Chan's Personal Blog - Life

Ronin

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:28:37 -0800

Ronin - A samurai with no lord or master during the feudal period of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the death or fall of his master.

As I draw up battle plans and objectives for 2012, I thought it was important to review 2011 as it's always important to draw lessons from the past. If I had to summarize 2011 in one word, I would use 'ronin'. 2011 was a bizarre unpredictable year where I lost a lot of masters that had authority over me in my professional sphere and personal sphere. I looked at my organizational chart, and for the first time, every single person up the chain of command was different/gone from the time I started at the company.

Big changes in leadership always produces a lot of distractions, and lost time as folks get up to speed in their various roles. Brand new leaders also have to spend a lot of time trying to earn their people's respect and loyalty which is not a fast or easy thing to do.

This constant state of change produced lots of strange paradoxes. My natural tendency and defence mechanism was to preserve the present in times of great change, but sometimes it felt like the more you resisted, the greater the change. A key lesson learned was, change is inevitable so you might as well embrace it and influence the outcome.

A side-effect to being masterless is this odd sense of freedom which is quite empowering. I had a lunch-time discussion with a friend at work who had recently become fully vested. He noted that there was this strange sense of freedom because for the first time, he wasn't worrying as much about losing his stock anymore, and he felt that he was now working at the company because he wanted to rather than out of financial fear. It's quite a liberating feeling having nothing to lose and everything to gain.

We are as ronin, wandering the country side in exile, in search of adventure and a way to avenge our fallen master and regain our honour.

Cross Discipline

One of the most revolutionary ideas I came across this year was the notion of a balanced information diet. Just as your body can't function properly if you ate all junk food, your brain can't function properly with all junk information. A balanced information diet requires learning about ideas that are relevant, important, uncomfortable, challenging, and even opposing ideas. This video by Eli Pariser eloquently lays out his arguments in this TED talk.

As a foreigner living in the U.S., I am often surprised by the civil discorse around politics. I wonder if arguments and debates would be of higher quality if people consumed a balanced information diet which includes learning about uncomfortable, challenging opposing views. At least maybe the debates would have more substance, respect, and empathy.

To further extend the idea, I often get asked by college folks, "what is the purpose of going through college and taking all these random classes?" My answer is, you learn how to learn in college, and when you get out, you should be able to learn new subjects quickly on-the-fly. Those random classes that were taken in subjects outside of your core major could lead to some interesting cross breeding of ideas. As a technologist, I can view problems in other fields through a fresh and different perspective and vice-versa. Perhaps other disciplines have novel solutions to problems in my field of expertise. That is why this last year, I placed more importance on being more well-rounded in my knowledge, and aimed to be more cross disciplined.

While in academia, I never had a chance to take any philosophy courses, so as a stretch goal, I decided to go through Harvard's online course on Justice and Philosophy. Very enlightening experience. When a politician on television talks about being a Libertarian, I can now safely assert, "you good sir know nothing about real Libertarian ideals, Nozick would be rolling in his grave."

Fail Quickly

One of the new philosophies that the leadership team at work has instilled is failing quickly. The idea is that it's okay to fail as long as you fail quickly. If an idea doesn't work out, change course and work on something else that might succeed. It's better to fail quickly than to have a long drawn out slow-motion failure as it's very costly. I thought this was a very liberating and counterintuitive idea. The entire academic system is built around the idea that failing is a bad thing; however, in the real world, failure is inevitable, and risk management / risk minimization is just as important as succeeding. Jim Cramer has a saying about investing which goes, limit your downside and the upside will take care of itself. That being said, failing quickly can apply to dreams, opportunities, relationships and other areas of life. I certainly wished I applied failing quickly to some relationships I tried pursuing; it would have saved me from chasing phantom dead-end dreams and the dreaded friend-zone.

