home time wrap up...lots of links

hi there, sorry for the lack of updates, i've been home for two weeks, settling in at the new place in toronto with no internet, and burning the candle at both ends in the mean time. i didn't really have a chance, or the internet to do formal updates, and at this point, there's no way i can recall everything that happened while i was home, but i can do my best to describe a few key events based on the photos i had in my camera.

one of the main highlights of being home was massive group rides at night with the freedom haters. i forgot my camera on several occasions, but i managed to steal a few from seans facebook.

before each ride, people are informed via txt to meet at the big thimble at richmond and spadina.



aner, toby, chris and i heading up bathurst.



rollin' deep.



sean grabbed a nice shot of my whip.



i got out to ride at night at least 4 or 5 times, sometimes with only 4 or 5 of us, but a couple times we'd get like 10-15 out. one of the bigger rides was documented real well by ben over at 51% Motherfucker, 49% Sonofabitch.

my pal liam from cancer bats was in town as well, so we had many a bro hang afternoons. this one started with conversing over blackberry messinger about joing him in a trip up to the gay village to pay a visit to lizzie at passage tattoos.




taylor was hanging too, huge bonus!





afterwards, we road over to kensington market and ate at the urban herbivore



after lunch we road over to visit matt rennick, which he documented in his blog

later in the week, sweet bro's blackwood and chucky from the artist life stopped by to see the new place. where's deano?



that same day, nikki payed a visit too, but the camera was put away i suppose.

on monday the 6th, aner and i went to see the hold steady at the opera house, and i didn't take any photos, but my friend cam brioux sure did! check them out right here! such an amazing show.

on tuesday the 7th, we flew to new york city to tape something for mtv's discover & download which tied up an hour or two of the afternoon, and allowed pleanty of time to eat at red bamboo!



154 attorney's own katiebrown even stopped by!



grabbed this one for pat.



on the following friday, i went up to passage to visit lizzie again, and got this guy started. we kind of ran out of time and i need to finish it when i get home.



sight and sounds came to town that night, and played at the elmo.



here's some shots from the show and after party with some friends:

courtney and i.



scott wade and i.



aner and hls.



alex lee and aner.



saturday i drove up to barrie for warped tour with alex, aner, hls and s-a. i got to visit with some of the bayside dudes, aileen, robbie, danny nu metal, jimmy jesus, and a few other warped tour staples before getting the hell out of there after only like 2 hours because warped tour is played out.

afterwards i headed to burlington for christie's birthday bbq, and only managed to take this one photo of her little brother connor:



had a real good time at the bbq, seeing lots of friends from the burlington area and catching up with a few people i haven't seen in some time.

sunday and monday i celebrated my own birthday with a well attended sunday brunch at my place, and a monday night dinner at the bo. here's a shot around the table at the bo.

aner.



jd + sbd.



hambone.



i am the walrus, ko ko kachooo.



hls.



s-a + sascha.



sascha + courtney.



on tuesday, i headed up to wonderland with alex, aner, hls and courtney. my favourite ride was the bat. here's some shots from the car ride up and throughout the park.

alex.



aner.



meeeee.



courtney + hls.



aner.



courtney + hls + the giant sunflower they got me for my brithday.



hls + courtney.



aner + alex.



me + frozen lemonade.



heather's pipes.



fake waterfall.



hls + waterfall.



on wednesday, i scrambled to tie up all my loose ends and get ready for tour. i managed to find some time to squeeze in party moneky tattoos with joe foster, care of bailey at anchors.

toronto!

so i'm finally home, and mostly moved into my new place in toronto.
haven't had much time to take photos, and this is the first i've been online since i've been home.

i've been running around a ton, eating lots of good food, taking huge bike rides and seeing pleanty of friends in the midst of moving stuff from oakville. this morning i woke up to find out my van got towed. would have much rather spent $300 on phil hubs in portland :(

pat's blog pretty much sums up my monday and tuesday.

heather and alex are both away for the long weekend, and chris isn't back until tuesday, so i'm going to try and catch up with some other toronto friends this weekend. hoping i get to see nikki tonight!

monday is the hold steady show at the opera house, and tuesday i fly to NYC for the day to shoot something for MTV.
hopefully red bamboo, 154 attorney street and stacy smallwood are all involved in the 16 hours i'll be in the city.

wish me luck surviving the city life!

from portland, to gainesville... (actually san francisco)

i've got some catching up to do! today is the last day of tour, and i figured i'd wrap up the last few days and pot up the photos from my camera.

PORTLAND.
spent two days in portland, one playing a show downtown, and the other a day off at a hotel near a mall. portland is the #1 rated vegan city in america, and it's also probably my favourite one too. it seems like everyone is vegan, listens to good music and rides fixed gear bixes. i spent the day walking around the west side downtown mostly, as there were tons of vegan restaurants, bike, clothing and record shops around the venue.

first stop was voodoo donuts, where i purchased all seven of their vegan choices.



next stop was veganopolis where i had a mock chicken burger with soy cheese and mock canadian bacon, and roasted potatoes on the side.



here's a shot of the big chinatown archway entrance.



headed over to jackpot records, where i picked up a few doozies including two ryan adams records, the latest hold steady album and the new thermals 7".



here's a shot of my accumulated records over the past few weeks.



