Time to update

Haven't really written much for a while... life is pretty crazy.

Work is flying along. I was getting up against the wall here for easter for a while, but I've got the stations of the cross practice going on nicely, and a good crew for that. The thinkfast was very successful (and tiring) so that's out of the way. My only big thing now is finishing off preps for easter and good friday. I'm excited for the vigil. I missed it at St. Bon last year and didn't get to see any baptisms. This year I have 3 kids being baptised (by kids I mean teenagers), so your prayers for Jen, Devon and Michelle are most welcomed.

I've taken up some light reading. The river safety anthology. What it should be called is "detailed descriptions of people dying in whitewater kayaks". Its a bunch of accident reports and commentary by my whitewater hero, Charlie Walbridge. Its such a depressing book, and I'm pretty sure it's screwing up my dreams cuz I read it before bed. BUT, it's good for me. It has details of mistakes people made that caused the accidents, and rescue strategies that would have worked better and stuff like that. Still, it's hard to read about some poor guy up to his waist in freezing water holding his buddy's head up while someone else tries to free his crushed leg from his pinned kayak for about 2 hours before the victim finally loses conciousness. The saddest story I read was about a guy who pinned on a rock. He was wedged between his boat (upstream) and the rock (downstream) so they couldn't get him out of the kayak, and it took 10 guys to pull the boat off. The sad part was his friends kept his head up the whole time, but they couldn't get a rope onto his boat, and the water level slowly rose until they couldn't reach the loop anymore and the poor guy was submerged.

So the logical question is why the heck would I want to read that stuff. Well, I don't wanna die in whitewater. Reading about other people's death will keep my judgement on the side of cautious, and my preparations and reading will be better and more careful. I'm used to a raft where I can plow through big holes, drop steep ledges, and surf anything without too much fear. Kayaks you gotta be careful not to pin or get recirculated, so I'm gonna practice hard and keep my head in the game.

Watched Radio and Swing Kids with Erin this week. Mmmm... Erin. I ended up falling asleep on saturday night on her couch and staying pretty late as a result... but it was nice. Poor girl though, had to get up for work after like an hour and a half of sleep. She helped me take pictures of strangers downtown yesterday. It was so much fun. I was REALLY nervous about asking strangers, but got 4 of the pics. Then she kicked into overdrive and got the other 5 I needed. I think her method of running up to someone all excited and asking if she could take their portrait worked better than my "Excuse me, we're doing a project on diversity, could we take your portrait". She came to church with me after which was cool... it was palm sunday, so it was a bit long. I wish I didn't have to play when she comes along so that I could sit with her, but David is there, so its all good.

Anyway, that's life in a nutshell... hope the rest of your lent goes well.