Blog Entry: 7 The new norm feeling normal
June-July 2021
It was Jess’s birthday and as only I had a job and had not been paid yet, we thought it irresponsible to go too balls out, we had taken a walk to the end of the street where the off-licence was as Jess had requested prosecco, (that’s the liquor store for my North American friends). It was whilst walking down the road, is when we had passed ‘The Guys’ in the garage, which was Joal who was with Kyle, Brando and Ben (JDM Fingers). It soon transpired they were all car nuts and Brando’s mums’ garage was a place where cars got fixed, beer got drunk and good old fashion banter was conducted; this fuckery was right up my street! They were talking about going out to an industrial estate they called ‘Tokyo’ where a collection of very slow cars would be responsibly and quietly parked up and some intellectual chat would be had………... (see the pics below). We had been out of quarantine for less than 2 weeks and already I was off to a car meet. To make this whole situation better JDM Fingers had said we could ride along with him in his Aristo. This was the Japanese saloon car that had a 2JZ and big turbo in it. Jess gave me a look of ‘is this a good idea?’ which is her normal look when she knows I’m excited about something and it’s either dangerous or frowned upon by society. Annoyingly this was one week away, so I had another week of getting to know all about ‘flat rate mechanics’ and how little North Americans actually checked their oil level. I spent most of my time getting through as much of my Dodge training as possible and prepping for my Red Seal exam! This is an exam I need so I can apply for permanent residence, but I had to be employed and working in Canada to sit it. This frustrating fact meant I couldn’t sit it before moving, which would have meant we could have moved with PR and that would have been a fuck load easier.
So, its Friday and it’s race night. This started with a little food and drinks at N9na’s on 17th. I say this like I know my way around, but I really don’t and a solid bit of advice to anyone visiting Calgary- Google maps really doesn’t work! The arseholes at Google kept telling me to drive the wrong way down every one-way street. But it soon become apparent that this place was a magnet for cars and even the ones just passing would light it up as they went passed. The signs were there, when we first arrived right at the end of the narrow back parking lot was a 2JZ engine GT86 and a tasteful collection of Japanese heavy weights, all would be right at home in the epic Japanese movie from the early 2000s ‘Initial Drift’. We got introduced to quite a few people including Dani, initially we thought she was Kyle’s girlfriend but this was very incorrect they were just roommates. Kyle is awesome and easy to explain he looks and acts like the PEI version of Johnny Bravo (for anyone old enough to remember the cartoon) only louder although not as loud as bright yellow Camaro! Dani or Daaaaaaani (as Kyle calls her in his strong PEI accent), has become one of our extended family, along with her dog Lucy. After food, we ditched our sketchy as fuck Outlander and left in Ben’s Aristo. The deep sound of a big turbo spool along with the waste gate flutter made me wish my rice rocket was more. When I thought that I would hold off on a nice car till we had PR and Jess was done with school, my instinct was to get something reliable and what better than a Japanese car. But I can promise you, the 2004 Outlander LX, with more holes than a modern political agenda, the speed of a tortoise and the maintenance history of a traveling carnival ride, was the furthest from what I had wanted, unfortunately in the current climate of the Calgary second-hand market this was all we could get in our budget. To clarify, you could have a Mulipla with only 3 wheels, no gearbox, and a pound of anthrax in the glovebox and it would still be worth 5K!
The night was pretty awesome! This would become a thing for the next few weeks, up to the point when a Jeep Cherokee Track Hawk lined up with a Hellcat Challenger. When the stagers hand went down, he launched in reverse, ploughing into the rocks behind. I can’t blame the owners of the industrial estate for saying ‘thats enough’, but it was a shame, I was getting some good videos and photos.
