doberman pizza. a baha'i (bahai, bahá'í) blog.

the tings! I did a little reshuffling of my stuff today. I moved my stereo up one shelf on my bookshelf, and put the speakers on different shelves (since the vibrations were making the cd player skip); I put my tape/cd box on the bookshelf and shuffled some useless stuff off of it; I went to get a phone splitter so that I don’t have to switch my phone cord between the phone and the computer all the time when I want to get onto the Internet; I hooked up my two smaller speakers in the kitchen so that I can still listen to music while I’m cooking; AND… I got a 20′ stereo plug-to-stereo jack extension so that, using the other miscellaneous plugs and extensions I own, I can hook up my computer to my stereo and play mp3s over my stereo!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA. I love plugs! I LOVE PLUGS

it service as connect walkman to headphone easily when they are away some distance, enjoying it conveniently.

forsooth!

I have another job!

Well, it’s been offered to me, anyway. It’s a contract, this time with the SADC Nicolet-Bécancour. It’s a lot like the other one, just in a different place. I’m going to think about it, because obviously, it does entail a hefty commute — 40 minutes each way, 5 days a week — but it’s well paid. And I can do this job. It’ll be challenging, because it involves setting up a business plan and going in search of funding, but I believe I can meet that challenge.

I’m taking the weekend to reflect, so as to properly weigh the merits of all this jive. Watch this space.

hello once again all you lovely people. I’m back to fill in all those gaps I keep leaving. Today I’m at the Lachance home, about a fifteen-minute walk from my place. Nicole and I are spending the day making different kinds of jams and marmelades and pies :9 We’re using up the big bucket of sour cherries that I brought home from my trip to Ottawa earlier this month. Yum!

Job-wise, things are going well. I’m starting to have interviews at several places, I’ve sent my CV out to many more, and there are still quite a few places left for me to contact. I will definitely have some part-time work starting in mid-september, and there are more possibilities in the making. See? Things get up and running quite well. All I have to do is stay in Drummondville this time around. ;) And really, I don’t see why I would move out now. I’m going to get a job soon, so I can pay for myself… the people here are really nice… I’ve made some good friends in the area… I’m close enough to Montreal that I can serve on the 3CJ and visit friends regularly… I’m in an area where there’s a lot of work to do for the Bahá’í Faith… there’s a lot of economic growth — Drummondville is billed as one of the cities with the most growth in the country, I think… hey, God just seems to be setting things up so that it’ll be really convenient to keep living here.

And all you people who keep telling me that I have to find a nice girl and settle down, well, you’re just going to have to wait, because nobody’s showed up yet and that suits me just fine for now. It’s up to the will of God :P Besides, there are steps in life. I gotta learn to live well by myself (ie. steady work, balanced with social/spiritual/service/physical aspects) before I open up the can of whoopass can of worms can of — before I endeavour to share my life with someone else. There’s a balance in everything.

Uhhh really cool: last night Mars was the closest it’s ever been to the Earth in all of recorded history. Not bad huh? It was pretty darn big and bright. Unfortunately I had no binoculars (or telescope). Sad.

Here’s a little story ’bout a man named Jed. No, here’s the story of the camping trip last weekend. It was quite the experience. I was basically the only guy participating, out of a big group of girls. It went really well though. No tomfoolery — these are Bahá’ís. We studied this year’s Ridván message from the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís of the world, we played drums, we juggled, we sang songs, we toasted marshmallows (quite well), and talked until about 2 o’clock in the morning. And that was just the first day. The next day we got woken up at 5:20 AM by the neighbour’s loud rooster after freezing throughout the night, played hangman and tic-tac-toe in the sand, cooked breakfast over the fire (toast, hot dogs, eggs, marshmallows (sorry mom), and muffins), studied the Ridván message some more, and then packed up and went to have lunch… guess where? In downtown Danville, where the gas was cheap and the scenery was pretty darn nice. We had lunch at a coffeeshop on top of the local bakery, which happens to be where some of the local Bahá’ís work. Cool, no? It’s the Café Sorcier, in case you want to know, and if I could remember the name of the bakery, I’d tell you. Anyway, all in all, the weekend was a pure delight. It was great to just be together as friends, studying and praying and having fun together. I’m gonna have to go to more of these youth meetings.

hello friends and philistines. it’s been a while hasn’t it? I’ve been really busy finding myself a job. and it’s still looking up. so there. more later.

YAAAAaAAAaaa I’m going camping

see you nuts later

have a starry night…

whoops. hold on a sec about the job thing. looks like it might have been premature.

here are some pictures I scanned in yesterday. See more at http://www.9bit.qc.ca/dragfyre/images/.

A friendly game of Risk at Shameem and Elham’s place (255 Kb)

L to R: Jessika, Martin, Elham, Shameem.

