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Journal Entries for June 2005
June 2, 2005 - 11:34 PM
Welcome to June. Incidently, in my last journal entry I wished for rain. This is one of those times when you actually get what you ask for. Unfortunately, my request was taken out of context and we ended up with a stormy day today. But I did go for a walk outside in the rain and it was awesome. So far I've got 50 items labeled, weighed, scanned, and entered into my bar code based inventory tracking system at work... I'm pretty excited about that... This could be the beginning of a great thing for our company, or they could just scrap yet another one of my projects, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring in their own system... Increasingly work is becomming more and more frustrating. The gossip that goes on there is astonishing, and just about every day I learn things I really wish I hadn't... There are a few people I can hardly look in the eye anymore. Others I thought were decent people have proved themselves otherwise, and I can only GUESS what's being said about me behind my back... Actually I hear a bit of it and it just makes one shake one's head.

June 4, 2005 - 12:47 AM


You know, it's funny. For the past couple of weeks, my life seems to have been spinning out of control. Events have been taking place, whose frequency and pace have been increasing with each new day, getting faster and faster, louder and louder, more outrageous and in-your-face as wave after wave of confusion, uncertainty, temptation, alure, and deception all hammer for my attention. Faster and louder, more intense and more obnoxious they were getting, the noise was becoming unbearable, no matter which way I turned it was before me, wherever I looked I could not see past it! No music could drown out their cries, no song could relieve their screaming. I was beginning to feel a rising panic - What do I do? Is there no hope? No escape from the craziness that is surrounding me? Issues at work, the gossip, the constant chatter. Did you hear about this person? Did you hear what she did? Guess what happened to so and so? What's worse is that I found myself joining in on the destructive chain. I was perpetuating rumours I had heard about! It's just so easy to talk about the people you work with. To make matters worse, my hunt for Mrs. Finlay has turned up dead end after dead end, leaving me with more head scratching shaking. Even when I abolish all standards I once held to, I still can't even get a date! Even when I considered dating girls I'd normally never consider dating, compromising my values and morals to attempt to satisfy the lonliness I can't escape - no avail! One after another turns out to be a dismal failure and again, the cycle continues to spin until I'm so dizzy I can't see straight. I'd just about given up hope until tonight.

Sunday is the day I am to give an account of the $100 bill I was entrusted with several weeks ago. Contrary to what I had invisioned, I don't have any grandeur stories of how God used me to transform that mere hundred dollars into a profound, life changing gift to humanity... I have no enchanting tales of how God changed it into a thousand times it's value and made provisions for countless people on a hillside. I used it to witness to two friends, and I lent it to a single mother who was in need. Unfortunately, she paid me back so God's hundred dollar bill still resides in my wallet. However, after talking with Raedene tonight and listening to God speak through her - I believe the point for me in all of this is that it's not about me. I was obedient to God when he called me to go up on stage and volunteer. I was obedient to God when he asked me to tell those two people the story of the talent and my personal, practical application of it. And I was obedient to God when he called me to be generous when I saw someone in need. I will probably never know the impact that may have made on those lives. But that's the point! I'm not supposed to! It's not about me, it's about being obedient to God, doing what he says when he says to do it. Nothing more, nothing less. Who knows, perhaps the story I told may stick with those individuals their whole life, and at some significant turning point, God will use it to draw them to him. And who knows what financial bind the use of that bill might have gotten that lady out of - even though she was able to pay me back later. Or maybe the point in all this was just to show me that it is not about me. That's a hard lesson to learn in today's self- centered society. Just tonight I saw an ad for some 'personal improvement' product whose slogan was, "Because you're worth it!" A scarry test to perform would be this: Take a period of time, the longer the better - depending on how good your memory is. Now, add up how much of your money you spent on yourself within that time frame, and how much you spent on others. It's so easy to buy things for yourself. Now of course, there are some things you need. Personally - I'm a strong advocator of deoderant. Especially working in a sweat shop as I do where some of the employees are not making use of this product! But think of the non-essentials you've purchased for yourself lately. CD's, makeup, magazines, drugs or alcohol, toys, video games, movies, books. We're bombarded with the message that this life is about trying to please yourself. But have you ever noticed that this is a self-perpetuating empty persuit? You can never buy contentment. We sure do try though. The secret to true happiness in life is being content with whatever you have. It's discontentment that leads to dissatisfaction which leads to disapointment. Anyway, I ramble.

Suffice to say, I came away from my meeting with Raedene feeling very refreshed and reassured. I think that Satan knew this meeting would be a significant one, which was why he tried to distract and derail me with such an increased amount of temptations in the days and hours leading up to her arrival. But all things aside, I have a lot to pray about tonight and I just hope I can stay awake long enough to spend the time with God that He deserves. I have a lot to be thankful for, and a lot of it stems from Raedene and her influence in my life. From what I've heard tonight though, a LOT of people have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to her. She is a remarkable person.



