I had a wonderful day yesterday, and I can’t stop thinking about it, I’m glowing!

I didn’t actually speak to any of the managers at work last week about working on the holiday Monday, so I wasn’t sure if I was or wasn’t working. Because of this, I decided to go to work to be on the safe side, and ended up talking to Barry, who told me that builders usually don’t come in on holidays; there’s not much need for builders on holidays. After some discussion about the bike I’m buying and componentry and bike fit for me, I headed back home on the commuter bike, taking a longer and different way home since I had the time.

Since it was going to be one of my few days off, I really wanted to spend it to the fullest, possibly go to the mountains. Paul and a bunch had gone to Canmore on Sunday and Taryn and a huge bunch had already left for Banff early in the morning. I really wondered when it was my chance to see mountains. About 8 of us guys including Steve, who was on Edmonton Project last year, went to Chinook Centre to watch “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, which was quite the awesome movie, I must say. There is so much random humour in there, that it’s absurd and impossible to convey to someone who hasn’t seen the movie. The only way I can describe it is “a geeky romance movie steeped in random and geeky humour to cater to the general populace”.

I didn’t think we’d make it back in time, but we got back to the apartment around 3:45pm, but Andrea hadn’t even arrived back home from work yet. Apparently Andrea was taking some people to Banff to meet up with Taryn and the large crew at the Hot Springs, and had some car space. Luckily enough, it was all true, and when she came home I gladly helped to fill a seat.

We stopped by at her home in Calgary to find the park pass, but instead were indulged with lasagna, donuts, and healthy vegetables from her parents who were painting their backyard fence. We decided against driving to Andrea’s grandparents’ home to grab the pass from another vehicle because of time constraints, and took off for Banff!

In some ways, the drive to Banff is familiar. I can still remember some of it from my family trip about 4 or 5 years ago. It was drizzling at some points, but at other places it was just blue skies and white cumulus clouds buffetting the mountain peaks. Add that to some Starfield’s “Filled with Your Glory” music to sing to, and you have yourself a nice worship experience already.

We found some time to walk around the Town of Banff, check out the fabled Welch’s Candy Store, drool over the Fudgery, and laugh at the shirts and stickers at Cow’s. Every single store in that town is hiring. I think tons of people leave after the snow stops falling.

A highlight of the night was definitely the Hot Springs. Essentially a large outdoor wading pool fed by the hot water of the Banff Hot Springs, we basked and boiled and bantered for a few hours as we relaxed in the therapeutic water and admired the marvelous view of the mountains directly across from us.

On the way back to Calgary, Andrea let me take the wheel as she isn’t too fond of night driving, so I took ahold of it without any hesitation. Believe it or not, I was probably the safest driver in that vehicle, so I was more comfortable behind the wheel than sitting back! With a touch of deep conversation about being a pastor’s kid, native reserves, and genetic disorders/experiential conditions, we made it back to the apartment at midnight.

Oh yeah, then a few of us went out for some wings, since we were really hungry. What a wonderful day.

[some pictures to come shortly]

Apparently there’s a little bit of controversy over the official Vancouver/Whistler 2010 Winter Olympics logo. Although there’s always controversy over these things. Here’s a good explanation: Under Consideration: Speakup.

It’s been 2 weeks and I’ve worked for at least one week at The Bike Shop now, and I’m really settling in. I completed 6 bikes today, and they were all adult bikes, some with disc brakes, so it’s something to be proud of. I’m aiming for 8-10 bikes per day, so that it’s really worth my while to be working on a piecework basis.

I don’t get amazed easily, but many things in the past few days have been so neat that I can only stand in awe. On Saturday we had our Day of Evangelism (a weekly event) and I was on the U of C campus with Lynsey talking to people about spiritual things. Near the end of our allotted time, we ended up talking to two young guys who were playing soccer at the field for 30 minutes. One of them just asked us questions continually, out of curiosity rather than trying to stump us. Which was totally neat. People actually want to talk about spiritual things, believe it or not.

Sunday was the Global Day of Prayer. Calgary apparently was the Canadian centre and a lot of people met up in the Saddledome to pray together. As a project group, we all went down and sat together. The band from Shawn’s church was leading worship and they were very very lively (although they didn’t do the actions to “Days of Elijah”). We didn’t pack out the Saddledome, but there sure were a lot of people there. They went through prayer for various areas of the world, various age groups, and different people groups. What touched me the most was the prayer for the children of the world. Apparently (correct me if I’m wrong) around 300,000 children are fighting in armed militias against their will around the world. As someone who’s worked with kids extensively before, this really saddens me and causes me to call out to God even more, that He would put an end to this and release children of their suffering and confusion. It almost made me cry to hear one of the children at the Saddledome pray for protection, guidance, and courage to heed God’s calling.

I only remembered this just now, but I attended Uchurch (University Church) on campus with a large bunch of the other projecteers (yup, that’s what we’re called), and although I wasn’t too comfortable with their charismatic worship style and “amen”/”come on now”/”that’s right” outright vocal response to what was being said, it was really neat when the pastor asked all the projecteers to stand up and the whole church prayed for us. It really demonstrated their care for us.

God amazes us. Sometimes we have to strain the eyes of our hearts just to see it, but frequently, if we are willing, God amazes us as we just sit there and await Him. He has power over apathy and ignorance, I tell you.

It’s been a week since I last posted, and a lot has happened since.

