12 posts tagged “halloween”
Last night was a bit of a surprise. Remember how yesterday I said that we live on a busy street with no sidewalk.
Exactly zero kids showed up.
(Well, ok, a friend of ours brought her two kids over and our neighbour stopped here on her way to the quieter streets - so we did get three kids, but that was it).
So, we packed up our bucket of goodies and drove over to my Mom's place -- I wanted to see her off anyway. We gave out a half a dozen treats and posed for several pictures and then drove over to a buddy of mine's who's kids are big Star Wars fans. They were still out trick or treating, so
I gave a few more candy bars to the bigger kids that were still out at 8. It was a kick for them to get a bar from Darth Vader.
The kids came home just about the time that the costume started to cut off my circulation, so we posed for a few more photos and were home by about 9. So it looks like I can wear the suit for about three hours before it becomes painful. Good to know.
Michelle's tour through her potential college is this time next week. I'm sure that I'm more excited for her than she is - but that'll change. I really enjoyed my College years and I'm hoping that she does too.
Sherry has already started praying for snow. She works outside and the weather is turning nasty now and she can't be laid off until the ground freezes.
She's praying for snow. Lots of it. Soon.
I'm thankful that we know how to have fun and have the freedom to do it. Not only do we have the disposable income to pay for the fun, we're fun people and we can do childish stuff without needing the excuse of having a child to do it. It keeps us young.
I'm thankful for friends to hang out with. It's nice being able to just show up at a friends place or invite them out to a hockey game and simply spend a little time with them. It's very pleasant chatting with buddies.
I'm thankful for the technology in my house. I have three 20" monitors hooked up to my PC, I have a Home Theatre PC, a Media Server, a PC for everyone, streaming audio, streaming video and a Wii. Most of the time it works flawlessly (every now and then I get complaints from my housemates that something failed, but not very often).
It's here, it's here, it's finally here!
I've been working on my Darth Vader costume since January of this year. I have an insane amount of labour invested in this and I'm excited to show it off. There are a bunch of things that I want to change and make better for next year, but I have 12 months to work on that - tonight I'm just going to bask in the glory that is Star Wars.
Ahhh.
Mmmm.
*Contented Sigh*
I hope the kids come. I'm on a busy street with no sidewalk - there's a sidewalk on the other side and I'll have the theme music playing and the pumpkins out - hopefully they'll brave the street and get a chocolate bar from me.
Michelle has decided that she wants to go to college again. We quickly booked her a tour of the campus in London (ON) and I'm hoping that she'll get excited about the cool courses and the freedom and independence that will be hers there. We also have a lunch booked with a good friend of mine that day - it should be a good time.
Things have been relatively peaceful here since Michelle decided that she wants to ace her courses this year. The only thing that's a little niggly is the Kitchen Chore. She's completely responsible for keeping the kitchen tidy (and, of course, a messy kitchen really stresses Sherry and me out!) We'll get it worked out before she leaves. It's a skill that will serve her very well in college.
Michelle isn't excited about staying in residence. Everything that she's heard is about drunken parties and freshly minted alcoholics. Hmm. I guess I stayed in the wrong dorm (or the right dorm...)
I'm thankful that I'm in a job that challenges me intellectually. I'm working on a project now that will pull together a bunch of my skills and should last 4 to 6 weeks of straight cool stuff. Yaaa.
I'm thankful that I'm able to feel pain. A buddy of mine is going through a thing where his nerves aren't doing everything that they're supposed to and he's being pretty rough on his hands. I'm very glad that I know when I'm doing damage to my fingers.
I'm thankful for enough disposable income to work on hobbies. It's really nice not having to worry about making rent or where my next meal is coming from. It's really nice being able to spend good money on a project as completely frivolous as Darth Vader.
I'm not sure that I'm allowed to be this excited about Halloween. It's not exactly a 'good christian' holiday and I'm not a kid anymore (I'll be 40 in less than a month!)
But I am.
My costume is amazingly cool. Hey maybe I should go to the bars and compete with my brother... I forget what he's going as this year...
Naw, I'll just stay home and give out chocolate bars.
Last night was Alpha - Rick and I had a great time chatting about linguistics, ebay, serving, relationships and religion. It was a good time. I really enjoy hanging out with bright people - it makes the conversations very lively.
My toe seems to be better now - I had no trouble running yesterday (although I was pretty winded by 2.5 miles and packed it in shortly after that). My pastor seems to be excited about running a marathon - I think he was hoping that I would offer to run with him! Yikes. No thanks. 3 miles is plenty - 26 seems sadistic.
