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From the all-astern-weddings department:

OK, I’m a bad blogger. It’s been a while since I updated. Part of me says, “So what? Nobody reads this crap.” Then the part of me that started this thing says, “Dude! You started doing this as a way to release pent-up creativity, and to practise writing, and as a diary of sorts to look back on in years hence.” Then yet another part of me said, “Dude! Milkshake!.” Anyways, note to self: need to get in the habit of making daily entries. The challenge is in creating something interesting out of the lame nothingness of my boring life. Get a milkshake.

Stories coming up:
* Trip to Grand Bend
* Wedding!
* Trip home

TRIP TO GRAND BEND

This trip starts on Thursday, August 4^th. It starts in my basement where I begin a sort of mad rush to test my audio equipment — I’m responsible for the sound at the wedding, you see — and then pack everything I need into my car. Much running around up and down flights of stairs, in and out of boxes to locate papers, shoes, etc. The cats were dazed and confused by my whirlwindish behaviour.

On the road to the cottage, the trip was as beautiful and calm as ever. Dusk faded to dark as I made my way to my favourite place on Earth. I got in at about 22h30, decided to leave the power turned off and just stumble around and crunch a few toes on my trip to jump in the lake before bed.

I woke up mightily refreshed — the three-day work week, combined with waking up at my most favourite place in the world, plus it being Friday, *and* looking forward to driving for a few hours¹ with good tunes all combined to give me several metric handfuls of attitude pluspoints — and ran up the hill to connect the popup trailer to the car. After which, of course came the requisite jump in the lake, followed by a relaxing dry-out in the hammock.

Then, off to Grand Bend. It was a beautiful day, gorgeous driving weather. Traffic was perfect (except for Toronto, but no surprise there). Speaking of Toronto, I’m driving along the 401 on the Huron side of Toronto in the right-of-leftmost lane, moving well, when I see a collection of brake lights ahead. A half-second later I spot a black sheet of plastic debris. A half-second after that I spot a car shifting lanes from the left to the right shoulder. Out from underneath this newly disabled car comes gushing piles and piles of gasoline. We’re talking crazed, rampant zamboni-like levels of output, here. The road in front of me is awash in so much gasoline that the smell of oil is detectable within the stench of the gas. As I look over at the dead car, which I’m now passing as it slows in the emergency shoulder, I see gas gushing out from underneath the vehicle, near the middle — not from the gas tank area in the back as I would’ve expected.

I surely hope that nobody was hurt. At the time I was, shall we say concerned, that the metric bucketfuls of gasoline on the highway would ignite from the pavement made hot by the scorching sun and hotter still by the passage of hot tires and hot engines, but in retrospect I imagine the gas evaporated quite quickly, except for the piles that must have remained under the disabled vehicle. I felt sorry for the driver, stuck helpless on the side of the expressway. Little did I know how soon I would be feeling the same for myself.

Aside from this briefly exciting event the rest of the trip was superbly pleasant. I pulled into Pinery provincial park at 13h30 after leaving the cottage at 07h30. It took me a half-hour to check in, find my site and set up the popup trailer. Then, off to the Oakwood resort to meet up with family.

THE WEDDING!

So many good things happened during the days of the wedding that I cannot recall them all here. The joy of meeting and greeting family members and friends I haven’t seen in a long time as well as making new friends and having a number of great times I’ll leave to the imagination. I’ll pick a few memories to detail here in the hopes that they’ll jog my memory of the whole event when I read this back years from now.

THE SOUND SYSTEM SAGA

I mentioned that I had been given the honour of providing the sounds at the wedding. The challenge here was that the wedding, taking place in a conservation area near the beach of lake Huron, had no power available. I had brought a car battery to power my systems but it wasn’t strong enough (I now believe that this is a dead battery — as in I charged it just before coming but it can no longer hold a charge).

We set out to do the rehearsal ceremony but got delayed by a number of latecomers. I set up the sound, but since the system (which worked fine in tests in my basement before leaving) had power problems, I had to drive my car over and steal some power with jumper cables. Even still, the sounds system kept cutting out. This was the first failure of the sound system. We also found that the microphone cable was too short, and the components were getting too hot.

Getting back to the resort, I made arrangements to borrow my cousin’s big trailer batteries — one deep-cycle marine battery, and one huge monster which was actually a combination of three big batteries in parallel. They were, however, low on charge, so we left them on a big 12A charger overnight. These batteries would solve our power problem.

