Author: Erwin

Today Joel, Adam, Tom, Dave, and myself chartered a fishing boat out of Granville Island for a five-hour fishing excursion out by the local waters of English Bay. Our boat came courtesy of Bonnie Lee Fishing Charters. It turns out that this was my second time patronizing Bonnie Lee as two years ago, I was part of a bachelor party that rented speed boats from them.

It was a fabulous day for fishing. The weather was spectacular. Granville Island was a beautiful sight to see. We departed with our fishing guide and captain Terry at around 1:30pm, heading west towards West Van. Terry was a really nice chap who knew a lot about fishing and boats, after spending decades as a fisherman. He told us a ton of instructions on how to handle the rod and reel. Even after two go-arounds on the instructions, I still had no idea what the hell to do. It involved a lot of reeling and keeping your rod up.

Within the first hour, Terry admitted that this season was the worst he’s seen in all his years of fishing. We’d be lucky to even catch a single fish during our five-hours. This wasn’t good news, but being out on the water on a great day overrode any bad news. Soon after the four lines had been placed in the water, Joel caught a small shark! We had to throw it back in, but it was really cool to see it onboard for a short while. It threw up a little when it was being held by its tail. Neat!

We also caught a few jellyfish, which did not come aboard. Adam actually caught a nice looking salmon but it was too small for us to keep. Terry said we had to throw it back in. Too bad. We did take a photo of it before we let the little guy back in. The closest we came to catching a real big one was when Dave was in control of a rod when we had a bite. He lost it just as the fish was coming near the boat. It literally was the one that got away.

Though there some plans by the boys to drink themselves silly, that never materialized. The waters were quite choppy in places, leaving a few to deal with sea sickness. Adam refunded his lunch into the chop. I even got a picture of that as he was wiping up his mouth.

A few of us got to take the wheel of the boat. Terry at times had to leave the bridge to down to the deck to tend to the rods and make new lines. His rule was that if he left the bridge, someone had to sit down and take the wheel. Joel and Tom had a go at it, but then it was my turn soon after. I’m not sure what it was but I just settled into the job. I was the only one to get to execute turns with the boat. That was really cool since I got to handle the throttle, turn the boat, and watch for other marine traffic. The bridge is a nice place to be because it’s kinda covered and you’re high up, so you can see everything. I was at the helm for about two hours, turning the boat back and forth along our fishing track.

Some of the marine traffic you see is really interesting. There was this huge floating Nike ad with Markus Naslund on it. We also saw three different cruise ships heading out to see. Early on, there was this massive cargo container ship that came steaming off our starboard. It’s amazing how fast such a massive ship can go. Though it was quite a distance away from us, the wake it left behind was impressive. We could all see it coming at us from about 20 seconds away. I was at the helm and I just watched it come in. Terry yelled that we should all get ready for it. When it hit, it rolled the ship over at least 40 degrees. I thought we might even tip over. It was a lot of fun.

A few of the lads napped during the afternoon as the fish weren’t exactly biting. This left ample opportunity to snap some funny pictures of Joel. By the end of our excursion, we came up empty in terms of fish. Nonetheless, everyone had a great time.

When we came back to Granville Island, Terry said that I was a natural at handling the boat, which is apparently rare among his charter clients. I still think he was being generous with his comments, but maybe all that video game playing did come in handy.

With no fish in hand, we decided to drown our sorrows at Sammy J. Peppers for dinner. Half of us ordered salmon which was an excellent choice. Tom was so impressed with the place, he wondered why he hadn’t been to SJP earlier. After dinner, we proceeded to Dairy Queen where we had “afters”, which is apparently British for dessert.

It was a fun day overall and I’m glad I went. Thanks to Joel for organizing and to Dave for driving.

Here are some pics from the day. See if you can spot some highlights: Dave looking like he belongs in the Village People, Adam wiping his mouth after vomiting, Joel falling asleep with his water bottle in a suggestive position, and finally, Joel and Tom looking like they’ll be friends forever.