June 8, 2005 - 11:11 PM


Last night I went for a run in the rain, and ended up running to my parents' house. When I got there, I took BJ for a run and I figured today that we went at least 20 blocks... That old dog can still out-run me! (Mind you, I'd just run from Marlborough to Pineridge... But still) For my first run since the move, I thought I did allright. Bo and I went for a run tonight, but that's another story which I might get into later if I have time. But last night, there was a leak in the roof in my mom's room so I went up into the attic to see if I could figure out where it was coming from. Sure enough, the problem was quickly apparant but unfortunately it could not be remedied until the roof had dried out. While I was up there, I looked around a bit and found some boxes of my old stuff - MANY old negatives, both 35mm and 110mm strips, some old homework, tests, some route lists from my days as a Calgary Sun Carrier, a whole whack of 5 1/4" floppies... There was a lot of childhood memories tucked into those aging cardboard boxes. So I grabbed two of them and brought them home. Last night I went through the stuff and sorted it all - some pages were just garbage which we'll burn here eventually. Some stuff I would like to keep but nothing too notable, but some of the pages contained some interesting doodles, letters, school projects, and old photographs which I have scanned a lot of into me computer tonight. The image above is a portion of a yellow loose-leaf sheet I drew up all sorts of detailed technical information about Little John, the outboard motor I found and fixed up many years ago with my dad. Although some 40 or 50 years old, it gave our family many hours of fun at Pine Lake before I bought my Seadoo and started camping at Sandy Cove.

Me in grade 6 There are quite a few little squiggles I'll probably end up tossing up here eventually. Unfortunately my computers arrangement in my new house is anything but ideal, but once I get things sorted out and a little easier to access and work on, I would very much like to finish PENG 2.0, my next generation of photo album software. Once that is complete, or at least in it's beta stage, you can expect to see MANY more pictures on the site! I haven't been adding Me in grade 7 any lately because since the move, doing so has become quite a chore. I've got quite a few from the new house I'd love to post and stuff, but I'm just waiting for some time to get the new program finished so I can start using it instead. Ohh it will be so nice! But for now, I am very tired and I think I will go have my devotions and go to bed. It's amazing how much I love having a real bed! 6 years without one and you don't know how good you've got it when you do! hehe Goodnight.

June 9, 2005 - 8:34 AM


Again, a Little John based drawing... There are a few of these. I just thought I'd toss another one up before I went to work. I'm getting quite a kick out of this Computer Magazine from 1991... 486-33Mhz computers advertised for $5500+ !! I've thrown away computers much faster than that! Oh, to be able to go back in time and sell off some of this junk when it was actually worth something! I'd be rich! hahaha Oh well... Horray for landfill...

June 12, 2005 - 12:02 AM
Wow. Although today has been quite an adventurous day, I have nothing to show for it. And by that of course I mean that I did not have my camera with me today so I don't have any pictures to post tonight. My appologies. And you know, of course it would just happen that way too, because there were MANY interesting things which made me WISH I had my camera just so I COULD take their picture! But alas, you will have to use your imagination like in the old days.

First thing this morning I got up and went to Regency to participate in their Irrigation Installation course. Although nearly four hours long, I found it to be very interesting and even entertaining, as I learned many little things which I didn't even know I didn't know. AND, the answer to a question that's puzzled me for over ten years was FINALLY explained to me as well, which was very satisfying. In a nutshell, I'd always wondered how irrigation valves worked. Although they all have an electric solenoid (basically, an electromagnet with a plunger that moves in or out when current is applied) it did not seem to me that there was any way this little plunger thing could stop the raging waters that flow through a 3/4" valve. And why was it that whenever you undid the little bleed screw, the valve would open? Such ponderous questions, I know! hahaha (If you thought I was a computer geek before, you have no IDEA how much of an irrigation geek I am! It's been supressed for many years but recent events have brought it back out in full force!) So anyways, the answer is quite ingenious actually - the valves use the water pressure coming into the valve to close it! The diaphram has a tiny hole in it which allows water flowing in from the front of the valve to fill up above the diaphram, building pressure on top which then eventually closes the valve off. When the solenoid is activated, the plunger opens up a tiny 1/8" 'drain' for the top of the diaphram, allowing the water above the diaphram to escape. Without the pressure of the water above the diaphram to hold it down, the pressure below the diaphram is now greater so the diaphram moves up, allowing water to flow. When the solenoid is de-activated, the drain is closed and water builds up on top of the diaphram again, causing it to close. So of course, when you open the bleed hole, it lets water out from above the diaphram, so of course the valve opens! It all makes sense now! Years of wonderment have finally met their completion! haha

So I went and talked to Brenda today as well, since she was working. Brenda was the very helpful lady who I remembered from Regency Irrigation some 10 or more years ago when I used to go in there with my mom and collect product documentation, spec sheets, and pariphanalia. Well would you know it? She actually remembered me! Couldn't believe that I'd come back and remembered her, sighed and went on about how she's been working there far too long, and claimed that I had made her day. So I'll have to dig out my pictures, I know I had some photographs of their store that I took many years ago. I'd LOVE to find the binder that has all that stuff in it... I have no idea where it might be but she said she'd very much like to see that... (As would I, for that matter...) So that was kind of neat.

