Teflon is Devastating

That's right. Devastating. Did you know, that there was this lady, who had an African Grey Parrot in her living room, and when she started to boil water in a teflon coated pot, the parrot dropped dead, and then her kid was born with facial deformities, all because teflon is so devastating.

I learned this and other fantastic factoids such as oil is a good conductor of heat (actually, it has a high heat capacity... that's very different), and you can't sharpen a serrated knife (which you actually can).

Erin got a call from Celebrity China yesterday saying we won a trip at the bridal fair, and that we needed to go to the quality inn on Edmonton Trail and McKnight up by the airport (no, its not by the airport, its on the other side of deerfoot). I figured it was a marketing pitch, she was hoping we won something... we made a bet. If we won a good prize, I'd buy her dinner, if it was a waste of time, she paid for the gas. Guess who got gas money today. I don't like being 'tricked' or 'manipulated' by vendors, and don't trust products that need to do that to get you to buy them, so I was making wise ass comments the whole time. At one point they brought around food. I wasn't hungry and politely declined. Erin as well. It was at that point we were told we weren't welcome and we could leave any time we wanted. So we stayed... hehe. It was fun. Moral of the story, there's still no such thing as a free lunch.

Comment below

Hey, check out what some random guy from the states commented on the post below. I'm feeling short on patience today cuz I didn't get enough sleep last night (which I assure you had NOTHING to do with talking to Erin until 3:30 last night) so I replied instead of letting him or her stew in their own.

I find it interesting that, especially in my experience on the internet, that a lot of atheists proseletyz more than the fundamentalists do, but they're even meaner about it.

So for the day, here's my secrets to being a Catholic and standing up for your belief.

#1 Know why you do what you do and why you believe what you believe. If you don't know, ask, if you don't like the answer, ask more. Every tradition we have is a tool to approach God and build a stronger relationship.

#2 Have support. Have friends who are Catholic and other denominations. Have friends who aren't but are respectful and open about faith. Have relationships with people who know more than you or have access to the answers.

#3 Know your history. Our church has a very long history, and its colourful. We've done awesome things, and we've done shameful things. Know where our ancestors lost the path so it doesn't happen again, and look at where they found it again so you know what to look for. Also, we are built on certain cultures. The Catholic Church was built in a small area of the world and our tradition reflects that. It's good stuff to know. It's also good to know about other faiths and spiritual practices. Some of them can be valuable to add to your own spirituality when you put them in a Christian context.

#4 Be bold. When you are faced with doubt, pray, trust, and ask others. I've had many dark nights of doubt when I was ready to throw in the towel, but with patience (and sometimes without), I was always blessed with reassurance.

#5 Don't try to force your belief on others. Share it with your actions, and use words when you need to (St. Francis said something along the same lines). Just be a loving, open, caring person of Christ. Don't judge, but do challenge.

Anyway, I have a feeling there might be more comments cuz people like whoever this one is tend to be tenacious in showing others their wrongness, and like to push their superiority.

My other blog

I had an article published on the vancouver youth ministry website. I'd be proud but I think they'll publish anything youth ministry related that people submit to them. Nonetheless its pretty good.

Check out www.youthmin.com and click on the guest blog on the side. The title is 'Do you think WCACYM.com is taken?'

While you're there check out their promo video for spirit day 2005. Those two guys look really entertaining.

I'm that guy

I came to a realization yesterday, and I am indeed, quite often, 'that guy'. You know who I mean, that guy who laughs too loud at jokes that aren't funny enough. I'm that guy that something wacky (like getting headbutt by a giraffe) happens to. I'm that guy that's always travelling somewhere exotic. I'm that guy that's into 'extreme stuff'. This weekend at the WCACYM conference I was that guy that played the guitar for all the prayer services, I was that guy that did the bungee thing (well, cable swing, but close enough) at west ed, I was that guy that knew everything about movies, I was that guy who got a reputation for drinking the whole bottle of wine (even though I didn't, I was just playing around and sober), I was that guy with the engineering degree instead of education or theology or humanities.

I don't know why I'm that guy... maybe I'm an attention whore or something. I like to be unique and stuff, but I wonder how many of those are me being myself and how many are forced.

I will list one or two good things to 'that guy' about though. I was that guy who put a whole day into the morning prayer I was asked to prepare. I was that guy the other prayer leaders could count on at the last second to pull out the guitar and lead music when they couldn't find anyone else, and I was that guy who let anyone at all play my guitar, and enjoyed listening to new sounds come out of it.

Some people call me the space cowboy...

Back home

Well, made it home safely... it's good to be back, except for the weather, which sucks... alot.

I got spoiled again for Christmas part II. Erin got me a PS2 with the network adapter in it and a game (Vice City), so I've been addicted to that lately (I also got T.H.U.G. good, but disappointingly easy, only took me 2 days to 100% it, I gotta play online a bit or something). Erin's sister's soon to be ex husband (so for all practical purposes Erin's sister) got me a DVD home entertainment system. After some creative wiring I got the Satellite, VCR and PS2 all running into the DVD player and then into an RF converter into the TV. So basically I have dolby 5.2 surround for everything. That's right, I have the most technologically advanced 70's cabinet TV known to man.

Anyway, I gotta go back to work (the other part about being home I guess).

Out of Africa

Yep, we're back in Cairo. Didn't get mauled or eaten by anything, and the worst parasite I seem to have gotten was a mild cold, but that's probably more related to the several changes in altitude, airliner recylcled air and other such traveller perils. Of course, dengue fever and Malaria both have about 4 day incubating periods, so there's still hope.

The safari was amazing. I won't get into details save for I saw a crapload of animals, and several that are very rare to see on a safari. The only things we missed were hyenas and the black rhino, but given there's like 4 of them left between the 4 parks we visited, that's okay. We saw the white rhinos anyway, so that's cool.

I'm pretty homesick now. We were in a fancy hotel in Nairobi on new year's eve and the band downstairs started playing a bit of swing... made me really miss home. I'm about ready to go. We still have the whalebone desert to see, which should be awesome, but I miss Erin (who seems to forgotten how to EMAIL ME BACK and doesn't ANSWER THE PHONE) and other stuff too. Although, it is really warm here which is awesome... haha, - 25.... suckers.

Anyway, I should go, we're going to the khan khalili today, so we'll try not to get ripped off. On an interesting note, Egyptians are really easy to bargain with cuz they tend to look mean and be really agressive and the shop keepers tend to do pretty good, and will try to rip off tourists a lot. Kenyansl, and especially the Maasai people, are much harder to bargain with, because they are polite, smiley, friendly, and tend to need the money to send kids to school (not everywhere, there are rich tourist traps too), but its hard to bargain down to %20 of the original price when the money sends the cheif of the tribe's son to high school so he can become a teacher to teach the other children in the tribe.

Okay, off to find a parasite at a local restaurant.