Twelve Most Intersting Pictures of 2005

Flickr rates photos on 'interestingness'. When a pic breaks into my personal top twenty, I add it to the Most Instersting of 2005 set. Fifty One Photos from 2005 that flickr thought were somewhat interesting. I'll let you know when I get my first 'interesting' shot of 2006.

- Peace

Treasure Box Game

Treasure Box an artistic point and click puzzle. Great artwork and interesting sound.

As seen on the Resonate Canada E-mail Discussion List.

- Peace

B.B. King Christmas

iTunes says I have 9.7 hours of Christmas music on file. It's an eclectic mix. Bruce Cockburn singing traditional Christmas songs from all over the world, One Bad Pig's Christmas Time from Swine Flew, Six pence None the Richer's cover of You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch from a radio sampler I was sent back in 96. It started out as a random collection but over the few years I've started looking out for unique Christmas music. I have six versions of Silent Night, got to have something to break that up.

I was in A&B Sound hoping to snag a last minute gift, no luck. While hunting I did stumble on B.B. King The Christmas Collection. I've always been attracted to the dark side of Christmas, so a collection of Christmas songs by a blues master just spoke to me. It's a great disk mixing classic blues and themes of Christmas both joyful and painful. B.B. King fits right in with the punk, techno, classical, metal, celtic and jazz that makes up my giant Christmas mix tape. May your Christmas have room for a little Lucille.

- Peace

Merry Christmas

We're getting ready to head to Edmonton for Christmas and fighting the flue. Yay! I didn't want to forget to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

- Peace

Prayerful Imagination

crowds of people
traveling back to their home town
things to do
arrangements to make
our frantic Christmas season
same as the first

I don't know anyone
who would travel like that
with a mother expectant

why was Marry there
was it not safe at home
perhaps those who thought
Joseph should have divorced her, punished her
would make it so
if she did not journey as well

did some of then make it Bethlehem first
talking of Joseph and his 'bride'
and what should be done
and so there was no room at the inn

The manger was a safe place
simple, dirty but safe

Is that why they were still in Bethlehem
two years later?
Even in the days of Cesar Augustus
it did not take two years to be counted

the Prince of Peace has been entering
dark and painful situations from the beginning

my entry in our advent journal.

Pause for Christmas

1 Corinthians 13 - A Christmas version.

- Peace
Dave

Show us your beaver

While our City Council debates what to do with our zoo (half want to tear it down the other half want to make it a world class zoo) some of us just enjoy it while we have it.

This is Bo who was orphaned and rescued young so she can’t be released back into the wild. Bo loves attention and for the record beavers are VERY soft.

Watch out for the killer-vampire-beaver…

Bo isn’t biting she is actually doing a mating display. I guess my wife looks and smells good to all species.

Have a merry Christmas everyone; always remember whose birthday it really is.

Fish For the Element

Now that I have the brag plate I guess I need to get one of those Fish for the Element.

- Peace

Not Clear on the Concept

I got this from a reliable source. It's a real goodbye email. The names have been changed to protect the silly.

As tomorrow is my last day with SomeCompany, I want to take this opportunity to say goodbye.

I have enjoyed my time with SomeCompany both professionally and personally, with the friends I have made here. I will miss SomeCompany but am looking forward to new challenges that await me in my new position.

If you wish to stay in touch, my email is bob@somecompany.ca

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Bob

Sorry to break this to you Bob, but when you leave, they will turn off your email.

- Peace

With Friends Like These

With conservative friends like Ralph Klein and George Bush does Stephen Harper need enemies?

- Peace

Dallas Willard on 'Quiet Times'

Quiet times as we have construed them do not work for most people. I suggest people set aside longer periods of time less frequently. We must have space for extended periods. Intensity in any discipline is so important. A shower ever few days is much more effective than a few small drips every day.

As seen on not all who wander are lost.

- Peace

Man loses bet by staying alive

Who needs life insurance when you've got bookies? Man loses bet by staying alive

- Peace

Genuine Intimacy

Our culture is starved for community. It is hungry
for genuine intimacy since we no longer have the basic
social structure, skills or time to learn how to
develop it. Genuine intimacy requires deliberate and
dilligent practise. Simply to have the name church
does not mean we are a real community. Most churches
are quite atrocious when it comes to truly welcoming
strangers. If our churches will truly be Church and
nurture profound intimacy and generous hospitality for
which our culture is desperate, it will require
schooling, sanctification, sacrifice and suffering.

Marva Dawn's with Eugene Peterson from The Unneseccary Pastor. Another Peterson book I'm adding to my to read list. Thank Santosh for the quote.

- Peace

Heritage Park

Spent a couple of hours on Saturday at Heritage Park with some folk from the Calgary Flickr Group. I've tagged pics from the adventure as CalgaryFlickrMeetUpDec05.

- Peace

Anne Rice on the Historical Jesus

"What gradually came clear to me was that many of the skeptical arguments- arguments that insisted most of the Gospel were suspect, for, or written too late to be eyewitness accounts- lacked coherence... Absurd conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all." ("Christ the Lord", by Anne Rice, pg 313, Knopf Canada)

Yes that's the same Anne Rice who was all the rage in the Goth sceen when I was growing up with her Vampire novels.

As seen on Emergent Voyageurs.

- Peace

WIFI in Inglewood

The Rouge or someone near The Rouge has an open WIFI point. :)

- Peace

You Might Be Emerging If...

Mostly Visual Cues of the Emerging Church movement.

As seen on Waving or Drowning.

- Peace

It's Winter in Canada eh?

Yesterday morning it was about -18c (-0.4F) and I was standing out side of Wallmart ringing bells for the Salvation Army. People made a big deal of this, asking me why I was standing out side, would Wallmart not let me inside? They asked the staff who told them that yes they had asked me to come in. One woman bought me hot chocolate to drink, Thanks that was nice. Another said I deserved a medal and then put $20 in the kettle.

It's winter in Canada people! Have we forgotten what it's like to be out side in the cold? What does it say about our Canadianess if we're shocked that someone would prefer to be out side even in the cold. I had a touque, gloves, my warm leather jacket and hiking boots. I wasn't out there in shorts, thought I did see one guy in shorts yesterday. I don't know if it's just Calgary where we've gone form +18c (64.4F) to -18 in week or if modern Canadians have just gotten really good at avoiding the Great White North.

As for me, I'll take the kettle out side. It's Canada, it's Christmas, it should be cold!

- Peace

For Tim and Jen

Jen and Tim seemed to need a bit more evidence that the brag plate was real. I hope this does the trick.