Missing months

So sad that another month will be missing in my archives list...sigh. Oh well!

Some big news on the Snitchy-Switchy front: my wife and I purchased a condominium dwelling unit for our very selves. That's been keeping me pretty busy, along with work and all. Moving is harsh man...

But now I am an official Langlian, or Langley-ite, or Langleyer I guess. Whatever I am, my address has changed and that's that. The drive to work is blissful and kind. The view from the balcony is serene. The drug addict in the bushes across the street shooting up heroin is dropping my property values... (sad but true). Though I don't really care, about the property values I mean... mostly.

Much change in life right now. It's good. It's good.

Be blessed!

Canadian Youth Workers Conference 2007 promo

This tugged at my heart strings...I'm going: how about you?

So easy to get lost

One of the great stories that gets told at family gatherings involved yours truly and the much-heralded tourist trap known as the Vancouver Aquarium. I really can't recall how old I was, though I must have been quite young since I don't actively remember it...only by its retelling do I even know it happened. Although the possibility of memory blockage is there too, considering that 64% of the time I involuntarily wet my pants when my dad gets to the part with the Beluga whales....

I have always been a brash, confident male (I had to say male, because I'm no longer a boy and I haven't always been a man...and no, Andrew, I wouldn't say that some would argue that I'm still not a man, thank you) and though my mouth has always been big and my stride long, getting lost was (and is) scary to me.

That day at the aquarium, I lost my parents. They tell the story in such a way that insists that they never lost sight of me, but I have always questioned that claim. Oh sure, it's fun to laugh now, probably twenty years later, but they never stop to wonder why 64% of the time, when everyone's laughing, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom (I've learned to slow the pants-peeing to a mere trickle over the years, barely noticable and alieviated by a visit to the WC)! The mental anguish is excrutiating!

I cried and cried that day until they finally "found" me. No damage done (they think...excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom....
















....ok, I'm back).

As an adult, I'm not scared of getting lost physically. I've got a great sense of direction and enough knowledge (wilderness and/or driving, depending on the type of lost) to get myself out of anywhere I've ever been. No, getting lost is much more about emotions and personality now. Losing who I am and who I need to be...that's scary to me.

Over the years, I know I've lost pieces of myself and I would venture to guess that some of them have never been found (that could be good, could be bad). But I also know that when I finally realize I'm lost, I still cry and cry, just like I did that day long ago in Vancouver Aquarium...waiting....hoping...for daddy to find me and tell me I'm safe...

When kids get lost, the best advice is always to tell them to stay put, don't move and wait. I've been lost for awhile now, staying put and waiting...hoping...

I think I've only just been found. Hallelujah

...and knowing is half the battle!

Well, some have asked about the 12 toes...no comment. (It hurts to think about all the childhood torture...kids can be so cruel!)

Also, I mentioned a new blog. I have not received clearance to reveal its location: it is available on a need-to-know basis only. If you find it, DO NOT TELL ANYONE. To do so is to put yourself, your family, your pets and all you hold sacred at risk. This comes down from on high people! WAAAAY up the food chain. Don't mess with them, beeeeelieeeve me.

Love you all much. Be blessed!

Anniversary

They tell me that this is my official 50th post! It took me one year, five months, eight days, four hours and eighteen minutes to get that over with! Whew!

Though I'm obviously a blogging veteran (50 posts!), I have only recently started a second, much more geeky blog and am realizing that changes to one blog affect the other substantially. For proof, check out my profile to the right. Doesn't fit this blog. Sucky. Somehow, I think I'll figure it out :)

With my blogging absence of the past few months, I'd forgotten how fun it is to have comments file into the inbox...good times! It's great to be alive!

To all you faithful addicts (who still check my blog for changes, even after all this time), I salute you! Hurrah!

Wowsers

Not that I'm trying, but I think I lag behind only GK for blog delinquency. Yikes!

