There is a reason I don't post here much anymore. I have another journal. Can you find me?

Yah, it's true. This semester is busy. The next couple of weeks will clearly be the most insane couple of weeks ever. There is much to do. Much more that could be done if the time was available. But, alas, priorities must be evaluated and schedules made up and followed. Diligence seems to be in short supply these days. Perhaps it's time to become reaquainted.

So I'm back to school and it has hit me like a ton of bricks. This is going to probably be the busiest semester for me ever. It was busy back in first and second year, but I'm going to have to work even harder than I did then. So hang on tight. Get ready for late nights, long days and plenty of tea, coffee, and my new found friend, Dark Dog energy drink. God bless it.

Well, we got back from Vancouver again last night. It was a great time just driving, seeing some of Vancouver, going to a great show. It's nice sometimes to just be on the road, away from home. You think that perhaps you can be a different person for a while, although that doesn't really happen.

So I did a road trip the last few days down to Spokane, Seattle, Vancouver and back home to Calgary. I went with two friends from Engineering for a scavenger hunt which was a part of the forthcoming Engg Week 2004. We had a great time seeing some new scenery, collecting some interesting things, driving through storms and icy roads, meeting plenty of homeless guys and spending time with friends new and old. A great time was had by all. Now time to get ready for the next trip back to Vancouver in only 5 days time. Crazy.

I think that perhaps I have not really been Canadian until last night. For the first time, I really know what it is to live in this cold, cold land. My roommate and I went skating at the Bowness pond for about an hour or so. It was quite cold though at about -25 degrees celcius. There was a good fire pit there that you could warm up your face and hands at every few minutes if need be, but it didn't really do all that much for my feet. I could feel them getting numb, and then had trouble feeling them for a while. I decided it was time for us to go when the balls and heels of my feet were starting to get cold as well as my toes. When I got home, my toes were numb for a quite a while. In fact, about two or three hours later, part of my big toe on the right foot was still numb, and the parts of it that weren't numb were hurting with a dull sort of pain. I guess I got pretty bad frostbite on the tip of that toe. It is still just as sore today.

I don't know all the implications of this just yet, but I think it may be possible that I never have feeling in the tip of that toe again. Hopefully it doesn't turn black or fall off or something crazy like that.

Oh, and the trip home was about 106 songs long.

I'm back from the Dids and also Vancouver where I've been for a few days for Crusade's Winter Conference. I've got a few days now to recoup and do a bit of work before heading out on the road again for road trip for Engineering Week at school. I've still got some journaling and recap to do about all my experiences the last week or two. Maybe I'll post some of them here after I get them out of my head. It was great to be in Vancouver again. I can't wait to get back there again in a couple of weeks. Oh, and the drive is a great with all its mountains and snowy trees. I hadn't driven to Vancouver for years.

I'm all done. On Monday morning I had my last exam. It went well and should do good in that class. I only got about 3 hours of sleep before that exam too and thought that it might hamper my ability to do well on the exam and be able to recall all that I had studied that night, but no. All those stories you hear about needing to get a full night's sleep before an exam are overexaggerated. There was one question that I didn't study for and turned up on the exam but I was able to actually remember things that I had learned in class but didn't study for. Imagine that. Amazing. So I have a couple of days now to get ready for Christmas, catch up on sleep, and start on some web design and java work for my fourth year project that was getting behind.

I think perhaps I will no longer speak of time in traditional terms, but rather speak of time as a number of songs instead. Instead of saying that I'll be there in 20 minutes, I will instead say I'll be there in 5 songs. The length of an individual song could vary though so I have some leeway about how long I would really be. Depending on the songs that come up, 5 songs could be an hour too. I was faced with the trying situation a couple of times in the last few weeks of being somewhere at the particular time that someone said we would meet and having to wait upwards of 45 minutes for them to arrive. I'm too prompt, in general. If you tell me that I should be there at 5:30, I'll be there at 5:28. If someone tells me to be there in 10 songs, then I can come somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes and be on time.

I have now been unsuccessfully studying now for 59 songs. No, 60 songs.

I was thinking also of letting my iPod run on shuffle through all the songs on it (2016 to be exact) but that would take almost a week without stopping. It won't happen. It would be interesting to try it though. Maybe in January. It could take all month with the amount that I actually get to listen each day. Imagine. A month of listening without hearing the same song twice. Incredible.

