12.2.05
Cool VR Panoramas
Found this one on boingboing.net. It's site that has a number of panoramas, my favourites being the ones from the moon... let me tell you, it really feels like you're there looking around. I've always looked at pictures from the Apollo missions, but this is the first time they've felt real. Do yourself a favour and check these out! You'll need Quicktime to use them. (the link provided gives you the version without the stupid iTunes crap)
11.2.05
The Flying Life
Well, I haven't had much of one in about 6 or 8 months now. I miss flying dearly, and I wish I could be doing it every day! Unfortunately life got in the way. Between all the stuff I've been doing for the church and my business it has been next-to-impossible to get myself booked in to fly. But that may change shortly, or at least I hope so. I stopped by the flight school today to get things going again, and I'll be going again tomorrow to meet my new instructor (#3 or 4... I'm not sure which). Should be fun!
In other news, I'm going to start using my union's benefit plan in the coming weeks. (Did I mention that I'm a union steward at work, but our rep doesn't tell me anything?) Oh joy. I'm going to be losing my wisdom [teeth], which somewhat terrifies me. I know that it's not that big a deal these days, but I'm still not a big fan of pain! The first person who calls me "chippy" or "chipmunk face" will be losing some teeth... probably not their wisdom ones, either!
Speaking of unions, Wal-Mart is in the news again. Looks like their taking their union-busting to another level and decided to close the first unionised Wal-Mart in Canada - in Quebec. They even received bomb-threats at some of the other stores because people are so ticked off! Down with Wal-Mart - scourge of North America. People seem to forget that behind all these low prices are people who are being paid at minimum wage. Sure, Wal-Mart can afford to pay them more, but why would they? If they did that they'd have to raise prices. Well, sorry guys, but that's the price of doing business! I run a business, and we manage to keep our costs down by not hiring anybody. Albeit we're on a much smaller scale, but at least we're not forcing someone to stay in a poverty-level income! Yeah, yeah, you say, they could get another job... If they could get another job, do you think they'd be working at Wal-Mart?
Sometimes I think people might be worse off in a minimum wage job than being unemployed.
And last but not least... Today's reason to shed a tear for the world (article).
In other news, I'm going to start using my union's benefit plan in the coming weeks. (Did I mention that I'm a union steward at work, but our rep doesn't tell me anything?) Oh joy. I'm going to be losing my wisdom [teeth], which somewhat terrifies me. I know that it's not that big a deal these days, but I'm still not a big fan of pain! The first person who calls me "chippy" or "chipmunk face" will be losing some teeth... probably not their wisdom ones, either!
Speaking of unions, Wal-Mart is in the news again. Looks like their taking their union-busting to another level and decided to close the first unionised Wal-Mart in Canada - in Quebec. They even received bomb-threats at some of the other stores because people are so ticked off! Down with Wal-Mart - scourge of North America. People seem to forget that behind all these low prices are people who are being paid at minimum wage. Sure, Wal-Mart can afford to pay them more, but why would they? If they did that they'd have to raise prices. Well, sorry guys, but that's the price of doing business! I run a business, and we manage to keep our costs down by not hiring anybody. Albeit we're on a much smaller scale, but at least we're not forcing someone to stay in a poverty-level income! Yeah, yeah, you say, they could get another job... If they could get another job, do you think they'd be working at Wal-Mart?
Sometimes I think people might be worse off in a minimum wage job than being unemployed.
And last but not least... Today's reason to shed a tear for the world (article).
Ok, seriously...
Who does the MPAA think they are? They just shut down LokiTorrent - the best BitTorrent site that was left. Do they not understand that they aren't losing money from having people download movies? Stealing would require people to be taking property. I'm sorry, but digital bits don't cost anything to make, nor do they cost anything to download. The problem with their claim is that they are no worse off after someone downloads a movie on the Internet. You might be able to say that they're not getting the money that they would get if I were to buy / rent the film, but that's a big assumption. I don't buy many movies to start with, in fact I've actually started bought more movies since I started downloading since I was able to decide if they were worthwhile to own or not... maybe now I'll just boycott them altogether and buy only used movies at the pawn shop. Perhaps Hollywood will stop putting out the same old garbage that has been coming out for the last few years so people will actually want to buy their movies. I have no problems with paying for something that I think is worthwhile, but I'm not going to pay for crap - I do that enough with my insurance company!