I looked through my portfolio this year, and realized I had some horrible investments from 2006 that have lost a lot of money, and had become dead money. Hoping that the stock would rebound was a futile effort. The opportunity cost was just too high, so I purged my portfolio of all the deadwood and reinvested the money into more favourable investments. I wish I had applied failing quickly earlier.

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating to give up quickly on everything. Perseverance and being able to fight a long campaign is also very important. It's more of a matter of choosing your battles, and deciding which battles are worth fighting.

Purpose, Autonomy, Mastery

As I advance in my career, a management role might be in the cards in the future. I was asked about filling a management role, but declined because I hadn't maxed out my technical skills yet. Some people had asked me if it was a career mistake of not going down the management path, and my response is that I already take on some management tasks. Real leaders don't need to command fancy titles to lead. To further drive home the point, in the company employee directory, I list myself as the "senior summer intern" because I honestly don't care about titles. Sometimes that lowly title is even advantageous because unfamiliar people underestimate me and I end up overdelivering in their eyes.

In either case, as management is a possibility in the future, I spent more time learning about people and management. The video below was the most important management lesson I had ever learned. It blew my mind because it highlights all these bizarre beliefs we have about the workplace which are modeled after antiquated agriculture-based rules which don't apply in a skill-based economy.

The Empire Fund

In late 2010 I had started a couple lectures on financial literacy for young adults. My goal in 2011 was to extend that by offering more hands-on one-on-one teaching. I established something called 'The Empire Fund' which was a place for folks to learn more about investing and finances. It consists of a fantasy stock market league, and a Facebook group for Q&A.

Some results from financial advising this year:

3x 401K accounts opened.
1x debt consolidation.
2x investment savings accounts opened.
2x brokerage accounts opened.

Fear produces paralysis. Despite all this chaos occurring locally, there was a lot of macro fears as well. In 2011 we witnessed a double-dip recession which was fairly scary. The stock market actually has an index nicknamed 'the fear index' (VIX), and fear was at a 2 year high. There were dire fears about a breakup of the European Union which wreaked havoc on global stock exchanges. The US stock markets performed horribly for the most part, with only 1% upside for the whole year. I'm kicking myself for sometimes being too afraid to buy stock that had fallen a lot; I missed some big opportunities because of fear.

In terms of finances this year, I learned a whole lot about the power of dividend stocks and stock options. I'm currently employing both financial instruments in my portfolio. I have to admit that I was wrong for ignoring boring dividend stocks for so long. Dividend stocks are not as exciting as high flying stocks, but they sure save you in a double dip recession.

Worst investments of the year: Bank of America, Alcoa.

Best investments of the year: Lululemon, Amazon, Annaly Capital.

Volunteer Work

The street hockey league that I help run, Barn League Hockey, enjoyed its second year with 80% growth. We had 60+ people sign-up this year. We saw the average skill level rise, new faces, couple injuries, and an epic hockey fight.

Over at Bethel Church, had a good cake war at the Mission's Banquet. This year I was appointed to the Communications Committee where I sit as an adviser for their web presence. I also continue to help out as a sound technician there. Strangely I found myself doing sound and lights at a women's conference this year. Didn't see that one coming.

To Be Continued...

Stay tuned for the 2012 battle plan.

The Best of Chan 2009

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:20:11 -0700

I'm a tad late, but better late than never I guess. I just finished putting together a collection of 100 photos from 2009 that highlights the year for me. I noticed an inordinate number of food photos in the collection; I think my friends are right, I've become a foodie.

Please enjoy the pictures and the accompanied music (hit play on both widgets).

The Best of Chan 2011

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:42:48 -0800

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present to you, the annual 'Best Of Chan' photo collection. This is a collection of my favourite moments from last year which have been curated from my Flickr photo archive. It brings back a lot of memories of all that had come in 2011, both the challenges and victories. I've also put together a sound track to complement your viewing experience, so please hit play on the Grooveshark Music Player below and lets start the slideshow.

Soundtrack:

'Venice Rooftops' From The Assassin's Creed Soundtrack - Jesper Kyd
'Set Fire To The Rain' - Adele

Enjoy!