FUCKED UP: year of the pig (winnipeg)
CURSED: one - trash art repress (a gift from rick linus from victory)
THE HOLD STEADY: boys and girls in america (portland)
RYAN ADAMS: gold (portland)
RYAN ADAMS: 29 (portland)
RYAN ADAMS: easy tiger (minneapolis)
SILVERSTEIN: arrivals & departures - test presses (victory)
THE THERMALS: a pilar of salt 7" (portland)

one of the other great things about portland is that there is no sales tax, which almost swayed me into buying a set of phil wood track hubs laced to some velocity deep v rims, but i held back, and just saved that money to lose at the casino in reno a few days later :( the day off in portland was pretty uneventful. i road to the mall and didn't really find much of anything there, got a begal sandwhich from some bubble tea shop, and watched the oc in the hotel room.

BOISE.
boise was friggin' hot as heck, and we had to park our bus in a dusty lot a few blocks from the venue. there were little thorns all over the ground so everyone seemed to pop their tires, so i found a local shop to get new tubes. we did an instore at this record store that i usually visit when in boise, and i bought this super rad rock photography book that i've wanted since enviously browsing through aileen's copy at 154 attorney st. there was an urban outfitters right near the venue, and they had a ton of stuff on sale so i got this grey short sleeved button up, and a navy cap with striped and an anchor on it. across from there was a levi's store, and i got some sweet jeans for $20!

after the show, jon kenna and i road over to boise state university (or something) and he got me to take a photo of him with the bronco outside of the football field. i think jon kenna is doing anything in his power to keep his unniversity frat boy days apart of his life as long as he can.



RENO.
didn't take the camera out much in reno. to be honest, i only left the bus like 4 times.
1. to get lemonade from 71 (which tasted kinda shitty)
2. to check out this tattoo shop down the road that tattooed hardhats on a bunch of team safety
3. to play
4. to lose money at the casino, get burrito's, and watch joe get his hand tattooed.

SAN FRANCISCO.
another gem of a city on the pacific north west! it turned out that my friend veronica from LA was in town visiting the dead to me dudes that she does merch for. i met up with her and her friend in the morning, picked up chicken and headed to hearbivore for brunch! i had tofu scramble and a strawberry shake, mmmmmmm. afterwards we headed back to chickens to hang out. here's a pick of me with v and chicken.



after talking bikes with chicken and his bike messenger room mate, ian (dead to me drummer) came over and took off with chicken to run some erands, so the rest of us headed up to pick up a movie at amoeba.

historic haight street.



amoeba!





i didn't really feel like diggin for records, and i couldn't see or think of anything i really wanted, so my trip to amoeba was short and cheap!

here's some shots of the city from the car window.





the catering at the venue was fabulous, a piece of tempeh with a zesty chutney and grilled pineapple topping, and roasted potatoes. during catering casper decided to finally tape jon kenna's radio to him, on acount of the fact he never has it with him.



here's a shot of the front of the venue.



other un-photographed highlights of the day included hanging out with fat mike for a bit after our set, and meeting joey cape and another dude from lagwagon in the midst of it.

i'm pretty stoked to get home, not gonna lie.
flight lands at 3:20, hoping to get downtown to see some friends for dinner and hang out in the evening.
starting to move my stuff downtown begins tuesday morning!

YUSSSSSSSSSS!

seattle's keeping me in tune with just right now.

so we arrived in seattle mid monday afternoon, and immediate i jumped on my bike and headed north to eat at this little spot called the globe cafe before it closed at 3. when i walked into the restaurant, i remembered eating there in the fall of '05 with shane and will from aiden. the globe serves all day breakfast, and i had the biggest rasberry poppy seed pancake of my life, which was delicious.

i came back to the venue, dropped off my bike and started walking around the downtown shopping area.



definitely stopped in to have a venti soy no whip hot chocolate in the hometown of starbucks.


headed back up 2nd ave to pop into singles going steady, a rad punk record store. the owner recently sold the seattle store, moved and opened a shop in toronto called "hits and misses". if you're in the bloor & shaw neighbourhood soon, be sure to check it out. i picked up a minor threat tshirt at SGS which i traded with joe foster for a minor threat shirt he has that says "i've got straight edge" on the back, seeing as it suited me more than him.


i ran into kevin, who had just got back from one of the 12 711 locations that have been converted into kwik-e-mart's in light of the up-coming simpsons movie. the select converted kwik-e-marts sell tons of classic simpsons treats and collectables, such as squishee's, buzz cola, radioactive man comics and pink frosted donuts.



i decided to head over and see for myself.
















the show itself was super weird, as the venue that was booked to hold the show recently closed down, the show was moved to the moore theater, which is a seated venue. definitely no circle pits this night.

after the show i headed to get pizza with puc, casey and kevin cbk, and their friend "blind hate" kyle. i got a whole pizza to myself with soy cheese, mock beef and bacon, pineapple, mushrooms, and sun dried tomatos. mmmmmm, what a goood pizza!







seattle is great, i'm a pretty big fan of this city. riding my bike here was pretty fun too, definitely a few hills, but mostly one way streets, and plenty of bike lanes. i saw a couple different fixed gear riders around, and pleasantly exchanged "the nod".

GOOD NEWS! we get home from tour on monday, and i'm moving downtown! i got a room at 3-352 queen st east with hambone, steve and jd. pretty stoked to move as soon as i get home and finally be living downtown.