored building whose parking lot we used to view the show. Just in case you can't tell, it is distorted like one of those circus freak mirrors you find at the Ex. Honestly.

eye spy

Just having fun with the macro feature on the camera. The other shots I can't publish on this 'family-oriented' blog.

The Ontario Tour

After a 3500km loop through southern and northern Ontario we have returned once again to the nation's capital.  Here are some of the photos... if you want the stories behind any of these you have to buy me a coffee/beer.  Cheers mates...

Big Bad Bass

Caught this bad boy in Hogg's Bay along the Big Rideau. As you can see it would be near impossible to catch a bigger fish and still manage to take your own photo showing both you and the fish from tip to tail.



We were camping at Murphy's Point Provincial Park for a few days with our camping buddies the McMullan's. We had a great time and the weather couldn't have been better. I even managed to squeeze in some time to teach Jerry from Kingston how to windsurf. After about a 12 year hiatus from the board I still managed to tack across the bay 4 times (with no splash downs) before returning the sail to Jerry who waited wide eyed along the shoreline shouting "You da man!!" in his Polish accent.

Face in the flames

Does anybody else out there see the face in the flames or was this just the whiskey talkin'?


Still no?  Get a little closer...

Freaky eh?  Now imagine the screams.

Zebra mussels, the nonindigenous species

Zebra mussels.  I hate these frickin' things.  They are choking up my favourite freshwater lakes and rivers.

Zebra mussels originated in the Balkans, Poland, and the former Soviet Union. Biologists believe the zebra mussels were picked up in a freshwater European port in the ballast water of a ship and were later discharged into the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair (blame the Canadians again, eh). A female zebra mussel begins to reproduce at 2 years of age, and produces between 30,000 and 1 million eggs per year.

I took these pictures when we were swimming on the Upper Rideau Lake last weekend.  They stick like snot to a steel pole in -30 degree C.  Did I mention that I hate these damn things?



Wear water shoes when swimming folks, these little bastards are like razors if you step on them just the wrong way.



More details:
1. Check out this July 6, 1990 broadcast from the CBC archives.
2. Here is an animated map of the US showing the invasion from 1988-2002.

Dragonfly

Snapped this shot while swimming at the Foley Mountain Conservation area beach.  I believe it is a widow dragonfly.  Now, if I could only harness a few of these guys to my hat to help fend off the bugs.

Balloon man makes it on the outside

Check out this whack-job of the week.  We met up with him in Perth at the Stewart Park Music Festival.  He was twisting balloons for the kids.  His funky-ass hat was covered in weird scary stuff.  I even walked around to get a peek at the back expecting a shrunken head or at least a crack pipe.



All the kids loved him.  He could make anything - chickens, dogs, cats, bicycles, labrador retrievers, and foot long syringes.  Probably learned that shit in prison only it wasn't balloons he was twisting there, baby.



Took this pic just to show him I wasn't afraid of him and his freakin' hat.

bvt hits Bluesfest

Things have been busy for the bvt-blogger.  On Wednesday night some friends and I hit the Ottawa Bluesfest to see Umphrey's McGee, Keller Williams, and The String Cheese Incident.  Umphrey's was incredible, Keller was wildly entertaining, and SCI was just starting to get in their groove when they called it quits due to an approaching thunderstorm.  

The storm hit only minutes after SCI left the stage and then it proceeded to blast, rock, and pour all over Ottawa. It was incredible.  People were screaming at the thunder and lightning and then cheering at the naked hippies dancing in the downpour. Worth the price of admission alone.  


(Picture posted in the Ottawa Sun)

Then last night a friend and I decided to take advantage of our "free pass" (due to yesterday's rain cancellation) to see an amazing guitar player by the name of Elmer Ferrer. G-Damn this guy can play!! I can see why he's compared to the likes of Jimi and SRV.  He plays again on tonight opening before Kid Rock and then again on Sunday if anybody is interested in checking him out.

NOTE:
For those of you interested in checking out a great jamband, here's a link to a free UM bootleg show back in 2002. Why this show? No reason, it just happens to be the one that I'm listening to right now in my Dell DJ.

Umphrey's McGee
July 4th, 2002
Venue: Funk'n'Jam House, High Sierra Music Festival (LATE show)
Location: Quincy, CA

And if you like that one, you'll want to download the EARLY show too.

Note that this download is in a "lossless" format which your winamp should be able to handle but you can convert to mp3 if you wish (using this free software).

Legs

Just a sample of some of the creatures we caught on camera during our camping trip to Charleston Lake.



Daddy long-legs in "action".  Hey, do you know that a daddy long-legs spider is actually not a spider?  Apparently they are neither spiders nor insects. They are arthropods.  (click on the link for all the gory details)

Fireworks 2005

After a crazy afternoon of water sports, super slides, tattoos and crafts at Kanata's Canada Day festivities we headed over to our friend's place for burgers and beers.  Terry kept firing silver bullets at me while the little ones all splished and splashed in the inflatable pool.  Strangely enough, Terry managed to get pretty damned soaked cooking up the burgers and dogs as the bbq was strategically placed about a foot and a half from the pool.

