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...

Alyn & AJ's Wedding

I had a great day on Saturday. It was the wedding of Alyn Jones and Allyson Jean (or AJ) Mallett. I was priveleged to be asked to play the flute and tin whistles at the ceremony and it was a great sight to behold. I found it so amazing to witness the coming together of family and friends, all cheering on these two great people as they commit their lives to each other. I have no doubt that they have a long and wonderful future together.

I hired a kilt outfit for the occasion but I was not alone as there were many other Scots at the wedding, since Alyn and his family are from Edinburgh. I was asked a total of eleven times whether I was wearing anything under my kilt or not. It's interesting how people are so intrigued by that question. Well, I can now reveal (maybe not the best word) that I was in fact braving the elements without anything under there. It was -9 plus wind chill but i couldn't bring myself to compromise on that!

In the evening there was the reception and I was calling the ceilidh. To those not in the know, a ceilidh is a Scottish dance where people have a ton of fun throwing each other around the room, roughly following the music that accompanies it. My task was to explain how to do the dances and keep people involved and excited about it. The guests were great and everyone seemed to have a fantastic time!

The core problem with computers

I've solved the almost age-old mystery of why computers are so temperamental in their nature. This new discovery will herald in a new ear of understanding between users and their computers alike.

Every computer in the world has a motherboard but where is the fatherboard? He's gone, vamoosed, scarpered. He has left the poor computer with only a motherboard to take care of it, resulting in the machine maturing without a masculine board-model to follow. What hope is there, I ask you?

The Winner

My good friend Sgt. Steve just forwarded this story to me. It made me cry. It's from an Inspirational E-Mail sent out from allworship.com. It's longer than my normal posts but hopefully you'll find it interesting.

The Winner

I was watching some little kids play soccer. These kids were only five or six years old, but they were playing a real game - a serious game - two teams, complete with coaches, uniforms, and parents.

I didn't know any of them, so I was able to enjoy the game without the distraction of being anxious about winning or losing. I wished the parents and coaches could have done the same. The teams were pretty evenly matched. I will just call them Team One and Team Two. Nobody scored in the first period. The kids were hilarious. They were clumsy and terribly inefficient. They fell over their own feet, they stumbled over the ball, they kicked at the ball and missed it but they didn't seem to care. They were having fun.

In the second quarter, the Team One coach pulled out what must have been his first team and put in the scrubs, except for his best player who now guarded the goal.

The game took a dramatic turn. I guess winning is important even when you're five years old because the Team Two coach left his best players in, and the Team One scrubs were no match for them. Team Two swarmed around the little guy who was now the Team One goalie. He was an outstanding athlete, but he was no match for three or four who were also very good. Team Two began to score. The lone goalie gave it everything he had, recklessly throwing his body in front of incoming balls, trying valiantly to stop them.

Team Two scored two goals in quick succession. It infuriated the young boy. He became a raging maniac - shouting, running, diving. With all the stamina he could muster, he covered the boy who now had the ball, but that boy kicked it to another boy twenty feet away, and by the time he repositioned himself, it was too late - they scored a third goal.

I soon learned who the goalie's parents were. They were nice, decent-looking people. I could tell that his dad had just come from the office; he still had his suit and tie on. They yelled encouragement to their son. I became totally absorbed, watching the boy on the field and his parents on the sidelines. After the third goal, the little kid changed. He could see it was no use; he couldn't stop them.

He didn't quit, but he became quiet. Desperate futility was written all over him. His father changed too. He had been urging his son to try harder - yelling advice and encouragement. But then he changed. He became anxious. He tried to say that it was okay - to hang in there. He grieved for the pain his son was feeling.

After the fourth goal, I knew what was going to happen. I've seen it before. The little boy needed help so badly, and there was no help to be had. He retrieved the ball from the net and handed it to the referee - and then he cried. He just stood there while huge tears rolled down both cheeks. He went to his knees and put his fists to his eyes - and he cried the tears of the helpless and brokenhearted.

