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March 11, 2003 Well, this certainly has been a cold month of March so far, hasn't it! I can't believe we're still hovering around the -20's! Still, I try to make the best of things and although it doesn't always go according to plan, I usually have fun none the less. This past saturday I went out with Bo, Dexton, and Tanner and we brought along a GT Snow Racer and a video camera to a hill where Bo and his brother had made a jump a few days earlier. The sun was out in full force, but make no mistake, it was COLD! Still, we spent a couple of hours at the hill. Taking turns, we all videotaped each other's attempts at the jump, and wound up with some very amusing footage. Click here for one such clip:  I've watched that clip over and over, and it's still funny every time. I think Clayton is working on putting together a movie of all the various jump attempts. Should he ever complete it, I will try to make it available for download here should anyone wish to see it. Some of the stunts are pretty amusing, like this one. I know Bo and Clayton videotaped some of their wheelchair adventures as well, riding a wheelchair down a hill in Lethbridge, for example... Among various other stunts. Since Bo bought his video camera, he's been taping a lot of things with it, and having a lot of fun. March 15, 2003 What a beautiful day! I can't believe the difference in temperature from last week to this week. Our average daily temperature has gone up 40 degrees Celcius within the past 7 days! I must appologize, and sort of chuckle at myself, it seems like I always start these entries off with some comment about the weather. But usually it's either colder than normal or warmer than normal and I feel like commenting on it either way. If I don't mention anything to do with the weather in any given entry, it's probably normal. Last Thursday I bought a used electronic drum kit, and paid less than half of what it would have cost had I bought it new. It was amazing how this whole situation worked out, and to fully appreciate the size of it you'de have to hear the story from the beginning. Several weeks ago, actually it was the night of January 25th, I had a dream. You see, the day before, I experienced a day of temptation. I suppose it would not be too much unlike the experience Jesus had in the desert when Satan tempted him for 40 days, although I don't even pretend to claim that this was as intense an experience, though for someone with a weakness in a particular area, any temptation could be considerable... In any event, I failed that test on January 25, 2003. But a strange thing happened to me that evening, while I slept, I had a strange dream. In this dream, I saw a moment in my future from two different angles, the first one was a glimpse of my life if I choose one path, the other a glimpse of my life if I chose a different path. When I woke up the next morning, January 26, 2003, I woke up still remembering this dream I'de had. Greatly moved by it's implication, I decided to write down all that I could remember. I sat down on my laptop and started writing every detail I could recall, and pondered many things that morning. When I had finished writing all that I felt I should write down, I got up and went to the washroom. I had not been gone 5 minutes when I returned to find that I'de missed a call but had recieved a message on my phone. I did not recognize the number, but when I checked my messages I found that it was Tony from Grace asking if I could play the drums for the evening service at Grace Baptist that night. Remembering the dream I'de just had, I called him back and eagerly accepted the opportunity. At that point I hadn't sat down at a set of drums in front of more than 10 people in a jam session in probably close to, if not more than, three years! Well I went to the practice at 4:00 that afternoon to run through the songs, all of which were new to me, and then at six played my first Life Night service in about three years. Since then, they asked me to play on several other Sundays, all of which I accepted, and attended all of the practices except for one when I was out of town. Now Grace Baptist has recently completed much of their addition to the building, including a new space for the Life Night service to take place in. While this was taking place, the group had been using the sanctuary for their services, including the church's (beautiful) electronic drum set on the stage. Once the basement was completed enough for the services to be held down there, we moved into the basement. Unfortunately though, we could not take with us the drum kit from the sanctuary, but had to make due with the remnants of the origional drum kit, which at this point was missing a number of critical components, most noticably the cymbals. The echo in the room was also an annoying problem, and to help control the volume of sound the drums produced, it sat at the back of the stage behind a clear plastic wall. Well, the harsh, uncontrolable sound of this drum kit effectively did more to hinder worship in the room by being more of a