This past weekend I had a chance to meet up with some old friends from the Boiler Room.  Dave, Ali, Jim and myself have been hanging out for a long time, and it doesn’t take much of an excuse for us to get together and party.

 
We met back at the Boiler Room when we were all in our late teens and early twenties.   We were climbing really hard and were in fantastic physical shape.  All of us were ambitious and working crazy hours to get where to where ever we were going.  We could also party like no one else I know.  A night out seemed a bit like a season of 24.  Raving at clubs, writing music until five in the morning and generally drinking up all the goodness of life.

 
Now we all have respectable jobs.  Jim and Dave run a successful foreign aid program with employees and staff all over the world.  Ali is working in Montreal as a musician and composer and making a pretty good living.  I have my respectable job at MTO.

 
We met for dinner before we went out to the bar to see Ali play.  (He comes down to Kingston every Friday to play a gig a at Tango.)  I had left a couple of messages at home, but poor Alison had no idea that I was out for the night. Dave had a “full pass” leaving his wife and baby girl at home, so dad could go and burn off some steam.

 
The conversation at dinner was the usual: how business is going, what projects we’re working on and the like.  It is always like this, smart people trying to get ahead in whatever business we are working in.  We also chat about our wives, houses and kids. After dinner we head over to Tango to meet up with the DJ and get a good table.  We get there around 9:30-10:00. 

 
By 11:00 the bar is starting to fill up and we are already into our second or third Red Bull and tequila.  At this point, I should have realized that it was going to be one of those nights.  At one point I leaned over and shouted into Jim’s ear, “This stuff makes my heart hurt…”.  We look at each other, shrug, and down the rest of our drinks and look for the waitress.

 
Around 11:30 the fire alarm goes off.  I look around expecting the staff to launch into some well-orchestrated fire procedure.  Instead our waitress, who is standing close to our table looks over and says, “what the hell is that?”.  She disappears and quickly comes back (obviously after consulting the manager) and asks one of us for a credit card to cover the bill.  No mention of leaving the building.

 
I head outside and walk around to the side of the building to see smoke billowing out of a restaurant on the corner.  Damn, it’s the real thing.  Walking back to the front door of the bar I see that everyone is out the door and standing on the sidewalk, no one is in a rush.

 
I start politely suggesting to folks that maybe it would be a good idea to stand on the far side of the street.  They gawk at me for a minute, and then I point at the smoke.  They start to move across the street.

 
Once the young men in middle age bodies have regrouped on the other side of the street, we decide to head for greener pastures.  Elixer it is decided on, and we pile into a cab.

 
At the new bar, we find that we are probably the oldest people there.  (Mostly 17-year Queen’s students armed with fake ID and more bravado than brains.)  The DJ is spinning hardcore gansta rap crap, and an emcee is shouting something into the mike. Whatever, after this much alcohol, we should be able to enjoy pretty much any music. 

 
We’re getting looks from the staggering little people.  Dave is up on the packed stage dancing away, the rest of us are standing around a table with one last RB&T to make sure we have enough energy to get home.  After another hour, I’ve had enough. 

 
When I get home there is a polite note from Alison, saying that I should sleep in the guest room.  (AKA the dawg house, as she calls it.)

 
The next morning, I wake up at the usual obscenely early time, 7:00 on the weekends is our usual. 

 
Ingest coffee, look at the to do list. 

 
Crap.  Gotta get started on the house work.

Well it finally happen, the first totally inappropriate remark from the campaign trail.  The “Beer and Popcorn” remark came from Scott Reid, a senior communicaitons advisor, who was talking about the conservative’s plan to give $1500 to parents as opposed to the Liberal’s plan to put the money into childcare infrastrucsture. 

As an aside, doesn’t it seem absolutely ridiculous for government to collect money, only to turn around and write a check to the people who gave them the money in the first place?  I must be mistaken in thinking that governments provide services to tax payers not hand out cash.  But I digress.

 The liberal’s have apologized for the remark, which I can totally understand being made in a backroom conversation.  (It is actually kind of witty).  But damn, not for the general public people!  We’ll see how it plays out, as usual the analysts are all doom and gloom about the Liberal’s after the comment, calling this a turning point.