Feeling a bit better

You'll be pleased to hear I'm feeling a bit less miserable than I was the last time I wrote in my blog. My feelings are back and life is all together more interesting again. It's funny, not much has really changed in the sense of my day to day routine and the activities I'm involved in. I've just found my peace again. I suppose that's the key to coping with anything.

I think that part of the cause of all this was the extreme amount of work I did for the Premium Membership project at work. I really put in a lot of extra hours to get everything finished on time. After it was all over, I was so detatched from life outside of work that I felt very disconnected from the world.

I found a verse that spoke to me during this time. Its relevance may not be instantly obvious:

A faithful man will abound with blessings,
But he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished.

- Proverbs 28:20 (NASB)

This reminded me to faithful, even when things all around aren't changing that much. God's not passing me by here. This is just a slow phase I'm in right now. That's ok.

I need to say a big "thank you!" to all my concerned family members who wrote encouraging e-mails after reading my previous post. Mum, Dad, Alison, Auntie I - I love you all! Thanks so much for your encouragement. It's good to feel loved! I'll hopefully be able to write to you via e-mail soon and I'll see you all at Christmas.

Nothing

Nothing is what I feel. I am a spectator, largely unaffected by this world around me. The alarm goes off, I stop it and turn over. Eventually I'm in the office and for about the next 8 hours I know what I'm about. The program gets written, the bugs get fixed. I go home and become a spectator once more.

The world passes by, years as a heartbeat. The view from the window changes a touch from season to season. The leaves are born and in no time at all, I'm trampling them into the ground. The cycle continues.

You never plan for life to become mundane. Somehow you just wake up one day and wonder why you should bother.

I believe in God, in his plan for my life. I believe the expression "life in all its fullness" is supposed to apply to what I'm experiencing. The problem is that it's not my experience just yet. I wish for that day. Until then, it's another day at the office. As a friend wrote:

"Look at me sick of the same old,
Look at me cling to my routine" -Jeff Snyder

This is just passing, but it's where I am just now...

TACF Premium Membership

I forgot to mention that the new Premium Membership feature is now up and running at good old www.tacf.org.

This is the project that I worked my rear off to finish in time. We had a few problems along the way but everything's pretty much working now. We still have some problems with people not getting their confirmation e-mails which is an annoying thing to try to fix. It works for some people but not for others. I hate bugs like that - the ones that are so intermittent.

I'm currently working on a really peculiar bug in the Revive TV section. It seems my LinkButtons are just not firing the event the way they're supposed to. This is very frustrating...

Applied for Permanent Residence

You may or may not remember that when I got my new work permit back in June, I made a remark about immigrating as a skilled worker. Well, today I finally got round to sending off my application to the office in London. Hopefully everything will go well (and quickly!) and I'll be able to stay here as long as I want. That'd be a huge thing off my mind. I could finally move all the rest of my possessions over here without fear of having to send them back to Scotland again.

Hot Apple Cider?

With the weather getting colder, I popped into Tim Horton's a few days ago to get a drink of Hot Apple Cider on my way home. It reminded me of an unusual thing I noticed about my local neighbourhood Timmy's...

One day you might be able to go in and order Hot Apple Cider no problem. Then a week later, you'll as for it and they'll say "We don't sell that." They don't say "We've run out", they look at you like you've just tried to order Filet Mignon. It's so weird! I think they're trying to trick us into thinking we imagined the whole thing. I know the truth, though. You can get Hot Apple Cider from a Tim Horton's! Don't listen to their trickery to the contrary!

The end of "sandals" season.

Yes, it's a sad day and with a heavy heart that I write this post. It seems that my sandals will have to be put to one side in the near future, pending better weather. I was working late last night and as I walked home at 10:30pm, I couldn't help noticing my breath on the air and the rather numb sensation creeping across my toes.

As I passed the Toronto Congress Centre, I was informed by the big (and somewhat superfluous sign) that the temperature was 6 degrees Celsius. Of course, as I mentioned before, it's quite possible there will be a danger of heat exhaustion today, knowing how schizophrenic the weather can get around here.

Blue Mountain, here I come!

I bought my new Night Pass for this winter at Blue Mountain, at a reasonable $94 + GST. I'm a bit disappointed about the GST. I'm pretty sure that wasn't included last year. I used their rather handy e-commerce site to buy my pass. I was able to re-use my photo from last year (so I don't need to get a new photo taken) and for an extra $10, they're mailing my new pass out to me (so I don't even have to line up to collect it.) When I get there on the first day of the season, I can go straight to the lift!

I'm so excited about this season. I was just starting to have some fun with ollies last season and I want to try some more. It's so much fun. I love snowboarding, but not as much as Hanna or Jesus. (ok, that was cheesy)

Seasons? What are they?

You know, I think it's true what they say about Canada. It's like there are two seasons: Summer and Winter. The thing that I just realized recently, though, is that the changing of seasons is like the switching on of a floursecent tube light. It flickers a bit and then makes up its mind to change. The weather seems to say,
"summer..winter.summer.summer.winter..summer-winter...winter.oh, wait summer summer...oh, all right winter winter winter."

Home for Christmas

Yesterday I booked my flights and I'll be heading home to Bonny Scotland for just over a week in December. I arrive on the 22nd of December and head back to Canada on the 30th. Hopefully in between times I'll be able to catch up with some friends & family in the Glasgow area. It's funny, my accent always gets stronger again when I go home...

Blogs vs. Work

Man, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. There's so much work to do for the premium service with tacf.org that I've barely had time to think about blogging. Things are going well, though, and hopefully all will be working in time for Catch the Fire.

