The gift of Christmas

I was opening my presents this morning and for possibly the first Christmas in my life, I started to think of the symbolism of what we do at Christmas. In church life we're always careful to make sure everyone realises the symbolism when they take communion yet I find we don't think so much about it at Christmas.

What do I mean? Well, I'll explain a bit further. As I unwrapped my presents I wasn't focussed on the gifts themselves. I didn't even think of the kings and the gifts that they brought. As I peeled the shiny paper from various items, I thought of Jesus, God's gift to humanity, His answer to our condition. The gift of God, wrapped in flesh and blood, held together not by some cheap sticky-tape but by the love of the Father.

The gift was free. There was no persuading God or twisting his arm. It was his agenda all along to extravagantly give this gift to us. It's our choice if we just leave him under the tree.

That's not just a reference to salvation, either. How many times do we bang our head against the wall, forgetting the Christmas present we got a few years back that could solve the situation? How often do we call on Jesus? How often do I call on Jesus? Not enough. Not nearly enough. I complain to him a great deal. I don't think that really counts, though. I just find myself sounding more and more like a bunch of people that ended up getting eaten by the desert this one time...

Let's all remember the value of what we've got at our disposal.

Romulan Chief!

OK, so last night when I took the pic of my straight hair, I thought I should do a profile as well, to give you a better idea of the shocking transformation that took place.

Straight Hair!

I just got my hair cut at Mika on Kilmarnock Road. The girl that cut it encouraged me to leave the top to grow and she just trimmed the fringe and the back and sides. (Does that make it a short back and sides?) Anyway, she also STRAIGHTENED it which was quite a big deal, considering the amount of hair I have these days. The best part of all was that despite the time she spent straightening it, she only charged me £4.50 because she just cut the back and sides. Sweet!



UPDATE:

I should add that I actually took 30 pictures with my camera-phone before finding this one that I thought was good. Criteria were not cropping part of my head from the pic and remembering not to look too serious although really concentrating.

Also, every time I look in the mirror I think I'm a Romulan from Star Trek!

Hotel Rwanda made me cry

I don't know what it is with me and REALLY serious films, especially with my last post being about Hitler.

Tonight I watched Hotel Rwanda and it really moved me. The story is based, I believe quite closely, on actual events during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. While angry Hutu mobs roamed the streets killing their Tutsi neighbours, one man opened up his hotel to welcome in refugees as they sought to save their lives from the massacre. The UN refused to stick around to protect them either. Foreign military only came to escort the white visitors to safety, leaving the Rwandans to fend for themselves.

It just made something inside me cry out at the injustice. I've no idea what it feels like to be in such a situation but you must feel so utterly helpless. I don't know what it must be like to watch people beaten and killed, knowing you can't do a thing to stop it. I felt it to some extent as I watched this film, though.

I think that seeing a situation of great suffering stirs something in you. It provokes a sense of compassion which maybe doesn't easily surface in me, at least. It prompts a response. It asks the question, "What do you want to do about this?"

I just feel more and more that here in the West we really have so much. We have it so easy in so many ways yet we still complain. God, let us appreciate the peace we have in our land. Let us be quick to run to those in need, regardless of the personal cost. Let our lives count for something.

Hitler was mental

He really was. I know you don't need me to educate you on this. I just saw a film last night that reminded me of the fact, though. It's called The Downfall and it proved to be a very interesting and educational film. It is actually all in German with English subtitles which I found to be really interesting. I like hearing other languages and I feel that we're very guilty in the English-speaking west of isolating ourselves from other languages.

The film tells the story of the last days inside Hitler's bunker as the Red Army closed in on Berlin and Germany's defeat became apparent. It's told from the view of Traudl Junge who was Hitler's secretary during the war. She actually wrote the story so it's pretty authentic.

I just found it interesting because often war films tend to show America or Britain and not really tell you much about the Germans other than the fact that they're the nasty people we're fighting against. In The Downfall, you see the humanity of some of the German officers and it was reassuring to learn that some of them genuinely cared about their people and wanted to protect the civillians and so on. Don't get me wrong here, though. Most of them were mental. I'm not condoning any Nazi ideals at all, just pointing out that there were real people there too.

This maybe isn't making much sense. I'd recommend seeing it if you want to learn more about that part of history, though. I think we can always learn from the past. I'm glad I didn't have to live then, right enough. Thank God for peace in our time.

A week in England

I just got back to my flat in Glasgow after spending a week catching up with friends south of the border. For my North American friends, I hope you realise I'm not referring to Mexico but England :)

It's funny being in a different country. Even though we're technically under the same government and all that, it's still in the forefront of your mind that you're different. Some of you might say I'm different anyway but I'm talking about accent in particular. As soon as you open your mouth, everyone knows you're not from there.

I was in Bracknell for the most part of the week and I went for a jaunt into Bath for a day and a half as well. It was interesting driving to Bath with directions from multimap.com. We got lost once or twice but we got there in the end and that's always good.

I got the flights for £20 because I had enough Aeroplan points from previous trips with Air Canada. The cost was the airport tax which sadly isn't covered by the rewad points. Still, £20 for a return from Glasgow to Heathrow is pretty good. Checking in for the return flight they used my bank card to verify my ID which was new. It's a strange feeling to be in a plane without anyone having looked at your passport. It reminds me of when I drove from Toronto to Pittsburgh for Christmas and when I came back into Canada the guy didn't even check my passport. Another cool thing with domestic UK flights is that I checked in with less than an hour to go in both cases and everything was fine.

It was good to see friends again and catch up as well. I never really think of much to talk about but company is worth more than information to me anyway. I'm content to be around people, rather than probing for all the latest goings-on.

My Company Blog

I recently created a blog on my company website. You can see it by clicking on the big "blog" link at the bottom or by just browsing to www.tabletopsoftware.com/blog.

Why have two blogs, I hear you say? Well, they will both serve different purposes. This one is my fun fun fun "here's what's happening in my life" kind of blog. The other one will be more work work work "here's what I'm doing with programming" kind of blog. I want potential customers to be able to see what I'm doing programming wise to build trust in my abilities. There's also some book or other called blog marketing that some guy I know wrote. It suggests blogs are a good tool to communicate with potential customers.

My blog stats from Google Analytics

I recently signed up with Google Analytics after seeing mention of it in Jeremy Wright's blog. It's pretty cool. It collects all kinds of stats regarding your visitors that I'd never even have thought about. Don't worry, it's not spyware. It's relevant information such as where in the world you're all from, what screen resolution you have, how many colours you have, what version of flash you have installed, whether or not you have JavaScript enabled and so on. All these things are really important for webmasters to know their audience and adapt the appearance of their site accordingly.

There was also a ton of marketing stuff that I've not really looked at yet but I think you can track the effectiveness of ads you've placed on other websites.

This map shows where everyone is from who's been looking at my blog recently. (Do click for a bigger image!) It's really cool to see all the nations that I've been in contact with, mostly through the School of Ministry and TACF.

Now I just need to get more potential customers to visit my company website and then I'll be in business. Wait, I am in business. I could just use a few more customers!

Chilies are cool!

I bought some chilies recently and I was fascinated by the change of colours if you leave them for long enough. It's like having your own wee autumn on the shelf!

Everyone needs a camera phone!

I was just musing to myself about some moments that would normally have to be expressed purely by word of mouth before people started carrying cameras everywhere with them. Watch in wonder and amazement as I give you the fruit of my camera phone toil and present a moment of bewilderment and repulsion captured when I discovered a glittery thong - in the men's section I might add - while shopping recently:

Don't you just love technology and how it enriches our lives on a daily basis?

Autumn

I love autumn. It's a great season. The trees in particular go through an amazing transformation as the leaves go from green to yellow, orange, red and brown. I love the fact that God's such an artist. Trees don't just die before winter. They die with style! Does anyone else think of soggy corn flakes when they see wet orange leaves in a pile at the side of the road or is that just me?

November the 6th

November the 5th has come and gone
but thoughts of it still linger.
I lit a banger with a match.
Has anyone seen my finger?

