Monday

We went to the Smallville set on Monday. Here are some pictures of us on the set. #1 is in the Fortress of Solitude, #2 is in the Luthor Mansion, and #3 is in Clarks loft.

Last Day in Canada

So the countdown is on. We'll be leaving Canada at 9:10 am tomorrow (Tuesday). Today we'll be going to the set of Smallville to watch them shoot a couple scenes. My aunty Natalie is the head makeup artist, so she'll take us around and give us the grand tour of the set. Apparently they're shooting in the builing where the green screen, Luthor's mansion, and Kent farm are. I'll see if I can get some pictures when I'm there...I've finally organized myself enough to be able to take pictures with my own camera. I pretty much didn't use my camera the whole time we were in Victoria because my battery died and I left the charger in my bag at my aunts house. Then, yesterday, I got my camera all charged up and took it to Julie Richardson's house to take pictures of everyone swimming, but my memory card was missing. Apparently, I left it in the card reader on my laptop the last time I used it.

Anyways, I thought I'd let everyone know my "plan" for not having jet lag when I get to Germany. I'm going to sleep this afternoon from 7pm until 12am then get up and stay up until we fly out for Germany at 9am (keep in mind that at 12am here it's 9am in Germany). Then I'll stay awake on the flight until about 2pm Canadian time and then go to sleep on the plane (it will be 11pm German time). Then I plan on sleeping as long as I can before we land in Germany (which will be 6am German time on Wednesday). Hopefully, everything will be screwed up enough that at the end of the day on Wednesday I'll be able to fall asleep and wake up on Thursday morning refreshed and ready to go. I think it will work. Let me know in the comments if you don't think it will work.

Anyways, I better get going....we should head out for the set pretty soon.

Andrew

The Buchart Gardens

This garden is pretty amazing. I was in a place last year in Germany called The Residenze....it was a huge elaborate mansion with the biggest fresco in the world. It also had a huge garden in the back yard that was probably the most impressive I'd ever seen. Until yesterday. The Residenze doesn't even hold a candle to The Buchart Gardens...and the fireworks were the most amazing I've ever seen. Anyways, I need to jet to get to the ferry in time. Here are some pictures:

In Victoria and More Pictures

We've been in Victoria for Friday and Saturday. We'll probably take the early ferry back to Vancouver on Sunday. But, yesterday when we arrived, I managed to find my way to Danny's house from the ferry terminal....not bad considering I've only driven in Victoria once before. We sat and chatted about things for a little while. One thing that we talked about was Danny's book that he's writting on teaching religion class in highschool and teaching youth in general. He's got 8 chapters done of 11, so he's almost done. I have a feeling that he won't have a lot to time this school year, so I hope he can get the book done. I think the book will be especially useful for youth ministers, youth group leaders, teachers in Christian schools, and Christian parents. Since I've done so much in youth ministry, youth groups, and teaching I think this will be a pretty interesting book. Anyways, later that day we went for a walk around downtown Victoria through James Bay. Lots of street performers and merchants selling things. We actually sat and watched a juggling act for half an hour.....he was performing just across the street from the Empress Hotel....it was pretty good. After that, we went to the parliament building and had lunch on the front lawn. It's a pretty beautiful place. Here are some pictures:



















After lunch we went shopping downtown. I actually ran into one of my friends from highschool who was working in one of the shops. It was Kathleen....I haven't seen her or talked to her for about 4 years. It was pretty great to talk to her and see how she's doing. She's actually directing a play for the Fringe Festival and the first performance was just the other day. Apparently it went pretty well and the audience really liked it. It's cool to know that she's being successful.

Anyways, we all slept in today since we were up at 5:30am yesterday. I especially needed to sleep in because I woke up with a head cold yesterday. Hopefully I can fight it off before we leave for Europe.

Well, I'm going to go get some breakfast before the morning becomes afternoon.

Andrew

Made it to Vancouver

So Tony, Julie, and I just arrived in Vancouver this evening. We're going to leave all our extra bags here and take off to Victoria tomorrow for the weekend. I'm pretty excited about going to Victoria....we'll be meeting up with some of my friends (Justin, Drew, and Danny) and they'll be taking care of us for Friday and Saturday. Tony checked online at the Bouchard Garden's website and found that there will be a show on Saturday night, so I'm pretty sure we'll try and make it to that. Should be pretty great.

I've been a bit stressed lately about making sure this trip goes well and everything is ready. You see, I have this idea in my head that I am really organized....but lately it seems like I'm not very organized. I just feel like I've been running around in circles trying to get things ready. Anyways, I'm happy that things have started and we're in Vancouver now.

I'm off to have something to eat with my cousins and uncle.

Adios,
Andrew

Things are starting to pick up

OK, so I finally have a bit of time to post some pictures and info about what's been happening over the past month or so. To start, I have the Camp Morice Teen camp slideshow rendered and ready for download. I know that UNBC will be really mad at me for having about 20 or more people download this 167 MB file, but I don't really care.

Right-click on the link below and choose "Save Target As..." (or whatever your browser says) and save the file to your computer first. Then watch it.

http://web.unbc.ca/~johnsona/TeenCamp2006.wmv

Next. Here are some pictures of some things I've been doing.


Downtown Vancouver from Cyprus


Mount Robson



The top of the Jasper Tramway



The Othello Tunnels in Hope



The Columbia Icefields on the way to Jasper.