P.S. I've got other 'Best Of Chan' albums from previous years as well. Here's the 2010 edition, and the 2009 edition.

A Delicious Reading Experiment

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:50:34 -0700

A year ago, I was lamenting how I had finished reading only two books. I was thinking, that's not good, I'm not reading as much as I used to. Was I get dumber? I had noticed that with my schedule, I rarely had large blocks of time that I could spend reading. Instead, I had these slivers of time available in-between tasks, 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there. This disjointed schedule was much better suited for reading articles and news on the internet.

It was hard to quantify exactly how much I was reading on the internet though. With a traditional book, you had page numbers, and back in my childhood days, we would always record how many pages you had read as a learning metric. Unfortunately with internet articles, it's hard to judge since every site varies in page layout, font, etc.

To help count how much I was reading online, a friend at work introduced me to Delicious, a social bookmarking utility. Basically every page I visited, I could bookmark and tag with metadata. It was also nice that my blog could pull the latest articles I was reading from Delicious (which you see on the left rail here).

Managing bookmarks on Delicious was incredibly useful because I used to use Firefox to manage all my bookmarks, but it was incredibly hard to find old bookmarks. If I was on another computer, I wouldn't have access to those bookmarks stored locally on my other computer (yes, I'm aware latest version of Firefox solves this problem with sync). I've also had Firefox crash on me, and I lost all my bookmarks before. So, it was settled, I would store and share all my bookmarks online with Delicious.

August 31st, 2010, I embarked on my quest to measure how much I read online. In one year, I have amassed 3679 bookmarks.

Here's some stats that I crunched.

Domain	# Bookmarks
news.yahoo.com	620
www.businessinsider.com	497
www.wired.com	494
www.youtube.com	105
www.nytimes.com	79
www.bbc.co.uk	64
www.guardian.co.uk	56
i.imgur.com	49
finance.yahoo.com	47
www.rockpapershotgun.com	38
www.telegraph.co.uk	37
www.time.com	34
en.wikipedia.org	32
english.aljazeera.net	31
techcrunch.com	27
www.washingtonpost.com	27
www.cbc.ca	25
online.wsj.com	24
www.huffingtonpost.com	20
www.reuters.com	17

Bookmarks By Day Of Week

Looks like I read the most on Mondays.

Become a fan of me on Delicious: http://www.delicious.com/the_chan!

Royal Family Kids Camp 2011

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:57:00 -0700

I just got back from a week in the mountains serving in Royal Family Kids Camp (RFKC). It's a summer camp dedicated to neglected and abused children which is sponsored by my church. This year, we had about 30 kids. Each cabin had two kids, two camp counselor, and one assistant counselor, so the kids get a lot of attention and supervision. The rest of this blog entry will just be a number of mini-stories from camp that comes to mind.

Home of the Underdogs

Before camp started, I was talking to some of the organizers of RFKC, and one of the problems they face was a marketing problem, in that people didn't know what RFKC was. I spent the week thinking about a clever unofficial tagline for the camp. I've come up with "RFKC: Home Of The Underdogs." There's two meanings behind it. First, if you look at the kids that attend the camp, they are the ultimate underdogs of society. The second meaning was by the people who volunteer to help out at camp. I looked through the rosters and thought, this is quite a ragtag band of people, how could this group of people possibly pull off a successful camp; yet, by the grace of God, we're able to pull off a great camp. There are definitely a lot of underdogs on staff.

Everyone loves an underdog story, and I love betting on the underdog.

I Am Chan

Since the kids are in the state foster care system, there are a lot of extra privacy and security concerns for the children. One of the restrictions is that we can't let the kids know our last names because the system doesn't want the kids trying to contact us after camp is over. Unfortunately most people call me 'Chan', 'Chan Can', 'Channy Chan Chan', and other variations. There were a number of times that the other counselors would inadvertently call me 'Chan' and I would give them this shocked stare; they would pause and then realize their folly and try to quickly change the subject before the kids caught on.

