Month: August 2010

The last couple of months have  been ridiculously busy and stressful and I’ve made some recent changes to make sure I don’t wind up as some fat-ass stressed-out computer guy. First thing, and certainly the toughest, was I went on hiatus from our band. No plans on how long this will be for, or whether it’s permanent or not. I haven’t really had a sit down and heart to heart with my fabulous (and talented!) bandmates. It was a decision that had been brewing for a couple of weeks and I realized at our last rehearsal that my passion just wasn’t in it right now with everything else going on in my life.

It seems like life had become a treadmill that didn’t slow down and shelving my band commitments has helped slow it down. I’m still passionate about music and I want to get back into it, but I need things to simmer down first so I can properly put time into it.

The other big change (for me) is to disconnect from the online world. This weekend I went on a policy of checking email once a day, usually in the evening, and batching up all my email and reading in one timeboxed session. It’s easy to feel like you’re being busy when you’re twittering, facebooking and emailing constantly, but all you do is suck time which should be spent on more important things like chilling with friends or running amuck with my girlfriend.

So if you don’t see me on FB and Twitter or don’t hear back from my email in a timely fashion, that’s why. If something’s super-important and can’t wait (for example: DUDE – Guitar Wolf and Tegan and Sara are joining to form a new band!) then you can always text me.

Speaking of T&S, the new video for Northshore is pretty awesome.

Northshore – Official Tegan and Sara Music Video

Tegan and Sara | MySpace Music Videos

Sadly, there is no Guitar Wolf / Tegan and Sara band that I know of.

Our four day weekend last weekend was fantastic! I wrote a bunch while in Okanagan Falls before we headed on a meandering drive through Osoyoos and down the Hope-Princeton to get home later that evening. I’ve never done the drive all the way down to Osoyoos and we enjoyed it very much, especially with our stop at Oliver Twist Estate Winery. Tasty. Very tasty. I’ve now got a bottle of their Pinot Gris in the kitchen waiting for a tasty pasta meal to be served up.

Vernon was fun too. Sharon got a quick tour and we’ll have to go back to check it out some more. We didn’t even get up to Silver Star to see the gaudy cabins up there. But we did make a trip to the Grey Monk winery for lunch on their patio, which I believe is one of the best in the Okanagan. The wine’s tasty too!

Sharon also got to meet my Mom’s neighbors, who are really cool, and their large dog who has grown up since I last saw him.

He still thinks he’s small enough for your lap!

This past weekend started off with a few beers on Friday night after work. Saturday was a little slow going as a result but I was in good shape by the time we were due to see Theatre Under the Stars production of Singing In the Rain! Excellent show. So much fun! We’re going to have to see more theatre like that. It did threaten to rain on us but it only sprinkled at times.

Sunday I managed to clear up my place after a crazy few months. I’m making some changes so things don’t get so ridiculous for me anymore. More about that in my next post.

Sharon and I are having a picnic lunch on the beach in Okanagan Falls. The only breakfast places were these greasy spoon biker hangouts so we picked up some stuff from the new IGA and found a nice spot in the park on the shore of Skaha Lake. Today we’re going to go down to Osoyoos and then back to Vancouver on the Hope-Princeton with a stop in Manning Park to check it out.

We had a great visit with my Mom in Vernon. I’ll post some details and pictures tonight. Yesterday we took the drive down from Vernon to Pentiction with a stop in Kelowna to checkout the waterfront and then on to Summerland where I showed Sharon my old hometown. A lot has changed in Summerland. There’s more development and areas that were once open along Giant’s Head Mountain for us to explore as kids are now small suburbs. We did stop to take photos at some of the orchards and an old abandoned barn on the back road to Penticton.

In Pentiction we found the Tin Whistle Brewing Company and pulled in to check out the brewery and buy some of their local beers. It’s in a small building that houses all the brewing tanks as well as a corner for their retail store, which consists of a rack of t-shirts and a cooler full of their beers. They only sell the large bottles so we grabbed a handful and ran back to the car before the rain got too fierce.

There’s a canal that flows from Skaha Lake through Pentiction and people raft down it in inflatable dingys during the weekends in the summer. Unfortunately there were several dozen people on the canal when the thunderstorm hit and we saw clumps of people on the shore huddled underneath their dingys as the rain poured on them. They looked like wet cats!

Fortunately the storm didn’t hit Okanagan Falls and we found the last space in a campground called the Sun and Sand which sits on the shore of Skaha Lake. And now we’re up, have finished breakfast, and are going to hit the road.