i would walk 500 miles...

me and jon have been walking machines the last few days. no lies. lots of miles of shanghai have passed under our feet and we have seen everything from dead rats, to roasted ducks to an 88 story building from the top and bottom. we have been to a massage parlor that employs blind people and have been asked to buy "watch, bags, dvd" likely over 1000 times. we haven't been shanghai'd yet. thats probably a good thing. doug explained what it was to me, but i forget. so maybe we have been and i just dont know it. but our days in shanghai are over. off to the country. guilin and yangshuo will be home for the next week. it will be a nice break from metropolitan living before we head back to more of it in hong kong. if you want something from china, send me an email. i can likely find it for pretty cheap, and if it fits in my bag, its yours. so, signing off from shanghai. thanks for all the notes and comments. it is good to hear from home when you are surrounded by millions of people that probably dont even know what a wheat field or big sky horizon look like.

boxing, ballet and chess

thats what its like watching roger on court. powerful, yet graceful, intelligent, and can deliver the knock out punch when he has the opportunity.
the 8 days of tennis are over. and to tell you the truth, it brought a tear to my eye to see it end, and to hear roger and james offer their final words. james blake has been through an amazing amount of tragedy and near tragedy. look him up on google and read about it. its pretty insane what he has gone through.
anyway. its over. and it was magical. definitely the best 300 dollars i have spent in a long time. hands down.
we even got to bust out the canadian flag and cheer for daniel nestor as he was in the doubles final. unfortunately they lost, but he did acknowledge jon and i. so we are pretty much best friends now. serious.
a few more days in shanghai, a city i am growing to love more and more, and then off to yangshuo and guilin. then off to whip harms butt at squash, or badminton, or whatever she feels like losing at. hope all is well at home.

13.4 million...

people live in shanghai. plus me and jon. that makes 13,400,002 or something like that.
this place is great. federer is even more of a genius than i first thought. and james blake is one stand up, classy man.
the tennis is seriously unbelievable. i cant even describe it. seriously.
as for china. im actually really liking it a lot. its fun. friendly. busy, loud, and funny at times.
hard to describe for sure. especially after coming from yellowknife and regina. where with all the tall buildings stacked on top of each other, it still probably won't equal the height of the building across the street from me.

anyway. about 4 more weeks in china. ill try and write again a few more times. until then, keep watching tennis highlights for two pale white guys who havent shaved for a while. it might just be us.

twenty-four...

hours till jon and i hop on the plane and head to shanghai. roger awaits us. it is highly likely that i wont be on here often while in china. but will do my best to keep the few of you who check this out updated. if not, ill do it when i get home. when you watch tsn highlights watch for two white guys with a canadian flag at the tennis masters cup. it will be me and jon. see you all in december!

mother russia

so ive been home for about 24 hours. and ive seen a lot of old friends and had some good breakfast already. kris met me at the airport and brought me out to white city. it was good to see him, melissa and nic. they are surviving with out mom and dad so far. had a sweet visit with jon and then went to the soccer centre to watch some of the guys play. definitely miss that. got to see arlo and brianne, kamara, blair, vince, bryn, lucas, eder, and a whole lot more. all that to say its sweet to be home. breakfast with blair this morning was grade A. i think we have found a new 3.99 breakfast spot. pretty sweet. today i ran around and picked up some bills with emperor mao on them. some travellers cheques and some immodium. lots of immodium. tonite looks like a young adults hang out before it all starts again tomorrow with breakfast with brianne. good to be home. good to be going to china in 3 days. if you in regina and reading this...phone me before friday. lets do lunch.

the final countdown..

today was my last day of work. i am going to miss that place more than i thought i might. not actually the building. but the people. i worked with a really good crew who were more than good to me. so, part one of farewells began today. the next few days will be full of more. im thankful for my time in yellowknife. the experience i got at my job, the friends i made there and the friends who took care of me during my life away from the lab. i am going to miss my yellowknife family. if you guys are ever in saskatoon, look me up. we will do breakfast. or lunch. or dinner. its your call.

i found..

twelve hundred dollars today. no lies.

don't mess with my cousin...

Good Clean Fun

a good old school hardcore band from washington, dc i think. i saw these guys with nic in late 1999. found this bit of lyric today. check it out. its actually really good.


Don't settle for second best, don't follow all the rest
You say you want the same things well let's put it to the test
Because talk is so cheap when you are screaming at a wall
And it is really hard to hear when you're the loudest of them all
If you want to change the world, quit all your yapping
If we don't start it here, well then it's never going to happen
There is evil in this world but it begins right at home
So let's clean house, then let's cast the first stone

from a newspaper printed in toronto...

kurtis got home today. he brought the new edition of 'The Hockey News' with him. the cover story says "40 Years, 0 Cups". can you guess who they are talking about? yep. you are right. the leafs. a toronto paper wrote an article about the toronto maple leafs and their (lack of) success. here is some of what they said...