Work is going well - I'm in the middle of a quote for a new project that I'm really looking forward to doing. A local company needs to automate their POS system, but there's enough stuff that they do for their customers that's different from the norm that a cookie cutter solution will either be frustrating to use or won't do everything they need, so it looks like I'll get to write the code from scratch. That's cool. Now I just need to get the estimates done (I *really* don't enjoy that part...)
I'm thankful that I enjoy stimulating conversations. It seems that so many people coast through life without really examining who they are or what their goals are that it's really nice that I enjoy that sort of thing. It really makes it much easier to be fullfilled when you know who you are, what you want and how you plan to get there.
I'm thankful for a (mostly) lean body. I enjoy looking good - it makes me feel good and it makes me healthier. I have a friend who was just diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and now the work that he has to go through to change his lifestyle is startling. I'm thankful that I started making much smaller adjustments a couple of years ago and dropped a lot of excess weight (25 pounds so far with my goal being 35 in total).
I'm thankful for a warm comfortable bed. I know I've mentioned being warm before, but I'm also thankful that our bed is endorsed by the North American Chiropractic Association. It's a dream to sleep in and very lifegiving. Waking up from a good night's sleep makes it far easier to be thankful.
Ken and Eiko's wedding was fabulous!
We arrived around 2:00 - in plenty of time for the rehearsal at 3:00. What we had forgotten is that everything would be running in Ken-Time. (Ken-Time is sort of like Bullet Time from The Matrix) - it's where Ken appears to slow down in relation to Normal Time and everything around Ken seems to happen a little later than they should.
The rehearsal started just after 4:00 and it was cute. To keep tension down it got a little silly with the rehearsal wedding walks going something along the lines of a Monty Python skit (although they still wouldn't qualify for a Silly Walk Grant). I got most of it on tape.
After the rehearsal was a really nice dinner where we sat with John and Kathy to catch up a little on where they've been. Very pleasant food, excellent conversation.
After dinner we settled in a little and then headed to a bit of guys-only party in Ken's honour. Mostly we played Wii
games and told stories about Ken. I called it a night around 11:30 and the rest of the guys stayed up until 2:00 or so (Yikes!)
The morning of the wedding was spent collecting video clips of cute things happening and soon enough the time was right at the Pianist started her thing.
Ken said a few words during the ceremony that made me cry with happiness that I had found my soulmate already. It's tough holding a camera still while you're quietly sobbing! But it all worked out. George pronounced them Man and Wife and everyone cheered.
The reception was really nice, but I missed most of it due to being the photographers assistant -- Paul usually travels with his wife, but that didn't work out this time, so Sherry and I tried to fill in for Chrysta - I think we did an ok job, but it didn't run as smoothly without her there (it just meant taking a few extra minutes to get things sorted out - no big deal).
I'm really looking forward to seeing the photos!
We filmed the two speeches from the Best Man and Best Lady and the Thank Yous from the Bride and Groom and we were pretty much done. We chatted for a bit and then drove home.
Sunday was spent catching up, transferring video footage and carving pumpkins. I put together a set of shin pads for Vader -- not quite what I was looking for, but with the big day just day-after-tomorrow they'll have to do.
I'm really thankful that I've found my soulmate. Not only am I finished my search, but I get to enjoy every day that I spend with her. She completes me, trusts me, honours and respects me. She satisfies me completely. We still date (have for years!) and I still pursue her, but knowing that she'll always be there when I truly need her is comforting.
I'm thankful for my GPS unit (ok, this one may seem a little trivial, but stay with me). The trip there and back was significantly less stressful with TomTom by our sides. We didn't have to worry about maps, signposts, compass bearings or stopping for directions - we managed the traffic and enjoyed our time visiting rather than navigating. It was really nice.
I'm thankful for weddings. Not only are they a happy time to visit with old friends and to welcome new ones, they are a wonderful testimony to love and a great time to renew your own passion for the marriage that you're in (or are planning to be in).
Congratulations Ken and Eiko!
So, the wedding rehearsal is tomorrow and then Halloween is just a couple of days after that. What an exciting time!
I had a chat with Michelle last night and she actually doesn't have a valid reason for not starting college on time, but she is dead set on taking a year off between highschool and college.
Do any of you have advice for her?
She has her budget worked out and as it turns out the girl that she's planning on sharing the apartment with is the daughter of a single mom. If things go poorly for the two girls the mom has offered to move in with them to help pay the rent and take care of the day-to-day chores.
I think I'd take that offer too. There doesn't seem to be a down side from Michelle's point of view. My big concern is that once she stops being a student it will be impossible to go back. Without a college diploma it will be difficult for her to move much past twice minimum wage.