After my course at Regency, I went over to my parents house to visit them. As near as I know, Blair is planning on being back from his drive around North America sometime on Wednesday. With all this rain, their lawn had grown quite a bit so I mowed it for them and then set out on a bit of a personal project. See, my parents have these rain barrels that are strategically placed beneath each down spout from the eaves troughs. When it rains, the water from the roof runs off into the eaves troughs, and then is collected by these barrels. They've got a few of them, probably 3 or 4 at this time (although that's not even half as many as they used to have.) and we've always used the water for watering plants because they've been on a well which can't supply enough water to really water anything. Now the water isn't nearly such a comodity, and I wondered if there might be some way I could use the barrel water to water the lawn. In some places it gets Sooooo dried out, and when it's all green it looks really good. That goal in mind, I set to work. The first step was to find a pump. Can't run a sprinkler without a pump, so I looked around to see if I could find an old pool pump I used to play with back in high school. After looking through all the sheds, under the deck, downstairs, outside - just about everywhere I could think of - with no success, I started looking in the garage. My dad and I had found another pump we had used at one time to transfer water from barrel to barrel when our well motor went, but the pump portion of that contraption had siezed up years ago and there was no way we could get it working. I was looking in the garage for any sign of a white motor but searching for anything in that garage makes finding a needle in a haystack seem plausable. But as I was looking I began to pray and asked God to show me where the pump was. My dad couldn't remember which one I was talking about but mentioned that Blair had taken several truck loads of stuff to the dump so I wasn't even sure if it would still be around. Then in the corner of the garage, underneath some boxes I noticed the back of what looked like a white motor. This fact by itself was really not significant, but curiosity began to build in me and I wondered what was on the front of it. I moved in closer to see if I could move the boxes of stuff on top of it and eventually got it cleared. What would you know? It was the pump! Probably the most unlikely place I'd have ever thought to look, I don't even know how it would have got in there! But there it was, so I pulled it out. Well. It was not very long before I had put together a number of pipes, fittings, clamps and connectors and very soon I had a garden hose connected to it's outlet and a big black piece of PVC pipe sticking into a nearby barrel. After plugging it in I had to prime it, it's not one of those self-priming pumps... But once it was going the water just came BLASTING out of the garden hose! And that's with a MAJOR reducer in the way! But then again, that pump is designed for pool use and is intended to move a LOT of water continuously... Not a few seconds later though, the flow dropped to about a third of what it was at and I knew what had happened. I stopped the pump and pulled off the intake hose. Sure enough, there was all sorts of tree buds, bits of grass and twigs jammed in the impeller. The one drawback to pumping rain water is that you need to filter it somehow. And of course, I did not have a filter on the hose. I cleaned it out though and luckily there was not a lot of that gunk in the water. Once it was back on and primed again, the water just shot out the end of the garden hose and seemed to have a lot of pressure too, so I put it to the real test: I attached a sprinkler to the line! Well, I couldn't believe it. The oscilating sprinkler was shooting water a good 20 feet in the air! I think there's more pressure on the end of that hose than there is on a hose connected to the city water supply! It was amazing! So I watered a good portion of the back yard using water sucked out of a barrel, through a pump that I'd had since I was kid. I even ran through the sprinkler once! Hahaha Couldn't resist. I absolutely loved it. I was outside all day mowing and sprinkling. If I could afford to do so, I would quit my job and work for an irrigation contractor in a heartbeat. Of course, it's seasonal work and probably doesn't pay nearly as much as I make even now, so the probability of that happening is not very good, but still - one can always dream... But the nice thing is that I might actually be able to afford to install an underground sprinkler system at my own house and play with that instead, so it could all work out in the end anyways! As Napoleon Dynamite once said, "Sweet!"

The only drawback to my day was when I got home about 11:00, I found out that I'd missed some outdoor festivities here. Bo had his family over and I guess they were waiting for me to get home so I could start the fire. I looked in the back yard and saw a bunch of chairs gathered around two citronella candles! haha Which was cute, but made me sad none the less. Next time.

One other thing, real quick - Last night Bo and I were jamming in the basement here, and it was the cutest thing: Madisson was dancing all over my living room as we played! She just loved the music and was gleefully bouncing off every wall! After she'd left and I was sort of cleaning up the room, I noticed that she had found and turned on EVERY SINGLE LIGHT SWITCH in my basement, from the crawlspaces to the lamp in my bedroom! And, I don't even know how but she found a motherboard layout sticker (it's about 5" x 7") for the new motherboard in the computer I'm fixing up for Bo's mom in Lethbridge. Well here if she didn't peel off the back of it and stuck it to my carpet! I went to pick it up and couldn't figure out why it was affixed to my rug! Then I realized what had obviously happened and thought it was quite cute. But one thing about having a kid around is you realize very quickly how un-kid-proof your house is... My basement is getting pretty good now and Bo's got the upstairs pretty much Madisson proof, but still they have a nack for finding things and doing things you'd never even think of! Yesterday Bo and I found Madisson in her bedroom, hanging from the bar in her closet! Luckily for her it didn't come down, but she must have just figured it was a monkey bar and decided to hang from it! I'd have never thought of that... But I guess that's the difference between being 3 and 24 - The imagination is very much dulled at 24. At least by comparison.