Hoarders

One of the things highlighted in our training is that some neglected kids who are not fed properly will develop a habit of hoarding food. Hoarding is a defence mechanism for them because they don't know when the next time they will be fed. This year I actually witnessed this behaviour in some of the kids. During meal time they would grab a plate of food, eat a little bit, hide some food in their clothes, and go up for more food and repeat. They also had a tendency of eating very quickly. We would explain to them that they didn't need to rush or hoard because they could eat as much food as they wanted, and there was plenty of food, but that doesn't work for the first couple days. Once you have a couple days of consistency, where you prove that there is plenty of food, and they won't go hungry, then their defence mechanism goes down and they start trusting you and start eating normally.

A Test Of Wills

Monday is typically the hardest day in my opinion because you get your kids, and the kids and counselors don't know each other very well yet in terms of social/cultural norms, expectations, and boundaries. We had one kid who was 11 years old who was quite challenging because mentally and physically he had developed slower and was more like an 8 year old. The kid was also attention starved, and would constantly talk and make noise to get attention. The constant talking made it quite interesting for bedtime because he would keep everyone up in the cabin. The other two counselors had the night off, so I had to take care of the situation. As a result, I stood next to the kid's bunk and told him that he needed to lay down and not make noise. I also explicitly told him that I could literally stand there all night. The challenge was on, and for the next 30 minutes he kept trying to test this boundary, and I didn't yield. I stood there and shushed him every time he started making loud noise again.

By the 30 minute mark he had given up and started sleeping; however, I had a feeling he wasn't going to get into a deep sleep, so I stood there as a precaution. Fifteen minutes later, he woke up again and tried to misbehave but he saw me standing there and gave up and slept. I assume when he fell asleep the first time, he lost track of time (it helps that the room doesn't have any clocks, and he didn't wear a watch) and when he woke up the second time, he must have thought I was really going to stand there the whole night if if needed.

The irony is that this kid would always complain about being tired and wanting to sleep during the day.

God Moments

All of the counselors arrive at camp a day early (Sunday) in order to setup and prepare. That Sunday night, Pastor Art gave communion and addressed us all about how important this camp was. He noted how we were doing God's work and we would be helping mend, restore, and encourage these neglected and abused children. The verse Psalm 82:3 came to mind, "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed." As of late in my prayer life, the phrase, "if you tell me something worth fighting for, I'll fight that war" was a recurring theme. That Sunday night, I just knew through and through that I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right cause.

One of the exceptional things about this year was that all of the kids in the cabin this year wanted to pray at nights. Normally you have to coerce kids into doing things like pray, but they were all wanting to do it. Even during they day they would ask if they could pray at night. The kids were even fighting over who could pray during meal time. I guess that's a good problem to have.

On the final day of camp, it's easy to just turn your brain on autopilot and just cruise to the finish line because you're tired and the kids will be going home. Everyone stayed diligent and there were some pretty incredible stories from the final hours of camp. For my team, the kids were participating in the Hope Tree activity where they were writing down their hopes and dreams, and we would pray for that. It was kind of heart-wrenching that some of the simple things that we take for granted like seeing your own family is such a distant dream for some of the kids. Some of the kids opened up and talked about why they were in foster care because of what their parents had done, and it was just shocking hearing what people would do to children. What an incredible cost to children and society. In the closing ceremonies, the kids were just so appreciative for everything we had done for them. A lot of them didn't want to go home because for they felt like this was a real family.

The hardest part is coming home, and watching the kids go back to the environments they have to live in. [Read full story]

Continue reading "Royal Family Kids Camp 2011"

Things I Learned In 2010: Humble Confidence

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 23:12:00 -0800

I'm kicking off a series entitled simply, "Things I Learned In 2010" as a way to reflect on last year. I've been working on my battle plans and strategy for 2011 and I find it's always important to look to the past's lessons to inform the future. So I thought I'd write about my inspirations from last year before unveiling the 2011 theme.