New Look

New Look
Originally uploaded by theken.

I felt like a bit of a change on Monday so I spent Labour Day shaving my head. I've had it shorter before but I think my skull's changed shape since then. It seems a bit wider now. Strange how that happens. 

Brisket and Biscuits

So, I'm in Texas by the way. Thought I should have mentioned that. I'm on a training course in "ASP.NET Programming using Visual Basic". Very exciting it is, too. The trip, that is. The training is ok but I know a lot of the stuff already. The coolest thing is how I got here...

My super-duper boss, Russ, encouraged me to find some training to help improve my VB knowledge since I've only been really good with C# up till now. I found a course in Mississauga (near Toronto for those not in the know) and signed up for it. The company then had to cancel because there weren't enough people signed up.

Now, here I am in Dallas, courtesy of the training company! I got free flights and a rather nice hotel suite for the week as well. Sweet deal - God is good!

The only catch is that I'm away from Hanna and it's killing me a bit. Still, it's Wednesday evening now and so we're past half way. We'll be together again in no time!

Ken of '99

Ken of '99
Originally uploaded by theken.

I'm experimenting with flickr, an image hosting website. I think I might start using it for my blog instead of Hello.
 

OK, not the end of the journey

So it turns out that our big "end of the journey" was really more of a rest stop and everything's back on again. Man, I do NOT understand women. Especially this one beside me who's got a special place in my heart. (still) Yes, we're back together and I've learned a couple of important things.

1) When someone breaks up with you, you should probably wait a bit to see if it's a "for real" break-up or a disagreement that got a bit out of hand. (Ours was the second kind in case you've not figured it out yet!)

2) Maybe blogs shouldn't have all the details of relationships in them. It's just a bit too tricky having to deal with the subsequent e-mails etc. generated from a scare like we had today.

From now on, I won't be blogging much about our relationship. Don't assume one way or the other based on the lack of posts. It's just going to be an off-limits topic now.

So, the course of true love never runs smoothly or something like that and that certainly seems to be true here. Have a great weekend everyone!

A shorter journey than I expected

Well, the journey's over. Hanna broke up with me last night so that's the end of that. We had been together for almost two weeks but it's still a bit of a blow nonetheless. I was just starting to get my head around the idea of being in a relationship and now it's over.

I don't want to go into too much detail here for both our sakes. I felt I should mention it, though, since I said we'd got together in the first place and if I didn't mention this, everyone would assume we were still together. We are still friends, although things will probably be weird for a while.

God is good and he's bigger than all of this. I trust him with my heart and I know his will is going to be done. I'm still not convinced this is the end but I have to let it go and see what happens next.

Rain

You know, I think I must be weird or something. Maybe it's the Scottish in me. I'm not sure. I just enjoy the rain here in Toronto. It just started raining and I decided to go out for a wee run round the car park to enjoy it. It's still such a novely to me that the rain is warm over here, unlike the chilly rain in Scotland.

Now I'm a bit out of breath and slightly damper than before but I feel more ALIVE as well.

The journey has begun!

Yes, it's true. I have embarked on a journey of adventure, romance and joy which some would call dating and some, courtship.

On Sunday, I started a relationship with a wonderful, beautiful, talented, woman of God by the name of Hanna Wright. We've been friends for a couple of years but there's never been anything between us until we started to notice each other in a new way recently.

We're taking things slowly, of course, but it's very exciting to have this opportunity of a relationship with such an amazing girl. I'll try to get some photos of us up in the near future!

Banks wasting paper!

Grr, I hate my bank sometimes! I'm with the HSBC (no link, find them yourself if you really want to) and I've been getting annoyed with the statements they send me out each month. The statements themselves are fine, don't get me wrong. There are all kinds of facts and figures on there which would have been fairly relevant 2 weeks ago! My statement arrived today - the 23rd. The last transaction logged was on the 15th. It's completely irrelevant, obsolete etc. by now!

I finally decided I was going to call them up and get them to stop sending me statements. I was told that I have a statement savings account and that I would need to close that account and open a passbook savings account. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? I want them to print less paper and send out less mail. Maybe it's just my t-shirt talking (I'm wearing my maketradefair t-shirt today)  but I just hate companies wasting resources and the environment. If I'm going to go to all the trouble of closing my existing account with them, I might as well open my new one somewhere better!

Now, contrast that with my British bank - smile.co.uk. They send me an e-mail once a month saying that my credit card statement is available on-line. If I want to see it, I can log in and see what activity there was this past month. If not, no harm done. They have all the data on file anyway so it wasn't much work for them to make it available to me.

(sigh) I love smile. Such a good bank. They're green and ethical. Both good things.

New love?

I'm going through a very strange transition here. I may well be leaving singleness behind and the prospect is somewhat daunting but exciting at the same time. The lady in question will remain annonymous just now but I will probably write more about her in future.

We're both feeling this is the right next step but we're spending this week praying about it to be sure we're doing what God wants. It might sound like Christian cheese but I really feel the decision to start a relationship shouldn't be taken lightly. When two people get romantically involved, there is a heart connection there that can have long-term consequences.

Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23

Favourite Sounds

I've noticed something interesting recently. People sometimes talk about their favourite sounds and I've noticed more and more how much I love the sound of the wind in the trees. I've discovered something pretty cool, though. It's not just a sound that I like but it's a sound that suddenly grabs my attention whenever I hear it. I might be thinking about something else, just walking along the road and then suddenly the wind picks up, rustling the leaves of a nearby tree. Immediately I think, "Hey, I can hear the wind in the trees - that's so cool!"
 
I think that's something that sets favourite sounds apart from other sounds that you might like.