So the Rock the Rails event was awesome!

 

My time in Leduc has been so amazing.  I just love coming here.  I am so impressed with how involved the City and local agencies within it are with the community! 

 

Rock The Rails was much larger than I anticipated.  There was a huge stage for the bands; food and water stations set up everywhere; tents and kiosks for product and information; DJ booths and even a pretty sweet little tent for the judges of the Battle of the Bands – a panel I sat on with about the coolest city counsellor I have ever met, Alderman Dana Smith, and a really cool intern from a local Edmonton rock station SONiC 102.9. Check the panel here.

 

The bands ranged from 311 type rock – to rock / reggae – to weirdo rock – to punk rock – to scream-o metal and everything in between… and I didn’t even see the final two bands.  Mother Nature decided to put an end to the show early with a knarly storm that just came out of nowhere, considering when I arrived at the even it was cooking hot and bluebird skies.  A couple hours later there were crazy winds, dark blue skies, intense rain and thunder and lightening storms.  Apparently, in the prairies are home to these kinds of extreme weather changes.

 

All in all despite the weather, the event was a total success in my books.  The Battle of the Bands and BMX / Skate Comp ran simultaneously so I only have the band portion of the contests to gauge by, but what I saw were a lot of great young people in friendly competition with another who were all essentially just happy people looking for a good time.  Well maybe one exception… one dude from the scream-o band politely yelled for his “F*cking monitor to be turned down!!!”  This did not score many points with the parents and children in the crowd, nor the organizers or us judges who had profanity as a No-No on our judging checklist.  Good one bud! 

 

I just want to take this opportunity again to thank everyone who made it possible for me to visit Leduc again.  I really hope the tradition continues, as each time I return I meet more and more great people.  Like Arizona and Vancouver Island, Leduc has become a home away from home for me and somewhere I feel really grateful to return to each time I get the chance.

 

I am about to pack up and head for the airport.  I am flying back to Vancouver this morning where I am meeting my buddy Rick Neaks at the airport… hopefully with him holding a really demented sign like limo drivers do… well only demented.  From VYR, we are headed to Whistler for the weekend to check out Strung Out (the band whose tunes are in my skate vid and promo vid on YouTube) and enjoy one of the last summer weekends of 2010. 

 

Cheers!

 

~: )

 

Kevin

Greetings from Leduc, Alberta…

 

It feels great to be back on the road speaking, in a rare summertime road trip.  Last night was an awesome night – so much so that I had to write about it.

 

I caught a morning flight to the Leduc airport.  Leduc is located roughly 40kms south of Alberta’s capital city Edmonton.  The clear blue skies made for some amazing scenery as the plane took off from Vancouver, and I took advantage of the camera I had on me shooting some video (I’ll link later).  My flight was about an hour and a half that I shared both reading and listening to this awesome reggae band I am stoked on called Passafire.

 

I flew with my favourite Canadian airline company West Jet, so I was well looked after through the entire flight process.  I nice girl walked me down to the baggage claim where I was met by Heather and Jason my chauffeurs to my hotel.  Heather is the coordinator with the Leduc Community Drug Action Committee – a very proactive group that I have worked with before.  I hopped my butt into the backseat of the SUV where I found an article from the local paper featuring none other than yours truly… pretty cool!  Check it.

 

I had lunch in my hotel here and met a lady named Judy who was dining with her daughter and recognized me as the speaker in town.  I must say it is pretty cool when people recognize me, especially when I am out of town.  I met Judy again at dinner, and she would later provide me with a much needed coffee beverage before my talk.  Judy is pretty awesome, and so were the rest of the people at the dinner table.  Shout outs to Dana, Susan, Heather, Edna (who last time I was here kindly saved me by getting a flat tire replaced on my wheelchair), Lil John and his daughter Brittany.  Great to see you all last night.  I am so well looked after when I come to Leduc.  I love coming here!