distraction than a complementing addition to the sound. I decided to look into buying my own set of electronic drums, the only real solution to all of the problems presented by the basement we were going to be having services in from now on. My first stop was to Axe Music on Blackfoot Trail, where I spoke with Jeff Towers, who as it turns out, was the same guy who sold and installed the electronic kit in the sanctuary at Grace. I explained to him the situation, and he set out in the hope of selling me another kit similar to the one the church already had. The only problem with this was the cost -- A basic setup without several essentials (like a kick pedal, seat, or snare stand) started at $7,400 plus GST. I never found out for sure, but I'm sure the pedal and snare stand could have raised the price by another $500, and the seat (which I could have lived without since there was already a drum seat at Grace) could have probably cost another couple of hundred dollars... We'll say an even $8,000 for the complete setup. The guy also pointed to the drum controller on display and explained that it has an expanded chip in it which adds another 400+ instruments, features, and upgrades for an additional $300. (The $8,000 did not include this upgrade.) Add 7% GST to that and you're sitting at $8,881. And that's if you pay cash. If you finance it, add another 5.95% over two years! The cost just keeps increasing. Well I realized at this point that a new set was out of the question. A little set back by this rough start, I went home that night and went to bed. Early the next morning before work, I decided to check the various Bargain Finders in western Canada to see if someone might be selling a similar set. As it turns out, I found an ad in the Edmonton Bargain Finder for a very similar drum kit, again minus the seat, snare stand, and kick pedal, but for less than half the asking price. Plus, the controller had the $300 upgrade chip in it as well! I took down the phone number, which was actually a Calgary number, and went to work. Later on that morning, I called and left a message asking if the kit was still available. About noon-ish I recieved a call from the owner, and after asking him a couple of questions about the kit, decided it was definately worth going to see. So that afternoon after work, I dropped my brother off at home, stopped by Bo's place to pick up my laptop power cord which I'de left there the weekend before, and then headed over to the guy's house to look at the drums. Well, we spent probably 10 minutes looking them over, trying them all out, etc. He showed me the only damage to the kit was on the kick drum, where a hole had been torn in the skin. He'd rotated it so that the kick pedal would strike a different area, and the sound was not affected at all by this cosmedic problem. With this in mind, I asked him if he'd take $200 less than his asking price and he accepted, so we disassembled them and loaded all the components into my van. After thanking him I drove then to Grace where I set them up in the basement and we had our first practice on them -- all in the same day. Tomorrow will be the first Life Night where they'll be used, and I am really pumped about it. It has been very apparant to me that God's hand has been with me since my decision to follow him unconditionally on January 26, 2003. This has just been one small example of how He has worked in my life to solve a problem, and bring glory to Himself. March 29, 2003 Well this certainly has been an interesting week. It started off as usual, went to work Monday and Tuesday. But Tuesday afternoon when I got back to the shop our boss, Ib, (pronounced "EEb") asked me and my brother to take the rest of the week off. We were running low on work and had actually run out of light bulbs needed to finish our only other major job. Not hurting financially, I gladly accepted what was to be a 5-day weekend, but here if Barb, Kristin's mom didn't call me up that same day to ask if I could help with some computer stuff at her work. Since I was not going to be earning any other income for the next three days, I told her I would come work at her office on their computers, and that's what I did. We had to run a new network cable over into the production area and set up a new workstation computer there. So it turned out I worked those three days I should have had off anyways. But that's allright, it was still an easy week. And here I sit Saturday evening writing about it. Today was gorgeous, we hit a high of 13 degrees, and I was outside doing some minor maintenance on my van. I went to change my alternator belt with a new one I'de bought a few days ago, but it turned out to be just slightly too small. I could not for the LIFE of me get it to fit on properly. I got it over the flywheel and onto the Alternator, but I could not then move the alternator back into position so that I could tighten it. (It was already pretty tight, but not tight enough to work properly.) It was soooooo close, and yet so far! So I ended up putting the old belt back on because it really wasn't in that bad of shape and just tightened it