I'm Avoiding Homework

I'm pretty good at avoiding homework. Honest. You see right now I could be writing a two page summary on an article that I'm supposed to read (I've read it twice already) but instead I'm on the internet making smartalec comments on Facebook, checking out the tonight's Olympic schedule and blogging. Yikes. I even made tea!! Roibus to be exact. So what's new. Umm. Well I got some good news and bad news yesterday. The bad news was I didn't get a part in Strike! the Musical which is being performed this summer. I had an audition 1.5 weeks ago. It went really good (I think) and I had a lot of fun. The good news is I'll be at home for the month of July which the kids and Tina are happy about. If I would have got a part in this show it would have meant a lot of rehearsals in Winnipeg. I'm really happy I auditioned because as I mentioned it was a really great experience. I think I gained some confidence because of it. Never a bad thing. I wasn't totally shut out in the theatre world. 2 weeks ago yesterday I auditioned for a show at the University of Winnipeg. This was a good opportunity that opened up. Normally the shows are only done by those in the Honours program. The Fourth year class is doing Diary of Anne Frank and the director has decided to cast 4 of the parts with students outside of the class. I was cast as Mr. Kraler (that's awfully close to Kehler) and will be in 3 scenes!! It's especially exciting because I am good friends with a number of the students in the class. I'd say most of them. I am so looking forward to being in a show with them. They're a very talented class and I hope to learn lots from them. I felt very special when one of them called me the Friday after my audition all excited to tell me I got the part. But it means I'll be in Winnipeg a lot during the month of March for rehearsals. But I'm in Winnipeg a lot anyway so it's not a big deal I guess. The show the week of Easter. Oh yeah. They have performances Good Friday and the Saturday of Easter. weird. I'm definitely going back to Winkler Thursday night so I can be in church Good Friday. I guess in some ways I'm not totally churchy but for me, Good Friday is one of the most important Christian holidays on the calendar (Easter being first). And I'm not going to be too much fun at the cast party because I need to be back in Winkler for Easter Sunday. Ok, I'm going to qualify my previous point. According to church people I'm not totally churchy but to my University friends I am. Ok I'm going to qualify that too. I worship lead, do children's story, teach sunday school and attend church conferences. I guess I am churchy but don't feel it sometimes. weird. Anyway, I'm going to get the kleenex ready because I likely am going to bawl my eyes out when Jonie Rochette skates tonight. And I have to get that assignment done.

cheers

Bud

I Don't Know How They Do It

So I'm on Reading Week right now. It's really nice just relaxing, getting a little bit of homework done, reading (finished the Twilight Series) and watching Olympics. At first I was excited about reading week because I'd get to see the kids a little more but it really hasn't happened that way. I keep forgetting they have school even though I'm on a break. And I've been busy three nights this week with meetings or rehearsals and now Saturday I'm off to a conference. The end of March will be tough because I'm in a show in Winnipeg and production week is during spring break. How do people do jobs where they don't see their kids for a week or two at a time? I don't know. Just had a thought. My dad used to go up north to work for weeks at a time. I know why he did it. It wasn't a choice. He had too so we could eat. hmmm I guess I'm thinking more about having a choice.Am I just over sensitive about it? I could be involved in more. There's lots I would like to be involved in. But I think my family would go crazy. The kids at least. Anyway. I was just thinking about it and I hadn't blogged in a while so....anyway. There you go.

cheers.

Another Battle Report

Alright this Battle Report is going to be shorter because

A. I threw away the Army Lists

and

B. We only played a 500pt battle.

The Armies

Griffin's Undead Horde

Vampire Hero

Extra level

Spells

Invocation of Nehek, Raise Dead and Winds of Undeath

10 Dire Wolves with Doom Wolf

12 Grave Guard with command

2 Bat Swarms

Bud's Fanatical Night Goblins

Night Goblin Big Boss riding Giant Squig

Iron Gnashas

Night Goblin Shaman

Spell Gaze of Gork

20 Night Goblins with command and 2 Fanatics

20 Night Goblins with command and 2 Fanatics

Squig Herd 6 squigs 4 Herders

Griffin won the roll off and went first.

VC Turn 1

Everything moves forward.

He tries to cast Winds of Death but that fails and Invocation is dispelled by my Shaman

Goblins Turn 1

Night Goblins on edge have animosity and roll go get'em. Move forward 2 inches. Then they move their march move and release fanatics. YAY!! Only 1 makes it and destroys 1 Dire Wolf. Everyth

ing else moves forward. Gaze of Gork Dispelled.

VC Turn 2

Dire Wolves Charge middle Night Goblin Unit. Not a great idea. Both fanatics are released and destroy a total of 7 Dire Wolves!! That leaves 2 for the combat to come. His Bat Swarms charge my Squig Herd. He tries to cast Invocation but miscasts and rolls the one where I get to cast a spell. I cast Gaze on the Dire Wolves and kill another one. The final one gets killed in combat.

His bat swarms get eaten up by my squig herd. Yay!!!!

OC Turn 2

1 fanatic dies because he runs into the rocks. The other three just zoom around having a great ole time. The night goblin unit with the shaman suffers from animosity so he can't cast a spell. everyone else just kind of moves around. I move the squig herd in place so that the grave guard unit with the Vampire will attack them.

VC Turn 3

Vampire Unit charges the Squig herd. YES!!! The unit kills two squigs but the remaining two, obviously liking the vampire who is the only fleshy thing to be found, target it with all their attacks and bring the Vampire down!!! The Herd still loses combat but rolls double 1's to stick around. (They don't auto break from fear because they're immune to psychology) The leadership test at the end of the turn b/c the Leader perished means four more Grave Guard fall to dust.

