We ended up at a place called Pete’s Duelling Piano Bar, which, as the name implies, was a bar that featured open mic spoken-word poetry. Just kidding, it was a bar that had two duelling pianists, playing customers’ song requests. The highlight was a bidding war that happened about an hour into the pianists’ set, when a drunken lady requested – wait for it – Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.” I don’t know why drunken women love this song, but they do. The song is, essentially, the vodka & cranberry juice of jukebox requests: it’s a safe and obvious choice, it goes down easy, and it gets you up and partying pretty quickly. Much like Vodka & Cran, I used to enjoy this song as a saccharine, guilty pleasure, but it’s just been overplayed and overdone, and I want nothing more to do with it.

Luckily, we had a saviour, in the form of a well-fed, sport-coated feller, who was having none of it. The woman had paid $10 for her Journey song to be played, but Grouchy Von Sportcoat, bless his heart, gave the pianist $20 to stop playing the song, immediately. It was a heroically dick-ish move. Our table cheered, as did most other dudes at the bar. But then, of course, the inevitable happened, and another guy swooped in, like a knight in shining armour (his shining armour consisting of a beet-red face, pleated khakis, and a Blackberry holster), and gave the pianist $40 to continue the song. We were pretty bummed, as I’m sure were the world’s millions of starving children, who had better ideas for how to spend 40 dollars.

After Pete’s, we headed back down to South Congress street and hit up the Continental, on the advice of one of the tubists we had met that afternoon, who was a bartender there. The Continental is one of the, if not ‘the’, great live music venues in Austin, which is kind of a big deal. Playing that night was the Dale Watson band, an Alt. Country Bluegrass act, and they were superb. Dale is a gracefully-aging Rockabilly legend, with the requisite wifebeater shirt, greying pompadour, and tons of ‘ink’. He’s one of those elder statesmen of coolness that you hope you, yourself, will be one day, but know you never will. That’s ok, though.

Apologies for the grainy image: Dale Watson Band at work, crankin' out a boot-stompin' good time for the crowd

Halfway through his set, Dale introduced the band’s stand-up bass player as Mike Judge. The name sounded familiar, and then I realized it – Mike Judge, genius comedy writer and creator of “Beavis and Butthead,” “King of The Hill,” and the cult hit film, “Office Space,” was playing bass for Dale Watson. It’s not enough for Mike Judge to be a young and wealthy comedy legend, he now has to play bass – and play it well. That sort of info makes you take stock of your own life accomplishments, or lack thereof. Regardless, I was too excited to be in his presence to really care about such navel gazing, as the picture below indicates.

Me and Mike Judge. Yes, I realize A) how gay i look, grinning like an idiot, and B) how much Mr. Judge does not want to be in this photo with me. Too bad. Let him cry into his 900 thread-count pillow, bought with King Of The Hill residuals. Seriously, though, he was super nice.

The owner of the Continental, a nice guy and another hipster elder statesman, was a hotrod collector as well. Being, as I am, a certifiable car nut, we got to chatting about his collection, which included a gorgeous, rusted-out ‘49 mercury parked outside the club. Seeing my enthusiasm about cars, he recommended we check out the Austin Speed Shop on our way out of the city the next day, and so we did. We woke up the next morning, checked out of the hotel, and made our way to the Speed Shop.

Front office of the Austin Speed Shop. Evan's "Ron Burgundy" moustache is almost as badass as the rusted-out 'Rod behind us. Almost.

It was basically like your typical, local independent garage, if your local garage did ground-up restorations of hot rods, from the 1920’s up to the 1970’s, with paint jobs more intricate than what’s found in the Sistine Chapel, and more metal fabrication than is found in some skyscrapers. The cars were simply incredible, and we were pretty excited that they let us walk around to check them out. I couldn’t get any decent photos of the cars in the shop, but if you check out their site, you can see their work. Pretty incredible stuff. Below is a link to their actual shop and their ongoing project cars, including a car being built for Jesse James. Whatever you think of the man, he has good taste in iron:

http://www.austinspeedshop.com

Anyhow, that was it for Austin, and Texas, pretty much. Following our visit at the Shop, we hopped in our decidedly non-hot rod rental Chevy, and headed back to Houston, and then finally home to Canada. We came, we saw, we ate BBQ, we two-stepped, we fired guns, we floated, we met some great locals, and we departed the Lone Star State with a true appreciation for the surprising cultural variety inherent in the whitest Nation-within-a-Nation we’d ever visited. Yeee-haaawww, indeed.