The crowd at a youth devotional meeting in Ottawa (236 Kb)

L ro R: [Foreground, sitting:] Aram, Naysan, Phil, Andisheh [Foreground, standing:] Catherine, Jessika, Shameem, me, Shahrooz [Background:] Elham, Sarah, (…), Ayafor, Mike. Notice the crappy semi-moustache on our hero (me). Notice also that Shameem never really smiles in pictures… except for that one time I caught him off guard at a youth conference. Ask me for more details. I can’t remember what (…)’s name is, except that it’s a nice name and she comes from Kingston.

Mr. Drummondville (336 Kb)

That’s me, at the Mondial des Cultures. There was a TV show being recorded that day and they had a nice big sign to tell everybody exactly where they were. So, naturally…

Zea smiles. It’s good to be 7 months old (194 Kb)

Zea is my brother’s daughter. :)

Hangin’ with Gildor Roy (180 Kb)

L to R: me, Gildor Roy (famous québécois comedian who does shows on Radio-Canada and stuff and sings), Sylvain (a friend of mine in Drummondville). This was after Gildor’s show at the Mondial des Cultures. Sylvain and I were working behind the scenes.

I AM CANADIAN (358 Kb)

But I don’t drink beer! Fooling around at my parents’ place while on vacation. Two weeks after Canada Day.

Ruhi book 2 takes a trip to Warwick (124 Kb)

L to R: Jocelyne, Sylvie, Laurent. Victoriaville’s very own Ruhi Book 2 study circle takes a trip to Warwick, out in the rolling hills and farmland. Laurent and Jocelyne are our hosts for the day-long session, which continues with a 19-day Feast celebrated in the evening. Friendship, joy and laughter abound! I ended the night with them watching the moon rise. Ooooh.

Here’s Emily Harris from Australia who thinks that I talk forever about stuff’n'crap. Well, yes, that’s true. She also thinks I have a crush on my friend Claire because apparently, I continuously talk about her. Hmmm, no. But I do have a crush on hats. Especially chocolate hats and hats that look like UFOs. Anyway, I find it very interesting that a complete stranger found my little old blog so captivating that she decided to put a link to it on her own blog.

Yeah Fremantle! GO DOCKERS!

Oh, what fun it is to ego-surf. ;) Here’s a guy on about.com who talks about the pokéname generator.

Then there’s Find The Beagles, complete with 1995-vintage PSYCHEDELIC BACKGROUND and cute photo. Trivia: the famous photo on the Find The Beagles site was taken by my aunt Jeanne at her home in Grand Bay, New Brunswick. If I remember correctly, the right-hand beagle is Lulu and the left-hand beagle is Belle. Both are related to my family’s dog, Pinky, who was herself a superstar on my website way back when.

I think it’s about time to start my day, isn’t it?

I just made jam! I’m so happy when I make jam. I managed not to screw up the jam, either. the jars are sealed and everything looks hunki dori. it is a little sweet, though. I think I might have used too much sugar. making jam in the most humid month of the year is a real trip. I recommend it.

I hereby resolve never to put a glass or ceramic pot on an oven burner again. thankfully, there were no injuries except to my pride.

anyway, in other news, I got more details about the work contract I blogged about earlier: it is indeed full-time work, better paid than my last contract, and will last from September 2nd until the Christmas holidays. I should net a nice, comfortable profit from it, even after my bills are paid. the work will consist of managing a client database which is apparently real hard to understand, doing data entry, and possibly some design. If I’m lucky (and nice) I may be able to increase the database’s sanity somewhat.

Oh yes, and the work will be in Victoriaville, so it will involve a commute. Anyone who wishes may now laugh at me for moving from Victoriaville to Drummondville back in April. I’m still not moving back, though. I’m a-stayin’. Commuting? I can deal with that. Besides, I can carpool with my old supervisor, who lives in Drummondville too. (Woohoo!) In January, I should be able to find something nice, something closer to home. (And I can start looking now.)

MONEY-RELATED HAPPINESS AND JOY. POSITIVITY AND CONTENTMENT. This will be a nice challenge, and a good chance to sharpen my skills in database management.

And I WON’T HAVE TO DELIVER ANY PIZZA!

forsooth!

I have a job!

It’s the nice people at the SADC Arthabaska-Érable who called me up to hire me back (after finishing another contract from January to March). It’s economic development, baby. This time around, I’ll be working on database maintenance. Holy moly! Some work that actually has to do with my studies! Goody goody gosh!

more details soon. I’m happy. It’s not perfect (because it’s not permanent), but this is just a step along the way.

job situation looking up.

way up.

watch this space.