With about six billion people on this planet, it’s highly unlikely your combination of first name and last is unique. I am not exempt from this fact. There are other Erwin Tangs out there. I even think some of them have come to this site, Googling our name. Tee-hee… our name.

I believe there’s at least one Erwin Tang in Singapore. If you Google my name, most of the hits come back to me: this web site, school related stuff, various restraining orders, and the list goes on. There is one other Erwin Tang that does come up and he’s just not Erwin Tang, he’s Dr. Erwin Tang. Oh how my Mom wish I could be called Dr. Erwin Tang.

Anyways, Dr. Erwin Tang lives and works near the Dallas, Texas area. Specifically, Dr. Tang has a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree which makes him very qualified to be rooting around in that area of the face. From all indications, he’s a terrific and competent dentist.

Dr. Erwin Tang also appears to have a fantastic home life. He was named Plano, Texas’ Father of the Year for 2001. I remember there was a PDF online newsletter which detailed the reasons behind the accolade. In the piece, I found out that Dr. Tang has two kids, I believe a boy and a girl. I think there was also a picture of his entire family: him, his wife, and their two kids. I wish I could find that document again. I bet his house is really nice and he has air-conditioning.

Life must be good for Dr. Erwin Tang. I have no doubt he’s probably Googled his own name. He’s probably visited this site as well. I wonder what he thinks of all this. He’s worked so hard to make a good name for himself in the community and professionally, and everything on the Internet with our name is related to a joker like me. Geez, do you think he’s put a filter on his kids computers’ so that they can’t visit my site? I bet his wife frowns whenever he brings up erwintang.com.

I’d like to meet Dr. Erwin Tang someday. I’m hoping he’s a pretty cool guy.

“In a recent auction, one of the original lightsabers from the Star Wars movies was sold for $200 000… the winning bidder wants to remain anonymous… and a virgin.”

So the office in which I work has windows that face directly along W. Broadway near Maple, that’s near Arbutus for those who aren’t familar with the area. On any given day, there many, many, many super attractive women who walk along this stretch of W. Broadway. There’s also a bus stop across the street from the building. Often, these supermodel types will wait for the bus going downtown.

A co-worker of mine, who shall go unnamed, has his desk right by this bank of windows. He says it’s gotten to the point where he thinks the situation is just crazy. He swears that every five minutes there’s a stunningly beautiful girl that walks by on the street. When you can either look at C++ code or steal a glance at a hot girl, the decision can be hard to make sometimes.

He tells me that there’s a bus stop regular. He’s some guy in 40s or so that buys alcohol from the nearby liquor store. The dude then takes his stash to the bus stop and chats these hot ladies up while drinking. Maybe he’s got the right idea… lol.

Thankfully (ha!), my desk faces a wall and all my neighbours are guys. I have no distractions in that respect. I have nothing to prevent me from just churning out high-quality game code hour after efficient hour. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I visit the my co-worker buddy just to see who’s at the bus stop.

There were two noteworthy things that happened to me this long weekend.

1. From Saturday evening on until about mid-morning Sunday, I accidently left my apartment door unlocked. I slept through the night while any number of criminals could have entered my home. Nothing was stolen.

2. After discovering my door had been unlocked, I went to Safeway to get some groceries. I realized when I got home that my fly had been unzipped the entire time I was out getting food. I’m not talking about half unzipped, I’m talking about fully unzipped, zipper teeth completely wide open, let’s get some fresh air around my boys type of unzipped.

On Sunday, my good friend Patrick Oabel handed in his keys and ended his four-year long stay at St. John’s College. Four years is a long time to live at any university residence but Patrick made the most of his time there. He completed a Master’s degree and started his first two years of his Ph.D at SJC. His time is now up and he’ll be moving in with his brother in East Van. In September, he’ll write his comprehensive exams and then depart soon after for the jungles of the Philipines for field research. For most of us, we will see him only a handful of times before he turns into Indiana Jones again.