Over those weeks, Dodge hit a highlight when the new TRX came in, we had drunk quite a few tequila sun rises, we swum in the local creek, gained more free furniture, had some awesome ice cream, sat on our deck, did lots of skating, and tore my thumb open like a can. Yes, that last one was not fun! But don’t worry, injury is nothing new to me. My dads’ favourite joke when I was young was “have they given you a parking spot at Broomfield yet?” Broomfield was the hospital near me in England. Some of the highlights were, ripping my shoulder up snowboarding, having my knee trampled in rugby, breaking a hand bone in a disagreement with a wall, melting my thumb skin off, cutting my thigh with an angle grinder, getting knocked off my bike, hit by a car (slow speed), cracking my head open at Disneyland’s Davy Crocket Ranch, slicing open my figure deep when unpacking of stuff in Canada and breaking, dislocating and fracturing my little finger in the hinge of a door. This was thanks to Lee trying to shut me in there when I was 10 while getting some crayons for a girl named Holly that I had a crush on at the time….. yes, a foolish mistake. So, I’m versed in being hurt, but this time, it really did hurt. I had put a load of bits back together on a Jeep with rodent damage but had forgotten to plug the wiper motor in (found when testing with no response). I had squeezed my hand into the tiny gap that housed the wiper motor and linkage and slipped the plug fully home. As I did, the wiper kicked into life, driving round the linkage and connecting bar round at full speed, scrapped the flesh off the inside of my now trapped thumb opening it up like a bloody, fleshy, can of tuna. Jess rushed to the hospital, not for moral support but so she could finally see me stitched up with no anaesthetic. This is a real thing! I had a mis-blood count when I was really young, that meant lots of blood tests and multiple injuries to random nurses from my frantic attempts to get away. It was like the South Park episode when the tried to give Cartman a shot and he went full naked, greased pig to get away from them. Couple this with Mike Tyson (when he was into biting peoples ears off) and you have a fairly accurate description. So, since that I have had fillings done, stiches, my nose reset and even a tooth pulled out with absolutely no injections. When I used to think of stiches, I used to think of old Westerns when the hero cowboy would get his bullet wounds stitched up after a big battle and you could see Clint Eastwood make a slightly raised lip frown and let out the tiniest of manly grunts. Well, that’s a total fucking load of cowboy horse shit, in real life stiches burn like motherfucker! So, Chad, a colleague and phenomenal diesel mechanic I had befriended at Dodge, had kindly offered to drive me as I was already showing signs of shock and had gone a pasty white colour. At the time I thought he was overreacting, but as I stood in the waiting area of Cochrane Urgent Care and I slowly started to black out I was glade Chad had been there for me and insisted on driving. At the same time a very attentive nurse who had seen me getting whiter and predicted this happening seconds earlier, helped me into a seat. Let’s finish this section by saying this was not a highlight of our move! As the next week passed, I learnt you can calm an angry German by giving him a manly hug, Paul the northern bush monkey really likes jungle music, Dodge vehicles break really easy and avoid known issues like the plague, and a role of duct-tape, a gullible Afghanistan lube tech and a large muscular gay mechanic chasing him at full speed is possibly my highlight of 2021; To be honestly one of my all time funniest moments of banter.
What do you get if you put 8 people, one dog and a paddle board into, and on, a Mitsubishi Outlander? …… Our first Canada day! We spent most of the day in the Bow River drinking beer and cocktails and trying not to get taken to certain death by the notorious currents. Kyle tried to wear Jess’s white t shirt which ripped instantly and looked like a very twisted wet t-shirt contest. I got bitten by many mosquitos and heavily sunburned as I’m white as fuck, and I looked like a nerd in maths class with my had in the air the whole time trying to keep my stiches dry. That week we had ice cream, my DANF40 plate finally arrived and there was some epic thunder storms. I also discovered Loud and McQuade…… So, I can play piano, guitar and some drums and I use music as a de-stress I also recently started recording bits and pieces, and this place is a treasure trove of music instruments and recording equipment, all will be very necessary in due course. The last week in this instalment we discovered Wendy’s is fairly awesome, we like Elbow Falls, you will get told off by the park rangers for hanging over a cliff above a water fall to get a photo and Jess is appallingly shit at tennis. But my dad’s new favourite thing to tell people in England was about to happen. Jess had signed off as a bud tender (selling weed at a legal establishment) and my dad could now say we had moved to Canada and Jess had become a drug dealer……not exactly moving kilos of fucking coke, but he found this entertaining.
To end this week, we would meet another lady that would extend our friend group further and as usual there’s a story, mainly thanks to Jess’s pig ignorance to measuring anything she found on Facebook. This meant when ever we would pick something up it was Russian roulette if it would fit in or on the outlander …….she also never looke how far things were and on at least two occasions the fuel cost more than the item was worth!! This time we were off to pick up a $10 sofa (couch for the Americans) and it was actually local (5 mins from home). We arrived their and the seller was shocked as wee lifted this 2 person snuggle bench on to the heavily hail damaged roof of our “fried rice rocket” and I proceeded to rachet strap it on, not too tightly as I didn’t want to rip the roof bars off. It was at this point Pam a very Canadian accountant lady came out shouting “you cant do that” to which I replied its “ok I have ratchet straps” she continued “no you can’t drive with a couch on your roof” I wont lie it was a little sketchy, but we had very few options and we did need another sofa! She told us to wait their she had a truck and would put it in there. Now pam did not strike me as the truck owning type, but within minutes I heard the sound of knobbly tyres and looked to see a wide body, lifted Toyota Tacoma with swelled wheel arches, upgraded long travel suspension and a “get the fuck out my way” tube welded front bumper. So, I may have made an error, she not only owned a truck but modified and raced it! So once the sofa was off my roof and in the back of the Pam wagon, jess left me to drive the outlander home as she was not turning the offer to ride shotgun in the Tacoma. Pam would stay for Tea and chat where we would learn she was off to Mexico for the winter for baha ! and she really was into her Off road trucks. Its funny, since moving we have meet some relly awesome people and mostly due to or financially strained random life style, I guess that’s at least one take away from the situation and I mean it, and I genuinely mean it in the first 3 months we have meet some really awesome people!
Next, July25th to august 30th