The next day we set out to set up the ceremony area. While the chairs, arbor, and various plants were laid out I set up the sound system again, this time with an umbrella to hide the sound system components, and their new-found power, underneath. We had also acquired a microphone extension from my cousin’s family who’d traveled into London that morning. All of yesterday’s problems were solved, it seemed.

Until the sound started cutting out again.

It seems that my black-coloured amplifier has a protection circuit that cuts off when it overheats. Luckily the groom’s father, who lives not 5 minutes away, BTW, had an amplifier and a boom-box that we borrowed. I tested the system with the new amplifier and it worked like a charm. Then I tested the boom-box as a backup.

The wedding happened and everything went to plan. The only issue was a little bit of static from the speaker on the bride’s (read: my family’s) side, but nobody really noticed because everybody’s attention was on the beautiful ceremony.

Third time’s a charm, it seems.

A BRIEF SYNOPSIS, from the beginning:

* Setting up camp at Pinery
* Seeing my family at Oakwood, a quick lunch with my sister and the maid of honour, and seeing my mom
* Wasting time at the rehearsal while waiting for latecomers
* The failing sound system at rehearsal
* Dinner at Oakwood
* Running around getting batteries organized
* Everybody meeting at Ed’s room for drinks and Good Times^[TM]

* Waking up and heading down to the beach for a walk, some pictures and a swim in the lake
* Breakfast at Timmy’s with Tall Sarah
* Another breakfast at Timmy’s with John and Mark
* Collecting the cars for washing and decorating
* Setting up before the ceremony where the sound system failed again
* THE WEDDING CEREMONY GOING PERFECTLY AS PLANNED
* A trip down to the beach for photos, where some guys and two gorgeous girls in bikinis asked me to take some photos (Note to self: take camera to bikini beaches more often!!!)
* Reception dinner and party afterwards

* Waking up and heading down to the beach for another walk and swim in the lake
* Breakfast with family at Oakwood
* Downloading pictures off of my cousin’s memory-full camera and burning them onto CDROM so they can take a bunch more pictures on their trip back to Winnipeg
* Playing frisbee with Darin, Katrine and my sister in the water at the beach with John and Ed showing up later on after we’d sat down to dry out

TRIP HOME

After our fun at the beach, I headed back to the resort to say goodbye to family. Then off to the campsite to pop down the popup trailer, and finally on the road at just after 15h00. The trip home was as pleasant as the trip out, with two exceptions:

1) I had achieved a good driver’s tan on the way out which was compounded with a lot of sun during the wedding days (all of which had perfect, gorgeous weather) and especially the time at the beach earlier in the day. As a result most of my body was a little pink and my arm was an odd shade of red. I drove the trip sans shirt and with my arm tucked below the window at times.

2) Just east of Toronto my popup trailer blew a tire. On the 401. In the fast lane. Fortunately I was able to pull over onto the emergency shoulder with no trouble.

You are on a busy highway. Your car is towing a trailer which has just blown a tire. You have just pulled onto the emergency shoulder and inspected the damage. Your tire is totaled. You are on a tight schedule to get to your cottage, drop off your trailer, and return home in time to get enough sleep to go to work the next morning.

next move> check spare tire

You look at the spare tire attached to your trailer and find it to be flat. Dead flat.

next move> check trunk

You open your car’s trunk. Within you find three frisbees, a football, a half-empty jug of washer fluid, a half-empty jug of radiator fluid, and a set of tire teeth.

next move> dig deeper

Shuffling things around, you find buried a 12V compressor tucked away in a corner.

next move> check trailer compartment

Looking in the wooden box attached to the back of your trailer, you find four stands, a jack, a crank-handle for the jack, a tire iron, some WD-40 and a container of ball-bearing grease.

next move> inflate spare tire with compressor

You connect the compressor’s nozzle to the tire’s air valve. You open the passenger door to connect the compressor to your car’s 12V power. You find a large speaker blocking your path.

next move> remove large speaker and connect power

You extract the large speaker from the passenger side front seat. You find that you are now able to connect the power for your compressor. You note with joy that your compressor is now inflating your spare tire.

next move> connect crank handle to jack

You attempt to insert the handle into your jack. You find that it does not want to fit.

