Chapter 3: Saturday WAS truly gay... Continued... (Oxford dictionary definition: carefree, bright and showy).The factory tour was
similar to the one from 2004.
The main difference, the
ANECHOIC CHAMBER.It was everything that I thought it would be; quiet
Your ears would start ringing once the (26”?) door was closed.
Smaller than I expected, but similar to the photos, it has a bunch of sound absorbing wedges and that’s about it. A speaker stand and cables for mics.
Simple, yet complex.
And somehow Cam elegantly decided that hotboxing would be a superb secondary function to the room.
I’ll ask Ian about that the next time I’m down there, most likely next summer.
He is after all a dedicated life choice smoker. The multiple book copies on his desk said so. If anyone preaches to him, he’ll likely hand you a copy of the book in his right hand and swat you upside the head with another copy from the left side.
Aren’t cigarettes considered vegan (all plant material)? That’s healthy right?
Lunch was served about noon and unfortunately I was one of the last to get lunch. I had spent time flitting about, chatting and touring, that I forgot about eating. I managed to snarf down half a sandwich and cookie plus another apple juice (kindly supplied by the folks at Axiom…they seem bent on feeding my family for which I’m always grateful) before my attentions were turned to the DBT room.
In all this excitement, I missed seminars #2 and #3, but, I didn’t really miss anything.
I saw so much more and during the tour,
Debbie helped to point it all out.Did you know she’s been to China more than most China people have been to Canada?
That’s a lot of travelling!
Well, that’s what a little birdy told me anyway.
Perhaps that bird was a lying pigeon who embellished on the truth.
It is known to happen in the audio discussion circles….from time to time.
The afternoon petered out at the factory and all the blueberries gathered once again where we started; in the parking lot. We took the now famous (or infamous?) picture that will probably haunt us for some time. A few folks were missing but no doubt, Mark S. Johnson will have all the spare time in the world to Photoshop them into the picture probably next to Bill Clinton and Bill Mahr.
Please note, if you look closely you will see both JohnK and 2x6spds in the background, both dressed in black, against the black factory walls.
No kidding.
From there, the crowds went confused back to their hotels awaiting Debbie’s superior directional guidance to the dock party.
Once again, Sonic and CJ decided to go AWOL.
Actually this time it was Ray and Jack’s error as their combined mental powers resulted in them knocking on the wrong cabin door and hence, Sonic and CJ didn’t know when to come out and play.
Where’s Waldo started all over again in the Axiom parking lot.
Where’s Sonic?
Hasn’t anyone seen Sonic?
Does anyone have here number?
Mark will wait here for Sonic….
I swear it would have been better if we were all lemmings following one blind mouse to Ian’s place.
The evening started off with a great kick.
Axiomites were “interviewed” by one of the Parker Bros. over the course of dinner and partly into the evening. Many of those interviewers were interrupted by, hmm, how can we best say this, snuggles and kisses and gentle caresses (Tom and Murph know EXACTLY what I’m talking about…well maybe except the kisses part).
An evening of great, thick, 2” steak bbq (and a lovely Caesar salad caked in luscious bacon bits plus fresh corn on the cob and finished with a tasty, no doubt seasonal, cake), out on the Colquhoun’s dock, with a Murph, a Ryan, and a Macdonald plus a band and PEI “legal” moonshine, made for one heckuva Irish party!
The bbq turned into talk and song as the band, Laganza ((
http://www.myspace.com/laganzamusic) and special guest singer, Mr. Stephen Stanley from one of my personal favorite bands, Lowest of the Low (
http://www.lowestofthelow.com/ and
http://www.myspace.com/lowestofthelow ), put on a great show. The great show that by now has been mentioned by many as being powered forth by no less than EIGHT M80s in pairs of 4 bundles under the boathouse.
For the first short while all I heard sound was from the Algonquin M3s? in the boat area, but then the M80s were plugged in and oh joy, the neighbors must love the Colquhouns.
(I guess that is why the cutoff time was somewhere around 11 eh?)
A 2 minute vid of the dock party band hard at workI had a friend arriving from Sudbury, about 3 hours to the northwest of the Muskokas. This friend was gifted a pair of M40s during the discontinuation sale a few years back, plus a Pioneer receiver and all the hookup cables, as a wedding present from myself and a few buddies back in the city.
He drove from 5PM for 3 hours in pitch black down to the Muskokas to make the party and I had the distinct honour of introducing him to Ian along with just about every Axiomite I could find in eyesight on the dock.
This of course was before I started dancing.
Yes, the band was excellent.
Yes Stephen Stanley is a personal favorite (
http://www.myspace.com/stephenstanleymusic).
But getting into the song “What can you do with a drunken sailor” is a classic for any true blue Irish or east coaster.
