GW Ontario Meet -- Jan/Feb 2009: Aftermath/RecapSarevok's plane landed at 5pm on Thursday and I ended up having to shovel out a parking spot at the airport because there was so much ice and snow that the car almost got stuck. A great way to start a winter meet. His plane was also late because of "Air traffic delays" but when he arrived he said that it was actually because his plane from Toronto to London, Ontario needed to be de-iced before it could take off. I think they use some sort of antifreeze solution or something.
I can't remember exactly what we did on thursday night but it was just the two of us and my roommates. Probably played a bit of 360 or something.
On Friday we woke up, burned the AVGN DVD collection 2, disc 3 and watched a few hours of outtakes, commentaries, and unused clips. It passed the time but people weren't showing up until about 2pm so we broke out the rock band. Sarevok had never played before but was half-decent at the drums and worked his way up to Hard difficulty with a little practise. We were still playing that when Mamamack and her brother showed up. They brought a whole bunch of bedding, etc with them in case anyone didn't plan for it to be cold (it got pretty cold). We played some more rock band until a few of my friends showed up (Whitefire and Draykon), a little bit after that the carpool from Toronto arrived which consisted of The Dude, Cam (The Dude's buddy), Inflamed Penii, FlowerPower, and Noz.
After everyone had a chance to drop off their stuff and get settled we headed out for Fleetway for some bowling, HZ joined us as well. Lucky for us we arrived just in time to get three lanes of cosmic bowling which is exactly like normal bowling except they turn on a bunch of blacklights. We played two rounds (I won the first and I think Mamamack's brother won the second) and then split up to play some mini glo-golf (just like regular mini golf except with glowing golf balls and black lights..) and pool. The mini golf course was tough and out of the seven people that played only one of us got a hole in one and it was on the last hole.
After that we came back to my house, had a few drinks, and called it a night.
The next day we woke up late, went to Tim Horton's for breakfast, played some board games, and killed some time until Bart and his girlfriend showed up. When they got here we all piled into a few cars and headed to the Covent Garden Market which is right smack downtown. We parked in the underground parking and bought supper there. I think there's something like 12 or so different places to get a meal as well as like seven more that you can get snacks, drinks, and dessert at. HZ and I brought our skates so we did a bit of recreation out on the ice surface there. It was pretty fun to skate again as I haven't done any in about six or so years. After that we grouped back together, walked to Head 2 Head games and paid Ash a visit. I think he was genuinely surprised to see all of us there. The next stop was Laser Quest (a laser tag place) where we had a single game that was a blast. I thought I was doing pretty good but there was this kid there, probably about 13 or 14 who shot me four times in a row just seconds before the game was over. I think he was hacking because he didn't miss a single shot on me. Anyways...
We came back to my house and the drinking partying began again. Earlier that day we had pre-ordered UFC 94 and it started at 10pm so we watched that while we partied. A few of us got pretty drunk but we managed to keep things under control.
The next day (Sunday) was the end of the meet in London. The carpool went back to Toronto and my friends had gone the night before. However, Sarevok and I had been invited to Mamamack's house for a few days so we packed a bag each and piled into her car along with her brother. It was just over two hours from my house to hers. Sarevok slept through the drive but first we had to McGuyver a solution to the sunlight that was coming in through his window. Mamamack dropped the three of us off at her house and had to leave pretty much right away to go conduct a practise for her marching band. Sarevok and her brother played some ps3 while I got some exercise in.
There's a neighbourhood boy that shovels everyone's driveways but he gets paid up front or something so Mamamack's laneway was pretty rough with ice and snow. I found her shovel and got rid of almost all of it. I should have taken a before and after picture but I had forgotten my camera in London.
Mamamack returned a few hours later and was accompanied by Autumn who had been staying at her grandparents' house for the weekend. She was initially a mixture of shy and intrigued as I don't think she sees many strangers in her house. That night Sarevok and I got to watch Cars for the first time. Autumn had probably seen it a few more times than us as she could recite and act out the first five and last five minutes of the movie perfectly. It was pretty impressive to watch.