When the boy went to his knees, I saw the father start onto the field. His wife clutched his arm and said, "Jim, don't. You'll embarrass him." But he tore loose from her and ran onto the field. He wasn't supposed to; the game was still in progress. Suit, tie, dress shoes, and all, he charged onto the field, and he picked up his son so everybody would know that this was his boy, and he hugged him and held him and cried with him. I've never been so proud of a man in my life.

He carried him off the field, and when he got close to the sidelines I heard him say, "Scotty, I'm so proud of you. You were great out there. I want everybody to know that you are my son." "Daddy," the boy sobbed, "I couldn't stop them. I tried, Daddy, I tried and tried, and they scored on me."

"Scotty, it doesn't matter how many times they scored on you. You're my son, and I'm proud of you. I want you to go back out there and finish the game. I know you want to quit, but you can't. And, son, you're going to get scored on again, but it doesn't matter. Go on, now." It made a difference. I could tell it did.

When you're all alone, and you're getting scored on - and you can't stop them - it means a lot to know that it doesn't matter to those who love you. The little guy ran back on to the field, and they scored two more times. But it was okay.

I get scored on every day. I try so hard. I recklessly throw my body in every direction. I fume and rage. I struggle with temptation and sin with every ounce of my being. And Satan laughs. And he scores again, and the tears come, and I go to my knees - sinful, convicted, helpless.

And my Father rushes right out on the field right in front of the whole crowd - the whole jeering, laughing world - and he picks me up, and he hugs me and he says, "I'm so proud of you. You were great out there. I want everybody to know that you are my son, and because I control the outcome of this game, I declare you The Winner."

-Author Unknown

If you want to sign up for Allworship.com's weekly inspirational e-mail, go to this page.

Desperate for God?

Last Wednesday night I was at a meeting where Todd Bentley was speaking. He was challenging us and asking "Are you desperate for God?" While it's all too easy in these passionate meetings to shout out "Yes!" I took a moment to step back from the moment to consider whether I am in fact desperate for God.

I came to a disappointing conclusion that I'm not in fact as desperate as I would like to think I am. I want more of God. I would like to be living a more out-there crazy life on the edge. The truth is, though, that I'm somewhat happy where I am just now. If I was truly desperate, I would be crying out to God all the time, spending hours seeking him and enjoying his presence. I'm not doing that, though. I'm plodding along, working away but not really in a place of desparation.

God, make me discontented with my current situation. Make me hungrier, craving a deeper experience of you, a closer intimacy with you. I never want today to be the peak of my walk with you. May it be a step up each time, never levelling off or falling. I know there's more than my present experience and I want to pursue it with more enthusiasm than I have been.

Why do nice cereals only come in small boxes?

What's the deal with breakfast cereals? I was just replenishing my supplies last night at my local (not very) super-market. It bothers me that all the best cereals come in ridiculously small boxes. If I wanted a cheap and nasty cereal that's 90% sugar, I can get a box the size of a small house. If I want something like "maple pecan crunch" or Alpen, though, it's a different story. We are being conditioned to eat bad cereals! I had a bowl of Alpen this morning which was very nice but I couldn't help noticing that the box was half empty (or half full?) after ONE BOWLFUL!

Happy New Year - I think...

I have to say, this was the most confusing New Year of my life. No, it wasn't due to alcohol or any other mind-altering substances. It was the band who lost track of the time.

I was at Niagara Falls with some friends for New Year, hoping to have a laugh and see some bands perform to celebrate the coming of 2005. Well, the weirdest thing happened. I've never seen anything like this before. We were watching some band playing (whose name escapes me) and all of a sudden we saw a lift/elevator rising towards the top of the tower nearby with a big firework on top of it, making it look like some kind of sparkler. All this time the band played on so we reasoned it was going to wait at the top until midnight and then drop, indicating the start of the New Year. Well, no such luck. As soon as it got to the top there was a burst of fireworks from the top of the tower and across the river. After some mild confusion, people started cheering and wishing each other a Happy New Year and blowing small throw-away trumpets. By this time the band stopped playing and sheepishly shuffled off the stage.

