Journal Entries for May 2003 May 1, 2003 I can't believe it is May already! The time is just flying by now. You might think that with only 15 days until the May Long Weekend I'd be pretty excited. My Seadoo is almost ready, it's been getting repaired and should be better than new once it's done... The season is just starting to get nice out, the weather is warming up almost daily, and I've already been out on the bike many times so far this summer... You would think I had a lot to look forward to in the next couple of months. Many of you who know me have probably seen the scar on my left elbow -- the one from my BMX accident where the chain jumped off the rear sprocket and jammed the tire while I was racing down a gravel alley. If you haven't cringed already, I found the pictures I took of my arm at that time with the damage fresh. Even notice my face is burnt from the friction where my hat pulled down over my face and rubbed the skin off my forehead and nose. Did it hurt? Greatly. I was unable to use much of my arm for weeks. It was very painful in fact, and I remember taking these pictures so that I could remember what it looked like at the time. But it healed eventually, and now I am left with a little scar where a rock dug extra deep in one spot on my arm. And I would rather take a hundred of such injuries than experience the pain of what I am going through emotionally right now. Shauntelle is dating another guy, an old friend of hers who she used to like before we started dating. The biggest mistake I ever made was dumping her, and now it seems I will have to suffer for it for a long time. I don't think I can go to Pine Lake this summer if she is going to be there, I would rather sell my Seadoo and forget the whole lake experience or start a new camping tradition at another lake than be crushed emotionally by watching her with another guy. All the plans we ever made, the ideas we came up with, the hopes we had of a life together, have all but disappeared. Just Telle John is dead, for without Telle, it's Just John. I think of all the plans we ever had and there's one thing that rings out loud and clear through all of this: Plans change. I was supposed to go on a retreat to James River this weekend with the youth at Grace, but that heavy snow dump has caused many trees at the campground we were supposed to stay at to colapse and damage much of the clubhouse, making it unuseable and therefore cancelling the trip. We're going to still have a night of music at the church, but instead of camping we're going to rent a hot tub, watch Survivor at someone's house, and then go Go-Carting at 2 in the morning. You can't plan for everything, and even the best laid plans can fall apart without warning. I am going to miss Shauntelle, my best friend, and think about her often. But like these wounds in the pictures, the pain in my heart will subside in time, and one day I will be left with only a scar. May 3, 2003 It's about 10:00 Saturday morning and I've just got home from the all-nighter termed "Oasis" at Grace. (I have no idea why it was called Oasis, I think Frizz is to blame for that one... Maybe he has some insight that we don't know about...) I guess I misheard the conversation involving the survivor part of the plan, because instead of watching Survivor, we went downtown to a health club and PLAYED Survivor! It was a lot like the challenges you see in the TV show, each team has to work on accomplishing a task, finding clues, searching for hidden things and then racing to be the first to get points... I've got some pictures up under Chosen One in the photo album, for those so inclined to see them. After I've had some sleep I will write in more detail the events of last night. Yesterday at work I was sitting in the truck writing up the paperwork when a truck stopped in traffic caught my eye. I had been thinking about Just Telle John the other day and how without Telle it would be Just John. As you can see from this picture, it's rather a crappy business. (And yes, that pun was fully intended) Well, I am off to bed for a few hours. It's amazing how tired you can be after a night of basketball, volleyball, Survivor, Go-Karting, and hot tubbing. Actually the hot tub was nice because it was snowing lightly and there was a cold breeze that kept the temperature just right in the water. Of course, once you get out of the sweltering heat, what energy you might have had was all sapped away by the water and I think that was what did me in. I was doing ok until that point, but after that it was downhill for me. Anyhow, I will write more later... Read on! Well there is one good thing about snowy weather, and that is it makes great hot tub weather! This weekend I went to an all-nighter at Grace Baptist, because the retreat that we were supposed to have this weekend was cancelled. Apparantly all that snow we had last weekend caused some trees to break and fall on the clubhouse of the campground we were going to have the retreat at, rendering it unusable for campers. Instead we had an all-night event, where we started the night off with a few songs and Matt talked about what Chosen One is and how it was started and where it was hopefully going. Then after some free time in the gym we all packed into vehicles and drove downtown to the Fifth Avenue Club, owned by one of the members of the church. He opened it up for us and gave us the run of the place, including access to the health-food bar where all the smoothies and beverages were offered at cost! It was very generous of him, and I think it would be hard to say that not one person there was grateful. They have a Survivor game they play in groups, much the same as the challenges on the TV show. You had to search for clues, answer questions and then try to race the other teams to get points. It was really fun. Once Survivor was complete there was some free time in the gym, squash courts, and weight rooms until the pizzas arrived around midnight. After everyone ate, there was some more free time before Tony and Frizz led the group in a few more songs in the gym. We got ready and left the club, and then drove down to Kart