Cursum Perficio

Today is another Mother's Day. It's a holiday that I haven't really had to celebrate in a while since my stepmom doesn't really like it. I am guessing because she doesn't really have children of her own or maybe because I made her life hell when she first dated my dad. Ha ha. Evil stepdaughter. Ok, ok, I am not really an evil stepdaughter, and I love Mary-Anne now, but I was a pretty bitter and depressed 17-year-old when she first came on the scene. Anyways, sometimes I get jealous for Mother's Day, but sometimes I am just glad that I don't have to spend the money, although I would gladly do so to have my mom around if that were an option.
Dave's mom is pretty cool, so I could always say Happy Mother's Day to her. She is very sweet and always nice to me. Ok, I am done with this depressing ramble and I don't want to dwell on this anymore.

Jen and I went to the Snow Patrol/Embrace concert last night and it kicked ass. Snow Patrol seem like a band that you would want to party with all the time. The best part of the show was probably the audience interaction which always makes a concert good in my opinion. I really appreciate when bands try and at least interact with their fans because it shows in general that they care and that they are having a good time as well. Besides that, there were some pretty funny comments about LA which they described as a 'shithole' having just come from some MTV shoot there, where only 40 people stayed to watch them after they went on after The Killers. That is really unfortunate because all those idiots who left missed a great band and then SP were playing to a practically empty house. Shitty. The lead singer also said that if he could, he would rent the largest tour bus ever and take the entire Vancouver crowd on tour. Imagine that... this was after he asked the audience for a place to stay because the band had to drop so much money in LA. I would have put them up in the dark, dank basement, but something tells me that they were not really that desperate to save a few bucks on accomodation. He also addressed the unfortunate matter of all the seating at the Vogue, which just gets in the way of the crowd that builds at the foot of the stage. I noticed this at the Killers concert as well, since I sat in the balcony just to have a better, uncrushed view of the show. I cannot believe that when I was in high school I would willingly throw myself into the crush of people which formed at the foot of the stage. There were times when I would just be fighting for my life rather than actually listening to the music which I had dolled out a lot of money for. I think that by the time I hit 18 I had gotten sick of coming home bruised and battered from shows. I believe that there is no way that you should have the same type of bodily trauma from a concert that you do from a hangover, unless you were drinking AT the concert. It's just a bit ridiculous.

Embrace, the opening band, who have been around for ages according to Jen (since she loved them in high school), were also pretty good. They mentioned that they had been trying to tour in Canada for 9 years but bullshit American Record Label politics had pretty much prevented that from ever happening. Until now. They were really cool and grateful to be in Canada. It was their first day in the country as a band and they were opening for Snow Patrol. Not bad for a band that couldn't get in the doors at the border almost 10 years ago. I even recognized a few songs which is impressive since the group began when I was in early high school when lots of other grungey music like Pearl Jam and Nirvana was the order of the day. The general sound of Embrace reminded me of Charlie Mars, who opened for R.E.M. back in November. I will definitely be downloading their album to listen to more of their music. And in my defense for downloading, the album isn't out until June but it was released in the UK way back in November. If I like it enough I will buy it.

In the past few days I have been trying to get my mind in order for the move back home. I have bought my ticket (I officially leave on May 30th) and arranged for my start date at work. Katie tells me that some French guy named Steve has my place on the crew right now and he drives them all bonkers. She says I will like the new Aaron guy who has a potty mouth that could rival mine. Can't wait to go head to head with this guy. She also said that Wes annoyingly asks everyday when I am coming back so she was glad to hear from me so she can tell him and then tell him to shut it. Ah, it's nice to be appreciated. And even more exciting is the news that the crew was given a brand new VAN, and we have our very own GPS unit. I am so pleased about this, that I think the summer will be quite good. As the only historic crew at ASI now, we will probably have pretty lame barbeques with only 4 of us, but we can always try to fill out those numbers with our husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, whomever. We don't really socialize that much with the Prehistoric crews because we rarely see them except when we get shifted around on Gradall days.*
There are some cool people on those Prehistoric crews, but others just suck. Our chief nemesis from last summer was assigned our shitty old van (named 'Craptacular') which secretly makes me smile deep down inside. Let's hope I don't have to see those bitches at all this summer.
Anyways, I am starting to look forward to making money again since I am down to the wire here. I need to save my pennies for moving my accumulated 'wealth of knowledge' across the country. Let's hope I can afford to have my library moved all the way home rather then dumped somewhere in Saskatchewan. Now that would suck.


* Gradall days are generally when Katie gets to stand around all day and direct the Gradall operator on what areas of the site to clear of topsoil so we can excavate the features. On these days, the rest of the crew including myself usually get shifted to someone else's crew for the day and then we feel weird because we have to start digging for post holes, stone tools and earthenware pottery which is not what we generally enjoy.