Here We Go!

Fixed

2010-02-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

After 18 months of sitting on my wall as an ornament, I finally found the part I needed (on ebay) to repair my Rebel XT that got salt water on it in Australia. And now, it's running at 100%! This is the 4th time I've resurrected some piece of technology that was completely dead.

And now my Rebel XT is taking pictures like nobody's business. I just need to figure out what to do with it now that it's fixed.

The Neighbourhood Lights

2008-12-19T13:57:00.001-08:00

Just a few pictures from my neighbourhood. Some nice lights!

Also, there is a little something extra going on here in these pictures. I had to use a long exposure to capture all that light when it's so dark out. Most of the time it was about 30 seconds that the shutter was open....so I took my giant MI flashlight and painted some light on parts of the photos to add a bit of light where I wanted to. It's a cool technique. I want to play around with it some more over the holidays.

Night Sky

2008-12-18T11:03:00.000-08:00

For anyone who has been downtown after 4pm, you've probably seen the crane lit up over where they are building the new Duchess Park school. Good on WIC for making the effort and putting lights up on that HUGE crane. This is a picture out my bedroom window that I took one evening.

Sparkle

2008-12-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

I like this picture of my tree. I've got it all setup and have loaded it up with $35 worth of decorations from the dollar store. Everything is so sharp and sparkly. I'm thinking that I'll look for some good opportunities to take some Christmas light shots over the next little while. I went out last night to take some shots of my neighbours house and a few houses the next street over. They turned out pretty good. I think I'll post a few of them pretty soon too. I tried a bit of a new technique when taking the pictures, but I'll wait to describe what I did in the post with those pictures.

Shine

2008-12-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

I like this little picture of one of the ornaments on my tree.

Christmas Pictures

2008-11-28T15:20:00.000-08:00

I've decided to take a few Christmas themed pictures over the next few weeks. I just recently got my tree up and decorated, so I took a bit of time one evening taking pictures of it with my fireplace roaring and a hot cup of tea. Here is the beginning....I hope to post a couple per week starting in December.

New Camera Toys

2008-11-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

Well, for a while now I've been reading a blog about photography and lighting. The main doctrine from the blog is that you pretty much never want to have your flash on your camera. You almost always want the light that you are taking pictures with to come from off camera. So, to do this you need a few things to make this work. And then after you get your flash firing off camera, there are a whole lot of things that you can do with the light to make it better. Way more than you ever thought was possible.

First, the blog I've been reading is Strobist.

The wireless gear you need to get your flash to fire at the exact right moment is very diverse. But basically there are three main options out there for wireless:

Cheap wireless triggers from Ebay: cheap=unreliable and short distance.
Expensive wireless triggers from Pocket Wizard: hardcore, rugged, bulletproof, and very expensive.
Somewhat expensive RadioPoppers: a bit cumbersome to attach to your camera and flash, able to transmit camera information to the flash (ie how powerful the flash should be for the picture).

There are more options out there, and there are more products that will be coming to the market soon that will change some of this.

So, as you would expect, I ordered the cheap Ebay triggers and have had them for a while. Since I'm not making any money with photography, that's pretty much what I'm stuck with for now.

But I also wanted to have multiple light sources in my pictures to add some cool effects and fill in shadows from multiple angles. So I purchased a couple more used flashes on Ebay for $75 and $129. Cheap considering what a full price flash costs.

After a while of reading Strobist, a link comes up on his site for a seminar DVD that he has produced: 8 DVD's of footage with 4 of them being the seminar and 3 of them being example location shoots for different situations. Very cool. The first DVD, however, was a separate shooting where he explains all the gear he uses. The lighting gear isn't very expensive piece by piece, except when you add it all together. $25 here, $30 there....and you're up to $400 pretty quick. That's an extra car payment for me.

Anyways, I don't really have anyone to be accountable to for spending my money, so I ordered the stuff cause it's cool and it will be fun.

I haven't been able to spend much time using it all over the past week or so, but Tyler and I played around and got a few fun shots:

Bailey is good a posing. This is shooting a flash through an umbrella on a stand to the right.

You can see the edge of the umbrella here. It makes for a nice big light source which makes the light on Bailey nice and soft.

Here's a bit of the setup. Tyler is getting ready to take a picture, but I shot this picture first. The flash really lights up that umbrella!

Tyler trying to figure out how his con-founded Nikon camera works.

Figure this one out

2008-11-04T10:08:00.000-08:00

Tyler is exempt from putting in his two bits because I already told him how I did this.

So take a look at the photo and let me know you're thoughts on how it was done. No photoshop was used. This picture is only cropped a bit; other than that, it is directly from the camera.

Water brings death, Ebay could bring life

2008-10-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

I'm wondering now, what I should do.

Here's the story.

I'm off in Australia, having a great time and taking a million pictures as per usual. I'm getting some great shots and having lots of fun as the end of my time in Australia is fast approaching. A few days before I'm slated to fly home, I'm gearing up to go surfing with a bunch of people from the Contiki bus tour that I'm currently on. I really want to get some great surfing shots if I can, so I take my camera down to the beach and leave it way up on shore while we go out for our surf lesson. At this time I'm thinking that I'll surf for a while and as the end of our time on the water comes up, I'll head in a bit early, grab my camera, and take a bunch of pictures before we all call it a day (morning actually...we got up at 7am or so in order to get some surfing in before the bus was scheduled to leave). And that's exactly what happened. We all went surfing. Had a great time. And at the end I went and grabbed my camera from the shore, ran out to the edge of the water, and started snapping away.

It's always a bit risky with salt water because it is ridiculously corrosive...so if it gets on any electronics, you're pretty much hooped. So, I was trying to be extra careful. But there was someone who decided they were done for the day who was coming in from the water, and they stumbled not far from where I was and ended up splashing me with a considerable amount of salt water from their stumble-kick of the water. A bit of water got on my camera, and I quickly wiped it off with my shirt and dry hands. What I hadn't noticed was that a few drops got in and around one of the buttons, so as I was pressing those buttons taking more pictures and adjusting settings, I was probably pushing that little bit of water inside the camera body.

I continued snapping away and everything seemed fine. I got some really fun shots thanks to my 200mm zoom lens and polarizing filter on the end. And I would even go so far as to say that my pictures are better than the "professional photographer's" pictures in terms of colour quality, framing, and capturing of great moments. Ya, I'm a pretty big deal.

But later that day I pulled my camera out and found that pretty much nothing worked. It was dead. Later that evening I investigated my camera body and pulled off the cover with some borrowed mini-screwdrivers that someone had in their glasses repair kit. Apparently, that little bit of salt water dripped in onto the exact spot where the main processor is...corroding a bunch of the connection points and pretty much frying the whole motherboard. Yes, these cameras are really just mini computers inside (other than the moving parts and mirrors and stuff).

So at some point, my travel insurance might be able to replace the camera for me. But I couldn't wait for that, so I went out searching for another camera body and found that London Drugs had an open box deal on a camera body that was the same model as my (now dead) camera. So I snapped that up for $300 which is pretty much half the price of what it was brand new when I got it.

But now, I'm looking on Ebay and seeing some Rebel XT's being sold for parts for about $50. Is it worth it for me to try and buy some camera parts and fix my old camera? The parts might not even be able to fix it...I'm not sure. I have until November 4th to decide because that is when the auction ends....but it would be great to be able to fix my old camera....we shall see.

Anyways, that's the epic story with a cliff-hanger for the end. To be continued next time....

PS: Here is a link to the last pictures that were ever taken with my Rebel XT...

MojoSurfCamp

High Altitudes

2008-10-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

For the few days that Peter was back in BC over the summer we decided to go for a drive up to Smithers. On the way, we made a detour to Camp Morice to visit with Richard and Jackie and take a walk around the camp. I think it's been a few years since Peter has been there. But after Camp Morice we took off to Smithers to meet up with Adam and Myrica and have a quick visit. I had also heard of the waterfalls that were at the base of Smither Mountain, so we made it a priority to get there and check them out even though the weather was not stellar.

The hike up there was very interesting and had some really cool scenery because of the weather, clouds, fog, mist, etc. It made for some really cool shots as the sun started to break through the cloud and light up only parts of the trail and surrounding mountains and cliffs.

The falls were pretty great and they had quite the drop from the cliff to the landing zone, but a side effect of that is that it produces a lot of mist. So, I was a bit hesitant to pull out my camera and have it get all wet...hence no picture of the falls. I had a little bit of trouble with water and my camera over the summer, but that's another story.

Anyways, we also hiked up above the falls to try and get to the glacier above (where all the water was coming from). And there were some pretty cool mini-falls along the way. The picture to the left is a good shot of the water, mist/cloud, and rusty rocks as we were nearing the top.

Lastly, here is a picture near the top with a peek to a peak that is in the distance. It was quite the surprise to see this extra peak as we got near the glacier.

A couple other things that I remember about the hike:

My camera gear and tripod are heavy
I am out of shape
High altitude really does affect oxygen intake.

Cheers,
Andrew

Hixon Falls

2008-10-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Tyler and I went out to Hixon falls to take some pictures for the morning. We got some pretty good shots over the 3 or 4 hours that we were at the falls and the chutes. There were some pretty good photo ops on the other side of the falls, so I checked it out while Tyler documented my potential demise (the pic above is one of Tyler's....thanks man). Over all, I am pretty happy with the shots that we got. Tyler got some pretty fun shots of me while I was goofing around being a bit dangerous around the rocks and cliffs, and I got some pretty cool shots of him looking intense. The new header picture of my blog is also from the falls. I might post a few of those pictures over the coming days depending on my free time.

True Canadian

2008-10-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

I feel pretty good about being Canadian. Dad, Tony, and I went out back several years ago and decided to plant a Maple tree in our back yard. A truly Canadian thing to do. And now after a few years, the tree is doing very well and looking mighty fine in the fall as the leaves change colour. The other day, the sun was shining in just right and the tree looked pretty cool, so I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. Here is my favourite:

I have been starting to collect all my old photos from hikes in Canada that I've been on, and I was thinking that I'd eventually put together a slideshow of all the awesome scenery that I've seen. We will see if that comes together or not, but it would be pretty fun to do.

Let the fun begin

2008-10-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Hey,
So I'm going to add some cool things that I've been doing to my blog now and then.

Here is a picture that I was playing around with for my uncle. He's doing a fund raiser called "Catch Me If You Can" which is to raise money for the Salvation Army to buy food for hungry people in Prince George. The event is basically a night of video game racing on the XBox, PS2, PS3, and Wii. There will be a bunch of prizes and fun stuff going on all night.

Here are the details before I get to the picture:
When: October 24th 2008, 7pm
Where: The Hub Ministry Centre - 1557 3rd Ave
Cost: Driver $14, Spectator $6

Race with Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2 and PS3
5 Major Sponsored Races
Prizes - 1st 2nd & 3rd for each race
Overall Championship Prizes
Pizza and pop included
Additional Concessions Items Available

Info about the picture: In my brother's Corvette, fisheye lens on my Canon Rebel XT, Flash connected via off-camera flash cord sitting on the dash to camera right.

Vote For My Video!

2008-06-26T14:33:00.001-07:00

I just posted my video on the MEC website. They are having an outdoor video contest. One of my favourite trips that I've been on is the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island. And the video slideshow that I made for the trip is probably the funnest one I've ever done.

It would be awesome if you could go and vote for me!!!!

Here is the link

North Central Plywood Burns

2008-05-27T00:47:00.001-07:00

The plywood mill burned to the ground today (May 26th 2008).

Here are some pictures.

Hockey Pictures

2008-04-09T23:31:00.001-07:00

The season is over, but we had a good run and finished with a silver medal.

Take a look at these pictures that Adam and Tyler took.

Playoffs 2008

2007 in Review (Part 5)

2008-02-20T17:02:00.000-08:00

Before I continue, I need to back up a bit. I forgot to mention the Fang Caves trip that I did on Thanksgiving. A bunch of us drove out to the McGregor mountains past Purden to hike the 2.5 km’s in to the cave mouth. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so I’ll just post the slideshow I made and you’ll get the idea.

Continuing on…pretty much right after I got back from Edmonton I started to get ready for the Bahamas; we were leaving the following weekend. I must say, I was pretty excited. Warm weather, beaches, and palm trees…that’s a pretty good escape from -10'C and a snowstorm. We were actually going to the Bahamas for two reasons; the first was a Global Leadership Summit where we attended over 20 keynote presentations on leadership and the importance of having character in leadership. I learned a lot from the conference, but I’ll try and sum it up with some impactful one-liners:

Character is what you do when no one is looking
The only way to demonstrate character is through testing of character
The eagles don’t fly with the pigeons
Integrity is when the way you act, what you think, what you say, and what you do are all the same.
Leaders fail their way to success
Habits are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken
When things go wrong, don’t go with them
If you’re going through hell, don’t stop
When pursuing greatness, you don’t know your limits, so you pretend you don’t have any
Don’t envy people for what they have, because you don’t know what they did to get it.
Some people are always there when THEY need you
Don’t make someone a priority when they make you an option
You can’t see the picture if you are in the frame
You don’t know what you can’t do
You are paid according to the problem you solve
If you find yourself too deep in a hole, stop digging.
Excellence is expecting more than others think is possible

The second reason we went to the Bahamas was for a vacation, and let me tell you, a great vacation it was! I really enjoyed the Bahamas and will definitely go back. I’ve decided not to post the Bahamas slideshow on my blog for the entire world to see, but for those of you who are my friend on facebook, you can go there and see it.

Now, let’s finish up shall we.

The rest of November was a blur as I got back into the swing of things for work and began getting ready for Christmas. Then December came along and it was another whirlwind month full of eating and partying and family. But it was a fun month, good memories all around; too much to describe here though…

And that, folks, sums up 2007. All in all a pretty great year. Looking back it was even more full than I remember…and I really did make a whole lot of slideshows didn’t I? I’ll be hard pressed to do so much this year.
But then again:

Thinkfast is in two weeks
The Diocesan Youth Conference is at the end of April
We’ve got a trip planned for the Victoria Youth Conference in May
I may be going hiking in Ontario with Peter in May
I am going to Australia in July
Two Camp Morice teen camps in August
There are several weddings coming up…

AND I should be moving into my house in March!

Why am I always so busy?

2007 in Review (Part 4)

2008-02-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

The last day of camp, we broke the guys away from the girls for a gender specific session. I had a good time talking to the guys about being a guy, then we headed out to the field to do some filming with my Action Cam. Here is what we came up with:

I eluded to the Bahamas trip earlier. I’ll come back to that later. For now I will continue on reflecting about the summer months.

So, teen camp was over and it was back to work for a while. Tyler and I finished up some major parts of the Design Standards website, and I began to prepare for my next amazing adventure: The West Coast Trail.