 

My presentation was at sweet venue in town call the Mclab Theatre.  I had spoken there before and recognized staff, as they recognized me.  Jesse my punk rock sound guy set me up in pro fashion as usual.  But before I set up I watched a band called Lethal Dose do their sound check.  Lethal Dose was booked to open for me.  How cool is that?!  As Lethal Dose did their sound check I mingled with familiar faces in the audience.  One who particularly stoked me was a young man named Cody who had seen me speak at LSS this past Spring.  He is currently staying in Calgary with his grandma, and they both made the 2.5hr drive to see me speak last night!!  STOKED! And double STOKED when Lethal Dose started playing.  I have never had a band open for me, and I must say it went pretty awesome!  They were a great band and between songs kept hyping up my talk. 

 

After having most of the summer off, I definitely felt somewhat distant from the speaking machine I was just months before when I was consistently doing 10 presentations a week.  However, I took the stage last night and all flowed well.  Sometimes I feel a little less confidant when I am speaking to an entire community, as I tend to speak almost exclusively to teenage audiences.  However, I have been expanding my audience base more and more in recent years and I feel it is really paying off.  I felt great on stage last night and feel that I delivered a powerful and solid presentation.  I’m sure it helped being hyped up so much by Lethal Dose and then again by Crystal in her awesome introduction she did for me.  It was great to see her again too!  The audience was champ throughout my talk (even laughing at my jokes including my awkward Edmonton Oilers / Vancouver Canucks speel that totally made me forget what I was talking about).  They gave me quite the round of applause and many greeted me at end, which is usually a good sign that things went well.  It felt RAD to have that natural high that I get after a presentation again.  It stoked me like a visit with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a few months.  I am stoked to be back!  NOTE:  I just noticed something…  How many frickin’ stoked, great, rad, awesomes etc can fit into one paragraph?

 

After many goodbyes, Heather drove me back to my hotel by way of the local skate park where I will be hanging out this afternoon and evening to watch a comp and judge a battle of the bands.  The event is called Rock the Rails and should be another SICK experience!  NOTE:  I never call what I do a job, so I must say here on the record that I have the BEST NOT-A-JOB in the world!  Back at the hotel we met Lil John and Brittany…  Pronounced Britt-ah-nee…  Lil John is quite the character.  He is the director of the Boys and Girls Club in town and a great example of the inspiringly positive people that I often meet on the road.  We all hung out until midnight chatting, snacking and drinking tea, waters and virgin cocktails and O’Doul’s for KB.  Thanks again for grabbing the tab Lil John.

 

All in all last night was just awesome!  As much as I love the summertime, and need the downtime to rest and regroup I get a little detached from my greatest passion in life – speaking and meeting new people.  I feel fortunate that this summer I have been lucky enough to get the occasional glimpse and reminder of my true love.  Yesterday and predictably today are great ways to get geared up for a busy fall ahead.  So this blog goes out to the great people of Leduc, Alberta.  Thanks for appreciating me and looking after me so well every time we meet.  So many people go into putting on events like this, so I feel it is only fitting to thank the city as a whole! 

 

Signing off from Leduc, Alberta…

 

~: )

 

Kevin

PS.  I made a little video of the trip you can view here

Some days I can be at any given spot and somebody will approach me and ask how I got in the chair.  The days of me telling people I was attacked by an elk are over, so most often I give a condensed version of the real story. 

 

The stranger’s response is usually an empathetic one, which I can deal with.  However, sometimes people are a little too sympathetic for my liking.  I don’t ever want people to feel sorry for me.  Usually it is middle-aged to old-aged people who really take the story hardest.  Even though they just met me, people will say things like “that is so terrible,” “I can’t imagine how hard that must be,” etc, etc…  It’s usually at this point where I find myself explaining that it really isn’t that bad.  My life is pretty great.  I may even throw a “Life is not so much about what happens.  It is more about what happens next” in there, just for good measure… 

 

And you know…  I generally believe the words I speak.  Sure the odd day it sucks…  Some days, it TOTALLY sucks!  But for the most part life is pretty rad.  Certain days remind me of just how rad life is, or just how lucky I am to be alive, or just make me stoked that I never gave up and did find a way to live an active, exciting and rewarding life. 