Let me set the stage for the first topic of 'Humble Confidence'. In 2010, I saw a number of leaders (whom I respected greatly) step down from their respective roles and move on to other endeavours. These changes obviously took a while to get used to and adapt to because of the big shoes that had to be filled. People spoke of these leaders with high-regard and almost reverence. Their reputations precede them. I've heard it said that their presence is felt even when they are not physically around. I pondered what made these leaders great? What was the commonality amongst them?

Last year I also had the opportunity to give a talk about managing finances, and I invited some successful businessmen to help out as guest speakers on specific financial topics. These again were people I held with high regard, and I wanted to know what their secret was. This was definitely a change for me because I come from an environment full of negative encounters with genuinely evil people behaving very unethically when it came to business.

After a couple lunch time discussions with peers about what makes these leaders great, we concluded these were common attributes they had all possessed:

Had a humble confidence.
Had their facts straight, and talked straight with you.
Had a genuine interest in you as a person, rather than treating you as a resource.
Had unquestionable integrity.

When I was back in Canada, I was watching a lot of Dragon's Den, and there was this clip from season 3 where they interviewed the Dragon's (venture capitalists) about what made a good business pitch?

Robert Herjavec reinforces the point that successful pitches involves people with a humble confidence. These are folks who are not overly confident and seem arrogant. These folks are also not underwhelming in confidence to a point that they seem weak. The key is humble confidence and having your facts straight. Have you ever watched a presentation crash and burn because the person is spouting shaky incorrect facts, and they get destroyed in the question and answer period? Have you ever seen a leader take all the credit of his success without acknowledging his team, and you see his team members grumble under their breathe? It's an absolute train wreck.

The reason why I introduced good business pitches is because I think leadership implicitly requires you to pitch well. One of the keys to leadership is being able to articulate a vision and convincing people to follow you in that vision. I'm a firm believer in the idea of the marketplace of ideas, where ideas compete with each other, and the best ideas should survive. Being able to convince people that your idea is good is critical to your success in the marketplace of ideas.

In closing, I think one of the secrets to great leadership and success is the ability to maintain a humble confidence, no matter how far you've come, how much you've accomplished, or how big your salary is.

I'll end this quote, "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." - Matthew 23:12

The Best of 2010

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:44:06 -0800

I've gone through my photo archives in Flickr, and have curated a collection of photos that best highlight the year that was 2010 for me. There were a lot of new experiences and challenges, some epic victories, and some extraordinary failures. Please hit 'play' on the Grooveshark Music player below before starting the slideshow as the music complements the slideshows. The slideshow has a 'full-screen' button for optimal viewing.

Those viewing this blog article from Facebook will need to click here to view the slideshow and hear the music.

I'll have a more thorough review of 2010 article later.
Enjoy!

Operation Snowbird

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 21:00:07 -0800

Dear Canadians,

This December, I will be executing Operation Snowbird which will be a daring winter migration from California to Victoria. I will be home from December 18th - January 17th this year. Call me up when I get back in town, my calendar is wide open at the moment, and dinner/lunch slots will go on a first-come-first-serve basis. I intend to feast while I'm in Victoria, and I'm going to be making my rounds to all my favourite restaurants.

On the bucket list is also to try curling while in Victoria. Any takers? Also I want to get in as much ice skating as I can while back home. Skating is REALLY expensive in San Jose, California, who would have thought?

Anyways, looking forward to seeing friends and family for Christmas. It has been too long.

-CHaN

A Time For Everything

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 23:59:00 -0800

It's nearing the year end and I'm in the middle of taking inventory of all my successes and failures of 2010, and beginning battle planning for my goals and aspirations for 2011. I'm anticipating yet another year of turbulent change, so it makes anticipating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that much funner to plan for.

