The Cat Empire

So this one won't be to long, I'm between classes at the U, just finished some hard lengths in the pool feeling good feeling alive, and listening to one of my new favourite bands called "The Cat Empire"

If I were to write a review of this band it would probably comment on the fact that the main vocals on this self titled album are fantastic in that they are quite varied, almost seeming to have a Jamaican lilt' although the band originates in Australia. It has much variance in the music such as "the wine song" which almost sounds like something you'd hear off of the fiddler on the roof, to the socially satirical lyrics that are present in "The Chariot" All in all, if this were a review I'd give this album a definite 9 in that I'd talk about how I enjoyed almost all of the songs but a few of them just seemed to lack substance. Overall I'd say pick it up in whichever way seems right to you. - at least that's what I'd say if it were a review.

Aside from that a few things that are going on in me' life is that I'm busy with School, this promised to be the busiest week yet with a Philosophy club meeting today, Wednesday meeting with some Inter Varsity Xian Fellowship people and early friday morning i'm taking part in a Psycology experiment where they will be testing my spatial reaction to emotional stimulus... Sounds like fun. (I opted out of the male sexuality one, as much as it would be an experiment 2 hours of exposure to pornography in the name of science still doesn't make it right in my mind.) Plus my first Philosophy exam this friday so much studying going oni this weekend.

Also a little bit excited about my birthday coming up on the 11th of October, if your feeling generous I'm lookiong for a USB splitter for my new Mac (usb2 plz!), new snowboard and snowboarding gloves.

Well that's enough I think...

Almost two years I've waited!

Almost two years ago now I went onto the Apple Computers website and saw with my own eyes the newest incarnation of the all in one iMac. At the time I had the money in my bank account to jump on it, and had recently gotten my first credit card. But I allready had a decent laptop that was still running o.k.

1 year ago my laptop started having issues, such as the infamous 'blue screen of death' which would cause me to lose whatever was going on, as well as I ended up having many occasions where it would simply freeze. But I didn't really NEED a new computer at that point, all I really did was check my email.

Today I finally have reaped the reward of waiting, after two years the newest incarnation of the iMac is more powerful, sleeker, 'prettier' and less expencive than ever before, and I've got one sitting on my desk as I write with my bluetooth wireless keyboard. It's pretty fantastic to get something which I've waited for this long. Anyway I'm tired so this isn't very eloquent, but yay for patience, if half the other things in life I'm waiting for are 1/3rd this good it's all well worth it!
dREW~

Great ride, but boy am I sick now....

Well the weekend went well... However I haven't been that cold that consistently for a long time! On Friday when I left after posting my last Blog I had high hopes that the weather would stay nice, well those hopes were dashed within the first 10 minutes out of Lethbridge when it began raining. That combined with a temperature of about 10 degrees meant that by the time I had gotten to Vulcan I couldn't really feel much of anything that wasn't in my helmet. But after buying a pair of bright neoprene gloves to keep the rain and wind off my hands I managed to make it the next hour into Calgary. Where I found the house I was going to locked, after a few phone calls I managed to find a friend who was home and got the chance to go warm up in a shower, and theres not much that feels better than getting into a warm shower after a long cold ride.

The next day however (you can see to the right it was still cold as Pamela and my motorcycles are smoking) was great as we got the opportunity to go and do the Turn on the Tap ride. We arrived at Samaritan's Purse at 8:15 a.m. and joined about 48 other motorcyclists from all ages, styles of motorbikes, and areas.


After a quick run down of the route and some safety tips we were then escorted through Calgary by the Police who shut down a few roads and cleared up deerfoot for us which I unfortunately don't have any pictures of. We had three stops along the way, two churches and a gas station about halfway along the kananaskis trail. It was a beautiful ride, despite rain, snow, and hail. But all told we managed to raise about 40,000 dollars for the bio-sand filters to be sent overseas, so it was very exciting and very successful, even if the weather was a little inclement.

Nothing else to new to report, I'm really sick now after being out in the cold so much, sore throat, fever all that. I have class in 55 minutes and I'm wishing that university was like a job where you could call in sick! But I've got all my assignments done and maybe getting out and about will help me feel better. I've got one last photo for you it's of my Pamela when we were halfway through Kananaskis country, just after we saw the snow on the side of the road!! Blessings ya'll! dREW~

how good it is.

So last night after getting off of my classes I got to go home and relax. Took home some textbooks that I had the opportunity to leaf through and found some interesting things. Moreso than bible school I think I'm going to enjoy the class aspect of this experience solely because I do'nt have to take anything that I don't want to. Not that I'm complaining about Anabaptist Distinctives or anything but I probably wouldn't have chosen to pay for it if I didn't have to.

The other thing I got to do was to work on my bike a little bit. Tighten up the chain a few mm's, get some fresh oil into it, and of course take it for a nice little wash. Now the reality of my bike is that it is not running in pristine condition, in fact as I stand here I can catch the occasional whiff' of a mixture of oil and gasoline that tends to stain whatever pants I ride in on the inside of me left calf. But when I got on my bike this morning, and looked at the shiny gauges, and the silver exhaust, the headlight reflecting in what little sun there is today all I can do is sigh. As I pull on the leather jacket, the helmet, the gloves and fire up 1000cc's of japanese engineering I can only grin. As I pass the little rice rocket on university ave, or take a really nice deep corner coming down to anderson hall there is the hint of laughter bubbling up from deep within my biker's soul. I love it.