Located on the West coast of Vancouver Island, The West Coast Trail is 75km of some of the most breathtaking and physically gruelling terrain North America has to offer. The trail is not for the faint of heart nor the inexperienced…but it is one of the most rewarding hikes I have ever done. We hiked the trail mid-August…by we, I mean Peter, Rachel, Elizabeth, Rob, Tiina, Randy, and I. I was impressed that we could have finished the trial in 5 days; to most experienced hikers that is a very good pace. We decided to take a detour on the 5th day, relax at the beach, and visit some sea caves. It was well worth it. So, after the detour, we finished the trail in 7 days. Here is a slideshow of our trip.

Now, as I said earlier, there was something else I was contemplating in June. Whether or not I could afford to go to The Bahamas in November with my family for a leadership conference and vacation. I mean, if you were going to go to a leadership conference, wouldn’t The Bahamas make it just that much better? So, as in my usual fashion, I started to crunch some numbers as to the costs of the trip and the income I would need to do it. Once I factored in airmiles and shared rooms, it didn’t seem all that bad. So, I was committed to go to the Bahamas. But, there was still plenty of work to be done before that could happen.

Firstly, the Camp Morice Annual General Meeting was coming up and I was to make a slideshow for a reflection on the past summer. By now, you must have figured out that slideshows are what I do…I’ve got them down to an art. It’s probably one of the most favourite things that I do after an event because it allows me to tell a story with pictures and music while the experience is still fresh in my mind. That way, months or years down the road I can go back and watch the slideshow and have the memories come back. For me, it is truly entertaining. I go back and watch old slideshows all the time…reminisce about the fun and excitement. To me, they are a priceless artefact.

That said, here is a slideshow I made up for the Camp Morice AGM:

So, as October rolled around Adam had already proposed to Myrica and made the decision to move back to PG at the end of the month. Adam asked me to be the best man at his wedding in one breath and asked if I could help him move back to PG in the next breath. It was a cunning and bold move on his part…buttering me up with the invitation to be best man and then playing my feelings to get me to drive to Edmonton and help him move all his junk back to PG. Well played Adam…well played. Of course, I’m just kidding…it was actually pretty fun to drive to Edmonton at the end of October to help move Adam back. I borrowed Tyler’s scoocum tripod for the trip so I could take some cool pictures along the way, and I made a point to stop at Mt Robson for a break where I got changed at the trailhead and ran a few kilometres up the trial and then back again. I must say it felt pretty good to do that…what amazing scenery and clean air! One thing that I thought was pretty funny was when I was coming back down the trail (running pretty fast and listening to some sweet techno) there was a couple walking up the trail; the guy (who was pretty overweight) looked at me as I ran by with a look that said something like “you’ve got to be friggin kidding me…”. It’s kindof hard to explain, but I can still see the look on his face and for some reason it makes me laugh. Anyways, here are some pictures I took from that trip:

I think I've got about one more post to finish off this year in review....so stay tuned.

2007 in Review (Part 3)

2008-01-31T22:27:00.000-08:00

A few other things happened in May…they’re not really a big deal or anything…just worth mentioning. The lease on my Honda Civic was almost due, I hit a moose and totalled our family van, and I finalized the purchase of the other half of our house (the side my Aunty Sharon owned).

The lease coming due meant that I was looking for a new vehicle. A brand new Toyota RAV4 was my choice. For anyone who’s gone for a ride in it, you’d know that it’s a great vehicle and a monster in the snow. I’m very happy with it. It is an epic vehicle.

Hitting the moose changed my outlook on life again. I didn’t have a scratch on me and the van was totalled. I had glass in my hair and down my pants, but no cuts or bruises. God must have something else in store for me otherwise things would have been different. A few days later I heard of a lady who was driving a smaller car who hit a moose driving slower than I was…she died in the hospital.

(That’s two life changing experiences so far in 2007, for anyone who’s keeping track)

I bought the other side of our house, and my aunt moved out and bought a condo in Westgate, but I didn’t move in. I remained in the basement suite of my parent’s side of the house and began to rent out my side to some family friends who are building their own house in the Hart. So, things were working out alright. Double payments on the mortgage each month and some help to save for Australia in the summer of 2008.

As June approached I started to focus on two things: Teen Camp at Camp Morice and the feasibility of going to the Bahamas in November.

I was pretty excited to direct the teen camp at Camp Morice. There was a lot of planning to do in order to have everything ready because after all…you pretty much have to plan for every minute of the day and have contingency plans for if/when the weather is not co-operating. Not to mention the pressure of making the teen camp the same as it has always been but also make it new and exciting at the same time. I put a lot of pressure on myself, but that’s just who I am…I like to do something to the best of my abilities. So, during June I made up a short slideshow from past teen camps:

Between Adam, Roberta, and I…I think we took over 2500 pictures during the week of Teen Camp 2007. I’ve uploaded a whole bunch of them to facebook, but for all of the readers of this, I put some up on picasa web albums as well. They can be found here:

We also did a really cool skit called “The Backpack”

Much more fun to follow....

2007 in Review (Part 2)

2008-01-26T10:53:00.001-08:00

(continued...)

So, now I’m on my way back from Toronto, working on my laptop creating a small website. You see, Plank Creative gave me some specs for a small website before I left Toronto…so I began work right away. By the time I landed in Prince George later that day, I had finished the first version of the website and had, in essence, made enough money from the website to pay for my plane ticket to go there in the first place. Not to mention the fact that I can write the flights off as a business expense. Yes, I arrived back in PG feeling pretty good about myself.

Upon arriving back from PG I was presented with an opportunity to give a quote for a website for a company called AllNorth. The site was to be called Design Standards and was to function similarly to their existing site, except work all the time and provide more features. I won the contract and ended up working on the site for over 4 months along with the help of my good friend Tyler. It was a huge learning experience for both of us, and after it was all over I was happy that I got the chance to do it. But, I don’t think I’ll be looking for a contract like that again. It’s more fun to make sites that look and act cool than it is to do a whole bunch of coding (at least, that’s my preference). I like making things look pretty. So, that’s enough about Design Standards I think…it was a huge part of the year, but not all that interesting for you to read about.

April marked a new era in my life. From this point onward I started to look at the world around me in a different way. Thinking back on it now, I realize just how profound a change it was. It allowed me to see the world around me in a completely new way. You see, in April I bought a Canon Digital Rebel XT (semi-professional camera), and now everywhere I go I am looking at the world around me trying to capture its beauty. I see things I would not have seen before…I look at things you see every day and turn them into something spectacular (or at least I try). I love the way that it has transformed my life. The best investment I have ever made by far.

In April we had the ThinkFast and the DYC where I took over 1500 pictures with my new camera. Here are some DYC pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dycprincegeorge/DYC07

As May rolled around, I found myself working 3 jobs: SIS, Money Concepts, and Nata Reforestation. Nata needed my help to keep their seedling shipments on track for the upcoming tree planting season, and all that is managed through a website so I could do it from my office at the Coast Inn. This was also the month that Tyler started working for me on a contract basis. He was helping me create the Design Standards website application that I was talking about earlier. Let me tell you, I took great joy in being able to pay Tyler large amounts of money for him to do something he’s good at: programming. It was great.

(to be continued...)

2007 in Review (Part 1)

2008-01-18T14:10:00.001-08:00

Well…I’m thinking that another “Year in Review” is in order.

Let’s begin.

We’ll start off 2007 with a lot of new things happening in my life. For those of you who remember, I started two new jobs at the same time: 1. working for the family business keeping them going with technology, and 2. starting my own business Sonic Interactive Solutions: Specializing in Web Design and Video Editing.

Now, January and February are the busiest months for financial planners because everyone is thinking about RRSP’s and taxes and stuff and have until the beginning of March to invest in RRSP’s and get a tax break for the previous year (ie. get money back on their tax return instead of paying money on their tax return). So, I ended up working pretty much full time hours at Allan L Johnson Financial Group (even though I was only supposed to work part time…but everything works out…you’ll see).

I also got to work on making my own website for SIS. I wanted it to be an amazing website…it needed to stand out and be something that makes you say, “Merde, I want this guy to make ME a website!” (pardon my French). And so, www.sonicinteractivesolutions.com was born. What an amazing investment of time it was. It has proven to be my single most effective advertising tool. Since then, I’ve made sites like:

And a computer application website for keeping track of engineering schematics that are custom tailored for various engineering projects. It’s called Design Standards, but I don’t have a link to it because it’s not open for the general public to access. But I’ll get a little more into Design Standards later in another post.

Now, let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, I was working full time for the family business and full time for my own business. During the first couple months though, I didn’t make much money through my own business. But as time went on and I finished my website, Peter had some ammo to let someone in Toronto know about me and my new website business. He connected me up with a graphic design and promotions company called Plank Creative and they immediately got me to start working on a website they’d been designing for The Vapor Music Group. At this time, I also found some super cheap tickets to fly to Toronto, so I booked them and made arrangements to stay with Peter in downtown Toronto for a few days in March. While in Toronto, I got to do something that I haven’t done for more than 7 years: Participate in a retreat. Yes, I finally got to be a participant and have a good time and not worry about anything. Just show up and retreat. It was lots of fun for sure, but it was also a challenge. I only knew Peter…I had no idea who the other 50 people were and I was going to spend a whole weekend with them. In some ways it was a lot of fun because it forced me to step out of my comfort zone and get to know
people because I had to. But, in other ways, it was very draining for me…I’m not an extrovert…I don’t get energy from that kind of stuff. Needless to say, I slept very well each night of that retreat, but that is to be expected at a retreat. Anyways, I got to visit the CN tower and see some things in downtown Toronto. It was grand. Here are some pictures from the retreat.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/supersonic.johnson/RetreatInTO

That’s it for part 1. I’ll continue with part 2 soon.

It's my Birthday

2008-01-13T21:15:00.001-08:00

It's my birthday today, and I got to thinking about the last year. I haven't posted much on my blog.....mostly a result of that book-something-er-other website. But I've found that writing really helps to keep me focused on what's important in my life and reflect on the things that happen or are going to happen. So, I might do a little more posting for personal growth purposes. But, just out of curiosity, how many people still look at my blog?

It would be awesome if you could post a quick comment to say you look at it...just so I know. I'll give you one week to do so, then I probably won't look at the post comments again. So, you've got until January 20th 2008.
Andrew

Wow....it's been a while

2007-10-04T11:42:00.001-07:00

I just noticed the date of when the last time I posted....wow....quite a long time. I've been a bit busy, but I think I've also lost the Blog luster. I enjoy writing things and reflecting on what's going on in my life, but for whatever reason I haven't found the drive to do it on my blog. Probably a side effect of being on Facebook. But anyways, for anyone who still reads this, here is a bit of an update:

I have been working with some dynamic image gallery technology and decided to make my own dynamic gallery in order to work out the bugs and find a way of making a sell-able image gallery for my website clients. SO, I bought a new web domain and uploaded a dynamic gallery to it:

AndrewJohnson.ca

Pretty cool to have a domain that is your name. Anyone else want one? I can make that happen for you. Anyways, I added the dynamic gallery to my site, a video gallery, a graph of my running times, and a few other things.

Meanwhile, back at the farm Andrew is organizing trips, budgets, and money to go to the Bahamas in November and Australia next July. Lots to organize, expensive trip, and all that needs to be done right now because of contention for flights to get to Australia.

Other News
I'm teaching two courses at UNBC!
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX NOV 21-DEC 6/07 --Want to learn how to make a website?
Macromedia Flash MX APR 3 - 17/08 --Want to learn how to make animations or dynamic websites?

And I'm helping out for a video editing course with Tony Donovan:
Beginners Digital Movie Making Course APR 9 - 23/08

Lots of cool stuff going on. More to come for the Bahamas trip....More to come for the Australia/World Youth Day trip.

Adios,
Andrew

Too much on my plate

2007-06-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

Well I must say that I've got a lot going on right now which is why it's been so long since I've posted. Maybe too much going on. I've been taking on too much I think and it's beginning to really wear me down. I don't think I've had more than 1 day in the past month where I didn't do anything to do with websites for that day. And I can't even remember the last time I got to bed before midnight. I'm really happy with how successful things are with my business, but it's really affecting me right now because of all the other things coming up. I'm actually getting a bit nervous about Teen Camp at Camp Morice because I don't have everything planned out and it's kinda getting close....I am totally capable of making it a fun camp with what I have organized right now, but I want it to be something a bit extra...I want it to be inspiring....even if it's only inspiring to one person at camp that would be fine. But I feel like I haven't done the best I can if I don't put some more time into it. But I can't put more time into it right now.....if anything, I should give myself a day off....but that's a bit hard to do as well since the clock is ticking and the project I'm currently working on is supposed to be finished before Teen Camp.

I'm just at a bit of a loss right now. Hopefully an evening off will sort things out and I'll have renewed energy in the morning.

Something cool

2007-05-28T19:04:00.001-07:00

This is totally cool. I'd love to get a hold of someone to buy this for me.
Action Camera - I Want One Of Those

Nobody updates....

2007-05-02T13:23:00.001-07:00

Just an observation, but it seems that everyone has migrated to facebook to keep people updated on what they are doing. Probably because it's easy to write a couple one-liners on there and get the point across. Most people just aren't into writing a huge post anymore....I'm one of them. It just seems like I'm too busy, but then again I've spent countless hours on facebook looking at pictures and other peoples profiles....I could have spent that time writing some amazingly long blog posts and still had some extra time on my hands. But that's ok. I am not ashamed to admit that facebook is addictive and that I check it at least as often as I check my email. It's actually an impressive site. The way they've set things up...it's very smooth and easy to use. You can click around from profile to profile in a matter of seconds checking what people have done and who they've talked to. It's revolutionary how it connects people. People that you almost totally forgot about all of a sudden add you as a friend and POW, the memories come back. Very impressive. The whole 'events' thing is pretty amazing too. Type up what you want (where, when, how, why...), click a bunch of check boxes for who you want to come....hit send and BIFF, everyone knows about it. Another thing....it sure helps me remember names of people....here I am browsing through a friends photo album that they've tagged, and I see all these people in the pictures...I recognize a bunch of them but forget their name.....but since the photo's are tagged, I can see their name. And the next time I see them working in Starbucks, I can say "Hey Iliana! How are you? I haven't seen you since highschool!" And just like that, that person feels appreciated...and important....and good. All because I remembered her name. And I remembered her name because of facebook. Amazing.

But ya, I just checked all the blogs on my link bar and only one had updated (Tyler), so I thought I'd have to comment. As another comment, Tyler didn't even really update his site, it was his friend Simon who posted on Tyler's site for him.

Anyways, back to work I guess. Enough procrastinating.