By about 8:30pm we thought we had worn out our welcome and best be off to search for the ultimate parking spot from which to view the Kanata fireworks.  Yeah, I said Kanata.  We decided it was just too much work to head downtown with the entire family.  After about an hour of rockin' on to Glass Tiger and a half hour delay, the fireworks finally started around 10:30pm.  They stole the show... but considering that they were up against Glass Tiger, that wasn't too difficult.




.

Canada Day 2005!

Woke up this morning (July 1st, that is) to sunshine and a long list of chores.  After a cup or two of java I gathered up the family and tackled chore no.1, strawberry picking.



I was a little upset when I realized that today, being Canada Day, meant that the grocery stores were closed (yeah, even the one that claims to be "24 hrs").  You know what that meant, yeah, no French vanilla ice cream to go with these delicious red devils.  Oh well, as I always like to say, "Eat'em raw, that's the spirit, raw raw raw!!"

Fun fun fun in the sweltering hot sun...

Saturday was declared a beach day and we all packed up and headed out to Fitzroy Provincial Park.  We headed out around 9:30am just in time to catch John Foley humping it on his pimped up riding lawnmower along Carp Rd.  Man he looked hot.  I actually thought I might finally get to see somebody spontaneously combust.  But no such luck.  Not that I wish John ill, not at all, but how many of you blog readers out there can actually say you saw somebody spontaneously combust?  Yeah, I thought so.

Sand monkeys ... the sand really sticks to you when you're all greased up in 30 spf sunscreen.

BBQ for T-bone

Here's a shot of me "getting ready" for Brick's and T-Bone's birthday bbq party thang.



It turned out that they were NOT going with the Hawaiian Cowboy theme as per usual.  Boy did I feel silly.  But not as silly as this guy...





The next one is a shot of the birthday boys together with their gi-mongous Black Forrest cake from Costco. I don't know why they choose to light the entire top of the cake instead of using birthday candles, but hey, it made for a great pic.

The big sting

Poor little wasp didn't know what hit him.



If these were killer bees (aka Africanized Honey Bees) I'd be dead.  And for those of you wondering, here is a list of do's and don'ts for you in case you ever find yourself in close quarters with an AHB.  I like the one that says "DO NOT try to remove bee hives without professional help.".  It reminds me of the time that my cousin and I decided to remove a bee hive from his garage door up at his cottage.  We didn't have any "professional help" so after a couple of beers we settled for an aerosol can and a match.  Man did we create a commotion.  Let's just say one of us was running and the other was waving a 3 foot flame around while spinning like a top.  Ahh, good times.

Solar glow

Shout out to Mark Uhrbach for suggesting to put something in the bottom to reflect the glow of the solar powered light.  Works great!  In fact I bought another for my wife on mother's day... not sure how that compares to the 30GB Dell DJ I scored on father's day though.

Barrhaven bullies

This is the second pair of hanging footwear that I've spotted wrapped around Barrhaven power lines.  Although it was somewhat amusing when we spotted the first pair about 3-4 years ago (yes, they are still up there - Greenbank south of Malvern) they are now just another BBQ-haven eyesore.  The second pair (see photo below) have been up for about a month now. 

Urban legend has it that this is a sign of gang's marking their boundaries.  Well I'm telling you right now, if I spot a group of shoeless youths in my neighborhood I'm gonna open up a can of whoop-ass on them mo-fos.  No questions asked.

Walkin' on sunshine

Pulled pork

This weekend was the International Chicken and Rib Cook-Off down on Sparks Street.  Amazing.  The smoke of the slow burning wood and the sweet smell of bbq pork was simply too much to handle.  After some free samples and a stroll down the entire length of Sparks Street we all agreed that our number one choice was Billy Bones BBQ.  We bought $30 worth of pulled pork sandwiches which may seem like a lotta dough to you blog readers out there, but how do you put a price on fine piece of pork?



This guy was smooth.  Flipping ribs, pulling his pork, and shouting out to the drooling crowd in his southern accent he managed to keep a steady flow of customers at his booth while others only saw a trickle.  Personally I think the guys were more drawn to the hot chick with the free samples.  But hey, we all know sex sells.

Weekend scene

Weekend was crazy hot.  40 degrees with the humidex is just stupid.

Friday night we hit the Barrhaven Fair again for a ferris wheel ride.  Ride fares were jacked up from Thursday's opening loonie night.  I managed to sneak on for free.  There seems to be some unwritten rule that parent's can ride for free in order to watch over their children's safety.  I must have picked it up from watching HBO's Carnivale.  Most parent's didn't know about this and were paying their fare.  Wankers.

Saturday a friend and I checked out the Cowboy Junkies at Westfest.  They tore the house down.  Margo sure can rock.  Beers sure tasted sweet in the sweltering heat.

Sunday was pretty mellow.  I watered my garden twice.