It came as a shock to me...

So i just went from moving around my room and cleaning it all, to totally repainting it all (it was desperately needed haha), and putting up some new frames and art (some of my pictures would be cool). I think my room should look pretty nice with its new colours. Now i just need to fill all these blasted holes in the walls!!

The Past Few Days...

Well it is Tuesday morning right now. My plan for today is to clean and organize my room, but also i want to move my furniture around in the process. For those of you who may read this, and not be home for another week, i won't say what i've done so as to let it be a surprise hahaha. I sound so secretive... it's nothing really that huge, no basement suite or anything like that unfortunately... But it is such a tiny room down in my basement too, i don't think i'd be very comfortable there actually. But i mostly just hope that i can get this done today, it was my plan for yesterday too, and then i remembered i had promised my friend Ian that i would hang out with him. I don't like going back on my word, so i put this off to today. I just learned this morning that we have window washers coming to clean the in and out of all of our windows at around 10. That might throw a kink into my plan, and delay it some if he has to be occupying my room for said amount of time (not to mention me having to make him a path to my window haha). Anyways i still think that i can get that done relatively easy over the next few hours here.

So yesterday like i mentioned i went to hang out with Ian. He needed to go to the U of A first to sign up for a band audition, so i took him there. After finding literally no parking near where we had to be, i just dropped him, and circled the block for 10 minutes waiting. Before this we decided to go find some new shoes for school. So we had hit up south commons for a bunch of stores, and found very very little (I still liked these ones at Payless Shoes that Amanda and I had been eying, but we wanted to find more). So we decided to trek to West Ed after signing him up for his audition at the U. We checked out a ton of stores there, and spent soo much time just looking for the right style and colours. A few hours later we stopped at Athletes World and both saw a pair of shoes not 10 seconds from our entering the store. Hahaha, as it turned out, they were actually the same pair of shoes just in a different colour. The store was holding a By One Get One 1/2 Off so we each saved 25% off of our shoes. My shoes are brown. =) I like my new shoes. I'll post a pic of them on here at the end.

When we went to West Ed I came in at the wrong entrance to the parking lot, so i circled around until i found Amanda's and my usual spot. We had to drive up and down rows to find a stall as it was really full, finally i saw a free one at the end and was moving towards it when a blue jeep came from a mainer road straight towards it, we both stopped and i figured since he was facing straight on that it would be easier for him to just pull in, so i waved him forward. (I was also just trying to be a nice guy... like i usually am.) So i waited a second... he didn't move, so i motion him into the stall again. And... ... no motion from his part, so i put my window down a bit and was starting to wave him in again when he quickly turned towards me facing me head on, and then whipped up beside me with his window down and started screaming at me "You F@#KING RETARD!! Learn how to f@#king drive, a--hole!!" Then went tearing off down the strip and onto another main road. Here i was, just trying to be a nice guy to him, and he goes and insults my driving skills. I didn't think that was deserved. When me and Ian were on Whyte Ave however, i saw what should have been the makings of a fine car accident. This chinese lady (sorry that she had to perpetuate this stereotype) heading westbound was stopped at a red light (i was traveling eastbound). But she was not stopped for long, she saw a person she was picking up come out of a building on the South-West corner of the intersection, and... while still facing a red light, pulled a left turn into the busy intersection narrowly avoiding cars traveling into the safety of a green light. Then she stopped as casually as can be and picked up her passenger. The only thought going through my head was a series of questions relating to how SHE can pass a drivers test, but someone with ACTUAL skill such as Amanda get caught up in the trifles of the small things. It doesn't make much sense to me actually. Anyways, so after several hours of shopping we finally departed with a pair each. As much as i can use a new pair of runners as well, I will cross that bridge when i need them. Ian on the other hand =p wanted to drive all the way back to S Commons after this, and go back to several of the stores to get some dress shoes, and then find a new pair of runners too. I felt bad for telling him no, but i was so tired from the previous 4 hours of shopping and driving, that i just said i wouldn't go. So we hung out for about 30 minutes at my place before he decided to go home for supper.

At Kendall's birthday party the other night we had rented 2 movies (under Tom's account of course hehe). We watched the first, Breach, before kendall decided that 10 was late enough and sent us all home. I really wanted to see the second, and tried to watch it later that night (i started after 1am) but i didn't get far before waking up a lot later on in the movie haha. So after Ian left i had a brainwave and decided to just rip the movie to my harddrive to watch later (or burn to DVD). The first two (very long) attempts at the ripping both failed as the program tried to encode it as a movie file. By the time i started my third trial the movie was already overdue, and late fees at the store are brutal. So i ran in to the store with the first movie and talked to the guy there (It was that friendly black guy Amanda) for a bit, telling him that i wasn't QUITE done with Renaissance (the second movie) hahaha. So he felt sympathetic and told me that he would take away one of the late charges from the account. That was nice of him.... i just hoped he'd take them ALL away hahaha. So i went home, and hooours later this thing finally finished ripping (it turned out i accidentally set the quality up really high, so it was 1.6GB instead of 0.7GB). It actually works! And it looks really nice too! And... yeah now i just need to watch it. Seeing that i just confessed to movie piracy on my personal blog *-).... What else have i been up to? Ah well i should probably wrap this up and throw some pics on for the ADD among us : )



Here're some I bet you are all sick of seeing, but I'll put them here for more people to check out haha. =)





I found this strange mushroom in my backyard when i was walking around with my 50mm Macro lens the other day.





Haha the geek inside of me posted this picture. Not the Star Wars geek, or the video game geek (Just because me and Tom know what those Servbots from Megaman are called...sheesh), or the sci-fi fantasy world geek... just the regular type of geek that thinks this looks cool =)

And finally...



My new shoes. I plan on getting some "in use" shots today. Of me on a park bench or something... naked of course. :| I... don't even want to think how disturbing that is. =) Hahahaha ahhh yeah. Cheers!

Growth takes a great deal of patience i gather...

"Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other? " - God in the film Evan Almighty.

I think that too often we hope that God will just grant us what we ask of Him, without us understanding what He wants from us. He wants us to show discipline and effort, to prove to Him that we actually are willing to get our hands dirty doing what He will ask. If God thinks that we need more patience, I believe that He will put circumstances into our path that will make that obvious to us. In that way He puts the ball into our court, and gives us the opportunity to ask Him to give us patience. Like this quote says (I haven't actually seen the movie yet, although i really want to), He probably isn't just going to zap us with it, but He'll give us chances to grow in it. God knows what we can handle, and if He pushes us to do more, to give more, to go farther with Him, then He believes (well He KNOWS haha) that we can do it.

There was a clip from the movie Facing the Giants that was shown on sunday at City Centre Church talking about this. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vB59PkB0eQ ) In the clip there is a coach encouraging a football player to keep going. He is kneeling beside him on the ground as the player engages in an exercise known as the "death-walk" where you must carry another person on your back and walk on your hands and legs (no knees) a certain distance. As he moves alongside this kid he keeps saying "Don't quit!! You promised me your very best, your all!! Don't stop! Don't quit on me!! Your best, your best!! Keep going 'til you have nothing left!! I know you can give more, just a little farther!". I really think God wants us all to grow so much more, to be so much more than we are now. He wants us to give Him our best, our all; because when we do, he is showing us how to be stronger, wiser, more patient, more courageous, and more loving. Basically to be more like Him.