Chan's Personal Blog

It is officially 12 days before I move to Santa Clara, California. My flight is finally confirmed. Overall, the relocation process has been fairly draining. My to-do list is far too long, and time is short.

I'm spending most of my free time trying to find an apartment, and it's tricky due to my search constraints. The biggest one is easy access to public transit since I won't have a car for some time. I decided against moving my car because firstly, it's a beater. Second, it probably won't pass California's car emission tests. The next criteria is that it has to be within walking distance of grocery stores, bank, and stores. The other thing that Myron has been pouding the table about is that I need a place with in-unit washer/dryer.

To aid my apartment search, I have found quite a few useful websites. Transit.511.org is a nifty site that allows you to type in a start and end address, and it will tell you how to get to a destination using mass transit, and it includes an estimated time for the trip. Next is MyNewPlace.com which lists apartments and shows their addresses on Google Maps. This was very handy to correlate location with transit lines. Then there's WalkScore.com which Myron showed me. You enter an address, and it will show you everything within walking distance like malls, grocery stores, etc.

In either case, hopefully I find a place pretty soon. I can't imagine how people found apartments back in the day without all these useful websites. Anyone got some tips when it comes to checking out apartments?

An appropriate subtitle for this blog entry would be, "Why Chan Grew A Beard." Lets begin. Immediately after the Young Adults Camp at Nanoose Bay, we switched gears to Kids Camp. Doug and I volunteered to work as counselors for the week because they didn't have enough male counselors, and our contribution allowed an extra 10 kids to come to camp.

Going from Young Adults Camp to Kids Camp is quite the change. A lot of the freedoms and privacy that you enjoy as an adult is instantly stripped away when you have to watch 5 kids 24/7. The hardest thing to get used to was the bed times. During Young Adults Camp, we were sleeping at around 2:00am-3:00am because we were playing video games all night. The first night at Kids Camp, I was horrified to find that bed time was at 8:30pm! It wasn't even dark out yet! Our cabin had a sunroof, and sunlight was still pouring into the room at that time! The other thing that I didn't grow accustomed to was having kids poke you in the face at 6:00am asking if you could take them to the washroom. Doug could probably relate, except he was woken up with a football to the eyeball.

Most of the other counselors were 14-16 years old, so I think Doug and I got the toughest campers to deal with because we were the oldest and most mature. The leadership claimed this wasn't intentional, but I think it was. For example, both of us was assigned an ADD kid. Doug's kids were known as the most rowdy kids. My kids had the worst hygiene (more on that later). We were taking care of 5 kids while most counselors had 3-4 kids.

Last weekend, I was up at Nanoose Bay Pentecostal Camp for the first ever Young Adults Camp. This was organized by Pastor Doug Slack from my church, and it was a great success. About 60+ people were at the camp which isn't bad at all for a first time.

I went up Thursday morning with Doug to help get things set up. The weather wasn't exactly cooperating. We had torrential downpours of rain when we passed through Nanaimo. We arrived at Nanoose Bay (home of a Canadian military base complete with a torpedo test range) shortly after noon. We checked in, and opened up the lodge which was where the services would be held.

The lodge was gross because we were probably the first ones to use it in a long time. Lots of dirt, spider webs, random insects, and water from a leaky roof. We gave the room the extreme makeover and turned it into a coffee lounge. By the end, we spent 4 hours sweeping, vacuuming, moving furniture, etc.

This coffee lounge was complete with a $4800 coffee machine that Doug borrowed. In addition, we had a certified Starbucks employee running the machines during service. I don't drink coffee, so I don't quite understand why a coffee machine could be that expensive. My theory is that the thing is either made of gold, or there's magic gnomes inside the machine that makes the coffee for you. In either case, it was quite amusing watching Doug accidentally making a double strength espresso and being completely buzzed after it.