The next morning we all slept in (Mamamack was surprised that Autumn slept for a full 12 hours) and headed off to a Husky (truckstop) to meet Mamamack's dad. We had lunch/breakfast there and then headed out to a plaza with a grocery store and a Best Buy. We went to Best Buy first and Mamamack was going to buy LittleBigPlanet and a second ps3 controller (so that she could play co-op with Autumn). However she wasn't able to because Sarevok and I had already purchased it for her before she got to the checkout. We tried it out when we got back to her house and Autumn seemed to enjoy it for the ten minutes that it held her attention, then she was putting together a puzzle.
A few hours after that some of Mamamack's friends and family showed up for a cocktail party. In the end there were seven adults and three toddlers. We sat around the dining room table eating qeusadillas and brownies and had some good conversations. That night (after everyone had gone) Mamamack and Sarevok played at least an hour of LBP (it was also a hit over the weekend in London) and kept saying "Ok, this is the last level then we should get some sleep." They did that about ten times before we all called it a night.
The sun woke me up the next morning (at 6:30am) and I think I didn't get back to sleep for an hour. Then we all woke up at 8am or so which was later than we had planned. We were hoping to be out the door by 9am at the latest as we were going on a road trip to Toronto (about a 4.5 hour drive) to meet up with four of the five people that came to the meet from Toronto. However, Mamamack told us that Autumn woke up with a fever and that we couldn't leave her at a daycare in case she got worse. Mamamack did manage to get Autumn to take some tylenol and, by the time we were getting ready to leave, the fever had mosly subsided so we decided to do the next best thing; bring Autumn with us to Toronto.
We packed along colouring books, snacks, Mamamack's laptop and a handful of movies to keep Autumn entertained. She ended up wanting to watch Star Wars IV and gleefully pointed out Darth Vader every time he made an appearance. We hit a bit of weather about an hour outside of Toronto but managed to get parked and get our day passes for the TTC well before we thought we would.
Autumn really likes trains but had never been on one so the subway ride to the meeting spot was something she really enjoyed. Noz, The Dude, and Cam were waiting for us at a Second Cup. We took a short break there, a few people tried the coffee and said it was horrible, and then we walked a few blocks to Honest Ed's which is a giant flea market that sprawls off in different directions and is on three different levels and multiple elevations. It was pretty cool and some of us picked up a few things there. After that we walked to Kensington Market and met up with Inflamed Penii. We took another short break there (Autumn refused to walk and it took us a good 30 minutes to get there) before heading out to a place called Sneaky Dee's for supper. We stayed there for a bit until Mamamack had to call it a night (she had a 4.5 hour drive ahead of her to get home and it was already getting fairly dark) so Inflamed Penii and I accompanied her back to her car before returning to Sneaky Dee's. Sarevok was already a few beers in so we decided to head to a place with live music and settled on somewhere that I can't remember the name of but there was a band with an open mic. If you could play the guitar, bass, drums, or sing then they let you swap out with one of them and play a song (granted they knew the song). No one was brave enough so they just played requests for a while. Inflamed Penii had a party to get to and the rest of us had a bit of a drive to get home so we called it a night when the band took a break.
Everyone got home safely and that was pretty much the end of the gw meet. Sarevok and I had dinner with my parents last night but other than that we didn't really do much besides take it easy. I'm still exhausted and I have school and work tomorrow (back to the real world) so I think I'm going to go pass out on the couch downstairs again.
I know I missed a lot of stuff so anyone else that remembers things can fill in the blanks.
I only took a few pictures in Toronto and my camera sucks so only three turned out alright.
The Alligator (Click to reveal)
Autumn was having so much fun that she didn't want to leave. This alligator was animatronic and kids were throwing money into the pool and into its mouth. Autumn didn't want to go until she got to do the same.
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So You Want To Come Over To My House and Possibly Freeze to Death? (first post updated)