I'm back from Pembroke.

For those of you who got here by googling for "Gay Pembroke" let me warn you that there are is no gay community, no bars, no associations, in Pembroke. Pembroke gays who want to be around other gays leave.

Pembroke was an ok trip. Very cold. Temperatures around 5F, so I didn't get out much.

The difference between the rural and the urban hit me much more than usual. When you have ambition, when you want to do more for yourself, you tend to move to the cities. There are more opportunities there. I'm not saying that rural people are not ambitious. They can work hard. They can work smart. It's just that their goals are not as money and power focused. They want to raise a family, or farm. You don't need 'greater opportunity' to do that.

My parents give a lot of alcohol at Christmas. 40ozs of rum or whisky, or a 24 of beer. They gave their old neighbours a 24 of beer. However the wife had to work on Christmas, so mom&dad worried that the husband would drink the whole 24 by himself.

Stuff like that doesn't happen in Seattle

It's clear and cold up here in Pembroke. Good Christmas weather.

My little brother is here. He's 6'11, 300lbs.

We exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve. I got some shirts and socks.

Last night Toronto got a foot of snow. In the morning it started to rain. That didn't stop G and I from driving the 5 hours from Toronto to Ottawa. It was a slow drive and we saw many accidents.

I dropped G off at his in-laws, then drove an hour north to Pembroke, to my parents.
My cell phone works fine here. I get a better signal than back in Seattle.

Tonight I had dinner with JN and her kid R. The father, JYN was out of town on business and dind't show up till 10pm.

Every night, to put baby R to bed, they have "The 8 minute race" Basically JN sets a countdown timer for 8 minutes and baby R races to see how fast he can get ready for bed-- wash his face, brush his teath, get his bed clothes. on. During the race, Caulin and I called the race over a small loudspeaker-- "And now R starts brushing his teeth! What's this! He's spit up on his shirt! Can he recover from this delay! Wait Mommy steps in to help-- what teamwork!"

The forcast says Toronto may get up to a foot of snow tonight. G and I want to leave for Ottawa tomorrow. The snow may delay us.

Tonight I had dinner with JN and her kid R. The father, JYN was out of town on business and dind't show up till 10pm.

Every night, to put baby R to bed, they have "The 8 minute race" Basically JN sets a countdown timer for 8 minutes and baby R races to see how fast he can get ready for bed-- wash his face, brush his teath, get his bed clothes. on. During the race, Caulin and I called the race over a small loudspeaker-- "And now R starts brushing his teeth! What's this! He's spit up on his shirt! Can he recover from this delay! Wait Mommy steps in to help-- what teamwork!"

The forcast says Toronto may get up to a foot of snow tonight. G and I want to leave for Ottawa tomorrow. The snow may delay us.

Tonight I had dinner with JN and her kid R. The father, JYN was out of town on business and dind't show up till 10pm.

Every night, to put baby R to bed, they have "The 8 minute race" Basically JN sets a countdown timer for 8 minutes and baby R races to see how fast he can get ready for bed-- wash his face, brush his teath, get his bed clothes. on. During the race, Caulin and I called the race over a small loudspeaker-- "And now R starts brushing his teeth! What's this! He's spit up on his shirt! Can he recover from this delay! Wait Mommy steps in to help-- what teamwork!"

The forcast says Toronto may get up to a foot of snow tonight. G and I want to leave for Ottawa tomorrow. The snow may delay us.

Tonight I had dinner with JN and her kid R. The father, JYN was out of town on business and dind't show up till 10pm.

Every night, to put baby R to bed, they have "The 8 minute race" Basically JN sets a countdown timer for 8 minutes and baby R races to see how fast he can get ready for bed-- wash his face, brush his teath, get his bed clothes. on. During the race, Caulin and I called the race over a small loudspeaker-- "And now R starts brushing his teeth! What's this! He's spit up on his shirt! Can he recover from this delay! Wait Mommy steps in to help-- what teamwork!"

The forcast says Toronto may get up to a foot of snow tonight. G and I want to leave for Ottawa tomorrow. The snow may delay us.

Tonight I had dinner with JN and her kid R. The father, JYN was out of town on business and dind't show up till 10pm.

Every night, to put baby R to bed, they have "The 8 minute race" Basically JN sets a countdown timer for 8 minutes and baby R races to see how fast he can get ready for bed-- wash his face, brush his teath, get his bed clothes. on. During the race, Caulin and I called the race over a small loudspeaker-- "And now R starts brushing his teeth! What's this! He's spit up on his shirt! Can he recover from this delay! Wait Mommy steps in to help-- what teamwork!"

The forcast says Toronto may get up to a foot of snow tonight. G and I want to leave for Ottawa tomorrow. The snow may delay us.

Tonight I had dinner with JN and her kid R. The father, JYN was out of town on business and dind't show up till 10pm.

Every night, to put baby R to bed, they have "The 8 minute race" Basically JN sets a countdown timer for 8 minutes and baby R races to see how fast he can get ready for bed-- wash his face, brush his teath, get his bed clothes. on. During the race, Caulin and I called the race over a small loudspeaker-- "And now R starts brushing his teeth! What's this! He's spit up on his shirt! Can he recover from this delay! Wait Mommy steps in to help-- what teamwork!"

The forcast says Toronto may get up to a foot of snow tonight. G and I want to leave for Ottawa tomorrow. The snow may delay us.

I'm not homesick for Toronto. It's more like nostaglia. While Toronto is a great city, that's all you get. It literally takes hours to get out of the city.