Andrew

The New Camera

2007-04-21T19:23:00.001-07:00

We'll I've invested in a new camera. It's been a long time coming...I've wanted a camera like this for more than a couple years. Basically, once Peter got his, I thought it was the best thing ever. Finally, now, I've saved enough to buy it. It's a Canon EOS digital Rebel XT and it came with two lenses: an 18mm-55mm wide angle lens, and a 55mm-200mm zoom lens. I've already taken a bunch of pictures with it and I foresee uploading them to my Picasa account soon. I'll keep you posted.

Now all I need is some free time to use it. I'm sure it will be put to good use at the DYC next weekend.

Anyways, that's just a quick update....I'm actually supposed to be somewhere right now so I better go.

Congrats to Jane for not having to pay $5000 (US) in taxes.....that's a blessing.

Andrew

T-Shirts for SIS

2007-04-12T15:55:00.001-07:00

Hey there....I just came from Capabilities where they are making up SIS t-shirts for a boys 9-10 soccer team here in Prince George. I was really excited to see how they turned out. I got them to change the 3d Robot dude into a cartoon-like robot with only 2 colors (white and black) and then the color of the t-shirt will be royal blue. The eyes and belly button will not be colored, so the blue from the shirt will show through. Anyways, it looks really cool and I can't wait to see how it looks on the soccer jersey. Also, I've check into things, and managed to get my Tree Planting bosses son on my team. Ya, just excited about that and had to share.

Andrew

Into the big time....

2007-03-27T17:09:00.001-07:00

Well, it's official....I had a meeting at AllNorth today to finalize the project that they want implemented. I'll be the one creating the website and hooking it up to their database. It's a pretty big project and I anticipate it taking a couple months to finish. I just met with Frank last night and gave him some things to do (in anticipation of being awarded the contract). So that's great to be able to employ one of my friends to help with this project. I'd probably give Tyler a bunch to do if he didn't have to finish his masters within the next few months....but that's OK, I foresee being very busy over the next year and being able to give both him and Frank a bunch of work if they are interested. For now, I'm relaxing tonight and I will start to attack the website tomorrow and see how far I can get. My plan is to run at this thing head first and get as much done as possible. For all the geeks reading this ,that means that I will be reusing as much technology as possible in order to reduce design time and increase efficiency through the use of the ASP.NET 2.0 framework and it's inherent modules which will provide me with the classes and object-oriented models to inherit all my functionality.

Anyways, I'm super excited about this new contract and what it means for my business.

All I need now is for Simon to figure out how to make money from a blog, and I'll be made in the shade. (after he shares that knowledge with me that is...)

Anyways, that's all for now.

Adios,

Andrew

Big MONEY

2007-03-23T11:17:00.001-07:00

Well...apparently my blog is worth a few bucks. I don't know just how it's calculated and I don't have time to ready exactly how it works, but it's cool. And, I'm super happy that if somehow I could sell my blog, I would more than triple the amount of money I currently have in my bank account.

My blog is worth $2,258.16.

How much is your blog worth?

Some updates are in order I guess

2007-03-21T17:04:00.001-07:00

Well now....I guess it's been a while. Here's a little bit of what's going on.

The class that I was going to teach at the university (Introduction to Marcromedia Flash MX) has been canceled because there is not enough people registered :-( But I guess that's OK...It will free up more time for me to do other things.

I'm just getting started on a big project for All North Consulting. It should take quite a while to do (maybe 2 months), so I've asked Frank to give me a hand. I'm going to meet with him soon to start some planning (so Frank if you're reading this...now you know we have to meet). I'll post more about this as things progress.

I just met with the Prince George Youth Soccer Association (PGYSA) to see about creating a new website for them. I think it will be a fun site to make, and the site they have right now is seriously lacking in content (mostly 'under construction' pages). They're having a board meeting tonight to go over my quote and sample sites and should be able to give me the go-ahead sometime soon.

I finished a site for the Frontier Apostolate which is up and running right now. It allows FA's to register and gain access to each others information, and there is also a discussion forum for anyone to join. There is still more to be added to the site, but I've set it up so that the webmaster can easily add to the site. Overall, I think it's a pretty clean and tidy site.

So as you can see from above I've been super busy with things at work, but I'm really enjoying it.

More things coming up:

Think Fast (this weekend March 24-25) Should be a good time.
DYC (April 27-29) I'm working on the opening slide show, opening ceremony "special presentation", and a special skit for the reconciliation service.
Alumni Golf Tournament (May 24th)....always a good time.
YC in Edmonton (May 25-29) this is tentative, but I might be driving the bus there....

There is also something else that is happening right now, but I can't elude to it until more things solidify....but it has to do with my business.

Cheers,

Andrew

New site

2007-03-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

I just finished a new site last weekend. I'm pretty proud of it. Hopefully I'll be able to make more sites as custom as this one. It was pretty fun.

http://vapormusic.com

AJ

No More Bugs...Send me a message

2007-02-15T16:14:00.000-08:00

I fixed the bugs in the website for the contact us form. It will now send me a message if you type some things in. I'm using GoDaddy.com for my hosting and they seem to block a few things which made getting the contact form to work quite the headache. Oh well.

I'll put a real post on here later.

Andrew

And Now...Without Further Adieu

2007-02-14T13:15:00.000-08:00

Sonic Interactive Solutions has launched!

This is the name of my new company. The focus of what I'm doing is going to be web design, but I would also eventually like to find some clients who need some video editing done.

Any feedback about the site would be awesome. The contact us page doesn't really work right now, but I hope to have the bugs worked out later this afternoon.

Hope you like it!

Andrew

Comments need to be made

2007-02-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

OK! I just have to comment on some of the blog subjects my friends have been using:

Visit'd
Blackberry'd
Name'd
Rankin'd
Engaged'd

Come On! You're making me sick. Enough already.

Sorry, I'm just in a complaining mood today....

"Ciao'd"

Andrew

The Year In Review (part 4)

2007-01-17T23:30:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I've got a link to a video slideshow that I made for the Italy portion of my trip to Europe. We met up with a bunch of my family from Canada and the US in Rome and went on a private bus tour from Rome to Sicily. Here is the video.

Next, I guess some people already know, but I'm currently working at Money Concepts in the Penthouse of the Coast Inn of the North. I am working at Money Concepts Part time and I've just started a web design company. I'll keep you posted on the name as soon as I can get it approved and I get my business licence. I just realized the other day that I'll have to make myself a company webpage if I'm going to be a webdesigner. I guess it will have to be pretty sweet too...if I want people to be impressed.

I guess there was one more significant thing that happened in 2006. My cousin Noella came to Canada for Christmas. Her birthday is December 25th (hense the name 'Noel'la). She turned 17 this year and until she arrived in Canada, she'd never seen snow before (other than on TV). So being in Prince George was quite the shock to her system. But we still managed to do a bunch of super fun things while she was here. We did as many 'Canadian' activities as we had time to do: outdoor skating, snowshoeing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, snomobiling, and snowball fights. It was tons of fun.

I didn't get to take too many pictures or video, but I'm planning on putting it together for short slideshow. The challenge now is to find a great song.

Anyways, I've decided conclude this year in review marathon with some things that I've learned over the past year. They're simple sentences that have a lot of meaning:

Live simply so that others may simply live.
Work to live, don't live to work.
God is God with or witout me, but who am I without God?

So that brings you up to the end of 2006.

Adios,
Andrew

The Year In Review (part 3)

2007-01-14T23:06:00.000-08:00

(continued...)

As promised....here is the link to the video slidehsow I made for the first portion of Tony and I's trip to Europe. I will post a link to the slideshow I made for the Italy portion later.

Upon returning from Europe I had to start looking for a job. Most people were asking me if I was going to start subbing as a teacher. I was a little hesitant to say yes because I didn't really feel like it was the right thing for me. After a lot of deliberation, I decided that I would put teaching on hold for a while and pursue some other things that had been on my mind. I spent part of every day looking for a job in Prince George that I might like. There were several places that I thought were pretty good and would be what I like to do: UNBC, The Airport, The Northern Health Authority, Shaw, and NoraTek. Lucky for me, a teacher from the University moved away a few weeks before he was supposed to start teaching a Web Design course using a program called Dreamweaver....so, with the help of Tony Donovan putting in a good word for me, I managed to scoop up that job. It was a 5 night Continuing Studies course, so there wasn't too much to prepare for...I just had to make sure everyone was making progress and learning the program. In the process of teaching Dreamweaver I began to realize how much I like doing web design. I started working on a new version of the Camp Morice Webiste and found that the day would slip me by without even noticing. It was pretty fun.

I actually got interviews at Shaw and NorAtek as well. The Shaw people were looking for an installation guy (which means pulling wires and installing cable in other peoples dirty houses), so I wasn't really interested in that. And NorAtek brought me in for a 3 hour interview and offered me a job a few days later for $16/hr full time working from Tuesday to Saturday. I would be doing tech support on the phone and driving (using my own car) to clients workplaces to fix any computer problems they might have. They also told me that I would be doing some web development, but infrequently. It seemed like an OK job, and a good opportunity to learn a lot more, but the pay wasn't really what I wanted it to be and the work schedule would have interfered with a lot of the extracurricular things I like to do. I don't want to live to work...I want to work to live. Work should be something I enjoy doing, but it should not be the main part of my life...it only needs to be a piece of the puzzle.

Up until the NorAtek job offer, I was considering starting up my own web design company. And after the job offer I was thinking that NorAtek would be a 'safer' choice for me because I would be guaranteed wages and hours; starting up my own company would bring no guarantees and it would completely rely on me to make things happen. Now, don't get me wrong....I know I have what it takes to be successful...I just thought that the NorAtek job would be a lot easier.

Now, at about this time one of the employees at my dad's Financial Planning office (Money Concepts) got accepted to be a firefighter in Fort St John (his dream job). So, Money Concepts was now short an employee. I approached my dad and asked him how many of the responsibilities of that job I would be able to take over if I were to come work there. He said, "Probably a little less than half...but then you'd be around for tech support and other things as well.....why?" After he said that the wheels were turning in my head an in less that half a second I had everything figured out. I proposed that I come work for Money Concepts part time and then take the other half of the part time to develop my web design company. I could even use the same office for both jobs. That way I could have some guaranteed hours in order to pay the bills and live comfortably, and all the money I make from the web design company would be a bonus (or part of my retirement...whichever way you want to look at it). I should probably note that living on a part time job is pretty easy when you've been a student for 6 years and figured out how to live with just the basics.

I will wait to the next post to reveal which choice I made....

(to be continued.....)

The Year In Review (part 2)

2007-01-12T16:33:00.000-08:00

(continued...)

Later in June I got a phone call from a man who wanted to meet with me...his 22 year old daughter had somehow heard about me and he wanted to interview me to see if her and I were a good match (!). She heard that I didn't want to play the dating game, that I was single, and that I could cook. I guess that was enough to get her intrigued. I didn't really have anything to loose, so I agreed to meet with her dad so he could see what I was like. I kind of took it as a chance to interview him about his daughter as well. After a couple meetings with her dad, he decided that her and I should meet because he felt we were compatible with eachother (!). So we went on a few walks and talked about many things. The cool but weird part was that we were talking about really deep and meaningful things (not things like "how was your day?" "what did you do?" "did you hear about this movie?"....). The conversations were pretty deep but we still joked a bit and talked about funny things. So, all the while, I'm thinking...we make a pretty good match. But that wasn't what God had planned for her and I. A few weeks later she got accepted to a university in Australia and would be leaving mid-August. She felt that God wasn't really giving her a green light to start a relationship with me, so we agreed to remain friends and try to keep in touch. But it was quite the experience. I actually gave a talk at teen camp about this little episode.

The next big event that conspired in the life of Andrew was Camp Morice Teen Camp 2006. This camp was a memorable one for two different reasons. 1. each camp seems to get better each year and this camp was no exception...it was by far the best I've been to. 2. I had to start looking at the week through the eyes of a director because next year I'll be directing the camp (along with some other amazing individuals). The teen camp pictures can be found here. It was really a fun week, but was a bit weird without Peter there...he's been out at camp every year that I have except last summer.

At the end of July, my friend Julia from Germany came to visit. In August of 2005 we were billited in her hometown in Pflochsbach and she kept in touch with some of us through email and MSN. The plan was that she would come to Canada first and then when she flew home Anthony and I would fly back with her to Germany and begin our month long European trip. And so it was. She came to Prince George for a few weeks and then went to Kitimat for a week and then travelled with Anthony and I to Vancouver to catch a plane to Europe. During Julia's stay, she travelled over 5800km on the road, met more than 70 new people, and saw 14 cities, 2 bears, 2 grey whales, and 2 killer whales.

So then comes the trip to Europe. Here is the short form: Prince George-->Vancouver-->Victoria-->Vancouver-->Frankfurt Germany-->Praque Czech Republic-->Brno Czech Republic-->Dublin Ireland-->Naas Ireland-->Edinburgh Scotland-->Rome Italy travelling south to Sicily-->London England-->Vancouver-->Prince George. It was an amazing trip. We were so blessed to be able to go. The crazyest part of the whole trip was the accomodations and food while we were on our 10 day family reunion bus tour through Italy. We were in 5 star hotels most of the time, and the evening meals were absolutely rediculous. I gained 9 pounds in 10 days...just to give you and idea of what the food was like (keep in mind I can't gain weight to save my life). I made a short video slideshow of the first part of the trip and I'll post a link to it in my next post....

(to be continued....)

The Year In Review (part 1)

2007-01-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

I guess it's time for a bit of reflection on the year...and a wonderful year it was. For me, there have been a few life changing decisions made and a whole lot of life changing experiences.

The year started off with one month of school at UNBC to finish up the course requirements of the teaching program (except for the practicum course). Then began a grueling 10 week practicum where I was teaching 3 classes a day full time (Math 9, Computers 9, and Infotech 11). Infotech 11 was pretty easy to teach since most of the teenagers were mature and wanted to be there, but Math 9 and Computers 9 were a real challenge. In particular the Math 9 course was a Core Math 9 which means its a really basic version of the standard course. The kids in this class were pretty rough and had a whole lot of attitude. It took a lot for me to balance teaching them and managing their erratic behavior. One class, this kid stood up while everyone was busy working on their homework assignment and stuck his hand down his pants and back out through his zipper in his jeans and started waving it around. It was pretty hilarious actually, but it pretty much took away everyone's concentration and there was no other work done that class. What was even worse was that I had a supervisor from the university observing me that class, but he thought it was pretty funny too and it was a good chance for him to see just what I was dealing with on a day to day basis.

