LIFE IN THE ROCKIES

Feels like one gigantic long weekend. I like it.

180 PERSON BUSH PARTY

When we began gathering wood for the bonfire party a month early, I knew this party was going to be considerably bigger than anything I've ever been to. Two weeks ago when we were told that we would be getting DJ's coming out to our party I just about crapped myself. They said they would come out if we could make them a stage and get them a generator. What I love about the people here is when they are presented with a challenge they immediately think of ways to work their way through it. We built a stage out of the remains of a six-plex and fixed up a generator with a broken pull cord. Bam! We got DJ's!

The next obstacle we had to overcome was raising the money we needed to cover all of our expenses for the party. We bought two kegs, and the DJs wanted $450 to cover their travel expenses to get to the party. We raised around $300 before the party and the rest we gather at the party. 

The party was ridiculous. I made an effort to bring nothing of value to this event. No Ipod, no money, no wallet, nothing. Good thing too because somebody brought spray paint and decorated everybody, myself included. I also took on a false identity that entire day. I became Max Powers. Everywhere i went I introduced myself as Max Powers. A girl came up to me a few days later asking why I hadn't accepted her friend request yet, reason was because she added Max Powers and not Maxim Yushchenko. Because I had not made any plans on where I would spend the night that evening, I ended up sleeping in a tent with a buddy named Murder Mark (who took most of the blankets) which would not have been a problem if we remember to close the door... which we didn't... It dropped below freezing that night... sonofabitch...

I awoke craving two things: water and fire. I stumbled out of the tent and looked for anything that resembled water. I found a dirt covered 2 litre plastic coca-cola bottle. I looked like water inside. I opened it and took a big gulp. It was in fact water. I continued to drink it while walking to the fire which was still burning at 9am. As I walked a friend drove up to meet me at the fire in an unfamiliar van. 

"Who's van is that?"

"Not sure," he points "I found it over there" I look inside and find an old breakfast roll, fantastic. This morning is going well. I went back to the fire to begin thawing my hands and feet. As I was warming myself I looked doing and found a gummy candy in the dirt, brushed it off a bit and ate it. Just as I thought this morning could not get any better, a few more people showed up to the fire with hotdogs, ketchup and bread. Wow. Best morning ever. One guy showed up and had no idea where his shoes went. We assumed they went in the fire that evening.

After finishing the hotdogs and exchanging stories from the evening we decided to go for a soak in the hot springs. On our way out we found that someone had dragged a deer carcass onto the field... Whoever did that... what the hell is wrong with you.

The following is a picture of Max Powers the morning after:

TWO NIGHTS OF DRINKING

Here they are:

So the first night started out with drinking. Near the end of the night one guy stopped drinking about an hour before he was going to go home. He planned on driving home and he thought that an hour was enough time for him to sober up. Fact: That is not enough time for anyone to sober up. Just as he has done several times before, he ended up driving home anyway. Once everybody left and there was only three of us in the apartment, we decided to go climb into the abandoned barn near my place. It was kinda cool because the barn is now used as a storage spot for all the of the resort's old stuff. Afterwards we walked across the highway to meet up with a few friends when we ran into the guy who drove home drunk. I took it upon myself to teach him not to do it again. We tried several times before to talk to him about his reckless habit, but it never really had any effect on him, he continued to drink and drive. Having had a few drinks, I took on the problem from a different approach. I thought violence might have more of an effect on him than simply talking to him about it. Once I pinned him down hit him a few times in the chest, he quickly promised me over and over again that he would never drink and drive again. At the time we thought that I might have broken one of his ribs because he was having difficulty breathing. As it turns out I dind't break anything, and he came up to me several days later thanking me for what I did.
After beating him up that night, I stood up and noticed a bunch of grass in the wound in my knee. By the way I tried to jump into a moving truck a couple days ago and ripped my knee open and got 10 stitches to patch it up. I started picking out the grass until I got to one piece that didnt wanna come out. I got a firm grip on it and pulled it as hard as I could. As it turns out, it was not a piece of grass, it was one of my stitches. That night I learned that it is really hard to pull out your stitches by hand.


The following evening also began with drinking.

