Barking Space

The Boys of Summer: In Spring!

Well, it definitely wasn’t summer. I took the bus up to my friend Brad’s place on Thursday night, and he picked me up from the bus station. We hung out for a bit, had some barley juice, and chatted about the plan. The original plan was to do a jaunt through the woods, covering between 25-30 km in three days.

However, heavy rains were called for. Rain is not usually something that would dissuade nutcases like us. Rain in the cold temperatures, on the other hand, made for a prospect that spoke of no relaxation whatsoever.

The plan changed from interior camping to cottage-dwelling with extensive day trips. This way, we’d have a warm place to hang out in at night and still enjoy the outdoors.

Brad then proceeded to give me my birthday present, which was a beautiful finished wooden paddle for canoeing. Very cool.

I slept well that night, as my bus ride was crapola salad.

Freaky Friday

Brad had some stuff to do on Friday morning, so I just took a hike for a while, picking up empty beer cans along the highway (which is scary). When Brad was done what he needed to do, I tossed the Beer cans in the recycling bin and we went over to the cottage.

Then we realized that we forgot bait for fishing, and went out to get some, and then went back to the cottage.

And so, we tried to figure out the best way to proceed with our afternoon.

Originally, we had thought to canoe to the places we were going to be fishing. However, this meant that hours would be spent canoeing, cutting into the amount of time we could realistically fish. Thus, we dragged the canoe to the portage by tying it to an outboard motor boat.

We reached the portage, tied off the motor boat, and hiked the canoe over to the next lake, paddled around looking for fish, and then portaged over to another smaller lake. No one was there, and it was quiet. We paddled around for a bit, taking a few test casts, and getting some nibbles.

Soon after, my line was straining against a Speckled Trout, I reeled it in, Brad netted it and tossed it into the bottom of the boat. We started to fish again when our prisoner began flopping around…

Brad: Hit it.
Jorge: What?
Brad: Hit it!
Jorge: With what?
Brad: I don’t know. The back of the net. Use the handle of the net.
[Jorge makes a very lame attempt to clobber the fish. He ends up getting blood all over his jacket (which was sitting on the middle thwart of the canoe) and guts on his jacket collar.]
Jorge: [Sheepishly.] I’m no good at this, and I can’t quite turn around…
Brad: Not a problem man. [Soundly whacks the fish on the right part of the skull, sending it to..er…sleep with the fishes?]

Side note: I’m not really very good at a lot of things that I would like to be good at. Fishing and boating and swimming, as well as a million other things. This just reinforces the fact that Brad is one of the coolest friends on the planet. Not only does he know a million times more about all of those things than I do, but he also never makes you feel inadequate for not knowing how to do something…

Brad caught one shortly after and noted that mine was larger.

It started spitting shortly after, and then the mild rain turned to hail. We were very happy that we didn’t go interior camping at this point.

Figuring that the hail was wrecking our chances of catching anything, we headed back to the portage point where we originally left the motor boat. On the way, we trolled around the interim lake with no luck. When we reached the portage, we decided to try a set of nearby rapids for fish. We had just pulled into the rapids and anchored ourselves to a cedar stump when I cast in and caught a Lake Trout. Brad, who was still putting his worm on the hook was excited, and put this fish in with the other ones.

In next to no time, Brad caught two more, but had to throw one back, as it was in fell in the slot limit (optimal breeding size).

We stayed for a bit longer, and then called it a good day of fishing and headed back to the ranch.

Brad showed me how to clean and fillet fish, and then proceeded to analyze the stomach contents (it was like CSI: Fish).

We saved the Speckled Trout for breakfast the next morning, and battered and fried up the Lake Trout using three different seasoning combinations. I made some sweet potato home fries, and we had screwdrivers to drink.

Despite the cold and odd precipitation, it was a great day.

Brad nasty bastard tricks of the day: Yanking my fishing line when I wasn’t looking during our first jaunt into the first lake. Making a loud noise as I was turning on the propane oven.

Brad pearl of knowledge for the day: Holding a fish is like holding a muscley bar of soap. You just have to make sure your grip is tight, and you’ll be all set.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more adventures of Brad and Jorge

Filed under: Anecdotes, Friends, Spaces Archive | 10 Comments »

More Entertaining Search Results

Here are some more things people typed that led them to my page from a search engine:

• shellie
• goad
• island of zanzibar
• crazy definitions
• barking space

I’d best be careful. If I keep checking these and writing them here it might become a new feature!

The Amazing Adventures of McLean and Figueiredo

Dave and I have known each other since high school. We met during our high school play (Bye Bye Birdie) and would take the late bus home together after rehearsals. We bonded due to our similar sense of humour and our love of Lloyd Bridges.

We kept in touch with each other over the years, and have always been there for each other as good friends should be. Dave and I eventually worked across the street from each other in downtown Toronto, and would go for Chai Latté once a week.

Dave has since moved to Ottawa, and I miss the big lug. Once or twice a week we will play Jedi Academy, and we chat on the phone once in a while (usually while soaking in the tub). At any given time, if you mention his name, a dozen stories will pop into my head. I will relate some of them now…

The Rafting Adventure

You already know that Dave helped me out when I was in a pickle (or was that helped me out with my pickle?). The day after the barfy night, we all boarded the raft that would carry us on our first of many rafting adventures on the Ottawa river. The first series of rapids is known as McCoy’s Chute (by the Wilderness Tours Adventure Company, anyway). It’s relatively mild, but once every couple of minutes someone will get rocked by this sucker. We had spent a little while watching several rafts go through, and it didn’t look so bad. So when we hit the Chute, we never expected to be hit as hard as we were. The raft almost folded. Everyone in the front got thrown back (Dave got essentially catapulted, and slid all the way back and off the boat. The movie footage is hilarious).

Dave wore tearaway pants and running shoes. The poor guy’s pants ballooned up with water, dragging him down the river like so much flotsam. He was eventually picked up by a kayak rescue guy (Come here often?) and dreaded the next rapids. He wanted to go home, and no one can blame him.

However, he never went home. Instead he had a great time for the rest of the trip. So much fun that we ended up going twice more after that.

The Early Departure to Sleepyland

Dave is younger than I am. Dave used to throw kickass parties (He still does).

Thus, when I was at his parties, I would invariably be one of the older guys there.

Dave threw a big party once when I was in first year university. He and quite a number of folks there had not gone to university yet, so I was relating a lot of my experiences about it to them. A lot of them were not so much afraid of University as apprehensive. They didn’t know what to expect.

Dave was mixing drinks that night. I had Black Russians, White Russians, and Evil White Russians. Another one of his friends was mixing Caesars, and of course, there was beer. I drank other things that night, but suffice to say I was a little tipsy.

Indeed, I was right hammered. Remembering conversations from earlier in the evening, I decided to calm everyone’s fears about university by making a speech about how you weren’t just a number in university and how it’s not so bad and blah blah blah. I thought that everyone was hanging on my slurred words. I don’t see how they had a choice, as I was speaking at the top of my lungs.

I finished up my dialogue and then went to bed. At 23:30.

I have never lived this down.

More adventures to come…

Filed under: Anecdotes, Friends, Spaces Archive | 12 Comments »