So those 10 weeks were pretty tough for me. And, although I love a challenge, I was beginning to realize that this wasn't going to be a career that I would enjoy day in and day out. You see, since the beginning of the education program I had some nervousness while in the practicum, but I thought that I would eventually get used to things and the nervousness would go away. But even on the last day of my 10 week practicum I still had a strange feeling in my stomach and I didn't know why.

After the practicum came the beginning of another tree planting season and my continuing mission to seek out new processes and new technologies to make the season go as smooth as possible for my employer Nata Reforestation. This past season was my 5th year working for Nata and it came with many more responsibilities. I told them at the beginning of the season that I would like to work a whole lot so I could save money for Europe and they were more than willing to give me more to do in order to facilitate that. During the season I managed to work a bunch of 16 hour days and several 10+ hour days. Those first two months of the season were great for getting my pocket book ready for the up coming trip to Europe.

Midway through May we decided to take the youth group to Victoria for a youth conference at St Andrew's High School. Let me tell you....that was quite the trip. Driving through the night, burning out the breaks on the 15 passenger van, missing the ferry.....it was pretty crazy. But we still made it to the conference in time and everyone that came said it was one of the most memorable trips they'd ever been on.

(to be continued....)

So I've got a few decisions to make

2006-12-13T16:23:00.000-08:00

Well...a few decisions to make now I guess. I just got a call from the owner of NorATek and he's like, "I was wondering if it would be possible for you to come in tomorrow for a few follow-up questions." To me, this means that he's got a few questions, but mainly wants to offer me the job and go over the details. Now, I didn't really say much about the interview I had at NorATek last Friday. Let me tell you, it was the longest interview I've ever been in. It was 3 hours long....I got there at 2pm and left at 5:05! How crazy is that. A friend of mine just had an interview to be a fireman and his interview only lasted an hour and 45 minutes. So, ya, the 3 hour interview was a marathon, but it wasn't really that hard. I'm used to talking to computer geeks because I am one. Anyways, I'm going in tomorrow morning for a short meeting to discuss everything. I'm pretty sure he's going to offer me about $15/hr which is a lot lower than I think I'm worth (after 6 years of university and a whole lot of experience). So there's going to have to be some negotiating happening I think. The big decision I have to make is what are the terms and wages I am willing to accept and what are the terms and wages I will reject. I don't want to settle for less right now when something better could come along. But, I guess that's the trick hey? Try and figure out what's going to be the best in the long run and notice a good opportunity when one comes along.

The job that I've applied for at the northern health authority is for a support person just like at NorATek and their starting wage is $23/hr. That's quite the jump in wages.

Anyways, I'm off to get supper going and clean up a bit. I hope everyone is doing well stress-wise it being exam time and the Christmas season.

Adios,
Andrew

Winter Sunsets are Awesome

2006-12-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

This picture doesn't do the sunset justice. The sky was a crazy purple/blue and the clouds were lit up like a Camp Morice sunset. The sunset was enough for me to stop everything I was doing and watch for 10 minutes as the light disappeared. This picture is from my mom and dad's office in the Penthouse of the Coast Inn of the North. You can see the "Tree of Lights" on the side that they put up every year to raise money for various charities.

Shoveling the Driveway

2006-12-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, you're not Canadian unless you shovel your driveway in a t-shirt, and only Canadians would understand why. Shoveling is actually a really great workout. Just think about it, in the winter you could just go and shovel other peoples driveways each day instead of paying to go to the gym.

I'm going to send this picture to my cousins from Hawaii who will be coming to visit in January. They haven't ever seen snow in real life...just on tv and pictures. I'm hoping this picture scares them and gets them excited at the same time.

Adios for now,

Andrew

Camp Morice

2006-12-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone,
The new Camp Morice website is up and running. I decided to keep track of the amount of time it took me to get this version of the site up and running and move all the info from the previous site. It took me 42.25 hours to migrate everything and create the 48 webpages that make up the current site. Just in case anyone was interested, if we were to have contrated a Prince George web design company to do the site it would have costed about $7350. So, I'm pretty happy that we can have a $7000 site running for Camp Morice without actually having to pay for it.

I actually really enjoyed making the website and finding cool new ways of doing things (especially the private use page and the code to show bigger versions of each picture). I might even consider designing web site for a living. It certainly would be a fun job with lots of variety and I would be able to choose my own hours (to an extent). The web is constantly evolving and new technologies are always emerging which means that I'd be constantly learning new things. After 6 years of university I've found that I really like learning new things...it's kinda become a way of life. So, that's where I'm at right now...considering going into business for myself and becoming a web designer. Who knows what will happen.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the site. I'd like to encourage everyone to consider being a Camp Morice sponsor...we really need some support and you get at least a free t-shirt for becoming a sponsor!

Cheers,
Andrew

What's happening...

2006-11-28T10:44:00.000-08:00

I got these fortunes in a fortune cookie the other day and thought they were awesome. I only wish they would come true!

So I guess I've got a few new things to let everyone know about. First, I'm done teaching the Dreamweaver course and I was asked to teach a Flash animation course in March. Should be fun, but it won't keep me busy enough to make a living. For now, I'm house sitting at Tyler and Flo's house while they're in Cuba and I'll soon be taking care of Saveria and Marcio's house while they are in Brazil for a month. It's going to be a holiday season of house sitting. The new Camp Morice website is almost done and it will be launching this Friday December 1st, so be sure to check it out.

There's not too much else going on right now. You'd think I'd update my blog a little more often since I've got some free time, but alas it hasn't been happening. I'll try and put some things up a little more often (and that's a genuine try...I'm not just saying that).

Andrew

Going back to UNBC

2006-10-30T15:42:00.000-08:00

Well....looks like I'm going back to UNBC, but this time I'll be teaching. I just got a call to ask me if I was able to come and teach a Continuing Studies night course on making web pages using a program called Dreamweaver. I'm pretty excited about it actually. I think it will be fun. It's going to be twice a week (Monday and Wednesday) for three hours each night. I'm hoping this opens up some other classes that I could teach up there. We'll see. Anyways, just thought I'd share that little bit of excitement with everyone.

Andrew

Camp Morice

2006-10-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

I have a few more pictures now...The first is a picture from the back of the chapel. The second is the infamous Mt Pope with some rays of sunshine gleaming on it's pretty face. I remember climbing part of that face with Peter and Ben...we managed to get 3 pitches up (3 rope lengths). It was a pretty amazing view of the lake and surrounding area while on top of an 80m cliff.

Mount Pope

2006-10-22T10:37:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd post this picture of Mt Pope that I took with my camera phone. It's a view of the mountain that not everyone gets to see. The water is way down now, so I walked to the point and took this picture from way out on the rocks on the other side of the point...for anyone who's been out to Camp Morice, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Considerations

2006-10-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

I've had lots of things floating in my mind and I thought I'd write them down.

I saw some Canadian geese today flying over head in a perfect V formation. Pretty cool. I listened to them as they flew over head. Did you know that the lead goose is completely silent and the other geese are yelling to cheer him (or her) on? He's the one breaking the wind for all the rest. Pretty cool. I also heard that geese mate for life....which is an interesting characteristic as well.

One of the things I learned from my trip to Europe is that almost everyone "works to live" instead of "living to work" as most North American's do. I would really like to have a nice job and work hard and all that jazz, but I don't want to be one of those people that puts in 60 hours a week and doesn't have time to hang out with friends, exercise, or just relax. I really like it out here at Camp Morice....it makes it pretty easy to relax and enjoy life.

Did you know that the area of BC is the same as Germany, France, and the Netherlands combined? Ya. And BC is actually 75% mountaneous which meens that 75% of it is 1000m above sea level. How crazy is that! Lastly, out of all of Canada's land mass....BC only represents 10.2% of it. Nuts!

Anyways, I'm off to bed. Kids are coming out to camp early tomorrow.

Adios,
Andrew

Take off Eh?

2006-10-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

I got a call this morning asking if I could go out to Camp Morice to be the caretaker for a few days, so I packed my stuff and left 30 minutes later. You see, last week Jackie Deutch from Camp Morice had a heart attack....she lived through it and went to Vancouver for surgery (I'm told she had sugery today and is recovering now). Mike and Cathy Labonte came out to camp to take care of things while Richard and Jackie are in Vancouver, but last night Cathy got a call saying that her mother had passed away. Hense, I come rushing out to camp so that she and Mike can leave for Regina tomorrow. I'd like to ask that you please pray for Jackie that she has a safe and healthy recovery, and also pray for Cathy and her family.

I spent the day working on the Italia slideshow which is rendering as we speak. I hope to work on Germany, Czech, Ireland, and Scotland tomorrow if I can.

Anyways, I'm off to do some camp chores.

Adios,
Andrew

Finally...Some Pictures

2006-09-28T04:11:00.000-07:00

Finally...I get to a place where there is an internet connection: the Catania Airport in Sicily. Below I've got a bunch of pictures that I wanted to post, but didn't have an internet connection to do so. Tony and I are just waiting here in the airport to check our bags for our 3:30pm flight to London where we'll spend the night in an airport hotel and fly to Vancouver at 7:05pm tomorrow. We had a really great time with all of our family on the bus tour...there were 25 of us in all. They are a riot to be with...very spontaneous...very loud...and very enthusiastic. I hope to be able to go visit them some time in all of their respective cities: Sioux Lookout Ontario, Toronto, Winnipeg, Honolulu, LA, and Edmonton.

Anyways, take a look at some of these pictures....I think their pretty cool.

Italy has begun!

2006-09-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

What a great day! I really had a good time and I got to see some amazing sights today. One place that I’d love to come back to is a town called Revello….which is south of Rome after Naples on the way to the Amalfi Coast. Crazy place! It’s pretty much on the side of a mountain about 1200m above sea level but only about 300m away from the sea. The view of the coastline is probably the best I’ve ever seen. The road to get there had a breathtaking view, but it was a tight steep windy road and we were driving it in a tour bus….needless to say I was pretty impressed with the driver. One thing I wish could have happened was that we would have more time to take in the scenery. The tour guide always had another place to go, so we seemed to arrive at something really cool, take a few seconds to look, a few more to take a picture or two, and then we were off to the next place. I guess the guide was getting a bit of pressure from most of the group who wanted time to shop as well as see the sights, so it might have been the reason why he was rushing everyone. Anyways, I would have loved some time to sit and relax and think….and enjoy….and be amazed. It’s the introvert in me who likes to be lost in my thoughts. I hope to find some time in the next few days to just relax and take things in without feeling rushed. I’m sure it will happen.

Anyways, we’re just driving back down that ridiculous hill and I’m getting a bit car sick, so I better stop for now. I’ll take a look and see what I should post for pictures.

I have some pictures...but the computer I'm on is free and does not allow me to attach my jumpdrive, so I'll have to post the pics later...

Adios!
Andrew

Filthy McNasty's

2006-09-17T02:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I’m going to start off telling you about our last day with Roberta and Brian. We left the bed and breakfast and headed downtown to meet Claire at the Scott Monument. The Scott Monument was dedicated to Sir Walter Scott the great author. The monument is said to be one of the largest monuments for an author ever built. There are actually stairs to climb to the top of the monument, so we decided to pay the 3 euro’s to climb the 287 stairs and see the amazing view from the top. I think it was totally worth it…and climbing the stairs was an adventure in itself. Firstly, the stairs spire straight up the inside of one of the supporting columns and you feel like you’re getting a bit dizzy the curl is so tight. And then there is the amount of headroom….it starts to decrease as you get higher and as we began to reach the top I was bending over to be about ¾ my normal height in order to make it through the opening. Another thing that only really happen near the top was the passageway got very narrow to the point that I (the skinny guy) had to turn my body a little bit to make it through without scrapping my shoulders on the walls. The view from the very top was amazing….right in the middle of downtown Edinburgh…scenery out every angle and cool structures off in the distance. I took a bunch of pictures. Oh, that reminds me….I wrote on an earlier post that I was going to staple my camera to my hip so that I don’t ever forget it again…well…apparently that isn’t enough. I remembered my camera…of course, but I managed to leave the memory card still in the slot on my laptop…I was a bit disappointed. But, Brian is an intelligent man and realized that I usually take about 10 times more pictures than he does (and most are pretty good pictures), so he decided to give me his memory card to take pictures on and made me promise to give him a copy. So everything worked out.

I have been taking lots of pictures though. I got a message from my laptop the other day to say that I was running out of disk space….who knew pictures would take up so much space. But, I managed to find a bunch of things that I could delete in order to free up some space.

Anyways, after the Scott Monument we went to another cool monument/building that had some huge columns and a tower as well. See pictures below.

After that we went to one of the streets that only pedestrians can go on and walked a long ways down to try and find a good place to eat. On the way, we came across some very interesting pub names. Take a look below to see a collage of some of the pictures.

My favourite was “Filthy McNasty’s” but everyone else wanted to eat at the “Bad Ass” pub. At the pub I decided to eat like a Scotsman and try some:

The haggis was actually quite good….I would definitely eat it again.

After lunch we departed company with Claire since she had a train to catch back to her house, but it was really great to see her again and see how she’s enjoying her life here in Scotland. So, then we jumped on a tour bus (because our 2 day tickets were still valid) and headed toward the Royal Yacht Britannia for the last of our tours that came with the 2 day ticket. It was pretty cool to think that we were walking in the footsteps of royalty as we toured the boat. And of course, the boat was absolutely amazing…with elaborate rooms and decorations, an excessive amount of silverware, and a plethora of artifacts from around the world. The yacht traveled over 1,000,000 miles over the course of its life and is now a permanent tourist attraction in Edinburgh.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful other than the fact that we ate, drank, and had a good time downtown before heading back to the bed and breakfast to watch an episode of Lost before going to bed. It was a pretty productive day I think.

Oh, ya…and I have a video from when we were in Ireland. I won’t explain it…you’ll just have to watch it.

Video

The next leg in the journey

2006-09-15T02:28:00.000-07:00

Well, we’re in Dublin airport waiting for our flight to Edinburgh which should start boarding within the next few minutes. Tony was overweight in his checked luggage by 4 kilo’s and had to give me three of his shoes and put another 2 and a half pairs into his backpack so that he wouldn’t be charged the 8 euro per kilo for having his bag so bleeding heavy. Mine came in at 19.7 kilos…so I’ve got about 300 grams that I can add to my luggage and still be ok .

Ok, I’m writing the rest of this from our bed and breakfast in Edinburgh.

I’ve got a few pictures from Ireland when we went to some old ruins and the Guinness Brewery and then a couple pictures from our trip to the Queen’s Palace and the Edinburgh Castle. One thing that I noticed about things here is that most things cost about the same number as it would in Canada except it’s in pounds instead of dollars….so really, everything costs about twice as much. But, I guess it doesn’t really mater that much…I’m here to have a good time.