 

This past weekend was one of those weekends filled with reminders of how awesome life is and can be….

 

The weekend began with a test at CDI.  So yeah, maybe not the ultimate start, but I think I did ok.  I was out of school ASAP and heading for my buddy Taeben’s place to pick him up.  NOTE:  Due to a number of speaking related commitments, I am also going on hiatus from school for at least a couple of weeks and as much as I love school this “summer break” is/was something to be stoked on. 

 

Taeben and I had a big weekend ahead.  We were about to embark on a punk-rock-road trip to The Vans Warped Tour at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington.  Our plan was to stay in Leavenworth (this sick Bavarian Village just outside of Wenatchee I discovered in my speaking travels this past Spring) the first night then drive to the Gorge Saturday morning to watch Warped and camp there Saturday night.

 

Now for some reason, I seldom get excited about future events.  I think it is a defence mechanism I built up some years back to help avoid disappointment.  But all week, since I booked the room in Leavenworth and bought Warped tickets, I had been jacked!

 

Our drive down was pretty chill.  Sunny skies, mellow traffic and loud punk rock playing from my stereo - just to add a little chaos to the calm.  We made a few stops for eats and gas along the way.  My favourite stop was at a drive-thru diner called ZEKE’S just out of Gold Pan, Washington.  The only reason I give a fffffffffffff… about ZEKE’S is that there is a raunchy punk rock band called ZEKE out of Seattle.  So just as if a highway burger-stop were named NOFX’s, Guttermouth’s, or MANOWAR’S, this place was a must stop for me.  In a way, it was a sacrifice in the name of punk rock, as I opted to eat a greasy ZEKE burger over the predictably delicious authentic German cuisine I could have eaten had I waited to dine in Leavenworth.  

 

Leavenworth turned out to be pretty good times for me and Mr Taeben.  We met some super chill people at the first place we started the night at  ____________  insert generic German pub name,  and then met another bigger party of locals at our next destination insert generic German pub name here _______________.  I don’t remember the names of these places. 

 

We ventured back to a party at our new party’s home once we grew tired of our final generic German named location of the night.  You may ask WTF is he talking about?  I don’t even know sometimes.  Regardless the night was filled with good people, good tunes, good times…  It was a late night to say the least, and the following morning did not really go as planned. 

 

Although my alarm going off at 9am woke Taeben and me up, it did not keep us up.  I basically went straight back to sleep in my bed that I had won rights to in a Rock, Paper, Scissor contest the night before and Taeben ventured off around the hotel, only to be scared back to the room by all of the shining happy people around.  We both needed a little more darkness.  I think we slept until noonish.

 

We finally got on the road for Warped Tour around 1pm.  I think the show started at noon.  It was pretty basic survival for eats.  I had already decided that I was going to do a KB style mini-version of Supersize Me by surviving off burgers the entire weekend, so I added a couple of MacD’s cheeseburgers atop of the ZEKE burger and Jr Whopper I had ate the night before.  NOTE:  I was so stoked to stop at ZEKE’S and listen to ZEKE while I ate a ZEKE BOARGORE WWoooowwwwHH!!  Did I mention that already?? 

 

Taeben being a picky eater, pretty well only eats pizza, pasta or perogies (yet is skinny somehow on an all carb and cheese diet) so we stopped at pizza joint for him.  Ironically one of our new friends from the night before worked at the pizza place so Taeben had a chance to thank the dude for their hospitality.  On our way out of Leavenworth, we spotted another couple of friends we had met from the night before, so we stopped and chatted with them briefly recapping the night and exchanging goodbyes and Kevin Brooks postcards.  NOTE:  I was giving those things out to anyone rad I met this weekend.