June 12, 2005 - 5:40 PM




Revelation 21:5 - And he that sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'





Too ... tired ... to ... type. Got some cool pictures this afternoon though.

June 13, 2005 - 1:45 AM
Well after a good nap this afternoon, I got up and finished cleaning out the back of my van. With all this rain we've had lately almost everything inside it got wet and something in there was really starting to stink. It was about time to clean it out anyways though and I'm really glad I did. About 11:30 this evening after I got everything hooked up, Bo came down and we started to jam. It barely seemed like half an hour when I glanced at a clock and saw that it read 1:30! The time just flew! This morning I gave my account of what I did with God's hundred dollars. I explained how even though I hadn't spent it, I had in fact used it and God had taught me that It's not about me. Even though I had many grand ideas about how I thought He could use it (most of which would make me look really good) God made it clear that all he asks for is obedience. It's not up to me to make things happen, He will worry about the results. It was interesting (and also comforting) to notice in the original passage where this whole assignment came from (Matthew 25) - even though each servent brought back differing amounts that they had earned back for their master, his response to the ones who had been faithful was identical: Well done, my good and faithful servent. You have been faithful with a few things: Now I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share in your master's happiness. Their results were different but his response was the same. I also recieved this morning an invitation to Focus 3. Essentially it is an intensive, ongoing program to nurture and develop existing or upcoming leaders in the church. Needless to say, I was very humbled and honored to recieve the invitation. There are so many emotions and thoughts that accompany such an event. I don't even know where to begin trying to explain the significance of this day as a whole. I think I even met someone at church today! I came home from the service and was listening to some music as I ate my dinner when one song, a familiar one I'd heard many times before suddenly overwhelmed me. Of course, it was by the Newsboys. I love their music. It's so good on so many levels. In this one song, the words of one verse struck me in particular:

In the quiet,
I lament
Every nail
my sin did buy.

And I wonder
why you spent
lavish blood on
such as I,

When all I have, all I have is
Praises on my tongue
from my heart
For our God
Who became flesh
for us all
Unto you,
I will sing my praises,
sing forever...

Oh for a thousand tongues to sing,
to sing aloud - sing aloud!
All to the glory of my God and King!
Just sing aloud - sing aloud!



June 14, 2005 - 12:16 AM
I had an interesting call today... Al from Sylvania where I used to work over a year and a half ago called me up today to ask if I remembered how to turn on a particular set of lights in one of the banks they service. I was able to answer his question as I did in fact remember that bank and it's quirks with some of the wiring in the basement for the lighting, but the real reason that one particular location stands out in my memory from among the hundreds of others was because it was at that bank that I had the proverbial crap scared out of me one day! It's one of the older banks, and in the basement there's a lot of space that is just used for storage. Since part of our inspection routine at the time was to go through the branch and ensure that all lighting was functioning properly, we had to also go through this creepy bank basement and make sure all it's lights worked too. Well. There was one room that was very dark when you entered it. Naturally, the first thing you would do when entering a room such as this would be to reach for the light switch. Jason was with me the day I first went down there, and when I walked into the room and reached around the corner to feel for a light switch, I literally jumped and shrieked in shock and surprise. Jason, who was behind me wanted to know why I had leapt from the ground in such a manner, but I insisted that to fully understand my actions, he had to try to turn on the light for himself. "Did you get shocked?" he asked. "Nope. Just try to turn the light on." Very skeptical and wary to do this, I continued to persuade him until finally he also reached around the corner to try to find the light switch. "Woah!" he exclaimed as he too encountered the same stimuli to which I had responded in a startled manner. "I certainly did not expect that!"

The room we were entering was apparantly used to store their Stampede decorations, and among the piles of wooden boards, lasso's and cowboy hats there sat in the corner a life-sized maniquain, dressed as a cowboy. In the dim light, it looked quite real and VERY unexpected. I believe just about every employee of Sylvania had an encounter with the Scotiabank Cowboy at some time in their career.

I've been using my horn a lot more lately. Just today I honked at Bo as I drove by the house when I saw him getting into his car, I honked at my mom on my way home from Becky's (although the guy at the light in front of her must have thought I was honking and waving at him because I heard him honk back as I drove by...) and I honked at a J-Walking Shay and Amber on my way home from work this afternoon. Or, as I prefer to call them, an A-Walker and a Shay-Walker. huh huh I stopped by Becky's house this evening because I hadn't seen her in a few weeks and although our meeting was brief, she made my day. As we both went to leave, while we were hugging outside her house she said, "I miss you." And then, I suppose not sure if I had heard due to the embrace she asked if I got that. Such a simple phrase can bring so much joy to a person's life - it implies that your company is enjoyed and it's absense is noticed. It made me feel really good, and I told her I'd come visit her at work tomorrow. I'm so proud of her too, she's almost done her courses. I think she's got one more day of classes and then just her finals to write. It's been a hard journey but she's stuck with it and I know she'll do well on these tests.