It was such a confusing sequence of events. I was expecting an MC type person to get on stage and say "Here we go! 5....4....3..." or something like that. I didn't really feel like I was part of the whole celebration at all. Surely the countdown is one of the main reasons people are there. Ah well, I suppose it's not that important in the grand scheme of things. Just a mild disappointment.

Fun with my new phone!

I got a new phone for Christmas. I'm pretty excited about it. Most people who know me would know that I'm not generally one for gadgets although computer programming is my line of work. (A paradox that some cannot fathom.) Well, I realized that being home in Scotland was a good opportunity to get a new phone because the technology here is a bit more advanced than that which is available in Canada. (No offence to my Canadian chums. Europe's just been doing it for longer.)

After a look around the shops in Glasgow and some subsequent research on the 'net, I picked out the Motorola V620 for myself. The main features I wanted were:

* Quad Band (Good for both European frequences and both North American frequences)
* Unlocked (Can use a SIM from any company, such as O2 in the UK and Rogers in Canada)

It turns out my phone has all kinds of useful features such as camera, Bluetooth and MP3 ringtones. This means I can easily transfer files to/from the phone such as photos I've taken with the in-built camera or if I want to use an MP3 sound file from my computer as my ring tone, I can do that too!

I'm really glad I was able to get this. I'd been hoping to get a new phone at some point and it's good to have one that'll work in Scotland and Canada!

Here's a pic I took of myself on the train with the camera on my phone. The colour's a bit weird but I blame the train for that.

Happy birthday, Jesus!

In case anyone wondered, I hadn't forgotten in my previous post that this is in fact Christmas Day, I was saving it for a separate entry.

Here we are again. Another year, another Christmas. "The word became flesh" God's gift to us is still providing for us, still helping and blessing us through every Christmas past, present and future. There's really nothing we can give to pay him back, yet how many times do we try to earn his approval?

How can a child earn sonship? Is it with his first step? His first word? His first million? There is no earning sonship, only receiving it. We can choose to work at making God accept us or we can say "Thanks for being my daddy" and trust that we are, in fact, his kids.

What can we give back for the gift of Jesus? Nothing. We can't ever come close to repaying God and I don't think he wants us to either. A gift is not a loan. A gift can tell you a lot about the person that gave it and it demands attention. We should recognise the nature of God from his gift of Jesus and that should inspire us to live like we're special. Certainly, his kindness will result in action on our part but the difference is it's motivated by his love, knowing we're already accepted and we're allowed to screw up. It's good to know you're safe.

Jet-lag cured?

Well, I tried an experiment over the past couple of days. I did indeed stay up all night from the 23rd to the 24th. Then I was nodding off a bit in the church service I went to on Christmas Eve. I had planned to stay up and go to the late one over midnight as well but I threw in the towel and went to bed at 11 o'clock.

Being something of a one for numbers, I added it all up. I had been awake for 35 hours by the time I finally went to bed last night. Not surprisingly, it didn't take me long to get to sleep.

The thing that remains to be seen is whether it did in fact deal with the jet-lag or if I'll be wide awake tonight. I got up at around noon today so I suppose I overslept but the good part was that I went to bed at a reasonable time.

Still not slept since last post

OK, so would you believe it, I've actually tried the crazy idea I posted last night. I have not slept a single wink of sleep since I last posted in the blog. Just a recap, the last time I wrote in here was 4:15am this morning and now it's 2:50pm and I've still not been to bed. It remains to be seen if I will pass out at some point this afternoon/evening. I'm hoping to make it till midnight and then after church I'll come back and sleep like it's going out of fashion.

A haggis supper in Glasgae

Heh, how's it gaun? Guid? Aye, crackin, so it is!

Did you understand that?

How about:

Gonnae geeza bottla ginger?

Now that I'm back in Scotland, I'm adjusting back to the accent (and language!) of the west of Scotland. It's amusing how strong everyone's accent seems to me. I was talking to an assistant in Carphone Warehouse in Glasgow and I couldn't understand a few things he said. It's a bit frightening, really.

