Mean Dean takes aim at Canada.

-Peace

only 63 km to go...

-Peace
Dave

Mike's Spot On The Wall

• Reading, birthdays, and music:
  I'm re-reading "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Philip Yancey. I like Philip's honesty as he wrestles with the same questions we never want to admit we ask.
  My family is having a mega-birthday bash this weekend. My mother, grandmother, and I are all November birthdays so we are going to have one giant hoot.
  The music club at my college is moving in some interesting directions. The Christian bunch of us are thinking of putting some modern praise and worship together after the Christmas break. I'm looking forward to it. It's been a long time since I played with other Christians.

Mike's Walk

• The spirit enters a prayer meeting:
  On Wednesday morning our prayer group met at one of our members new place of work. Gary's new shop had yet to open for business (in fact the contractor had to let us in because Gary didn't have the keys yet). We gathered in a circle and placed our hands on Gary and his family as we prayed. Our prayers turned to singing and our singing turned to joyous fellowship. It was a great time.
  Thank you Jesus for being there and helping us pray and for giving us a glimpse of you.

  The verse that goes with it I found in Job of all places:
  Job 33:26
  "when they pray, God will answer; they will worship God with joy; God will set things right for them again."

According to The Numbers, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie is in the black. So far it's made 21,621,641 US$. That covers the 14 000 000 production budget and the 7 000 000 prints and advertising budget. So it looks like Jonah won't sink Big Idea after all.

-Peace

only 84 km to go...

-Peace

Wendy asks "What can you say to top Buddy Jesus?" Nothing I could say could top that, but have you seen Cheesus?

That's 11" x 20" of pure Velveeta folks. The artist is Jonathan Truch, he's a 2002 grad from the Alberta College of Art & Design.

-Peace

Tonight on IdeaJoy, cool news and a confession.

cool news: I'm the proud owner of a new brodie Kinetic mountain bike. I'd provide a direct like but brodie bikes likes flash, so look under the lightning series. This is a very sweet ride, I rode it for the first time tonight. Winter night riding is fun, cause the ice is much harder to see :) I got a great deal on this bike as it's end of season, and because I cracked the frame on my previous brodie. It had a ten year warranty on the frame and was only 4 years old. brodie would have replaced the frame, but then I'd have a new frame with worn out parts, so I suggested they give me a deal on a bike an they did. For about what I paid for my last bike, I got a much sweeter ride :) The guys at work are jealous.

confession: I still haven't made my 1000 km goal for the year. I last posted about riding back on August 1st. I was at 720 for the year. I'm now at 891 in November. Sad I know, but I have a list of lame excuses:

• beginning of August was cold and wet, we even had snow!
  
• Mid august I was on vacation and did only 30 km that week. Why kill yourself on vacation? And Revelstoke being in the mountains is all hills, so that's like work!
  
• End of August I was on the bench, that is not billable, that is doing research from home. I would have ridden from the bed room to the basement, but Kim wouldn't let me. It's not that far any-ways. So yeah I'm lazy, if I'm not going somewhere when I'm ridding I find it way too easy to put off.
  
• September – still not billable, and had minor foot surgery, so there was a good 5 weeks where I couldn't bike
  
• October - decide it's time to finish of my last 160 km or so, but crack my frame. Actually I'm pretty sure it cracked while I did my big 10 km of off roading in Revelstoke but it wasn't noticeable for awhile.
  

So that brings me to November with a new bike and as of tonight, 109 kms to go :) Right now we've got some nice weather, hope it holds otherwise I'll be biking in blizzards, cause I'm going to do this before 2003 rolls around.

-Peace

My Mom was in town and we all went to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding last night. We all laughed. Kim cried. She cries at wedding and movies, so a movie about a wedding, it a sinch she's going to cry. It's nice to see a good movie can still be made on modest budget. 5 million for production, 19 million for prints and advertising. So far it's made ~184 million in the USA.

One of the running jokes in movie is the dad explaining how every word comes from Greek. Asked by one of the kids how the word "kimono" comes from the Greek, he replies that

"kimono" comes from the greek word for winter "kimona", and what do you wear in winter? A robe! hence komono!

That's probably not an exact quote, but you get the idea. This bit was made even funnier for me as I had a Greek taxi driver passionately explain how all technology was really Greek because it had Greek names. Tele being Greek for far, so telephone, television, and telegraph were all Greek.

Being a passionate Canadian I of course need to point out that the star and writer for the movie, Nia Vardalos is a Canadian. Hollywood.com has an interview with Nia Vardalos, which explains how the movie got made.

-Peace

The image on the left if from the Canadian War Posters web site. In Canada Remembrance Day is November the 11th.

-Peace