My new prayer these days: Lord, if you won't take away the temptation, at least take away the guilt.

June 15, 2005 - 9:36 AM
Blair got home from his drive around North America last night, and the first thing (and only thing) he wanted to do was go out and eat a steak. So I met the three of them (him, my mom and dad) at Montana's and we had a terriffic meal. Essentially him and Colin drove from here to Halifax, stayed with our old Gym teacher from high school Kevin Epp, then drove to Key West, Florida - rented some jet-ski's and ski'd around in the ocean. From there they drove across the southern states and came up the west coast, through Spokane and made their way back up to Calgary. Somewhere in those Southern states they met up with a lady who used to be the principal at Bo's school and also taught me for three weeks in grade 5 while my regular teacher, Mrs. Pue, was away. She remembered every one of us and I hope to get her email address from Colin because I'd like to write to her. All in all they had a good trip, they tracked over 17,000 kilometers on the GPS and never had a single problem with the car (although Colin drove over a pole and scratched the hood up a bit.) I'm glad he's home though and I'll see if I can post some of his pictures from the trip.

I've been listening to a new radio station more and more lately and the other night I heard a great song that made me smile. The chorus is a lesson that I should have learned a long time ago, but we all learn lessons in our own time. The radio station is called the Eagle and it's out of Okotoks? Now I'm second guesssing myself like crazy on that but I think that's where it's from. They play a lot of older music, a lot of which I've never heard before but I'm really liking it. They can be found at 100.9 on the FM dial and not surprisingly I hear more and more people listening to it. The song I'm talking about is called Love The One You're With although a quick search on the major p2p networks will quickly tell you that a lot of artists have composed their own renditions of the song. Consequently, I'm not sure who originally wrote the tune, but it's playing as I type. I hope that our little band can learn it and include it among our jam sessions. Oh, and if anyone knows of any full sized keyboards for sale - PLEASE let me know! Bo's dad is a phenominal pianist but his keyboard is much too big to transport on a regular basis. Bo and I would love to get a keyboard to add to our repertoire of instruments. Bo's started renovating that closet upstairs so that it will house his washer and drier stacked set. I think we're aiming for Friday or Saturday to have it up and running. I ran to work yesterday morning. I'm not sure if it's just because it was first thing in the morning or because I hadn't had any breakfast or because I was carrying a bag with me or just what - but although the distance was a lot less than other runs I've gone on I found it REALLY hard! I tracked it with the GPS and it was only 3.2 kilometers but it seemed a lot longer! It will get easier in time though, and I sure felt good afterwards. Even the run home wasn't nearly as hard so it might just have been the fact that it was first thing in the morning. Oh ya, Bo and I were really excited the other night - we got our first Electric / Gas bill for the house and the total for both utilities combined came to less than $50!!! We couldn't believe it but then I looked at the dates on the bill and it was barely for half a month... So close, and yet so far... Still, even if you double that and maybe add a bit more, it's still a fair bit less than we were expecting... We haven't got the gas bill for this month yet but since we haven't been using the furnace at all I can't imagine it will be that much... I've got some other big financial news to announce but I want to wait until there is confirmation on the matter first. Stay tuned! hehe

I don't know if I mentioned it but a few days ago I was thinking about my laptop and how the hard drive had crashed once before when it was practically brand new - causing the loss of unknown amounts of pictures and diary entries and quite probably other things as well I don't even know I lost... So it occured to me that the same laptop was now a few years old and I had thousands of pictures on it which were not saved on any other computer. Not wanting history to repeat itself, I began to copy the pictures from the laptop hard drive into one of the servers for safe-keeping. After about the 6th file, the drive began to churn. Apparantly this hard drive has now developed some bad sectors of it's own. Now, fortunately I caught it early and was able to save everything I really wanted to keep off the drive. I may have lost 2 or 3 pictures but I'm not too worried about that. Now last winter I bought another Thinkpad 600E to have for parts, but it's in much better shape than my old 600. So what I did was I went and bought an 80g hard drive for it, picked up a 256Mb SIMM and built this new laptop with the latest development release of Fedora Core. I figured this time I wouldn't even bother setting it up for triple boot or even dual boot into Windows because I really never used Windows on my old laptop. I guess I can always put it on later too... But anyways, long story short I've got just about everything up and running now on the new laptop, got my wireless card working flawlessly and the sound as well which was always a bit tricky under Fedora. The one wierd thing though, is that whenever the laptop goes into standby and comes back out - the sound card disappears. And it's not a software issue because when you reboot the laptop it hangs on the Thinkpad screen and you have to actually turn the power off and back on again to get it to start up. So something is really annoying the sound chip on this machine and it's causing some grief but I am optimistic I can make it work. What's wierd is that this laptop is identical to my old one and I never had this problem on it. Ghost in the machine, I guess...