So hey, yesterday was Guy Fawkes night or "bonfire night" as it's also known. Those of you from outside the UK may not be aware of this occasion but to sum it up, there was once a conspiracy to blow up the houses of parliament and they were caught in the nick of time, with all sorts of barrels of gunpowder stacked in the basement ready to go. One guy (ho ho) called Guy Fawkes took the fall for it, quite literally. That is to say, he was executed for it. I don't know if he was hanged but probably.

Celebrations of the aversion of disaster take the form of setting off fireworks and sometimes having a bonfire, maybe even with an effigy of Guy Fawkes burned in it for good measure, or dodgy ritual as I suspect.

The picture above is a rocket I found in the street outside my flat this morning on my way to church.

This is an amazing advert!

I've just seen a very impressive, literally "amazing" advert here. I mean, this had me actually chuckling and saying things like "no way" out loud, as I sat at my computer. Credit must go to the author of this blog post where I found the link.

Back to the Future Trivia!

I just found out LOADS of interesting things about the Back to the Future movies that I never knew before. It's amazing how many clever references people write into movies to pay tribute to films they liked in the past, or naming things after wives and so on.

If you're interested, here are the trivia links for Back to the Future parts 1 and 2:

Trivia for Back to the Future
Trivia for Back to the Future Part II

In case you're not convinced about the merits of reading the trivia, let me show you the COOLEST one I discovered:

The mall where Marty McFly meets Doc Brown for their time travel experiment is called "Twin Pines Mall". Doc Brown comments that old farmer Peabody used to own all of the land, and he grew pines there. When Marty goes back in time, he runs over and knocks down a pine tree on the Peabody's property. When he comes back to the mall at the end of the film, the sign at the mall identifies the mall as "Lone Pine Mall".

Here are some pics to prove it. I just grabbed these straight from DVD:




I love the fact that someone went to the trouble of doing that. It makes me smile.

(I'm watching part 3 tomorrow, maybe I'll read up on the trivia now.)

I love "Back to the Future"

For the past six months or so, I've had a kind of nagging craving in the back of my mind that I really should watch Back to the Future. I can't explain it, other than it being like really missing an old friend.

On monday, I signed up with my local video shop and rented the completed Back to the Future trilogy on DVD! Last night I watched the first one and it's still as good as ever. OK, so the special effects are pretty dated by today's standards but the thing I realized was just how great a story it is. I suppose it's the ingredient of time travel that really opens up the plot options to writer(s?) but still I think it's definitely one of the better ones.

Tonight I was watching Back to the Future Part 2 and I noticed something very spooky at the start. Just after the opening credits it states the date as October 26th, 1985. I thought October 26th looked a bit familiar and then I checked today's date. Today is the 27th, meaning I watched part 1 of Back to the Future EXACTLY TWENTY YEARS after it was set! How cool is that? I thought it was noteworthy at least.

Part II was brilliant as well. They really took things to a new level with the plot going back AND forward in time. Especially the idea that someone had gone back in time creating a tangent on the space/time continuum, leaving them unable to go forward in time again to stop him going back because they were now on a different time line. There's not many movies that would attempt to put something as cool as that in there. Sure, their idea of the future wasn't exactly accurate but it'd just be too freaky if everyone really was using wireless Internet, laptops and mobiles. I still want a hoverboard, though.

Tomorrow I'll watch Part III but I think it's safe to say that 30 years later, Back to the Future still has the magic! Great Scott!

Baby Progress Bar

I just had a great idea today for the more geeky parent to be.

I thought what would be cooler than a baby progress bar? That's right. Imagine an item that could be safely stuck to the tummy of the mum-to-be, indicating to anyone who's interested how far through the pregnancy she is! Wouldn't that just be so cool? I think it would be. Before you get concerned, I'm not going to take things to the extreme of that guy last year who named his baby version 2.0.

Come to think of it, it'll be a while before I'll be in need of such a product, since I won't be having any babies until I solve the "still needing to get a wife" problem which in turn is complicated by the "still needing to get a girlfriend" problem. Ho hum, I can always make money off those who are a bit further down the track in these things in the mean time, though.

Guinness Face

I don't know if you're like me but whenever I get a Guinness, I always feel the need to try the "face" test. The face test (ok, I'm sure no-one else calls it that) is when you make a face in the head and then see if it's still there at the end of the pint. A "good" Guinness will preserve the face to the bitter (ho ho) end.

By that definition, this pint wasn't a good Guinness. It just goes to show for all you Canadians that we don't get perfect Guinness in Glasgow either. Maybe one would need to go on some kind of pilgrimage to Dublin to get the real deal. I suppose there's the argument of how it's poured as well, I suppose.

---

Actually, I heard an interesting story about the origins of Guinness. The inventor, a Christian man, (presumably Mr. Guinness) noticed how a significant number of the working-class men in Ireland were going straight to the pub when they got paid and then drinking all their earnings, neglecting to feed themselves properly in the process.

Concerned by this, he created Guinness to be a meal replacement. It actually has all the nutrients and whatever that you might get from a normal meal. It was made with alcohol, so people would drink it but it was designed to be difficult to actually get drunk on, although I have to say I've never tried. I've even heard of doctors recommending Guinness to nursing mothers who've been having a hard time producing enough milk for the baby. Strange but true.

Having said all that, I still find it sad that Guinness is all people think about on St. Patrick's day. (See my post on St. Patrick's day from March.)

End of an era

Today is a sad day. Well, not very sad but a moment to reflect at least. You see, I finally decided it was time to get a new wallet because I've had this one for years. At least since 2002, maybe even 2001. I had this one with me in Germany on outreach in 2002 and I actually lost it. Then I retraced my steps in the dark and found it in the middle of the road! It was the strangest thing. I drove over a wallet-shaped shadow and thought, "Hmm, that could be it." and then dismissed the idea. Then I remembered that I was in fact LOOKING for my wallet so it would really make sense to check out wallet-shaped clues. I did a u-turn and came back to the spot and there it was. Nothing was missing.

My new wallet is different and it brings attention to the fact that I'm very accustomed to the other one. It opens to the left while the old one opens to the right so I keep opening the new one upside-down and then saying to myself, "Oh yeh, it's my new wallet." Also, the zip opens from left to right while the old one was from right to left. I really don't know how I'm going to cope. I'll try to be strong - for the sake of my blog readers.

End of Innocents

Today is a sad day. I've now finished the ten free fruit smoothies that Innocent Drinks sent to me as an apology for the yoghurt thickie I bought that was off. I still have the bottles on my shelf to help me remember the good times, though.

 

Image Test - Wine Bottle Decoration

Look at that, that's amazing! You can add images directly to blogger these days. I don' t know how long it's been like that but that's handy to know. I've been using Flickr for a while now as the more avid TheKen-blog-followers will know. (If you didn't know that, stop reading this and go to my flickr images and start commenting on my amazing pics immediately.)

This picture to the left is a bottle of wine, decorated simply yet effectivley with a decoration my good friend Heidi Lichti gave me just before I left Canada. Apparently in Canada they have traditions about bringing bread and wine to a new house to symbolise things like provision and prosperity. (I think.) Anyway, this was the first bottle in my new flat so Heidi, that's your wine-bottle-decoration put to good use.

Innocent Drinks are the best!

I'm seriously impressed with the people who work at Innocent Drinks. (innocentdrinks.co.uk) I've been a huge fan of their fruit smoothies and yoghurt thickies for a number of years now. Of course, I've also been living in Canada for the last 3 years so it's been a difficult distance relationship. In fact, I actually missed innocent drinks while I was in Canada. I really did. Whenever I came home to visit, I always had to go out and buy one.

It was when buying my first innocent drink after moving home to Scotland that this latest adventure all began. I bought a yoghurt thickie at a shop in Glasgow Central Station (I won't name and shame them here) and hopped on the train to Greenock, to go see Mum & Dad. Well, after the obligatory shaking up of the bottle, I was surprised to hear a fizzing sound when I opened it. I drank some and it tasted fizzy and seemed thinner than usual. Oh, not to forget that when it fizzed to begin with, it actually overflowed onto my hand and the floor of the train. It was quite a tricky moment.