Today I managed to get back in touch with a common Scottish pursuit - the trip to the chippy. I walked down Glasgow's Buchanan Street eating a Haggis Supper with a can of Irn Bru in my pocket. I thought to myself, "I can't get much more Scottish than this." It was pure quality, soitwiz. Sorry, lapsed into the Glasgow vernacular there...

An amusing thing about travelling from Toronto to Glasgow is the effect it has on your sleeping pattern. Here I am, still up at 4:45am, not especially tired. I got up at around lunchtime today so that kind of fits. My body is still operating on Toronto time even though my location happens to have changed by 5 hours! Maybe I should stay up all night tonight and then when I go to bed at the end of Christmas Eve, I'll be really tired...

Back in Scotland!

Yes, it's true! I arrived safely back in the UK this morning and I've just had dinner with Mum, Dad and my siblings for the first time in a year and a half. My body clock is still somewhat confused. It's 6:30pm here but my body is probably closer to 1:30pm. The problem with that is that I only slept for about an hour overnight on the plane so I have some catching up to do. I slept this afternoon and hopefully that should be enough. Tonight I'm going to hear Andy Hunter at Glasgow Elim. I've not been there since they had all the building work done to extend the building. It should be interesting...

First snowboarding trip of the season!

On Saturday I made my first trip up to Blue Mountain of the season. There were quite a lot of runs open, considering it's still only December. I had a fairly good night of riding, considering I've not done it for a while. It's reassuring to see I can still carve although I'm not quite as fast as I was at the end of last season. I'm sure that a few visits from now I'll be back on form, though. It's still fun, no matter what. I love getting out on the hill and having the freedom of zooming down on my board and not needing to worry about anything else other than picking my path down the mountain.

این یک کتاب است

I had my first proper Dari lesson last night. It was so exciting! I recently met someone from Afghanistan in Toronto who is willing to teach me Dari. We met up in Second Cup last night and spent three hours working on it. I LOVE this! It's so cool.

It turns out that my reading and writing is quite good. The only problem with that is that I don't understand any of the words yet! Still, I shouldn't trivialise the ability to understand the symbols of a compeltely foreign language!

The sentence I wrote above (این یک کتاب است) is the Dari for This is a book. It's the first thing I learned in Urdu as well. The Dari is pronounced Een yak kitab ast which literally translates into This one book is. If it was Urdu, it would be Yay kitab heh which would be This book is. Urdu doesn't need the "one" in front of it but otherwise the word order seems similar.

I learned a couple of variations such as your book, his book, her book. I also learned how to say on top of, underneath and in. Pretty soon I'll be able to construct some sentences of my own!

I love Keith Green's music!

I was just checking out some of Keith Green's music on iTunes over the past couple of days. I have a few of his CDs back home in Scotland which I will collect when I'm home over Christmas. It's funny when you listen to something that you know so well but haven't heard for a while. That guy had so much passion, his music was (and is) really powerful. I can hardly wait till I pick up my CDs!

Life after love

No, don't worry. I'm not about to sing a Cher song. I was thinking more of my life of late. It's always a sad business when a romance ends and you're left with all these unanswered questions such as "Did I really hear God in the first place?" and "How will I know when it is his voice?"

The thing I've concluded is that these aren't the most important questions, really. The most important thing is to recognise that God is good, he's still on the throne, he's not forgotten you and life goes on. The other big thing is not to become hard hearted or defensive in future friendships. It's easy to conclude that after a failed romance, you don't want to go through the same disappointments again and therefore, to avoid all risks of romance. However, that will only guarantee that you stay lonely and that's no good! Instead, it's better to have the attitude that you will never know who the right person is if you keep hiding from everyone and sooner or later, you'll have to get back out there and try again.

So, life's not so bad in that sense. I'm feeling optomistic for the future although it is always disappointing when things don't end up the way you expect they will. I'm glad God knows me better than I know myself. I leave you with these wise words from Veggietales:

"God is bigger than the Boogie Man and he's watching out for you and me."