*sigh* It's the middle of June already and I still haven't even put the battery into my Seadoo! How sad is that? Oh well, only 36 days until the houseboat trip... Actually that means that it's even less time till our family all heads out to BC! I guess I'd better get on that and check it out! Maybe one of these weekends I'll have to go to Pine Lake with it and test it out before we haul it to BC and find out something's wrong...

June 16, 2005 - 11:57 AM
There's just no time!

I've was looking at the calendar this morning to try and figure out what this summer is shaping up to look like. This weekend Bo and I are rennovating, next weekend is Kristin's grad party (I'm to provide musical entertainment for the event), SO FAR I've got nothing on the following weekend, and then the week later our family takes off to BC for the annual get-together. After that, I'm barely home 3 days and then I go on the houseboat! The first Friday in August is my fight, and then after that is pretty much free so far, but that leaves me with only one possible weekend to take the Seadoo out before going to BC with it! I'm sure it's fine, and half the reason I want to take it out is to do some camping at the same time... Hopefully August will leave more time free for getting out but I can't believe how busy it's been lately!

I ran to work again this morning, and was flat out amazed at how much easier it's getting every day! Oh I felt bad this morning though... I got up, forced myself out of bed at 7 instead of 8. I don't know why it's so hard for me to get up in the morning, I guess my bed must be really comfortable or something... But I got up around 7. Bo is usually gone by this time so I put on some music - not loud, not even as loud as I normally do in the mornings actually, but I sat down on the drums for a bit and started banging out some rhythm to a couple of songs playing in the background. I did the usual morning things and eventually got ready and went upstairs and outside, only to notice that both Bo's vehicles were still parked out front! I know Maddy slept over last night so I'm thinking he must have taken the day off for her but he didn't mention it to me last night! Haha - OOPS! Hopefully he's a sound sleeper because there was definitely a lot of sound while he was sleeping! huh huh - That's almost as bad as me sleeping with the light on and then claiming to be a light sleeper! *sigh* Oh well - back to work.

June 19, 2005 - 7:54 PM
Rennovation Weekend

Does that stink, Bo?

It's been a flurry of activity around the house this weekend as both Bo and I undertook rennovation projects of our own. The first order of business was to get Bo's washer / dryer combo hooked up and running in his laundry closet upstairs. To do this, we had to run both hot and cold water lines, install a drain, and also supply 240 volt power to the closet upstairs. Seen in the picture is Bo cutting into the poop stack so we could insert a 2" line for his washer drain. Actually it didn't smell nearly as bad as we thought it might, as you might be lead to believe from the picture.

I love to solder

My roll in this process was minor, all I really did was cut into the water lines and install shutoff valves for the water going to the washer. I guess I also helped Bo with the ABS piping, but he did all the framing, drywall, electrical, and upstairs plumbing. Although I'd watched and helped my dad with plumbing countless times at home before, this was the first project I had undertaken entirely on my own, start to finish, and I was very pleased to report that there was nary a leak in any of my work.

Bo and the pipes

After we had the water lines installed, Bo and I began the process of installing the drain. Working with new ABS is not bad at all. A little ABS cement, a twist, and you've got your joint. But tapping into the existing drains in the house was a bit more of a challenge since there was next to no play in any of the plastic. After some creative thinking and a second trip to Home Depot, we were able to connect everything together and seal it - again, without a single leak. Living in the basement, the thought of leaks is always present in my mind. However, even with all this flooding the city has recieved lately, our house suffered not from the onslaught of percipitation that has plagued some of the more richy areas of Calgary... We have a lot to be thankful for in our dry, warm house.

Bo looks for the cricket that kept me up all night

All throughout my dreams on Friday night, I kept hearing this repetitive, chirping sort of sound - the kind of sound you might hear from a squeaky belt on some machine or a fan whose blade occasionally nicked the edge of it's frame. A sharp, loud, recurring chirp at about a two-three second interval plagued me all night, and even in my dreams I remember trying to search out the source of this sound. When I awoke Saturday morning, the sound persisted and I set out (for real) to find out where it was coming from. After walking throughout my domain, I concluded that it was coming from underneath or behind the fridge. Thinking perhaps it might have been a high-water warning beep for the defrost tray, I unplugged the fridge and found that the sound did in fact stop! But this relief was short lived as after a few moments of silence, the sound began again.

Long story short, Bo's chameleon (now passed away) had been sick for a few weeks, and in an attempt to nurse her back to health, Bo had bought some crickets. Well, I guess one of them must have escaped and made it's way down to the bottom of my fridge where it had burst forth into song and annoyed the pants off me. Bo was able to catch it though, and it became a treat for one of his Bearded Dragons. I thought it was kind of funny, but apparantly Bo had previously brought a box of about 50 crickets to Tom's house, where all 50 escaped! Bo tried to explain that it was loose fan belts in his heating system, but I think Tom eventually figured out that there is no fan in an appartment with radiant heating...

My stack of servers in the storage space

As for my own rennovations, you can see in the picture my stack of servers in the storage space on the floor. I had them sort of set up on a shelf of sorts but it was not designed to house a computer (I think it was an AV rack) and the setup was less than ideal. After doing some thinking and designing in my mind, I drafted up a sketch of what I had in mind for the workspace and brought it over to my parents' house. My dad looked it over and set to work at once, gathering tools and materials to bring to fruition this idea of mine.