Well, the good people at Innocent Drinks were kind enough to offer me a case of their finest drinks as a peace offering after I reported the unfortunate event to them. A whole case! I got TEN FREE SMOOTHIES because I bought one bad one! Amazing!

Here are some pics of me enjoying my new smoothies after they arrived today. If you follow the links, you'll see bigger pictures along with comments from yours truly. (That's me)









If you're still reading, you obviously find this interesting. Why not check out what they have to say about cranberries.

Cooke'd

Wow! We just had an incredible conference at Glasgow Elim. It was called Seasoned in the Prophetic and we had an amazing speaker by the name of Graham Cooke.

All through the conference I felt an excitement stirring within me. It's hard to pinpoint exactly but it was a very real, physical manifestation of the power of God on me, almost like something inside my chest would explode. It only seemed to diminish in intensity between sessions when I'd go out and get something to eat, talk to friends and that sort of thing. The whole time I was sitting in the conference God was just ON me. It was pretty intense. It didn't seem to be in response to what he was saying although there were key moments when it definitely got more intense as though God was underlining something that had just been said.

The conference was really about the character of God, though, and how we should respond to things that happen to us, what we should ask God. Rather than saying "Why is this happening to me?" we should be asking "What are you teaching me here?" and "What do you want me to do here?" We tend to respond wrongly by saying things like "I'm a Christian! Get me out of this!" when God's saying "You just don't get it, do you?"

Another really cool thing was about God seeing us present-future but we get caught up in our past and see ourselves past-present. We don't think we can do the things he's called us to because of our past whereas he sees us in the future and we're much better looking than we are now! If you have a prophetic word about your future and you don't see how it could happen, remember that God wants to change you into the person that can do these things. The time from prophecy received to prophecy fulfilled is a time of transformation when God changes our very personality!

Finally, I thought it was so cool that God wants to BE our strength in our areas of weakness. We somehow think we need to get rid of our weaknesses but in 2 Cor 12:10, Paul suggest otherwise. God actually wants to take over and make up for the lack in those moments when our weaknesses are challenged. We need to let him take over when we are in an area of weakness.

It's funny because when I heard Heidi Baker for the first time in 2002, I declared after that I'd been "Baked". Now after Graham Cooke, I've been "Cooke'd". It seems that God has a culinary theme regarding his dealings with me. It'll be interesting to see how he turn's the Todd Bentley conference I'm going to next month into a food theme!

Fun at Loch Lomond

Last night I had a very interesting camping experience with Alan and Collin Gibson. We set out to spend the night in a cave beside Loch Lomond but we left a bit late in the day which made things a bit more complicated. By the time we got to the nearest car park, it was 8 o'clock in the evening and completely dark. It was an overcast night as well so there was very little light. Only the two head-mounted torches that Alan and Collin had brought with them provided any illumination. I watched my step by following their lights along the path.

As time went past, we became a bit uncertain of the path and after a few scouting explorations here and there, we decided to sleep on the beach instead. Now, this posed a small problem as we didn't have any tents. Undaunted, however, Alan managed to create a shelter he called "a bendy" which consists of a small sapling bent over and tied to a secure spot on the ground (a convenient root that protruded above the surface) allowing us a framework to add other coverings to.

We made a fire and settled down for the night enjoying foods ranging from Scottish Cheddar to an obscure Russian beer from the Baltic somewhere. We were having a good laugh and enjoying the whole camping/bivvying experience and decided to turn in for the night just after midnight.

I started off just using my sleeping bag as a pillow because I felt fine in my clothes, not too cold at all. After nodding off for a while like this, I woke up feeling cold and decided to jump into the sleeping bag. No sooner had I done this than the heavens opened and it rained. It got heavier and it got lighter and that cycle pretty much kept repeating ALL NIGHT. Sadly the shelter we had constructed didn't really cover us overhead and, consequently we got seriously rained on. I remember a few distinct landmarks in the night's events:

* The "I'm getting rained on" phase
* The "Now my legs are wet" phase
* The "Oh, my socks are wet too, now" phase
* The "I can't stop shivering" phase
* The "Isn't it morning yet?" phase

Finally at around half past 6, Alan had had enough and we all packed up and left. It was still dark. I still saw no sign of daylight. It was only when we reached the car that it started getting light and the rain stopped too!

Since we were completely drookit, we decided to remove our trousers to minimise the soaking of the seats in the car. I was relieved to also discover that my phone had survived the night in my rucksack, under the in-built rain cover which I had deployed when packing everything up the night before.

As if this wasn't enough drama for one night, we discovered just after driving onto the road that the car had a flat tyre. "One for all and all for one," I said and in no time we had three drowned rats in the boxers changing the wheel of a car at 6:30 in the morning. We must have been a sight.

I finally made it home and put my stuff in the wash along with my week's laundry. I had a much needed shower and then discovered on taking my clothes out of the machine that I had left a Tracker bar (kind of granola cereal bar) in the pocket of my trousers. There were bits of peanut, toffee etc. stuck to ALL of the things that were in the washing machine.

Oh well, it seems I'm not quite as Wild at Heart as I thought I was because most of the night I was wishing it was all over. We did laugh about it, though, which is always good. You need to see the funny side of these adventures.

First Small Group Meeting

Today was a special day. I finally got over my fear and led a small group meeting. Simon (my pastor) had asked me to lead some guys in the church who were keen to get a guys' small group up and running. In the past I had always felt weary about the notion of becoming a cell leader in TACF. I don't know if it was the notion of coming up with a teaching or the fact that I was wiped from work that put me off. I just didn't feel like it.

This time it's different, though. When Simon was talking to me about it I started to feel genuine interest for the guys and a motivation to help them and pass on what I'd learned. This hasn't always been the case!

Tonight we met for the first time and I talked a bit about my experience at the School of Ministry and how walking in the light had dealt with some of my ungodly beliefs about myself. We had a soaking time as well. Levi (my lappy) was on hand to provide the soaking music. Having a laptop's so useful!

SoM Reunion

I went to the SoM Reunion in England this weekend which was really cool. I drove down with Alan Gibson in his car. We shared the driving and got there WAY too early. It started at 6:30pm but we were there at half one. Oh well, not to worry.

It was cool catching up with people I knew and meeting new people who had been to TACF. It's funny how you quickly connect with people through the common experience. Maybe the fact that we've all gone through a bit of inner healing probably helped, too. People were surprised that we drove from Scotland, though. I think in the UK we don't really expect to drive too much. Whether it's the price of petrol or just the fear of putting miles on the clock, there's something that's putting people off.

Anway, the reunion - we had a lot of worship and some social time as well. We prophecied over each other, prayed for healing, had a laugh. All the good stuff really. I don't know when the next one will be but I think I'll probably go again.

Levi

I'm excited to announce the safe arrival of LEVI! No, I haven't secretly been fathering children in my spare time, Levi is my wonderful new laptop computer system! He's weighing in at 2.38 kg he is a bit on the light side but he's perfectly healthy. He's a Samsung X20 HVM 740 or just an X20 for short. I've been busy running Windows Update and downloading all sorts of things to get him ready for work. I'm still waiting for the copy of Visual Studio that I bought from a guy in The States. I expect it to arrive this week.

I also bought a nice wee bag for Levi today so now I can take him with me. (which is really the idea with a laptop.)

The latest from an over-clocked brain

I noticed tonight when talking to a friend on the phone that my brain has been racing at a hundred miles an hour recently. It's a bit concerning. I mean, seriously, I've never done speed but if it does what the name implies, I think I've had a similar experience. I was confused about this because I've not been drinking any coffee lately. It then crossed my mind that tea actually has more caffiene than the former and I've certainly been drinking my fair share of that. Could it be that my lack of caffiene intake prior to returning home has resulted in my having a lower tolerance? I think it's probably what's going on.

Getting organised in Glasgow

Well, it's been a crazy few weeks but I think I'm finally making progress getting settled in Glasgow again. It was a bit of a strange adjustment to begin with. I had forgotten the PIN number for my debit card and the phone number for my mobile was one that I hadn't used in ages either. I was also staying with friends and I couldn't remember their address or post code so really, when all was said and done, I didn't know a great deal.