Along Chris Conklin, I had the pleasure of dining with Woba at One More Sushi before his last night at the College. I think he was a bit sad at the prospect of moving out. It’s my opinion that the most cherished residents of SJC are those who make the College better because they live there. You don’t have to necessarily volunteer for everything or give a concert every week, but just being a generous, thoughtful, and kind person makes you a standup type of resident. Woba certainly was that type of guy.

As evidenced by the near endless stream of well-wishers that came by his room after dinner, his departure will be certainly felt by many, many SJC residents. Some stayed for a few minutes, while others lingered for much longer. A few even said nothing, content to just watch him clean his room. I’ve heard people say that Woba, in their humble opinions, was the nicest guy they’ve met at SJC.

I left Woba around 10pm to let him clean in peace. I’m always amazed at how different people’s last nights are at SJC. A lot of people viewed it simply as a convenient place to sleep, eat, and take a dump, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t bat an eye when they left. While some found it really hard to leave (myself included). I know my last night at SJC sucked.

Woba and I agreed I’d meet him at SJC at 11:30am the next morning, when he’d hand in his keys and I’d say goodbye. Like an idiot, I played video games until 4:30am. I woke up all bleary-eyed at 11am. I managed to stumble out of my apartment about 11:20am. When I opened my door, Woba was sitting outside at one of the tables in the courtyard.

We made the ten minute walk over to SJC where he made a last check of his room, stepped out, and then locked his room for the last time. He slipped his keys into the office mailbox and we walked outside. For the first time, we were now both ex-SJC residents.

We had lunch at the SUB and then walked over to the bus loop. We waited for the 99 to arrive and he got on for the long trip out to East Van.

I feel really lucky to have met Woba. I’m not sure what I enjoyed more with him: ogling women, talking about Star Wars, checking out mysterious cars in the parking lot, making him talk in a Philipino accent, or eating fast food.

Well, before this post gets any more gay, I’ll end it here. Woba, thanks for being my friend.

“Martha Stewart finally gets her electronic monitoring ankle bracelet removed in two weeks… thank God… that damn thing always left a red mark on the back of my neck…”

Earlier in the day, I would have thought my highlight of the day was seeing those gaggle of super hot ladies on W. 4th Ave. when I was out for lunch. I was wrong. Then I thought the highlight would have been watching the fireworks at Spanish Banks. I was wrong again.

No, the highlight of my day happened around midnight when I found myself standing on top of a parkade on-campus somewhere with Tomo, Adam, Joel, Tyson, and Tom. It appears that Tom and Tyson have started this two person fight club where they duel each other with homemade swords.

This is how serious they are about it. They go to Home Depot to buy plastic piping material which they fashion into swords complete with custom made hilts. Tyson has a wooden staff that he duels with, a la Darth Maul style.

On the way up to the parkade roof, I was a bit skeptical as to how impressive this whole thing would be but I would soon see the intensity involved. Both Tom and T-Bone started off with a single sword each. They warmed up a bit first but before Adam, Tomo, and I could even notice, the two duelists engaged each other in furious combat. It was a lot faster and dangerous mind you, than I had anticipated. There was considerable weight behind each strike and blow. Was it Anakin vs. Obi-Wan? No, not exactly, but no one would have mistaken this as simple play fighting. Speed and danger were definite elements in this.

Before long Tyson brought out the staff and that seemed even more dangerous than the swords. After battling for a short while, both Tom and Tyson decided to grab a sword in each hand. Four PVC swords were in play at the same time.

I’d seen enough after this, so I decided to go home. On the way down the stairs, I saw a police cruiser heading up to the top floor of the parkade. I had no doubt in my mind the cops were on their way to see what the hell was going on up there. I kept on walking.

I’ve received reports that the cop questioned the boys as to their activities, but left them be, albeit a little perplexed as to why good friends would want to bash each other with swords.

Alright, it’s getting late, I’m out.