The more I think about it the more resigned I am to accepting her decision. There doesn't seem to be a lot that I can do. If I choose to make her life difficult then she'll move out now and not even finish highschool. If I do manage to force her to go to college, then she won't apply herself and it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Yuck.
Hmm.
I'm thankful that we're allowed to pray without concern for protocol. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." In everything simply present your requests to God. Cool.
I'm thankful for the gift of sight. I love photography - it brings me a lot of joy to see something beautiful and then capture the feeling of the moment with my camera. Sight allows me to drive, to work, to enjoy a movie, to see Sherry smile, to watch Michelle's creativity. Sight allows me to bask in the beauty of God's creation.
I'm thankful for warm clothing. There are far too many people who dread fall and the cold, wet weather that it brings. No one deserves to be cold and thankfully I don't usually think about it. I'm very thankful that I can venture outdoors on a cold, wet fall day and not have to suffer.
Ok, it's still a little early to be this excited, but I did a bunch more work on Vader last night and the costume is so close!
I'm pleased with the progress on everything and there's a bunch more work to be done, but it's close enough to wear the whole thing now and look mostly done!
Whohoo!
In other news Michelle's pre-mid-term marks came back yesterday. She's doing really well in everything except Anthro and she has a plan to fix that. I'm actually pleased. It sucks that we have to put so much pressure on her to get the marks that high - she'll be on her own next year with no one to motivate her from the outside - it's all going to have to come from within.
You parent the best you can and then you leave it up to them. We're just praying that our teaching sticks. She knows everything that she needs to know - but will she apply it?
Tonight is Quick Bite - I volunteer at a community soup kitchen every Wednesday. It's part of this year's theme - "One Hand In -- One Hand Out".
It's a metaphor for making sure that you're healthy and then passing on something to the greater community. It's been a good year. We'll need to start thinking about what next year's theme is going to be. "Investing in People", "Growth", "Fruitfulness"... hmmmm.
Some of our other themes have been "More fun, less work", "Back to Basics", "Simplify" ("Simplify" was a fun year - we were allowed to say 'no' to a bunch of good work and not feel guilty... maybe something like that again this coming year?)
Ok, I gotta run.
This weekend was one of the better ones that we've had in a long time. We did have a little bad news - Michelle's brakes failed while she was coming up to a red light - nobody was hurt, she didn't hit anything and other than a nearly near-death experience she's fine. The car is in the shop now and I'll call the mechanic when it's a little later in the morning to tell him why it's there.
Friday night was a party at Greg and Audrey's place. WHAT A LOT OF FUN. I forgot my camera, so I borrowed Audrey's and took a couple hundred photos (it was digital, don't worry, it didn't cost her anything). It was a gorgeous Canon Elph and it took amazing emo photos. About half the pictures I took were of me and someone else. What fun!
We had to cut out early because of a 6am meeting that I had the next morning, but that's ok.
The meeting was good and then we went to Grand Bend for the Annual Craft Festival that's hosted there. We tagged along with Don and Beth who make this trek every year. We toured through the vendors and then headed for a late lunch at Aunt Bessie's. (They had a 10 year old helping bus the tables! Well, she actually only looked 10, she was really 13 - I asked. She was probably the hardest working person out there! That was good to see).
After we got back I spent an hour working on my vader costume and I got the pants done! (Well, almost done - I need to put a velcro closure in the pants) I later did a bunch of work on the chest computer and belt computers. I'm really close to being done! Whohoo! (Photos soon).
That night was a game at the SSEC to watch the Sting beat the Ottawa 67's 5 to 2. Sherry and I invited Don and Nathan (his 10 year old son) to join us - it was a lot of fun!
We managed to sleep in the next morning (to make up for the 5:40 alarm the previous morning). We puttered around with chores and headed to church. Greg (from the house party) gave the sermon in leiu of George who was away and did an AMAZING job. His points were dead on and his stories were entertaining. It was cool.
Sunday was spent trying to catch up on the stuff that was put on hold so we could have Saturday off. I did manage to get in a round of golf - Pebble Beach is beautiful, but its too close to the water. I kept losing my ball over the cliff. Bummer.
Today's topic of thought is Worry. Does it do any good at all? How to prevent it? What to replace it with (nature abhors a vacuum)?
My take is that other than a certain amount of productive preperation (if you call that worry) is healthy, beyond that it's a waste of effort. If you worry about things you can't change, then you're wasting effort that could be used elsewhere.
For me the easiest thing to replace it with is the unwaivering trust that God is completely in control, He's good all the time and He wants the best for me.
Thoughts?