World just off Macleod Trail. They opened the place to us there as well, (this was about 2:30 am) and about half the group went go-karting while the other half played laser tag inside or arcade games. Oh, and for all the Pine Lakers out there, you'll appreciate this: They had Bust A Move! The owners there opened all the coin boxes so we were able to play as many turns on each of the arcade games as we wanted, and I don't think I saw Bust A Move free all night! hehehe After a couple of hours at Kart World, we drove back to the church and probably about half the group went to sleep at this point. Several others, myself included went outside and jumped in the hot tub. It was very relaxing at 5 in the morning... We were just starting to see the sun come up. Once I got out though, it had sapped most of my energy out and I went upstairs to the upper room and passed out on the couch. I didn't think I'de slept for that long, but Tony came in about 9:00 and woke me up, when I learned that I had slept through breakfast. Everyone was getting ready to leave so I too gathered my things and said goodbye to my friends there. I came home and put the pictures from the night on my web site, and then fell asleep. I woke up about 6:30 this afternoon and have been moping around since then, too awake to go back to bed, too sore to move, too many knots in my stomach to eat, and too tired to really go do anything. It was a fun weekend though, and I'd gladly do it again. May 8, 2003 I went downtown today, walked into Laurentian Bank of Canada, wrote a cheque for the remaining balance on the Seadoo and walked out of the bank owning all of my Seadoo. In light of recent events in my personal life lately, I was actually considering selling it now that I no longer owe any money on it, but we shall see what this summer has in store. It's funny really, every year about this time there are so many uncertainties about the season. One year we weren't sure if Sandy Cove would even be there. With Jayne being sick, there were a lot of rumours of the campground being sold, so we weren't sure what was going to happen. Last year there were even more rumours of a sale, but so far this year I haven't heard anything along those lines... But now other factors are coming into play and once again, the summer is a big questionmark. And this weather! I'll have to put skates on the Seadoo and pull kids around on toboggans if this keeps up! It is supposed to warm up next week, but that's still cutting it mightly fine considering there are 8 days left until the May Long Weekend... (At least at the time of this writing. Check the counter at the top-right hand corner of the page for today's countdown.) May 14, 2003 Once upon a time there was a little boy. One day as the little boy was playing in his room, he came across a puzzle piece. He didn't know what puzzle it was from, but he put it in his pocket and continued on playing. A little while later he was digging through a toy box looking for one of his toys when his eye caught sight of another puzzle piece that appeared to be from the same puzzle. He paused as he looked at it and pulled out the one from his pocket. The two looked similar in color but he could not make them fit so he put the two pieces back into his pocket and continued looking for his toy. Some time later he heard his mother call him for lunch, so he left his toys and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. By the sink he noticed yet another puzzle piece sitting there on the counter, and he wondered what it was doing there. Curiosity was now starting to get hold of him and he decided to try and find the rest of the pieces of this puzzle, so after lunch he began to look. He rummaged through every toy box he owned, looked under his bed, rummaged through the closet in his room, searched high and low, and soon his pocket was getting full of pieces which all seemed to be from the same puzzle. The little boy started to notice a pattern, of all the pieces he found, most of them were dark. Whatever the picture this puzzle formed, he realized that it was dark and gloomy. He pulled himself up to his desk and removed all the pieces he'd collected in front of him. Comparing them two by two, he eventually found a pair that matched, and soon another pair. Piece by piece, he started putting together this picture, but without a box lid to show him what the puzzle was going to look like when it was finished, he continued on trying to find peices whose shapes matched and fit together. After some time the little boy had several clumps of a picture but he still had many pieces that didn't fit anywhere and he could not yet make out what the image was. He realized that he needed to find more pieces so he started looking throughout the house. He went downstairs and lifted all the sofa cushions, felt around in the cracks and found a few more pieces. He went into the kitchen and opened every cupboard door he could reach. Several more pieces were added to his pocket which was starting to get full again. After the little boy had searched every room in the house, he returned to his bedroom and emptied his pockets out again. This time he found that a lot of the pieces he'd just gathered were starting to join together other chunks of the picture, and an image was starting to form on his desk. As he looked at the colors and shapes that the pieces were forming, a look of shock and horror crept across his face as he started to understand what the picture was of. He still had more pieces on the desk and he continued to work until he found a place for every piece. The puzzle was now just about finished, and the image horrified him so that he couldn't bear to look at it. He covered his face with his grubby little hands and sucked back quiet tears that were now streaming down his face. The little boy's mother had been downstairs cleaning up the kitchen and doing laundry when she thought she heard a strange noise from upstairs. Quietly she tip-toed up the stairs to see what her little boy was up to, and found him in his room sobbing in his hands. Before she could ask him why he was crying, she noticed the