After shooting up a storm at Red’s, we drove an hour SW of Austin to New Braunfells to indulge in that most leisurely of watersports: river tubing. This is where you lie in an inner tube, and let the natural current of the river carry you to a point downstream – in our case, a point about 5km’s further down the Guadalupe River – all the while taking in both the splendour of your natural surroundings, and inexpensive beer. Note: you can’t really drink expensive imported beer while you tube – the inherent pretentiousness of drinking imported beer totally flies in the face of the purity and simplicity of the sport tubing. And yeah, I would definitely term it a sport, because in between the long periods of relaxed, serene flotation, you occasionally need to dispense with a concentrated burst of frantic paddling in order to be properly positioned to flow through the rapids. It’s not unlike curling in that regard, except you’re actually riding the slidey thing, and you’re not dressed like your 5th grade lesbian gym teacher.

We did it through a proper tube/rafting rental outfit, and they set us up with all the kit we needed, and some stuff didn’t (see below for examples), as well as lifts to and fro the pick-up and drop-off points. Unless you’re going with well-equipped locals, this is definitely the way to go.

Evan and Guy, logging in the hours, so you don't have to

Look closely at the low hanging branch, and you'll see some x-rated reptilian activity. You can't keep a good turtle down.

And what a way it was – especially after, about 30 minutes into our excursion, we floated up to a group of friendly, bikini-clad tubists (tubistas?), who were celebrating a birthday in their group, and had their own, makeshift floating fiesta in full swing, so we joined them for the remainder of the 3-hour float down the Guadalupe. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend one’s birthday than to lazily float down a river with your best mates and a few cold bevvies in tow. Texans really do have the important stuff figured out.

For your future reference, here is a list of what’s required for a successful tubing excursion:

- a river
- an inner tube
- bodyweight
- alcohol

And here’s a list of optional items that we saw fit to include on our trip:

- bathing suit
- waterproof camera
- sunscreen (you can opt out if you want to achieve that “local” look)
- baseball cap (preferably with camouflage pattern, or logo of your preferred, value-priced alcoholic beverage (bonus points if your hat contains both of these elements))
- resealable container of beef jerky
- beer coozy
- cooler & additional inner tube (for sealed beverage transportation and temperature optimization)

Optional items that we did without:

- inner tube insurance (the outfitters actually tried to sell me this)
- self respect (I actually thought we had brought this along, but I realized I was mistaken when all three of us decided to pee in our inner tubes, rather than do the slightly classier move of “abandoning ship” to relieve ourselves in the open water).

I feel like tubing really needed its own entry. It was that awesome. We’ll wrap up Texas properly tomorrow. Yeeee-haaw.

For the best breakfast in Austin, more than one person had heartily recommended “Juan In A Million” – a quaint Mexican restaurant in East Austin. So we motored out there, and were greeted by the jolliest manager/owner I’d ever encountered. The man seemed genuinely delighted that we’d decided to dine at his establishment – as if there weren’t a continuous stream of willing patrons waiting to enter, which there was. Think of the snobbiest maitre d’ at the most exclusive French restaurant, and this Mexican gentleman was the exact opposite. We all went for the “Don Juan” breakfast – a comically huge mishmash of eggs, potatoes, bacon, tortilla flour, and cheese, all for the low price of $4.99. It was unbelievably good. So good, in fact, that we felt compelled to leave nothing on our plates. This was bad, because the heaping plates contained roughly twice as much food as a normal-sized human should ever consume in one sitting. Needless to say, by the end of the breakfast, I felt enormously satisfied, seriously bloated, nauseous, whale-like, and fairly immobile. I did not feel like Don Juan. I felt like a fattened a hog, and I was proud of it. I felt like a Texan.

After Juan’s, we hopped back into White Heat and headed out to Red’s Indoor Range. Yes, we were going to shoot us some guns. As one might expect of a Texan gun store, the walls are lined with the sort of heavy artillery you’d previously seen only in high-budget action movies. Hunting rifles, shotguns, automatic assault rifles with laser-sights…it was pretty intense. It was the visual response to the question “why kill a deer with a clean, single shot from a hunting rifle, when you can send him to his maker with two dozen rounds of rapidly-dispensed exploding tip bullets? That’s progress for you.