I've signed a lease and got the keys for my new flat in the south side of Glasgow. I'm quite excited about that. Now I can start updating my address information with everything to my new place. I'm trying to get power, phone, internet and furniture sorted out though. My new laptop should arrive tomorrow and my software will be here soon enough.

My new place is quite close to a park. I'm pretty excited about that. I've been meeting up with a few friends from church to go jogging once a week at the unlikely hour of 7am. Amazingly, I've been able to get there on time and actually do a reasonable work out. I think I'll aim to jog every day because working from home doesn't give you much reason to leave the house.

The weather's been pretty sunny but the last couple of days it's got cloudier and more like the Scotland that I remember.

Grrr - leave my blog alone, spammers!

I just discovered that my most recent blog entry had 7 comments. This was a bit of a surprise as I hadn't received any e-mail notifications. I excitedly opened the list to read what all my friends had written about what I personally consider to be one of my best blog entries so far.

You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered my first bit of blog comment spam. Man, is nothing sacred any more? It's getting to the point where anywhere you can submit text to a page someone's going to try to use it to market something stupid to you. Well, thankfully Blogger have a mechanism to handle that. I have now switched on the "word verification" feature. You've probably seen something similar before. You just need to read the text shown in an image on the screen and type it into the box underneath it. Programs can't do that so by doing so you prove that you're a real person leaving a real comment rather than a program that's going through all the blogs and dumping unwanted advertising in there.

(sigh) Sometimes it's just annoying when your privacy is violated like that. It annoys me. I wish people would just stop trying to sell me their crap all the time.

Hello Scotland

I'm home! I made it back safely to the home of haggis, kilts and The Ken.

I had a fairly decent 5 and a half flight with Air Transat directly from Toronto to Glasgow. I was sitting in the very back row, just in front of the toilets. I was thinking of some pros and cons of the location of my seat:

Back Row (General)
Pro: I could recline the seat without worrying about disturbing the person behind me.
Pro: Nobody could dig their knees into my back.
Pro: As well as under the seat in front of me, I was able to put things under my own seat.
Pro: I was one of the first allowed to board because they boarded by row number. This allowed me to put my bag in the overhead compartment before it got filled up.
Con: I was one of the last people off the plane.

Proximity of Toilet
Pro: If I needed to go, it was easy to get to.
Con: A lot of other people used it too and every time the door opened, I got a whiff of their contribution.
Con: People squeezing past my seat on the way to the toilet frequently brushed past my shoulder with their bottom, creating mixed reactions depending on the individual.

Video Screens in the middle of the cabin
Con: People going back and forth to the toilet and cabin crew doing their duties frequently blocked my view of the screen.

So, all in all it was a mixed experience.

---

I arrived at 6:15 this morning and I've slept maybe 2 hours since then! This morning I went to Glasgow Elim for the first time in ages. It was really great to see everyone again. There was a real sense of coming home, a great spiritual family vibe. The worship was amazing as well. God seems so much closer here. It's strange, I'm just connecting with him a lot better all of a sudden and really feeling the love and acceptance that I've been craving for so long.

I went again this evening and there was a baptisimal service. I didn't know any of the people who were getting baptised but I'm sure I'll get to know new people sooner or later. It's really great being back and renewing old friendships with friends that I've known for years. I realise now how much I was suffering in Toronto from having no roots or established connections there. Everything was just so transient and temporary. It was hard to feel settled. I'm excited for what God's got for this next chapter of my life. I really am.

Goodbye Canada

Well, this is it. It's the end of my time in Toronto. I stopped working a month ago when I got the news that I had to leave but I've still been around.

I've been getting everything finalised for my move back to Scotland. There were so many bits and pieces to organise but at last I'm ready. I've still not packed most of my things. I'm going to do that tonight. I just hope I can fit everything into my suitcase and rucksack. Otherwise I suppose I'll just have to throw some things out. It's funny, I've felt for the longest time that I'm always on the move. I never feel really settled anywhere. Canada, especially, had a very temporary feel about it with the question of work permits coming round each year. I had intended to avoid that by getting Permanent Residence but that still hasn't finished processing. The decision to apply for that was really so that I could choose my own return date and so I could work for whoever I wanted while still in Canada. I don't know if I really wanted to stay here forever anyway.

I'll see how things go in Scotland. It's going to be a bit of an adjustment back to Scottish life. I've probably lost my accent a bit and I still find myself thinking and speaking in Canadian. It doesn't sound so odd to say that about French or German or another non-English language like that but the thing is that even with variants of English, you still switch from one set of terminology to another. At least I do, maybe I'm just different. In Scotland I say "crisps" and in Canada I say "chips". Then you've got pavement/sidewalk, road/pavement, pram/stroller, gutter/eaves trough. (yeh - that's an obscure one to know)

It's been a funny time here in Toronto. When I started working in the IT Department I felt totally underqualified and there was a large team of programmers at the time as well. Then with the finance issues we faced a few years back due to Sars, everyone else got laid off, leaving only me really. For a while I was the only programmer here and I had the freedom (and burden) of making all the decisions about how my programs would be written. It's a bitter-sweet situation, really. We all like to make the decisions, but not to be the one responsible for their consequences. Hmm, that's one to ponder actually...

Sandi

This is Sandi. We only met once, at a party down in Pittsburgh back in November of last year. That was the same trip when we went to the gun club and had some fun with guns. She was Vera's roommate at the time.

Anyway, I just heard last night from Steve that she died in a rock climbing accident. It was a huge shock to me and it raised all kinds of questions in my mind. She had been in Wyoming doing some kind of outdoor adventure training and she was learning to be a climbing instructor. They had got to the top of the climb and she was tidying up the ropes and she lost her balance and fell. By this time they had taken off all their climbing equipment and there was nothing to save her.

It struck me a bit because this is the second person I've known to some extent who's died young. It makes it all the harder to cope with the loss. The last one I wrote about was Will Elder who died of cancer in May. It's not as tragic when someone's older and you feel they've led a full life but when someone dies young there's that sense of loss of all the experiences they'll never have.

I find it hard seeing God's will in it all. As far as we knew, Sandi didn't know Jesus. Vera had talked to her about her own faith from time to time, but as far as we know, she didn't ever make that decision for herself. I personally think that she could have cried out to God in her final moments as she realized what was happening around her. Salvation can come in a heartbeat, and I suppose we won't know until we get there who made it and who didn't.

Regarding God's will, though, I realize that out own free will overrules in a way. I mean, it's God's will that none should perish yet we see people perish all the time and go to a godless eternity. Our own choices and actions are not controlled by God. They are our own. Maybe I'm looking for more meaning in these events than there really is. We ask God, "Why did you let that happen?" and it's the same as anything else - we really make the choices for ourself.

Wind Energy is the way forward!

I've been looking into all the different aspects of getting set up back in Scotland. I'm going to start renting a property in Glasgow and I'll be choosing my ISP and Energy companies as well.

It was while looking through all the Energy companies for the UK that I thought about wind power. I strongly believe that we need to use renewable energy more and more now. The climate really in changing. The weather's going crazy and we can do something about it. For the last while I've been doing small things like using energy-saving lightbulbs or only boiling as much water as I actually need in the kettle. Now, I'm going to take things a step further and choose an Energy provider who uses green forms of energy. In particular, I really favour wind energy. I feel that it's the best form of renewable energy we have on offer.

There's a really great website about wind energy in the UK. It's Embrace The Revolution. (www.embracewind.com) There are some amazing photos as well as interesting facts vs. myths about wind energy. I'm really excited about this and I hope more and more people choose to support renewable energy.

Back from Kelowna

I just got back to Toronto after spending a week in Kelowna, BC. It was pretty good, I have to say. I definitely prefer the dry heat and the overall way of life seems a lot more chilled.



I did a lot of walking and generally being outdoors. Consequently, I developed a fairly impressive "sandal tan". Believe it or not, I'm the first person in Flickr to use the "sandal tan" tag. Fancy that. Also, you can see here that my big toe on the right is healing nicely after that encounter with Dixon Road a wee while back there.

About the most adventurous thing I did on the trip was parasailing. It was a cool experience and it was all the better since Mum & Dad paid! It wasn't as scary as the parachute jump I did back in Utah in 1996 but still, it was an amazing view.