Fun with guns

Scotsman with gun
Originally uploaded by theken.

I know, I know. Guns kill people. They really do. However, I discovered that they're lots of fun to shoot at a paper target as well. I was in Pennsylvania visiting my friend Pete Dorosh and his many siblings (shouldn't that be siblii?) in Pittsburgh. We had the fun opportunity of going to Anthony Arms and shooting guns for a fairly small sum of money. We tried out a few smaller handguns (Glock 9mm and Sig 9mm) to begin with and then Steve got the Smith & Wesson 500 which turns out to be the most powerful revolver in production today! You can check out the rest of my photos from the gun adventure here. Don't worry, I'm not turning into a nutter. I just thought it'd be fun to shoot a gun in the USA. One of these things I can look back on and say, "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I shot guns in America?"

Have beard, will travel

Ken with beard
Originally uploaded by theken.

I was always told "Never trust a man with a beard!" It just crossed my mind today, though - didn't Jesus have a beard? Well, I don't know for sure - I wasn't there. Maybe he did. Anyway, now I have one.

 

Progress in the Immigration process

Yesterday I received a card in the mail which confirmed that the Canadian High Commission in London is now processing my application for permanent residence in Canada. They explained that there are three possible outcomes:

1) Waiver of an interview
2) Requirement of an interview
3) Refusal of application

Personally, I favour option 1! After that, I just need to wait for the final word. I'm pretty confident that everything will be fine. I've got more than enough points to be accepted as a Skilled Worker. They say it can take up to 21 months but I don't expect it to take more than 6. It'd be sweet if I could have it all wrapped up before my current work permit expires in the summer.

Christmas Schedule

In an attempt to be more organized this time, I'm going to try to plan my trip home for Christmas before the event. This is a bit of a change for me as I normally like to be spontaneous with things. However, since I'll only be in Scotland for a week, I don't want to spend half of that time figuring out what I'm going to do.

I will arrive in Glasgow on the morning of the 22nd of December. I return to Canada on the morning of the 30th of December. So, I'm available between those days. If any of my Scottish blog-reading friends and family want to catch up with me while I'm home, drop me an e-mail or post a comment in my blog. It goes without saying that family will get the 25th!

Where efficiency meets forgetfulness

Have you ever done something really silly and then felt a bit embarrassed for being so dim? I had one of these moments this morning. (and it's not even 9 o'clock yet!)

Yesterday, I realized I hadn't got a cell phone bill for a while so I logged on to Rogers.com to check out if there was a new bill for my phone. Well, lo and behold there was a bill. Not only was there a bill, it was due the day before.

"Oh no!" I cried, "My unblemished record of on-time payments!"

So, off I scurried to my local Rogers Video Store to pay my bill. I decided to overpay by about $2.50 so that I'd end up in credit and hopefully appease the powers that be.

I was confused that I hadn't received an e-mail telling me that my bill was ready, though. I was sure that I'd received that before. I decided to call them up today to see what the dealio was.

(Are you ready? Here comes the embarrassing part...)

I already paid the bill on October 27th! I was so darned efficient I paid it right away and then forgot that I had done so. Consequently, my account is $55 in credit and showing no signs of getting in trouble for late charges! I just need to upgrade my brain to remember what I've done in future!

Discovering new details in songs

As I already mentioned, I have been enjoying new headphones since my trip to Denver. However, today I noticed that I can now hear new details in songs that I never knew existed before.

Firstly, in Don Potter's Facing the Wall, I was listening to the track called Garden. (Track #7) At 0:27 I noticed a guitar harmonic that wasn't there before. It's really high pitched and is just a gentle pick of a string with a finger lightly pressed on it. It's not devastatingly exciting, just a note that I'd never heard before.

The other thing I noticed was in a song by The Corrs. The album is The Corrs, Live in Dublin and the track is Joy of Life/Trout in the Bath. (Track #5) I hadn't heard the guitar before. It's panned way out to the left and it starts on a kind of muted rhythm wotsit thingie at about 1:27.

