So... are you afraid of your moral high horse?

I've been an honorary member of the Social Committee for my dad's work for quite a few years now. But I've recently taken the relationship to the next level and thought, hey, why not write a post about it?

Up until two weeks ago, I limited my involvement in the social committee to volunteering on the day of (and the days leading up to) the event. I wasn't a part of the organizing and besides taking orders from K helping K, I wasn't really involved.

Until now.

The latest extravaganza is the Youth Convention - basically an event to educate youth in the workplace. It's a giant event - taking place over 3 days with numerous fundraising events leading up to it. It's quite the undertaking. K has been talking about it for months and I've helped out at the few events they've had to raise money so far.

The problem is, people sign up to be on the committee and when they realize how much work it is, they stop showing up to the meetings. Essentially abandoning all the dedicated members and leaving all the work for them. Not fair.

Tim, Mr Social Committee, has asked me to attend meetings a number of times in the past but I always considered it to be a pity invite. You do a lot, so I have to invite you, but I could care less if you show up. Well, when the youth committee dwindled to a handful of participants he started mentioning ways of getting new members. Again.

Since all attempts at increasing membership have failed long-term thus far, K was extremely skeptical and voiced her opinion. Tim's response? Well, what about your friend?

So she called me and despite my busy schedule, I agreed. Because even with working full-time, going to school part-time, drinking, ice skating and hiking, I'm going to be far more dedicated than most of the people that actually work there. In fact, that's how I started volunteering at events in the first place, so why not start going to meetings??

In my two week tenure, I've made two posters and a sign up sheet, have attended two meetings, proofread/edited three letters and helped with the budget for one, very large, event.

This summer will be packed to the tits with events. Hopefully I keep busy enough to stay out of prison.

Big thanks to Brain Trepaning for accusing me of barely keeping out of prison and to EliseArt & Gorm for finding the term "pack to the tits" so damn hilarious.

Your nose moves when you talk

Okay - so I went to the fishing derby. Unfortunately, the only thing I caught was a cold. Fortunately, I was fortunate enough to eat the catches of others. It's nice when people share their fish!

This year was quite different than previous years. For one, C, the guy who brings us to the fishing derby, showed up sick. He ended up sleeping for 18 hours straight and missed the Friday night gong show. It wasn't quite the same without him. During the Friday night gong show, two guys decided to play some guitar. My best friend, K, said I should join them, but I said no because they seemed all professional and stuff and I didn't want any part of that.

I wasn't prepared for what came next, and I was deeply grateful for not wanting to be a part of it. These two guys tuned guitars (unsuccessfully) for at least an hour, enduring the drunken heckles of most of the spectators. At one point, I grabbed my guitar and me and K played and sang, while the drunkies bitched about the guys who couldn't tune a guitar. They didn't really even realize someone else was in fact playing a tuned guitar. Our campfire sing-a-long just wasn't the same.

Saturday seemed to be a bit mellow, but we decided to drink our way to a party anyway. But then, K up and broke her nose. It was a pee-related event and I don't think I'm at liberty to say much more than that. Needless to say, she wasn't feeling like ripping it up after she smashed her face in. Turns out, the party was on that night, we just missed it entirely.

Sunday was the day the derby wrapped up. I didn't win a door-prize even though that is totally my forte, but K did and she chose the prize that I would have chosen, and I'm sure she'll let me play the drinking game one day, so in a way, I did win. In a very long, convoluted way, that is.

OH AND I GOT BOOTS!!!

This place is particularly muddy down on the banks of the river and since we intended to fish we had to be prepared. On Wednesday, K informed me of her intention of buying some gum-boots. On Thursday, I realized that if I wore my hiking boots, I might ruin them, so I texted her during the day and asked if she could pick me up a pair as well. She searched high and low and finally found some cool ones in our sizes. She bought me a pair that she wasn't quite sure if I would like or not, but figured if I hated them, then we could trade. Luckily, I loved them and we got comments all weekend about how cool our boots are. Mine look like this:

That took far too long to draw and yes, they actually ARE that cool! Keeping in mind I'm not exactly a pink kind of girl, you can imagine why K suspected she was giving up her boots. The beauty part is, when I asked her how much I owed her she said "Nothing." and I said "What?!" and then she said "They're a gift for being such a great friend!" and I said "Aw, really?! Thanks!!! Now you're a great friend too!! :D "

Sunday was supposed to be the day where we fished, but since K smashed her face in, we went home instead. Despite having not gotten fishing-derby-drunk, and having went to bed by 1am every night and slept until 9am every morning, I was surprisingly tired, so I wasn't upset.

Monday, when I woke up I realized why I was so tired. I had caught C's cold. I cursed his name and considered calling him to tell him, but I'm not sure if we're "there" yet, so I let it go. But I'll likely inform him of all of this the next time I see him.

Let's see... other stuff happened... but the side story will make this post unbearably long, and no one really wants to read about vomit, so I'll just leave it at that.

One of the guitar guys, Ken (who had successfully tuned his guitar - yay built in tuners!!), is the person who originally was the campfire sing-a-long guy. Well, we are now friends on facebook and we will be working together to add more songs to our already long set list. So maybe, if all works out, we'll have a rip-roaring good time next year.

Also, C and T (the organizers) informed everyone that they are not organizing the derby next year. *major sigh* Our deal with C is, he gets us a motor home and we cook for the fisherpeople. Since he's not organizing next year, we won't have to cook, so we can actually fish. Bonus! Not so bonus: we'll have to foot the bill for our own motor home cuz there's no way in hell I'm tenting it at the fishing derby... not after three years of precedent.

Okay. I think that's it now.

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing an illustration that has been reused and recycled numerous times. Apparently I pout a lot in my stories. So over-dramatic.

Oh... a troll bidge!

Alright... this weekend is the weekend I've been waiting for. It's been a year in the making, but, finally, it's here. It's fishing derby time, boys and girls!!!

A bit of background: I volunteer at all the work events for my dad's union. So when I say the fishing derby is the event of the season, I mean it! The fishing derby is not exactly volunteer work. C, one of the organizers, needed some people to cook, so he asked my best friend to help out. When she found out the night time is comprised of campfire sing-a-longs she knew I had to go. To entice us even more, C rents an RV and lets us use it for the weekend. In return, we cook for the fisherpeople. A pretty good bargain if you ask me.

This is the third year that I've gone to the fishing derby and the first year where I'll actually fish at it (what a concept!). But fishing and cooking aside, there'll be a rip-roaring party every night we're there. There will be many-a-story about the fishing derby, hopefully some of them are PG enough to make it into a blog. Otherwise, all the poor saps at work will have to hear about it, yet again. Sorry guys! :)