Now I have to interject with a bit of a disgusting story. While we were assembling my new workspace, Blair was helping my dad hold something in place while my dad was driving a screw into it with a drill. The screw bent suddenly, the drill slipped off, and my dad punctured my brother's left thumbnail with (get this!) THE BIT! Not the screw, but the blunt, square head of the Robertson bit penetrated my brother's thumbnail very near the base of the nail, much to my dad's and my shock and horror. Poor Blair, he was such a good help last night too. I felt so bad that he was the one who got hurt in the process... I'll have to try to make it up to him somehow.

My new workbench, complete with computers

The end result of our nights' labour was a wonderful and skillfully crafted new workbench. With much space to work, I can now finally get some badly needed work done on my many computers. It also provides ample space for me to properly work on other people's computers! Since moving into this house, I've already worked on four people's computers (in house) which, having had this space earlier, would have made those tasks infinitely easier... But none the less, I am very pleased to have it and look forward to the many hours in the coming days and weeks in which I shall spend in my new secret computer lair! hehehe Just wait till I get the black lights and neon up and running!

June 21, 2005 - 2:04 PM
Time is the everpresent hinderance to the accomplishment of all things. - Me

There's my thought for the day

June 23, 2005 - 1:37 AM


I want a 2480!

For years I've dabbled in multi-track recording, often using simple PC hardware and software to record two tracks at a time and then mixing those tracks together after the fact. The result is usually out of time, since the pre-recorded tracks have to be played back for the recording musicians as they play their own parts into the mix. It's cumbersome, very time consuming, and the results are only half decent. Back in high school Bo and I had a 4-track tape based recorder that we did a bit of basement recording on. Actually, we ended up producing a CD from that unit, but it sounds VERY amature in retrospect. While I was at Breakforth in Edmonton this year, I had an opportunity to see all the latest recording hardware from Roland, and my heart has been set on a V-Studio ever since. It can do everything - literally everything - you would need it to do to take a performance from the microphones to the mastered CD. Before buying this house, I had begun to save up for one, and now that the finances have settled in again, my savings have resumed with the goal being the purchase of a VS-2480DVD. I've got a copy of the user's manual which I've been reading through so that when I do get it, I'll have a basic understanding already of how it works, how to use it, and how to play. For years I've felt like I was sitting on the banks of the river Music, hearing it's melodies as it rushed on by, occasionally being splashed and sprinkled with the waters of rhythm and harmony. But there is no sensation as ecstatic as being in that river, actually creating music and being submerged in it, feeling it flow over, under, around, and through you. As you wade in and begin to splash about a feeling of joy builds up inside you. The deeper you become submerged in it's waters, the more refreshed you feel. Note after note, sound after sound, melody after melody go rushing by, tickling your ears as they dance before you. Sparkling, twinkling, pulsating is the water of that river.

I could capture so many things too. Of course there's the basement jam sessions where Bo and I play our instruments together. Occasionally we're joined by his dad on the keyboard and perhaps a few other friends on guitars - producing a fun, laid back, anything-goes sound. But I would also love to take the 2480 to church and record the sounds of the worship team there. We have so much talent on stage that it would be entirely possible to make a few CD's of the music therein. So often I can hear the songs the way we play them at church, but I can't hear them. Owning a 2480 would open up a world of possibility when it comes to music and the creation thereof. I can't even sleep! It's 2 in the morning and I'm wide awake thinking about this! Maybe I'll head to bed and practice some keyboard in the dark as I fall asleep. Oh the possibilities that lay before me! The songs to be written, the music to be created! This is a very exciting time to be alive!

Oh, and that girl I was interested in turned out to be married. Oddly enough though, I don't even care. Tonight as I was playing through an old song I used to know as a kid, it's lyrics suddenly dawned on me as their simple truth became as plain as daylight through a clear sky:

Seek ye first the kingdom of God
- and His righteousness -
And all these things shall be added unto you.


June 26, 2005 - 10:43 PM
A Weekend of Celebration!

This was certainly a weekend of celebrations. Saturday morning I went to Lee's birthday party. I think that was the first time I'd been with her whole family together in a couple of years, and it occured to me as I sat in the living room that I was the only one there who wasn't related in some way. I started a new Life at Lee's Album in the photo album... It was just getting too big to be adequately contained in the confines of one chapter under My Life. Eventually that will disappear in favor of the new album but I might post all the pictures that are hiding in that chapter once it does move... Still not sure.

The other celebratory event took place Saturday afternoon / evening / Sunday morning. Kristin graduated this year, and her mom decided to throw a party for her at the community center to celebrate.



