August 2018 Monthly Entry
Next weekend from August 24-27 I will be in Sacramento, CA for Knights' annual Gathering weekend. My chapter is hosting it this year and we're staying at the Best Western Sandman Motel. If any of you live in the city or are visiting, come join us! I'll post about the weekend later.
The last half of July was very hot but I don't mind it much. Some nights I don't sleep with any covers but can still fall asleep. After Pride weekend, the smoke from the wildfires both here and Washington State have reached us. I considered last year's worse as you could actually smell the smoke subtly. The sun is, for the most part, covered and you can see it bright orange. Some days have been cooler for the last week or two.
Ash and I finished cleaning Montecito just before the BC Day weekend. He's spending the rest of the summer on vacation time. Surprisingly, he'll be visiting Sacramento around the same time I am. Would surprise me if we ran into each other LOL! After my school, I went to Burnaby Mountain for half of August. The changing of the old light system to LEDs was not only at Montecito, but was happening in practically all the schools. So it meant we had to inescapably deal with it. We scrubbed some classrooms and before I was transferred, we scrubbed the stairwells. I'm currently at Stoney Creek and found when I arrived, nothing has been done all summer. I found out that there was some summer program going on so it made it impossible to clean the school so no custodians were assigned to scrub, just clean up after the group and daycare. I can't remember the last time I was at Stoney Creek, perhaps last year cleaning the daycare during spring break. The first day I had one guy, Jose, help wipe a couple of classrooms. The last two before the weekend were about 5 of us cleaning and we almost have the bottom floor clean. It's been great! It may slow down this week but I believe we can get it done. One small side of the school, the side that has an elevator, is blocked off for construction reasons including the main parking lot. My hope is that after I get back from Sacramento for the final week of scrubbing, that I get back to Montecito to do a major clean up. After what the tradesmen and others have wrought upon the work Ash and I did, it's going to need some cleaning before the kids come back.
Instead of going to Vancouver Pride this year, I skipped it for the first time ever -since 2001- to go to Comox Valley, BC to visit one of my best (straight) friends since 1st grade! Marc and I hardly spoke as life got busy for us. One of the last times I saw him was probably in 2007 or 2008. I'm sure it was before his father passed away. When I got into contact with him in recent times, I found he no longer lived in the Delta/Surrey area that we grew up around but has instead become a fireman and moved to Comox, all the way on Vancouver Island. While he has never married, he had his first child last year in February with his (afterwards) ex-girlfriend. They share custody of his son, Payden. I sadly didn't get the chance to meet him this visit as the mother monopolized him. Anyways, Friday August 3rd my folks dropped me off at YVR and I took my Air Canada flight before 9pm to Comox, arriving at dusk before 10pm. The plane was a small, older model so it wasn't anything special but it's expected. Marc waited for me inside the airport and while he doesn't look that different from the last time I saw him, he definitely bulked up a bit and has tattoos on his arm. We hugged and noticed I was now bearded, plus I was wearing a retro gaming T-shirt ( the one Daddy Eric got me as a gift) which he liked. The drive to his house was very short. I got a tour of it and while small, it seemed cozy and just the right size for him. He had a room to play VR games on his PS4, which we would do later on. I would be sleeping down in the basement. It contained the stuff from his childhood that his mother saved up, including his bed! I saw some of his toys that I recognized and action figures. Of course, his 8-bit Nintendo console was there plus some of his games. When we got back up to the main floor, I handed him a gift: an NES Classic Mini. He loved it! We watched some YouTube videos including some first season AVGN ones, in which he laughed a bit. We had some potato chips and coca-cola he bought earlier. We went to bed sometime after midnight.