We’re heading out in about 20 minutes to head downtown to meet up with my friend Claire who lives here in Edinburgh and is a nurse. I haven’t really seen her since highschool, so it will be great to chat with her and catch up on old times.

Anyways, the four of us bought a pass yesterday that lets us into the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh Castle, and the Royal Yacht. It also came with a 2 day bus pass to ride the tour busses at any time during the day…we’re allowed to get on and off wherever there is a normal bus stop. It cost 34 pounds, but we already made up for the cost yesterday from the Palace, Castle and bus rides, so the visit to the Yacht is pretty much free.

Anyways, we need to go soon, so I better finish up. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Sunday

2006-09-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

I woke up in a really good mood today which is quite the accomplishment in itself because I was woken up in the middle of the night by a text message arriving on my cell phone (that I quite inconveniently left powered on). But I woke up very rested and feeling good. We had some French toast and bacon for breakfast and then took off for the internet café so I could post the previous post, do some checking up on emails, and book a short flight from Dublin to Edinburgh….it seems that Jenn won’t be able to get the extra time off work to go to Scotland with us, so we’ll just fly there and maybe rent a car. Right now, all we know is that we’ll arrive in Edinburgh this Wednesday at around 4:30pm….but the rest is up in the air. I think we’ll look online tomorrow for some B&B’s to stay in….maybe some cheap hotels…we’ll see. We were also thinking of renting a car for a few days as well to get around…but that’s up in the air as well…it all depends on how much it costs. My friend Claire from highschool lives 30 minutes from Edinburgh, so hopefully we’ll be able to meet up with her and hang out for a while. I’m actually a bit worried about the whole thing because of the lack of organization and planning for this particular section of our journey….it’s just the way I am though…I get nervous about those kinds of things. And I didn’t really look into anything when I was in Canada, so I guess it’s my own fault.

Anyways, after we went to the internet café we went to a Chinese Garden and Stud Farm…I know it’s a weird combination but there you go. The garden was very nice and I’ve got a few pictures below from when we were there. The first one is just a picture of me that I thought was cool, the second is a picture of me running to try and get into the picture after hitting the timer on the camera, and the third is a picture of all of us in a rock igloo kinda thing…you can see a woman who walked into the picture and then realized we were taking a picture on a timer and quickly jumped back out of the picture.

After the gardens we went and got a Starbucks coffee and headed to the airport to pick up Brian….his plane arrived on time and we didn’t thanks to a bit of a traffic jam…but we picked him up and headed back to Naas (where Jenn lives) so that Brian could have a shower and we could make some supper. After we got the roast in the oven we took off to a traditional Catholic Irish mass (which was only 30 min long) and then came back to have some supper (and some Guinness for me).

Adventures in Ireland

2006-09-10T03:27:00.000-07:00

The evening we arrived in Dublin we got picked up at the airport by Roberta and Jenn and managed to make it to the pub for a Guinness before last call. We got a chance to catch up on a few things and do some planning for the next few days. We’ll also need to plan what we’ll do in Scotland as soon as Brian gets here tomorrow.

Anyways, today was a super long driving day, but I think it was a productive day none the less. We drove from the east coast to the west coast to try and catch a ferry to Aran Island, but it took longer than we thought to get to the ferries so we missed the ferry. But, all was not lost…there was a road nearby that follows the coast line south and brings you to the Cliffs of Moher (see pictures below). These cliffs were amazing! I was really impressed….they’re the kind of cliffs that you would see on a postcard or in a movie like Lord of the Rings. We also got to see a lot of the Irish countryside which is littered with small farms, sheep, cows, and pastures separated by fences made from stones. It was really cool to see.

Czech it out

2006-09-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

Well, Tony and I are just waiting in the Prague airport to board the plane to Dublin, so I’ve got time to write down what’s happened over the last few days. When we arrived in Prague, Maggie and her mom’s boyfriend Carl were waiting for us. It was so great to see her again…and she was really happy to see us as well. For anyone who doesn’t know Maggie, she loves to talk…and Tony and I were pretty tired, so she was talking a lot on the way from Prague to Brno. Tony and I didn’t mind very much…it was good to hear what was going on in her life. The next day, we did a little sightseeing in the city to a cathedral and then we drove into the countryside to see some caves. The caves were pretty amazing…I really enjoyed it. I got a few good pictures and a movie clip from the boat portion of the tour through the caves. I guess the name of the cave system is translated as Stepmother because there is a fairy tale that a young boys stepmom tried to throw him off a cliff and into the cave, but he grabbed onto some roots hanging down and survived (she didn’t know he survived). The next day when some hunters found the young boy and rescued him, he told them the story and the villagers through the stepmom over the cliff instead. Ever since then the caves have been called Stepmom.

Here’s a link to the boat tour.

After the caves, we went to Maggie’s grandma’s house in the countryside for a traditional Czech meal. It was really great. The house she lived in was over 100 years old (she’s 80 and is still living on her own). Later that night we met with some of Maggie’s friends at a pub and had some drinks. They were pretty nice guys and both were good at English…Michal was a bit more talkative though. We slept in a bit the next day and then went to downtown Brno to see a few cool things that Maggie wanted to show us. A lot of the downtown monuments were under repair, so we didn’t get to see them as they should be. But, then we went shopping and Tony (in his usual fashion) bought 2 pairs of shoes within the first hour. The first pair are a sweet pair of leather yellow/black Dockers that I wouldn’t mind wearing, and the second pair is a pretty amazing pair of blue and white Adidas volleyball shoes that make you feel like you’re a star player. I bought a really nice blue Lowe Alpine jacket that has a lifetime warrantee on the zippers and integrity of the fabric. I paid the equivalent of $70 for the jacket and I’m pretty sure it would have cost me about $130 in Canada at Coast Mountain. We went to lunch at Maggie’s aunt’s fitness center/restaurant and got to play some squash after lunch as well, so Tony got a chance to try out his new court shoes. Maggie’s aunt thought we were pretty good for beginners. After lunch we went shopping again in a big mall that was downtown, but Tony and I didn’t really find anything really exciting there.

We had a really great supper at Maggie’s house that night and got to meet her notorious brother who really does talk more than she does. He has also studied English and was very articulate. He told us that if we come back he’d love to arrange a hike in to see some other caves that his friend knows about….I thought that would be really cool because it would be more remote and less of a “tourist trap.”

Today we went to Prague for the day before we caught a flight to Dublin. It’s a very beautiful city with lots to see downtown. There are tons of historical attractions and several places to see some breathtaking views of the city. I was pretty happy with what we accomplished for the day…we probably walked about 10 km’s during the day. Below are some pictures.

And away we go

2006-09-06T01:08:00.000-07:00

OK, let me catch you up to speed for what’s happened over the last couple days. Yesterday, we went to a mass in Wiesenfelt (Julie’s dad’s hometown) that was at the tennis/beach volleyball tournament. The tournament is called the CAN-Cup and it’s in memory of three young ladies who were from Wiesenfelt who died in a car crash on their way to the disco in Wurzburg. Their names were Christina, Andrea, and Nena (for CAN). Anyways, the mass was pretty interesting…we didn’t really understand anything except that it was a Catholic mass, so when knew when to sit, stand, kneel, shake hands and say the ‘Our Father’. After the mass Julie’s dad Harry was in the final match for tennis along with his partner Yuda. They were playing some a couple of adults that were young enough to be their children. It was a pretty amazing match though…they played very hard and smart, and won the tournament. It was actually pretty exciting to watch. I’ve got a video of the winning shot and crowd cheering that can be found here. After the tennis match, we had a snack in the beer garden (biergarten) and waited for the volleyball finals to start. We watched the finals, but they weren’t as exciting as the tennis match. Then we went back to Lohr for dinner at an Italian restaurant. Tony and I each had some pizza….I opted to get the spiciest pizza they had and it was pretty darn good….and pretty spicy too. Tony went with the tried and true pepperoni pizza and loved every bite. After supper we went back to the CAN-Cup for the evening party and live music. Now, I have to tell you about the most excruciating experience that I’ve had to endure in a while. The bands that were playing were very good…..and I was impressed at how well they were at reproducing English 80s and 90s music….but the one band decided to use their artistic license to change one of the songs to be in a different genre. Now, for me, AC/DC is as Rock as you can get….so when I heard this band playing “You Shook Me All Night Long” like it was a country song, I just about fell off my chair. It was quite possibly the most wrong thing I’ve ever heard…I kept looking up at the stage trying to find the banjo. And then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, they played “Highway to Hell” like a country song as well! Even Julie’s parents and friends were cringing.

Anyways, I writing this on the plane while flying to Prague…it’s a short flight…only 45 minutes. But, we’re about to land, so I better finish up. I’m excited about spending some time in Prague and seeing Maggie again. It should be a great time.

The disco and some pictures

2006-09-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

I have a short movie clip that I took while we were at the disco the other night (Tony really wanted to go...and I actually had a good time). We were out really late (4am), but it was a pretty good time.
Here's a link to the video:
http://web.unbc.ca/~johnsona/europe/disco.wmv

Next, I have some pictures from the last couple days.
#1 Me standing next to a maple tree that was planted in Pflochsbach last year when I was here with 20 other Canadians for World Youth Day.
#2 Julie's dad pouring me a beer for a BBQ we were having that afternoon. Pretty good stuff.
#3 We went for a drive to a castle in Julie's parents convertable (it's an Opel). She was pretty sure she'd be cold, so she wore here winter jacket. I'm wearing my new North Face jacket that I bought in Nunberg.
#4 A great picture of the Castle in Mespelbrun. You could pretty much take this picture and use it as a postcard. It actually looks exactly like the postcard that I bought.
#5 This is a great shot of Julie's dad and his tennis partner during a game. I'm pretty happy with my camera...

Our first full day

2006-09-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve finally got some time to write on my blog now. It’s Thursday night and we just got back from a day in Nunburg. It’s about 1.5 hours away from where we’re staying right now in Pflochsbach. On the way to Nunberg, we stopped at the Puma factory outlet to take a look around. Anthony (in his usual shopping fashion) spent 157 euro’s in about 30 minutes, but he got a nice pair of shoes, jogging pants, sox, t-shirt, and some sweat bands. I found myself buying a nice pair of hiking pants because I managed to convince myself that the one’s I have at home are ripped and don’t count. Their nice pants though. After that we continued on to Nunberg and found a parking garage downtown in a very central place. There are lots of old buildings and churches in Nunberg that we got a chance to take a look at, but most of them are replicas of the originals from before World War II. As much as 90% of Nunberg was destroyed in the war. Oh, I almost forgot….Of course, there are many nice things to see in Nunberg and it would be a good idea to bring a camera to take some pictures….but I, however, did not. Somehow I left the camera on the coffee table back in Pflochsbach. We ended up buying a disposable so we could at least take a few pictures during the day and have to deal with developed pictures instead of digital (a hard thing for me to do). Needless to say, I won’t be going anywhere without my camera and wallet from now on.

For lunch we went to an authentic Bratwurst restaurant to have some Bratwurst and Sauerkraut. It was pretty good….I really enjoyed it. We also had some Weisser beer which is a typical kind of beer to have when eating Bratwurst. Nunberg is known around Bavaria for its Bratwurst.

In the afternoon we went walking around the town to do some sight seeing and some shopping. We first went to a castle that overlooks the city…it was pretty cool and I hope the pictures turn out from our 5 euro camera. Later on when we were back in the town we went shopping in a store that was celebrating 125 years of being open. I found a really great hiking jacket for only 50 euro….in Canada it would have cost about $130! It’s a North Face jacket, very lightweight, and (of course) it’s red….one of my favourite colors to wear.

After that we went to the fair that was in town and Tony went on a few rides. The first ride was a long bench that is lifted in the air and swung forward, backward, and upside down. Just watching Tony, Julie, and Christina (Julie’s friend) on it was making my stomach uneasy. When they got off, they looked pretty white in the face. The second ride Tony went on was one of those freefall rides where they bring you up really high and then let you fall to the ground and stop you before you crash except this one flew you up in the air extremely fast first and then let you freefall. It looked pretty crazy to me!

Then we went to supper at a Greek restaurant. Tony and I both had Calamari, but I couldn’t finish mine….my appetite is not so big right now….it takes a little while to get my stomach over the Jet Lag. Anyways, it was a good meal and we had a good visit with Julie, Julie’s mom Simone, Julie’s boyfriend Michael, Christina, and Christina’s parents.

It was a pretty great day….and I’m really tiered. I’ll save this post and try to get an internet connection in the morning so that I can post it. I hope everyone is doing well. Good luck to Roberta who is flying to Ireland on Saturday.

Adios,

Andrew

PS: My plan for skipping Jet Lag worked very well...I was a bit tired in the afternoon but still felt great.

Monday

2006-08-29T05:39:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Tell the World

2006-07-22T00:24:00.000-07:00

SO.....

I've uploaded 40 pictures from the 2006 Camp Morice Teen Camp. Anyone and everyone should be told. Spread the word.

The address is: http://web.unbc.ca/~johnsona/gallery/gallery1.html

It may take a minute to load up if you have a slow connection.

Andrew

PS: Ha....I beat Jane in posting before she did.

Adventures Inc.

2006-06-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

I recently realized that I need to plan ahead to have fun otherwise I'll end up being too tired or too busy to do anything. That's not to say that I don't do things on the spur of the moment because I do and it always ends up being a good time. But, for the really fun things...the things that you look back at later in life and say...."Man....that was fun! How could I ever forget that?" It's those things that are awesome because they've been planned, organized, thought about, anticipated, and carried out...and there is something that is really fullfilling about it all.

That said, I have been planning some things for this summer and I'm starting to get pretty excited about doing it all. I just hope I can get some friends to tag along. I've tried to plan things for the weekend or evenings so that I don't have to miss work and so that everyone else has a greater chance of being able to make it.

So here it is....Adventure Inc.'s schedule of outrageous outings:

Saturday July 22 to Thursday July 27
Road Trip: I'll be driving to Vancouver to stay with my aunt an uncle for a couple days and pick up a friend from Germany who is coming to Canada for a month to visit with everyone who went to Germany for World Youth Day in 2005. On Monday afternoon (July 24th) I'll be driving to Osoyoos to stay there for the night. Osoyoos is where BC is harbouring a desert (in case nobody knew). The 25th in the afternoon I will be driving up to Invermere/Radium Hot Springs to enjoy the springs and stay at Gord Bennett's house. The 26th in the morning I will be driving to Jasper to check out the Columbia Icefields and take a ride in the Gondola to take a look at Jasper from 7472 feet (2277 meters). It's pretty sweet. Finally, on the 27th we will make our way home to PG stopping along the way at Mt Robson for a little while, Rearguard Falls, and several other relaxing places....we've got the whole day to drive 3.5 hours...so if it's a nice day, we'll take our time.

