It Is Finished

Well, after four and a half months of rehearsals we have crucified and resurrected Jesus for the final time. I may have mentioned this already, but this has been one of the most enjoyable things I have done and I am well and truly bitten by the theatre bug.
We opened on Thursday night to a house that was about two thirds full, nearly sold out Friday night and had people lining up on Saturday just on the off chance that someone wouldn't show up and a ticket could be had. So I guess you could say it went very well.

This is the cast, all 53 of us.

The pit orchestra.

If you go to youtube and type Jesus Christ Superstar Prince Rupert into the search engine you can find other videos someone posted of the show. Whoever filmed this hasn't put any of my songs up yet, but this has always been one of my favourite numbers.

If you think about it, we pulled off an amazing feat. In a town of 13 000, we managed to find over a hundred performers and volunteers to put on the show and attracted 10% of the population to see us. I'm sure that if we did a Saturday matinee, it would have been a near sellout too.

That leaves me with what I'm going to do next to keep me out of the house. Luckily the members of a local band were in the cast too. They're planning on putting together a stage version of Pink Floyd's The Wall. They said they would need extra performers, so I volunteered my services. It should be fun.

One Month To Go

In one month's time I will finally be able to shave! I've really been enjoying the rehearsal process. In fact, it has probably helped me stay sane over the last few weeks. One thing is sure though and that is I'm going to keep doing the community theatre thing for some time to come. It has been nice to get to know people that aren't other teachers or students. It's kind of refreshing not to wind up talking about work like teachers always seem to do when we get together.

The top picture is me with my fellow priest, Brian, and an apostle (I can't remember his name, I'm so ashamed.)
The bottom picture is me with our exchange student from the Netherlands, Dagmar.


So, wish me luck, I'll try to post pictures from the performances.

All I Want for Christmas

This is Carina.
She's not mine, but I'd take her in a second. I'd forgotten how nice it is to cuddle a baby and it's making me think about what it would be like to be a dad. I hope Puffer gets her baby next year because I'm ready to start spoiling a baby big time.

Merry Christmas everyone, sorry I haven't been around lately.

Winter Frost

I love winter, but winters up here are usually cold and rainy instead of the snowy winters of my youth. This week however, we had real winter with cold frosty mornings and bright sunlight. So I went out this morning to search out some shots of hoar frost on branches and leaves and was very pleased with what I found. I hope all of your winters are the way you like them too.

Growing a Beard for Jesus

Does a beard ever stop itching? I sure hope so. The director of Jesus Christ Superstar wants me to grow a goatee for my role as a priest. We don't perform until early February, but I thought I would get a head start on growing it as I'm one of those guys that only needs to shave every other day. So, after three weeks for the mustache and goatee, and two weeks for the rest of the facial fuzz, this is what I've grown so far. What do you think?

If you're wondering what I'm doing in the picture, well, I've got a bit of a crush on the redhead behind me. A friend has a camera on his laptop and wanted to get a picture of me with her in the shot and this is what turned up.

Anyway, I hope all of my American friends had a great Thanksgiving. I'll keep you all updated on the beard progress.

Abandoned in Terrace

Anybody interested in buying a 2003 Toyota Camry?


On Saturday I hitched a ride to Terrace with a friend. I was going to pick up my sister's car. Since her death, it has been sitting on the lot of the Terrace Toyotoa dealer, up for sale. Unfortunately, after 8 months, nothing has happened. So I was going to bring it back to Rupert to see if anyone in town was interested in it.

We got there just before lunch time and I waited about 20 minutes to talk to the guy I had been dealing with. He couldn't find the file and phoned one of his partners and found out that the steering linkage needed to be replaced in the car. I guess the body shop that repaired the car after my nephew tried to take out a telephone pole didn't notice the damage to the steering. In any case, the car was not in any condition to be driven so I had to leave it with the dealer while they negotiated with the insurance company and ordered the parts. It would have been nice to find that out before I went all of the way out there, but at least it's getting fixed. The only problem was that I was now abandoned in Terrace. Neither my friend nor I have cell phones, so I headed over to Staples where I knew she was going to go shopping. I hung around for an hour and a half before giving up and renting a car to come home with.




I wasn't in the best of moods when I left the Toyota dealer and waiting in the cold didn't help much either, but at least I got a couple of nice photos on the way home.

Do You Know This Boy?

Sometimes I wonder about the past and the child I once was. Did I know what would happen as the years went by? Would I have worked harder at making friends, getting better grades, reading my university textbooks if I knew where I would eventually end up? We can ask ourselves these questions all day long, but what good do they really do us? All I know is that the little boy in the picture was a pretty happy kid. He lived with a family that provided him with love and cool toys like the Tonka jeep in his hands. Sure, there were bad times and there are things I would have done differently, but I'm still pretty satisfied with my life. If I hadn't followed the path I did, I wouldn't be here in Rupert with the friends I have, working in the job I love so much. So, all in all, I wouldn't change a thing.

Although I would like to know what happened to that Tonka truck.