The festivities began around 4:00 but I didn't get there till almost 5. I got my stuff set up and began playing music which continued on until midnight or so, after which we cleaned out the hall and the die hards all went back to Barb & Ed's house where we continued in the fun, playing games and staying up till all hours of the morning. I have no idea what time it was that I finally fell asleep, but as you can see in one of the pictures, I literally just keeled over and went to sleep. Michelle was nice enough to take a picture of me in this state. Thanks Michelle. :P ED flipped the camera to movie mode and tried to catch me snoring but was unsuccessful. About 12:30 this afternoon we started waking up and all went out to Denny's for breakfast. This day has been pretty much a writeoff, with perhaps one slight but significant exception. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat awaiting the outcome and the suspense is killing me! I have a two new favorite songs... Cocaine Cowgirl by Matt Mays and Speed of Sound by Coldplay. While moping about this afternoon I watched Chicago with Kristin... Apparantly it's a musical. hehe (no really?) but surprisingly enough I actually rather enjoyed it. An interesting plot and premise. The music was well integrated with the storyline, and it definitly carried you away in some parts.

June 27, 2005 - 11:26 PM
I found my little black book!

I started writing stuff, perhaps a journal of sorts, when I was in grade one or two. One quote from page 5, in 7 or 8-year old writing reads as follows:

I love to play with swichs, panles, power meters, pipes, waterpipes, wells. In fact I would fix them. AND IT'S TRUE! If I could that is. I like to whach T.V. It is fun. Do you know why? Becase theres many shows on T.V. like Hour House, Spyterman and other things like that.

I'll have to scan some of these pages. This is priceless pieces of my past. Actually, going through a couple of boxes of 'stuff' that was left behind when I moved out my parents' house has revealed quite a number of interesting yet entirely sentimentally valued articles from the Life of John... Among the articles in this little black book is a list of friends from grade two or three, (accompanied on the opposite page by a list of enemies...) a crayon-colored wiring diagram of the dishwasher in my parents' house. (Verified technically accurate by designation and wire colors...) A breaker explanation for the electrical panel in my parents' house indicating what each breaker controls the power to... Various HOW-TO's, including How to Fix a Stareo. (Stereo), How to make a ball appear to float with a Vacu-Flow system, (Dated November 10, 1993) Why Washers don't have traps, why dryers have vents, a list of all the 'manners' phrases (like Thank-you, you're welcome, please, etc. and also a copy of the Lord's Prayer. I guess at some point (Also dated November 10, 1993) I wrote an entry entitled, "When I'm Gone" - subtitled My Final Words. Now before you start to think that sounds awfully morbid and I must have been suicidal or something to have written something like this at that age, but that was not the case at all. I wrote it as a sort of confession to my parents of several things that I had done and lied to them about, wanted them to know the truth, but couldn't bring myself to tell them in person. So I wrote it in this book because I knew some day they'd find it and probably read it. The entry never did get finished though. I kind of wish I'd written more. hehe Perhaps I'll have to add some more text to it now, many years later. Man there's some good stuff here. I'm such a sentimental sap... I've even got a valentine from a girl I liked in grade 5! haha As my life would pan out, the last place I saw her was at Pine Lake! And it was HER who saw ME! She used to camp at Green Acres and one day while I was over there playing video games with my cousin Jamie she called out to me while we were heading back to Praire's campground. We wrote and phoned for a while before she moved to Cranbrook and eventually I lost touch with her. Another one of those people I always wondered whatever happened to... Jenny Walker. hehe I think I actually have a picture of her somewhere. I'm sure that will turn up too. This is kind of fun, exploring the artifacts of my own personal history.

Another article I found as I got into some more of my schoolwork was a poetry journal from probably grade 7 or 8. I know it was marked by one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Hoff, so that would place it in one of those years. (With the further possibility of it having been written in grade 9.) Half of the project was to find and analyze a number of poems, and the second part was to compose my own poetry. It's actually kind of funny to read, some of the poems I chose to analyze are rather humorous. But when I got to the part about the poems that I wrote myself, I'll admit - some tears came to mind. It's funny how a simple combination of words can invoke such a strong emotional response. Coldplay playing in the background doesn't help either. *snif* *tear*

One thing I love about having a quiet room now is nights like tonight when it's just POURING outside and I can hear the rain through my window. There's something so calming, so soothing, so relaxing about rain - especially when you're inside, tucked warm and safe under a thick blanket.

June 29, 2005 - 12:22 AM
A considerable portion of this evening has been spent scanning drawings, images, and other interesting articles that I've been digging out of the boxes of my past. And while I've been inputting data on the optical front, I've also been copying kids' cassette tapes to another computer for my Aunt. So in the background as I've been working I've also been listening to music that I haven't heard for at least 15 years. One of the copyright dates was 1978 on one of the tapes! I'm amazed at how much musical effort was put into these old cassettes too, and personally I think it would be a blast to create a kids album. Perhaps with my 2480 practically on the horizon now it might not be such an insurmountable task! (Man there's so many things I want to do with that little unit!)



The sketches in this day's entry were part of my sketch project in grade 9. As I recall, we had to do 10 sketches, each of about an hour or so, and then hand the whole project in for marking. I think most of my sketches took much less than an hour, but I still got quite high marks on them. This image below earned me a 9.5 out of 10! I tell you, it was classes like art, drama, and computers that saved my butt in high school... hehe




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