These discoveries may not be too exciting to the average blog reader but if nothing else, you can have a chuckle at the fact that I can't be vague. It's not possible. I need hyperlinks to each band and album along with the precise moment in time that the audio feature occurs. Sigh. If only I could be vague. Blogging would be so much quicker.

More pics from Denver

I uploaded some more photos from my trip to Denver last week. I have added them to the existing photoset and I've also created another set which only contains the new pictures. That way, you don't need to look through all the ones you've already seen. That said, I've updated the description of them and I reckon some of them are pretty witty. If I do say so myself. About my own joke.

Noise Cancelling Headphones!

I bought a new pair of headphones in Denver airport on my way home on Sunday. I'd been considering getting these for a while and then there they were right before me in the departure lounge. I got a pair of Bose QuietComfort 2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. They are really cool. I'm so blessed to be able to afford them. They worked really well on the plane. I was able to cut out all the background noise of the engines and I was also able to watch the movie (I, Robot) with no outside noise. I'm very pleased with them. It's not often I buy something so extravagant for myself.

 

Photos from Denver

I've uploaded some of the photos from my trip to Denver with John Arnott last week. They all have descriptions and you can comment on them as well. Please take a look!

 

Tongue Cleaning

After a deeply traumatising event last week where I witnessed Alyn scrape a large volume of whitish "ming" from his tongue, I promptly went out and bought myself The Tongue Cleaner. Apparently cleaning the tongue has the benefits of 1) Eliminating bad breath and 2) Improving your sense of taste.

It's really a bit disturbing the first time you see just how much nasty stuff lives on your tongue. For those of you who brush your tongue, I have this quote from the above link:

Brushing your tongue with a toothbrush only stirs up this plaque film, without effectively removing it.

It seems scraping is the way to go. Here's to a cleaner, happier tongue!

More good times with healings and the rest

Today was amazing. First of all, because we got to sleep in until lunchtime and then get taken out to the Golden Corral again to eat. Sigh, it's a hard life I tell you. That was really the most trivial of all the good things that happened today but count your blessings, as they say.

This afternoon Jack Frost was doing one of his teachings and it was really good. He was talking about the importance of a mother's affection in providing security in the very early moments of life. He shared about how we can end up looking to other sources for comfort and love if we have not felt the love of our parents for whatever reason. God did a lot of deep stuff restoring people who had been hiding hurts for years.

Tonight John Arnott was talking about the importance of forgiveness. Again, it was pretty intense stuff. A lot of people were in tears. There was a girl there who had lost her sense of smell when she was about 6 months old. When she forgave herself for having this problem, God HEALED her! It was amazing. All her life, the enemy had held her in bondage because she blamed herself for not being able to smell. Now that she moved from law into grace, she could receive God's healing power.

The youth group at this church are amazing. I've never seen a group of kids so seriously passionate about Jesus and so raw. Most of them have not been saved for long but they know what life was like before they met Jesus and now they're mental! One of them got in trouble in his high school because he was talking to his friends about something God had shown him. I think it was a poem or something like that. One of the hall monitors gave him a hard time because he was using the name of Jesus in school. The church is going to defend him, though. There is freedom of speech for students in schools so he has every right to say whatever he wants.

The same kid was in trouble again because he was having a bible study in the school cafeteria wih friends and he got drunk in the spirit. He fell over and couldn't get up. Some of his friends were carrying him into class and he got taken to the "narc" who I presume is the staff member who checks to see if you're doing drugs!

I love these stories! God's breaking out in the schools and the kids are so raw and fresh in their faith they don't know how to be religious. They just go nuts, praying for everyone. It's really amazing to watch.