While I was with Mum & Dad for the first couple of days, we drove about a bit and saw some of the towns nearby. I really liked seeing mountains and hills again. It's sometimes only when you see something after a while of being away from it that you realize how much you missed it. At least, that's how it was with the hills and me.

Another thing that struck me was how short all the buildings were in the downtown area of Kelowna. I'm used to Toronto now where the buildings are so huge that you get this sense of the magnitude of the city. I'd rather have big hills and small buildings any day, though. I prefer the outdoors to the city. I just seem to end up living in cities all the time, though.

Bike + Open Sandals + Road = Pain

I had an interesting encounter with the road today on my way to work. First of all, it was an encounter with a funeral procession where the cars had a police escort, stopping traffic at the traffic lights. Not familiar with this, I proceeded to cross the road when the lights were in my favour. It was when I was about half-way across the road that I noticed the cars were still going. I panicked and slammed on the brakes. The car that was about to hit me then stopped and let me through. It was only at this point that I saw the wee "funeral" sign attached to the hood/bonnet of the car. It seems that in Canada funeral processions (or corteges as we would say) can carry on through red lights if they have a police escort. Good to know if you're a cyclist.

So, I survived that near miss with only a minor telling off from the cop. He said something over the speaker like "Watch or you'll get taken out!" Fine, well anyway, I carried on and then came to the real problem. I was on the bridge over Highway 27, looking for a break in traffic so I could nip off the sidewalk (pavement) onto the road. I usually fly down the hill and then turn onto Attwell with a bit of "gravitational assistance" or "momentum" - both work. Due to the delay caused by the funeral procession (which had since merged onto Highway 27 North) there were a lot of cars on the brige. More, in fact than usual.

I saw a gap in the traffic and decided that I would go for it. I was aware, though, that I would need to get up to speed quite quickly because there was another car coming. I bumped off the curb and started peddaling for Scotland. Sadly, my right foot slipped off the back of the pedal, my posterior slipped off the seat so I was sitting on the frame and my foot ended up dragging along the road hairy side down.

I quickly got off the road and assessed myself. First off, I noticed that the seat had twisted round to one side by as much as 60 degress, resulting in the rear mudguard protruding from the other side at an equally outrageous angle. More importantly, though, I had lost part of the toe nail on the big toe of my right foot. There was also a small scrape on the knuckle of the 2nd toe. My sandal, too, had suffered with a bit of a shaving off the edge.

Suffice to say I'm fine. However, I am a bit "gun shy" and might not be quite as eager on the road again. It a hard one to call because you're not meant to be on the sidewalk but drivers don't exactly embrace you on the road. Come to think of it, I don't think I'd want to be embraced by someone in a car while I'm on a bike. The best I can do is to hog the whole lane so that cars don't try to squeeze past me while the other lane's occupied.

Getting ready to leave Canada

So, I've been pretty busy this week getting everything organized for the big move home. I gave myself a month to get everything organised before returning to Glasgow and I think I'm pretty much on top of things.

So far I've sold a few possessions and copied all my personal files off the office computer. It's funny how packing up your files can be just as complex as packing a suitcase these days. I bought a Lexar JumpDrive Secure with a capacity of 1 GB for the occasion and it's proved to be very useful. I like the versatility of being able to re-use rather than the one-off nature of CDs. Also, I can correct it if I accidentally copied files I don't actually need.

I also got a 32 Capacity CD Wallet from Case Logic. Not quite as exciting, this is still a crucial purchase. Now I have the sad task of throwing out all the jewel cases for my CDs and DVDs so I can pack all the discs in the new wallet. (In case you think that's not very many CDs, I already filled a 36 capacity one a few days ago.

Once I get back home, I'm going to start my own software company. I will do freelance stuff, starting off with contracts from TACF who I just finished working for just now. My company is called Tabletop Software although there's nothing worth seeing on the website yet. The important thing is that I've got the domain name.

No more work permits for me!

Last night I got an interesting letter from Canadian Immigration. (Bless them, Jesus!) They decided that I'm not going to get another work permit and, consequently, I need to leave Canada...again.

This isn't the first time I've been through this so I'm almost getting used to the idea. In a way it's shocking how suddenly things like this come along but really God's in control of it all anyway so I should just enjoy the ride.

I think it's going to be good to get a chance to step back from the intense time I've been spending doing IT at TACF. You know, it's really been stressful and depressing lately. I found myself so overwhelmed with the prospect of work that I've not wanted to get out of bed in the morning or face the next day's IT-related problems.

I know God's got something new for me so that's cool. I need to look inside and see what I actually WANT to do that can benefit this world and make come alive. The world's too full of bored people. I need to do what I was MADE for, just as soon as I figure that out. I don't really want to be in an office any more, though. I crave the outdoors. Maybe I'll do some hillwalking when I get back home. I'll check out some of the Munros.

I have my kilt!

Today is a monumentous day (in more ways than one as you'll see once I've done my 2nd post).




I finally collected my kilt from Hector Russell Scottish Imports in Toronto! You've no idea just how long I've had this nagging thought in the back of my head "Man, I wish I had my own kilt." Well, today is that day where the dream is realised. It was a lot of money (around $750 CAD) but I'm so glad I finally have one of my own.

Humidity is not my friend

I'm finding the recent humidity in Toronto to be really horrible. We don't have air conditioning in our place so when I go home it's just bleugh.

I don't know how I did this but last night I went to bed at around 11:30 at night but this morning I missed my alarm completely. I woke up a few times and went back to sleep, since the alarm hadn't gone off yet. Well, finally, I looked at the time and it was 11:45 am! Oops!

I quickly got dressed and cycled in to work - just in time for lunch.

Feed the Poor / Peace on Earth

I've been thinking about current events. In particular, the Live 8 concerts, the G-8 Summit and the bombings in London today.

I don't want to just write about the violence because, basically, I don't want to play into the hands of the terrorists who want to upset everyone's agenda and distract us from what is an important moment in world history. We are at a crucial moment in history where 8 very influential nations are discussing important things like poverty and the environment. These are such important topics that they really need our attention.

It's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day life that we forget things that really matter. We can be so side-tracked by getting the latest "stuff" that we miss the point. How much of what we do with our time really counts for something? How much of it has a point?

I sometimes find it hard to see the worth what I do from 9 to 5. I know I'm serving a church and ultimately God and the underlying IT infrastructure needs to be solid for everything (like the live video streaming) to work properly. It just feels as if that's not tangible enough for me. I want to go somewhere really desolate and build a house for orphans or something like that. That's a good day's work right there - people living in a house instead of on the street because I went to work.

The whole bombing/warring thing seems to be a self-perpetuating entity as well. The whole reason there are wars in Afghanistand and Iraq right now is because of the bombing of the world trade centre and the pentagon. Maybe cynics would question that and I'm not saying I'm entirely in favour of what's happening. The point is, though, that terrorist bombings were the reason. Now, what kind of logic is it that motivates someone to plant some more bombs to make the wars end? Isn't that just fuelling the anger, hatred and thirst for revenge? People in the US and UK are now conveniently reminded of why their troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place - to stop this kind of thing from happening. There needs to be a better path to peace than this.

I don't agree with bombing Iraq or Afghanistan to pieces, incidentally. I really don't think that's the way to go about it. I think western nations need to earn their respect by genuinely caring about them and helping them (especially Afghanistan) to get re-established and stable. I'm not just talking about governments but things like water, food, houses, schools, parks, clearing of landmines. I know there are organizations like the UN who are doing great work there but I think we need things that are clearly done by the governments of western countries as a gift, a token of goodwill.

I pray that the compassion of Jesus and the wisdom of God will be an influence in the G8 Summit. I pray that our leaders will be motivated by not only concern for their own people but by a compassion for all the people in our world. May there be a radical decision to clear the debts of the poor countries who can't pay - without conditions or strings attached. It's time we evened the playing field a bit.

Montréal with Jon & Sheba

A week ago, I went on a fantastic trip to Montréal with Jon & Sheba. It was all part of Jon's plan to romance Sheba for a couple of days building up to his proposition and her acceptance. Yes, they are in fact now engaged!