61 songs now.

Old Faithful, 5%.

Connie,
I apologize for my actions that summer day as I was waiting at the bus stop, reading Dostoyesky and listening to music. I really did see you walk by me and look me in the eye. I glanced over to where you were sitting a few feet to my left and admired your sense of fashion. I also saw you walk by me a second time a few minutes later as you returned the same way you came. I was really watching you and not engrossed in my book as I made it seem. I wanted to say hi. I wanted to ask you how you like the place that you live. I meant to ask you what you do now to keep busy. I wanted to know where I could bump into you again. I didn't say a word though and for that reason, I am sorry. I hope you can forgive me and give me a second chance. I can't promise I'll do any better, but I want the opportunity to redeem myself. Do us both a favour and stroll through my field of vision again.
Consistent 5%

So on Saturday, I had a good time with the 'Crusaders'. I rode in a Mini Cooper (only 16 km's on it. Something about riding in a car straight out of the dealership.) Played some good pond hockey. Dressed up all brown and sweater and old man for the Christmas party. Ate roast beef, deer meat and all the rest. Dessert. Mmmmm. Spent time visiting with friends new and old. Sang Christmas songs. Created a new version of 12 days of christmas based on our friends hair. Sang it for the collective enjoyment of all and embarrassment of a few. Played card games. (unfortunately spoons wasn't one of them) Shared stories. (I suspect that if I work at it, I could actually be a funny guy) Took plenty of polariods. (People really love them. There was lots of 'shake it, shake it, shake it like a polaroid picture') Finished it all off at 2 am. Came home to a quiet house. Woke up roommate. Ate pie and shared stories from the night at 3:00 am. Laughed until I got the hiccups. Drank someone else's milk. Got insomnia at 3:30. Tossed. Turned. Got up to look for scissors to cut off the annoying strap from my polaroid camera. Finally slept like a baby after a great, great night with friends.

Today I decided it was laundry day. This is a big thing for me as I don't do it as much as I should. Or rather, I have enough socks and underwear to go a pretty long time between washes. Doing laundry at our bachelor pad is a little different than doing it at mom and dad's. First there is the task of sorting. Most of my clothes end up in a pile in the corner of my room. There is a clothes hamper under there somewhere but that fills up pretty fast. Overflowing from it are my socks, underwear, t-shirts that may or may not be worn again and anything else that has bad enough stains to warrant a wash instead of a wear. Sorting is not just for lights and darks, but also for the essentials, and not so essentials. I really don't have enough time in the day to do more than two loads, and it definitely wouldn't all fit into two loads. Maybe four. Maybe four if I don't have sheets to wash.

So, once I have everything sorted to my satisfaction, I head to the empty basement to begin the next stage of the process. First, I sort through the five or six empty bottles of laundry detergent to find one with a bit left in the bottom. Since they all have dust on the lids I assume they are all from one of the old roommates and no one will notice that I am using their detergent. I haven't bought laundry detergent myself in about a year or so.

Once I get the soap and clothes loaded up in the washer, the tricky part comes. In order to get the washer started, I must use a screwdriver placed stategically in the hole where the knob would have been that allows you to turn to the correct setting. I gently turn the screwdriver until it seems that the right setting has been selected and there is now water entering the washer. I have no way of knowing what setting I am on other than the fact that the water is on and it appears to be at the beginning of some cycle.

After this, I busy myself with other tasks while waiting for the washer to conclude. Now there are two options at this point for how the wash cycle may finish. It will either finish just short of the end and not have spun the clothes dry, or it will continue to go through all wash cycles, never stopping until I physically stop it. I discovered that second option after school one day that I had started the washer before leaving for school. Seven hours later, my jeans were worn out and a hoodie was almost ruined. (I still don't wear that hoodie) Luckily, today the first option was the successful one. Since it hasn't spun dry yet, I must turn that screwdriver again, just a little, so that it will find the spin cycle. On this occasion I go too far and must continue to turn it until I find a spin cycle. I often leave the lid open so I can see what is happening, but that means I have one hand on the screwdriver and one finger from the other hand in the little hole so as to trigger the safety switch so that it will spin with the lid open. Scary.

