All The News

Super-excellent-fantastic congratulations to my good friend Joel Timmerman. He become engaged to Lindsay Myles this past Friday, which was the week of their first anniversary. The wedding is already set for May 17th (which happens to be one day after my birthday). They're a wonderful couple and it's always nice to see Joel talk about Lindsay with that love in his eyes...

He posted a quick blurb on his blog and he has changed his facebook relationship status, which is about as official as it gets these days. There are five guys in the large wedding party, including myself, and his brother Zach will be the best man. Good luck to Zach in figuring out all of the stuff that the best man has to do!

In other news, I finally landed a job. Indeed! After scouting the globe for senior positions in software development, I re-focused recently to search locally. I found a company called Atlas Chiropractic Systems, which is based out of Tillsonburg and is only 30-35 minutes from my house. It's a small startup company that is already doing very well and my varied talents will be put to good use, though my primary role will be as a computer programmer. And since it's such a small company, a lot of my previous experience with small companies will be quite valuable to us. It should be exciting!

And finally, for all of you old FCCC members, we're having a reunion picnic on Monday August 6th, which is the civic holiday. It will be held at the Terry's home in Fingal and you need to contact them to confirm that you're coming. While there are some friends that I see semi-regularly every few months, there is a wider circle of people that I haven't seen in a while and it will be nice to see y'all again.

Sweet Dreams

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing the girl of my sweet dreams...Cam Tran.


I have known Cam Tran for a number of years now, at least as an acquaintance. I originally met her when the youth group at FCCC helped Jane Viktor move into her new apartment. After that, I spoke to Cam once in a while because she went to my church and was dating a guy that I knew. At one point while chatting at church, I learned that she was looking for a job and I knew of an opening within my company in Quality Assurance (software testing). I pushed her a bit over the next few weeks and I talked to my bosses directly, and she landed the job.

Soon after that, I took over as Team Lead for the QA department at AV-Base Systems. Along with Michelle Pedden, Cam and I worked closely for about a year on a number of projects. On a professional basis, she improved and excelled at her work and I always gave her and Michelle full credit for their achievements. Of course, I would never in a million years consider dating somebody that I was supervising.

Back in November 2006, I resigned from the company in order to join a startup venture. Over the course of that final month with the company and the next six months after I left, my friendship with several co-workers grew. I really cared (and I still care) about the people that I was supervising and my co-workers, and on a professional basis I have kept touch with many of those people. I went out for lunch once a month with Michelle and Cam just to encourage them, and a group of us visited Lori Worthington a few times since she went on maternity leave and had her first baby girl. (Hi Brooke!)


On Saturday June 16th, Cam and I visited Lori along with Tara and Ashleigh. Later on, Lori ever-so-subtly asked me if I was interested in dating Cam. Lori had hinted at the question two months before, as she is prone to doing, but this was the first time that I actually considered it seriously. For a long time, Cam was involved with another guy and then I was her supervisor at work, so I never even allowed myself to think in that way. It took a bit of a slap to the head to make me realize that Cam had been single for a while and I was no longer working with her. (So kudos to Lori for playing match-maker!)

I asked Cam out on a date on Monday June 18th. We each had busy weeks scheduled so our first date was on Sunday June 24th. We took an impromptu road trip to Strathroy for the sake of random fun using my GPS. Since then, we have gone on other road trips, watched movies, gone out with friends, had a bonfire, gone to church, met each other's families and have generally had a lot of fun together.



From casual acquaintance, to church acquaintance, to co-worker, to work friend, to personal friend, to romantic relationship. I have always loved the ideal of being friends with a girl before we started dating and there she was, right in front of me and I didn't even realize it at first. Surprised by life...I'm a lucky, lucky man and God is amazing.

I always admired Cam for her intelligence and skills in her professional life and I always appreciated her personality. While her faith in God is relatively young, she has a depth and wisdom in her spiritual life that is incredibly rare to find. Her love for her family, her laughter and sense of humour, her eclectic interests, her talents, the way she thinks, the woman that she is today...and let's not forget her stunning beauty, as these photos can attest. I am awestruck every time I look at her and every time I think about her.

My friend, my confidante, my soul mate.

Google Greatness

If you perform this google search, you will come back with exactly one result and only one result: A link to this blog.

Apparently the word in question is an invention of my Little Brother and my reference to it within my blogs is unique to all of google. I'm so proud of us!

I found this out by looking at my incoming blog links and I happened to see that someone did this search themselves. Please note that I cannot actually say what this unique word is 'cause that would interfere with future google results. And if anyone gets the bright idea to include this word in their own blogs and wreck my google fun, I took a snapshot to prove this legendary achievement. (This is also similar to googlewhack but since this is a new word it doesn't count.)