In such a time, I draw solace in Ecclesiastes 3:1-11:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What does the worker gain from his toil?
I have seen the burden God has laid on men.
He has made everything beautiful in its time.

It begs the question, what time is it?

Watch Me On Fox Business Network

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:05:49 -0700

Fox Business News was filming in Silicon Valley yesterday, and they made a pit stop at Yahoo! HQ. I happened to be walking by during the interview with Juniper's CEO, and you can see me walking in the background in a blue shirt at the 3 minute mark of the video.

Enjoy! I hope this helps me get discovered as a TV personality.

Royal Family Kids Camp

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:35:46 -0700

So I was volunteering at Royal Family Kids Camp as a camp counselor for a week, and I've made it out alive. To bring everyone up to speed, it's a camp for neglected and abused children. From the training sessions, I was seriously preparing for the worse, but I actually ended up with pretty well behaved kids. I had two boys, both of them were ten years old. We shared a cabin with two other boys and two other counselors. Our group got along really well together. Compared to other kids camps geared towards troubled kids that I've done in Canada, this one was way easier.

My kids were pretty easy going. None of them decided to go running off, so I didn't have to chance any of them down. Lights out was at 9pm, and they were sound asleep by 9:30pm which was shocking. It helped that the older folks like the camp director shared a wall with our cabin. We told the kids that they'd be in a lot of trouble if they woke up the director. My kids also took showers every day which was great, because that's something I religiously enforce. In years past, I had kids who refused to shower even if they smelled horrible. My cabin was also always on time to events which is great, because that's how I operate. Hands down, I had the best cabin.

On the other hand, the girls at the camp were pretty crazy. There were a couple alpha females who were constantly fighting over popularity, who was prettier, or something. I personally witnessed a couple shouting matches between those campers. Based on that, I conclude that boys are way easier to deal with, women are complicated, lol.

I have to say, the nurses at the camp were a God-send. We had a number of kids come to camp with unresolved health care needs, and the nurse's station was fully stocked with everything they needed. One of my kids had a severe cough which wasn't treated properly, another had an infection due to improper hydration. We took them to the nurses every day for treatment, and by the end of it, they were patched up pretty good.

Each day consisted of the following (roughly):

Wake up @ 7am, shower
Breakfast
Morning chapel
Crafts
Lunch
Swimming
Archery
Rest Time
Wood working
Recreation Time
Dinner
Night time service w/ Camp Fire
Prepare for bed at 8pm
Lights out at 9pm

Wednesday was one of the highlights because they did a big birthday party for all the kids because some kids never have a proper birthday party. We had a pretty good BBQ lunch, with plenty of bacon. Dinner time they had cake and balloons for everyone. There was a bottleneck during the cake serving portion, so I stepped up and went into kitchen stadium mode and got everyone served in under 10 mins. That operations management course I took finally pays off. When the kids got back to their cabin, they had a bunch of birthday loot waiting for them. I have to say, it was some pretty good stuff they got Walkmans, CDs, DVDs, etc.

Thursday we took all the boys fishing at a lake near the Santa Cruz mountains. This one kid had an amazing time, he was this super shy kid who came to camp super sleepy because his parents never went to bed at reasonable times. The first time I met him at woodworking, he was falling asleep. We're out at this lake for about two hours, and no ones getting any fish, and I'm constantly dealing with kids and their tangled fishing lines. Ten minutes before we leave, the shy kid gets this little fish and reels it in. He was the happiest kid in the world. That was definitely a highlight of the week.

I did like how each cabin was assigned a dedicated photographer for some of the days. They took photos of the kids and assembled a photo album for each of them. Counselors then wrote notes of encouragement for the kids. I thought this was pretty special, and a great idea. Unfortunately personal cameras were banned as a precaution to protect the kids, so I have no photos of the camp to post on Flickr

I think the most surreal moment was on the last day, when we put all the kids on a bus to send them home. All the counselors and staff had all their equipment and we were leaving the camp, walking across a bridge, and our job was finished. For some reason it reminded me of the end of the movie, Black Hawk Down, where the tired soldiers had to exit their battle zone by foot after fighting for days.

