Day 394: amen

there's an old brewhouse of brick and tall windows downtown by the river. wallblank.com operates from here and i was there tonight again with my friend shawn, the site's owner and curator. turns out the building itself is bigger than i ever imagined and is filled with awesome creative spaces and vintage signs and mechanisms and one dusty old piano. i'm hoping to go back within a day or two to do some major photography work.

speaking of which, some of my photography was featured by a seattle band. check out garage voice's site here.

and i might have found a happy balance for employment and purpose. looks like i'll be starting a new position at my old sporting goods store in town to become a bike and snowboard technician. coming back to this place hasn't been as bad as i had feared it could have been. not bad at all, actually.

thanks so much for being a big part of everything that's happened on vancouver island, vancouver, seattle, fernie, montana, maple ridge, portland, and the ten thousand miles of road in between these places.

this is the end of the daily text version of the vagabonded raconteur. for now, at least. i promise nothing is going to change in real life. who knows, there may even be some short-term adventuring on the horizon already. but as for day-to-day, well, i've got to haul in the reigns of blogging so that i can refocus and concentrate on a few other aspects of development.

there's a column down a bit on the right side of the page that highlights certain portions of all this. i'll clean it up and make it a little more complete for you to review if you feel at a loss tomorrow morning. i'm probably going to feel at a loss tomorrow at midnight when, for the first time in three hundred ninety-four nights, i will not post.

here are two of my favorites right off the bat:

day 365: one year

day 238: thanks

and i've been gifted a flickr pro account, so i'll definitely be using that more often. you can see that grow here.



finally here are my goals, for i have long forsaken the pressures of plans and twisting of time:

- continue learning, using, and networking music, photography, writing, and video.
- become a certified bicycle and snowboard technician.
- work.
- keep the perspective and momentum that has resulted through all this.
- be ready for anything to happen next.
- always, always, always continue to trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understandings. acknowledge Him in everything and allow these paths to continue to be directed.


thank you family, thank you friends, and thank you God for the opportunity, adventure, and life that has now become ALL THIS.

Day 196: what if

i was inspired at the sfc conference last night. because of the late-night castle adventure after the gig, there wasn't time to post up this addition so here it is as part of today. and tomorrow.

the sfc conference's stories about its organization and especially the rider's aid program made me feel a little guilty.

wait. stop reading. just follow the link for a second. i'll wait for you.

good.

to be honest, i feel that our group is here this winter for a reason and purpose. i think that's been well established already and i'm thankful for that. still, i'm here in a different country under unusual circumstances and trying to think of ways to support myself and survive in this new life.

i'm telling you this for a reason. a good reason. keep going.

i've mentioned it before. money. there's usually never enough. whether you're a millionaire with frozen cash or if you've got a raised paper cup and smelly hoodie on the sidewalk or a family or if you're some twenty year old kid who's in some random ski town in canada for a season because he fully believes that it's where he's meant to be, then maybe we'll never reach that imaginary benchmark we all have in our mind- the one that changes like the one that i had in my mind. even tonight my cousin, as he so skillfully does, asked a random question while chatting online. 'what would you specifically buy with $5,000 cash in hand if you had your immediate expenses paid?" i couldn't think of too much.

i think it would be awesome for me to commit to trying to support someone else this winter. this could be something with rider's aid or maybe i'm gonna look up what it take to sponsor a child. this is the most relevant time, i think, where life itself has become a huge reminder of selfishness and living simply and within means. being content. there was a conversation about a week ago with a friend where we were discussing the manner of trying to follow the ways of Jesus in a culture and life that's programmed so differently. usually its easiest to give when there's plenty to go around. it takes effort just to begin to be willing to interpret and find applicable ways to do this. i know that last sentence might sound unfounded and i might add some examples later, but i'm trying to take hold of this idea. this idea is starting to become real to me.

this is the bottom line.

there isn't going to be a better time. maybe you could get involved too.

