Colds

I hate getting colds - I was out at the Goldeye's game the other day for the evening and it was very cold and damp, that on top of being tired coming back from the camp may have done it. No I have a sore throat, no other symptoms yet but I'm at that point - don't know if this is going to evolve into a full blown cold or just be an annoyance for a few days.

I have stuff to do this weekend, I don't want to spend the day moping around being sick.

Drat

Cement & Hikes & Attitude

Got back from the hike with my scout group, had a great time turns out that 7km with these kids was just about as much distance as they could take in one go. You know, the technical aspects of camping are important, the gear that I'm using today is amazing, high tech lightweight fabrics and insulation, very light weight stoves and cooking gear. I was still carrying 60-65 lbs of gear but what I got for that weight was impressive. That said, the attitude things with hiking are even more important than equipment (and I'm a 5). We got to bed on Saturday night at 9:30 - everyone was tired and the bugs were really beginning to drive us nuts. Now, the kids didn't get to sleep until 11 or so but that wasn't bad really. The interesting part was that I told the kids to wake us up early, say 6:30 or so and to have the first ones up wake up the rest - in fact we were up at 5:30 and on the move by 7 or so. No one complained, no bitching nothing. The trip was a very pleasant experience for everyone. The hike out was on a beautiful day the hike back a little colder but still nice. The food worked out great, the kids bought and cooked their own food and had good results, even the stew and dumplings worked out well. If only every scout event was like this.

After the hike on Sunday night Jerry came to mark out the new driveway - on Monday they had formed and rebared the entire area and on Tuesday morning they poured everything, it's now Thursday lunch and it's been sealed, cut and is dry enough to walk on - not supposed to put weight on it (the cars) until next Wednesday if we can help it. Attitude was interesting here as well, Jerry's guys were great to be around, very personable, obviously enjoying their work and the guy they were working for, they answered all of my 5'ish questions comfortably and with interest. What a nice change from many of the trades workers that I've been around in the last couple of years working on the house.

You know, maybe it is all in the mind..

Evan

The Deaf Cubs Made It!

We had a great time at the Goldeyes sleep-over with the 12 deaf cubs and various and sundry other adults. The kids had a great time, the HQ team made a point of designating a spot for us and setup the closed captioning of the movie (not that you could read it but...) I have discovered that Section C in the far left side of the field is a war zone for incoming fly balls - we had 3 people injured in our area including one of my cub parents and one other guy that needed 10+ stitches to close a cut near his eye.

It rained on Sunday morning of course - getting everything wet just in time for me to have to try and put everything up and dry it out before the upcoming hike...sigh.

Onto another day...

Well they copped out...

The General Synod copped out...They've delayed a decision on Blessing of Same Sex Relationships at least until 2007. Giving us 3 more years of confusion and turmoil. Some more diocese will probably go ahead and OK a rite, which will just cause further turmoil that the national body will not be able to speak about because it has no position, for or against - that's the real problem with delaying the decision, the vacuum we find ourselves in.

One other thing I'm trying to understand is that several native members of synod mentioned that they to preferred the delay - apparently their people don't understand this issue or it isn't relevant to them. I probably don't have a good picture of the issue here - the GS2004 web site has been a little bit disappointing. But I'm concerned that what is emerging is a race based veto - if the native communities don't understand then we delay? I even heard one native member indicating that the intention is to create a separate native church management structure - apart from Synod...Don't understand if that's formal policy or his own idea. If that's the case - a separate native governance structure coming in - they why would we delay this decision to wait for them - they're just going to break away anyway? Need more info on this one.

The announcement was made today of the opening of the first Metis child and family welfare centre - I have to say it concerns me greatly when we have police forces, child and family service centers etc. That are racially based. If I had suggested that I'd like to have a child and family center opened that would service only whites of western European stock I'd be shot, and they'd be right. Why is it ok to open a race based government service for one race and not the other? If we are all Canadians and all people are truly equal then why are we doing this?

Ranting over have a good one.