It's a wondrous season

Waking up this morning to rich blues and bright greens just outside my window, body aching from the work of the past few days. That was just moments ago but it was indeed great. The day begins albeit a little on the late side but I'm not in terrible shape quite yet.

The week has been a great one and the thoughts of Monday have mellowed somewhat. My feeling is that the best thing to do is to be a friend however you know how. The effort is important and my lack of smoothness won't be much of an issue in the long run. I think that's my gut telling me and I hope it's right.

Anyway, the week has been alright but like I mentioned before my body is now aching. It's odd, but I like when my body aches. It tells me that I've been doing some good, I've been getting exercise and all that. When my body stiffens up or I get kinks in my neck I know that I haven't been getting much exercise at all. My schedule for the next little bit seems to be like this. Monday work at home, head to practice, Tuesday work at home and then go rock climbing then Wednesday is a repeat of Monday. Thursday seems to be a recovery/meeting day. From climbing and then practice the day after, my forearms are moosh, my upper back and shoulders are loose but sore and so is my chest. It's really great to be back into climbing. I'm not a good climber but I think it's great exercise and super fun.

I was reminded yesterday of just how much work I was to be completing during this time of not having a full-time job and it's kind of scary how off track I have got. In the upcoming week I'll spend considerable time trying to catch up with a special project of mine. I think it will be very important in ramping up my skills and finding a job.

Anyway, speaking of being on time with things, I better get a move on. I should be in the city before noon and at this pace I'd never make it. I haven't even left my room yet.

Peace, love and rock,

J

How to be a true blue friend? Do I really know?

So it's been some time that since I've put up a serious post with serious reflection that takes a serious amount of time for me to compile but I think I'm ready for one right now. Feeling needy to figure out things for myself I'll just do my thing and write what's on my mind.

I'll just dig right in. How could you be a true blue friend? Do you really know how? Do I? Is it timing? Is it presence? Is it the words that come out of your mouth? Or perhaps the words that don't? How does it all work? Is patience and kindness enough? Do you have to ask the hard questions? Do you call your friends out when it needs to be done? Are you truthful to a fault with them not hiding anything and bearing your soul? (Is this all too dramatic?)

When bad things happen do you talk about it? Do you skip over it? Do you say nothing? Do you try to help or do you try to do nothing at all in fear of making things worse?

Hmm.. that last one is a deep one. If I'm being fully honest it just brought tears to my eyes. If I empathize with friends who've lost jobs, miss foreign lands or have lost more irreplaceable things how should I be a true friend? I don't really think I'm good about talking about things until I get way deep into them. I'm hardly smooth. Awkward? That's me in spades. I guess that's why I like the ability to write things out fully in words cause my mouth has a tendency to screw it all up. At times I'm rather terrified of making things worse, not knowing entirely how to deal with things and what to say on the spot. (Think of me as Paul Rudd in I love you man) So I wonder now if I've made things worse for friends, made their days worse somehow as they're dealing with their own weights. It's a really hard thing for me to deal with I think. Wouldn't we all just love a little bit of awesome to rub off of each of us onto everyone else to make days better not worse? It's a really tough line. Maybe I should stick to the pen and paper. The terrible thing about that is that I feel it's so cold, it's type, there's no tone, no delivery with variance of speed, pitch, mumbling (in my case). There's less and more truth at the same time. Less truth in what is said at times and more truth in the sounds of the voice on the end of the line or in front of you. What would a friend prefer? Would the friend realize that you mean your best but you're entirely awkward? Would they like the written sentiment? Tact?

I think I'm still a little lost in these questions. It's definitely a little nebulous. I can deal with tough situations. I'm pretty pliable. But I think I'm just overall bad at talking about them. That's a pretty dire conclusion and I don't think it's entirely true. Something for me to pray about I think.

Perhaps all I can really offer is a hug and a sounding board. A hug is pretty flawless. It has no words. It's safe ground for me.

Anyway, I'll return to these thoughts a little later after some processing. For now, I've got to get moving and get to practice. It's been such a short day so far after sleeping in. I'm really hoping this means I'll have some juice in the battery later tonight to get some work done.

Sorry to be on the down and mellow side but I can only write how I feel at the time. I'm sure things will be different later or tomorrow.

Peace, love and rock to all.

J

Wow how my blogging has suffered but provision is sweet.

Hey all,

Just me again with another quick update on the regular. You could call this a by request update haha. (Thanks for reading Kev).