At the end tonight, we had a fire tunnel. Now, to the uneducated I should explain. A fire tunnel involves two rows of people facing each other. People walk down the middle and the people either side pray for the fire of God to fill them up. Some people don't feel or sense anything but a lot of people have really amazing encounters with God through this. Some of the kids were getting really powerfully touched by God and the thing I loved most about it was watching them coming out the end and then running back round, climbing over chairs to get back in for another round. They were so hungry some of them were going through three or four times. It blessed me so much to see the enthusiasm they had.

Daddy, give me that same hunger for you again. I want to be desperate for you like that. I want to be so dependent on you that I feel like a fish out of water when I'm not completely baked in your power. Give me that sense of urgency for more of you.

Daddy big, devil small

Ah, it's nice to get things in perspective, isn't it? We've been having fun in Denver. I tell you, this life on the road thing isnae sae bad. (Lapse into Scottish there) Life mainly involves sleeping, eating, soaking and meetings. I can cope with that. The eating especially is pretty cool since I'm not paying for it! Today we went to Golden Corral which I recall having visited in Utah during my book selling days for The Southwestern Company.

It's funny because we're meeting all these super-duper renewal-type people such as Jack Frost and Peter Dresser and I'm having the most entertaining experiences. Like at lunch today in the aforementioned restaurant. Jack Frost and I both finished our first plate of food at the same time and started to head over to the various options to peruse the tasty choices we could have. I drew his attention to the size of the steaks that were being cooked. (which were HUGE) He then informed me that he's not eaten meat in fourteen years. Woopsie. I don't think he was overly offended but it's not exactly how to win friends and influence people.

In other news, we saw some of the mountains today. The cloud had lifted a bit and we got a chance to go "ooo" and "aah" at various stages of our transience through the day.

The meetings this afternoon and tonight were pretty cool. I was being surprisingly noisy with "hooo!" type sounds. We saw some healings which was cool. One person who testified tonight was someone I had prayed for last night who's pain has completely left her arm. I wasn't the only one praying for her but my share helped! I really want to do more of this stuff. It's not rocket science really. Daddy's big, the devil's small. Ask for what you want and whoopee - there's a healing!

Denver by day

No, sadly there's no pitctures here but at least we've got internet access so I can write in my blog from the relative comfort of my hotel room.

I looked out the window and the first word that came to mind to describe the weather that greeted me was dreich (pronounced dree-ch where the "ch" is like the end of loch) It means it's somewhat gloomy and not so impressive. There's a lot of clouds and it's raining a bit as well. In fact, if it wasn't for all the american flags, I could be excused for thinking I was back in Scotland.

We've had a fairly leisurely day so far. This morning we started off with a breakfast with some local pastors at a place literally "round the corner" from our hotel. This afternoon John, Alyn and I had a bit of a prayer time and a relaxing soak in John's room. Now we're just chilling and waiting to be whisked away on a magical mystery tour to this evening's venue. John asked me to share a testimony at some point this week so I'm pondering what I might talk on. The most likely candidate is the topic of faithfulness.

Remembrance

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

By John McCrae (1915)

This poem is one I've not read fully before now although it's really famous. I've been thinking about remembrance recenlty, since it's only two days until Armistice Day or Veteran's Day / Remembrance Day depending on where you're from.

It's funny how the world's getting smaller. I'm a Scot living in Canada, surrounded by people from all corners of the world. I've met Germans here and had the somewhat morbid thought that if we had been born fifty years earlier, we'd have been forced to be enemies, though we would have no personal grievances with each other. We are truly blessed to live in a time where we have the freedom to do whatever work we want. I just can't imagine what it'd be like to be forced into military service. It's one thing to join the army if that's your choice of career but the thing that always stands out to me about the two world wars was the fact that the majority of these soldiers weren't people who had chosen a career in the army. They were regular people like me. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The lucky ones were separated from their loved ones for years, only to return home with a head full of nightmares. The others sufferred all kinds of pain, torment and death. It's just such a tragic waste of life.

I'm not saying I'm anti-war. I think there are times when you have to defend your own if you are truly threatened. If we hadn't fought off the German army in the 2nd World War, we would have been taken over and come under the power of Hitler. I have no doubt in my mind that we were right to defend ourselves there. Admittedly, some modern wars are a bit more "grey" in terms of the immediate threat to the average individual. I don't want to get into that discussion here, though.