Day 174

i've been in correspondence with a traveler who is familiar with and involved with chris mccandless's family.

i officially started my janitor job at the church today. key and code, i entered, did my business, logged my labor time, and happened to lose the next few, quick hours playing their new baby grand. this is sweet. i did happen to find a mysterious stairwell that houses hundreds and hundreds of buzzing, trapped flies. i don't think many people go into that place. one of the ladies of the church happened to stop by while i was there with pizza, so she gave me a free lunch and a bag of chips.

we went to a hockey game in town tonight. there's a juniors league of twentyish aged, nhl hopefuls and the competition is a huge source of entertainment for a ski-town. they even fight, which for the majority of hockey spectators who regardlessly admit or deny it, is a huge incentive to go to a game.

finally, in replying to an email from a friend from high school and trying to summarize the high points and events of the past few months, i'm honestly able to fully respond  to the question that i think i am living the dream. it's not america's dream because i don't have much money, but i have good friends, a desire for deeper spirituality, and a simplified lifestyle that's opened my eyes to a new way of living and thinking and feeling. it's so life-provoking in itself to be able to finally live this way through faith and being excited about God's plan. i know that might sound selfish now, and i understand that his plan might lead some other way some day, but through all this, i'm discovering what it might take to be able to follow it then as well.

Day 81

i'm off the island. after a busy morning of editing and shooting, lunch came and time off began. already, this day has been awesome.

shaun, paul, and i are hanging out with a guy kirk who lives on the mainland near vancouver. the ferry ride over was splattered with other qwanoes staff, but the three of us each brought a longboard and i had a backpack and camera. after docking, we were free to roam and ready to go.

kirk is a cool guy. his dad's a prof at trinity western and there's a '55 les paul hanging on the wall in the room as we watch a john mayer concert on the flatscreen on the wall. we both brought our canon dslrs tonight on our adventure.

earlier tonight we headed into vancouver for the last night of the week of fireworks. pedestrians flocked the dimming streets and faces glowed as people, numerous as ants, scattered and spread to find their own vantage point. after splitting with shaun and paul, who were at kfc, kirk and i sat on our longboards with our chinese takeout on the sidewalk and ate as people flowed past towards the waterfront. a grey whiskered, bald bum approached us and asked us for money for some kfc. i'm not sure why, but we told him that we had some friends at kfc who could help him buy the rest of a meal. he asked their names and then left saying 'he was going to blow their minds' by approaching them by name. the funny thing is that this guy had been in kfc earlier trying to scrape up a meal and had talked to shaun and paul, telling them he was going to rob the place. so bum man left us and went back to kfc. haha so random and the boy's had a great reaction when we met up with them a little later. we meet many bums on our adventures.

since this was our first time in vancouver, we rode the sidewalks and happened to find a solid looking carpark. guardless and mostly empty, we booked it up the stairs and ripped down. awesome.

after an amazing fireworks show, we glided through the darkness and crowded streets and made it back to the car in a fraction of the time it took earlier. there's a sea-wall sidewalk that borders the water and surrounds most of the city and in the dark, still, cool, salty air, the four of us cruised in silent bliss. shining city lights reflected on black water and people sifted and slid into the darkness to find their ways home.

Day 76

that violent kid from yesterday got sent home. i found out and was kind of sad, but hopefully his participation in helping me with lights and media last night was a good thing for him. today was the last full day of camp and a couple of my boys came to chill in my office during their free time and to work on their projects a little more. since it was just a few of them, we were able to work on putting some special effects and features that aren't possible to teach in the time constraints of the regular sessions.

i'm working on all the kid's projects right now to have individual masters ready for morning. i decided to put a secret 'easter egg' button on the dvd menu that has a short video of me saying well done and thanks for doing starwood dv. i think it'll be funny.

every normal procedure turns into a full-blown adventure on burning night it seems. for example, russ was going to get the printer from his office so i could make dvd sleeve labels and such and managed to tear clothes on our office couch and then happened to take out the picture of his band with dc talk during the puling of this printer's cords. i don't know how glitches and accidents start showing up on these kind of days but some sort of ordeal never fails to appear.

so far since, it's been okay.

all the summer long staff, the ones that are here for at least three months, get three consecutive days off in the middle of the summer. i get my time at the end of next week and a few of us are going to the mainland to go to vancouver and stay at a friends there. everyone's looking forward to this.

Day 14

two weeks. found out i had to work today and kinda struggled to focus inside the dusty office while working on more video intros and such. this insideness could become a serious problem, but i've been finding some interesting new bands to listen to during the work day and that helps. after dinner tim and i walked down to crofton and i plotted the course to the little food store on my gps.

the deer here are really awesome and behave more like cows than skiddish and fearful creatures. i happened to see more than usual today for whatever reason. must be something about the island. i also heard don miller's voice for the first time on a podcast and it was one of those moments where the little narrator in my head died to this exposure.. i made some good progress on 'blue like jazz' tonight on the pier after getting back to the camp.

i don't have much to say today, really, so i'll end this here. tomorrow might be a roadtrip. we'll see.