Flashback to two hours ago! Catherine (my sister), Jessika (a baha’i youth from Drummondville) and I are in Victoriaville, finishing up a successful session of our Ruhi Book 2 study circle at Gaëtane’s place. It’s been raining hard since about 5 PM and it’s only let up just now. We’re a little out of it. We notice two fire trucks down the street where we parked. We wonder what’s going on, seeing no fire, but we press on, leaving the fire fighters a wide berth. We pop over to pick up Jessika’s mom, who was visiting a friend while we were off doing Ruhi. We drive off, taking a detour through the downtown, and then turn off to take the river road. Once we get onto the river road (boul. Jutras) we notice a yellow flashing light on a truck by the riverside. A guy with a camera seems to be filming something in the river. We fail to put two and two together, and leave Victoriaville with no further incidents. When we get home, we see on the news channel that the Victoriaville area has just fallen victim to serious flooding: the water in the river is way high, several bridges are out, major roads are closed (though not the road to Drummondville). (article 1 [français], article 2 [english]) Panic and freakiness. No deaths or injuries reported, though. At least until some wise guy decides to lean too far over the bridge while watching the floodwaters and then falls in and drowns himself. whoa. Man, I love being a passerby to news (as long as nobody gets hurt).

Catherine is staying around with me for a couple of days after having participated in our lovely weekend of fellowship and prayer and board games. Oh yeah, I promised you people a wrap up of that. Flashback to Friday, August 1st.

At around 3 PM, me and Jessika drive off to meet Catherine and David Fauteux in Trois-Rivières. We’re there to celebrate the 19-day Feast with the Baha’is there. We’ve only managed to drum up two Baha’is, but they’re glad to be there and appreciate the effort we put in to celebrate with them. We say prayers, sing songs (with me playing guitar badly), chat, ask questions, play games, eat and drink (nonalcoholic beverages). It’s an educational experience for me, seeing as I was recently asked to serve as area coordinator for the Institute Board of Quebec in my home cluster (Centre-du-Québec) and the Trois-Rivières cluster (Mauricie). I finally get to hear a little about the history of the Baha’i Faith in Trois-Rivières. My parents came by Trois-Rivières a long time ago, during the sixties I think, to teach the Faith. I don’t think they ever came back. Different people have come and gone since then and different things have happened, and this opportunity gives me a chance to get the low-down on who’s still there, and what’s really going on right now. In the evening we return, bringing Jeremy Barr (a youth pioneering to Trois-Rivières for his university studies) with us, and nearly getting run off the road by a mack truck. We all arrive safe and sound. I don’t get much sleep that night because I’m not used to other people sleeping in my room with me.

Saturday, August 2nd. I wake up around 8 AM to the sound of Dave getting busy. I wake up again around 8:30 when the radio goes off. Jeremy follows soon after. We celebrate the 19-day Feast again in Drummondville, at France and Jessika’s house (France is Jessika’s mom). We celebrate outside. Étienne, one of the neighbour kids, joins us for prayers and readings (since we asked him not to play basketball while we were having prayers). The spiritual portion ends and he goes back to busting out his skills. All are impressed. We discuss a little bit of news about things scheduled to happen in the next little while, and then continue on to have a scrumptious picnic with bread, cheese, scalloped potatoes, noodle salad, garden salad, and various other tidbits. We bang on some drums afterwards, and then play a couple of games of pool. I get trounced the first time, and then I miraculously beat both Jeremy and Étienne at a pool variation called Killer. A bit later, Dave shares with us all about his experience becoming Baha’i. The neighbour kids are with us and ask some questions about what all this Baha’i stuff is. Dave explains, but doesn’t go too far since we’ve just realized that we didn’t even get the parents’ permission for their kids to be hanging around these Baha’is while they’re having someone over to talk about his Faith. To be sure, we ask them and they see no problem with it, noting that the kids would have ended up asking questions anyway.

[More later... gotta get on with the day!]

for my dad who’s languishing at home, checking my site every day to see if there’s anything new, here’s an update. ;)

yesterday I saw someone playing golf in a cemetery. is it just me or does that seem wrong? sure, it was the empty part of the cemetery that the person was in, but still… I dunno. sometimes different people have different ideas about what’s sacred.

today, me and a bunch of friends are going to go up to Trois-Rivières and visit the Baha’i community there. It’s going to be a real joy. I love visiting people, talking, sharing, etc. We’ll be celebrating the 19-day Feast with them. IOU one nice little exegesis about Trois-Rivières, later.

I’m gaining confidence in my job search. I’m also gaining confidence in my overall financial life. I’m planning my investments. that’s fun. it feels nice to KNOW what the heck is going on in the big bad world, and to get on the ball in one’s life. I’m not completely on the ball yet, but at least the ball isn’t running me over anymore.

quote time: “Beyond the greatest challenges lay the greatest rewards.”

and, for those of you who think that inspirational quotes suck:

iMatt beefpile: tu as un chat dans ton  pantalon