Maybe I should back up a bit and explain what happened. On the Saturday, Jon took Sheba out for a sail on lake Ontario as a romantic date. Then the next morning, Sheba thought she would be having breakfast with her mum but she was surprised to find Jon, a chauffeur (that's me) and a car waiting for her instead. We took her home and got her to pack some things before grabbing some brunch and then heading for the highway. Sheba still didn't know where we were going at this point. We eventually told her when we got onto Highway 401 East and she couldn't figure out where we would be going.

We drove about 650 km each way in our rented Chevrole Impala which was pretty good and thankfully had good air conditioning because it was REALLY humid.

When we arrived in Montréal, we got settled in to the bed & breakfast before Jon & Sheba headed out for dinner and some jazz. I had a wander around the city and took some pictures. I happened to stumble upon a movie set where Scottish actor Robert Carlyle was being filmed for a show called Human Traffic which I believe will be available on cable in October. You can see my photos here.

Kilt Ordered!

On Saturday, I decided to cycle to Hector Russell to order my kilt. I knew it was quite a distance but I thought it'd be a good bit of exercise. Well, one hour later I arrived there and chose the tartan for my kilt. I went for the ancient Farquharson. As if that wasn't complicated enough, I also had to choose from three different mills who all use slightly different colouring. I don't remember right now the name of the mill I chose but I'll look it up.

The kilt should be ready in 6 - 8 weeks although it depends if the mill has the material in stock. It should be ready in time for all the weddings I'm going to in September. OK, both the weddings I'm going to in September...a week apart.

Will Elder - my friend

Today I received the sad news that Will Elder, a friend and ex-colleague died of cancer this morning. The news hit me as a bit of a blow because we had been praying and believing for God to heal him. The whole thing seemed so tragic as well as he had so much of his life ahead of him. He was 22.

I first met Will in 2002 when I started working at TACF as a volunteer in what was then the Media department. Will was such a friendly and cheerful guy. He was always enthusiastic, hard working and helpful. He had time for people and would help out whenever help was needed, even if it wasn't really his responsibility.

When he stopped working at TACF a while ago, I didn't really keep in touch with him. We just went our separate ways, really. He first contracted testicular cancer almost a year ago and he had a fairly bumpy ride with various treatments and some misleading good signs and even a phase when he thought he was cancer-free.

I went with a few friends to visit him about a month ago and we chatted for a bit. He told me of all the pain he was in, how he had gone hoarse one day from yelling so much because of the pain. Through it all, though, he never lost his sense of God's presence. He said he could feel God's love and he could sense angels in the room as well.

It's just tough when I KNOW that people get healed and cancer really isn't a big deal to God, he's healed people before. God is also a God of LOVE and he desires good things for his children. Right now these don't seem to add up with what's happened but I beleive there are other factors outside my understanding. I still trust God, I still belive he has a good, pleasing and perfect plan for my life and all the rest. I just wish I knew more about healing.

I've been wondering recently, as Will's death seemed more and more imminent - why should he die and me live? Really, when all is said and done, he was a nicer guy than me. I've probably run to sin instead of God more in my life yet here I am in perfect health. I suppose we may tend to associate sickness with God's judgment but it's not always that way.

Will isn't in any pain any more. That I believe. He's with God, his creator, his loving Father. How amazing a promise that is. Really, where is the sting in death? All we have is this temporary separation until we are re-united in heaven. Until then, though, I'll miss him.

I think I'll buy a kilt.

Since the wedding at the weekend, I've been considering how much money I've spent on kilt hire. The rental costs $150 each time and I know I've rented a kilt at least 3 times while in Canada, possible even 4. That's from $450 - $600 dollars right there and I have nothing to show for it other than a few cool photos.

I can get a full 8 yard, hand-sewn kilt from Hector Russell in Toronto. (Interestingly, the first Hector Russell was in my home town of Greenock.) If I get the kilt by itself, it'll cost $645 which I think I can afford. Then I can wear it whenever I want, which would be quite fun.

I'm going to go with the Farquharson tartan which is my family tartan, although it's not my name. To add confusion, there are actually four version of the tartan I can choose from. Here's a peek at each of them.


Ancient


Modern


Muted


Weathered

I'm going to go and have a look soon to see which one looks best in real life as they can look misleading on a computer screen.

HSBC No More!

I have finally closed my account with HSBC. I find PC Financial to be a far superior bank. I've been using them for a couple of months now but I still hadn't closed the HSBC account because I couldn't figure out a way of getting my money out without needing to pay a fee, since I had a lot to transfer and I didn't want to walk out with a bag full of cash.

I spent the money instead and today I was handed a $2 coin from the manager as she closed my account. It was actually quite amusing. It illustrated how little interest I had in the bank by that time - the fact that I had spent all but $2 before closing the account.

She was actually pretty grumpy about closing the account, as if my business going elsewhere will put her out of a job. She asked me to fill out a form at one point and when I handed it back she said, "Thanks, that's great....Well...it's not great."

I just smiled to myself, thinking her poor attempts at guilt and manipuation wouldn't work on me! Ha! Your Jedi skills will only work on the weak minded!

Photos from Chris & Lorri's Wedding

I now have the photos back from the wedding on Saturday. Follow this link to have a look. Luckily for Chris, I took out the one from the night before when we made him wear a thong.

A pretty cool wedding

I was priveleged to be part of Chris & Lorri's wedding on Saturday. We had quite a drive to get there, though. Chris is from New Hamburg and the wedding was in Saint Mary's. (the town, not a Catholic church) Check out a map of the area on Google to see where these places are. The reception was somewhere else entirely. I don't know exactly where it was - it was a barn somewhere. Mind you, it was a really nice barn.

One of the highlights of the day was at the end of the ceremony when the minister told us the reception was to be at 5:30pm. Chris and Lorri looked at him kinda funny and said "it's 6:30" to which he replied, "no, trust me, it's 5:30" Well, the newlyweds left in the car and then Lorri's dad came up to the front and said "The reason it's 5:30 is because they don't know this but we're having a helicopter pick them up and fly them there. Oh, and free helicopter rides for everyone!"

It was a pretty cool deal and far more original than the old "free drinks all round" concept. There were two helicopters, one of which could take three passengers and the other could take four. They kept going for quite a while until everyone had a shot. I had to be carefuly standing in line with my kilt on because each time a helicopter took off, there was quite a gust. I think I managed to defend my dignity ok, though.

All in all, it was a great day, though, starting with a last-minute band practice in the morning and ending with helping to clear up some of the stuff in the barn and getting back to Toronto at around 2am.

I love the community of a wedding. It's not just two people getting together, it's everyone being a witness and participant in the joy and celebration of their new life together. Here's to Chris and Lorri's new future together!

(I will hopefully have some photos soon!)

BICYCLE!

(In my best Queen voice:) I want to ride my BICYCLE, I want to ride my bike!

Yes, it's true. I finally bought a bi-cycle - a two-wheeler, with no stabilisers! I'm a big boy now, yes I am.

Inspired by the plethora of bicycles is use in Denmark, I decided to get one of my own to get around (round round get around, I get around!) my neighbourhood. I can also ride to work/church as well and get a bit stronger in the legs in the process. That way I'll be stronger for climbing as well and a spot of cardio exercise is always a good idea as well.

For those of you interested in bike details, I got the Yukon by Giant. I hope to have lots of fun and get fitter at the same time.

Back in Copenhagen

It's Saturday night and I'm now back in Copenhagen. I've not been able to get to a computer since last weekend. OK, I'll rephrase that. I've just not been near a computer. I probably could have been if I really wanted to be but I didn't so there you go.

A lot has happened since I last wrote but I don't really feel like writing a huge report of my week here. Denmark has been an interesting experience for me, though, and it's been interesting to experience yet another culture.

It's strange the things that strike you as different when you travel from one country to another. In Denmark there are so many bikes. They're everywhere. Not only that, but it seems all streets have bike lanes and traffic lights for bikes as well. People tend to be very well-behaved with waiting for the proper signal to cross the roads and the system of payment on public transport relies a lot on honesty but again people play by the rules. It was nice to see somewhere that there were so few cars on the road and well-run buses full of people as well as all the bikes. I thought that all the biking would make people fitter here but smoking is also much more popular in Denmark so I don't know if they cancel each other out or not.