"9 GMs, 18 coaches, 497 players, 27 million ticket sales, A kazillion dollars in revenue, ZERO STANLEY CUPS"

"No team in the history of sports has done so little to earn so much unconditional love from its legion of fans"

so..my question for the day is...how can people love the maple leafs? it is nonsensical. ridiculous. and any of them, that would call themselves fans are delusional. just ask francis or tori a question about the leafs lack of success. you will see what im talking about.


it is almost as fun to watch the leafs lose as it is to watch the montreal canadiens win. (did i mention this article also said that the canadiens have won ten (yes, 10), stanley cups in this same 40 years??

india 2002

when tim asked those of us who have been to india to reflect on our time there, i was pretty excited. reflecting means that i get to relive some of the crazy experiences i had, the amazing people i met and the amazing people i travelled with.
as a team we spent almost a whole year preparing ourselves to go. as we left, i felt pretty comfortable seeing pictures, watching videos and hearing stories of those who had been there before, but i still remember arriving in Mumbai and stepping out of the airport to a wall of air that was thicker than stink. that was the first thing that was going to take
some getting used too. the sights and smells would also require some adjusting and reorganizing of my comfort zones, but was well worth it.
a lot of things have stuck with me from that trip, and i would love to go back to visit again...but here a few things that i still think of often...
it was amazing to see Ray in his element. out for a visit with somefriends or people who needed a visit and back before 7 a.m. to make sure the rest of us were up. and out again for tea and visits after the rest of our head had hit the pillow. truly at home in that place, and i learned more about service and humility from him those 6 weeks than i likely ever will again.
the generosity of the people in that country was amazing. to feed 8 canadians is a big task for most families in canada, nevermind a struggling family from rural india. but the houses we went to, and the people we shared food with were amazing. giving us more food than likely even 16 of us could eat, while only eating rice and maybe dahl themselves. how can i be greedy with all that i have, while they are extraordinarily generous with so little? wow!
the friendships i made with some of the people there were life changing as well. many of us who have been have had the chance to meet and hang out with Joshua Salam. i could go back to india and be satisfied if all i got to see was this guy. he made me feel more at home in his country and his home than anyone else i met. took me on tours of the city, tried
to teach us the rules to cricket, laughed with us, laughed at us and became a friend that i will remember forever and miss until i get to see him again.
ok. this is long enough. i could write more. thats just how awesome that country is. seriously. if you get the chance, you need to go. you will be blown away. and if you do go, make sure to tell me when you get back, i want to see pictures and hear stories. thanks tim, for the
chance to reflect...

jon-rae fletcher

honestly, i havent heard of this guy either. he is a musician born in saskatoon, raised in alberta and has lived mostly in vancouver, i believe. but i found a neat article about him, his upbringing and his take on faith, in the globeandmail. you can check it out here or just read this quick quote:
"If I did experience anything spiritual in the church -- and I believe that I did -- it was not in the discourse of the church, but in the community of it. . . . That's been a part of my experience in the church that has stayed with me and that I've tried to bring to the spirit of my music."

something that i can identify with. maybe excluding the part about 'my music'.

kris rockin the blog

kris is now blogging. check it out for blunt updates on things happening in the south end of the queen city...

winter is coming...

ice on frame lake
Originally uploaded by xjermsx.

and the lakes are freezing. not super thick yet. so im still up for one more swim if anyone else will come. serious. but its neat how the landscapes change as the sun begins to shine less and less on this part of the world, north of 60.

my name is slim shady..

ok. its not. i lied.
but seriously now, there is this show. it is hilarious. even better than that "arrested development", that so many of you find humorous. this is leaps and bounds ahead. check it out. My Name Is Earl. thursdays on NBC or global. i think.

more on forgivenes

wow. check out this article on forgiveness. pretty crazy stuff.

old school nintendo

i was checking out cbc radio 3 and found a link to a sweet website with 300 or so old school nintendo games. so if you are bored at work, or need to procrastinate for a bit...
THIS. is the place to do it.

thank this

yep. i have a lot to be thankful for too. kamara said it all really well on her blog. go read it. nic also said it well on his blog, however, i would have enjoyed his post more if he had not censored it. just say what you want, you chump.
anyway, lately ive been thinking about how im thankful for the last 8 months of life. the ashbys have made yellowknife a home away from home, and tim and tara have made their place feel like a home away from my home away from home. so i am quite thankful for both of those families, and will be sad to leave them in 4 weeks.
im thankful for my family, mom and dad, kris, melissa and nic have made me laugh (and curse) so much over the years, and i wouldnt trade it for anything. and then my grandparents. dang. i owe them bigtime. for so much. so im thankful that i could know them for my whole life so far. not everyone gets that chance.
and im thankful for the chance to go see roger federer play tennis in 6 weeks (i have to put that into all my blogs from now on, just to make nic jealous)
and im thankful for my friends. so many. too many people to list. and that isnt because i think im so cool and have so many friends, but because so many people have thought that it would be a good idea to be nice to me, in spite of me.
i could write more. but ill stop here. you are probably bored, and other people who write much more eloquently than i, have better things to say. happy thanksgiving.
mom, im sorry ill miss your butter chicken. next time.

Roger Federer

in about a month and 9 days, jon, nicole and myself will be watching this guy play tennis. thats right, THE Roger Federer. live. for now, you can check out his blog for this week on that ATP website here. hes currently playing at a tournament in japan. in about a month and 9 days, you can check out my blog to hear what i have to say about watching one of the greatest tennis players ever.

gridblog number 3. living forgiven.

i have no idea what to write about to be honest. i forgot that there was a gridblog topic for today until i got home and checked everyone elses blogs. so i have read everyone else's thoughts before i sat down to write my own. i hope they all forgive me for plagiarism.
but seriously.
not only have i experienced forgiveness from the creator of the universe, i have experienced it from so many people too. and dont get me wrong...God's forgiveness is huge. so huge. but i think it is sometimes harder for people to forgive each other. so i am in awe of the way God shows himself to me through the forgiveness that my parents have shown me for my highschool years, as well as my stubornness since. without their loving, caring, forgiving attitude i wouldnt even be close to where i am at in the journey right now. (which honestly isnt even that good of a place). so many people have not only put up with my pride, arrogance, and selfishness (among a whole lot more) but have forgot about them. forgiven me. wow. i am so thankful that God has put these people in my life to model His forgiveness to me. if you are reading this, you are likely one of those people. so thank you. no seriously. i mean it. thanks!