Good evening to you from a smoky hellscape due to forest fire smoke.

Two weeks ago you may remember that I was enjoying beers on a patio in Edmonton and it was incredibly hot for this time of year. Well, you add hot to dry and throw in some dumb humans plus lightning strikes and you get an incredibly early forest fire season. Visibility is next to nothing and it is as bad as it has ever been the last 20 years that I have lived in the city. I recall living in the mountains from 1996-2003 and we never once had fires near us, or evacuation orders or ridiculous amounts of smoke. I wonder what has changed?

Needless to say all of the children have to stay inside the schools, no one should go outside, and of course no outdoor sports. Decilitre and Litrepug are losing their damn minds due to no activities.

In the past we’ve had smoke through the summer but it’s May, there has been very little rain and the whole province is a tinder box. The kicker is that we currently have a provincial election going on and the reigning Ron Desantis party is neck and neck with the centrists. Did the Conservatives slash immense amounts of money from fighting fires? Yes they did. Will the rural rubes who it is really affecting still vote for them? yes they will. I hate it here.

Today’s travel story also includes wine!

When I lived in Turnberry, Scotland I was the head sommelier for the hotel. This meant I got invited to all sorts of tastings around the UK so sales reps could try to get on our list. One such event was in Edinburgh for a high end Italian wine tasting. I had a buddy in town visiting who ran one of the best restaurants in Canada at the time so I asked my boss Eddie whether he could come with us. Eddie said sure so we left from our local train station to head to Edinburgh through Glasgow and we would pick him up on the way.

Industry wine tastings tend to turn in to a free for all by the end of them so we knew what we were getting into. What we didn’t expect was Eddie to board the train with a 12 pack of Stella at 7:30 in the morning. By the time we got to Glasgow we had basically crushed the box of beer and made our way from one station to the other. (Glasgow has two, its dumb). On our way to the second Eddie decided to grab a few more cans for the way in.

We arrived in Edinburgh at 10 am and we were far too early to go to the tasting so he decided we should visit our sister hotel for a fine lunch. I will admit at this point I was drunk and UP FOR WHATEVER! Much wine was had at the lunch and now it was time to go to the tasting.

We arrive to the tasting quite inebriated and it was clear to me that this wasn’t really for work, it was a nice piss up away from the hotel. We were there for a few hours and got absolutely smashed. During which time I apparently drank a whole bottle of Tignanello with their rep as he was such a nice guy and his wine was unreal.

It was time to head home but when we got to Glasgow, Eddie said that he was taking us to the strippers.  This establishment wasn’t like what we are used to over here in North America. It was down a back alley with one of them sliding lookouts on an unmarked door. Very sketchy. We entered and explicitly told Eddie that we had to leave soon or else we were getting a very expensive taxi home on his dime.

I went to the bathroom and came back to the table and there were at least 6 eastern European women sitting at our table drinking newly purchased Champagne. This brought many questions to mind, such as where did it come from, why would a place that was like this even have Champagne and who the hell was going to pay for it???

Eddie had obviously purchased the wine, and continued for the next hour getting lap dances in the back. It came time for us to catch the last train back from Glasgow to Ayr where we would then have to take a 50 USD cab ride back to my place. Eddie apologized and gave us his bank card (we had no cash left) as he decided to stay behind for a few more drinks.

This wasn’t a problem until we got back to my place and Eddie’s card didn’t work. We rushed into my place which had about 4 or 5 lads in there smoking hash and demanded that they emptied their pockets so we could pay for our cab. They had enough for us so all is well that ends well right?

Wrong. Eddie took the 1st train back at 5 am, missed his train stop and while walking back to his place lost a shoe, and at some point in the evening had misplaced his wedding ring.

Eddie is now divorced.

Sports tonight!

Hoops!

The Lebrons v the big Euro dude. 5:30 pm DFO time ABC?

Puck!

Gary Bettman’s Southern wet dream starts too!

Panteros v Whalers. 5 pm DFO time.

It would be rude of me not to let everyone old and new know that today is the day that TWBS left us for the weed shoppe in the sky. I hope all they play is shitty Green Day songs and are staffed by nubile young lasses (Not too young though).

If you are not familiar with him or his past here is a snapshot on how he was a part of most of our lives.

Dead Sexy Friday: A tWBS Tribute

I just read this again and it is touching how internet strangers become so close.