After a quick lesson in firearm safety from one of the salesmen, and then laughing uncomfortably at a weird joke he made about killing infidels, we were granted access to the firing range. The three of us shared the first gun we rented – a .22 caliber revolver. Pretty much the Toyota Camry of pistols – simple, reliable, unexciting, but very effective. Guy and Evan both managed to cause decent damage to their targets with the revolver, but I’d failed miserably. Would this be the space shuttle landing simulator all over again? What was wrong with me? I’ll tell you, dear reader, what was wrong: it wasn’t enough firepower, apparently, as when we stepped up to the more-powerful Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, I ended up nailing the centre of the target, as if I’d been doing so for years. I am, apparently, a stone-cold mofo; a smooth operator.

Actually, I wasn’t. Handling and firing a Glock was exciting, but also deeply unsettling. I was constantly aware of the amount of firepower – and, indeed, KILLING power – i was harnessing in the palm of my hand. It’s amazing how much noise and how much recoil the little thing is capable of. It’s a strange feeling – perhaps addictive to some, but certainly not to me. If I was sure of anything after firing it, it was that I never wanted to get shot by a Glock. I feel like that would be enormously unpleasant.

After emptying a dozen rounds into the target with the 9mm, it was time to trot out the big stick – the AK. The Kalashnikov AK-47 has been, for decades, the preferred rifle of countless armies, militias, terrorists, child soldiers, and, today, Red’s Indoor Firing Range. This gun’s most impressive trait was not its power – there are surely bigger and badder guns out there – its how mechanically simple it is. Bullets go in here, pull back a spring-loaded lever there, reload here, point there, and fire away. You can even submerge it in water, shake it dry, and it will still work. Brilliant. No wonder everyone uses it. It was fun to shoot – all you had to do was make sure the butt of the rifle was firmly tucked under your arm, otherwise the gun’s kickback would overwhelm you. That said, i did relish the idea of getting a visible bruise from firing a too-powerful machine gun – how awesome a weekend war story would that make

Stranger: “Dude, what’s with your bruised shoulder?”

Me: “Oh, haha, yeah, that was from the recoil of the AK-47 I was firing over the weekend. No big deal really. How was your weekend? Get up to anything?”

The writer getting into character

We left Red’s $120 poorer, but undoubtedly richer in life experience. The main take-aways for us were 1) guns are bad ass, 2) guns are scary, and 3) when at all possible, it’s best to avoid getting shot by a gun. Indeed, words to live by.

Tomorrow…Tubing and Texas Wrap-Up!

This gentleman was "sacked up" and ready for his NASA tour

Incidentally, the guided tour of space shuttle mission control, of which a blurry picture is shown below, was very cool.

NASA Mission Control with one non-astronaut blocking my perfect photo

Just as neat was seeing a decommissioned Saturn V rocket – the rocket that was used for most of the Apollo missions of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The Saturn V is staggeringly huge. Laid on its side, it’s about the size of a 30-story office building, or abouthalf the size of the “Monster” burrito I would be served at Freebird’s restaurant in College Station, Texas.

Saturn Rocket

It was all very impressive. There were, however, two personal disappointments with the Space Center: 1) While Ev and Guy, both trained pilots, had flawless landings at their turns with the space shuttle flight simulator, I crashed badly. Twice.

The frustrated author looks on in envy as Pilot Evan comes in for his 2nd smooth landing. Showoff.

2) The gift shop was selling a disturbing amount of Star Wars merchandise. Why does NASA need to sell this in their gift shop? It’s just like the Museum of Natural History selling Flintstone action figures. If you’re an impressionable 9-year-old (or naive 31-year-old), what’s to prevent you from believing, in seeing all the plastic Light Sabres and Darth Vader figurines, displayed next to factual astronomy books, that Star Wars is actually steeped in reality, and things like R2D2 robots and Light Sabres are actually NASA creations? Sure, one could argue, that’s when parenting and education ought to come into play, but it still seems like a bit of selling out on NASA’s part. Also, on a more serious note, the gift shop was selling astronaut freeze-dried ice-cream for $10.99 per packet, which is a gigantic rip-off.

All that said, it was an excellent first-hand view of the space program, and we felt like we had fulfilled our educational needs for the trip. Now it was time to get “crunk” with Willie Nelson.