Saturday July 29th
Falls Tour: A tour of northern BC to view some amazing waterfalls. Bijoux falls lives up to it's french name and Kinuso falls is one of BC's best kept secrets falling to the earth from a greater height than Niagra falls. Click here to see a little advertisement I've made up.

Saturday August 5th
Barkerville: Back to the old days at Barkerville. I've been to Barkerville 23 times in my lifetime with last year being the only year I couldn't go. It's aways tons of fun and it's somewhat comforting to be in a place where computers and technology are no where to be found.

There are several other things that I'd like to do in August, but I don't have any dates for them. Rock Climbing at Giscome, Paintballing, going to Bear Lake, Wildlife viewing near West lake, going to the Observatory, and some visits to Camp Morice to take pictures.

OK, so does that sound like an interesting summer?

In other news, it's my brother Shaino's birthday today and we're having a big barbeque at my house tonight. The nice weather, the beer, and the family should make this an enjoyable evening.

Andrew

Entaro Adune

2006-06-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

OK fine. I'll actually post something that you can read as oppose to cheaping out and just posting some pictures.

So to start, my cousin Sarah just got married on Saturday and what a beautiful Saturday it was. The weather was amazing, the pictures were spectacular, and the reception was a riot. My whole family had a really good time. I was actually surprised at how much I was dancing...i'm not usually the one to be dancing the night away, but Saturday....I kinda was. Man my family knows how to have a good time...we were laughing and dancing and carrying on for the whole night. Anyways, it was a great weekend and it was good to see all the rest of my family that doesn't live in Prince George.

The more I think about, the more it doesn't seem right. Of course, I'm talking about being a highschool teacher. I was subbing the other day (as I wrote in my blog) and it was not too bad, but in the afternoon I found myself thinking "this isn't really that fun...and it doesn't really feel like it's on my heart to be a highschool teacher." I've been working at listening to my heart instead of my head because I tend to over-think things and rationalize too much. It's not that I'm a procrastinator, it's that I'm sometimes indecisive because I want to think about things too much when I should really just listen to my heart and jump with both feet. Anybody know what I mean? If you've ever been at a meeting with me you'd probably notice that I don't usually say much when people are debating things because I'm thinking and processing things....then when the people are pretty much done debating things they realize that I haven't said anything and then look at me and say, "Well Andrew, what do you think?" By that time, I've usually processed the situation from so many angles. So, I say my piece and everyone says "Hmm...yeah...I hadn't thought of it that way." In some ways it's good, but in others it's bad because I didn't take part in any of the conversation leading up to that point.

I'm currently working on redoing my resume. I have a lead with a video editing and production place, and I'd like to get them my resume and see if they're interested. I was thinking of making a DVD of some of the video projects that I've done so they could take a look at what I can do. I was also thinking of making a video showing who I am....kind of a video of my life and accomplishments....I think it would be lots of fun to make even though it might come across as a bit egotistical. Speaking of ego's...I just talked to Peter the other day...it was great to talk to him. He seems to be having an amazing time in Ontario at Camp Brebeuf. He was telling me that he just took a course about high ropes so that he could run the ropes course at camp. Apparently, the whole course is 60 feet in the air and you are hooked in to a support wire so that you don't fall to the ground. It sounds like it would be crazy fun...tire swings, tight ropes, monkey bars, rope bridges, and platforms to jump to all 60 feet in the air! Sounds like it would be pretty scary, but a whole lot of fun. Quite the challenge I'm sure. Anyways, I shouldn't say that Pete has a big ego....he used to in highschool....but he's much more humble now....right Pete?

Back to the resume thing. I'm actually very excited about this opportunity. I think it would be amazing to be able to do video editing and production as a job. A couple things that you might like to know:
1. I would be working for The Miracle Channel, so all my collegues would be Christian which would be really cool! I think it would be an amazing environement to work in.
2. The Miracle Channel's production studio's are located in Lethbridge Alberta

And finally, my tentative schedule for heading to Europe at the end of the summer:

August 25th - Leave from Prince George and stop at Williams Lake to do some rock climbing
August 26th - Continue on to Squamish to do some more climbing
August 27th - Not sure what I'm doing yet, but it will be fun
August 28th - Drive to Vancouver to stay with my aunt and uncle and leave my car at their house.
August 29th - Fly to Frankfurt Germany with Anthony to visit with friends from last summer
September 4th - Fly to Czech Republic to see Magdelena (Czech exchange student in Anthony's class)
September 7th - Fly to Dublin with Anthony to meet up with Jenn, Roberta, and Brian
September 19th - Fly from Edinburgh to Rome with Anthony for a family reunion. Mom and dad, cousins, aunts, and uncles will be meeting us there on the same day.
September 29th - Leave from Rome to fly back to Vancouver (arrive Sept 30th)
Oct 2nd - Drive home from Vancouver (If I feel like it....maybe I'll just do something else...I won't have a job to go back to....at least I don't have one secured right now)

So, that's what I've been meaning to type for a while....any questions?

Adios,
Andrew

Grad 2004 is much harder

2006-06-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

You will be hard pressed to find me in this picture. I've scanned it at a huge resolution (it's about 34MB), but it even took me a few minutes to find myself in the picture and I could remember exactly where I was standing. I've got 2 hints for ya:
1. I'm standing next to Jenn Russell
2. I'm wearing a tie

Can you find me?

2006-06-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

Here is the outdoor group shot of all the 2006 UNBC grads. The small pic is linked to a HUGE resolution picture (about 11 MB in size). Take a look through and see if you can find me.

A quick update

2006-06-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

So, I don't really have too much time to be typing cause I'm at Kelly Road teaching and it is currently my prep block. I'm just subbing today, and I probably won't be teaching any more this year until I get back from Europe in October. But, my co-operating teacher for my practicum really needed someone to come in for today, so I bailed him out. I've been working tons at Nata Reforestation as the office administrator/assistant manager, and it's been lots of fun. My job is so diverse that I get to do a thousand different things in one day. Last pay period, I worked 120 hours in 10 days....so I've been makin the big bucks.

I had my graduation ceremony last Friday, so now I can write my name like this:

Andrew Johnson
BSc, BEd

I'll post a few pictures when I get home.

Anyways, I need to get to work now. Oh, those BIG decisions are still up in the air. I'll try and elude to them in my next post. I just haven't had enought quiet time to think about my options.

Adios,
Andrew

PS I hope to post my Europe schedule soon as well. I'm mostly writing this now so I don't forget later.

I don't know why I do it

2006-05-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

I really don't know how things like this happen, but I seem to take on way more than I have time for. I'm super busy with a million projects...and I don't even have time to go outside and enjoy the nice weather. Anyways, I'm hoping to have time to write something substantial tonight and post it on my blog. I've been dealing with a lot of "big" decisions lately and I think it will help me to figure some things out if I write about it. So there might be a big post on its way....we'll see.

Adios,
Andrew

The Last Week

2006-04-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

Well....

I finished teaching my grade 9 math class on Thursday of last week, and my supervising teacher is taking over on Monday of this week. I'm pretty sure that those kids will be in for a bit of a shock. I'm pretty laid back in class and I let a lot of things slide that, in my opinion, don't really matter. Some students listen to music while their working on math and I just let it go because it stops them from talking to others and keeps them concentrated on their work. I'm not sure if my supervising teacher will be letting anything like that happen. She came in on Thursday while I was talking to a student who didn't do any work all class...since she's taking over this week, she decided to make him come in at lunch on Monday to make up the time he wasted. Ya, she hasn't even taught them yet and she's already got one in detention. Don't get me wrong, I was going to give him a detention as well, but their going to be in for a shock I think.

This week I'll be teaching my grade 9 computer class and grade 11 computer class. Both classes are making web sites as their final project for the web development unit. As you can imagine, the grade 11 web sites will be far more advanced than the grade 9's. It's going to take me a long time to mark all the sites though. But, I'm looking forward to being done. My last day of teaching will be Friday of this week and then I observe a few days the week after that. The end is very much in sight. It wouldn't have been such a long stretch if I was actually getting paid for the obscene amounts of work that I've been doing, but I don't get paid. And now that my bank account is down to only $90....I'm feeling the need to find a real job where I get paid and can go home from work and not have extra things to do (marking, lesson prep, assignments to create, quizzes, tests, tutorials, homework, worksheets...).

But, I'm excited about making a video for the DYC this year, and I've been working on a few other projects as well that are fulfilling. I'm not going to say anything about the other projects until I've done some more progress on them...they're a surprise. But ya, I'm not even done being busy from this teaching practicum and I've already started to fill my life with other things that need to get done. I guess I'll never really learn....

I don't know....maybe I just like being busy.

Anyways, I'm off to bed.

Adios for now,
Andrew

A quick update

2006-04-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

So, Jane sent me a text message the other day complaining about the lack of updates on my blog. So here I am....writing a little something to update anyone who still comes here. I suspect that Jane might be the only regular and the odd person might show up on my site when they have absolutely nothing to do. I really surprised myself today while trying to get to my blog....I actually forgot the web address of my blog for a moment...it took me about 30 seconds to remember how to get to it. During that 30 seconds I even considered going to Jane's website because I know she has a link to my site. But after a few more seconds I managed to remember.

So an update is in order I guess:

I'm still teaching right now (3 classes a day...Computers 9, 11, and Math 9).
I have no life because of all the prep and marking that I'm doing for the classes (it's very sad.....).
On weekends I sleep in on Saturday, and then try and forget about everything I need to get ready for Monday. Sunday, I get up early and work on things before church, then come home and work on things until supper. Then (most Sunday evenings) I stay home again and try and prepare things for Tuesday.
I'll be starting to "Phase Out" next week and I'll be officially done my teaching practicum on April 21st.
As soon as I'm done my practicum I'll be setting up all my flights to Europe in September. Right now I'm still waiting for my travel agent to get back to me on the main flights. September will be quite the month for me and Anthony....Germany, Czech Republic, Ireland, Scotland, and Italy. It will be tons of fun!

Anyways, that's all I got for now. I could go on for about 10 pages about how much I have to do and how disorganized my life is....but I don't think very many people want to read about that.

That's the best I can do for now.....Adios,

Andrew

I've got a spare few seconds

2006-02-12T21:29:00.000-08:00

Well, actually...I've had some free time lately, but I've opted to spend it doing something else other than being in front of the comptuer. I've been working all of last week preparing for teaching this coming week at Kelly Road SS in PG.

Here's what I'm teaching:

Information and Communication Technology 9
Information and Communication Technology 11
Core Math 9

I start teaching this week and I finish on April 28th. It's my final practicum. After this I'll be a teacher. Well, actually, I have to wait for the BC College of Teachers and BC Teachers Federation to certify me....but that is just paperwork. I get a normal high school spring break March 11th to March 26th which is going to be great. The youth group is going to Smithers on the 10th and I get to drive the bus....it's gonna be a riot.

Lets see, anything else special? Ummm.....not really. Well actually, Tyler and I are almost done making a video slideshow for the houseboat trip that we did last summer to Shuswap Lake. We took about 4500 pictures during the week, so there were a lot of things to go through. But, I'm excited to see the final product. Speaking of videos....one of the other student teachers and I are going to start a film club at Kelly Road....we're thinking of getting them to do some kind of short video and then we'll work with them to edit and produce it. It should be fun.

Well that's about it for now. I might actually update this a little more often (at least once a week I think)....it's nice to reflect on what is going on in my life and where I'm headed.

Adios,
Andrew

Birth and Resurrection

2006-01-11T22:57:00.000-08:00

Well...I'm turning 24 this Friday. Friday the 13th.

Talked to my sponsor teachers today at Kelly Road. Looks like I'll be teaching Computers 9 and 11, and core math 9 for the 10 weeks. It should be fun....but I'm sure it'll be a challenge. I guess I'll know for sure if I want to be a teacher at the end of this practicum. The dilemma in my mind is whether I'll be happy as a teacher...I've already established that I can do it...but the question is whether I would be happier doing something else. We'll see.

I just found a replacement motherboard for my old laptop on ebay. Imagine that! You really can find anything on ebay. So it will be shipped to me tomorrow and hopefully arrive next week. If everything goes according to plan, I will be able to resurrect my laptop before the end of this month. I'm a little depressed that I didn't look on ebay earlier, but I'm still pretty happy with my new laptop....and maybe now I can sell my old one and use the money to make payments on my new one.

So I was in class the other day...actually it was before class, and decided to fire up msn to see who was online. Then I realized that I had my mini webcam in my bag which clips on my laptop screen, so I hooked it up. I started chatting with Jane and got to show her my classroom and the view that I had of the admin building. It was cool to be sitting in class...connected to the internet wirelessly...and chatting on msn. I don't know...maybe only other computer geeks can understand why I think it's so cool.

Adios for now,
Andrew

Many things to be said....

2006-01-09T23:35:00.000-08:00

OK, so even though I've had lots of free time in the last little while I still haven't updated my blog. But why you say? Well...a lot of things have been happening and I've been filling all my free time with things that don't have to do with computers or sitting at desks....there will be plenty of that to come over the next month.

First, I want to talk about my new laptop. I am really enjoying it. I actually got it on December 18th which was a really great early Christmas present. I'm loving the wide screen....it makes me feel so free....there's so much room....I don't fee cramped like I used to on a square monitor. Now, granted this machine is not much faster (1.8GHz instead of 1.6GHz) than my last laptop, it has a substantial upgrade on RAM (1 GB) and hard disk space (100 GB). I think that it will last me a long time. I've already installed Battlefield 2 on it and it runs like a dream. Also, during the break when I was out at Camp Morice Pete and I got a chance to play some Warcraft II using our wireless cards and setting them up to run ad hoc (with out a base station for all you non geeks out there). It was tons of fun and I managed to wallop him twice and Matt once. It was lots of fun.

Second, I'd like to tell you about my (not relaxing at all) month off. I finished classes on December 1st and didn't have to come back until January 3rd. It was nice, but I didn't relax very much....I filled all my time with decorating, buying gifts, playing hockey, organizing Warcraft tournaments, cleaning the house, and hanging out with friends. I'm actually surprised at the small amount of time I spent on the computer during the holidays. I espessially am surprised at how little I've used my laptop. But, now that I'm in school I'm sure that I'll be using it lots. Anyways, the days surrounding Christmas were filled with marathon after marathon of eating. Big dinner at my house, turkey dinner at the Parrish house, a ham dinner at our house, plenty of food at the retreat at Camp Morice, and another ham dinner at Camp. I loved it. Food is my second favourite part of Christmas....the first being the birth of Jesus (of course). For Christmas, I got a new pair of hiking boots that look like they are more than adequate to climb Everest....they are pretty skookem.