The next part of the process is the dry. I load up the dryer with the newly cleaned clothes, close the door (by lifting it a little and gently pushing it close, careful not to let it fall off the hinges) and hit the switch to see if it will go. Nope, not this time. It starts briefly and dies. There are a couple of options for this part. Either the dryer has overheated and needs some time to cool down (obviously not the case here since it hasn't been on in 24 hours) or it won't start and needs a sturdy bang on the side to resucitate her. I try the second method a couple of times and get it to go. About a half hour later I check on it and find it dead again. In the process of banging on the side and trying various violent methods of starting it again, I discover one spot on the front of the door that needs to be pushed or leaned on to start it. A quick fix includes using a cue card and some electrical tape. This does the trick and we're off to the races.

Just a normal laundry day. Certainly not boring. Maybe another day I will discuss the parallels this draws with my life right now. (I just want to be clean, but it's so much work!)

And if I haven't shared enough, I should mention that I hadn't cleaned my glasses for a few days and really noticed the difference tonight after doing so. Wow, my computer screen looks so bright and clear. I need to do this more often.

Last thing, I swear. Remembering the first time I saw fireflies, at Cornerstone this summer. Good memories of Illinois.

It's been a month. I apologize.

Having said that, I can't say that I have anything to post. Well, other than the fact that we are now 'regulars' at Denny's. Our waitress Carrie knows what we order and knows what we do during the day (school, work, etc). There is something to be said for that kind of familiarity.

As well, I've been meeting a lot of great people on campus. My spirit has been refreshed through relationship with Crusaders and other friends. It's been encouraging. Just what I needed to warm this cold heart of mine.

The Morning News - The Non-Expert: Not Fade Away: "The Baby Boomers were fond of their vinyl soul LP’s, sure, but those of us born since The Graduate – and who now swoon over the films of Wes Anderson – have a different relationship to music than our parents, or even our older brothers and sisters. For us, music is omnipresent. A wall-to-wall soundtrack. We listened to it when we did our homework, or washed the dishes, or worked in the yard. We had so many discs under the passenger seats of our cars, they had to move the CD player to the trunk. Sony developed the Walkman for us, then the Discman, but still it wasn’t good enough so Apple gave us the iPod. Now we take on the RIAA because music is like water to us – we bathe in it, cocoon in it – and the music industry, right or wrong, wants to keep its hand on the spigot. Record companies employed the fade-out to convince us the music is always on, and now they’re pissed off because we no longer think that’s a metaphor."

I've been thinking lately that I would like to start taking more pictures using slide film. For those not in the know, there is a difference between regular film and slide film in the way that it is processed. You can't get regular pictures from slide, just plain old slides. You know, the ones that you put in the 'carousel' and display on the sheet hanging from the wall. You need an old school projector which my uncle and my dad both have.

So here is my thinking with regard to this. Often, people joke about having to sit through the long, boring slide show by the family member who just visited Puerto Rico and wants to share all his or her stories. That's an old fashioned thing though that never happens anymore. I experienced this a bit when I was younger but was brought back to the thought a few month ago when I stopped by my uncle's to go through my grandpa's slides. He had about 20 or 30 trays of slides from their trips to England, eastern Canada and other places. It was great to see them and brought back good memories of my grandpa and family. I would like to revisit the concept of the slide show. Inviting friends over to see pictures and share stories about them. Of course, it can be done now with a digital camera, computer and projector, but that just doesn't seem right. So, I will begin to shoot some film and when I get enough interesting pictures, I will have a slide show. We'll see how it all goes. If you have any ideas about possible themes for a particular show, then just let me know.

I should mention also that the trip to Chicago was great. It was just the right amount of seeing new sights, concert going, bumming around the house with friends watching tv and meeting new people. There was too much driving that part is true, but it just made the adventure more exciting, or more boring depending on how you look at it. Customs officers on both sides of the border considered us to be sketchy characters that needed to be searched and questioned. We didn't have any problem with that though because we had nothing to hide. The atmosphere while waiting to be searched and questioned was casual and joking. That made the experience more fun for us because we weren't stressing or upset that we were wasting time that should be spend driving. Once again, the Canadian customs officers were much more polite than their American counterparts. I don't mean to imply anything about American culture in that, I'm just stating my impression of the situation. Oh, and in Weyburn, a kid at the gas station asked us if we were a band. I guess that by looking at the four of us it wouldn't be too bad of a guess but he obviously didn't see the car we were driving. There would never be room for gear in a Saturn.

