First, you should know that I’m writing this blog post solely for the purpose of having this title on my blog.

Second, you should watch this clip from Anchorman:

Third, since I’m doing this numbering scheme, you should know that I had an interesting vacation. Why don’t I tell you about it.

Cypress Hills (Saskatchewan side)

We started down in Cypress Hills (Saskatchewan side). This was a family affair—both Johnsons and Soverans united for this weekend. It rained most of the weekend and we were stuck in a fairly small space for all the people/dogs/children (in that order—I can’t wait until my neices and nephews are older and they decide to read my entire blog (totally going to happen) and then they’ll come across this line and say “Hey, that’s not nice!” and then quit reading my blog and kick me in the shins the next time they see me, but I’ll be really old and they’ll probably break my leg and that will suck).

Prince Albert National Park

Oh and I had a good birthday. But the whole point of the vacation was to get back up to Waskesiu in northern (middle) Saskatchewan. I hadn’t been up north since my camp counselor days at Kinasao, so I was really looking forward to a week up there.

On Wednesday we drove up north. We arrived at Beaver Glen campground around 6. When we pulled up to the gate to register, the Prince Albert National Park official told us that the bear activity in the area was high. And she added, in fact, we saw a bear 5 minutes ago.

So that was awesome. But, it sounded like they were working on it and were keeping an eye on it, so we continued. We setup in a small cul-de-sac of 10 or so campsites. There was only one other site being used, but they weren’t around when we arrived.

Around 7, after the tent was up and we had a fire going, the people from the other camp site came over and asked—Did you guys see anything? See what, we said, we just got here. You’re the first people we’ve seen.

While we were gone on a picnic this afternoon, a bear ripped through our tent.

Even better. And, as the bear had destroyed their tent, they went home and so we were left, all alone in our cul-de-sac. It was Leah, Duke and I versus the bears. (Literally, there were two black bears roaming through the entire campground.)

Black bears are bitches

Generally, I’m not that scared of predators—or at least, not as scared as my dad is. Certainly not black bears. Everyone gets that a grizzly bear will rip your face off, but black bears are a lot smaller and generally can be scared away. However, these bears had now learned that they could find food by ripping through tents. We were in a tent.

The thing about a black bear is that they’re probably around 200-300 pounds. Not a huge animal. It can still kill you, but it will be a lot slower because they are (relatively) tiny. You’ll probably get a good couple punches in before it claws and bites you to death. Frankly, I think Duke could last at least a couple minutes against a black bear. When it comes to bears and you’re faced with a life or death scenario—I just want it to end quickly.

Speaking of Duke, he was on edge the entire time. I suspect due to the fact that giant schnauzer’s are bred to be guard dogs, Duke literally patrolled the area his tether allowed that entire night.

The bears in the night

I’ll end the suspense now—no black bear ripped through our tent. But Leah did wake me up in the middle of the night to escort her to the bathroom. Neither of us slept well that night. The mosquitoes were bad and the bears were worse.

You know what the worst part about all this was that after that other couple (the ripped up tent couple) left, we didn’t see another soul that entire evening. No park officers or conservation officers even drove by.

The hike

We woke up the following morning trying to be courageous and positive. We decided to go for a hike. About 30 minutes in and 500 mosquito bites later, we find bear scat in the middle of the path. Presumably, you’re thinking now what we’re thinking then, let’s get the F out of here.

Refund & Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park

We packed up and went back to the registration office. As we drove out we (finally) saw Conservation Officers carrying around guns and setting up bear traps. Where were they the night before? I might have got some sleep. We got our money back for the nights remaining and left.

We were going to head home to Calgary, but Leah did some quick research and found Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park which houses Lake Diefenbaker. We stayed there three days and it was beautiful. 30 degrees and no major predators to be found.

It was a pretty good vacation, but certainly not the one we had planned.

This is possibly the greatest candid photo of me that has ever existed. It was taken by Andy Lobban, a dirty Scottish bloke that I met at SXSW. He was snapping photos the entire night, but the photo isn’t really what’s important in this post—it just happens to be awesome.

The thing I really like about this photo is that I don’t think I could recreate that face even if I tried. I’m pretty sure that’s a drunk-only kind of face. Well, I suppose it might not be a drunk-only face, but this is a civil place full of civil ideas and I don’t think it’s appropriate for some of the older readers in the audience.

Notice the name tag

I can’t remember when, but at some point we went to a party where we had to put name tags on. I think it was after the I Can Haz Cheezburger party. Well, Andy took it upon himself to give me a new name. He slapped Gertrude on my chest.

I’d love to tell you that I thought of something really creative in my enlightened state but I didn’t. I gave Andy a name tag with Seamus. It seemed like a really Scottish name to me at the time, but it’s an Irish name—which that kind of ignorance actually seems hilarious to me now.

The rest of the night is pretty much a blur now. But, let’s just say, I forgot all about the name exchange.

Unpacking Gertrude

Three or four days later, when I got home—after three or four more days of free drinks everywhere I went—I started unpacking my jam-packed suitcase and sorted the dirty and clean clothes with Leah.

Some how, whether I removed it that fateful night or it just fell off, the Gertrude name tag was lying in the bottom of my suitcase and I didn’t find it first.