 

We got to Warped Tour grounds around 2:30pm.  It was damn HOT on Saturday.  It must have been close to 40C or 110F outside.  I have to admit the lack of sleep did not mesh very well with the heat.  I felt like butt…  I felt like hot-butt… like a butt in a microwave.  YES…  It felt as though my fragile insides were being molecularly rearranged and subsequently cooked.  Still we set up camp among hundreds of punk rockers and made our way via short bus (is there any other way to travel?) to the venue.  I think we finally got into the venue around 3pm, only to learn that we had missed the band Face To Face.  FML:  No big deal.  Face to Face was only the main reason we made the long journey to the Gorge.  Hey, you just roll with these things right because you can’t change them.  I especially roll with them.  Bad wheelchair jokes:  Are there any other kind?

 

The first band we saw was The Casualties.  They came up on stage immediately after some bunk band called Alasana, I think.   I knew of this band after reading that some members of Pennywise had apparently beaten them up a couple weeks ago.  Since reading the article I thought Alasana sucked.  Is it wrong to judge bands?  Bands don’t have feelings do they?  As far as I was concerned this was just another make-up wearing screamo band whining about MEH!  The Casualties rocked though!  I recorded a song and put it on You Tube.

 

It was seriously uncomfortably hot for me outside.  I felt like I was slowly dying in the heat.  MEDICAL FACT:  I don’t properly sweat ever since being paralyzed, so my options for cooling my body temperature are not as self sufficient as they were before.  Basically I need one or all of the following… submersion in cold water or cold air.  Without one of the two I can pretty easily get heat stroke, and even die if I were exposed long enough to extreme heat.  Luckily, I found some shade where I sat and soaked myself with water for at least an hour or so until my body temperature retreated to normal levels. 

 

Once I felt human again, Taeben and I decided to check out the rest of the venue.  This entailed Taeben pushing my crip-ass up a big ass hill that is about the equivalent in steepness and knarliness to the Great Wall of China.  It was at this point in the day we reversed roles.  Now he was overheated and feeling like death was creeping upon him.  While I was all smiles after enjoying a refreshing slushy beverage and a bit of a breeze during the free ride in my chair up to the rest of the stages.  For the better part of the weekend it seemed to be this way.  One of us was always feeling like ass and the other was all jacked and stoked. 

 

The main stage had most of the other acts that had drawn Taeben and me to Warped Tour.  NOTE:  Every time I write Taeben a red squiggly line appears underneath his name encouraging me to spell check.  I finally just did and among the suggestions was Teabag.  So from now on in this blog and in life I am calling Taeben - Teabag. 

 

Reel Big Fish and Dropkick Murphys were set to play one after the other on the main stage, and we were stoked on that.  As a sweet added bonus, Alkaline Trio (who’s set we had also earlier missed) played a short acoustic set between Reel Big’s and Dropkick’s sets.  After feeling haggard all day these tunes really picked up my spirits and kicked me in the butt.  Notable songs were Beer and Take on Me (RBF), Radio and Sorry About That (A3), State of Massachusetts, Shipping Up For Boston and Kiss Me, I’m Shitfaced (DKM).  I love live punk rock!

 

Once Dropkicks’ were done, Teabags and I headed for our campground, yet again in a short bus.  We arrived at our campground to see we had neighbours.  We got acquainted with these fellow punkers and made friends quite effortlessly.  I actually think I’ll be chillin’ with Kyle, Kyle, Elliot, D-Bone and Krisha again sometime in the future because they are rad.  In fact, Krisha, and I are hitting Strung Out in Whistler in a couple of weekends!  

 

I had so much fun camping at the Gorge!  I had never experienced camping like this before.  Picture rows and rows of cars and trucks, and between each vehicle there are little mini makeshift camp grounds set up.  Everywhere I looked I saw punkers.  Every campsite I passed was blasting punk rock.  I decided to take over the music responsibilities for our campground and set my truck up as our ghetto-blaster. 

 

As the night progressed, the tunes got louder, and it was open season for anyone to hop in the front seat of my truck and DJ from my i-POD.  It is here that I have one of my fondest memories of the entire trip….