Last Friday it was confirmed that I was hired for a job at The Bike Shop in Calgary as a builder. So what I do all day is assemble bikes non-stop! I’ve learned how to assemble many different kinds of bikes, including road bikes, mountain bikes, and children’s bikes. Some new components that I’ve learned about include headsets, disc brakes (hydraulic and mechanical), and big low-rider styles. There seems to be a growing segment in bikes of low-riders, the kind that look like Harley-Davidson motorcycles and are supposedly very comfortable and easy to ride. They usually feature very high-quality paint jobs too. At the shop, there are over 25 mechanics working at the same time usually, with service advisors on the sales floor diagnosing the problems that customers’ bikes have, cleaners wiping away all the dirt and grime off, mechanics fixing bikes, and builders assembling bikes for the floor and for customers who’ve purchased bikes. It’s really neat how they do things, as this is one of the largest bike shops in Calgary, a bike crazy city. All of the guys working in service are really into bikes as well, no matter what kind. I’ve heard them comment on downhill/freeride bikes as well as road or cruisers in the same manner: “That is one sweet bike” or “That is awesome!”. On the first day, I only built 2 bikes, on my second day I was able to build 3. On Wednesday I built 4, and today I managed to finish 5 bikes (even though 2 were kids bikes…). They pay the builders by “piecework”, so I am paid a certain amount for normal bikes, a bit more for a bike with disc brakes, and a bit more than that for a bike that needs its bars to be taped or a bashguard to be installed. Although the head builder and I agree that sometimes the cheaper bikes take longer because the components are harder to toggle and are more finicky.

I’m planning on buying a bike from the store on discount since I’m in Alberta where there’s no PST and I’d like to bike to work everyday. Unfortunately it won’t be Pro-deal, since I haven’t worked here for 3 months yet (I’m only going to be here for 3 months). In the meantime, the shop has lent me their beater commuter bike, so I’m already biking to and from work. It’s a challenge in Calgary as I have to cross the river to get back home, and it’s a heck of an uphill no matter what route I take.

Last Sunday I had the privilege of attending Harvest Christian Fellowship, which is the church that Shawn Cain, the project director, goes to. It happened that Robin Mark and Paul Reid from Ireland were invited to lead worship and preach. If you don’t know, Robin Mark is the composer of many worship songs and has kind of helped lead a revival in Northern Ireland. He’s a very relaxed and humble guy, and I went up to talk to him afterwards, since I needed to know if his guitar was an Avalon guitar!!! And sure enough, it was. That model retails for $6000 and is absolutely magnificent. Apparently one of the Avalon guys goes to his church, and they gave the guitar to him. Paul Reid was also a great speaker, he is very humourous and yet very effective in his approach. It’s also neat to hear an Irish accent.

He spoke about the methods that the church is using these days and how opposite they are to the way that Jesus conducted himself when he was on Earth. Instead of expecting people to behave like us, then believe in Jesus, and lastly allow them to belong, we should conduct ourselves like Jesus did, which was to let everyone belong, then hopefully they will believe in him, and after that they will behave in a manner that reflects their beliefs and convictions. What a simple concept, but the church (or much of it) has it all upside-down.

Living here and engaging in this project has been amazing so far. I live in a Christian environment, as everyone in the apartment is on project, and yet it is stressed that we must live outside this bubble effectively. I have received intense training in evangelism, living by the Spirit, and working with other people. But it has only been 2 weeks into the project! There really is more to come, more to expect, and more to look forward to.

After about 2 days of training on Monday and Tuesday, the rest of the days of this week have been dedicated to job searching. They say that if we don’t have a full-time job, our job is to find a job. Which makes sense, it’s only reasonable, as it was one of the requirements of the project — to have a job (or take some classes).

Yesterday I went downtown to two bike shops for interviews, and they went quite well. The first one was a bit of a surprise since the person I was in contact with — the manager — wasn’t able to make it in, so an assistant manager ended up interviewing me. It was a very short interview. The second one was way better. The shop manager was very clear, concise, and caring, and he even took me on a tour of the whole store. So that looks like an awesome opportunity for work.

Some other opportunities I’m going to explore include a warehouse/merchandising job, a used outdoor softgood repair at a gear swap, and perhaps sales at Circuit City (no longer Radio Shack) or Black’s. Ideally I’d work at a bike shop doing service, so that I could buy a bike really cheap and commute to work and back, then ship it back to Guelph. A low end road bike is what I’m aiming for, and it probably would only cost me about 500-600, a worthy investment, in my opinion. Or I could take parts and build up a singlespeed. Here in Calgary, everywhere I look there are bikers with singlespeeds, extreme freerides, or road bikes. You can’t get away from it, and I like it.

There was also a job fair/hiring fair at the city hall, but it ended up being quite puny and a heck of a lot of people showed up. The companies mainly were there to show that they were hiring, but most of the actual hiring and submitting of resumes is almost totally done online these days, so there’s no real point in chatting it up with those company reps, unless you don’t know what you want to do. It’s not likely I’d get a Stampede job either, as the first application date is on May 11, and the job is likely to being June 10, concluding July 30. That’s really not a lot of hours.

Living in the apartment is really neat. I’ve never really lived with people in this fashion. It’s the first time I’ve had a roommate (who lives in my room, not housemate = roommate). It’s also the first time I’ve lived with 6 other guys in the same apartment suite. Only 4 days in and I know for sure it’s not something I want to do in the school year. There’s way too much to live with and tolerate. My roommate is awesome, however, since he’s a big music person and shares much of the same interests with me. Taryn is from Calgary, goes to the U of C, and works on campus right now. We fit quite well with each other, as was evidenced last night when we jammed some worship songs for about an hour and a half, and we just juggled songs back and forth, could read the chord progressions really quickly, and effectively led the lounge full of people into a great time of praising God with song.