For the record, there was
no drunk in my
alleged Drunken Sailor Dance but rather a side effect of the
thousands of years of Irish genetics that kicked in. Hell, we were talking about going into the lake even before dinner started!
What I don’t quite recall as I was busy dancing, was if Murph was out on that dance floor!
I’m going to have to call his mom if he wasn’t.
What Irish descendant (another Canadian band;
http://www.irishdescendants.com/) or true blooded east coaster wouldn’t jig to that classic?
Hey, Ian brought the party, I just added to the circus.
Did I really dance with a pole? (medic8r just added 10 pages to my ‘file’).
Somewhere in the mix an idea was formulated to enshrine a piece of the party into something more firm (i.e.
proof that people actually attended and Axiom didn't pay Mark S Johnson to Photoshop the whole damn thing!). I had my buddy from Sudbury snag a Sharpie marker (every scientist’s right hand tool) on his way up and any Axiomite I could find jotted down their John Hancock on the shirt. Cam got a little nasty and started getting a bit low for my liking but he was tickling me darn it.
Weak in the knees, that’s one way of putting it.
Did anyone see where Ian was TRYING to sign!??
(He knows and we’ll keep that one between us).
Here are some pictures of the final product.
Note how the pictures I took the next morning had two extra signatures on it.
I told you they were there Sonic!!Didn’t you talk to them?
We may have kept our clothes on and
no tweeters were shown abroad on Saturday, but I am certain that through the blue flaming shot of Murph’s moonshine that I saw JohnK and 2x6spds hanging out around the
dark side of the dock.They allegedly snuck into our cabin and they signed the shirt! (They must’ve had way more than I did cuz that 2 looks more like a French ‘s’).
Speaking of Sonic, I do apologize for my ironic take on your personal pictures. I realize you wanted to have a pic with all of the great folks you met over the years, but as for the one you requested with me, all I wanted to do was to have an equal level head height shot so I ‘shrunk down’ to your size.
That’s all I was really trying to do.
Honest.
The fact you made me do the splits twice though was just sadism.
All I have is this photo of Tom.
It was the best I could muster.
As the dock party winded up and Debbie frantically tried to corral drunk folk into the van for transport back to the cottages. Do you know what it is like to push a motorized wheelchair with its brakes on?
Well Cam does cuz he was so hammered two of his helpers couldn’t move the thing out of the van once we did get back to Blue Spruce.
I couldn’t help but laugh, but his mother wasn’t quite as pleased.
Cam should’ve had three moving violation tickets and been issued a 24 hour suspension on his wheelchair driving.
Where did the party go from there?
Well, for my Sudburian buddy and I, back to the Blue Spruce and
up until 6AM sipping some lovely Wellington Iron Horse Strong ale (hey, they are having an anniversary party soon too...hmm, ideas....).
I know it was 6AM that we crashed because i texted Peter, but the content of what exactly I may have texted is one thought that I can honestly say I don’t recall. I do recall that we put on a fire, and then put it in the fireplace for safe keeping though.
The next day I awoke to a campground owner banging on our door at 12:30 telling us that we passed the checkout time.
Hmm, with a flight at 4:30 at the TO airport, I’m GLAD this fellow was as diligent as he was at getting our sorry rears out of there. I made my flight with about a whopping 5 minutes before boarding.
All in all the Axiom Anniversary party was a blast to etch into my memory for ages.
Many folk here have already professed many eloquent thoughts on the graciousness of our hosts, the camaraderie of the Axiomites and the willingness to do it all over again. My words pale in comparison to the sense of all emotions that existed that weekend and hopefully the small elements that I could have added to the experience for anyone who attended.
I hope to see everyone AGAIN, sometime.
Ian, Amie and Axiom folk demonstrated the true essence of Canadian living and generosity and they still manage to maintain one of the rare Canadian business success stories (i.e., a privately Canadian owned company yet to be consumed by a huge international conglomerate).
My passion is for your science and sound but my humble sense of Canadian pride extends to your business accomplishments!
I’m honestly not sure if Ian and Amie will ask me back (again may I say that NO ONE got naked and jumped in the lake or swam to Shania’s place), but if they do want me back, I promise not to leave my dinner in the back of their car.
I’m pretty sure that as of Tuesday morning, I recalled I left a piece of steak in the back of Ray3s car while I moved my backpack to another vehicle. I couldn’t recall for the life of me where I put that dinner plate down, until 48 hours later.
Ray, I REALLY hope you’ve noticed the blow flies by now! (I just hope I didn’t leave my red wine glass in your backseat as well).
This final chapter in my overly extensive blog on the weekend really opens the book on many more.
Very profound, I know.
Tacky cliché is more my style.
Take care Axiomites.Let’s do this again in another ten years.
