Friday, July 27, 5:30 AM

I was awakened by a BEEP BEEP BEEPing alarm clock. by 6:30 AM I was showered, dressed, finished packing and on the road. I had green duffle bag of clothes, a blue tub of tools and a pair of parents with me. I have the most rulingest parents.

7:30 PM

We arrived at the Comfort Inn in Manchester NH quite by acident. I was just saying "I think this is the wrong road we'd better turn around" when out of the blue there was a Comfort Inn across the street. Getting my key was too easy. I had expected to have more trouble with it but all possible troubles had been Miaed out of existance. I had Pizza with my parents and went to bed around midnight. I didn't run into any Rinks.

Saturday, July 28, 6:00 AM

I was awakened by the phone ringing. it was Ticia informing Mia that she had arrived. a while later Ticia arrived at our door. I got a blurry without glasses look at both her and Mia.

7:00 AM

I woke up again. This time I got out of bed. Mia is still sleeping. I get dressed etc. I wait around too long and when I go down to breakfast I know I'm going to be a bit late if it is actually true that the festivities are going to begin at 8:30.

8:45 AM

I arrive in a confrence room where I find a bunch of people that I have NEVER MET IN MY LIFE. I wonder briefly if I'm more insane than I originally thought.

I immediatly recognise Elly, Sam, famous, and Dave. Everyone else either takes a minute to figure out or they haven't arrived yet. Sam did not recognise me.

Stuff happened. Announcements, arrivals, the handing out of junk, other assorted silliness.

People start giving me stuff for the RinkUnion Mobile. I get my blue tub of tools and start attaching hangers. This attracts some intrest and more people give me stuff to hang. Its really cool when that happens.

Lunchtime

A bunch of us go across the street to eat. A bunch more soon appear. We take up a bit more than 2 tables and make a lot of noise. I almost choke from laughing a few times. I wonder what the other patrons thought.

Later

I start hanging mobile bits. I draw a crowd. I work through most of the afternoon activities. I've planned to finish the mobile by the end of the day. Dave reads a IABBBBM review. The remainder of the weekend is liberally sprinkled with quotes from it and the other readings that happened.

We watch The Bad Movie. I work on the mobile. People go for supper. I finish the mobile. Someone brings back pizza so I get to eat too. I decide I don't like the mobile and redo the last bit the hard way. During the bottle game I pronounce the mobile completed and people make me post for a picture with it.

The mobile includes the following:

Sam - a small deck of cards with Rinkworks written on them
Leen - a plastic horsey
Jake - three erasers
Elly - a pocket notebook
Mousie - a duck with mouse ears
Grishny - a Grishny keychain
PrincessLeia - a light saber and a pokemon thingy
Tim - a calculator with a sword and a lego man
Matthew - a British coin
Ayako - a hair clip
Cynthia - a penguin
Myself - a mini mobile
Famous - a computer disk
Faux_Pas - a bottle cap

I'm sure pictures will be forthcoming

Sunday, July 29

We were tourists. Insane, silly tourists. I'm sure everywhere we went they breathed a huge sigh of relief when we left without destroying the place.

I laughed. It hurt after a while.

The Ring Around the Darien in the parking lot was the best silliness I think. Unless it was the caves. Or maybe it was...I dunno...way cool day.

For the record I was consciously not bringing up the Canadian thing for most of the time. Occasionally when I go to the States I say "eh" on purpose just to mess people up. This time I just spoke normally. I think it helped that Matthew was there with his much more outrageously obvious accent. No one made me say "about". That was cool.

The money does bug me though...you end up with a whole fist full of flimsy paper one dollar bills. C'mon get a proper coin and introduce something for two dollars while you're at it.

um...that's it. The mobile, by the way, went home with Sam and Leen. They deserve it.

Next year I highly doubt I can go (I'm in school next summer and California's way far away)

After that? I suggest you bring it to Canada at least once. (do you know how much farther your dollar will go?)

Riv"yay fu...Zzzz"ikah