We then decided to walk down to a party happening across the highway. As we were on our way, we received a message saying the guy that stole my ipod was at this party. I got excited because I could finally give him a piece of my mind with my fists. Once we got into the area we discovered that the party had been shut down and everyone was now aimlessly wondering. Amongst the wanderers, was the thief I was looking for. I walked straight up to him and started pushing him around. I did that for a bit and then went to face the crowd and make a public announcement, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! BOYS AND GIRLS! I WOULD LIKE EVERYONE TO MEET  ------- -----------! IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING EXPENSIVE IN YOUR POCKETS CHECK RIGHT NOW TO MAKE SURE IT IS STILL THERE! BECAUSE THIS GUY RIGHT HERE WILL STEAL IT AND SELL IT ON KAJIJI AND CRAIGSLIST THE MOMENT YOU TAKE YOUR GUARD DOWN! HE IS A THIEF AND A LIAR!" I focused my attention back on the obese lying thief. Walking towards him with crazy coming out of my eyes, I kept whispering at him "im gonna kill you! your gonna die!" I started throwing fakes at his faces and punching him in the gut. This went on about three times until a very large bicept came up from behind and wrapped itself around my neck. I tried to wringle my way out of it, but being half the size of this bicept it was no use. I got dragged around the pavement for a bit and I could see my lights slowly going out. Just as I was about to black out, the bicept was removed. I thought to myself "man, I love air."
The events after that are a little blurry. The thief ended up running away or hiding. I ended up talking to bicept man (who was a nice guy by the way) and as it turns out he doesn't even know the fat lying thief, he just wanted to jump in and break up the fight. As I left with my friends the crowd boo'd me away and celebrated that I was gone. You little boys and little girls... I AM THE GOOD GUY.
Whatever, the next day we found out that the guy hosting the party had his Ipod stolen that night. What now little boys and girls.. what now!

FIRST TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL + PARTY TIME

Long story short, I tried to jump into a moving vehicle. I WAS GOING TO MAKE IT. Unfortunately the driver stepped on the gas as I was in mid jump so my trajectory was completely thrown off. I didn’t make it. Probably for the better because in the back of the pick up truck was a machete and a chain saw. I bounced off the truck and rolled around the ground a couple times. When I got up my knee hurt a little, so I looked down and to my surprise I found a flabby piece of flesh hanging off my knee cap. My dad always told me to tear off hanging pieces of skin because its better to get rid of them now than to wait for it to catch on something unexpectedly and rip off. This piece was a little too meaty for that to be an option. We decided that stitches would be a better idea.

We went to the hospital in Invermere to get my knee fixed up. It was definitively my most entertaining trip to the hospital because the entire time the doctor was stitching me up, she was making fun of me. As she gave my knee shots of some kind of numbing medicine, I would cringe my face. "Does it hurt?" she asked, "Nooooo" I said growling while flexing every muscle in my body "I doesn't hurt because Im a maaaaaan!"

I hate needles. It hurt. The guy that drove me to the hospital kept getting text messages throughout the whole stiching process so eventually I said "Wow you must be a pretty popular guy" to which the doctor says "Well at least one of you guys is popular." Like I said , It was an entertaining visit.

After the stitching was done we went out to the point for a little fire before bed. Hold on, let me tell you about the point.. So the point is a piece of land on the native reserve that sticks out in our little valley here and there is a sweet view there. Every April there are a bunch of staff that have their birthday, so a giant bonfire party is thrown for them all at the point. This year’s bonfire is going to be the biggest one yet. I have never seen so much preparation go into one party. The current stack of logs that are going to be burned sits higher than my head. The picture below shows half of the logs that are currently sitting there. There are over 100 garden lights that run around the perimeter of the field at the point. There over a dozen skulls hanging in trees on the road out to the point (some of which are fresh and still have tongues hanging out.) There is a GoPro mount in a tree that will time lapse the entire night. There are several DJs that are playing a free show for us, as long as we can provide them with a stage and a few generators (yes of course we will do that for a free show!) Also because this party is happening on a native reserve WE CAN BE AS LOUD AS WE WANT BECAUSE THERE IS NOBODY AROUND FOR GODDAM MIIIILLLLESSSSS!!!!!!

I am so hella stoked.