Well, now that I've read a couple of blogs once again I have an obligation to fulfill my "IT"-edness, especially since I've been tagged twice and have the red handprints on my back to prove it. I am genuine proof that the hocus-pocus of promised doom should you not divulge weird or random things is a bunch of hooey. So there. I am alive and well! Though not followed in the blogging world any longer:)

Six weird things about me:
#1
I have always thought it is funny when men refer to themselves as raging, hardcore lesbians (cause they like women). I can't think of a time that I've heard that and not laughed. Lame, but true.
#1a
I'm a raging, hardcore lesbian confined within the warm embrace of a lifelong partnership, which has been endorsed by the government and the church as a marriage.
#1b
I'm still laughing. Lame, but true.
#2
As a child, I collected GI Joe toys. Nothing unusual. That spread into watching the cartoons and collecting the comic books. Geeky, but not necessarily weird. In the last year, I have had at least two conversations with other adults in which I began talking of ninjas and ninja moves as though they are real (perhaps the concept of ninja is real, but I'm talking about the ninjas from GI Joe, since they're the entirety of everything I know about ninjas). One of those conversations included me acting out the moves. Weird-o.
#3
I have twelve toes.
#4
I am allergic to apples (pears, peaches - fruit that you eat the skin). Though this allergy exists only when the fruit is raw. If it is cooked, I'm good to go!
#5
Phones are scary to me. I've never considered therapy or anything, but I definitely have some kind of prohibitive anxiety when it comes to contacting people by phone. I rarely call anyone, except my wife. I'm immune when she's involved. Go figure.
#6
I wish I could be a Mixed Martial Arts fighter. This is weird because I can't stand getting hit in the head. Other than that, I think I could be good at it once I was in half decent shape! I've thought about joining an MMA gym to get into shape, since I know I could be interested in working hard at wrestling and submissions. That's the first step to the UFC for "Snitchy Switchy" Brent Thompson!! Of course, maybe it's all just related to being a ninja?

I tag no one. IT ENDS HERE!

Shalom.

Quick and dirty

Here it comes, fast and simple:

The football team has gone on a tear and will be playing at BC Place stadium on December 2nd at 10:30am for the BC High School Football AA JV provincial title!! Important note: they are the defending champions, so getting back to the title game is a big deal... Coach P (head coach - 73 years old) said today that if you told him back in spring camp that we'd be getting ready this week for the championship game, he'd have told you you were dreaming! He then proceeded to tell us that he had declared to his wife that it'd be a short season this year and he'd have tons of extra time in November for her...well, we're still playing and don't finish til December 2!! Sorry Mrs. Coach P.. ; )

I have been incredibly blog averse these last couple months because I have adopted (or more accurately, renewed) a different internet habit that has taken up tremendous amounts of my browsing time. Now, I don't know if you're like me (maybe yes, maybe no), but I'm not a big internet guy for the most part. I think it's like talking on the phone: it has its good purposes, but I don't want to spend more time on it than I have to. So, I love reading others' blogs and enjoy the creative acts of writing and trying to make the blog look better...yet I found myself unable to sustain the creative efforts and maintain my desired standards (oooooooo so high :P ), leaving me no choice but to withdraw. A blogrecluse. A bloghermit. [cool looking word: bloghermit... could be pronounced so many ways... bah-log-her-mitt...bah-logger-mitt...bah-loffer-mitt...so fun]

The renewed habit is eBay. AAAAAARRRRGGGHGHHHH. I really don't like garage sales, but I think it's not because of the high ratio of crap to treasure... after two months of eBay, I realize I can wade through tons of crap and come out happy... it's because of the travel time associated with it. The internet (and eBay) have created a massive, worldwide garage sale that is on constantly and all you have to do is find your treasure! Awesome! So I'm out there searching for my treasure when I should be faithfully updating my blog. Sorry about that.

Now, I want to be clear that I'm not randomly searching for great deals of any kind out there in the e-world...I have goals. Nerdy goals. Geeky goals. But goals nonetheless! Not the goals of a football coach or a "cool" youth worker, just a dork. I'm looking for G.I. Joe comics. 'Nuff said.

If you want to see what kind of a task I'm up against, check this out.

End Result

To make a long story short, Snitchy Switchy is now a part of a coaching team one member to the lesser. After said event (see last post) and an in-game explosion, my fellow coach was essentially asked to cease coaching the team this season. It's more developed than that, but it is what it is.

We lost the "explosion" game by the score of 21-20. Since then (with more staff unity and peace), our team has gone 3-0 with decisive wins over every team we've played. It's been pretty incredible (two 40+ point shutout victories)....

I don't want to belabor this event in my life, but I thought you might like to hear a little bit of resolution. :)

Snitchy Switchy

I was thinking today, "Okay Brent, your nickname is Switch right? If you ratted out someone, you could be Switch the Snitch...not a bad 30s gangster name for a ratfink. If we followed a futuristic, sci-fi kinda theme, you could go with Swytch the Snych...oooooohhhhh, except 'snych' looks too much like sync(with an 'h') and people would get that wrong all the time..."
"Hey Brent, why they call you Switch the Synch(sink)?"
I sigh.....