Looks like I'll get another chance to teach and learn again this fall. I'll be offering the Excel course at my work this fall - we'll open it up to the general public and charge $200 a seat for the seven week course. We're hoping to get about 15 people interested, so it'll be a nice profit centre.
I'll also get trained as a True Colours trainer. If you don't know what your colour is, you should find out. It's pretty cool. (I'm Green, btw).
Once I'm trained in True Colours I'll be doing my first workshop for Stoke's and then I'm hoping to offer it like the Excel course. I'm amped to be in front of a class again. Maybe training is in my future?
My running is going well. I'm having very little trouble running three miles, but the time isn't coming down very much. Hopefully over the winter I'll be able to trim my time down to 22-23 minutes for three miles and then I'll add a half a mile on again. I think I may be plateauing...
I cut out one leg of my Vader pants last night. Talk about exciting! Of course that's when I realized that I don't have enough pleated material for the other leg. Talk about disappointing! (To make the jacket and pants that Vader wears you take hundreds of 1" strips of leather (well, vinyl in my case - I'm not an Imperial Warlord) and stich them vertically into a sheet of material. Then you cut the pattern out of these stitched strips. Talk about labour!)
Ok, short entry today - it's weekend and I'm behind schedule!
As I've mentioned, I'm in Canada (and I don't know how to change the country on my profile - it seems to be locked)...
It was a fabulous long weekend!
Not only did we get Monday off (and get paid for it!) the whole weekend was a lot of fun.
Friday not a lot happened (other than telling Bernie that I had a job opening that I was considering - that did not go over well at all). We had pizza for supper and found out that Michelle had driven the 2.5 hours to Sherry's Mom's place -- without telling us she was going to. Cool - I guess.
Saturday was spent lounging, sorting, prepping and doing. It was really nice. The home theatre is back up - I have a 12 foot screen (across) at one end of my 25x17' media room. The projector is about 2/3s of the way back and the image is fabulous - it's only 800x600, but for what we do it's more than enough.
Sunday we went to my Mom's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I went a couple of hours early so that Mom and I could play a round of golf.
Mom is a huge golf fan and when I bought my Wii I also got a goofy little golf game with it (if you don't know what a Wii is you need to find out. Realy.) We liked it so much that I bought the Tiger Woods golf game from EA and brought it over with me.
I played as myself and Mom played as Mike Weir (since we're Canadian and he seems to be the only Canadian with any street cred in the PGA).
She whipped my butt all over the course! She understood what a buck-and-a-half is and when to use a wedge and what a seven iron can do. Yikes.
I coached her through the putting, but that's all I had to do. Wowsers.
Then Bernie and I played Big Brain Academy and he beat me at that, so we gave the remote to Chris who really spanked me hard at BBA. Bummer. It was a fun time and a fabulous meal.
(Michelle had a bit of a nasty run-in with my brother Michael who was really displeased with Michelle's nose piercing. Bummer).
Monday was spent working on my Vader costume and visiting with Sherry's Mom (who came down early with Michelle). It was really nice.
Dinner was at Abe and Chantal's place. They are such a cute couple! It was their first major meal and they went WAY overboard. Fabulous.
Excellent weekend - I can't wait to do it again!
Good morning all. Today's topic is Religion (I've already talked about politics, so I should be able to offend just about everybody shortly).
As I see it Religion is bad.
Let me explain. I'm going to use the word Religion to represent the structures, superstitions, rules and institutions that men have put together around their Spirituality. (And before I continue I believe that Spirituality is good).
In the beginning God walked with man in the Garden of Eden. There were no priests, there was no building, no alter, no rules, no power to abuse - just God walking with man in the cool of the evening. And it was good. It was exactly the way that God had intended us to relate to him.
If you skip to the end of the book (the Book of Revelation) and read the last couple of chapters it describes the new Eden - the way it will again once all of the crud has been fixed in this current world. Once again there is no temple (which would have been scandelous in the day it was written!) It's just God walking with man again - exactly the way it's supposed to be.
So if you look at the way that God would have us relate (Spirituality) then there is no church building, no power brokers, no wealth hording, no rules, no dress code (Adam was Naked!), no pretenses, no Holier-than-thou attitudes, no masks, no walls -- just people walking with God.
Thoughts?
--
In other news: Michelle came home and we're good again.
I'm struggling to get everything back under control -- Alpha needs an official clean up crew - without someone being in charge nothing gets done properly. *sigh* Aren't we all adults?
Mike (my brother) found me a job posting that starts at more than twice my current salary. But, I'm already working for my other brother (Bernie). Do I apply? Will it rock the boat?
Electricity is way too expensive.
Heroes is a cool show.
Christmas is only 82 days away. I'm not ready for Halloween yet!