About 90 miles north of Houston was our next destination: College Station, Texas: home of Texas A & M (Go Aggies!) and, on that day, a Willie Nelson outdoor concert. We dropped our bags off at the Holiday Inn, and walked* over to the Wolf Penn Amphitheater fairgrounds, where there were 3 events taking place on that day: The main event was the Willie Nelson concert, with special guest opening act “.38 Special,” a 1980’s bar rock band famous for a string of power-ballad hits (or perhaps just one hit, I’m not even sure). The other two events were a BBQ competition and a competition to see whose dog could jump the farthest off a dock and into a pond. Yeah, that‘s a thing. Unfortunately, we’d arrived too late to witness either the BBQ cook-off or any airborne canines, and Guy was inconsolable about missing the dogs (2 of Guy’s favourite things are dogs that can jump real high, and dogs that wear sunglasses).

*A quick note about walking anywhere in College Station, Texas: it’s just not done. The lady at the front desk of the Holiday Inn acted as if we had death wishes in considering walking from the hotel to the fairgrounds, which turned out to be a 15 minute stroll. No joke, she looked at us as if we’d intended to scale Everest in shorts and flip flops. It explains a lot about the epidemic of obesity in Middle America.

When we did get to the amphitheater, we immediately knew we’d be in good hands, because the first thing we saw past the ticket booth was a cart selling homemade beer koozies. A beer koozie (or “schnootzie”, or “beer cozy”) is the soft thermos you slip onto your beverage in order to keep your drink at optimal serving temperature. They are made of various synthetic, insulating materials, and the best versions usually come printed with either a witty saying (my favourite: “But these ARE my dress clothes!!!”), or a depiction of majestic wildlife. Going to an outdoor country music concert without a koozie in tow is akin to showing up for a high-noon showdown at the OK Corral with an empty six-shooter – though at least at the OK Corral, you’d be put out of your misery pretty quickly.

A random photo of the coolest thing I've ever scene attached to a tow hitch. G.I. Joe is apparently alive and well, and he likes to go fan boating after eating some BBQ. Booya.

As for the BBQ, while we did miss the competition, we decided we had to try to find a way to score some leftovers from one of the teams that were still milling around the designated RV/trailer area. It was quite the scene, with RV’s and pickups as far as the eye could see, each with picnic tables, lawn chairs, competition-grade BBQ smokers, the odd swamp boat (shown above), and “washers” games in full swing*, not to mention the sweet, bewitching aroma of homemade BBQ permeating the air.

BBQ Nirvana

Sure enough, we found one BBQ team – and they were definitely a team, sporting matching hunting camouflage uniforms-  who graciously offered us a few plates of their competition-grade smoked BBQ brisket. It was easily the best brisket I’d ever had (sorry Grandma Betty). We also chatted with a nice, middle-aged Texan, who worked as an energy researcher for the state, and offered us a pretty compelling argument against clean burning coal and, quote, “that hybrid automobile bullshit.” Point taken, sir!

*FYI “washers” is a game of skill whereby a player must toss a small round metal ring (a washer) from a set distance into one of 3 assigned holes. It combines the intensity of lawn darts, the skill of bocce, the camaraderie of team sport, and the adrenaline rush of…right, that’s going a bit far, but it appeared to be a fun way to pass the time before intoxication set in and/or one was ready for another heaping plate of BBQ.

After thanking Team Camo for their generous hospitality, we exited the RV area and found for ourselves an agreeable patch of grass for prime Willie Nelson watchin’.

On the road again...

Here are 3 quick facts about Willie Nelson on tour:

1) he has a surprising amount of energy for a man of his advanced age.

2) He does not do encores – the man gets it right the first time around.

3) The side of Willie’s tour bus has the best air-brushed mural I have ever seen, and I consider myself a connoisseur of this art form: it was a depiction of a head-dressed Indian chief atop his steed, and that horse was mounting a mare. Yes, it was awesome. See below for grainy picture.

Best. Airbrushed mural. EVER.

The other genuine surprise of the concert was what we saw between .38 Special and Willie Nelson’s performances, where one might have expected the organizers to have shoe-horned in a local bluegrass act or perhaps a lassoing demonstration. Instead, a DJ piped in Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock” at full blast, while a person appeared on stage, dressed entirely in LED lights, “shooting” lasers at the crowd. Think of a glow-in-the-dark Michelin Man, and you have the idea. Holy hell, it was amazing. Daft Punk robo-hijinks serving as an intro for Willie Nelson seemed about as likely to happen as a ninja fight scene erupting in the middle of a Jane Austen novel. But it happened. And we were there. Was the effect amplified by the countless Budweiser “Tall Boys” we had been downing over the 6 hours we had been there? That’s hard to say. But show me a grown man who isn’t still impressed by a laser-shootin’ robot, and I’ll show you a liar.