First Impressions

"You're one of the most arrogant men that I have ever met."

Ha! I loved hearing that line. It struck me in such a funny way. Arrogant, snobby, unteachable, prideful, jerk. Yep, I've received all of these labels a number of times.

It's so odd because my closest friends say the exact opposite. Every so often, someone applies these labels to me and I ask my confidants for their honest opinion. Am I really a butthead? Do I really think less of other people? Do I really push others around and assume that I'm the smartest person in the room? Do I think that I'm right all the time?

And close friends that they are, they all respond otherwise. They tell me that I'm caring, selfless, generous to a fault, always willing to listen, ready for compromise, not stubborn, open to discussion, blah blah blah. Parents think I'm perfect and my friends think I'm almost perfect.

Yes, I am humble and I am very proud of that humility. Yes, I am proud and rightfully so. (Um, a lot of this post is tongue-in-cheek, in case you think I'm merely proving my arrogance.)

I find that the biggest difference in opinion is between social groups. My closest friends, my oldest friends, the people I supervised in business, they tend to think that I'm really nice and humble. Other groups that see me less frequently, like Young Adults or worship team members, tend to have a more negative impression of my personality.

I think that some of this might come down to first impressions. Or perhaps more accurately, superficial impressions.

I'm a very decisive guy with a a lot of leader-commander strengths. Big decisions, a lot of decisions, hard decisions, they're all fairly easy to handle. Just weigh the pros and cons, get the info from people and make the call. I'm also good at delegation and efficiency, so two people doing two separate things at once is better than two people doing one thing together and then another thing together. Take these traits and put 'em to use when I lead worship or organize an event and it might rub some people the wrong way.

However, I have long recognized how easily I can dominate a group, either as a leader or in simply hogging the conversation. Therefore, I often make a conscious effort to shut up. I purposely give others the chance to step up and make a decision, to make their voices heard, to air their opinions. I really do like to see people develop and mature and grow, and that won't happen if I'm always talking and doing things. The problem is that this trait might come across as shy, or snobby, or stubborn, or passive-aggressive. And apparently it does come across that way to some people.

I'm also a big fan of sarcasm and trash talk. I attribute this to hanging out with guys most of my life, from public school to sports teams to road trips. A lot of guys bond really well with that sort of thing. Girls, not so much. And especially during the early stages of getting to know someone, some black humour or semi-inapproriate comments can easily offend or scare off the wrong person. Looking at my history, I think that my friends Lori and Ashleigh really enjoy this type of humour but few girls tend to accept such jokes. Most new guys that I meet join in the fun of it immediately, though.

I have a number of other traits, like my introverted personality, that can easily come across the wrong way. That's more than enough for now, though.

A lot of people have the mistaken understanding that being loud, taking charge, giving your opinion and being decisive are somehow bad things. I have always seen these attributes as personality strengths. I actually expect people to develop these traits in any group of business that I lead. I want people to stick their necks out and speak for themselves.

It's just that people often have a sheep mentality. Follow the leader, do whatever the boss says, obey the pastor, don't cross your parents. We're goaded into obediance in so many ways until we have a hard time making any kind of decision on our own. And if we see someone else being aggressive, we're taught that they're rebellious and arrogant and rude and...oh wait, that's me.

Could I soften the edges of my personality a bit? Sure. Should I be aware of the negative side of my personality strengths? I darn well better be. However, I also acknowledge my abilities and personality and I run with it. I value who I am and I see the depth of my own character. I don't expect everyone to behave as I do - and God help us if we had too many JAG's running around - but I like who I am.

First impressions are so brief but they can last for such a long time. I don't think that I'm well-built to make good first impressions but if someone befriends me, I think that they can see how hard I have worked to develop the character that I have today, to be the man that I am today. I write blog posts like this because I am not satisfied with where I am and I do want to grow more. I honestly consider criticism that I receive from all quarters and I try not to take things for granted. I know that my motivations and actions might look different from the outside and I don't want to tick people off and offend them unnecessarily.

So here's to making better first impressions...

Phraseological Fun

I learned a few new things this week during my travels through literature. I found them interesting so I thought that I would share a few of them. These first two terms I learned by reading the graphic novel, "Death: The High Cost of Living." See, comics can be edumacational...

L'Esprit D'Escalier
Literally, it means "the spirit of the stairway" but there's no real axiom for it in english. It refers to the clever responses that you think of as you leave a place or a situation. Those great comebacks and that amazing argument that you should have used rather than standing there quietly like a fool.

