Ride for Refugee's

Well, October is the month of 'stealing stuff from Andrew'. Last year in October, some Salvadorians laid hold of my wallet, and took from it some US cash. I'm quite sure they needed it far more than I. Good thing they nabbed it before the US dollar succumbed to the awesome might of the omnipotent looney!

Anyway, this year my faith in the not-so-good people of Guelph wained just a bit as one of them decided that my bike was in fact theirs. Upon realizing it was missing, I got my things together, walked to the bike shop and bought myself a proper trail bike, as I usually hit the trails 2 or three times a week.

Enter random email from a teammate from my summer ultimate Frisbee team: she is participating in a 100KM Ride for some fantastic cause that I've never heard of, but am now wholeheartedly in support of. This Saturday is the first Saturday that I have NOTHING going on. This is like a breath of fresh air for a Wedding Photographer, especially after a particularly busy season. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my job, but everybody needs a little break from time to time.

Anyway, I was going to spend the day riding regardless of whether anyone else was going to benefit from it, so I decided to join the fight for our refugee friends and ride a crazy long way for them. Now, I'm not going to be riding 100KM, only half that actually, which (for you english/drama majors) is 50KM. This is about the distance from Guelph to Orangeville, from Kitchener to Stratford, that's right, it's about the Distance from Downtown Denver, Colarodo, all the friggin way to Longmont, Colarodo.

So I need Sponsors. If you'd like to contribute towards my goal of $300.00, then throw me an email and we'll get you situated. Anything over $10.00 gets you a tax receipt, and I'm going to try to put some sort of video together afterwards for your viewing pleasure.

Take a look at www.rideforrefugees.ca

Unca Andrew and Aunt Zoolie

We are proud aunt and uncle to another little one! Hurray!!!

A Case for Faith: Morality....OR IS IT?

Fascinating article on research being done that theorizes why humans have morality.

Wii

One gadgets begets another. Cause and effect. A + B = C

A) A few years ago I bought an ipod. It got me into walking and biking as I could listen to music while exercising, carrying huge amounts of media with me at once. Not long after that, I discovered podcasts and went to town. Ever since then I've been seeking new ones. One that I have found is called Sidescrollers from screwattack.com. It's all about gaming. I found it after watching a few of their videos that were posted on digg.

B) These guys talk a lot about gaming, and I found their Video game vaults a source of great nostalgia, as my childhood consisted of an extraordinarily highly saturation of video games. I got thinking about gaming again, especially after my brother and sister in-law's (Julie's bro and his wife) got me a Nintendo DS for Christmas.

C) Yesterday I purchased a Nintendo Wii. I searched long and hard for one, annoying department store employee's with my incessant phone calls. I ended up getting one and it has been great fun.


Case in point.

Adventures of the Non-Flesh-Eater

Julie and I have decided to go entirely vegetarian for an entire month. So far it has been one of the most difficult and tiresome ventures I have ever undertaken, and it's only been two days! We had Tofu in a dish for dinner this evening. It was terrible, and I'm relatively open minded about this kind of thing (well, I'm increasingly open minded about it anyway). I didn't eat too much of it, neither of us were really into it. Later tonight, I had some baked beans with veggie weiners, which actually weren't too bad, so at least i'm not feeling super hungry for meat right now.

I'll keep you updated. But I'm increasingly wondering if this is the way to go, even if I don't end up being a strict vegetarian or vegan. I like meat but I also understand the toll it takes on the environment and the ethical issues of suffering sentient beings. I enjoy meat way too much to give it up for good. But this will be a good indicator if it's an avenue we will want to venture further down in the future.

We're Back

Julie and I had a fantastic time out West. We had a nice time with the folks in Edmonton for the Wedding, and then headed into the mountains, did some backcountry camping with our packs and toured around B.C. visiting nice areas and even some family in Kelowna!

The highlight was definitely our 4-day, 3-night backpacking trip to base of Mount Robson on the Berg Lake Trail.

The photo is of Julie, our first night on the trail, relaxing by the rushing, glacier fed river near our campsite. We hiked 16km uphill that day, but it was totally worth it, the scenery was magnificent.

Going Away

Well, we're headed off on another photo journey. I'm doing a Wedding in Edmonton, and we're then we're taking a couple of weeks to explore the mountains, visit some family in B.C., some friends in Calgary, then back home at the end of the month.

I'll be posting a video when that happens.

Conformity

This is a very interesting video about 'groupthink.' This is typical of more doctrinally hardline groups like the Pentecostals, (from my experience). It sure made me think about it.



What do you think?