I just want to say "thanks" to those who gave up their careers, health and lives to protect the future of Scotland, my home. Here's to learning from our past.

On the road with John Arnott!

I don't think I've written about this yet but it's pretty exciting news. This afternoon, I'm leaving to go on a ministry trip with John Arnott! I was totally amazed when I heard he wanted me to go along with him to a conference he's speaking at in Denver. It's Catch the Fire, Denver which I believe will be hosted at New Song Fellowship, Denver. In case any of you don't know - John is the senior pastor here at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and he has an amazing anointing and ministry around the world. It's a real privilege to be part of one of his trips.

There are three of us going: John Arnott, Alyn Jones (a fellow Scot, might I say!) and myself. Apparently, Alyn had mentioned in passing to John one day that I had been working really hard on the new Premium Membership section of our website. John then thought it'd be good to take me along on a trip, to show that I'm worth more than my computer skills alone. I was so amazed to be invited - it's going to be great!

I will be part of the ministry team - praying for people and all that good stuff. I hope we get some healings. I like healings.

I Can Only Imagine

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still?
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine

From the song I Can Only Imagine by MercyMe.

We did this song recently in worship and I really love it just now. It really captures the contrast of how we would want to respond to our first sight of Jesus balanced against the holiness and amazing intensity of that moment.

There's a video of the song available on Yahoo! Music. I recommend you check it out. (For some reason, it doesn't work with Firefox which is a bit unfortunate. However, you could always fire up Internet Explorer this once, couldn't you?)

The World Names The Dead on Election Day - Global News on the World Crisis Web

The World Names The Dead on Election Day - Global News on the World Crisis Web

I found this to be an interesting article. There are people all over the world saying it's maybe time for the US to call it quits in Iraq.

Structure of a Phone Conversation

I was talking to Drew last night about the structure of a typical phone conversation. I had thought this through a while ago but I suddenly realized this could be quite blog-worthy so here goes...

The basic structure of the call is as follows:

1. Preamble
2. The Point
3. Post-amble
4. Re-iteration of The Point
5. Goodbyes

Depending on the individuals concerned, preamble and postamble can be short or even non-existant. An example of this would be The Point ending with "okbye", often experienced by those arranging plans with Drew in a hurry over the phone.

If the parties concerned are of a more conversational disposition, however, pre and postamble may be fairly lengthy, creating a need for #4, the re-iteration of The Point. Such a call might go something like this:

Person A: Hey man, how's it going?
Person B: Good, good.
(Start of preamble)
Person A: Cool. How are tricks - did you have a good weekend?
Person B: (Talks at length about weekend)
(Start of The Point)
Person A: Nice one. Well, anyway, I was calling to ask if you're up for catching a movie tonight. Some of us are going to Colossus at 7.
Person B: Yeah, sounds good.
(Transition to post-amble)
Person A: Cool, it'll be good to catch up. Hey, did you see that other movie with that guy...
Person B: (Talks at length about movies, life and whatever else)
(Person A starts running out of time and transitions to re-iteration of The Point.)
Person A: Cool, ok so I'll see you at 7 then?
Person B: At Colossus?
Person A: Yeah, for the movie.
Person B: Oh, yeah. Right. OK, I'll see you then.
(Goodbye phase)
Person A: See you then, then.
Person B: Cool, bye.
Person A: Bye.
(End of conversation)

Now, I could have gone on to the extended goodbye version where there's a considerable amount of back-and-forth before the phones are actually hung up.

Also, I've not even got started on phone conversations where there is no point in the first place. I like to think of such calls as "pure amble" for obvious reasons.

With some cell/mobile calls, you can add the "where are you?" clause to the start of the preamble. That was always a favourite in calls I heard on the train back in Bonnie Scotland.

Do you have any thoughts of amusing phone call foibles and anomalies? Do comment, do comment...