Anyway, I'm going to stop for now. Tomorrow morning I'm flying to London then on to Toronto. Hopefully I'll be "bright eyed and bushy-tailed" for work on Monday morning.

Hej Hej

Det er hyggeligt!

That is pronounced: "Day err hoogalit"

Do allow me to explain from my Scandinavian phrasebook which includes Danish, Faroese, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish.

"Hygge is a concept close to Danish hearts. It describes many things, like being cosy and comfortable in a warm bed, or sitting in front of the fireplace with a cup of hot cocoa, or a surprise visitor with whom you stay up all night chatting."

It's too bad we don't have cool words like that in English as well. Some things don't translate precisely, I feel.

Fun in Copenhagen.

I've been settling in to Danish time which is 6 hours ahead of Toronto. I'm still not quite adjusted and I find myself tired in the afternoon and wide awake at bedtime. Today I got up at 8:30, though, and just had a nap before dinner.

I've been to the PIH church in Copenhagen although I couldn't tell you where it is. We took two buses and a subway to get there. I enjoyed the worship although I didn't bother getting anyone to translate for me so I spent the whole message trying to guess what they were saying.

Today I went to the Planetarium with Camilla. It's a big cinema which I think is the same as the iMax technology we have back in Scotland. We watched a documentary about natural disasters such as volcanoes, earthquakes and tornados. It made me smile when I saw the tornados and I remembered the time when I told one to go away and it did!

We still need to visit Hans Christian Andersen's grave which I believe is just across the road from where we are just now. Tomorrow morning we're getting up early to get the train to Århus. Hopefully I'll have another chance to do an update soon.

Rock On!

Rock Rings
Originally uploaded by theken.

I recently bought some Metolius Rock Rings from the Mountain Equipment Co-Op but it's taken me a while to get all the equipment to actually attach it to my wall.

Last night I finally got it all finished. This is by far the biggest Home Improvements (or DIY) adventure I've ever had. Prior to this, the biggest thing I ever did was to attach an Ikea mirror to my bathroom wall.

This latest project was a bit tricky. I had to mount a 2 by 6 (or "bit o' wid" for you Scots out there) on the wall using three 5 inch bolts that I (ok my friend Thomas) drilled all the way through the concrete wall. I also attached six "bolt hangers" to the wood so that I could clip the rock rings into a variety of positions for wider or narrower holds. Now all I need is some upper body strength to actually hold on!

 

Winter Pictures

It's almost the end of winter. OK, sorry, it IS the end of winter! I believe it, despite what I see with my eyes!

Well, actually it was a bit warmer today. I have to say. The snow banks are melting and people are discovering all kinds of lost items that have been burried since November.

These are some pics I had in my phone that I hadn't got round to uploading yet so here they are. Each one is a link to the relevant page in my Flickr account.

Canadian Tire Cat

Canadian Tire Cat
Originally uploaded by theken.

This is rather disturbing. I was in Canadian Tire (a home hardware shop for the Brits) with Drew and we noticed this cat sitting around like he owned the place. It was so bizarre. The weird thing was that I think he did own the place. He didn't have a name badge saying he was the manager or anything like that but I had this "sense" that he was in charge.

 

The day Jeremy Wright came to play

Jeremy Wright
Originally uploaded by theken.

It was a very odd day, last Wednesday. It was especially odd for my old boss Jeremy who tried to fly to the US for a blogging job. He was prompty stopped at the airport and detained for two hours with a couple of strip searches thrown in for good measure.

He came over to our office instead to regroup after his ordeal. (The US Customs authorities have a place at Toronto Airport, before you get on the plane) We ended up making the most of the visit and playing CounterStrike:Source for the better part of the evening on our LAN. I won, incidentally. :)

I happened to spot an article about it in today's Toronto Metro magazine. (Jeremy not getting into the US, not me beating him at CS:Source) It was so bizarre. I was on the subway, heading downtown to an MSDN seminar and I happened to notice Jeremy's picture on someone's newspaper. Here's a link to the paper. He's on page 3. (Trying hard not to make a page 3 joke for british readers.)

 

What's worse than having to re-write a post?

I'll tell you - it's looking at your blog and discovering that the first time round it was published after all. Aagh! Well, you got a slightly better story the second time around but I could have done without the 20 extra minutes of writing that it took. Boo hoo.

I'm going to Denmark!

Ok, so I know this is pretty random, even by my standards but I've decided to go to Denmark for a week. Work's been really stressing me out a lot recently. I just feel so overwhelmed with the amount of things that need done and the pile only gets bigger. People keep coming up with great ideas for new programs we could write but I'm only one developer and it's getting insane.

You could be excused for asking "Why Denmark" as you may have guessed I'm not just going to hop across the Atlantic to a country chosen entirely at random. No, there is a significance to this nation. I have a friend there who I've been getting to know over the past 3 months and I thought it'd be fun to just head on over to say "Hi".

I should mention here that this is my second attempt to post this message. I was in the middle of publishing it earlier and I pressed the backspace key, thinking the focus was on another window. It had the effect of choosing the "Back" function of my browser. When I clicked "Forward" again it was too late. My post had evaporated in a puff of cosmic dust. Gah, I hate it when that happens. If I had a penny for every e-mail that went up in a puff of cosmic dust I'd have...well one penny. Anyway...

I'm really hoping there's blossom on the trees when I'm in Denmark. I love blossom. I just figured out why I like it so much. Consider snow. Snow is great, snow is fun but snow can become tiring after a while - especially here in Ontario. It's like pre-Aslan Narnia. The winter never seems to end. On the other hand, consider the fleeting life of blossom. It just bursts out of nowhere, adorns the trees like Solomon's splendour and then in no time at all is trampled underfoot. It's an amazing explosion of artistic colour, a heavenly exclamation that life has returned to the trees and warmer weather is just around the corner. I love blossom.

Four weeks today I'll be at the airport. If only I could go sooner. I love being spontaneous and even four weeks seems a long time to wait. Ah, it'll pass soon enough!

St. Patrick was an amazing man!

I was reflecting on the amount of aggressive "Why aren't you wearing green?" attacks that have been hurled my way today. It's just interesting how something that started out as a holy day, a commemoration of a life of sacrifice, has degenerated into Guinness, wearing green, Leprichauns, shamrocks, pots of gold etc...

The truth is that in St. Patrick we see a man who was born in Scotland and captured by Irish warriors who sold him into slavery when he was 16 years old. He then spent 6 years as a farmer for a chieftan who was also a druidical high priest. He escaped back to Britain and chose to devote his life to God. He returned to Ireland and pretty much converted the nation from Druidism to Christianity.

That's an amazing life, a great story. It's such a great story that green beer just seems childish by comparison. (No, not child-like - childish, pointless, shallow, trivial.) What have we done to the holy days of our past? How do we remember the people God's used as instruments of his signs and wonders? We see how much Guinness we can drink. (sigh) It bothers me.

The whole story of St. Patrick can be read here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11554a.htm

I leave you with one of St. Patrick's prayers, known as "St. Patrick's Breast-Plate".

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ in the poop,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

Butter or Margarine?

It's the age-old debate that came to the fore last night as I tried to butter my bread for my sandwiches for today's lunch. You see, I've learned that margarine isn't good for you and in fact is only one molecule away from plastic (thanks to Mr. Gazaneo for that) but I'm having issues with butter, too. If you try to spread butter straight after taking it out of the fridge, you end up tearing the helpless bread into tatters. I have also tried to store my butter in the cupboard, resulting in a nasty, oily puddle forming in my cupboard. Grr! Is there no end to the madness? Someone must know of a way of getting butter to do its job without driving me INSANE!