Myoclonic Twitch
This is an involuntary twitch of a muscle. If this happens just as you're falling into deep sleep then it might be referred to as a hypnic (or hypnagogic) jerk. It might be your eyes moving or your eyelids fluttering, it might be an arm contraction. For me, it sometimes results in a brief spasm in of one of my legs. And the next time you're ticked off with someone, call them a hypnic jerk and see what the person does with it...

Acknowledge The Corn
This term is used to mean no acknowledgement at all. If you're arguing with somebody and you say, "I acknowledge the corn," then you're actually saying that you concede nothing. For the story behind this term, I will quote from the book "Why Do We Say It?" published by Castle Books (with no author listed, oddly enough).

"The story is told of a man that bought two flatboats, loaded one with corn and the other with potatoes, and sailed down the Mississippi River to make his fortune. Upon his arrival in New Orleans, the man went to a gambling house and there lost all his money - and the two boatloads of produce. On his return to the wharf, he found that the flatboat of corn had sunk. Later, when the person who held his notes for the produce demanded delivery, he said, "Stranger, I acknowledge the corn" - which was easy enough since the corn was at the bottom of the river - "but, by thunder, the potatoes you can't have!"

Anger Thermometer

I was driving down Exeter Road two weeks ago with my Little on a Saturday afternoon. I came up behind a car that was veering from side to side across both of the right-hand lanes. I slowed down but the car still did not notice us and continued its erratic pattern. I beeped at the car and they finally clued in. The driver signaled that they were going to the right lane, and then they shot into left lane.

I promptly got into the right lane and sped past this crazy car since I usually prefer to distance myself from other dangerous vehicles. As I passed, the young male driver in the other car flipped me off and was yelling as me violently with a look of pure rage. He had another young woman in his car whom was presumably the reason he was distracted from driving originally. Love is blind but keep your eyes on the road, eh?

Half a minute later, the car zoomed up from behind me and I could tell that the driver intended to exact some revenge on me. I slowed down intentionally and let him cut me off as expected, then he slowed down in front of me parallel to another car and effectively blocked off the road ahead. I let him have his fun as I slowed down even more to get a fair bit of distance between us.

I was recently sharing stories of road rage with some friends and my Little and I were laughing while remembering this story. I assume the young man was dating the female passenger and that was why he was distracted from driving, which makes it even funnier to know that he would go so nuts even though he was trying to impress a girl. What, she's going to me attracted to this volcano of anger and be swept off of her feet? Maybe he imagines that he's an heroic crusader fighting to take the dark streets back from young punks like me...

Some people just seem to fly off the handle for no reason at all. Encountering a lengthy line-up at a store sets them off. Friendly trash-talk between friends becomes grounds for a fight. A polite request from their boss is met with an announcement that they're quitting. One misunderstood act from a relative is good enough to create a wall of silence for a month. One forgotten household chore or one delayed response to a question triggers the dreaded reaction.

And if the situation is really serious then look out! Instant anger pops up out of nowhere. The screaming kicks in on only the second sentence of the conversation. Insults fly like flies and bitter words are poured out like vinegar. Past history becomes a bludgeon to beat the other person down. Accusations and guilt pile up. Tables are pounded, paper is thrown and doors are slammed shut. Five minutes can go by and the rant just seems to be getting stronger. And it's not just that the person gets angry immediately, it's also the fact that they get disproportionately angry considering the trivial matter at hand.

My dad likes to explain this type of instant anger with a rating scale of 0 to 10. It's the anger thermometer.

Everyone starts at zero for their thermometer. Someone steals your lunch at work and it moves up to 1 for a few minutes as you try to track down the culprit, until falling back to zero. A friend spreads a rumour about you and it shoots up to 4 for a day until you can confront them, then it falls to 2 for another day and then you finally get back to 0 again. A family member dies unexpectedly and, mixed in with all kinds of emotions, your anger level shoots up to 8 as you yell at God and cry for answers.

For some people, though, their anger thermometers never get back to zero after something life-changing happens. Instead of dealing with that incomprehensible death in a healthy way over time, they allow themselves to become bitter and resentful of God and of the person that died. They simmer underneath the surface at an anger level of 2 for months or even years.

And now when another minor problem comes along, the effect becomes accumulative. While someone cutting us off on the road used to move up two notches, we're already at 2 to begin with and we end up burning at 4 degrees immediately. We overreact accordingly and everyone is mystified about our absurd response.