puzzle sitting on his desk. The little boy's mother didn't say anything, but she too began to weep as she saw the image her son had put together. Looking at the puzzle, with still several pieces missing, she could make out Betreyal, Deceit and Unfaithfulness. On just about every piece of the puzzle she could see Lies. Finally she spoke. Quietly she asked the little boy where he'd found this puzzle. Looking up with his big, red, drenched eyes the little boy answered in a quivering voice, "I didn't know what it was, momma. I just found pieces of it all over the house and when I put it together this is what it looks like. I didn't know." The little boy's mother smiled a warm, motherly smile and said, "It's not your fault, my son, that you've seen this image." "But I put it together momma! It is my fault." "No, son," she answered, "You didn't make the puzzle, you only found the pieces and put them together." The boy looked down for a moment, sniffed his nose and then looked back at his mother who was now kneeling beside him. "Will I ever forget what I've seen?" The little boy's mother looked away a moment and then stared straight into her son's eyes. "My dear son, the shock and horror of what you've seen today will fade eventually, but you will remember this puzzle for a very, very long time. I'm sorry I cannot make it go away, but things like this are part of life. You will realize as you grow older and become wiser that there are a lot of these puzzles out there, and sometimes we find pieces to them in some of the most unlikely places. But not all puzzles are bad or hurtful like this one is. Come on downstairs and we'll make some Cookies together. Maybe that will help you get your mind off the puzzle. Oh and your best friend called earlier to see if you could come out to play this afternoon. Lets make those cookies so you two can eat them when he comes over." The little boy smiled, and he and his mother went down the stairs to the kitchen. May 19, 2003 The camping season has begun! This May Long Weekend, Bo, Clayton, Lena, Mike, Eric, and I went camping in a little canyon just off the Red Deer River near Drumheller. Despite some rather chilly weather for the most part of the trip, we managed to pull off yet another fun filled camping trip, and this time we actually have some pictures to show for it as well. (Remember that one trip we brought a camera on, and James sent all the film to get developed down in the States and none of it ever came back? Boy that was disappointing.) But this time we all brought our cameras and we recorded the snot out of everything. I've posted the pictures from all three of our cameras in the photo album for now, but I'm going to be removing a lot of the pictures that are of no interest (hopefully) this week sometime if I can manage to squeeze it in. Hard to believe the weekend is over though, I wish I could go back already. What a change of pace from life in the city! Good times, good times. May 23, 2003 Well the first really nice week of hot weather has arrived, and with a forecast high of 28 tomorrow, I am one happy camper. Last night I went out for supper with Becky, a long overdue meeting at our favorite place. She gave me one of her grad pictures which I'll put in the Who's Who sometime next week when I get a chance to scan it. My time flies. Her grad is this Tuesday, but I can remember when I first met her over 7 years ago. She's grown up so fast. My site has not really had much new added to it lately, and I hope to add a bunch of stuff to it in the near future, especially in the Who's Who. There are a lot of other people who should be in there, and it's just a matter of time before I can find or take pictures of everyone and put the information up. As life goes on I've been noticing a trend: I will always have more work to do than I can ever get done. Speaking of work, I had the unpleasant experience of working at Lakeview IGA twice this week, and man do they ever need to dust in that store... Especially those awnings at the back of the store. Sheesh. (grin) But the weekend is here and it's going to be a good one. I'm just waiting for Bo to get here and then we'll be off on another weekend of camping in the great outdoors! Last weekend we went to the Red Deer Valley, not far from Drumheller. It was a touch cold though, and we had to keep a fire going from the time we got there till the time we left. It didn't really matter though, we still had an awesome time. We're not quite sure what we're doing this weekend yet, even though it is practically upon us, but that's half the fun of camping with Bo, you never know what's going to happen until it does. Sometimes you look back and you're still not sure what happened, but you know it was fun, whatever it was. Anyhow, I hope you (the reader) have a great weekend! May 27, 2003 I love the Mister Boffo comic strip. Most times I get quite a kick out of it, I love Joe Martin's sense of humour and his comics crack me up almost daily. Today's strip, however, hit a little closer to home than usual. Of course it's not 100% applicable to my life, but still I did not laugh today when I read it. I'm slowly getting some things updated on the site here, I've put Becky's grad picture up in the Who's Who, and there are still a LOT of pictures coming for the May 23 - 25 period at Pine Lake. There is just so much to do these days, and the computer has been all but completely neglected as of lately... Which I'll admit is not like me. But it is late once again and I need some sleep. I had supper at Bo's this evening and have had an upset stomach since. I don't know what it was, but for a while there I thought I was surely going to see supper again. The feeling is subsiding now but I am greatly looking forward to my rest tonight. I have a lot to write about actually, and am tempted to expunge it all out right now, but I fear it will have to wait for another time. I think I've been pretty good with my journal for May so far, despite all the activities. Considering my goal is to have at least one entry per month of the year, this month was quite eventful. Yawn. Goodnight. BACK to Journal Index