(not that I have a quote every day)

I just realized that spammers have been trying to hack my blog. Man, why can't people just try to do things honestly for once? Now I'm going to have to disable comments until I have the time to fix this problem. Thanks guys. Thanks a lot.

I finally saw Batman Begins today on DVD. It was actually pretty cool. It was definitely a lot better than those other crap Batman movies like Batman and Robin and Batman Forever. Anyway, as I was watching the movie one of the characters said something that I really liked:

And that is so true! People always think that it sucks when bad things happen to you or when you go through some sort of a rough time, but when we go through these rough times, it forms our character and it makes us appreciate all the good things in life. We look on TV and we see someone like Paris Hilton, who has never worked a day in her life and seems to have everything, but I would be willing to bet that she feels unsatisfied inside. She's never had the opportunity to fall. She's never had the opportunity to learn from her mistakes, because she's never had the opportunity to make any mistakes. It also reminds me of this girl that my dad was dating a long time ago. She had a baby who was like 9 months old who couldn't roll over on her own, she couldn't hold her own bottle, couldn't talk at all, etc. It was practically a vegetable. Anyway, one day my dad decided to let the baby hold her own bottle, and the baby grabbed it and held it there. The only reason that the baby didn't know how to was because her mother never tried to let her hold it. I'm sure the only reason she can't do any of those other things is because the mother never tried to teach her anything. She didn't talk slowly and simply to her, she used big words and talked fast, so she probably had a really hard time learning to speak. The only way that you can learn to swim is by getting in the water. It may not be too much fun at first, but you won't be able to learn otherwise.

Here's a little something I wrote last night when my computer was not connected to the internet:

August 29th at 2:04am
I guess it's been a while now since I last posted. I'm currently at my friend Jeff's house sitting on a couch in the basement typing this up on my laptop. He just has dialup, so I'll post this when I can hook this thing up to the internet. I just finished watching Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which was recommended to me by Bahb a long time ago, but man I didn't like it at all. I'd have to say it compares to the Passion of the Christ for the amount of violence, but this movie was way more graphic. I now have a very sick feeling in my stomach and I'm actually glad it's over. Throughout the entire movie I was thinking about how evil some people in this world can be and it's just disturbing. Why can't we all just get along? Stupid money. I know things like that don't happen all the time and most people are decent, but there still are people in this world that will kill you with no remorse, people that will rob their own mothers, people that will rape and murder children, and even just generally hateful people.

Anyway, I spent the last few days at Jeff's house and I finally got to see his new daughter. She's sooo cute! Her name is Keeleigh and she's currently about 6 months old. I also went to Jeff's parents' house Saturday night with his wife and we had a great dinner there. His parents cooked us up some barbecued chicken, fish, some sort of delicious cold pasta dish and one of those raw veggie plates with veggie dip. It was delicious! After that, we all played a bit of cards and did a bit of gambling for very small amounts of money. After like 2 hours I was about 10 cents ahead! After this, we hopped in Jeff's car (I drove since I was the only non-drinking one) and headed to my friend John Salter's house. At that point it was Jeff, his wife Lindsay, his sister Bri, John, John's brother Jim and I. Everyone sat around in his garage for a while and then we headed to the Cas-bar and shot some pool for a couple hours. Everyone was playing terribly, but we still had a blast. When the bar closed, we headed back to John's garage for about another hour and finally headed back home to Jeff's house to sleep. I know it doesn't sound like we did a whole lot, but I had such a great time. I got to see a bunch of people that I hadn't seen for a long time and hang out and just catch up on lost time.

Before I got to my friend Jeff's house, I was in Ottawa visiting my mom and her husband Larry. More importantly, I was able to witness to my mom, my grandma, my aunt and my uncle all at the same time. It was really good and I know that it will lead to something positive in the future. Also after having many hours of conversation with my mom, I'd have to say I think she's probably saved. I'm not entirely sure because she still does stuff like pray to dead people, but she did say that she has accepted Jesus as her only Lord and sufficient Saviour. Obviously I don't know what's in her heart, but I really hope it's true. I also raised a really good point with her; I said that praying to the saints and Mary the "mother of God" (not that God has a mother) is like necromancy, which the bible forbids. I think it's in Leviticus 19 but since I don't have an internet connection I can't look it up. Anyway, I looked up the definition of "necromancy" and it said that it's a form of divination from conversing with the dead. Her argument was that people just pray to Mary for intercession and not as a form of divination, but I said to her that one day you might be not really thinking about what you're praying and you accidentally start to ask Mary to reveal something for you or for her to protect someone or for her to provide you with something and POOF, you've just become a necromancer! Also she says that they don't pray to their statues because they're just reminders just like someone would take a photograph of you just as a reminder of you, even though they don't pray to it. I told her that's great, as long as you understand that. Even if 90% of people in the Catholic church understand that there's nothing special at all about the statues, there's still 10% of people in the church, all of the new believers, etc who do believe that the statues are more than just porcelain and paint, who may be inclined to bow down and actually worship the statue. The same goes for praying to Mary. I've personally met people who thought that a little picture of Mary protected her when she was driving in a dangerous place. So my question to all Catholics is, "Why would you want to push the limit of what you should and shouldn't do when it would lead the people who are ill-informed to sin?"

