Jeffrey Vanneste’s Personal Blog

Well a couple weeks ago the last Harry Potter book finally came out. Anyone who cares about Potter already knew that. Rach came back for the July 21st weekend so we could read the book. We had 2 copies of the book (one from Amazon and one from McNally) so each of us could read at the same time. Our Saturday was booked solely for reading the book as soon as possible so that no one else would spoil anything on us. I thought it was pretty awesome. I was hoping for an epic ending (which I don’t think it had) but it was still a good ending for the whole series. What did you think? If you finished reading book 7 you should check out this web chat with J. K. Rowling where she answers a bunch of questions about the whole series in general.

On July 27th one of Rachel’s cousins was in town for their wedding. There was <30 people out for the wedding which was the smallest wedding I’ve ever went to. They didn’t have a photographer for the wedding but they did have a digital SLR for someone to take pictures for them. Rach volunteered me for the job so I spent the wedding playing around with a fancy camera. The pictures I took haven’t been put online yet but I’m pretty sure I took some pretty awesome ones. Rach took some of the wedding with our camera which you can check out here.

The next day Brent was in Saskatoon from Bethesda for a week. Hemant and I had setup the first game of our North Battleford VS Wilkie basketball game. The game was a small formality as everyone knows that Team “Weak Ass” Wilkie has no chance against the NB powerhouse.  We had been talking about different challenges we could do for our 2 groups of friends and this was the first chance I could field a NB basketball team. The teams were Brent, Devin and I versus Hemant, Jason and Ryan. In warmup things were looking pretty bleak for us.  I had almost given up hope but when we started our first game we ended up winning 11-0 (Brent sinking 4 3′s helped a lot). The next game we lost 11-9 and the 3rd we lost 11-8. So we lost the best of 3 but we won for total points (total points is all that matters right?) It was a pretty awesome time.  I’m pretty sure I saw Hemant weeping in the corner after the game.

For the rest of the day Brent, Dev and I plus our female companions hung out for some eating, swimming, more eating, and then a intense game of Scattergories. We are pretty sure Dev invented some Canadian presidents and some new fish species. He found some proof for some of his inventions but it was a good time voting down his ideas during the game.

This weekend was pretty busy for me. I hung out with Hemant and his friends on Friday night. I got to play with an iPhone that one of his friends brought up from the states. I wasn’t expecting to be impressed with it at all but damn,that thing is awesome. Surfing on it worked so slick. The iPod video functions are so awesome when you want to watch full screen. A few weeks ago there would have been no way to get me to cancel my SaskTel cell phone but if there is anything to get me to switch cell phone providers it would be the iPhone.

On Saturday I drove up to Chitek Lake for Chris’s stag party. We went out to the Chitek Lake golf course where I got my first ever eagle on a par 5 (which I’ve been telling everyone about). I was pretty proud. Tell your friends. They care. At one point while we were golfing Baldwin’s ball landed right by a water trap. Since he couldn’t stand in the water to hit towards the flag he had to chip the ball away from the green. I thought it was pretty funny so I got a picture of him hitting the ball with the flag in the background.

Not surprisingly there was no shortage of alcohol at the stag.  This was the 2nd fridge.

Once we got back from golfing we ate some supper and hung out by the fire. At some point in the evening Baldwin was hitting golf balls out into the lake and Chris’s brother decided he should surprise Baldwin. He jumped up and yelled at Baldwin to look over at him to surprise him with The Goat (perverted material follows if you click the link). Though kind of blurry you can check out Baldwin’s expression below.

Later in the evening a couple of us went out skiing.  Chris’s brother was pretty awesome (I recorded a short video of him skiing here).  They had a pretty fancy slalom ski that had tie up boots for both your front and back feet.  I didn’t want to pass up the chance to use a fancy ski so I gave it a try.  Sadly I was unable to even get up on it.  I tried about 10 times and all I accomplished was swallowing a couple liters of Chitek Lake water.

Sunday I got up early (by early I mean 10am) and headed out to Waskesiu Lake for 2 days with Rach.  We had a big potluck supper Sunday night where I ate way to much again.  In the evening we met up with Dan Coode (who just got engaged) and a bunch of my old soccer team for the evening.  After 2 late nights in a row I was pretty tired so once I got back today I had a 2 hour nap.

Rach and I have 3 more weekends before we head back to Montreal on August 29th.  This summer is going by way too fast.