Christmas Greetings!

Merry Christmas! I do love you all and miss those of you back east dearly. I hope one day we can reunite and rebuild bonds that may have been broken. I pray for you all daily and trust that God takes care of you always.

I am truly sorry if I hurt any of you by my absence. But I finally accepted that I can be no good to any of you if I do not go and face myself first.

I do not know when I shall see you all again but when I am ready I shall return.

To My Parents

I now understand more than ever the sacrifice and effort you have made throughout my life to insure my future and to instill in me sold principles to live my life by. During our time together over the past year I see more and more how blessed I truly am to have you as my parents. I hope during our remaining time together I truly glean from the wisdom that you possess so that I can become a man you can be proud to call your son.

To Tess

Many wonder how people from two different worlds can meet and somehow connect. From the beginning I didn’t believe we were that far apart. And when you took the steps to “reach” me, I knew you felt the same way too.

I know we have a lot of plans for the New Year. They are scary, exciting, and filled with hope. Darling lets trust in God to take us there and it will all be possible.

To Everyone Else

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! And my God bless each and everyone of you!

2009 It Has to Happen Now...

How can I sum up a year with so much change in my life? I don’t think I can. The best effort to do so was this blog.

I am grateful for so many things in this moment. But I must say the biggest has to be my loving parents who’ve shown me over the past year how much they love and support me. I feel like they have literally dug me out from the hole that I was living my life in and put me in a position to restart my life.

This fact was readily apparent as I was driving to Calgary this past weekend, chatting with my close friend Christine over my cell phone, my hand caressing the leather wrapped steering wheel of a high performance sports sedan, and as I looked forward to spending some time with Tess in the downtown area. Just last year I was living in a dump, unemployed, lamenting my stolen bike, and braving the cold while waiting for a TTC bus to come on through.

Yes I have worked my ass off to have the money to be able to afford weekends like this. But were it not for the generosity of Mom and Dad to invite me to live with them for a little bit and their guidance in engineering my financial recovery – I’d still be in that hole which many others still inhabit.

I know I have been incognito for the past few months – barely showing my face online and avoiding friends and family. But I believe it was necessary. Contrary to popular opinion, this is not because I am in a new relationship, even though Tess is now a new much loved priority in my life. I think it was because I needed time to strategize and find the drive to make the most of the new opportunities in my life. There is a life now that I clearly want and I really want to work towards it.

The time is now and I believe this to be my last chance to get my life right. I cannot afford to fail in the ways that I have failed before. I see the bigger picture now and I believe I am finally mature enough to take on the challenge of simply thriving in life.

So it is with a sense of sobriety that I approach the New Year. I thank God for rescuing me and reminding me that it requires something bigger then I to get it all right. I pray He continues to mold me and gives the strength and courage to face what is to come.

Changes...

It is amazes me how the landscape of one’s life can change so drastically over a short period of time. As I write this blog during some seemingly stolen early Sabbath morning moments, I reflect on this truth as my mother and girlfriend sleep close by. We will have a busy Sabbath with me performing at the Red Deer church and then ferrying Tess back home to Banff later on in the day. I wish things didn’t have to be so rushed but Tess and I have to work on Sunday. We do a lot to steal a day or two to be together despite the long traveling distances between us.

I have been in the valley over the past month or so. I know this is rather obvious by my lack of blog entries and my general lack of online updating. However all of it I believe is necessary for be to digest the significance of these past few weeks and hopefully make wise decisions regarding my future in privacy and internally.

The biggest decision I am facing is regarding my “retirement” from my professional career in graphic design. The biggest influence for this decision is that I believe I am no longer the person I was when I graduated from Andrews University in 2002 with my Multimedia degree. I will always love graphics and will be involved in a one creative project or another for the rest of my life but these will be personal undertakings. I think my time at my last graphic design post is also a strong influence in this decision making process. I found the environment very self-serving and it turned me off because a side of me strongly believes that our career should be geared towards the benefit of others and helping them.

My mother has introduced me to the idea of exploring the RPN (Registered Psychiatric Program) offered at a local university here in Alberta. If there is another area that I enjoy it has to be psychology and therapy and I have often wondered what a career I that field would be like. Nursing is also certainly a very marketable career! I am fervently exploring the program online and will be making.