Also while in Ottawa, I purchased some computer equipment. I've had my computer for like 5 1/2 years now and the only upgrade I've ever purchased is a new hard drive, so I decided that it was time for an upgrade. I got a new CPU (AMD Athlon 64 AM2 3800+ dual core), motherboard, 512 meg ATI video card, 2 gigs of 533 MHz ram, a $100 wireless, optical mouse (yeah I know, but I wanted an amazing mouse for once), a cheap keyboard (cuz my other one is shot), a new power supply, and a couple of games (Oblivion and the new Guild Wars). I was going to get a really cool keyboard, but they didn't have any in stock. I also got 3 19 inch LCD monitors for my dad's hotel.

Last night I was thinking about when I auditioned for the worship group at my church and they denied me. But before everyone auditioned, this guy gave us a speech that we shouldn't just be there because we want to be in front of everyone or for any other reason except that it is what we have been called to do from God. It struck me at that moment that I really hadn't prayed about it at all and I was just there because I love making music and it was something that I just wanted to do. Well as I was thinking about that, I was lead to three different passages in the bible. Two of them were about God telling David to appoint the musicians and the third was Psalm 59 (which is for the music director; ... a prayer of David, written when Saul sent men to surround his house and murder him). It's weird because they all mention music in some way, so I'm thinking that I am going to try to turn Psalm 59 into a song somehow. It definitely wouldn't be the typical worship song, but more for someone who feels like they are being persecuted and how he wants his enemies to be exiled from society and then to be "wiped out".

Anyway, it's almost 3:00am now so I think this will be all for now. I'll post this when I get a chance. Good night and God Bless!

My sever has gone down THREE times this month. What the hail is up with that? I need to get this stuff sorted out when I get back to Costa Rica

I typed this up a long time ago, but this is the first time that I have had an internet connection in order to send it. So, here you go. Enjoy:

Monday Aug 14, 12:38pm
I'm in the Edmonton airport right now waiting for my flight and I just made it through customs. Somehow I mis-read my flight information and I thought that my flight was at 12:45pm, when in fact it was at 11:20am, so needless to say, I missed my flight. They were able to throw me on the next flight, which is at 1:30 or something, so I'm just waiting for that.

I saw all these big signs everywhere saying "Wi-Fi High Speed Wireless Internet", so I decided to whip out my laptop while I wait for my flight and when I try to go to any URL I get redirected through some proxy server telling me to pay NINE CANADIAN DOLLARS to access the internet. Crap on that! So I'll just have to post this when I can find a connection later. They should have free interwebs at the airport. It's not as if the $1100 for my plane ticket can't pay the $0.20 it costs them to give me an internet connection for 20 minutes or so.

Anyway, I spent the last week with my brother. He seems to be doing okay in life. He has problems with his ex-girlfriend, who he ended up knocking up and now she's preventing him from seeing his daughter. I saw her for a whole 3 hours in the entire week that I was here. So because of this, she's forcing my brother to go through the court system to allow them to decide what happens to the baby. He had a court appointment on the 10th, but for some unknown reason he thought it was on the 17th, so he ended up missing it. I hope this doesn't reflect too negatively on him. Apart from that, he's doing okay. His job really sucks since he has to smell glue and paint all day and I think he's going to quit. He's staying with his roommate, who is also his co-worker at that place and I think he's also quitting. The pay isn't that great either, especially for what they have to go through all day long.

Besides this, my brother still seems to be spiritually lost, living a life of sin. I talked to him a bit about this, but it was weird, almost every time I wanted to talk to him about it alone, his roommate would come out of nowhere and interrupt us. This happened like 5 times at LEAST, so I dunno. I think I was more of an example for him than anything. Before I left Costa Rica, when I was at church two people separately told me that it would be my testimony that I need to bring to Canada, so I think this probably means something. It's not necessarily what I say or how I try to go through the "Four Spiritual Laws" with my brother, but more of an example that I set for him with my actions and my testimony.