Moving an IT Department

It's really not a small task by any means to move an entire IT Department. Admittedly, we don't have many employees in IT but I'm thinking more of servers and network cables. Yesterday, we did a 12 hour shift and managed to move all the servers into the new location as well as redirect a few critical cables that connect to our other building. We had already re-routed the the network cabling for the upstairs of the office a couple of days earlier so that saved some time. Now everything's up and running except for the downstairs computers in the same building as the servers. We were re-routing 34 cables that were all converging on one patch panel in the old server room and it turns out that they're about 8 feet short of the new location of the patch panel. As I write this, my boss is pummelling the floor of our new office with a variety of chisels, hammers and drills to make a hole through to downstairs so we can take a shorter route and hopefully have enough cable to spare. I can see why some bright spark invented wireless networking. It certainly saves time when moving office. On the other hand, it's not quite as reliable as old fashioned cat5 cables.

On the downside, my back's sore again today. I think it's from all the active work twisting, pulling and climbing yesterday while re-routing the cables. God, please heal my back! I know you can! This healing belongs to me because of what Jesus did on the cross. I receive it now in Jesus' name. Amen!

Blue Mountain - 7th time this season

On thursday night, I went to Blue Mountain for the seventh time this season. I like to count because I want to be sure I've got the value out of my night pass. It cost me $100 and if I bought a lift pass each visit, it would cost me $30 a time so I've definitely saved money with the pass. Last year I went 12 times, though, and I feel I'm still a bit behind on my quota!

I was taking it easy this week because last time I hurt my back a bit. Now Mum, I know you're reading this and are going to say "be careful" but I didn't actually fall when my back got sore. I went over a small jump and when I landed my back started to hurt. It turns out I should stretch before and after exercise. Who'd have thought it?

I've been re-acquainting myself with the chiropractor and physiotherapist and I'm back on the stretches. It's so hard to find the motivation when you don't hurt any more. One day I will touch my toes! I believe it! I can do it!

The conditions at Blue were really good, though. It wasn't very cold and there was a nice layer of snow on the surface. We're not talking deep powder here, but enough that when you turn you kick up a nice cloud. It was so hard to hold back, though. I want to keep going faster and higher. I love the feeling of being in control at high speed and zipping down the hill. It's such a great sense of freedom.

Crazy hours

It's saturday morning but rather than sleeping which would be my normal endeavour, I'm in work for a day of re-directing network cabling throughout the building. It's a pretty big job when you think how many computers are concerned. I can see why wireless networks were invented. I think it was probably some frustrated guy installing cables that thought to himself one day, "There must be a better way of doing it than this!"

Bed Head

bed head
Originally uploaded by theken.

I was most amused this morning while trying to focus on my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My hair is finally long enough to form "bed head", it would seem. So happy was I with this discovery that I left it protruding at a rather strange angle all day rather than flattening it down with some water.

 

Make Poverty History

I just went to the Make Poverty History website for the first time and wanted to write a bit about it here. You will notice there's now a white band at the top-right of my blog, linking to there. I think we, the blessed minority in the wealthiest nations in the world have a responsibility to the poor. The bible talks so much about caring for the poor and I think that we've not done a great deal to help people in the long term. There are so many people who are trapped in a hopeless situation, with no way of ever paying their way out. We need to communicate to our leaders that the impossible debts third world countries owe the west need to be reduced or even dropped all together.

We really are so blessed here with all that we have. Thank you, God, for my warm home, my hot running water and the abundance of food around me.

Canadian Tax Returns

Man, there's one thing that's definitely not fun about living in Canada and that is filling out your Tax Return. I've filled out so many forms in my time ranging from an application for a Visa to work in Pakistan to applications for a Canadian Work Permit and Canadian Permanent Residence.

The whole laborious process of filling out all these tax forms EVERY YEAR and sending it all away is so unbelievably annoying. It's another complicated set of forms to add to the pile. I liked it better in the UK where we didn't need to do any of that. OK, you might argue it's good this way because you get money back but I now feel like I've just earned that money all over again with all the work I did filling out the forms!

Clotheslined at Blue!

I had the most entertaining time at Blue Mountain on Friday evening. I went up with Shaun and Dave and we met up with Daniel, Chris and Chris' friend from his band whose name escapes me now. (Sorry, man!)

We were bombing it down the hill and Daniel introduced us to a pretty cool line you can take down Waterfall (one of the runs at the south end of the hill) which involves ducking under a red tape and then going through the bunny hill at the end.

After we did the run we thought it'd be fun to race it. Well, right away Dave had an advantage because he was on skis and there were some flat parts where he definitely benefitted from his poles for additional propulsion. The race went quite well although I was last or second last. I seem to remember beating Chris because I cut him off at a corner.

The second time we raced it was REALLY funny, though. We were all converging on a rather critical section of the race. The red tape was about 3 feet off the ground, between two rather solid, vertical poles which were quite close together. I noticed as we approached that we were all about to go through this small opening at the same time, heading in slightly different directions as well. I had a sudden, unexpected moment of sanity where I realized I was on a collision course with a number of people. I turned to brake and was skidding towards the (thankfully padded) pole at an alarming rate of knots. Somehow I missed the pole but didn't duck far enough under the tape and was "clotheslined" in true wrestling fashion. I somehow flipped over onto my front as well so I was left lying on my belly, facing back up the hill. I laughed so hard for a considerable time. Poor Daniel was asking me if I was ok and I couldn't stop laughing to answer him. My right hand was the only part of me that was slightly sore and I think that's because I held it up to protect myself from the tape which amazingly was not damaged by the collision.

I love snowboarding. It's so much fun!

Oh dear, technology can be a pain...

We had a bit of a disaster in the office this past weekend. There was a power outage which resulted in all kinds of disruption but by far the most significant was the loss of our Active Directory Server. I won't bore you with techy speak for why that's really bad news but to cut a long story short, we now need to re-create the user accounts (usernames & passwords) for all the people in our organization, re-create all the e-mail groups, network permissions for shared resources and the user profiles that people are using to store their settings.

It's amazing how much we depend on a computer system every day and when it fails nobody can do ANY WORK whatsoever!

Crazy.

New home

I just moved into a new place on Saturday. It's a bit different but I think things are going to be good. I'm now staying at the top of an apartment building which would allow me to see for miles around if it wasn't for the smog/fog obscuring the view.

We now have free electricity and heat which is a great deal. Also, my rent is $47 less per month than my previous place so I think I'm going to save a bit which is good.

I want to say more but I haven't forgotten that the Internet can be a bit of a freaky place at times and I don't especially want to tell the world where I live.

I find it interesting how I never feel really settled in a new place. Even with this one, I'm already thinking of how I don't know how long I'll stay there. I never feel it's time to really establish myself in a place for a long period of time. I don't know why that is.

Happy Burns' Day!

If you're not Scottish, today is just another day. However, today we remember the birthday of our national poet, Robert (or Rabbie) Burns. Many people around the world will attend a Burns Supper where his poetry will be read and many a haggis, neep and tattie will be devoured enthusiastically. His most famous work is probably Auld Lany Syne which is often sung at New Year. All I know about Burns is that he was a Freemason, a womanizer and he didn't think much of the church. So, all in all, I wouldn't vote for him but he's a famous Scot nonetheless.

Here's one of his poems about accidentally destroying a mouse's home while ploughing a field. It contains a lot of old vocabulary which I don't entirely understand myself.

To A Mouse (On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough)
1785
Type: Poem

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell-
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

New stance - new lease of life!

Last night I was at Blue Mountain for the 3rd time this season. It was rather chilly. (or flippin' baltic as we'd say back home) It was so cold, in fact that I discovered ice forming on my moustache which was the only exposed area of facial hair. Rather odd sensation, it was. I felt like I'd spilled hair gel on my lip and now it had dried.

The biggest thing about last night, though, was the significance of my new stance. For those of you not sure what I'm talking about, your stance is the positioning and orientation of your feet on the board. I made a change prior to this trip and widened the stance a bit and rotated my right foot so now I ride in a duck feet stance.

The result of the change is that now I can crouch down a lot more as I ride and I can balance over the board better. With that new-found skill, I think I probably made a new personal land speed record last night. I was going pretty fast and I hit a bumpy patch of snow and just crouched and hoped for the best. I got catapulted into the air once or twice and came out the other end with a slightly higher pulse and an amazing sense of exhilaration. It was awesome. Now I just need to get more air over these bumps...