Repeat this process a few times for other major events in life. Get fired unfairly from a job, lose the love of your life, deal with depression... Without allowing that thermometer to settle back down, it just keeps raising the permanent low point of our emotions. Our body reacts to the constant stress of boiling anger, our relationships get worn down from so many harsh words, our lives become a trail of broken dreams.

It doesn't have to be this way. It's not an easy thing to deal with someone dying or a marriage falling apart in divorce. It's not a quick process and there is no prescribed formula for it. However, we do have a choice about how we will come out of it eventually.

We can blame everyone in the world and justify our anger or we can realize that anger will burn and consume us eventually. We can hold that sin in our hands and stare at it everyday or we can raise our hands to God and give it over to Him. We can watch for opportunities for revenge or we can release the person into God's hands to allow his ultimate justice. We can accept that painful memory as a fact of life or we can discover that we don't have to carry around that pain forever.

Pain and anger do not have to rule our lives. Those people and these situations do not have to control us. Our past does not have to determine our future. There is freedom for you and me. There is freedom for us.

Elora Gorge '07

Every summer, I plan a camping trip for me and my Little Brother (from the Big Brothers program). For this year's trip, we went to Elora Gorge from Friday July 6th until Sunday July 8th. Our friends E*, Joel, Alma and Rhea joined me and my Little.

As you can tell from the above picture, tubing was the central activity for the weekend. Elora Gorge is a long, slow-moving river with several mini-rapids in it. I brought along my brother's gigantic tube-trampoline, plus a shopvac motor to inflate it. Early on Saturday morning, Rhea and I went to the camp site office to rent life jackets, helmets and two additional inner tubes.


Last year when I visited this camp site with the Young Adults group from Open Door (ODCF), we had to rent inner tubes and equipment. We arrived at the rental building 45 minutes before it opened and there were several hundred people already lined up. This time, Rhea and I were just as early and we were still first. It was really nice to sit there and teach each other silly games and talk about life. Our conversation was the highlight of my weekend.



The river tubing was fantastic fun. Joel and I tag-teamed to carry the giant tube on our heads for the twenty minute walk to the head of the river, and we received a lot of one-liners and comments along the way. When we reached the river, one random kid even came up to tell me that the tube was too big and it wouldn't work, though I assured him that I knew what I was doing. Once we got going, four of us piled on the big tube while another person sat in each of the small tubes.

Joel was the hippy drifter, casually floating about without a care in the world. He pulled out a cigarette from a ziplock bag part way down the river to light up and another guy floated up beside him and bummed a smoke, which was pretty funny.

As for the rest of us, my Little got caught on a backwards current at one point and ended up in a cul-de-sac. Acting as the rudder, I steered the big tube to the side of the river and went back along the shoreline to retrieve him. We both got back onto the small inner tube and plunged into the rapids again. Unfortunately, that proved difficult for two people in the biggest rapids on the river, so we flipped off of it halfway in. My Little had a life jacket and helmet so he was safe as we both clung to the tube with one hand. I worked hard to keep him above water and I cut open a nice deep gash on my right index finger and smashed my left knee against a rock. At one point, as my left leg as bending in the wrong direction against something underwater, it occurred to me that I could break my leg with this little stunt. Anyway, all's well that ends well since we made it out fine and had a great story to tell, even if I was hobbled for the rest of the weekend.


Joel and E* took care of the cooking duties for the weekend whilst I tackled dishes and cleanup after each meal. On the first evening, we had shishkabobs and while it took us a couple of hours to prepare, they were absolutely succulent. It was a really relaxing weekend. E* and I had prepared a schedule of activities and meals but we preferred not to rush anything and we just went with the flow, so we missed a few activities and didn't eat everything that we brought but we just tried to be easy-going about it.

On Friday night while we were preparing the meal, we were using both a propane stove and a charcoal BBQ grill. We had both of them on the picnic table as we worked and apparently some of the bacon grease dripped onto the table. (Mmm...bacon...so much bacon...) Next thing we know, the BBQ grill is spouting flames in every direction and the picnic table had caught fire! Joel grabbed a couple of towels and ditched the BBQ to the ground while E* and I worked to put out the flames that were everywhere. Crazy!


The above picture shows me on Saturday afternoon. The van battery died because it was holding most of the food and equipment and we had doors open constantly. Fortunately, I packed my dad's portable booster for just such an eventuality. Besides that, we hit the man-made beach at the campsite a few times and we practiced swimming across the deepest part of the water. I could touch the bottom at its deepest point but E* and my Little couldn't so it was a challenge for them to swim that distance, with me acting as their human life preserver.



