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Special thanks goes out to Krista who snagged a sweet pair of aviators for me during her 1K trek around Ontario last week. I managed to find a pair a few months ago but they didn’t have mirrored lenses (a must). She plopped a nice pair of mirrored lenses as an early birthday present! Awww yeah! Thanks Krista and it will not be forgotten every time I’m on the beach.

My week off was pretty swell. It was great to go back home for a week instead of a weekend during Lumberjack Festival where you are always on the go. I think I shall do this more often as it gives me more of a fulfilling experience visiting and partaking in daily activities back home.

A few highlights:

– Taking a nap in Temagami on the way up. There’s nothing quite like it.
– Going to see Mike and Danny’s Dad play at the Legion. Now, for those of you in the know, the Legion was home to some good times back in Christmas when Mike, Danny and I had the opportunity to play downstairs for a few tunes. With that knowledge, I got my best t-shirt and jeans out and headed out for a good night on the town.

However, things got a little strange when we started heading upstairs. No problem, I thought, I can handle upstairs just as well as downstairs. However, SOMEONE failed to mention to me that it was a retirement party for a Ontario Provincial Police Detective and everyone was traipsing around in suits! I clearly felt out of place and I think the entire police force was giving me the eye. Lucky for me, beer was cheap and I didn’t really care after a few of those. The night was good and we managed to hit the dance floor a few times near the end of the night.

– Fishing was AMAZING. We headed out on Sunday, Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. We got our limit of fish every day in a fairly short (3-4 hours) time. We went up the Kapuskasing River.

The funny part about fishing was the first day we headed out, we got to our ‘spot’ and found a big red boat parked there and they were hauling them in. When they left, we headed into their spot and got our limit in no time.

The second day we headed out, we saw them leaving the lake so we did good in the same spot.

The third morning we headed out, we arrived to the launching area early and all was good. But then the big red boat shows up beside us! We give a friendly ‘hello’ but then the race was on! We managed to load the boat up and launch it with seconds to spare and got ahead of them! Dad gave us a little extra speed to ensure we made it out there first. All was good in the world and the river was like a mirror. I got up to take a picture at one point and my hat blew off! I told Dad to forget about it as I wanted us to win the race but he was the voice of reason so we let the other boat pass us and we grabbed my hat.

The miracle of the situation occurred when we arrived at the spot and they were nowhere to be found! As soon as we anchored they showed up as they must have overshot the location! Success! We were pretty stoked by the event and Dad managed to reel in 4 pickerel in 30 minutes! We had to work for the rest of the day for the other 4 but it was a beauty of a day so I wasn’t complaining too much.

– Let’s talk a little about how we had some balmy weather for the entire week! Mike and I sure know how to pick a good week off! We didn’t see a drop of rain all week long and rumour has it that Kapuskasing was the hottest place on the map sometime during the week with 38 degrees!
– I took Maureen out for some driving lessons during the week. I’d like to point out that she said I was a great teacher. Maybe I should think of branching out! All was well and there were a few mishaps but she did fine and I hope she continues to do so! It’s interesting to see a new driver on the road and the way their brain works. I remember not knowing all the actions to take or all the rules of the road but with more practice it becomes second nature. I think she was getting pretty frustrated when I started throwing out all sorts of things she had to think about: “Check the speed limit! Slow down towards the Stop sign! Signal where you are going! Watch for pedestrians!” It’s good to take everything in little chunks and build upon the knowledge you have.
– Ripping up some old interlocking brick and laying it back down was interesting. It was quite hot outside the day we started the job and near the end of the day the sun was beating down on us and we felt like we were in an oven. We managed to get the job done and it looks pretty good. I know realize that working in an office requires a break for mental relief as opposed to working on interlocking brick where your body needs a physical break. I was the sorest man that ever walked this Earth the following day and it was pretty hard for me to do much of anything! At least I know some concepts of laying brick now (as Eric seemed to want to utilize after hearing of my stories).

– It was good seeing Mom and Nanny over the week (as Nanny was spending a few weeks up North). I think Mom appreciated seeing me as I helped install the air conditioner.

– Dad and I headed down to Toronto (which is an excellent drive past North Bay with their new highway) to see Uncle Brent and company for the weekend. It was good times. Uncle Richard’s chili was in fine form and the Palmer Clan were their usual selves.

