Let me tell you aboot my last night in Vancouver

Sitting in a Blenz coffee shop on Granville @ Davie in Vancouver. Cool, sunny day, and I’m hanging out for a bit until it’s time to head to Marcus Soares’ academy for a 2pm class. Meantime, I have checked out of my pricey hotel and am ready to hit the road again after class ends at 4pm. This time I’m headed to the Portland, OR, area, where I have multiple sets of friends and numerous academies to check out. I’ll hit Mark and Tanna’s tonight around 11, assuming all goes okay at the border, and stay at their place till Thurs. they won’t even be home tonight because they are celebrating their anniversary, so I will just walk in their front door and make myself at home; they live in a small town where nobody locks the door. I’m glad there are still places like that in the world, and not only because it saves me the trouble of breaking and entering.

Last night was another fun one with Brandon and some of his BJJ buddies. I met up with them at a club called The Republic, where one of the purple belts was celebrating his birthday. Tim was there with his wife Sarah, so I was able to snap the pic of him in civilian clothes that I didn’t get of him in his gi. Also snapped, and got to chat with, purple belt Ray (in the pic with Tim and Sarah), blue belt Evan, and, of course, Brandon. (Below, Tim, Sarah, Ray)

Evan, Brandon, me:

Brandon, me:

We had a pretty cool seat on the second floor of the bar in an enclosed balcony area. We thought we might be able to see the fireworks from there, but no such luck; never did see a single work. The Germans would be very disappointed in me. But it was a blast nonetheless; I found out from Ray that not only have we been training for about the same length of time (9 years for him, 8 for me), and he is taking time off from work in January to train in Brazil for a month. Tim’s interest in BJJ started with wrestling and with the physical education requirements of the military. And I forgot to ask Brandon why he does BJJ. But I can ask him any old time.

I lasted till about 12:30am before saying goodbye, and then got a text message from Brandon around 4am saying he was still downtown (he lives in White Rock, which is about an hour away, and refused my offer of a ride home at some point because he had a different ride). These kids, I tell you what. I think I used to do that. I THINK. But now I like sleeping a whole lot. I felt better when Evan, who looks to be about Brandon’s age (mid-20s) got my back on that, saying he likes his sleep too. Though he’s a better man than I am, because he lasted longer than I did and had to get up at 5am the next morning for his job managing a golf course. Yikes. I might as well buy the walker, start eating dinner at 4pm, and drive 40 mph in the left lane with my blinker on.

But I had a GREAT time meeting and hanging out with Brandon and his teammates, both on the mat and as civilians! Thanks again to him for showing me such a fun weekend.