Stampede!

I have been unabashedly delinquent in my updating duties to this blog, and largely because of the wonderful phenomenon of Stampede. Many of the people reading this blog are not local Calgarian cowpokes, so perhaps a bit of an explanation is in order.

Stampede is the greatest outdoor show on Earth. For 12 cahootin' days, the entire city of Calgary becomes a gigantic beer garden with the world's largest rodeo at its center. The corporate workforce of the oil industry is expected (you are frowned upon if you don't) to come into work wearing their finest cowboy hats and boots, and anything more formal than jeans is considered bad taste.

I say come into work. But you don't really work. Work serves as a meeting point for everyone at the beginning of the day so that they can plan out how, where, and with which company's money they are going to party. It's fantastic. The plethora of country music that is playing all over the city becomes tolerable even to me as I give in to the cowboy spirit. Free meat-and-pancake breakfasts abound in the downtown area, and it becomes possible to avoid having to pay for food for a week. And you can wash down those AAA Alberta stakes with, of course, copious amounts of alcohol.

Last night I had a fantastic time at Nashville North (a gigantic beer garden cum dance tent) with some of my coworkers. It was the first opportunity I have had this summer to really get to know them outside of the corporate context, and they are great people. Turns out one of them was even a Brown graduate with whom I could reminisce over frat-boy experiences.

It was almost a perfect night, but for three things. 1) My far-away girlfriend, who I think would look gorgeous in a cowgirl outfit and who could laugh at me trying to quickstep to country music (I miss you Angelica!); 2) my far-away college friends, who I could see quickly becoming the rowdiest cowboys around, and 3) the morning after, which was, of course, a brutal hangover recovery period.

I'm almost completely recovered.