I don’t have one complaint about my vacation. Awesome weather, excellent times and all was good in the world. PLUS, I just realized that I have two long weekends coming up! Sweet!

If you’re out in the water anytime soon, watch out! You’re hearing from a gentleman who now has his Pleasure Craft Operator’s Card.

I’m heading home next week to do some fishing and help around the house. I had forgotten about the Operator’s Card hoopla and I figured I would like to take the boat for a spin so I crammed and only got 4 answers wrong. I must admit even though I heard the test was very simple, I was a little concerned at the different buoys and signs I had to study as you don’t encounter too many of those coming from the North and hanging around the lakes. Seems like they are geared towards the rivers around Ontario.

Either way, there were no questions about buoys which was a relief. Now that that’s out of my way, perhaps I’ll buy a boat soon enough!

Who knows how much this website will be updated in the next week so to give you your daily dose of Palmer, I recommend you check out the Archives and find some of your favourite posts! You can also make note of them in the comments section!

A special shout out to my cousin Troy who is on a fishing trip of his own this week in which I had to ditch due to the Roger Waters concert. It’s a good thing I did as the concert was originally on the Monday and it got moved to the Wednesday! Imagine if I had staked my claim for the trip and the concert got moved! Eek! Anyhow, hope the fish were a biting and the beers were a-flowing. I will see you next weekend in Toronto. Bring your guitar.

iplaying: The Bootleg Saint – Sam Roberts (Chemical City)

http://albumoftheday.com/facebook/

I found this through George Strombonopolous’s site about privacy concerns with FaceBook.

It was interesting but I must admit I think they are digging deeper than I would care (or probably any other FaceBooker would care). Heck, GMail and Blogger probably have ties like this to the companies they speak about.

iplaying: Morning Bell – Radiohead (Kid A)

Allllright! Check it out! There may be a Thundercats movie in the works!

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=20834

iplaying: Fly – Super Ray (Big Shiny Tunes 2)

I found this excellent website that incorporates Google Maps into a distance calculator for us jogger types (am I even remotely allowed to lump myself into this category? Shouldn’t there be a minimum 6 month wait time until I’m in the club?)

http://www.walkjogrun.net/

After reading Matt’s comment on the last post I realized I never told you about my car getting broken into.

Last Thursday night I grabbed my car like any other day from work and noticed my ashtray lid was open and closed it thinking nothing of it.

Friday morning I go outside and find a nice dent in my car door. Some moron must have ran into with a bike or something. Also, my trunk was open mysteriously so I chalked (sp?) that up to me pulling the latch the night before and forgetting about it.

On our way to Toronto last weekend, we were in Kingston and I was searching for my iTrip (iPod accessory). I could not find this thing and I knew it was in the car! Then I looked in the ashtray and realized that all my spare change was gone.

Then it dawned on me.

My car must have been broken into!

It wasn’t apparent at first because nothing else was stolen. There were CDs in the sunvisor and a cellphone in the middle console. One would think some of these things would be stolen.

Then a few days later Krista’s Dad tells her that he hopes my ownership papers weren’t stolen also. I never thought about that and sure enough, they are nowhere to be found (but they left the insurance papers – a sure sign that I will be a victim of identity theft for the next fifty years as the Ottawa Police told me when I phoned them up!)

So there you have it. I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones in that nothing of real substantial value was nabbed although I’m hoping the theft of the ownership papers won’t come to haunt me in the future.

iplaying: Gossamer – The Smashing Pumpkins (2007-05-28 – Landgraaf, Pinkpop Festival)

Here’s some handy advice to those who don’t want to be a victim of fraud.

Don’t leave your vehicle ownership papers in some easy to find place within your vehicle.

If so, thieves may steal it and use the information within it to do Lord knows what.

The Ottawa Police were mentioning how they could potentially use the information to get credit cards/bank account information in your name or Lord knows what else.

At first, I thought about carrying it in my wallet (which is a fine idea) but I’ve moved onto the more inventive solutions – I’ll hide it with my car jack in the trunk! No thief will think of checking there (unless they are reading this right now!).

I recommend that if you do keep your ownership paper in an easy to find place within your vehicle, do yourself a favour and hide it somewhere a little harder for anyone to discover!

iplaying: Pretty Pretty Star – Billy Corgan (The Future Embrace)