OMG LASER ROBOTS!!!!

Anyhow, the night ended well indeed. Some friendly locals took us on a night tour of College Station. There was two-steppin’ at Daisy Duke’s, there was tomfoolery in Bottle Cap Alley outside the Dixie Chicken, there were wild, drunken promises made to ride horses all the way back to Canada. All in all, it was a good day.

Stay tuned for Vol. III – bat swarms, guns, and beer-fueled tubing down the Guadalupe river…

The trip hit a snag before we even left Montreal, as Guy realized, the night before we were supposed to leave, that his passport had expired 2 days earlier. This was not atypical Guy behaviour (and I must admit not atypical Dan behaviour, either), but it seemed like it would be damning news for our trip.

Luckily, Guy was able to get an emergency passport renewal by 9am the next morning. The trip was on. The only catch was that Guy’s friends, whom he had put down as references on his passport application, had to stand by the phone and answer when the passport official would call, sometime before 9am. Sure enough, I got the call, and so I tried to adopt as professional-sounding a voice as my hungover self could muster. Here is the conversation, verbatim:

“Good morning, I’m calling from Passport Canada to confirm you know Guy Georgeson.”

“Yes, we’re friends.”

“And for how long have you known him?”

“I’d say 8 years”

“And what is Guy’s profession?”

“He’s a film and television editor”

“And what does Guy look like?”

PAUSE

“um, I guess he’s about 6 feet tall. Brown hair. Kind of bushy, brown hair. Brown eyes, I think?”

“any other description you can offer?”

At this point, I’m panicking, thinking he’s not convinced that I know Guy. I’m thinking I’ve derailed our Texas adventure, and I’m just not thinking clearly, so I say this:

“Uhhh, I dunno, I guess he just looks like a typical white guy, you know?”

-LONG, 5-SECOND PAUSE-

“Ok, thanks very much.”

CLICK!

I couldn’t imagine a more idiotic description – maybe the one the prostitutes in the movie, “Fargo,” give to the police when they’re asked to ID a suspect (“Oh ya know, he was just funny-lookin.”). But this wasn’t a movie. We wanted to go to Texas, damnit.

As it turns out, there was nothing to fear, as 20 minutes later Guy called to confirm his passport was ready. Yeee-haawwww.

The only thing worth mentioning about the flight into Houston was how we got bumped up to 1st class, and how I almost screwed this up. It turned out Evan’s colleague was piloting the Houston flight, and he told us that since 1st class was half-empty, we could sit there, so long as we didn’t draw attention to ourselves or our otherwise-marked tickets. I did not get this memo. All I heard was Guy whisper quickly to me as we entered the cabin, “Dude, remember, you’re seat 3D.” I was confused.

I parked myself in 3D, and in a fairly loud voice, announced “Hey, I think you’re wrong, my ticket reads ‘18F,’ not ‘3D‘. Are you sure we’re supposed to be here?“ As the rest of the 1st class cabin heard this, Guy and Evan turned and looked over, with a mixture of incredulity and pure rage in their eyes…it was then that I caught on to the plan. Guy then said, in a strained voice, “NO, DAN, CHECK YOUR TICKET AND YOU’LL SEE.” Finally, I‘d caught on.

Anyhow, it worked out well. We stayed in 1st class, and I made sure I asked for extra peanuts with my Bloody Mary, and that I flirted with the stewardess, all to convince my neighbouring passengers that I knew how to handle myself up front in the fancy seats, and belonged there with them.

We got into Houston in the evening and headed straight for a proper steak dinner at 3 Forks Steakhouse. The steaks were fantastic. The service was even better: one of our waiters was an older gentleman who was solely in charge of our bread supply, and he was extremely entertaining. Every time we asked for more bread, he’d chuckle and wink at us, and say something like “I hear that, my brother! More bread is on the way – you keep eatin’ it, I’ll keep bringin’ it!!” It was as if we were involved in a hushed,  illegal transaction, every time the roll basket ran empty – like “bread” was code for something. To be fair, the bread was very good. Maybe there was something in it?