Third, I'd like to tell you how much fun I had after the retreat at Camp Morice. The Daigles, Bagnalls and myself stayed out at camp for new years and had lots of fun. The best part was when Pete, Matt, and myself went out on the lake and cleanned off a full sized hockey rink on the ice. Later that day we all played hockey out on the rink until it was so dark that we couldn't see the puck....it was a blast! To bring in the new year, we took a whole lot of wood out to the sand on the beach and started a huge bon fire which was lit about 10 minutes before midnight. We stacked the kinling about 2 feet high and then pilled on the regular firewood after that. It was a pretty sweet fire.

Lastly, the start of another university semester....and acutally my last university semester. I'll be finished at the end of this April. When all is said and done, I'll have been at UNBC for 6 years which is 12 semesters which translates into $24,000 in tuition and about $6,000 in books for my university career. That's a whole lot of money! That's about 40 different professors, 50 different classrooms, 66 different courses, and over $400 spent on hashbrowns for breakfast. It sure adds up when you think about it. This semester I'll be in classes until the end of the month of January, and then I begin teaching in February at Kelly Road Senior Secondary. I'll be teaching 2 computer classes and one math class for about 10 weeks. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

Adios for now,
Andrew

It's on the way!

2005-12-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

YESSSS!

My new Dell Inspiron 6000 is on the way! I have to put myself into debt to get it, but it's done now so who cares. I didn't want to get a $700 laptop that I'd be dissapointed with, so I went a little further and got something that is equivalent to my old laptop....but a few upgrades (mostly just the ram and the hard drive). The estimated arrival date (on my doorstep) is Dec 20th...so I'll have a new laptop for Christmas! And....at least I can have the satisfaction of getting Airmiles for the purchase that I made. Maybe I can use the points to get some gift certificates for Coast Mountain or something.

I'm excited about making a video of my Shuswap houseboating adventures in the summer. I've been working on it a bit and it's turning out pretty good. I've been making the video in high definition widescreen...so it should look pretty amazing on my projector! I picked a Fatboy Slim song to go in the background...and it is turning out nicely.

Anyways, that's just a quick update. I'm not in the mood for typing a whole lot...this keyboard sucks and the spacebar doesn't work very well. When I'm typing it sounds like I'm using an old typewritter....everyone in the house can hear me!

Cheers!

What am I going to do now?

2005-12-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Well...I feel terrible. The world is coming down around me and I don't know what to do. A terrible thing has happenned. I feel lost and alone. Everywhere I go I feel confused and incoherent...I've lost what makes me happy. Yes...the unthinkable has happenned....the worst thing imaginable. It's so terrible that I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

My laptop has died.

It's unrepairable. Dell doesn't make the parts anymore.

Bye,
Andrew

I Have Returned

2005-11-08T19:21:00.000-08:00

I know...I'm a loser. It's taken me forever to actually update my blog. I figured that today was the 8th, so I should probably update my blog before the 11th because if I didn't, it would mean that I hadn't updated it for an entire month. Anyways, I'm back from my short 8 day practicum at PGSS and it was a riot! I had a really good time teaching and my sponsor teacher was great. I still don't know how I did (marks wise) on the practicum, but I'm pretty sure I did well. I should find out this Thursday. I was lucky enough to get to teach combinatorics which is one of my favourite subjects in math, so I had a fun time. This week, I'm back to UNBC classes and my teachers are making us feel the pain by loading on a hundred assignments for us to do before the end of the semester. Speaking of that, it was pointed out that I've only got 7 weeks of university classes left and 10 weeks of practicum. How sweet is that? Another Bachelor degree!

Tomorrow is going to be a good time. I don't have any classes, so I'm off to Camp Morice with Jane, Andy, and Berta for most of the day. I hope it's nice weather. It will be good to be out there and to bring Jackie some calendars. That's right! The Camp Morice calendars are done! If you want one send me an email or go to the website and order one. We'll even ship it to you if you're too lazy.

Anyways, that's enough for now (start slow and taper off...and all that stuff).

Andrew

Thanksgiving...and thanks to be safe

2005-10-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

So I went caving yesterday. It was a really good time.

But, the excitement comes at the end of the day. We came to the exit of the cave and looked to see that it was snowing like crazy. We were thinking…it 3:30…we’ve got lots of time. We’ll start to get out (a 30 foot climb), and then start down the mountain right away. But, once we started down the mountain we realized that it was going to take a lot longer. Let me tell you…snow covered, wet, and cold rocks are not that easy to climb down on. We got to the car at about 5:30 and headed to town thinking that we’d be back by 7:30 (only about 1.5 hrs late). So we were driving down the 39km road (going about 60km/hr). After about 19km I started to feel my car really pulling to the right. I knew what it was right away…a flat tire. 20km from a highway or paved road. So, luckily, I had the little donut tire for a spare….but there is a problem with that…you can only go 80km/hr at maximum. After the slooooowwww driving on the dirt road we got to the paved road and started home. Most of the paved road was free of traffic until we got to the highway. On the highway, there were a bunch of vehicles flying past us the whole way…probably a little annoyed that we were going 80 when they were all wanting to go 110 or faster. At one point a black Jimmy pulled up behind me and was flashing his highbeams, swerving back and forth on the road, and honking his horn. I was thinking, “Who is this A$$hole? And why doesn’t he just pass me?” After a few seconds he passes me and there are people waving their arms and making gestures in the window as they pass. He pulls right in front of me and starts slamming on the brakes, putting on his signal (to pull over right), and waiving his arm out the window. By now, just about anyone would be thinking “what is going on and what is this guys problem?”, but I knew better. I told Rachael to roll down the window so I could give them an earful as we drove by…I knew there was something familiar about that black Jimmy, and now looking into the window I could see that it’s my new cousin Marcio, his friend Chris, and my dad in the vehicle. They’d been looking for us for a while…they were worried because we were more than 3 hours late from when we said we might be home. I learned later that one of the vehicles that had passed us earlier had my brother, Tim, Jonathan, and Nolan in it…they were also looking for us. Anyways, I pulled over and talked to my dad for a minute and told him things were fine but we were just late. So we continued on home and had a nice warm shower to clean off the excessive amounts of dirt that had accumulated on our bodies.

Not a bad story hey?

It was cool to see that so many people cared about us and were worried about us. Thanks everyone.

I'm a Professional

2005-10-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been avoiding the question and giving vague answers all week...the question was "when is your drivers test for your bus license?"

I didn't say because I wasn't sure if I was going to pass and I didn't want a bunch of people calling me asking how I did and then I would have to tell them that I failed. After all, I did only take 4 hours worth of lessons when the driving school thought I should take 11. But, who cares now!

That's right...if you haven't already guessed...I got my license! That's right...my class 2...umhuh! I'm so happy to have it over with. It was a big stress for me and I'm so happy that I passed. I feel like patting myself on the back and saying "Andrew, you have what it takes!...Well done!" It's a great feeling to be able to follow through on something when you decide that it's important.

Anyways, that is my big triumph for today. I'm excited about the new Lost episode which is playing on TV as we speak (or as I type), but I'm not watching it because I am at work right now. I'll have to watch it later in the week.

Au revoir,
Andrew

What a long week…

2005-09-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

Well, just when you think you’ve got things under control…the whole world falls apart in front of your eyes. I’ve put my head down and been running hard all week and I just can‘t seem to get ahead. Even when I finish assignments in record time, I still can’t get it all done. It’s been pretty frustrating. And now, here I am sitting at a desk at the end of a long week, and what am I doing?…I’m working. I’d like to think that soon it will be over, that soon I will have some free time and soon I will have a regular job with regular hours….but I don’t think it will happen. I have the uncanny ability to fill every moment of free time up with something. Why do I keep doing this to myself?

Anyways, I can at least look at things on a brighter side for right now. I’m sitting at work getting paid $10/hr to do nothing but wait for people to return equipment. This weekend will be a lot of fun…my cousin Saveria is getting married and a whole bunch of family is in town…it’s going to be one big party.

I’m going to go now because I’ve nothing interesting to say…maybe I’ll think of something later and add another post.

AJ

Busy...busy...busy

2005-09-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

OK, so I haven't updated enought lately...I know. I've been pretty busy and I just haven't got around to typing.

For now, I have a good animation to post....I love it.

I'll try and post some more tomorrow.

Andrew

Back in the Game

2005-09-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I’ve been thinking for a while about what I should write for a post, but nothing substantial has come to mind. At first I wanted to post a big message complaining about how busy I am and how crappy my school schedule is, but it seems like a waist of time to be thinking and typing about that. I think the problem is that I’ve been thinking about posting too much instead of just typing. Anyways, here is what’s happened lately.

School has started and I’ve already handed in an 8 page report on my observations at PGSS during the first week of high school. Don’t let the number of pages make you think that I put a lot of work in…my only real strength is that I can type really fast and I got good at writing my thoughts from my trip to Europe. My observation report was just a whole lot of things I noticed and then a quick story or reflection on what it meant to me. It’s was exactly what they wanted though.

It seems like I always take on too much. I’m getting my bus license, making a video for the hospital, going to school, working three nights a week, going to youth group, going to young adults group, and trying to stay in touch with friends who do not live in PG. Last week was crazy for me…I felt like everything was out of control and that I was just stuck on the ride. It’s kinda like those stupid ‘virtual adventure’ rides that you can go on…I hate those things mostly because I get so sick on them. You get inside, sit down, strap yourself in, and the attendant closes the door and you hear a big thud as the door is locked. And then you’re trapped for the duration of the ride. Some weeks feel like that for me. But, this week was a bit different. On Thursday I stayed home for most of the day and just sat at my computer or in a chair and read some books, replied to some emails and printed off some homework. It was a very relaxing day. Jane came over to borrow my internet connection for a while (so that she could download some Stargate episodes). It was interesting…we sat across the table from one another while working on various things and we didn’t say more than a few words to each other, but looking back I enjoyed having her company even though we didn’t really say anything….I don’t know…maybe it’s a guy thing. At any rate, I’m going to have to try and fit one of those ‘catch-up’ days into my schedule every week…it was very therapeutic.

The coming weeks should be pretty fun. I have some assignments for class that might be a bit interesting, but mostly I’m excited about making up a series of lessons for a unit in math 12 called Combinatorics. I’m hoping that I can find some good examples and real world applications of Combinatorics so that I can make my classes a little bit more interesting. I was thinking about why I want to work so hard at making it interesting…it’s not because I want to outdo the teacher that I’m taking over for…it’s because I want to outdo myself. Last February when I was teaching at Kelly Road I had a bunch of cool stories and real world applications that seemed to really help me to get the students to buy into what I was teaching…they actually though what I was teaching them might be useful. Anyways, I hope to give it my all for this unit and see what happens.

Well, that’s about enough for this post…I have turned over a new leaf and I plan to post a bit more often. My motto ‘Start slow and taper off ‘ is taking a back seat to my new motto ‘ Go BIG or go home ‘

Adios for now,
Andrew

PS: Here is the answer to a math question...keep in mind that the answer does not nessesarily reflect my views.

TA DA!

2005-09-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I just finished the WYD video, so I thought I'd post it for everyone to see. Pete got a preview of it the other day and he gave it the thumbs up. Speaking of Pete, man that guy is awesome at making flash animations. His photoweb is super cool!

Anyways, here is the link to the WYD Video
(I recommend that you right click and choose ‘Save Target As…’ and save it to your computer before playing it – it’s over 90MB so it might take a little while to download)

Adios!
Andrew

Grizly Den Video

2005-09-05T00:26:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to the Grizly Den video. I think it's pretty good...

The quality isn't very high because I wanted to keep the file size small, but I have a high quality version on my laptop.

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

Enjoy and crank up the sound!

Hiking at Grizly Den

2005-09-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

Well...I had a really good time Friday and Saturday. Rachael, Erin, Jane, and I went to the Grizly Den cabin for one night. It was a ton of fun! I have some pictures and video that I will post later. AND, we managed to miss the huge storm that hit Prince George as well. We would have been very miserable if that storm had hit us while we were hiking.

Anyways, just thought I'd post a short comment on my last adventure before school starts. The video that I'm making should be pretty funny...I'll be sure to post a link to it as soon as I get it done.

Bye for now,
Andrew

It's good to be home...sort of

2005-08-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

It’s good to be home…sort of

Well, naturlich (of course) I’m home now and well rested. It’s nice to be home and sleeping in my own bed, but it’s also very sad that the adventure is over. I am having a hard time motivating myself to get ready to go back to school next week. I’m not looking forward to it. But, I guess I should just enjoy the remaining few days that I still have and be happy that I made so many friends and had so many good experiences. I have absolutely no regrets about the entire trip (except for the fact that I got on the plane to come home). I realized on the plane ride home that I could have stayed in Europe until about Christmas if I decided to take a year off before finishing getting my education degree. But, there is a part of me that wants to get it done. I hate having loose ends, and not finishing my degree on time would be a huge loose end. Anyways, I’m here now and will be ready to put in one more year of classes until I can finally get the piece of paper that I will have paid over $10,000 for.

I weighed myself when I came back and sadly I lost 2 pounds. To most people that would be a great thing…to lose weight, but I honestly wanted to gain a bit of weight while I was gone. I was hoping that all the trekking with my 80 pounds of luggage would have helped my bulk up a bit…and I definitely ate as much as I could. Oh, well…I guess there’s always next time.

That’s right! There will be a next time…and by then who knows…maybe I’ll have some new gadget that will let me post pictures and text without a laptop. I can see myself having a cool gadget like that around this time next year.

Anyways, I’ll leave it at that for now. There is talk of one more adventure before the school year starts…We’ll see how things shape up.

Andrew

World Youth Day Theme Song

2005-08-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

I found the world youth day theme song.

http://web.unbc.ca/~johnsona/wjt05.mp3

Enjoy!

4:30 AM

2005-08-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

Well, you never know what will happen at 4:30 in the morning...

I was just sitting here typing emails and looking for songs on the net when a Turkish family came and sat near me. After a few minutes of them discussing amongst themselves, they asked me where I was from. After a few minutes the were offering me food and telling me a bit about Turkey (the Turkish pizza that they had was really good). I remembered that I still had a postcard of the Canadian Rockies, so I pulled it out and gave it to them. I also showed them a few picture from world youth day because I told them I was here for it. The next thing I know we are exchanging emails and they leave for their flight. The seemed like really nice people. It was pretty cool.

When they left, they each grabbed a push cart with a bunch of bags on it, and the dad accidently took mine (without looking at which cart he was pushing). They all laughed pretty hard when I said "Hey....that's mine..."