OC Turn 3

Pretty much all that happened was that 1 fanatic flew off the board

Vampire Turn 4

Nothing (there was some really boring combat

OC Turn 4

Fanatic kills a Night Goblin. That was fun. I was hoping it would do more damage. My Night Goblin big Boss on a Giant Squig charges the Grave Guard from Behind and wipes them out. There were only 3 left. And so ends the game with a very unexpected win for the Night Goblins.

Final Note.

Does this mean Night Goblins are better than Dwarfs? I think I'm about to get hit by lightning.

cheers

A few Quick Hits

1. Haiti didn't make the first 6 minutes of the CBC radio national news at 4pm. It's fading from the headlines. Please don't forget the thousands affected.

2. I really have issues with British Colonialism. They really have tried to screw up every culture they've come in contact with.

3. Read the Graphic Novel Series "Bone" this week. Very enjoyable.

4. I hate icy roads.

5. I have a lot of work to do this weekend.

6. The Super Bowl is this weekend.

7. I never get stuff done Super Bowl weekend.

8. I'm screwed.

cheers

A Response to Herb Franz...sort of.

OK this is hard because normally I don't like picking a fight with a pastor of another church but I sort of had to with this. He kind of got me a little angry. This is a portion of Herb Franz's sermon on exclusivity which he preached at Grace Mennonite Church in Winkler on Sunday. The Mennonite community is small so that's how I found out about this. He posts the sermon on his blog. Here is an excerpt...

Let me tell you about an exclusive church that I experienced last fall. When we were at Hans and Irene’s four of us decided that we would like to go to an Old Colony Church worship service. So we asked around about where we could find such a church. We were told that there was an Old Colony Church in the village of Steinreich just a couple of miles from where we were staying. We asked what time it would start. We were told that Old Colony churches never start at the same time. They start one hour after sunrise. Some of our group, not me, were awake early in the morning and knew that the sun rose at 6:30 AM. We assumed that we should be at the church by 7:30. Actually we were told, the service starts at 7:15 or so.

We arrived at the church and Daryl was driving and Daryl did what Daryl always does when Daryl goes to church, he drove into the parking spot. We didn’t know that no one drives into the parking spots; they back in so they can get away quickly when the service is over.

We had been told to make sure that we entered the church by the correct door. We would have to enter by the men’s door. We were told to just watch which door the men were using and follow them in. We got there and I watched and I saw a couple of men walk in one of the doors. But then I became confused because I also saw a couple of women enter the same door. What was going on? Then I remembered being told that there are a couple of doors on the church where the song leaders and the ministers, and their wives can enter. That must be the door. Eventually we saw what seemed to be a steady stream of men heading toward several different doors and we got out of our incorrectly parked van and followed the group.

As we were walking across the parking lot we encountered another man came and I greeted him with my best Low German greeting. He looked surprised and muttered something in return that made it obvious the conversation was over. We managed to walk in the correct door. We noticed there were no children under the age of about 13 in the church.

Before the service started seven men walked in and sat to the right of the pulpit. These were the song leaders. They led the singing in the most nasal singing I have ever heard. We found that no one brought their Bibles to church, except for our own Bill Zacharias, but everyone brought their hymn books which are carried in cardboard slip covers. When the singing started there was a general clatter as the books were unsheathed and the covers were set beside the people on the bench.

When the minister began to speak there came a time when everyone in the building stood up, turned around and knelt facing the back of the bench. I had been on my knees all week tiling at Hans and Irene’s and my knees were in no mood for kneeling without kneepads on a cement floor. I thought it would be awkward to stay sitting and stare at the man in front of me kneeling to pray looking at me so I stood, turned, knelt and leaned heavily on my arms during the prayer time.

As a preacher I’m always looking to learn from another preacher. When this preacher began to speak he did not speak in his normal tone of voice. He spoke sort of in a singing voice that flowed along like this and only occasionally dropped at end of a sentence. Despite that there were entire sections of the message where he spoke in his normal voice before beginning to once again use what I later learned is called the “Holy Voice”. When church was over I expected visiting to happen but everyone stood silently and left without saying anything to anyone. It was clearly a case of beat the traffic in Steinreich that day. In about five minutes our van was the only vehicle left in the parking lot because Daryl had driven in instead of backing in. We had to wait till everyone else had gone before we could go.

We left the church that day relatively secure in the knowledge that we were going to be the topic of many dinner conversations among the people of the Steinreich Old Colony Church. I have never felt so out of place among a group of 250 white people in all my life.

I went to an Old Colony church service as well when I was in Mexico. And I can only describe Mr. Franz's description as culturally insensitive. Could he have sounded more superior in his description of the Old Colony church service? Maybe next time he should approach the service with humility and a true desire for learning and check his modern evangelical goggles at the door. What did he expect? To be greeted as the wonderful preacher from the far off wonderful place of Canada? If he had tried to learn anything about church before hand maybe the service wouldn't have been so awkward for him. One of his comments was "the most nasal singing I have ever heard". Does he go to Pow Wows and complain about the drumming or watch Riverdance and then complain about how loud it is when they wear those shoes? His comment about "beating the traffic" was also troublesome to me. He really has absolutely NO idea about the culture of the Old Colony people. Instead he invokes his own biases to prove a point. I'm going to fill you in on a little secret. The Old Colony church is exclusive. They are not an evangelical church out to attract new members. They have members, they are the people of the colony. By the way. I did not feel "excluded" when I attended that church service in December. Excluded is when you are left out. Did I feel different? Yes, but I was given as much opportunity to worship as anyone else. On a final note Mr. Franz assumes they were the talk of many dinner discussions. Really??

Cheers