:: A bad day to be pants-less ::


Me: Wow, minus-40 today up there, eh?
Kelsey: It's fucking terrible.... It's -46 with the wind, apparently. And I didn't wear pants today!
Me: It's way too cold to be pants-less.
Kelsey: I know. Real smart.


I know over the last 15 months I've taken more than my fair share number of shots at the city of Fort McMurray, and more specifically, shots at the people who voluntarily decide to move there. And each time, whether it's Lanette, Kelsey or sometimes others (Amanda, looking in your direction), I get an passionate retort about how I'm wrong, how the city isn't that bad, how the money's good, or about sometimes you gotta sacrifice, etc etc.



And, all joking aside, I can respect that. I really can. I mostly bash the northern experience because a) I didn't like it when I was there, and b) it's fun to be a "pot-stirrer" as Lanette called me a week ago. But truthfully, I understand their responses to my criticism. I'd expect you to defend the place you live, your home. Hell, I do the same thing when people bash Langley (But really, why would they? It's lovely.)



But having said that, sometimes I think you get to a point where any response you can muster in defence of your fair city is rendered impossible. And I think that point is about -46.


At that point, no matter how much you may like certain aspects of your town, I think you just have admit to a small part of yourself, "Yep, this really sucks."


It's like my old buddy Carlos – who grew up in balmy Mexico City – once said to me when I told him how cold it was when I lived in Peace River:


"I don't see the logic in building a city in uninhabitable conditions. It would be like building a city underwater. It's just not meant to be."


But if you absolutely must build a city there, I'd recommend a sweater and a snow suit – at least. Not wearing pants is just, well, stupid.

And now, coming to you live from the "I feel the need to make fun of small towns because I'm not actually from one myself" department...

Kelsey's dad's usual team for Funtastic has had to drop out of this year's event because they don't have enough women to field a team.

Because they're all pregnant.

:: FUNTASTIC ::

Last weekend, from Thursday until Monday, the Cannons made their first pilgrimmage to the Okanagan - to Enderby for Funtastic. The fun started on Thursday evening, when everybody hitched up and took off down the highway.

You might wonder how the fun could start the moment you leave a driveway - before the 4 hour drive has even begun. But you would be stupid to wonder such things if you knew us at all. People took wrong turns, people got drunk en route, numerous stops were made to piss and puke.... or maybe that was just me, Buchs and Scotty.

Regardless, without further adieu, our weekend...

Me: I like to think of myself as the white Dave Chappelle.
Buchs: I like to think of myself as the black Chris Farley.

"It's Enderby. We're better than everybody here." - Bucholtz, seconds upon arrival.

"Popping your eardrum is like blowing it in a chick's ass." - Buchs again, pleased with himself.

"If you dug a hole, shat in it, that's Enderby." - Scott, as Enderby takes another hit.

Me: What the hell town are we in?
Buchs: I dunno, Moose Knuckle Junction?

Lost out on some country-ass backroad...
"Do you think they still have the metric system out here?" - Scott

"I think all Enderby girls have herpes." - Buchs

"Welcome to Enderby. Population: Losers." - Jeremy, in perhaps the funniest thing he said all weekend.

Buchs: We're not making very good time.
Scotty: Don't worry about it - I do my best work at night. I'm like a bat.

After Buchs took one disgusting shit at a Vernon Shell station...
"Well fellas, that was pretty much the sum of my entire weekend."

On long drinking/camping trips...
"I can't ever take it easy because I have no idea what excessive is. I just keep going and going." - Bucholtz, completely sincere.

Excessive.

That about sums it up.

Excessive drinking. Excessive partying. Excessive crying. Excessive baseball. Excessive yelling. Oh who am I kidding, there's no such thing as excessive drinking.

We got there Thursday night, me and Buchs already drunk. Within a short time, all the calvalry had arrived. Kels showed up from some pub around 1 (or so she says, I really have no idea at all). We partied hard that first night - beer flowin', music cranked until probably past 4. The sun was coming up as I fell asleep.

Then we had a game at 8 a.m. Needless to say, it did not go well.

We were hungover as fuck - or still drunk - and we were not used to the Funtastic rules, nor were we really ready for the heat.

We got fuckin stomped.

But then, in very un-Cannon-like fashion, we went on a run. Won three straight games. Now, I don't really remember all the details of the game - the beer and heat sort of killed my memory of specifics - but we still did some damage. We didn't lose until playoffs when some power-hitting drunks took us for quite a ride. But it was another early morning game, and, once again, we were hungover as fuck.

Some of the highlights...

Chris chanting "Let's go Cannons!!" all night in the beer gardens. I wasn't really sure of his reasoning behind such a move, other than to be a drunken ass, but then I remembered what he told me on the way from the campsite from the gardens.

"When we leave, people are gonna fucking remember that the Cannons were here."

Mission accomplished, I'd say.

We spent a lot of time just hanging out drinking, tossing a football around, diving into the river off the bridge in town. And starting - or trying to "improve" - fights between a bunch of punk 18-year-old Enderby kids fresh outta high school.

They were real jackasses, and then some of them stole our fucking coolers - getting some beer, some Baja Rosa, and my fucking smokies.

Bastards.

Chris caught one 16-year-old dick with a backpack full of our beer, but I was slightly shocked to find out the next morning that he didn't pummel him from there to Armstrong.

There were a few other wicked parts of course - too many to probably write into one post, but I'd say, without a doubt, the high water mark was our good friend and right fielder Sean.

Who, with nearly no prompting, stripped down and streaked the Canada Day fireworks in front of probably a couple hundred people and firefighters.

We gave him the tourney MVP just for that. And he fuckin' deserved it.

Same time next year, right?