 

REMINSICING:  So there tailgating on my truck was a bunch of people I had just met within hours.  Although we were technically kind of still strangers, we acted as though we had been friends for years.  In between small talk with we all sung Operation Ivy, Bad Religion and NOFX songs together like nobody cared.  Many passers-by stopped, joined our happy group and sung along.  It was so much fun!!!  Tunes consisted of punk and or ska, and then one dude made my night… He put on metal.  We got talking.  I mentioned MANOWAR. He shouted MAAAANOWAAARRR!!! and instantly we were bro’s.  Obviously, a MANOWAR tune followed on the i-POD as an intense convo about METAL ensued.  I say: This is how great friends are made! 

 

I ended up leaving our campground at some point in the NITE to journey off and make more friends.  It was a solo mission but not for long.  Rolling around in a wheelchair can be a chore at the best of times, so camping on uneven ground, in an unfamiliar place in the darkness of night is definitely challenging to say the least.  Fortunately there were a lot of cool people at the Gorge.  I would not have to push too far until someone would approach and ask “Hey man need some help?”

 

Now, normally I turn down anyone who offers to push me, but on this night I was all for it.  “Just lean me back and give’er’” I would say, and away we would go.  Random people pushed me all over that campsite so far that I ended up not even knowing where I was.  You know how when you are the driver you tend to remember the way more than when you are a passenger?  Yeah that basically happened in a freakin wheelchair!  So at about 2am I am lost in punk rock camping world and have no idea where my tent, truck, Teabag and new friends are.  It must have been written on my face because a couple dudes from Minnesota approached and offered to push me around the site to find my home.  All weekend I met people like this!  Just so cool!  I knew the world was full of good people before I embarked on this journey, but after the weekend I love people more than ever!  I love Americans more than ever!!!

 

Finally we saw some security guards.  They spotted me as I spotted them.  The one guy asked me “hey is your name Kevin?  Are you 31 and from Canada?”

 

“YES, YES, YES’” I responded. 

Then he told me he had been instructed to punch me in the face.  Apparently Teabag had talked to security.  Pretty funny!  No sooner do I realize that my buddies are looking for me then Teabag walks up and shouts my name.  STOKED!  We were reunited.  Back to the campground we went, and straight into my tent / truck I went to sleep.  I tend to camp in my truck as opposed to tents.  Not sure why?  Maybe because my truck has a heater and tunes.

 

All in all it was such an awesome weekend!!!  Last Warped I met NOFX.  This Warped I met so many awesome people!  I think it’s safe to say that the Warped Tour is about music and good people.  Yeah I drew that conclusion because it wasn’t obvious… 

 

When all was said and done and my tired ass was back in Canada I looked back and was super stoked on the weekend.  My favourite part – the people!

 

It was so rad to go somewhere where the people were all united under a common love.  We were there for the music.  And through that passion for music we were united.  Even cooler was he lack of attitude.  Our common bond was strong enough to tear down any barriers that may otherwise impede the union of all of these people from different races, places, background and cultures.  Status or any superficial BS didn’t matter.  We were there for the punk rock and many for the party afterwards. 

 

I was so stoked to be able to just cruise around to randoms any and everywhere at this show just start talking and before long we were friends.  I was so stoked that every campground, or vehicle or i-POD doc, or whatever had SICK tunes blasting from it.  And when I got home Sunday feeling admittedly a little worse for the wear, I was so stoked to get texts and emails from cool people I had met over the weekend who were as stoked on me as I was on them.  I will be going to Warped at the Gorge annually from now on.  This was one of the best weekends I have had in a long, long time!  And I have some pretty sick adventures, as you know if you read this blog at all or know me.

 

This world is full of people.  We can be nice to one another, mean to one another or indifferent.  I really think the world would be a better place if people just dropped the attitude, smiled and were more approachable.  This goes for society as a whole, but also any institution within it:  schools (elementary, secondary or post-secondary), the workplace, camping, driving, walking (or rolling down the damn street), whatever… This is the world I want to live in. 