After dinner, we hit a few of the bars in town: The Flying Saucer and then Notsuoh (‘Houston’ backwards). The Saucer was a typical, enormous college bar. There was a ridiculous amount of “collectible” crap on the walls, and they had a lot of interesting beers on tap. A few minutes in there confirmed my theory that the more crap a bar had on its walls, the duller the bar’s atmosphere. So after a quick pint we walked over to Notsuoh, which seemed to beHouston’s hipster dive. It was very cool. There was some good live funk/soul music playing, but we didn’t last long. Guy stopped to chat with the DJ – a nice black guy from New Orleans. As we said goodnight to him, I attempted to give him a fist bump, but he just looked at it and chuckled. Clearly, I was even whiter than I thought I was. He offered me a handshake and I gratefully accepted. All in all, it was an excellent 1st night in Texas.

Stay tuned to Vol. II for tales of spaceships, laser shows, flying dogs, BBQ, and more…

Honestly, The A-team was a great TV show of my youth, but all of the feel-good, retro nostalgia and ironic reverence of Mr. T pales in comparison to how freaking cool this box is. How are you not supposed to make a “VROOM!” sound every time you open this thing? It would be exhausting. But so worth it.

But even for the more obscure sports, there exist super-fans, even if they don‘t necessarily wear their passion on their sleeves. Take the guy who sat next to me and my dad during the Vancouver Olympic Women’s Fgure Skating Semi-final. Sporting a ball cap, a Habs jersey, a beard affixed to a leathery face, and a gruff voice bellowing out a fine, Joual accent, he looked and sounded like your typical French Canadian long-haul truck driver.

So with his atypical appearance (at least for a figure skating spectator), it was all the more surprising that this guy proceeded to wax poetic on the beauty of “le patinage artistique” for the better part of 10 minutes, educating us on all the minutiae; from the scoring system, to the estimated cost of the outfits, to why the triple axle was no longer sufficient for medal contention. My dad and I just sat there in total amazement. The guy new literally everything there was to know about figure skating. It was not unlike listening to your flamboyantly gay hairdresser tell you how excited he was to undertake his upcoming weekend project of installing a four barrel Holley carburetor in his classic ‘69 Camaro – you know, so the big-block motor he installed the previous weekend could breathe better.

I can’t say I became a bigger fan of figure skating on that night, but I definitely realized then and there that a Habs jersey can be worn pretty much anywhere.

The kicker is it was in quite possibly the WASP-iest place on earth: the Brewhouse in Whistler, B.C.

It was as delicious as it was confusing, sort of the gastro-cultural equivalent of perhaps catching this guy here, throwing down a 1080 McTwist in Whistler’s nearby halfpipe.

I had also been putting off teaching myself the entire Lynyrd Skynyrd song catalogue on my acoustic guitar, and felt that the time had come to pick up my dusty “axe” and make good on this commitment. Bode Miller might have been lying in agonizing wait for 4 years for his elusive gold medal, but I would not watch him compete until I had mastered the guitar solo on “Free Bird.”

Finally, I had just purchased my first set of cross country skis, and before Pops presented me with the offer to join him in Vancouver, I had every intention of using the days of late February to break in my skis, perfect a decent waxing technique, work on my upper-body form, etc., etc.

Sure, one might argue, cross country skiing is an enjoyable hobby, but it pales in comparison to watching Olympic-level cross country skiers battling out on the world stage. For most people, yeah, I guess so. Not for this guy. So it was with a heavy heart that I begrudgingly accepted the offer to go see the Olympics.

Of course, I’m kidding. The Olympics were incredible. That they were in our home country and in beautiful Vancouver made it a truly unforgettable experience. On top of that, we were invited there as VIP guests of a big Canadian company, who had pulled out all the stops for us, putting us up in a swank hotel, feeding us food and drink at every turn, and affording us special access to meet various athletes, celebrities, luminaries of Canadian business, and, of course, tickets to see the events themselves.

Indeed, what I learned about corporate-sponsored events is this: if viewing a concert given by a c-list Canadian pop star is merely bearable, then viewing said concert whilst downing free cocktails and edible-by-hand lamb chops, all served by pretty waitresses who are forced to banter with you, makes the concert amazing. Really amazing. But more on that later.

The next few days, I’ll be describing to you the highlights of what I saw, who I met, what I ate, and where I went. If at any time you find this dull and not entertaining, feel free to log out and not read anything I write ever again – honestly, I won’t be upset: I saw the Gold medal hockey game and watched Canada win in overtime – I’m not going to be upset about anything for a long, long time.

Stay tuned, amigos.