When it rains, it pours coffee!

Until yesterday morning, I had gone one week without any coffee. Not because I was trying to cut back or anything noble... it was because I had a sore throat for most of the week and coffee wouldn't help that.

I'm not sure if my frequent headaches last week were stress-related, or lack-of-coffee-related. :)

As my thoat is better now, it was time to get back on the coffee bandwagon. Yesterday's 5:30am arrival at work necessitated a trip to the lunch room for a one-cup-brew of coffee there.

Then, because of my abstinence all week, I treated myself to Starbucks in the mid-morning.

Yesterday, after dropping the girls off at Grandma and Grandpa's for the night, Arja and I headed to Vaughan for the Camp Mini-Yo-We fundraising dinner we were invited to. Of course, we HAD to stop for a Starbucks along the way.

Then I had a coffee after dinner at the event.

At the end of the night, the "party favours" were packs of $4 worth of Tim Horton's gift certificates. We were a few people short at our table, so Arja and I ended up with $20 worth.

And then to top it off... I won a Silent Auction item... a new Cuisinart Coffee Maker, a pound of Starbucks coffee, and a $50 Starbucks card!

Like I said... when it rains, it pours COFFEE!!!!

God truly is good to me! :)

A fun blast from the past

When I was a teen, before I really got into progressive rock, I was for a time really into Christian rock (even after the Rush/King's X days, I was still into it for awhile).

Petra and Mylon and Broken Heart were the two favs... saw them both numerous times in concert. That was fun. Oh... the good ol' days.

I remember I had this "Mylon and Broken Heart" sweatshirt. On the back, in huge letters was "Love God Hate Sin".

It was challenging at times to wear it to school, but I did sometimes.

Anyway, there's lots of Petra videos on YouTube - I won't embed those... But this Mylon video is just so much cheesy fun from the past. (Remember when Simmons drums were cool?)

Yikes - will I look back someday at U2's Elevation DVD (the greatest concert video ever!) and chuckle at how cheesy it is?

Mourning the dead

I don't know a single one of the 33 people killed today at Virginia Tech. But I mourn their deaths, and cry for their families tonight.

I was feeling sorry for myself today. I had a very unexpected (and expensive) van repair today. That's still painful.

But then I realize just how blessed I am to have my wife and my children safe at home with me at this moment.

What's up with this world that people commit such blatantly horrific acts? Donald Miller describes the problem well in "Blue Like Jazz" - the root of our problem is that we are self-absorbed. This person didn't consider others... he considered his own pain (or whatever the hell his reasons) to be more worthwhile than the 32 (+ families) other lives he destroyed. What a fool! I so want to use other words to describe him, and yet, I am called to love my enemies. I'm having difficulty... and I wasn't even personally affected.

I simply cannot imagine the pain of losing one of my children. I don't know how people live with the grief.

*sigh*

In memory of Craig's guitar

Craig recently bought a beautiful new acoustic - a "Cole Clark" from Australia. Not only does it look beautiful, but it sounds incredible. Such a warm, full tone. Lots of bottom end. You can see it below in several of the Good Friday pictures.

Yesterday morning, before the 3rd service, it fell off the stand and the headstock snapped off.

It was a sad moment for many of us. Craig is heartsick.

May you be resurrected soon, beautiful guitar. The question remains... even if you can be fixed, will you ever be the same?

Things I'm looking forward to this summer

At this moment, it's 5 degrees here. Normal highs for this time of year are low teens. A couple weeks ago, we had low to mid 20s and sunshine. Now I haven't seen much sun or temps above 5 for several weeks. Ugh. Spring came out for a bit, but it must've gotten chilly, so it went back inside by the fire. It's so bleh here I can't stand it.

So in anticipation of warmer weather, I thought I would make a list of things I'm looking forward to:

- Sandals, shorts and t-shirts without the long sleeves underneath
- Hearing the birds every morning
- Actually needing my sunglasses because it's too bright
- Opening the sunroof all the way (and not putting on the heat to compensate)
- Playing at various parks with the girls
- Picnics at those same parks
- Swimming at the pool
- Saturday afternoons at the beach
- Going to Gravenhurst to pick up my new kayak
- Kayaking the Grand River
- Kayaking Cootes Paradise
- Kayaking 16 Mile Creek
- Kayaking the Saugeen River
(noticing a theme here?)
- Kayaking the Hamilton Harbour
- Camping with the girls
- Camping and paddling with just Arja
- BBQing without wearing a jacket
- Mowing the lawn
- Sitting on the porch with Arja after the girls are in bed
- Ancaster Heritage Days Parade
- Canada Day
- Spending a weekend at a cottage
- Slow walks with Arja and the girls
- Working with Kanah on her biking - riding without training wheels
- Helping Taly become more accustomed to her trike
- Cleaning up the car and keeping it clean
- Walking the boardwalk at RBG and watching the birds eat from Arja's hands
- An afternoon pint on the patio at St Louis, Montana's or Jack Astor's
- Setting up the tent in the backyard for the girls
- Fresh strawberries
- Fresh peas
- Fresh corn
- Family Camp @ Kahquah? (the jury is still out on that one)
- Watching Kanah shred it up on a tube behind a boat
- Baptisms in 16 Mile Creek
- The Bruce Peninsula
- Canada's Wonderland
- Taking each of the girls kayaking

Ahhhh - that feels a little bit better.

World Hunger Fund Piece

Here is a presentation I put together this weekend for our denomination's annual conference. There are few mediums that are, for me, as effective at conveying information AND emotion as the combination of text, imagery and music! I've become a bit of a one-trick-pony, though, in that much of my work looks the same. I said that once to a coworker, and he said, "No Jamie - you are a consistant artist." I think one-trick-pony is a funnier way of saying it. :)

Imago Christus - Good Friday 07

Good Friday is one of those highly significant days in the annual life of The Meeting House. It's one of the times that all our sites gather together for services in Oakville. It's also one of the times that we break from our standard mold of service and try to come up with something really special and creative.

After the incredible service we did in 2006, some of us thought we'd never pull off another like it again. But God has gifted us with some incredibly talented and creative people, and once again, we were inspired to pull together something that was very meaningful, artistic, contemplative, and worshipful.

No point in going into alot of detail - it's not possible to explain it with words. If you weren't there, you missed something special.

But I do have photos to share. These photos really highlight one thing well - the incredible lighting. Kudos to Dave B. for his beautiful work over the past couple months in designing the light show that we currently have. We rented a fantastic hazer that really made the lights so much more effective.

Enjoy the photos. Thanks to Dave M. for shooting them!

One of the many pieces of artwork in the background.


"Purple Haze"


Jamie Ball worships as he shreds on the electric!
Behind - Josh Harris laying down the funk.


Three lovely ladies lead with passion.
L to R: Amy, Michelle, Sarah


One of the most gifted music pastors in Canada!


Dave's lighting creates incredible depth of stage.
On Craig's left - Juan - our brilliant percussianist.
On Craig's right - Steve - one killer bassist.


My TMH acting debut.


A great shot of the stage and video.