 

How about you?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

~: )

 

Kevy Metal

 

 

So if you’ve read my blogs ever before you likely know that I write mostly, if not only, when I am either pissed off about something (or someone) or inspired.  Usually it is the latter I write of, and yes tonight this is the case again.

 

Tonight I took a walk, or roll if you will, down memory lane by visiting GF Strong Rehab Centre.  GF Strong is a significant place to me for starters because ten years ago tonight I was laying in a hospital bed in Vancouver General Hospital waiting for a bed to open in GF.  GF was where I transitioned between release from acute care in the hospital and going home.

 

I was at GF tonight to visit with a couple of people and apparently to be once again reminded of how small the world truly is… 

 

STORY TIME:  So last night I am laying on the couch trying to read a text book, while my mind wonders off into LaLa-Land.  Any distraction would do, and my Blackberry proved to be a good one.  At one point in the night I received a Facebook message from an old school friend named Steve Anderson (we grew up together playing hockey and hung out some in high school).  I hadn’t heard of or from Steve in years, but his unexpected message quickly intrigued me…

 

Steve Anderson August 4 at 10:10pm

Hey Kevin, hows it going? I know it’s been along time. I have a buddy that I bike with that is in GF Strong. He is 15 and not sure if he will walk again. Would you mind if he messaged you if he needs someone to talk to thats been through what he is going through? Sorry for the message out of nowhere.
Thanks

 

Quite honestly at this point no message can ever really shock me.  Just yesterday I was receiving messages from a 13 year old boy living in Northern BC telling me he had a suicidal friend and asking me for help.  Thankfully the kid got the help he needed and is safe now.  I have to say this message from Steve kind of blew my mind though.  Here is why…

 

Below is an email from my buddy Brad Jacobsen who works for the BC Paraplegic Association, in which I am a peer volunteer.  And… NOTE: Nobody at BCPA has never asked me to meet with someone ever before in my 8 or so years as a peer:

Tuesday, August 3, 2010 1:32 pm
There is a young guy (15 years old), who broke his back at T4 mountainbiking. Wants to talk to someone cool. Thought you fit the bill as well as already totally relating to kids. Are you in town? Can you drop by the center and meet him… show him some hope! 

Peace, 

 

 

 

So tonight I went and met with a lil knar’ dude named Landon.  And what an inspiring approach and outlook he had.  It’s been just over a month since he bailed and his life changed forever, but Landon was getting out of his chair and into my handcycle, ripping around and getting back out.  He is rolling around like a pro…  Not just in style but also in attitude.  I am super stoked on this kid!  Not only did I meet Landon, but also his mom and dad, lil bro Chris and aunt and grampa.  They are such a nice family!  We spent hours just chatting.  His dad Rob ordered us Pizza… and we all hung outside until our party was interrupted by a slug race.  Good times!

Summer time is great times!  Always!!  I love it!!  But one thing that I always miss is meeting new and amazing, inspiring and remarkable people.  During the school year I am inspired almost every single day…  usually multiple times through the people I meet and experiences I have.  Summer is not usually on the same level, so tonight was a welcome surprise and reminder of how much I love meeting new people and being a positive influence in their lives.

Tonight was a sort of Pay-It-Forward scenario…  Although instead of having a burned face like Kevin Spacey had in the movie, I have a burned leg.  I’ll get to that later…  Read on because I have an awesome… I mean gruesome pic.

 

10 years ago while I was laid up in GF Strong contemplating life and struggling with the idea of being in a wheelchair a rad dude named Justin came to visit me.  Justin was rolling around in a bright yellow chair with big mountain bike tires.  He had good syle, piercings and even a Pennywise shirt.  Justin skydived, scubadived and also downhill mountain biked.  Dude was not letting a frickin’ wheelchair hold him down whatsoever.  Dude gave me hope!  And I knew one day I would be doing the same thing for someone else.  I truly hope that I gave some hope tonight!