On Friday night, the campers beside us arrived at 11:00 pm and set up their campsites. However, it's supposed to be quiet time for the entire camp ground at 11:00 pm so most of the people in our group were trying to sleep. These other campers were drinking, flirting and yelling until 1:00 am and it was pretty frustrating. I had the choice of getting up to talk to them but I figured they wouldn't respond too politely to a request for silence - in fact, they mocked another camper that did just that. I yelled at them twice and they eventually subsided. On Saturday night, there were no problems with that same group.

The major disappointment for the weekend was that there was a fire ban in effect. With so little rain recently, no open flames were permitted for bonfires. Since that is the central camping cliche, it stunted our fun a bit. However, on Saturday night we ended up using our charcoal BBQ and we managed to get enough flamage to toast marshmallows and s'mores so it worked out in the end.


In any case, I figured that it was better to have great weather and no fire than to have rain and fire. Ha! How silly of me... On Sunday morning, we were having a leisurely breakfast and Joel asked if we had heard thunder. No, that's crazy talk. The weather was supposed to be 30+ degrees and it was probably just a 4x4 passing by. After a few minutes, we heard it again - the definite peal of thunder in the distance.

That was the end of breakfast time. Everyone rushed to pack up our gear, tear down the tents and put away the food. We had just a few sprinkles before the downpour hit but by the then we had all of the main stuff pack in the vehicles and we just had a few extra bags of food to stash away. So we managed to get away from the rain but the storm did mess up our plans for a mini-hike and swimming at the Quarry.

In lieu of our well-laid plans, I had noticed a street sign just outside of camp directing travelers to a small town nearby. We punched it into my GPS box and took a detour before we headed back home to London. We pulled up on the side of the road and took a few pictures while standing in the rain. Indeed, we got some nice shots of Alma and her family in front of a sign for the town of Alma. "Population Growing."


Overall, it was a wonderful weekend with friends. Plenty of memories, a few interesting stories, good food and plenty of relaxation. Thanks to everyone in our group for making this happen!

He Loves Me

[Excerpt from the book, "He Loves Me" by Wayne Jacobsen.]

He loves me.
He loves me not.
He loves me.
He loves me not.
The little girl stands in the backyard chanting as she plucks petals one by one from the daisy and drops them to the ground. At game's end, the last petal tells all: whether or not the person desired returns affection.

Of course no one takes it seriously, and if children don't get the answer they desire they take another daisy and start again. It doesn't take long even for children to realize that flowers weren't designed to tell romantic fortunes. Why should they link their hearts' desires to the fickleness of chance?

Why indeed! But it is a lesson far easier learned in romance than in more spiritual pursuits. For long after we've put away our daisies, many of us continue to play this game with God. This time we don't pluck flower petals, but probe through our circumstances trying to figure out exactly how God feels about us.

I got a raise. He loves me.
I didn't get the promotion I wanted, or I lost my job altogether. He loves me not!
Something in the Bible inspired me today. He loves me!
My child is seriously ill. He loves me not!
I gave money to someone in need. He loves me!
I let my anger get the best of me. He loves me not!
Something for which I prayed actually happened. He loves me!
I stretched the truth to get out of a tight spot. He loves me not!
A friend calls me unexpectedly to encourage me. He loves me!
My car needs a new transmission. He loves me not!

[The author has made this entire book available for download in PDF format from this site. The above quote is the beginning of Chapter One. It's about 160 pages long and I recommend reading it to get to the underlying truth if you're struggling with knowing God's love in your life.]

Healthy On The Inside

This past month, the weekly services at my church focused on the theme "Healthy On The Inside." The main point is that we need to ensure that we're healed and healthy personally, past a superficial level. Based on people that I have spoken to over the years, and the response from people in church this past month, many people are really in need of this kind of restoration in their lives. Everyone needs freedom from their past and from the pain of life but so many people have trouble finding it sometimes.

This kind of healing may come through medical professionals, it may come through counselors and pastors, it may come through friends. Sometimes people find freedom and healing through seminars and books, or through deep teaching of some kind. Most amazingly, I know many people that are restored simply through Jesus working in their lives. God is the master physician and it's miraculous when the Holy Spirit simply leads us.

The links below provide the point-form notes for each sermon along with an audio recording. Of this bunch, the one that really stood out to me was the last one about depression. In particular, Angela Mercer sings a song that she wrote entitled "Timeless" towards the end of the sermon. It's an emotional song and it get right to our hearts on this. Following that, Pastor Rick closes the service by telling his personal story about how he struggled with deep depression at one point. That story is well worth hearing if you want to take the time.

Week 1: Self Esteem
Week 2: Anger
Week 3: Fear
Week 4: Depression