Phendrana Drifts

Apparently I had a more interesting weekend than most. It is neat being a celebrity, but usually I shun such fame and glory, prefering to be the kind of grumpy old man who is bitter and cynical and considers going to bed past 10:00 sort of rebellious and exciting. But alas, no one believed the answer to the question "What did you do this weekend?" was "Nothing really." And I said it with a wink to be sure, so the short answer to "How was the weekend?"...

It was very interesting and very sad. Also, it was scads of fun. Highlights:

1. Food. Everyone who has heard my story from the weekend commented that I said a lot about the food. So, the food from the convention was meh (although I am always a fan of Eggs Benny, and was happy to see them on Sunday morning even if it was mass produced buffet style. Other food highlights included the cheese pate, the phyllo pastry with chicken and the bacon-wrapped sirloin from Dave Hancock's hospitality suite. Also, the very small portions of reasonably ok food at the Hon. Danny Willams dinner. The steak however was sadly the size of a my cat's paw, which prompted the remarks:

"Oh, look, the Minister's finally sat down to eat. He's almost finished his steak."

"You mean he has had a bite."

Sadly I didn't stick around at Mark Norris' suite to consume more, but they had these little wonton soup spoons filled with shrimp and stuff with a creamy mayo like sauce. I'm not doing it justice with this description - they were quite tasty.

2. Shannon Stubbs won VP Outreach. I like Shannon and I have a good friend who is a friend of Shannon's who tells me nothing but great things about her so it was with great anticipation that I got to help campaign for her election. And my help (but to a much larger extent, Allie's help as I am often lazy and introverted, not the key qualities of the great campaigners) was not in vain, as Shannon won! Kudos to her opponent Tom Snell, who was the incumbent and campaigned well. Still, I like campaigning for those who impress me, and it felt good talking to people about Shannon's vision for the position and the party.

3. Politics By far the most political of any conference I was at - politics was everywhere! In every conversation, in every action, and somehow it seemed it was present even in the bathroom, like the choice between paper towel or airdryer was denoting a preference for a certain leadership candidate over another - I am firm paper towel man myself.

4. Dad! My Dad just got back from Vietnam, and was suffering enormous jet lag but still managed to make it out to a hospitality suite and share some stories of Vietnam not to mention observe the enormity of the political atmosphere.

5. Old Friends I saw so many people who I had not seen in a year or more, not to mention the people who I see almost every week. Gosh it felt good to run into people like... well I won't list everyone because I will invariably fail to mention someone. Although I do like Ken's excuse of my mom made everything in aluminum pots when it comes to forgetting names or faces. That all said wow - tonnes of old friends, some who I hadn't seen since I had become a full-fledged partisan conservative, and that has been seven years. It felt good. It felt like home, but with voting rights.

6. The Vote and the fallout Well, we didn't get all dressed up for nothing. My pathetic attempts at humour on Saturday morning of "Vote? What vote? There was a vote?" were in vain as all at the AGM wanted to talk about the upcoming vote, the vote last night, or what happened on Friday depending on the day we are talking about. And gosh, the wonderful euphamisims. If you liked Danny Williams speech you really meant "I supported Klein. And I still very much do." If you said that Danny Williams had no right to tell our party what to do it meant "I voted for change, and no one can tell me I was wrong."

My head tells a great story of political intrigue and wonders about the possibilities. This is what politics is supposed to be about, not the simple staid and dull management of a province but exciting and pressing political times. That said, the truth is my heart aches at the result of Friday's vote.

The truth is I could fill this blog with thoughts upon thoughts, but people stop reading long blog posts right around now. I will likely post more, although these political posts are drawing more attention to my blog than I normally like. Not that I'm shy, just not the exhibitionist some think I am.

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