The hottest day yet

2005-08-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

Without question, today was the hottest day yet for Spain. Today was the day...the day that I would test my resilience...the day that I would finally know if I could go a whole day without sunscreen....(except for on my face...I heard that too much sun on your face makes you look old sooner). After I got up I went up on the terrace to check my email and sweat in the sun a little. I decided to get ready for a relaxing day before I start my long journey home. My flight is to leave Malaga at 9:50pm and arrive at 12:35am in Cologne. Then I wait until 9:35am when my flight leaves for Canada. There isn't enought time to find a hotel and get a good nights sleep, so I'm just going to stay in the airport. I've decided that I'm not going to sleep so that I can start getting my body back into the BC sleep cycle. If I have a snooze on my flight to Canada (at about 10am...which is 1am BC time) then it should start me off on getting used to Pacific time. Then I can stay up for the rest of my flight until I get to Prince George where I can sleep at the normal time (9 or 10pm).
Anyways, in the afternoon I got a chance to go shopping for a bit and look (yet again) for the Spanish patch. I still didn't find one. At 2:15 we went down to the outdoor pool to go for a swim. Wow was that ever refreshing...they must have had that pool at the perfect temperature for a 34 C day. I dove in head first swam for a bit and then dried off in the sun in about 5 minutes. It was great. After that we went out for supper to a nice little restaurant. There was a meal for two which had a huge selection of things to share. Paella, Chorizo, Blood sussage, stuffed peppers, eggs potatoes and peppers, and a whole bunch of other things that I can't remember. The bad thing was that Peter is alergic to potatoes and about half of the stuff had potatoes in it...he got stuck eating a bunch of bread. And on top of that, the Paella must have been cooked next to some potatoes because Peter didn't feel very well after eating it.
After that we jumped in the car and started on the winedy road to Malaga. The road to get there is actually pretty good. The highway has 3 or 4 lanes and the speed limit is 100-120km/hr...the only problem is that there are toll booths every 25km or so; some cost more than others, but I guess it's the price you pay for being able to get somewhere fast. When we arrived at the airport I quickly found the line where I could check my bags and then said my goodbyes to Pete and Bob. I won't be seeing Pete until Christmas because he is going to Toronto to do his Masters degree. He decided it would be easier if he went from Spain straight to Toronto and then just had the rest of his stuff shipped on the bus.
My plane to leave Spain was a bit delayed, but it didn't matter that much to me since I don't have anywhere to go once I get to Cologne. When we drove into Malaga it was 37'C and when I landed in Cologne it was 10'C. It took me a few seconds to adjust.Now I'm just waiting in the airport...I might make a phone call or two, check my email, post this message, and try to download some of the music from World Youth Day.

God Bless,
Andrew

My Quest for a patch

2005-08-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

I slept in today (again) and then enjoyed two very strong cups of coffee from my friend the French Press. I think I'm going to start using the cappuccino machine when I get home. These europeans have things figured out. I decided I wanted to go out in the sun for the morning, but I didn't really feel like just lying there...after all I just woke up, so I decided to mop the terrace. I just about burned the soles of my feet it was so hot. Later that morning Bob and I went for a walk around town to see some of the sights. There are Ronda was an inpenitrable fortrace. It is set on a cliff with two walls around the perimiter of the base of the cliffs. The only way that anyone would have a chance at getting into Ronda would be to attack it with siege weapons and almost completely destroy it. Anyways, the remains of the walls were pretty cool and we got to scope out a public outdoor pool that looked really nice. When we got back to the appartment we told everybody else about it and it was decided that we'd head over there tomorrow.Pete, Bob, and I had lunch and the girls went to Seville for the day. After lunch my quest to find a patch from Spain began. I think I must have gone into every souvenir shop in the area (at least 20 of them) and I didn't find anything. I even went to the tourist information center and asked if they would know where one would be; they sent me to a store but alas there was none. I even looked up the word for patch so that I could ask in Spanish instead of looking around in each store. No luck. I did manage to find a few other things that will be good, but not the patch that I wanted. In the evening, we had a late supper and then yet another episode of Lost on the TV. A couple of nights ago I figured out how to hook my laptop up to the TV. Normally this would be easy, but since we are in Europe, the video system is slightly different. When I hooked it up at first, we got a good picture but there was no color. Anyways, watching Lost on a nice TV with no commercials is a nice experience. Tonight is my night to sleep on the couch instead of the floor so I'm pretty excited about another good sleep.

The Quest continues....
Andrew

More Pics

2005-08-25T03:43:00.000-07:00

Here is an archway in Ronda with the city in the background. It was quite a nice day.
This is the last group photo that we took before the 4 of us left Marienfield leaving the rest of the crew behind.
This is a shot of one of the streets near where we are staying. I took the picture from the terrace that is on the roof.

Some more pictures

2005-08-25T03:37:00.000-07:00

We found this sign in Dusseldorf and had to take a picture. I thought it was hilarious!
Here is a picture of the train station platform where all the Italians did the Shamo...Shamo thing. You can't afford to be clostrophobic in this situation.

The Rock of Gerbraltar

2005-08-25T03:36:00.000-07:00

We slept in a bit today, but again I was up making myself a couple strong cups of coffee. I love those French press things...they are awesome. We relaxed for the morning and talked about what we would do today. After a little while it was decided that we'd go to the Rock of Gerbraltar and then to the beach. The Rock of Gerbraltar is an island very close to Spain. The island is owned by the British, so you can't go to it unless you pass through border control and show your passport. Most of us forgot ours, so we ended up lookin at the Rock of Gerbraltar and then going to a beach a few hundred meters away to swim. The water was much cooler, but still very refreshing in the heat. I had a short nap and then went for a swim with Rachael out to the boyes and back. Later, Peter, Elizabeth, and I went for a walk and stopped by McD's for a quick burger because we were so hungary and there were only restaurants nearby (yes I know....you can all say it together now...."Shamo...Shamo...Shamo"). I've been eating plenty of Spanish food, so I had no problem having a burger for a snack. It took us 2 hours to get there and a little more to get back (you don't go as fast when driving up hill). When we got back we had something to eat and then watched another episode of Lost. And now I am caught up. I have finished writing this post and there are no more to write until another day passes. I really enjoy writting these posts, but today I am a bit tired, so this post isn't very long. But oh well...I'm on vacation right?

Adios,Andrew

Coffee and A day at the beach

2005-08-25T03:34:00.000-07:00

When I woke up this morning I was excited to see that the kitchen was stocked with a French press, and Bev had brought some Starbucks coffee grounds. I made my self a strong coffee, went up to the terrace, and relaxed in the morning sun while reading "Wild at Heart". After breakfast we decided that a day at the beach would be a good choice. I thought it was a great idea and a good opportunity to go swimming in the Mediterranian again. So we left for a beach that is located between San Pedro and Malaga called Las Chapas (a lady at the tourist booth recommended it to us). It was quite the drive to get there...Ronda is high in the mountains and the road to the beach is a 50km long winedy road. Its a good thing that I volunteered to be the navigator because if I was sitting in the back seat I would have gotten sick for sure. Anyways, we found the beach no problem (of course...I am the navigator), and set up to go swimming. The beach was pretty nice and the water was really warm...but still refreshing. After a few minutes swimming we broke out the frisby and started tossing it around. Diving after a frisby when you can land in water is pretty fun. Later I layed down and finished reading my book and then fell asleep for about 30 minutes or so (yes...I know you are a bit jealous). Bob wasn't feeling quite so good, so we packed up around 5pm and headed back to Ronda (it takes about 1.5 hours to get back up that terribly winedy road).When we got back we each had a quick shower and Bob had a short nap. Then we went out for diner. I decided to have tripe and chickpeas for the first course and fries and beef in sauce for the second course. The tripe was actually really good...I put some Tabasco in it to kick it up a knotch. Aunty Marie still makes the best tripe in the world though. Now, I have to tell you about my desert. It was quite a surprise to me when I actually got it. I looked on the menu and read through the list of deserts. They had the Spanish name on one side and then the English translation on the other. I looked at one of the Spanish deserts and the translation was banana. I thought to myself, "Look at all these other deserts...they all cost the same as this one...it must be more than just a banana...the translation must be a bit off or something...I think I'll try this one." Well I was wrong! The waiter brought me out a banana on a plate with a fork and knife. The banana was still in its skin! They didn't even try to make it look a bit better than just a banana. You would think that they'd at least peel it and cut it up for you...but they didn't. I just got a banana and a whole lot of laughs.After diner we watched another episode of Lost, and then I stayed up late writting the post about the World Youth Day and our marathon of travelling. It was a good day and I got a good tan.

Our first day in Ronda

2005-08-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

When we arrived in Ronda at about 7:45am we were pretty tired and a little grumpy. The sleep on the train was pretty squished, and the room was scorching hot. I was under the impression that Ronda was a pretty small town, but in reality it is pretty big. At least as big as Quesnel anyways. When we arrived at the train station, all we had was an address of the place where we were staying. Peter's parents hadn't arrived yet since they had to drive from Barcelona. So we were on our own trying to find the appartment we were staying in. As we walked out of the train station there was a taxi nearby, and I imediately waved him down, showed him the address, and asked how much. At this point I was willing to pay almost anything if I didn't have to carry my heavy pack any further, but in the end it was only going to cost us 4.50 euro to get to the appartment. I was so happy that we made it there so quickly that I gave him 6 euro. The doors have push button locks, so we used the code to open them and we were in. The appartment is really nice; a guy from Wales owns it, I think, and comes here for a vacation. Since Peter's parents weren't here, we all had a bed to sleep in, and we dropped our packs and fell asleep right away.We had an extra couple hours sleep and woke up at 11am. There is a small store right across the street, so we ran over there and bought a bunch of things to eat and drink, and then returned to the appartment to eat and relax. After we had a bite to eat we decided to go out and walk around the town. The area is actually quite breathtaking. The city is on the side of a steep hill and there are a lot of old bridges and walkways that must be really old, but still in use. I have a few pictures for later. After we had finished exploring for the day, we returned to the appartment just in time for Peter's parents (Bob and Bev) to arrive. They were excited to see us. Bob was especially happy to see Rachael because he had not seen her since she left Canada last August for a university exchange in Germany. We unpacked our stuff had something to eat and relaxed in the sun for the rest of the afternoon and night. When the sun went down we watched an episode of Lost before going to bed.

Videos

2005-08-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

Some videos for you...

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

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

Enjoy!

World Youth Day (another marathon)

2005-08-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

Today was the actual world youth day. There were about a million people in Marienfield there to have mass together. We were woken up at 7:30 to the theme song for world youth day: Venite Adoramus. Everyone was slow to get up and get going, but eventualy we were all up and eating breakfast. The night had brought a lot of dew and dampness, so the field was a bit mushy in spots and a bit muddy in others. The sky was clouded, but not with rain clouds (thank God). A lot of people were cranky from such a lousy sleep, but eventually their spirits began to get better and the entire field was full of energy. I took this opportunity to go for a walk and mentally prepare myself for the day to come.

Jenn was nice enough to get me a coffee in the morning...and I'll tell you that is not an easy thing to do when there are a million people who also want coffee. I was very thankful even though the coffee was only warm because they were making it so fast. The coffee was really nice.
After the coffee it was time to pack up our stuff and get ready to leave. Only Peter, Rachael, Elizabeth, and myself had to leave early...the rest of the crew were staying there until the mass was over. We said our goodbye to everyone and put on our packs. Then it was time for a group picture, so we took them off again. The people sitting on the field behind us were getting a bit annoyed because we were blocking their view to the screen. With our packs on, I think the four of us could have blocked out half the sky for those people. Anyways, as we left I noticed Jenn had a few tears in her eye...I think she really missed all of us PG people. The four of us decided to walk to the very back of the field and watch most of the mass from there so that we could be ahead of the other million people who would be leaving during the afternoon after mass. It was about 1.5 km just to walk to the back of the field from where we were. When we got there we dropped our packs, sat down, and had a bite to eat while we watched the start of the mass. Yes, I know...eating in mass is not allowed...but I think God had no problem making an exception this time. We stayed until the homily was over and then decided to leave. The homily was about coming to worship Him. The theme of world youth day was based on a passage from the bible where the wise men travelled a great distance to bring Him gifts. The Pope talked a lot about getting out there and using our energy and youth to change the world. He talked about not getting caught up with the politics of the church. I can't remember too much because I was so tired. I can remember thinking that his message was a message of empowerment...the same empowerment that Pope John Paul II would have gave. I have two thumbs up for Frank who gave me a radio with hand crank for a gift for being a groomsmen at his wedding. The radio has a hand crank on it so that you can charge it up whenever you want...you just have wind it up. It also has a big speaker on the front so that lots of people can listen. All the people I was with enjoyed hearing the mass in English (translated over the radio) and the radio really came in handy.

Anyways, it's a good thing we left when we did, because I heard later that most people had a 2 hr wait for the shuttle bus to the train station, and then who knows how long of a wait at the train station. We, on the other hand, had to walk about 3 more kilometers until we got to the shuttle bus which took us to the outskirts of Bonn. From there, we took a train to Bonn and then took a bus to the Cologne airport. We managed to get to the Cologne airport in record time...the busses and trains were mostly empty (the big rush had not started). Our plane to Madrid took off at 5:30pm and arrived at 7:50pm. You would think that we had travelled enough for one day, but we still had to get to Ronda which is a smaller town near Malaga. Madrid is in the north and middle of the country and Malaga is in the far south, so there was quite the distance to travel. The lady at the info booth at the airport said that the best way would be to go by train so that we could get a direct route there. She directed us to the train booking booth nearby and we went and booked our seats (only 33.50 euro's for an 11 hr train ride...not really that bad). We decided to just take an overnight train because otherwise we'd have to pay for a hotel and then waste a day on the train. So then we had the task of getting ourselves to the train station from the airport (it's about 9pm now). We were directed to the metro (subway) where we could hop on for 1 euro and take it right to the train station. While on the tram, we noticed something on the map between where we were coming up to and where we needed to be. The message said something about construction and servicio speciale. Luckily there was a young lady on the bus who was reading Harry Potter (in English), so we asked her about it and she told us that they were fixing the track and had a free bus that would take us the rest of the way to the train station. So we managed to find the bus and get on it and we arrived at the train station about 1 hour early (about 10pm). We had a bite to eat again...filled up our water bottles and had a washroom break. When the train arrived we loaded up our stuff and fell asleep. Before I fell asleep I set my alarm clock so that we wouldn't miss our stop. By the way, the alarm clock is also a feature on the radio that Frank gave me...that thing came in pretty handy.

Suffice it to say that today was a marrathon and a half. We took busses, trams, trains, and planes all in one day. I'll leave our arrival in Ronda for another post.

Adios mi Amigos,
Andrew

Comment for the picture: You can see the big white dome where the Pope said mass from in the distance. The entire thing was huge and at night it lit up different colours when music was playing.