again. The other thing I did was checked the timing. I found the marks on the flywheel and applied some sort of white paint that I found in the crawlspace on it to make it visible under the timing gun't strobe light. I found that when the advance was kicked in, the timing was right at +3 on the flywheel, but when the advance kicked out, it dropped way down below the 0 mark. I set it so that it ran at 0 and drove it around, but it still lacked power and "spunk", so I advanced it to the 1 marker and drove it around for another test run. It seems to have lots of go now, so we'll see how it does in everyday driving. I might even advance it another notch, but it sounds like it's running really smoothly at +1 so we'll see how it does. I also found the problem with the stereo that kept causing that amp to blow -- One of my cables was shorting out! I never did find exactly where, but just replaced it with another cable and repaired the amp again. The stereo sounds really good now, and since I cleaned the van out last weekend it's looking pretty good inside as well. I've fallen in love with a new song (Well maybe it's an old song, I don't know -- but I know I like it.) If you'de care to listen to it, you can download it here. Don't let the name throw you off, it has nothing to do with the song!  This band, "Minus The Bear" seems to like naming their songs after silly things which have nothing to do with the songs
themselves. I've been listening to a lot of their songs and this on in particular... You can picture the scene they depict in their song. It's a warm summer
evening at a lake somewhere... A couple are out on the dock. You can imagine the water is slowly rippling broken pieces of moonlight as they sit there wrapped in
a blanket, her head on his shoulder... Lets go out on the dock We'll bring a bottle and a blanket And everything, ya everything Everything is going our way We'll drive around the lake Just a little too fast My eyes on the lines, your head on my shoulder Yaaaaaa, windows down, the wine in our hands, the city lights just blur Lean into me, lean into me... (Not that I'm condoning drinking wine and driving quickly around a lake... But it's the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, the feeling I'm longing for.) I've been having a whole slew of feelings take their turn in my mind lately, probably a big part of the reason I'm really into the feeling this song presents. Of course, feelings decieve us, they let us down, they trick us into doing stupid things we should know not to do, they are so unreliable and unpredictable... And yet every once in a while it's nice to just feel something. Listen to the song and you'll understand what I mean. March 29, 2003 It is presently 13 degrees outside, a beautiful day, and tomorrow it's expected to reach a whopping high of 17 degrees! I've known summer days that were cooler than that! And while I did not bring the bike out today (so far, anyways...) my plan for tomorrow is to RIDE, RIDE, RIDE! I've actually got to stop by at the laundry plant where both Kristin and her mom work to finish some computer work I've been doing for them, and then I'll be giving Kristin a ride home before heading to church for practice and then the evening service. The past three weeks the topic has been sex and dating, (No WAY! Talking about sex in church!?!) Yes, it has been both informative and interesting, but I'm not sure what the topic is for this weekend. If you'de like to come find out, you'de be more than welcome to. The service is at Grace Baptist Church, right beside the Franklin LRT station. (2670 Radcliffe Dr. SE -- Calgary) The service starts at 6:00 pm and usually goes till 7:15-7:30ish. Maybe I'll see you there! March 30, 2003 Last night Bo came over for a while and we watched a movie. About a week or so ago he was working on some wires and someone turned on the breaker for the circuit he was holding and he got quite a nasty electrical burn on both his hands. He showed us under tha bandages what it looks like and it's pretty nasty. It was only 120 volt, same as what's in most household plugs, but still. I guess he must have had a good grip on it or something because it did some nasty damage. It's presently 10:43 am and I just checked the weather -- It is 14 degrees outside RIGHT NOW!!! I'm going to have a shower and all that, and then I'm going to go get the bike out and start riding around town. I want to stop by my parent's house and see how they're doing, maybe I'll stop at Lucy's house for a bit, but I'de also like to go down to Pat's place and see if he's around. Find out if I still have a job! Of course, the only drawback to this nice
weather is that the longer range forcast (tuesday, wednesday, thursday) is calling for highs around zero and snow most days... But what can you do? Man you look
at the entry from the first week of March and we're riding a GT Snow Racer down a snow covered hill, and here we sit at the end of March and I'm riding my
motorcycle on dry roads with barely a patch of ice in sight! Is our weather getting wierd or what?
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