It is hard to give up something that I’ve been involved with for the past 7 years or so but maybe it is time. I feel I’ve grown up a lot in the past year alone here in Alberta. I feel that I am different and I have a new perspective on a lot of things. I have new goals and dreams and I think I should not waste any time in the committed attempt to fulfill them. God's will has many turns.

I realized that such realizations are costly not only to myself but to those around me. However I firmly believe that they are truly necessary. After all the most important lesson in life are always costly.

Steps Foreward...

A breather on a Sunday evening and chance to write out a blog entry: such a rarity these days. So much has transpired since my last offering and it seems impossible to sum it up even now. But here goes my attempt.

First a few comments on recent realizations. I’ve been blind for most of my life. Yes that is my first realization. Just stating it makes me want to kick myself in the ass because I really didn’t get what life was about until recently. I guess a few hours in the wash bay of our rental location will do that to anyone.

Work

I’ve never worked so hard in my entire life at a job. That is the truth. I have not had the discipline or the strength of will to give anything pure effort. But I went into this job having something to prove and regarded it as a sort of last ditch effort to see if I could actually simply work.

It hasn’t been easy. I’ve made every single mistake one could make and I often feel like I’ve even made more. But slowly, with God’s help, I’ve picked myself up and kept pushing - often returning home worn out emotionally and physically.

This past week my manager informed me that I had won the month long fuel selling contest with the highest percentage of fuel sold. An amazing 43 percent of my contracts had fuel sold which even blew me away. When the contest first started, I thought I had no chance at winning but tried to at least keep my numbers on the board.

This win has been the boost I needed to get me game tighter and I am happy to report that I am current at about 90% as far as selling commission worthy products on all my contracts so far this month. Praise God for sending me the right customers!

Friends

I want to thank Ritchey, Franz, Linda, and Karin for inviting me to hang out this past weekend at Gullivers. Good times guys and good food. I know I tend to disappear for weeks on end but you guys always check in and invite me to stuff. I also had fun at Ritchey house listening to you guys rock out in the basement. Glad we finally hooked that up.

End of an Era

When I learned that a certain someone was making the move back to her home overseas, it caused me to take a moment to reflect on back to 2006 and 2007 which I fondly refer to as the “cycling commuter years”.

There were some hard lessons learned because of that experience and I can’t say that I would want to go back to that emotional place ever again. I am grateful for what I have learned and pray daily that I can apply it all to my life now.

I am disappointed when aspects of my character that are still flawed manifest themselves even out here in Alberta. But I pray and hope that God continues to inspire and work within me to conquer these flaws.

Love

It is hard to explain why this one is so special to me. But on the other hand it may be as simple as hearing her say “I love you” and knowing that she means it with all of what she can give another human being.

Or maybe it is as simple as seeing the efforts she went through to make me feel better. Sadly this is something that I have not experienced in the past at this level.

Wrongs That Must Be Set Right

The bike will be replaced. This is the one thing I know in my heart that needs to be set right. I know I will be content to let everything else go except this one thing. The bike must be replaced this spring.


...creativity is returning... the sleeping graphic designer dragon is awakening...

In the Name of the Father...

I will not be in Red Deer this Friday because I’ll be off to Banff to visit Tess. Also between now and then I’ll be pretty busy so I guess this is the only time I can reserve a moment to pay tribute to my Dad: one who will celebrate his birthday on Friday. [Thank goodness for Facebook who helps me in keeping track of such things!]

I have only in recent years begun to relate to my father. Over my lifetime I’ve always looked up to him as fine example of what a human being should be. He is a dedicated worker, believes very much in education as being the “great equalizer, and an individual who truly relates to many different people. But his ideal has always eluded me throughout my life. I’ve always felt like I could not attain it and have often opted to be the antithesis of it.


With the passing of time, I’ve learned about the human side of my father. He has cautiously lifted the veil to reveal aspects of himself that most would not consider to be so pretty. In fact there are chapters in his deep past that no one would be proud of to have in their record. But rather than disgust me, these revelations bonded me to him in a way that I not experienced before.

Life is indeed journey and each of our journeys is unique. We will all stumble and fall and the fulfillment of our potential is not necessarily based on all the right decisions we make but how we react when we have made bad ones. On the flip side, the people we often shun because they’ve fallen from grace or who are pariah because they’ve stumbled, may very well be our greatest teachers, possessors of deep wisdom, and are the diamonds that are no longer in the preverbal rough.