While I slept in quite a bit, Marc got up around an hour before I did and did some weed whacking outside his house. I had a shower and shortly after I sat down in the living room, he came inside and asked about having a late breakfast. He recommended going to the White Whale Restaurant so we drove over there sometime around noon. We had a nice view of the water and I ordered a teriyaki chicken rice dish, which was a good portion and delicious. There was a festival going on nearby and we decided to walk around it for around 10 to 15 minutes as it was a beautiful day. Marc then drove me around Comox and Courtney including the Armed Forces where he has had training for firefighting. He has pointed out what some of the buildings are and parts of the area that were for training purposes. He mentioned that there is a building in which those with clearance can get to see top-secret weaponry but of course, I don't have that clearance so I don't get to see it. Anyways, we then drove to Courtney and stopped off at a 7-11 to pick up something to drink. I picked up an orange sorbet Coke to keep me hydrated for the rest of the outing. We then went into the downtown district to find the HMCS Alberni Museum and Memorial as one of my Leatherdaddies, Lewis, runs it. He was woofy and explained the whole thing to us. After spending over 10 minutes walking around the museum, the three of us got to talking and eventually, Marc leaves us to be alone (smart guy, eh? LOL!) and we chatted for about 20 minutes. It was getting toward closing and he says he'll try to meet up the next day for a possible cigar and play session. I returned to Marc outside and we drove out of downtown and stopped off at a liquor store for him to pick up a few things. We returned home, I think by 5pm. We tried out the NES Classic Mini on his big screen TV and to relive our childhood, we first played Double Dragon II together. Given we both haven't played it in years, we weren't as good as we were before but I had a better memory of the game than he did (which was surprising since he originally owned the game!). We managed to beat it together, which was fun! We then played Super C, a game I originally owned. While I was the better player because I had a history of that game, even I struggled! But we both beat that game too. Marc wanted me to play Mega Man 2 as he mentions that he loves watching me play through the Mega Man series. I played and beat the game on the hardest difficulty. We then watched some Nostalgia Critic reviews, including some favourites like Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue and The Room. He showed me the movie, Super Troopers which was pretty funny. My favourite part was woofy actor Kevin Heffernan, playing the role of Rod Farva, gets hosed down naked and you briefly get to see his cock. Yummy! After a video or two, we went into a small room that had Marc's PS4 so I could try out his VR headset. The game he had me try out was Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, a game that is on-rails (literal) roller coaster shooter through a horror amusement park. It was very impressive and the video output in the headset is 3D so there is depth of field. I used two PS Move controllers and when I look at them through the headset, they appear as guns on the screen. Of course, moving my head means I am actually looking in that direction in the game. I spent nearly an hour on the game before we stopped and Marc went to bed. I stayed up on my laptop as I wanted to hack the NES Classic Mini and put some extra games on it. I was having problems with the hacking program and would continue to work on it until 3am in the morning. I gave up and went to bed myself.
Sunday I got up around 10am though Marc didn't get up until noon. During that time I was waiting for him, I found the problem as to why I couldn't get games onto the Classic Mini. I installed the program in the "Program Files (x86)" folder which, for some reason, prevented the program from utilizing it's features. I re-installed the program elsewhere and lo and behold, I was able to add the games I had onto the system, including Sega Master System and Game Gear games. Some I added were: Double Dragon I & III, Goonies II, Jackal, Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers 1 & 2, Contra, Dragon Warrior I-IV, Final Fantasy III (fan-English translation), Streets of Rage 2, Mega Man I & III-VI, Castlevania III, etc. For brunch, he took me to the Blackfin Pub and we sat out on the patio. He bought me a raspberry alcoholic drink which wasn't bad. I had a turkey BLT sandwich with fries and it was very good. We went to a forested park and walked around for under an hour, looking at the rapids and beautiful scenery. Much to Marc's surprise, there were lots of people around that it felt like his "secret spot" was complete public knowledge. Before home, we returned to around where the liquor store was but I had to go into Thrifty Foods to use the washroom. Marc requested an iced tea drink so I got him one plus a raspberry coke for myself. We went home and I spent the rest of the day playing Resident Evil VII: Biohazard on PS4. Marc really wanted me to play it so I thought I'd play it for an hour or two. But I ended up playing it for over 10 hours! Marc helped me out with a couple of bosses but he was laughing when I was getting pissed off at the controls and gameplay. To him, it was nostalgic to see me play and react to games in an angry, impatient matter. He went to bed around 1am and I finally shut the game off around 4 to 5am, and I was on the 5th of 6 of the game's chapters. Before bed, I did a little packing.
In the morning, I got up before Marc and after my shower, I took my bags upstairs. I unplugged the PS4 and plugged back in the NES Classic Mini to show Marc the games I put on it. One or two games didn't work but most I tested were working fine. I quickly showed him Goonies II, Streets of Rage 2, Final Fantasy III, Castlevania III, and Double Dragon. My flight was leaving at 2:35pm so we left the house at 1:30pm and we said our goodbyes when he dropped me off at the airport. Security was easy given it was a small airport and didn't have to wait that long until I boarded my flight back to YVR. My father picked me up and took me home. I look forward to a future visit with Marc and I hope to see his son finally.
My pay day on August 10th, I eventually made the last self-payment of the $2500 I paid out on the accident I had. It took awhile, but I'm glad it's over so I can now work on paying off my credit card on all the trips I've charged for this year. I pay my car insurance sometime next month and while I have enough to afford it, I'm not looking forward on what it's going to cost for year!
I've started Super Mario Galaxy and Final Fantasy Tactics but I've got a long way to go for both those games. I'm over halfway done the first season of Star Trek: Voyager so a review will be up in the future.
Last Movie: Deadpool 2 (Theatrical), Supertroopers (Netflix)
Last Book: The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Mere Christianity
Last Game: New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
Current Book: The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - The Screwtape Letters
Current Games: Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) & Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP).