Moving Day Checklist

1) Ensure that you have plenty of boxes. Ideally, these boxes should have a similar size to make them easier to organize. All boxes should have lids on them because open-top boxes cannot be stacked. The boxes should be strong so that they do not bend or tear apart while being moved. I suggest using banana boxes as much as possible.

2) Everything should be packed before moving day begins. All boxes should be stacked together waiting to be taken outside to the moving truck. And when I say that everything should be packed, I mean everything.
a) Nothing left on shelves.
b) Nothing left in drawers.
c) Nothing left in the fridge or the pantry.
d) Nothing left in closets.
e) Nothing left in a pile.
f) Nothing left in bathroom cabinets.

3) All electronics should be unplugged. Preferably, tie the cables up with twist ties. Items such a computer monitors or TVs can be moved in a separate car rather than the main moving truck.

4) Hire a moving truck, ensure that it is there early in the morning. Make sure that you have a dolly to wheel around the appliances. Sweep out the truck before returning it. Make sure you have a driver for the truck since it will probably have a standard transmission.

5) The fridge, freezer, dishwasher and clothes washer should be unplugged at least one day ahead of time and drained if possible.

6) Ensure that the new destination has toilet paper in the main bathroom.

7) Everything in the old place should be vaccuumed the day before the move begins. That also means that all furniture should be moved aside and all drseers and whatnot should be pulled away from the wall to reveal the forgotten mess. Keep the vaccuum handy on moving day, along with an open box of cleaning supplies that can be moved last.

8) Keep plenty of garbage bags handy. Try not to pack clothes into garbage bags since they tear easily, but a couple of bags like this will be conveniant to pack in the boxes in the moving truck.

9) Do not put all of your garbage out on the street unless it's moving day, otherwise a giant pile of garbage may get you a fine from the city. (Been there, done that.) If there are things that have to go the dump, take care of them ahead of time. Sort through the items that are being packed and throw away as much as possible.

10) Man power.

11) Lastly, ensure that everyone has drinks (water, juice and pop) throughout the day at both locations. And give everyone free pizza at the end as their reward. I'll take Canadian pizza, please.

Baseball!

As usual, I played two softball games with my GTA "C" team on Monday night. We were sporting a very nice 0-and-4 record going into tonight. (That's 0 wins and 4 losses.)

Our only pitcher loves to play infield or outfield but since he's all we have, he's had to pitch everything so far. Last week I tried to substitute for him for one inning and I got shelled. I gave up a grand slam home run plus a few extra runs to boot, so that was the end of my pitching relief last week. The opposing team was hitting home runs all night but we kept it pretty close even though we lost in the end.

This week I arrived before almost everyone so I decided to practice pitching a bit before everyone arrived. Last week I tried to throw straight underhand, no spin. That failed miserably, rarely even hitting the plate for a strike. This week I tried a side spin and a backspin and I was nailing both of those.

With those two pitches working, I volunteered and pitched the first game. Beautiful. I didn't walk anyone, I had a couple of strike outs and I got key batters to pop out with my backspin pitch. Combine that with our team's great defense and excellent run support and we came away with our very first win against a team that held a 3-1 record beforehand. The final score was something like 16-4.

I split the pitching duties in the second game with another player who pitched last year. While we limited them to only a few runs, we couldn't get anything going ourselves thanks to their excellent defense and we ended up losing by a couple of runs. In any case, we came away with one win and we've got some confidence going into next week's game. Fun fun!

No Place Like Home

Tara, her sister and her aunt are moving out of their townhouse this weekend into their new digs. Tara and Candace are moving into their own apartment in the Westmount area and their aunt is moving somewhere else. A few people are helping them move some of the smaller stuff on Saturday, and I'll be there are 10:00 am. The bulk of the move will be done with a U-Haul truck on Sunday morning starting at nine or ten in the morning.

Along with that, the Hawkins will be leaving our fair city this summer and will be moving to Ottawa. There's a blessing day for them on Sunday afternoon, so I plan to be there for the second half of that. Everyone's encouraged to write down a blessing for them.

Busy weekend. And away...we...go!

Links and Links

Ariel has this MySpace site that includes music that he recently recorded. Zach supposedly has his own here but I can't get his link to work correctly. I have one of my own but it just points back to this blog so don't worry about it.

Church Marketing Sucks had this recent article about a weekly radio program hosted by Jesus. That's right, Jesus is a shock jock. He certainly filled the role back in the day so it's about time his career made a comeback.

And finally, what's with the recent spate of monthly music services? They're offering dirt-cheap monthly fees for unlimited downloads. Has anyone tried one of these out yet? Heard anything about them? I've heard about this from several sources, most recently from this post on Mark Cuban's blog. So what's the deal here?

Star Wars and Stuff

Long weekend holiday with the wide release of Star Wars (Episode III). What could be better? On Friday night I joined Mike, Joel, Zach, Titus and Eddie for a 10:10 pm showing at Silver City. I was there more than two and a half hours in advance, though I eventually lost my third spot in line. The crowd cheered and applauded when the opening scrawl came up, with me yelling and clapping along with them.

On Sunday evening, my sister and I went to the Mustang Drive-In theatre for a triple bill: Robots, Star Wars and Fever Pitch. My brother took another vehicle and went with our two kids from South Korea, and Richard and Tara joined us in their car. Quite fun, including the two hours that we spent hanging around as our cars were lined up down the side of the road waiting for it to open. Laura and didn't finished the evening until 3:30 am. Richard had a Darth Vader helmet with a variety of quotes from the original trilogy plus a function that could warp the sound of your own voice. He and Tara also performed a dramatic duel for us with two light-up light sabers that Richard had. Geekdom is good.

And finally, I took Catherina, Celia and Grace to Wellington 8 Cinema on Monday afternoon for a showing of Star Wars. I finished the afternoon off with dinner at their place, which was nice because I hadn't seen the family in quite a while. Throw in two more softball games in the evening with my church team and it was another good day.

As for my movie ratings, Episode III was excellent. Maybe 4.5 out of 5. It better have been good since I saw it three times this weekend, though that does seem to be all that I can take for that movie until the DVD comes out years from now. The worst part was "Noooooo!" and I can't forgive the movie for that dramatic atrocity. It's just begging to be parodied and mocked for decades to come, as "Khaaaaan!" has been for Star Trek.

Robots was a fun loving movie though it didn't have much at all in the way of suspense. Nice kid-friendly logic, though Robin William's cross-dressing robot got on my nerves after a while. 4 out of 5, with the caveat that it's a kid movie.

Fever Pitch was a romantic comedy ("ewwww...") that was done by the Farelly Brothers and was tied to the Boston Red Sox "redemption" from last year. Jimmy Fallon surprised me with a continuous string of funny one liners, but the real-life fairy tale for the Sox was was put the movie over for me. Gotta love the Red Sox Nation...or not. Another 4/5, which means that this triple bill was pretty darn satisfying.

Enough with the movies. To catch up on my birthday from last Monday, it was all good. Ma grandmama ma donne d'argent quelque semaine passe and my family chipped in and bought me a pay-as-you-go cell phone from Virgin. The phone has been quite useful so far, and please feel free to contact me if you want the number.

My brother bought me the DVD box set of Season 1 and 2 for The Family Guy, which was excellent. I would even rate that ahead of the cell phone for enjoyment value. Heh. Richard gave me a gift card for Blockbuster that will come in handy and Tara gave me a gift card to Chapters for a Foxtrot/Dilbert comic of my choosing. Tara baked me a cake this past Wednesday at cell group and I received a nice hand-made card from Claire 'cause she's a sweety. My cell group also gave me a nice card that included each of the Dilbert comics from the newspaper in the past week, which was thoughtful.

In addition, I received some nice e-mails, phone calls and MSN messages from friends, including a couple from whom I haven't heard in a while. And so I say, it's good to be twenty-seven years old. Thanks, everyone.

Speaker's Corner

I heard a story on the radio yesterday during a broadcast of a sermon from a local church...

There was a man who visited Speaker's Corner here in London, Ontario. "They say that there is a God in heaven," he began, "But I can't seen him. They say that the son of God is alive, but I can't see him. They say that God does amazing miracles, but I haven't seen them." The man continued with his speech as a crowd began to gather. He pursued his points one by one, becoming more passionate as he went. "If I cannot see God," he concluded, "Then logically I cannot believe in him!" He finished with a scattering of applause from the group nearby.

An older man then came forward accompanied by someone else and he stepped up to the camera. He began, "They say that there is a sun in the sky that gives light to the entire world. They say that there is a moon that gleams ever night, hanging above us. They say that there are stars that twinkle in the distance. I, however, cannot them. You see, I am blind."

And with that the old man stepped away from the camera and back into the crowd.

Biking, Baseball and Basketball

I've been all over the place this past week. On Sunday afternoon I had a practice game of softball with my church team. I only had two at-bats. The first one I hit to shortstop but I got to first safely when the first baseman bobbled it for an error. I struck out the second time. During batting practice a few days earlier, I was shocked at how horribly I was batting after several years off the field. I was definitely the worst batter on my team and I was worried about striking out repeatedly (in softball no less) during our first game.

Come Monday evening, my church team had it's first two games at one of the many diamonds at Dreamers/Southwest Optimist, which is located across the Exeter from the old FCCC location. Without any time for further batting practice, the only thing that I was able to do was to mentally envision my batting. Fortunately, that did the trick for me. In each of my at-bats on Monday night I connected for consistant singles, though I didn't always make it to first. I also had a RBI single (Run Batted In) and scored a run myself. That was much improved, though I now need to work on placing the ball better when I hit. I used to be able to hit it in any direction I pleased so I'll have to pick that trick up again.

Our opposing team started with a 7-0 lead, including a homerun right over my head, so it didn't look too good for us at first. Fortunately, we picked up the pace thanks to their pitching and we narrowly lost 16-13 with two runs on base at the end. The next game was even better since we led by two runs going into the final half of the last inning but we ended up losing that one as well by a run.

Funny Story
The funniest part of those two games was one sequence in which the opposing team got a single from their lead-off hitter partway through the game. One of our outfielders yelled in asking if the person on first base was the same person that got the last out in the previous inning. I paused the game briefly and asked the runner on first base and he explained that the first base coach behind him was the guy that got out in the previous inning and that we were just confused since they all had the same team jersies. The first base coach confirmed that explanation. That was fine and I apologized for confusing things.

Since the issue was brought up, our score keeper then asked the umpire the same thing since she had been keeping track of each batter and she had asked in the previous inning if the opposing team had mixed up their batting order. Our score keeper and their score keeper compared notes and what do you know - our outfield had it right from the start. The runner on firstbase was called out and we continued the game. Funny, eh?

Basketball
As for other sports, I was talking to one of my team mates after the games on Monday and he told me about an excellent pick-up basketball game that he knew of. I've been asking all kinds of people about where I could find such a game for the past year and I finally found one It's on Riverside Road east of Wonderland at a Mormon church. The church has a fully decked out gym with hardwood floors, glass backboards and an electronic scoreboard. Very nice.

I went over there on Wednesday night at 9:00 pm after cell group and played for only an hour, just to check it out. Excellent skills in that group and good experience. I wasn't too good myself because I missed the five shots that I took in my low post position. Even though I have practiced basketball a lot in recent years, I haven't had the chance to play in competitive five-on-give games in a long time. The constant running and the pressure against other skilled players is something that I still need to get used to, especially since I really didn't get used to the pressure while I played in high school.

Biking
And finally, one more small story. On Tuesday my parents borrowed my van and left for Toronto early in the morning. When I got ready to leave for work, I realized that I had left my car keys and my wallet in the van the previous evening. No one else was around, so I decided to ride my bike to work. My mom rides her bike to school sometimes when she teaches and it only takes her 40 minutes, so I figured that I could swing that.

It took my 50 minutes to ride to work. I didn't stop at all but I certainly wasn't used to that much exercise. I had to ride my bike home as well after work since my parents weren't back yet and that only took me 40 minutes since it was downhill for more of the route. In any case, I'll probably pull that trick again soon. The fact that I need to lose fifteen pounds is a a side benefit to all of the exercise that I've been getting lately, so that's good as well I s'pose.

Finding Your Fit: How You Perceive the World

To continue this series, my church has posted Test #6 on this page. The last test dealt with personality types and I came out as a split between the melancholy and phlegmatic types. That accounts for my easy-going nature and my attention to detail, as well as my dry sense of humour and my resistance to change.

This next test is Jung typology test, which I vaguely remember learning about in high school. I came out as INTJ: Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging. According to that test, my preferences came out as 22% 38% 38% 67%, in that order. The description was this:

• Slightly expressed introvert
• Moderately expressed intuitive personality
• Moderately expressed thinking personality
• Distinctively expressed judging personality

I can agree with that last one since I tend to see the world in black and white most of the time. I would have thought that I would have had an S (Sensing) rather than an N (Intuition) but there I am.

Y'know, I just realized that I've been blogging for more than a year now and reading blogs for more than two years. "Four more years! Four more years!"

Original Star Wars

As Jevant mentioned in these comments, I've been a fan of the original Star Wars for a long time and I have the evidence to prove it. I added a new picture to my photo website and I think that it was taken about the time that The Empire Strikes Back was released.

Birthday of Happiness

Another birthday, another blessing!

Top of the Box

Interesting bit of trivia. For years, Harrison Ford was the "most successful" actor ever, at least according to one measurement. Ford's movies had collected a combined gross that was larger than the total of any other actor. That makes sense if you consider that he was in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, the Tom Clancy movies and other successful hits.

Lo and behold, Samuel L. Jackson recently overtook the trophy and that financial claim to fame. It's all detailed in this list. Sam didn't do it with any major ongoing movie series, outside of Star Wars. If you look at his list, it includes a number of movies that don't make the all-time top-ten box office hits, yet once in a while something like The Incredibles or Jurrasic Park gets in there. Very cool.

The Cost

Re: Journal from 1995

"...the Son of Man has no place to lay his head...let the dead bury their own dead." Matthew 8:18-22, Luke 9:57-62

"Carry your cross...estimate the cost...give up everything...be held back by nothing." Luke 14:25-35

"To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life." Revelations 21:6b

Journal from 1995

Journal entry from sometime in 1995:
I seem to recognize how much I want God. It's really a deep down need but there's also a deep down knowledge that it's going to cost me BIG!!! Really big! So then I have this other deep down knowledge (of a sort) that He's all set to absolutely blow me away with His power through me and His plans for me. They're huge but it's going to cost me everything. I'm going to do it but how long will it take for me to "buckle down" as much as it's gonna take?

Response from 2005:
Apparently it's going to take me more than ten years. As I reflect on my life, I don't think that I've paid much of a price for where I am now. I've always been good at a lot of things, from different school subjects to church ministry to work. That skill has allowed to coast along without any major personal cost.

If worship ministry is my main calling, then what have I invested towards that goal? Sure, I've continually been a part of worship teams at any church that I've been in. I taught worship when I was helping lead the DTS class at LGT back in 1998. I led and taught a youth worship team at FCCC. I've spent my own money on a single year's worth of piano study.

Yet here I am with minimal piano skills, though my percussion skills have improved quite a bit. I've only recorded one worship CD with three songs, none of which I wrote. I've only written three complete worship songs. I still can't lead anything but slow worship with my piano.

Looking back, I think that my most effective worship ministry has been at three times.

• Teaching worship in five-minute sessions during the DTS course.
• Leading the youth worship team at FCCC until the team was self-sufficient.
• Playing after-service ministry worship for people praying at FCCC.

I want more and I think that God wants more from me. What's my price?

Siblings

I've been studying some of my old journals and notes lately from years ago. It's interesting to read about the things I was going through back in the day, especially since I only vaguely remember how important those things were for me at the time.

I have one set of notes from early in the year 2000, though I'm not sure about the exact date. I had some observations about my relationship with my sister. I said that "I've built up a friendly relationship with her, but hardly a close one..."

I was writing about my relationship with both of my siblings and observing some things, asking how I could develop a better relationship with them both. These days, I consider my sister to be one of closest friends. I can barely remember a time when we weren't close but apparently that was the case as recently as five years ago. We've has come a long way, eh?

I thank God, my siblings and my parents for the relationships of love and friendship that I have with each member of my family. I pray that my friendship with my father, mother, sister and brother would continue to deepen.

Legitimate Theatre

To quote Homer Simpson, "I love legitimate theatre." (Re: The Planet of the Apes Musical)

The London Free Press had this article yesterday in their "Ticket" weekend guide. There's a play called "MacHomer" that is running on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. It's a one man show by Rick Miller in which he does a variation of Shakespeare's entire Macbeth play through the characters and voices of the Simpsons.

That's right. He does several dozen voices from the Simpsons. I'm going because I support the arts, you understand. I'm going on Saturday to the Grand Theatre for the show at 8:00 pm. It costs $25.00 for adults and $15.00 for students. If anyone wants to join me, please call me or send me an e-mail.

Finding Your Fit: Personality

To continue with this series, my church has posted Test #5 on this page. I printed the pdf version of the test instead of doing the online version. I think that this one is the best test so far, rated slightly ahead of Test #2. With regard to the criticism about the biased or misleading test designs, this one seems to be designed much better with no obvious clues about which answers fit which personality type.

As for me, I was split half and half between melancholy and phlegmatic personality types. I thought that I would be partially choleric because I've always been a leader throughout my years in church but that wasn't the case.

I wrote this post back in February asking if I was the strong, silent type. This latest test definitely helps me answer that question. My pastor also commented that sometimes we use a "mask" of another personality type for various reasons. Upon further reflection, I think that I may have applied (and may apply) the mask of the choleric extrovert. Interesting.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 22nd Birthday, Tara!

I pray that God will be with you today and tomorrow, and every today and tomorrow. I pray that God will expand your horizons and that you will see further than you have before. I pray that your dreams would be fulfilled and that you would dream even more. I pray that God will show you the plans that he has for you and that you will know that his plans are great and fun and wonderful. I pray that you will use the gifts and talents that God has given you to further his kingdom and to fulfill your purpose. Specifically, I pray that your gifts of praying for others and speaking to strangers about Christ will be God's light to this world.

Hey Tara, you're super!

My birthday is coming up this month on the 16th. For the sake of my family, I'm going to post a wish list for my birthday. Everyone else, please ignore this. Heh.
Any new worship CD.
Old Boys 2 Men
Foxtrot or Zits comic collection that I don't have.
Family Guy (Season One) on DVD
Clothes, 'cause the only time I get nice clothes is as a gift. Dress pants and a belt.
Wizard comics magazine subscription.
A nice big hug. *mwoi*

Movie Madness

On Saturday night, Mike and I went to the Mustang Drive-In just outside of London. The two screens didn't have great line-ups, but we figured that we could watch Sahara (which I reviewed here) on the first screen and then xXx: State of the Union on the other screen by driving the car around to the chain-link fence between the two screens. Much to my surprise, we discovered that the Mustang had built a ten-foot wooden fence between the two lots. Apparently they've done some nice renovations, including an expanded playground for kids, and a new fence was part of the upgrade.

So that plan was shot down. Triple X was the main one that we wanted to see so we ended up watching Guess Who for the first show and then Triple X. We could have followed that up with Will Smith in Hitch but that would have ended after 2:30 am so we opted out of the third show.

We had KFC, chips, slushies and cookies so we were set for the night. Guess Who turned out to be smarter than I expected. I thought that it was fine because it focused on Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac rather than the cute young couple. I'm not recommending it for anything except DVD but it was all right.

xXx was the action flick that we were expecting. Ice Cube was fine in the lead role but that idea that he was "badder than the old xXx" was laughable. As Mike mentioned, it's a case of telling us who the person is rather than showing us who they are. Xzibit had a role as the head of a chop shop, playing off of his TV show Pimp My Ride. The movie was fine even though it included a large number of horrid one liners and a tagged-on setup for another sequel. I thought that the first xXx movie with Vin Diesel was way better and apparently the public agrees with me since this movie had an opening weekend box office that was two-thirds less than the original.

Last Friday my entire family went out to see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was almost identical to the book except for a few parts that I didn't mind at all. I won't detail them to protect you from unwanted spoilers, but the humour, imagery, characters and the manic energy were all straight out of the book. And besides, who doesn't love having a couple of muppet-like creatures wandering about? I thought that it was quite entertaining but it was definitely geared to the sci-fi crowd, which would include me. And yes, I would recommend reading the original book but the other four sequels in the trilogy aren't nearly as good.

As I mentioned above as a passing reference, I do want to comment on the move Hitch as well. I saw this one a few weeks ago with my sister and it was actually quite good. I'll take this kind of romantic comedy any day: Heavier on the comedy and lighter on the romance. It was a good role for Will Smith and it had a nicely original concept that worked quite well.

And lastly, I wanted to mention one thing that I saw this past weekend that was on the small screen rather than the big screen. On Sunday, Fox resurrected the long-dead Family Guy animated television show. It was cancelled two years ago and it's just coming back now. I figure that they actually recalled the show a year ago but it takes about 8 months to make one episode of an animated series, according to my sources. Throw that together with two new episodes of the Simpsons and a King of the Hill episode and it was a great schedule.

The opening scene from Family Guy was hilerious because they immediately asked, "Hey, wasn't our show cancelled?" Peter, the head of the household, then begins a monologue explaining that Fox had to devote more of their schedule to other shows. He then lists off several dozen shows that Fox has aired and subsequently cancelled since Family Guy was originally aired. He concludes that, "if all of those shows get cancelled, I suppose that there's a slight chance that they could bring us back." Granted, the scene plays much better on TV but I thought it was a great segue to the new season.

*whew* That's it for me and I need a break after an hour and twnety minutes of writing. I think I'll go to the lobby and get some popcorn...