next move> curse and kick jack

You curse like a sailor in rough seas and kick at the jack while trying to wiggle, force, fold, bend, spindle and mutilate the crank handle into the jack’s slot. Eventually it fits in.

next move> place jack under trailer and crank handle

You place the jack under the trailer and begin to crank the handle. The trailer begins to lift. Your attention wanders to the tire which is still inflating.

next move> check tire pressure

You can hear that the compressor is having difficulty inflating the tire. Using your tire pressure gauge, you find that your tire has 5 measly pounds per square inch of pressure.

next move> curse and re-seat the nozzle connection

After using florid language to describe your opinion of the compressor and the questionable ancestry of those who constructed it, you re-seat the nozzle and find a drastic improvement in the sound of the compressor. Looking back at the trailer, you see that the wheel is now raised enough to be removed.

next move> use tire iron to remove bolts

You attempt to loosen the bolts on the tire with the tire iron. You find that all bolts are stuck and rusted in place.

next move> curse and beat on bolts with tire iron

You howl at the bolts like a madman in an insane asylum while hammering on them using full double-deuce action. You eventually find that you are able to loosen the bolts. Your abs glow in the dark with pride. Radioactive goo emanates from your power fist.

next move> remove dead tire and check spare tire

You take the ripped and shredded tire with its bent rim and strap them to the spare tire’s old spot. Checking the pressure on the spare tire, you find it at 43 PSI, which is pretty close to the required 50.

next move> install spare tire

You attempt to install the spare tire but find that the trailer has not been lifted high enough.

next move> curse and crank jack

You crank the jack while cursing until your face turns blue but find that you have not been able to lift the trailer high enough.

next move> use trailer front jack to lift trailer

You disconnect the trailer from the vehicle and use the jack on the front to lift the trailer even higher than ever before. You find that you now have enough clearance to install the tire.

next move> liberally coat bolts and boltholes with WD-40

You spray WD-40 all over the boltholes and bolts until a fine film covers all and you can smell the sweet smell of success approaching.

next move> install bolts

You install and hand tighten the bolts. Next you apply even more tire-iron-tightening action to each bolt in a cross-pattern method.

next move> lower front jack

You lower the front jack and reconnect the trailer to the car. Looking at your new spare tire, you notice that it looks a little low. You notice that your hands are now as black as the road on which you stand.

next move> de-crank rear jack

You crank the jack that you placed under the trailer until you are able to remove it. You stow it in the box on the back of the trailer. You find that, having removed all the jacks, your tire no longer looks a little low.

next move> tighten bolts

With the tire now securely pinned to the road by the weight of the trailer, you find that you are able to move the bolts a little more. You make a note to yourself to loosen the bolts BEFORE jacking the trailer, next time.

next move> clean up

You stow the tire iron in the trailer’s box and close it up. You double check that the spare tire is strapped in place and that the trailer is firmly reconnected to your car. You re-open the trailer’s box, liberally coat your hands with WD-40, rub them together, re-coat again, rub together again. You find that WD-40 is a miracle cleaner. You use an ugly blanket-sized piece of cloth from your trunk that you bought along with a bunch of others for $2 at an auction to clean your hands. You pack up and stow the compressor in your trunk. Then you replace the large speaker in the front passenger seat.

next move> look around for anything left

You search carefully for anything that you might have left lying around. You find the spare tire’s air valve cap, which you install on the tire. No other items remain.

next move> leave in victory

Standing in your half-naked state on the side of the road behind your newly fixed trailer, you flex your muscles while grunting and hoo-rah-ing at your success in solving the puzzle and completing the tire change in a half-hour. You wish there you were traveling with a girl who could ooh and aah at your powers of manliness.

At the next service station, I double-checked the tightness of the bolts on both tires as well as their air pressure. The spare tire has held its air well and all bolts are tight. I got some gas and readjusted my plans to just go right home and park the trailer in my driveway. I’ll take it back to the cottage on the weekend. During the week, I’ll pick up two new tires at Canadian Tire — making this the first time I’ve ever actually bought tires there — and install them as well as caching an old towel in with the other trailer stuff, an item that I vaguely missed having at the beach.

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¹ Yes, I am the weird sort of person who really enjoys driving. Out in the country is best but I enjoy highway and yes, even rush hour driving.

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