On his special day I’d like to thank my Dad for teaching me these lessons simply by living his life and being willing to share his story with me. I’d also like to congratulate him on his recent re-election as the Vice President of Administration for the Alberta SDA Conference. The position sounds so important but if anything it means that he must serve many and that is his greatest desire.

Love you Dad!

In You Alone...

I did a “bad” thing on Saturday afternoon and snuck off The Parable to listen to some music in the CD section of the store. Well come on now, it was Christian music and I was looking for some sonic inspiration. Alas, I did pick up a collection of 51 worship song classics after skipping through the tracks on the demo disc player and being excited by what I heard.

I popped the last CD of the triple collection and brought up the In Christ Alone/The Solid Rock tracks and sped off on Highway 2A in no particular direction just wanting to get away for a little bit. The song moved me to tears literally as I drove. I kept it on repeat as my inner emotions were released and I sang along with the choir with my voice cracking as the words continued to move me.

It has been a while since I’ve taken a moment to reflect inwardly to take stock of how things are in my life. Since making the commitment to recover financially from the fiasco of recent years, I’ve just been focusing on putting my time in at work and paying tithe regularly (thanks mom!), paying debts, saving, and planning for my financial future. I thank God that things have slowly come together and now I actually am on the plus side of things.

However it hasn’t been easier and work has steadily become harder over recent weeks and I do come home exhausted and mentally drained. I remember feeling trapped in my jobs in Toronto and I certainly don’t want that to happen here because years tend to pass with a wasted feeling when that happens.

I wish I had been smarter in my youth and thought things through with more clarity and maturity. I know the factors that played into the mistakes that I have made and I thank God that I’ve learned from them.

Let me not downplay all positive things that have happened in my life since moving out here to Alberta! I mean the fact that I could pick up a CD and drive out on highway 2A in my car is a testimony to God’s continued blessing in my life and. The fact that I daily am reminded on how lucky I am to have two wonderful parents who even sacrifice to help put a roof over my head moves me still. I have done nothing to deserve their love and support… true love for real.

But I guess with all the blessing and restoration comes a renewed sense that I cannot afford to screw around anymore. I need to grow up, and man up and do something with the opportunities that God has given to me. Especially now with someone who keeps telling me that she will be there but it is my life and she believes that I can come through and is looking towards me to come through.

My heart warms when I hear her say that but it also trembles because I don’t want to fail her. Happy Monthsary darling...

So I turn to you alone to keep me and fulfill your plan for my life oh Lord, for I know that without you I am nothing and that with you anything is possible. Do not leave me for I am too weak to hold on to you and I need your strength to carry me through. For all you have given I can never repay. So please open my heart and my will so it can be one with yours. You are my life my all.

S.O.W. is Sick!

So I’m up at 6 am on a Sabbath morning listening to the MP3s that Addison sent me to sample the new S.O.W. album which I guess I believe is tentatively named “Plant a Seed”. I have to say that I’m quite impressed with the production value of the songs. I’ve been there from the birth of these songs till now and it has been quite a sonic journey.

I must confess that until I heard these tracks, I had no idea where to go with the design of the album look other than I wanted to tie the color scheme into their Youtube site. I went ahead with a design but after hearing the tracks I know that I would have gone a completely different look just because of the fleshed out sound contributed by new members of the group as well as the production value.

Boy what a week at work. I’m suddenly in a crash course of procedure management especially when it comes to handling different insurance replacement deals. Also I’m finally learning all the nuances of closing contracts which can actually be a pain in the ass because it’s a learn as you go process. I often feel like a tool but hey I guess you gotta pay your dues.

I’ve been so exhausted lately after work I’ve actually skipped my workout for about a month and half now and sadly it shows especially with my occasional trips to Micky D’s. That’s one thing I want to change this weekend, which is to workout this afternoon to start my week off right and avoid the fast food for the rest of October. I loved feeling fit and strong and I don’t want to lose that. Come on muscle memory and shock!


Ms. Pelayo is a bit under the weather and I was fortunate to have two computers running as I worked on my album draft so that I could keep her on Yahoo messenger on Dad’s new uber sweet machine while my machine was able to run Photoshop and Illustrator solo. The webcam on his computer is so clear so sick! Yay free high quality calls and video to Banff! Get well soon babe!

Anyway mom will be home soon… Gotta get rid of the Micky D’s evidence… he he he he…