After I came back, people asked what I missed most while at camp. I have to say I missed having an adult conversation that lasted for more than 2 minutes. When you're hanging around kids 24/7, it's pretty hard to have a serious conversation. Second question I get asked the most was, what was the hardest thing about camp. I have to say needing to be 'on' all the time because you have to be there for the kids even if you're tired or don't feel like it. There's not really alone time, and I'm definitely someone who cherishes 'me' time after being around people for a long time.

In either case, mission accomplished. I'm happy that I did this, and I proved to myself that I'm not getting to old or busy for this kind of thing. It reminded myself, this is why we fight for things we fight for.

Thanks for everyone's prayers and words of encouragement.

Summer Mission

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 00:19:22 -0700

This year, I've been striving to try to restore things in my life that I used to do before I moved to California. One of those things I used to do was volunteer for kids camp in the summer. Well, this year, my church had a dire need for male camp counselors for their summer kids camp, Royal Family Kids Camp, which is geared towards foster kids. I answered the call, and now I find myself packing and getting ready to go to camp for a week, starting this Sunday, and coming back on Friday.

I'm pretty surprised by the ratios that they have at this camp. I'm used to watching five kids from the ages of 7-12 year old while at camp. At this camp, you only have to watch two kids, and you have an assistant with your cabin. It's mostly due to the fact that these kids are abused and neglected children which can be a handful.

I've been checking out the camp facility's activities, and they're going to have

Swimming
Rock climbing walls
Fishing
Hiking
Archery
Zip Line
Mole Hole Slide
etc

I'm personally looking forward to rock climbing and archery the most.

I've been joking that this is technically my first overseas missions trip. It's not your run of the mill third world country that tends to dominate missions trip destinations. I guess I could make it sound like one though. The people of California have been devastated by a financial tsunami in 2008, leaving many counties with double digit unemployment. The people have been suffering from a tyrannical socialist dictator who is bent on destroying the country.

This week, pray for me that I have extra extra patience with the kids. I have already prepared a reward for myself at the end of the finish line. I promised myself, since I'll be eating kiddie food for an entire week, when I come back from camp, I'll treat myself to a nice grown-up dinner, where there's no screaming kids around.

See you all in a week. I'm not going to have much computer access. Sorry, there also won't be any photos from camp due to security concerns for the children.

This is my summer mission.

Floor Hockey League

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 15:36:43 -0700

So the latest news with me is that I joined my church's hockey league, and I'm helping teach and organize the league. Its been at least three years since I've last played. I used to do floor hockey at my home church in Victoria as well for a couple years.

The current league plays on a tennis court which one of the families of the church privately owns. We practice twice a week, and we play a game every Saturday. We're one week away from the team captains drafting their teams. I've been busy training noobies in the fundamentals of hockey. I'd like to give a special thanks to Doug and Adam from North Douglas Church, who taught me everything about floor hockey.

Two weeks ago, I picked up all my hockey gear. I've got shin guards, knee pads, elbow pads, and a nice light composite hockey stick. I'm really digging this hockey stick though, it's pretty stiff and responsive. The light weight of the stick allows me to get off shots quicker. I'm also hoping it lasts longer than a wooden stick.

The position I seem to do well right now is the offensive defencemen role. My defense has been described as "squirrly" and "clean". We'll see where the team captain puts me on the team though.

As one of the organizers of the league, I'm putting together an official order of service. Every game will start with the following:

All players assemble at the center for prayer.
Singing of the Canadian National Anthem.
Singing of the American National Anthem.
League Commissioner will declare the beginning of hostilities. Game begins.

They've put up an American flag on the hockey court, so I'm countering by bringing in a Canadian flag today. It's also cool that there's another Canadian playing in the league as well.

In either case, I'm off to a hockey scrimmage to represent the good folks of Canada.