I just listened to a track off the brand new Green Day album being released today "21st Century Breakdown". The track was the title track and not that single they have the video for. A preview of what's to come for sure. Here's some honest thoughts from me, just some dude who's been a fan since buying Dookie on tape at Loblaws when I was in grade school. Now that I think of it, that could have been the pinnacle, one of the most important events in my early development. Crazy eh? Anyway, as the track begins to play Billie Joe sings "play us the song of the century" over static and radio fuzz. Then acoustic guitar starts in with two chords that are horribly droning. First thought at this point... Really? Really? That's what they did there?? The fan is mystified haha. It breaks into verse and it sounds a little more like the Green Day on the previous album: composed, a little slow, well thought out, multiple layered. At this point I thought, this is alright but if they have a whole album like this, it could easily be their last album. I already wasn't all that impressed by their single. Are you getting the mixed bag of feelings in my stomach?

Anyway, as the song progresses we see more song structure as on the album "American Idiot" where the songs have very different epic parts. This makes for a wide dynamic range in feeling and tempo in one song. I guess another way to put it is that if the song parts represented a family, a few would be adopted. (I don't know why the analogy is so bad but I hope you get what I mean). The end result at the end of the song is that I have full confidence in the album again. The doubts that I had at the beginning of the track have subsided. I'll tell you one more. Upon listening to the track again the beginning wasn't quite as jarring to me, it sits in the right space, right frame of mind and at the right tempo (that semi slow thing going on). The second listen was reinforcement as the song ramps up. In a word, this is going to be interesting. I guess this means that at some point between now and tomorrow I'll go pick up the album and see what the whole thing has to say. I'm not super excited but I'm relieved that it sounds good and it's new things from those boys from the bay area. All in all, all good!

Listen for yourself here. That's the track I listened to.

So where have I been?

In a word... Busy!

It's funny though, not in a way that I couldn't write but in a way that I didn't feel the need to write. There's pleanty to talk about but I'll just touch on the past week.

I've recently had a little bit of a tough time in the financial department. It's nothing terrible, it's more like a glitch. I've done work and have money owing to me but haven't been paid for it quite yet. That coupled with having to do an unplanned timing belt service on Pud the VW TDI along with a big VISA bill (birthdays etc) and now taxes to pay the GOV have made it a little interesting. The end result is I've been working on things the past few weeks. I was given the job of creating this crazy network diagram recently. This was a definite blessing. I'll go further into detail about it.

On Wednesday I was figuring I'd be heading into the city for my client meeting at 3 then I'd be able to get to practice nice and early at 5 or so. (I don't know if I mentioned it yet but my band is now practicing twice a week.) In the end, the client wanted to cap off the diagram that night for a presentation the following day. In the end, I worked until 10:15pm that night at their offices finishing things up. This meant a few things. I worked 11 hours on the project just that day. It also meant that I got to band practice so late that I didn't event practice. We went for wings haha. At the time I felt bad for not getting to practice but also had a big smile on my face knowing that the time I was spending there was just making it possible for me to carry on with the work I'm doing right now. Someone's looking out for me. We all know who that might be.

The working freelance and kind of mulling about home hasn't gone unnoticed by my father. I was told just last week that he was worried about me and that I didn't have a "real" job. Of course I learned this from an indirect source but still. Something like that never really rests well on a sons heart. I don't want my dad to worry but at the same time I'm doing just fine. It brings up that question again if I should just go looking for a job now. I think the answer is that I have to finish up some projects I'm working on first.

So I've begun something I call "Finishing School. Class of One." I have a project that I didn't complete some time ago for a friend. In my opinion it started a landslide in the way that I would work on things. I would start, lose steam and sometimes not finish them. This is something that's really hard when you're dealing with projects that take a lot of work. Now I've been given the opportunity to finish that work that I started. I love it. I never thought I'd get that chance to set things right. I'm taking it on with a new eye and really want to make it special. Something to be proud of for more reasons than it being finished. I started working on it again at the most basic level. Tracing paper and markers. In the end, this is going to make a brilliant piece. I'd also forgotten how much satisfaction I get out of marker work. I'm not good at it but I enjoy that sharpness and cleanliness of a finished piece. You can really see the line work in it.

Anyway, my scatter brain has a couple things to get done before the day progresses too late.

Oh last thing, FT is having a work day tomorrow at 9:30 and I'm pretty stoked to be going and helping out. See some of you there! Oh final final thing. FT last week was pretty amazing. Kev did the sermon and it seemed to be so well timed with so much that's going on right now. There's a lot of grieving and sadness in this semi-recessionary time and I thought it was perfect. A few other people I talked to said the same thing. It really put certain things into perspective for them. At FT we're super blessed to have someone so insightful and well spoken to put those certain elements of life into new perspectives.

I hope all are having a good week. It's a Friday of a long weekend. It's amazing time!!!

Peace, love and rock!

J