Thinking Outside the Box

This may be a little weird for some of you. Others will simply nod to themselves and say "of course, it's the most obvious thing in the world." However, stop and think about this for a few moments, and then really ask yourself the question I pose at the end. You have to answer honestly. If you don't, the only person you're cheating is yourself. :) Your thoughts define your life. The current state of your life, your body, your relationships and everything else is a net result of our thoughts up until now. If you're thinking about all the things you don't have, aren't, or don't want...that's what your life is now. So ask yourself this question: What do you want your life to be?

Confused yet? The title of the article has a reason for being, honest! First, I'm talking about a point in time last week that comes before the wedding. Second, I'm talking about an event that kinda takes me back in time...at least in my mind anyway. "What the f**k am yammering on about now?" you're wondering at this point right? Well ok fine, I'm talking about the Heaven and Hell concert on March 14th. The what? Yeah, that's exactly what I thought when I heard about it too. Well apparently due to some conflict with Ozzy Osbourne's control freak wife Sharon, the rest of the band Black Sabbath isn't allowed to use that name Black Sabbath unless Ozzy's performing too. Or something, I don't know all the details. Anyway, the concert featured the Sabbath line-up from the Dio years: Tony, Geezer, Vince and of course Dio. I have to admit I wasn't all that interested in seeing Dio, but figured it'd probably be the only time I'd be able ...

This'll be a short one, but it's pretty important I think. Probably the biggest news I'll be posting on here to date, or possibly all year. Over the weekend my sister got married! Yep, you read that right. It'd take me several hours to cover everything that happened over the weekend away, so I'm not even going to try. The location they chose was great. The weather was quite warm considering how high up in the mountains we were and there were no major problems with the day at all. Of course, a few small glitches popped up, but that's bound to happen with any event. All in all everything went great, a good time was had by all and my sister is now a happily married woman. Congratulations to my sister and her new husband! ( Click here to see a few pictures )

Sorry folks, this one's all in Japanese. じゃ。。。この　ポスト　の　中　には　けっこ　たくさん　まちがう。　もし　見たら　なおして　ね？　今日　ちょっと　書く　の　わだい　を　しらない。　時　に　書く　したい　だけ。　けど、　だれ　が　よんで　います　か？　それ　も　しらない。 にほん　の　いる　時　で　ともだちたち　は　みじかい　えいが　を　作った。　今年　の　一月　で　DVD　は　来た。　”たぶん　ここ　の　ともだち　は　えいが　を　見たい。。。”　と　思うた。　それかか　先週まつ　いろいろ　人　を　しょたい　した。　半分　（はんぶん）　ぐらい　は　へんじ　した、”ごめん。　もう　ほか　の　よてい　ある。”　ほか　の　人　は　”今　まで　しらない。　その　ひ　に　電話　する。”　と　へんじ　した。　その　日　に　一人　だけ　来た！ 本当　に　がっかり　でした　よ！　前時　の　ともだち　は　かわった　と　思う。　日本　に　行った　の　前　おたがい　は　よく　会う。　カナダ　ヘ　もどた　の　あと　は　ちがう。　いま、　もし　私　は　だれか　に　しょうたい　しなければ、だれも　会いない。　わずらわしくて　きたいはずれ　だ。 しかし　すぐ　いい　こと　が　来る。　さらい週末　で　おねえさん　は　けっこん　します。　する　場所　は　とっても　きれい。　あそこ　で　たくさん　しゃしん　を　とる　つもり。　あと　で　あなた　に　見せる。　：）

A while back I mentioned that one of my past students had come over to Canada for a month to study English. He arrived here early in January and studied on the weekdays. It seemed that there wasn't much in the way of homework, so his afternoons and weekends were free to go siteseeing and things. Disappointingly (at least to me) it seemed that the school he'd arranged his homestay and studies through didn't really organize any extracurricular activities for the visiting students. Knowing roughly how much the cost of coming here to study is, that was a big let down for me, and I can only imagine how frustrating it was for Shuhei. Since i also had to work full time, I didn't have much free time to show him around that much but I tried. Not having a car made it even more difficult! Rather than going into the details I'll just give a quick rundown of some of the things we did and places we went. First weekend: Calgary Roughnecks season opener Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3 Seco...

Went down to the Roughnecks game with a few friends on Friday night. It wasn't a terribly interesting game, at least it wasn't until the last few minutes. They'd been outplayed for almost the entire game and didn't start to play until the last 5 or 6. Of course they were in a deep enough hole by then that it didn't matter. Both teams flew back to Toronto for the second game of the back-to-back, which I'm sure wasn't much fun for the losing team. The loss was followed by a very shocking move: the first and only head coach was fired, also resulting in the assistant coach resigning. They played the game in Toronto without a new coach and won handily by all reports. What will come from this point is anyone's guess now. Today I spent a good part of my day walking around or on the local transit. Not exactly the most fun, but I was able to get all the items I was looking for and enjoy the sunny afternoon weather. Not tired enough from all the walking, I...

Yet another forgotten event popped into my head this afternoon: a concert I went to the night before my company Christmas party back in November. It was sheer luck that I happened upon the show actually, and if one were a believer in fate this is as close as I've ever seen to it. Anyway, at work that day I had been talking about music with a couple of co-workers, and had mentioned one of my favorite blues artists during our chat. I had heard he had a new CD coming out and was sad that I had missed his show a few months previous, which had been a week or so before my return from Japan. When I got home I was just settling in for what looked to be a quiet Friday night at home, and started flipping through the free entertainment paper. Nearing the last few pages I saw a picture of a guy who looked familiar, stopped, then stared, and finally clued in. It was Jim Byrnes, the guy I'd been talking about that very same afternoon. "When oh when was this concert?" I thought,...