In Seattle, the mountains and skiing are an hour away. The Ocean is an hour the other way. Portland and Vancouver are 3 hours away. So, there is a great variety of things to do, urban and rural.

On top of that, If I moved back to Toronto, I would have to live way out in the suburbs. Toronto downtown is beautiful and expensive. The affordabile suburbs are ugly and way out.

I can handle the suburbs in Seattle because I have a log cabin on a greenbelt and because downtown Seattle is a 20 minute drive away. If my home were in Toronto, it would be worth well over a million dollars.

Way back when, Bruce used to be my best friend. We worked together. Then he ran into problems with his job and got fired. That was the start of a long slide down for Bruce. He's been unemployed for the past two years and is very bitter about it.

In the process Bruce left Seattle and moved back to Toronto.

I tried to track down Bruce, have dinner with him, but he never responded to my emails. I asked C2 to talk to Bruce, to see if it was me.

It was me. Bruce responded to C2 almost right away. Bruce gave some bull shit excuse how he and I haven't kept in touch and how our lives have gone seperate ways.

Oh well.

The deep freeze has let up. The temperature in Toronto is now a bearable 30F.

I spent yesterday with J&G and their kids who we took to Sport Ball

Other than that, I slept. Yesterday for the first time in months, I didn't have coffee. Probably related, yesterday for the first time in months, I had an afternoon nap.

I love being on vacation.

Toronto is booming. Hi rise condos are going up everywhere. The condos are huge-- 30 to 60 stories, with talk of 80 stories.

Yesterday Caulin took me to Seneca hill to see the Toronto skyline from the north east. You could see the condos follow a twenty mile stretch along the Younge Street subway line. I'm not sure how many condos there are, but it has to be over one hundred. The Young and Finch intersection has a dozen and Younge is Finch is just the beginning (Of the subway line)

Why all the condos along the subwayl line? Two reasons. First, driving in downtown in downtown Toronto is insane. Constant traffic james and pay parking everywere. The cheapest parking is $2.00 an hour. Second reason, toronto can be bitter cold in the winter. With a condo directly connected to the subway line, and because much of downtown Toronto is connected via a huge underground city, you can go from home to work without everhaving to go outside.

I've been visiting many of my old friends. In the seven years I've been away from Toronto all my friends, even the gay ones, have had children. J&E have 3. G&J have 2 with the 3rd on the way, M&S have 2, J&J have 1, Liam has 1.

Having a child changes you. You watch what you say. You don't swear. Your whole life revolves around the child, take care of them, making sure they stay out of trouble.

Lat night Liam and I went to a hockey game-- he was playing. It was fun to watch. I recognized a few guys from the league I haven't seen them in years.

I'm in Toronto right now. It's insanely cold. -5F with a windchill that feels like -20F. At that temperature bare skin starts to tingle and hurt within minutes of exposure.

Friday night I'm heading up to Ontario to spend Christmas with friends and family. Updates will be sporatic till the 29th.

The holiday party season is uppon us. Tuesday my manager took our team out for a great lunch.

Tuesday evening I had a dinner party at my place for some of my neighbors and friends. Granny M came. Granny M built my house back in 1957. She raised 5 kids her. After her kids moved out and her husband died, she found the house too big and too much work. So she sold it and bought a smaller place just down the street-- maybe 5 houses over.

Granny M is an amazing woman. She's 79 years old, but doesn't look much more than 50. She's fit. She smart. I hope I'm as well off as her when I turn 80.

Still working a lot.

Sandy got us free tickets to see "Spain in the Age of Expoloration 1492-1819" at the Seattle Art Museum. It was nice. I'm not a big museum fan, so I went through the show rather quickly. RO took his time, read and listened to everything.

Afterwards we had dinner at Siam's.

Sunday, C2, RO and I went to the company blow out tent sale. The crowed was maddening. They had good deals there, but I didn't buy anything.

Saturday night Matt and Sandy came over for drinks and hot-tubbing. They spent friday evening at Enchanted Village riding the roller coasters for an American Coaster Enthusiasts event.

Steven and Vic got back from their Carribean Cruise on Sunday. They had a great time. The were very tan and said they ate and drank too much.

Sunday I did some Christmas shopping. RO, C2 and I spent Sunday evening at Matt and Sandy's. Dinner and Surviovor final. We also watched part of Pornocopia, a documentary on the porn industry. It was very interesting.

Tonight is the Tease's birthday party. RO got him a gift. I told him not to. The Tease is flakey and not a big gift giver himself. So, he gets what he deserves.

I watched Dazed and Confused last night. It's an interesting move about the last day of highschool in 1976.

I was at a martini party on Saturday night. It was an interesting crowd-- RO's friends. They are good people.

This is the first time I've met RO's friends. C2 suspected they would be weird artists. He wasn't too far off the mark.The friends mostly used to be artists, but life got in the way. Career opportunities and family forced them to make their art a hobby and turned them into respectable people.

One lady there was an author of four books. She found writing to be lonely so she got a part time job, which turned into a full time job, which turned into a career. Without planning it, she ended up a bank manager. Her story wasn't uncommon. There was a pianist who pays the bills by being a banker. A photographer who works for Home Depot.

This is kind of depressing.

A cold is going around. I have it. My manager has it. Steven and Matt have it. So far RO and C2 have gotten off scott free.

Matt claims he and I have the same immunity system. We often get sick with the same thing at the same time.