Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Holiday Blog Part 1

After many years of holidays that only consisted of going home to Smithers. Here is my first week long vacation on Saltspring/ Vancouver Island!

Day One:

My plan had been to have everything packed and ready to go the day before. However, that didn’t happen! I few details got in the way, namely helping Trevor buy his new MacBook (whoo hoo) and 30 hour famine.

So I got up at a decent hour (for me at least) and started to finish off my laundry, buy groceries, got an oil change on the car, and got packed. My seemingly reasonable goal of leaving by 1:00pm, became shattered when I left Vernon at 4:00pm. But that was okay!

Once I got to Chilliwack, the first order of business was to find a Boston Pizza, and see if the Canucks game was still on. It wasn’t, and maybe that was a good thing, since they lost. I decided to camp just past Harrison Hot Springs, so I took off in that direction, making camp around 10:00pm. Thankfully the new headlamp I picked up that day came in handy!

Day Two:

I wasn’t sure if I’d get up and go to church anywhere. However, since I never/ or at least rarely get a chance to be in a worship service and not on stage, I decided to make the most of this opportunity. I went to Christian Life Community Church in Abbotsford, where my friend Chad was leading worship (very sweet!). It was a good service, and I got to reconnect with lots of old friends!

I spent the afternoon in downtown Vancouver, where one of my main goals was to get to MEC to pick up some more camping supplies. I haven’t been downtown Van in quite some time, so I made the dubious choice to walk to MEC from the Granville Skytrain station. Great walk, but I could have made it MUCH shorter by getting off at the Stadium, or Science World station. Lesson for next time!

That night I reconnected with ex-Vernonites Travis and Geoff, where we had a fantastic Mexian meal, and great time catching up with each other.

Geoff dropped me off at the Metrotown Skytrain, where I attempted to get back to my car, which was parked in Surrey. I say attempted because I didn’t realize that there are now 2 types of trains that are on Skytrain. You used to just take any old train you wanted, and you got where you’re going … not any more! So I hopped on this train, and it said that it’s end destination was VCC/Clark Station, and it wasn’t a station I was familiar with, but I was going in the right directions so I thought, why worry! A few stations later I realized I was not heading towards Surrey anymore, but toward Burnaby. Turns out, some trains go to Surrey, some go to Burnaby. Who knew!!! So I backtracked a couple of stations and got on the right train back to my car.

To be continued ...

Friday, April 20, 2007

Blast from the past

Can you imagine me being a metal-head? Well I was. Back in highschool I was following Christian Metal bands quite closely. I think I was mostly influenced by my good friend Jeremy, and by some of the older teens from the Terrace youth group that I looked up to. Well, I came across this video from a band called Delieverance, and boy did it bring back memories! I used to work on that rhythm guitar part all the time! In fact, I remember playing a Christian metal song at my high school talent show ... by myself! Just me and my dad's electric guitar. If I saw someone do that now, I'd think they were pretty strange, but back then.. I guess I didn't really care lol!

Monday, April 16, 2007

Amplify Easter Reflections

We did a special Easter Monday service at our preteen, youth and young adults gathering. We had different "stations" set up in the basement of the church with write-ups on each topic, (Jesus in the Garden, Peter's Denial, Crucifixtion, Jesus is Alive, Tell the World, and Communion) scripture to read, and questions the students could ponder. Here's some video that Alex took and edited. Check it out!