Yes, Leah found a sticker with “Hello my name is Gertrude” laying in the bottom of my suitcase. And before I go any further let me just remind you that for the past 5 days drinking copiously in another country and, at that point, Leah didn’t know there aren’t actually any women at SXSWi.

Who’s Gertrude?

What? Who? I turned around to see that name tag. And that night with Andy all came rushing back to me. I laughed when I remembered, but I don’t know if Leah got the joke yet. If she could’ve, she would have raised an eyebrow (she can’t raise one eyebrow, it’s very cute). She waited patiently for my answer.

Gertrude, to me, sounds like a naughty librarian who goes to nerd-ups and traps young geeks in her sexy-times web and, at that moment, Leah might have thought I was the latest victim.

Have you ever been in a situation where the truth sounds more like a lie? Because this is the exact situation. It was like being in a sitcom. As I began explaining to Leah—that Andy is a total ballbag—it sounded like a lie. Because Leah held all the power. She had the evidence and the axe. Leah is the judge, jury and executioner of my life.

I am happy to report there was an anticlimactic ending to this event. I explained what happened and Leah just laughed. In the end, everything worked out alright, but my heart certainly stopped there for a second.

Here’s a little Luda to take you out while you think about Gertrude.

You know, I’ve never understood the concept of live-blogging. It seems to me that WP (or any blogging platform (aside from micro)) is not good at real-time updates. In any case, I’ve never live-blogged anything so this seems like an excellent opportunity to try it.

I am currently in Austin, Texas. The weather is hovering somewhere between 20-25C and the sun is shining. I am taking in the Interactive portion SXSW (South by Southwest).

Friday, March 12

This part isn’t technically live, as it’s actually the 13th currently, but I figured I ought to catch up. Friday was one crazy-ass day.

I did a presentation, in Calgary, at the Alberta Magazine Publishers Assocation (AMPA) Conference called “Working the Web” with my friend David Gluzman. That started at, roughly, 8:41 AM. It was an early morning. Overall, it seemed like our presentation went well. It was a slightly difficult to prepare for as we had no idea the level of experience of the audience. I was a little nervous at first, but once I got the jitters out I felt pretty good with how the presentation went. Thanks AMPA, for the invitation to present.

That went alright and I was back at the house to pickup Leah (to drive me, no Austin for her) and my luggage around 11. My flight to Houston left, on time, at 1:10 PM. I have to say that Continental really packs their fliers into the plane. Pretty sure my knees were in my chin for 3.5 hours of flight. Luckily, I had Harry Potter to entertain me (audio book).

I arrived in Houston a half hour early, which was excellent because I was only supposed to have an hour to make my connecting flight to Austin. As you may know (or assume), George Bush International Airport is huge. However, my next flight was delayed by an hour. So I spent an extra hour in Houston, but still listening to Harry Potter.

Finally, at 10:30, I arrived in my hotel room in downtown Austin. Connor, who I’m bunking with, left a sweet note (and a chocolate kiss) on my pillow (just kidding about the chocolate kiss). I texted him, grabbed a map in the lobby and headed out to explore. I walked around Austin for a bit and then decided to pack it in, after stopping in at TGIFs and consuming about 8 pounds of cheese.

Saturday, March 13

I’ve sat through a number of panels so far today. I started by getting my badge. No wait, I started by getting my breakfast wrapped in a burrito. My eyes have been opened to the awesomeness of burritos.

We F*cked Up

This was my first panel. It was pretty good. It was good to hear successful people talking about the ways that they screwed up. I think my take-away was that “Failure drives change and success drives repetition.”

Ze Frank

Ze was really, really interesting. I’ve seen his videos and he’s a funny guy, but ultimately I thought that would be it. But he really explored the emotional nature of the net. Really good stuff. I often say that the “internet is devoid of humanity so you need to bring humanity in”, but this made me think that there needs to be a, for lack of a better phrase, “emotional strategy” behind each website.

Night, night

My last panel of the day was awful. I was hoping to learn about advertising in video, but the guys leading the panel just pitched their own platform and so I walked out. After that, I met up with David (a fellow Calgarian) and we went to the RazorFish party. We had a couple (free) beers and went off from there.

We went to a several different pubs and bars and different parties. The “LameBook” party was interesting except it took us to the other side of the interstate. We went and stood in line at another party and that was across a set of tracks. What I’m saying here is that… I was terrified for my life. But Connor and David thought we’d be fine. We were fine, but my shorts will never smell the same.

Sunday, March 14

The time changed. My head is aching. And everyone in the Starbucks line made fun of me because I don’t know the stupid size names. Venti, grande… sharkfarks.

Offering Your Content in 100 Languages

This is based around open source projects and not businesses really. So not that helpful. They all work with volunteers. I would imagine it would be difficult for a business to get volunteers to do free translations.

Why Words Won’t Work

I am only here out of morbid curiousity.

Alright, that was an excellent presentation. Really interesting ideas on how to display (in that, you need both pictures and text) ideas. Still need to take this in a bit more, but Dan Roam really had great ideas and I want to read more of his thoughts.

Online Advertising: Losing the Race to the Bottom

That was a useless panel and I left halfway through and judging by the amount of people leaving I wasn’t the only one.

Tonight

I’m going to experience some infamous Austin BBQ. I’ll let you know how that goes.

So this is turning into less and less of a live blog and more and more of a trying to remember, after all those beers, what I did yesterday. Alright, so last night.

More to come…