 

 

Now speaking of Pennywise, I also met a rad dude tonight who shares my love for the Hermosa Beach punk rock boys.  His name is Jeff.  Jeff also is an inpatient at GF Strong.  He wiped out riding in Revelstoke back in April and through a dear mutual friend named Talia (name drop – hope you read my blogs Tal) Jeff and I were connected.  I didn’t get to spend too much time chillin with Jeff tonight, but in the time we did hang out I saw yet another inspiring, resilient young man who is defying the odds, and doing so with a smile.  Best of all he digs rad music like Pennywise and Gaslight Anthem and is going to both upcoming shows at the Commodore, as am I.  Chairs on stage…  I think it would only be fitting…  Here is an old school pic of me singing Bro Hymn onstage with Pennywise.

So yeah I am stoked on tonight!  Meeting two awesome people who are both taking on the world with a smile and positive attitude inspired the heck out of me.  I could even see refeloctions of myself years ago as I looked at both Landon and Jeff.  The journey from just being paralyzed to rehab, getting home and then figuring out life is an epic one.  It’s one I know has made me a better person and brought much appreciation and passion into my life.  I said it a few times tonight… When everything is taken away suddenly.  We have everything to gain.  It is great to see that two rad dudes have found new beginnings as opposed to ends.

As far as the rest of life goes for KB I must say it’s pretty darn great… pretty darn busy too!  School is rather new to me still.  It is a fairly big responsibility for someone who is used to contemplating things like “should I bike ride the seawall or Barnston Island today,” or “Whistler road trip or Kelowna road trip” during his “Summer Break.”  But don’t get me wrong…  School has been rad!  I am loving the Addictions Counseling and Community Worker program at CDI.  SHOUT OUT TO GLEN! You readin DUDE.  Famous in my own WAY! I handed in my first project and test respectively last week.  Well maybe the project was more respectful than the test check this.  Yeah so apparently FML and F’n do not fly at exam time…  Yeah so apparently I am still a little rough around the edges.

I had a sweet long weekend up in Hundred Mile on Sheridan Lake at my buddy’s cabin.  A bunch of us headed up Friday where we met another group of friends also staying up there in another own cabin.  Among the second group were my sister Allison and bro-in-law Jeff mon and Dave M (name drop even though he admitedly never reads anything I write.)  Good times were had for sure.  Lots of boating.  Lots of good eating.  Lots of laughs.  And lots and lots of AND HE LAUGHS…  grunted between Nick Boyd and me.  We have a pretty big SNFU thing going on right now… and this is our current fav’ song.  And check these two clips from the trip Danimal Shreddin’ & KB Launchin’.  I suggest watching in HD… Yeah we know how to camp!

One thing that sucked about camping was I burned my leg.  Now I know this is bad, but I came across a campfire and well chilled there.  Hey I never lit it.  But I never put it out either so…  I guess I was an accomplice.  And karma kicked the accomplices ass… or should I say burned his leg.  I was sitting too close to the heat apparently and couldn’t feel my leg getting cooked.  OUCH!!!  If I could feel it.  Check this nasty thing out burnedhotdogleg.

Camping trip = Rad.  Burned Leg = Not-So-Rad…  Tuesday after trip…  HAGGARD!

 

So Tuesday after a long weekend in the bush I had a presentation to a college class in Coquitlam.  It was my first time speaking in a while and my first time ever speaking alongside one of my newest and bestest friends Constible Alice Fox.  Seriously…  She is the coolest cop EVER!  The presentation went pretty RAD I must say.  I believe this is just the beginning of Alice and Kevin’s journey together in impacting young people.  And for this I am STOKED!  As an added bonus some of my favourite ICBC friends were in attendance too…  Karen, Kathleen and Gordo great to see you all! 

 

FYI.  I am still working on my first ever video blog.  I need to buy a mic yet.  I have uploaded, edited, reformatted, imported and sorted a ton of footage that I will be splicing together sometime in the hopefully near future.  Something to look forward too…

 

Thanks as always for reading!