The next time we hit the road, it will probably be to Vancouver for a weekend. We'll keep an eye out for good bands playing out there that would be worth driving out for. At a paltry 11 hours each way, it should be nothing for us. We also have a few friends out there that would let us stay over so that would make it all easier as well.

Two good things have happened to me so far today.

Number 1. I was talking with Shawn from crusade this morning, having a good conversation about what God is teaching me and what our role as Christians should be in society. It was great but somewhere near the end of it all, something he said (I couldn't for the life of me remember what exactly) spoke deeply to me. God convicted me right there that I need to pay for some software that I got for free. I have known it was what I should do for a while but haven't got around to getting a real version of Office. So, after our talk I went right over to the U of C computer store to price out the software. I knew it cost about $350 dollars so the whole way over there I was praying about and thinking about how much money I have. I decided that I really could cut it financially, but would probably have to watch the spending the rest of the semester. It could be done though and so by the time I reached the store I was prepared to spend the money. I figured after being convicted so strongly about it I couldn't really afford not to either. My walk with God and my ability to listen to his promptings could be jeopardized by it. So I asked if they had any copies of it and they said that I could get a cheap license for it if I wanted. That meant that instead of paying $350 and getting a box with manuals, I could get just the CD and a few restrictions like not being able to upgrade for only $120. Good deal that I jumped on immediately. I was so happy that I followed through on that and it ended up being easier than I thought it would. Whoooo hoooo.

Number 2. Yesterday? or maybe last week, I was waiting at the bus stop in the morning to go to school when a girl drove by in her beat up Mazda. As she drove by, she looked over at me and smiled. It wasn't just a passing glance either, it was as if to say "I see you standing there and would like to say hello because I think I would like to get to know you". She seemed pretty cool, pretty punk rock and just plain pretty so I was fairly impressed. Well, this morning I was standing at the same place again waiting for the bus to school and she drove by again. This time she saw me standing there, recognized me and waved. She actually smiled and waved at me! Amazing! Who does that? Needless to say, I managed to return her wave with one of my own before she drove on. It was just such a good experience, that small gesture, that I think I need to do the same with others as well. You know, tell them that I like the band that is on their shirt, or tell them they have great shoes, or other such things that would make a person feel good about themselves and that they are not alone in their sense of style or belonging. Maybe some new friendships will come out of it all as well.

Just a quick note here about a couple of things.

First, a couple of weeks ago I lost the only key I have for my motorbike. I haven't ridden it since which is a crying shame because the weather has been great the last week or so and I should be riding it now before our eight months of winter. It will be expensive for me to get a new key made.

Second, I am getting almost every card in my wallet replaced, or so it seems. I got a new student id card a couple weeks ago with a nice, new picture of me. Also, I recently received a new Visa and bank card. My old bank card was 9 years old so it was time for a new one. I was having trouble getting cash out of some cash machines with it because the magnetic stripe was wearing out. The other card I am getting replaced is my drivers license. I was scolded by a cop about having my old, yet still permanent, address on it instead of my current one. So, with a new picture and at $20 cost to me, a new card is now in the mail.

Third, Alexisonfire was amazing. Billy Talent was fun. Death From Above was intense. Spitalfield was early. MTV Breakout is really annoying. It was the loudest show this month, the youngest crowd and the most energetic also. Parents wandered around the ballroom looking for their kids before the show was over. They didn't find them and were forced to wait at the bottom of the stairs for them to come when it was all finally done. Embarassing to be a teenager. "Tonight's a school night so I'll come pick you up at ten. I'll meet you right here where I'm dropping you off. Don't be late." I felt so old. We all did. We would have fit in better on the other side of the fence in the beer garden.

I really think that I should write a screenplay about our little neighborhood here. This collection of townhouses are home to some of the most interesting stories. I could write about the hellions (skanky teenage girls), the custody case and police presence, the deaf girl, the pot smoking asians, the syrians who smoke something a little different from pot, the landlord who thinks we smoke pot, the way the old landlord talks to his dogs and walks around without a shirt on, the overprotective mothers, that kid in a motorized wheelchair, Conny's corner (where the older folks sit around gossiping, smoking and staring us down), The Newfies, the hippies, the mechanic, the loud and verbally abusive husband, the guy with a garage full of junk and more. It has a great cross section of society and would make for a great story if I was a talented writer. Maybe it would be a good project for Stephen and I if he isn't too busy at 'work' writing his story about mall security guards.