Okay, so I thought about this cause I think I became a snitch! Sort of innocently, telling a story I thought was silly, I ratted out someone who will pay the price for my story! The story is true, mind you, and the price paid is due to an assortment of infractions of which my story is merely the last straw...but that would still make me a snitch! A rat! NO WAY!!!!!

I've been coaching a high school football team this year. It's a grade 9/10 team and it is really fun! The head coach is an older fellow (73/74 - somewhere in there) and has coached longer than I've been alive so there is lots to learn! One of my fellow coaches was a former player of the older fellow and thus respects him a ton. Nevertheless, he was what we might call 'an independent type.' Despite his respect for the head coach, he tended to do his own thing and perhaps sent some mixed messages to the players, thoroughly confusing these newbies (many first timers to organized football). That had him on the hotseat.

Said coach also has a bit of a temper and flared up many times during our half a season so far. Occasionally, his ire would fall on the right culprit at the right time yet too often it fell upon unwitting, innocent victims. This also had him in the hotseat (with parents and other coaches).

My story, you ask? What was this yellow fiber that caused the C4 and C5 vertebrae of the desert mammal to finally fracture? Well, following practice, said coach gathered the players around him to speak. Looking straight at me, he said, "Do you mind going?" To which I responded "ME?" I was surprised that a fellow coach would request such a thing in front of the players...unless he was going to come out of that huddle with a birthday cake and a song for me...

"Yeah, coach, could you go?" he repeated - which prompted a Nelson-esque "HA HA" from the starting quarterback as I walked away.

Curious as to why I would be asked to leave, I asked said coach why he chose such a course of action. His response: "I knew I was going to be off-color, so I didn't think you'd appreciate it."

He knew I work in the church and am a Christian, so he was merely being polite. Nice guy I suppose....

Except this is a high school football team, so if you think I wouldn't like to hear it, why would you tell it to the team (of 14-15 year old boys)? I was a little concerned, so I told my story to the other coaches (who weren't there at the time) and that was it... I became a snitch.

I wasn't telling on the guy. But isn't that always what snitches say?

Yeah, well, I'm a big boy and I suppose I can handle an expanded nickname...sigh.

Digital...

So I'm a musician with an album to sell...
I'm a worship song writer with songs to share with the church...
I'm a guy who's made an investment and wants to see a return...
I'm an unknown that needs exposure...

I feel as though the issues created by the digital movement will never be fully resolved, but they're not new! People have always been able to copy music they've never paid for (as long as there has been music to purchase, with the exception of phonograph records I suppose -which means they've been able to copy music since the invention of tape recording with 8-tracks...I digress) and that's only been escalated with the onset of the digital revolution.

I remember seeing Lars Ulrich (drummer from Metallica), Dr. Dre (you know who he is, admit it) and a host of suit guys debating on CNN about the availability of music (free music) created by Napster. Was it ethical? Was it fair to the artists? What about the record companies? What about the distributors, the record stores, the workers at the music stores? It just keeps flowing along, affecting people across the board. And this was 5 years ago...

Do you remember Napster? This was the first famous virtual network designed to share files worldwide on the internet. Created by Northeastern University student Shawn Fanning in the 90's as a way to promote a music community, he was taken to court by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) who claimed that this type of file sharing (music files) was illegal and circumvented copyright laws. Well, as expected, those with the $$ won the legal battle. This was not the end for Mr. Fanning however... he sold the rights to Napster to Roxio (a legally established file sharing company with no musical dealings) and they adopted the Napster name (how often does the purchased company become the namesake?) and in cooperation with Fanning, developed relationships with the RIAA so that mp3s could be sold efficiently and legally. Problem solved!

No. Of course, after Napster's demise as a free source of music to millions, other variations arose and still exist (Limewire, anyone?) and though there are many ways to legally download music through the internet, establishing markets for artists where once there were none (really, how could I sell a CD to someone in Japan...through the internet, it can now happen! Hallelujah!), there are still many ways to "illegally" share music files with your friends, family, neighbors, countrymen, and across borders!

I guess what I'm getting at is that calling filesharing illegal is not going to stop it. As an artist, I love the possibility of exposure and the opportunity to share with people I'll never meet. As a businessman, it's not that appealing. But what am I, an artist or a businessman? I'd rather be an artist...

"Confession" and "Invitation to the Thirsty" are yours: have at 'er friends! Be blessed

http://www.myspace.com/switch21music