Ah great, my flight just got delayed by another 45 minutes. Man, I'm going to end up arriving at my mom's house at like 2:00am or something. And that's IF I can rent a car when I get to Toronto. I only have a G2 licence, which still isn't my full licence, so I need to find a place that will rent me something even without my full licence. I looked on the internet before I left Costa Rica and the cheapest car rentals for three weeks were like $900 PLUS insurance, which I think is another $25/day. If I can't find anything a lot cheaper than that (like half price or less) then I'm just going to take the bus. It would be nice to be able to drive around Ottawa and wherever I go, but there's a limit. I'd also have to pay for gas too, which is currently at around $1.15 per LITRE! The last time that I was in Canada it was around $0.90 and I thought that was high.

So a quarter of my vacation is already over. Man this week flew by so fast considering I didn't do a whole lot. I spent most of the time watching TV and watching my brother play Diablo 2. Not a whole lot of excitement, but it was okay. My brother and I went to West Edmonton Mall yesterday, which was pretty cool. Man that place seems so much smaller than when I was there last, but it's still HUGE! It has a water park with like 200 foot high water slides, a wave pool, multiple roller coasters (and not just cheesy ones, but ones with triple loops and everything), a "haunted" house, a submarine ride beside a pirate ship, a SeaWorld-like place where they have dolphins and seals and I think sharks, and of course a full-featured mall. We were only there for like an hour though and I think we got lost like thrice. Yes, that's right. Thrice! I kinda regret not bringing my camera cuz man, that place was cool.

Now the next parts of my journey are ahead of me. I have like 10 days to visit my mom, her husband and my friends in Ottawa (the capital of Canada), then like 5 days with my friend Jeff and his wife and kid, then 5 days with my grandparents. Everyone must be evangelized! Man this is going to be a crazy trip. I never thought I would be a missionary in my own towns with my own family and friends, but here I am. It's definitely a well-needed break from my regular routine that I have in Costa Rica.

Proverbs 25:11-13
25:11 Like apples of gold in settings of silver,
so is a word skillfully spoken.
25:12 Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold,
so is a wise reprover to the ear of the one who listens.
25:13 Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest,
so is a faithful messenger to those who send him,
for he refreshes the heart of his masters.

I pray that I will have a skillful tongue and a wise, listening mind as I act as the Lord's messenger. Amen.

------

Monday Aug 14, 4:18pm
I'm currently on the plane somewhere between Alberta and Ontario 40,000 feet above the ground travelling at 850 kph. They are playing RV right now on the plane, but it's the same movie that I saw when going to Alberta, so I decided to whip out my laptop and watch one of the movies that I have on here cuz it's a modern plane and the seats in front of you have a power outlet. I chose Pink Floyd's The Wall, but man that was a bad choice. Little did I know, it's full of nudity so I had to shut it off. I skipped through like the first 2 scenes like this, but then I ended up giving up and shut it off. I don't mind it if I'm at home alone or whatever, but in a public environment, I'd rather not be watching naked boobies flopping around. So now I'm just listening to some Hillsong. Man this song is great (Hillsong United - From the Inside Out):

I had this dream last night that my dad was accepting Christ. I was sharing with him and then he decided to pray to accept Christ but he wouldn't do it in front of me, so he went for a drive to somewhere. Today is the day that I need to talk to my brother about his salvation since tomorrow I'm flying to Ontario. Today is also the first Sunday in like a year that I'm not going to church. I know that today will go well. There are too many people praying for me for it to not go well.

I updated my blog today. It also kinda works in Internet Explorer now too, although it screws up the background of the articles in a VERY strange way. Man I hate IE. Anyway, it works in Opera and FireFox, so I'm happy. Maybe if I get pissed off, I'll disable access from IE again.

Changes:

• RSS feeds
• New layout (it looks almost the same, but I had to change quite a bit of CSS to get it to look as it does
• Subscribe to the blog (notifies of new posts)
• Subscribe to thread (notifies of new comments)
• Took out JavaScript stuff
• Updated the permalink page

Let me know what you think.

Ok, so I know it's been a while since I posted last. Well I just either didn't see a need to since bahb was in Costa Rica (and he's the only one that ever posts comments here so I know he at least reads this stuff) or been too busy to post. Anyway, On Monday I flew back up to Canada and I'm going to be here for a month. I'm spending a week with my brother in Edmonton and 3 weeks in Ontario to visit my mom, her husband, my grandparents and my friends. I have a feeling I'm going to miss all my friends from church. Man I need a geef already.

My brother has to go to court tomorrow to fight for custody of his daughter since his ex-girlfriend prevents him from seeing her and pretty much uses her as a weapon in an argument, so if they argue she will just say "ok well I'm not letting you see Kaelyn" (that's his daughter's name). Personally I think that's really immature of her, but ah well. I hope it works out for the better in the end.