The bummer however about the bike is that tomorrow is a ride called "turn on the tap" for the samaritans purse in Calgary, which means that I get to leave after class today at 4:00 ish, but the problem is that the temperature is definately not warm. So I'll be suiting up and will probably appear moreso as a polar bear riding a bicycle rather than a leather wrapped menace to the roadways mounting his red dragon. But what can we do. Anyone inclined to pray could definately pray that the 60% chance of thundershowers in Calgary is lowered by 8:15 tomorrow when my PJS and I arrive at Samartan's purse and begin our ride with many like-minded christian riders.

Blessings on everyone, may you find things that make you as happy as I felt for the 10 minute trip to the U today.
dREW~

P.s. technologies a punk...

On August 15th I ordered an iMac, an iPod Nano, and an iPrinter... rather just a printer. So I got my printer and my iPod almost same day but I've had to wait over a month to get my iMac because it was customized and all that jazz, whatever not a big deal. Also I got the iPod and the Printer for free via the online promotions. But now I see that they've released the new iPod nano's which play video and are a almost 60 dollars cheaper than the old ones!!!! It's one of those things where I know I don't need the new iPod's bigger screen and fun album cover info at all, but it's just really going to show that even when I thought I was on the cutting edge by getting my 24inch iMac loaded to the gill's I'm still running into something else that I'm having problems with. I wish I could have just taken the 220 bucks really... maybe I'll see what a pawn shop will give me... Anyway technologically frustrated... later~
dREW~

Am I in the right Major???

Well today was my second day of classes and I'll say it was quite a bit slacker. I only had two classes and they were right up against eachother so it was be there for 10:50, get done at 1:30, take a swim and come home! So quite nice.

I'm not so sure but at this point the class that I am most excited about is my Sociology class, which is almost hard to say given that I'm a Psych Major. But the proff I've got for it seems really fantastic so that's why I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway off to Calgary this weekend for Turn on the Tap which is a motorcycle ride that is set up for southern alberta. It's about 350 km's and it's being done to raise awareness of the fact that a lot of places don't have clean drinking water, so every 100 bucks raised can provide Bio Sand filters to 10 people. I think it's cool, I'm excited to be a part of it, and I'm praying the weather will stay nice! So I've gotta get going given that I'm not going to be home at all this weekend and the homework assignments are allready assigned for monday so toodles!
dREW~

Two in one day?

O.k. so I won't be making a habit of this, I promise. But I've allready got a locker for the pool, my student handbook, transferred all my dates into said book, I've walked over the university twice now making sure I know where my classes are, where the gym/pool is, where the Macintosh lab (which was locked!!!) is and found out where all the food places, which i'll never eat at, are located. So that was interesting. I've also found out that even though the University of Lethbridge is 90% concrete a cell phone will still work on the lower levels, although it may cut in and out. I learned this b/c all day I've been trying to hook up with other people that I know that are going to the university so that I can figure out who I'm going to be able to hang out with.

The reason I'm trying to figure out everyone else's schedules is because I currently have two roomates. The one works an evening shift and usually ends up staying awake till 3 or 4 before going to bed, waking up at noon, and going to work. The other works mornings and so we can hang out more now that I'm in the U. But he's moving out at the end of the month and another buddy of mine is moving in who is also on an evening shift. What does this mean? Likely that for the most part if I'm awake at home they won't be, or they'll be at work. so that means that for hanging out I'm going to have to look outward in order to find that.

But yes ,thus far the impression is that I think i'm going to like this University thing, my only need now is to win the lottery so that I can just be a full time student! That would be the life!!!
dREW~

First Day of School...

What a strange feeling it is to be walking back into an educational instutition. To be paying fees again, to have a student id card, to be surrounded by many many people as we all try to gain a little bit of information that we might use to further our minds and as I've found with most people, our careers and our padded pockets.

Anyway things have been pretty busy for me as of late, just getting ready for school, just trying to prepare everything so that I don't end up walking into a class only to have the professor say... um your not actually on my list! But all has gone well so far.

I'm pretty stoked about the health aspect of going to school this year. It's about 1 hour from my house to any given classroom at the U, which means that the earliest I have to leave the house this semester, unless I get an early day job, is 9:00. Also all of the breaks that I have between classes line up really well with the lane swimming at the pool here, which I have access to via my U pass. Thus hoping to get in some swimming daily, maybe get some weights in and all that jazz, but there are some things in the not to distant future that I'd like to be a little more in shape for so that'll be good.

I'm taking four courses this semester. Psychology 1000, Philosophy 1000, Sociology 1000, and Liberal Education 1000. I'm pretty stoked for this because the four "ology's" are ones that I've been wanting to take for a long time, and if I'm going to switch my degree from Psych it will be to one of these other courses. So here we go.

Anyway I'm starting this blog up again because first of all I'm going to have a lot of time on computers, and maybe just maybe something I learn here will be postable, and thus potentially effect the world at large.

But anyway I'm going to head off and try to get my hands on my student Id card. First class in less than an hour now... little nervous. What if in the few years between Bethany College and now I've forgotten how to learn????