10.2.05
Update...
So, life's well. I've been insanely busy for the last few months, and thought I'd share.
Our church's minister left us in July, and I, being the head of the Worship and Music Committee (W&M) , was left to scramble and find supply ministry for every Sunday since then. Thank goodness for our Christian Education worker, Bonnie, who helped out immensely. Between us we managed to keep Sundays going smoothly, and I managed to learn a heck of a lot!
I also ended up as the co-head of the Search Committee, finding a new minister in August. We met every other week so that we could keep up with applications that were coming into the church. The process took until late December / Mid-January to complete, but we've hired a new minister now, who started the past Sunday. And she's great! Last Tuesday after one of our meetings, we went out for wings at a local restaurant and go to know eachother a little better. I'm looking forward to working with her very much.
Also, with the church, I'm still an elder, on the Session, which takes up less time than the others, but still is a commitment that I try to keep up with to the best of my ability.
Interestingly, I got the opportunity to actually lead the church through Advent. Wow, what an experience it is to be up behind the pulpit and preaching! I didn't write the sermons, but it was awesome being able to... relay (?) God's message to the congregation... to be able to teach people something they may not have heard before. Yeah, yeah, it's Christmas stuff, everyone's heard it before. I don't know if that's really true. I learned a few things while I was preparing for the Sundays... I hope other people did as well.
Another fun thing that I've been involved with at the church is trying to convince them that an LCD projector is something that would enhance our services. So, we've been borrowing a projector from our neighbourhood school, and putting the words to prayers, and hymns up on Powerpoint (OpenOffice.org's Slideshow program, actually). It's gone over extremely well, I think.... the trick is going to be in the finances, though it was recently shown to me that there are grants available for this sort of thing. Hopefully that will help it move along. I've really found that the projector enhances our worship because it gets people to get their noses out of their hymnals and bulletins when we're speaking/singing together... it helps to project the sound, and enables folks to really see what's going on in the worship (instead of their knees).
Well, that's about it from the church front. I'll update some more on everything else later on.
God Bless!
Our church's minister left us in July, and I, being the head of the Worship and Music Committee (W&M) , was left to scramble and find supply ministry for every Sunday since then. Thank goodness for our Christian Education worker, Bonnie, who helped out immensely. Between us we managed to keep Sundays going smoothly, and I managed to learn a heck of a lot!
I also ended up as the co-head of the Search Committee, finding a new minister in August. We met every other week so that we could keep up with applications that were coming into the church. The process took until late December / Mid-January to complete, but we've hired a new minister now, who started the past Sunday. And she's great! Last Tuesday after one of our meetings, we went out for wings at a local restaurant and go to know eachother a little better. I'm looking forward to working with her very much.
Also, with the church, I'm still an elder, on the Session, which takes up less time than the others, but still is a commitment that I try to keep up with to the best of my ability.
Interestingly, I got the opportunity to actually lead the church through Advent. Wow, what an experience it is to be up behind the pulpit and preaching! I didn't write the sermons, but it was awesome being able to... relay (?) God's message to the congregation... to be able to teach people something they may not have heard before. Yeah, yeah, it's Christmas stuff, everyone's heard it before. I don't know if that's really true. I learned a few things while I was preparing for the Sundays... I hope other people did as well.
Another fun thing that I've been involved with at the church is trying to convince them that an LCD projector is something that would enhance our services. So, we've been borrowing a projector from our neighbourhood school, and putting the words to prayers, and hymns up on Powerpoint (OpenOffice.org's Slideshow program, actually). It's gone over extremely well, I think.... the trick is going to be in the finances, though it was recently shown to me that there are grants available for this sort of thing. Hopefully that will help it move along. I've really found that the projector enhances our worship because it gets people to get their noses out of their hymnals and bulletins when we're speaking/singing together... it helps to project the sound, and enables folks to really see what's going on in the worship (instead of their knees).
Well, that's about it from the church front. I'll update some more on everything else later on.
God Bless!
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