The Jon Campbell Show

think about it. our completely amazing bodies and complicated psyche decide for us what is normal. most of the time we do not make a decision that something is normal and it instantly becomes so. i cannot force my mind to believe that sleeping during the day and working all night is normal. my body will not accept that eating only candy all week is normal. normality and regularity are not switches that can be turned and off, they take time.

we come to accept normal through patterns repeated and the passing of seconds, minutes, and weeks. if i showed 4 times a day(I do not) for a year, that would seem pretty normal to me, and I would think those that shower once a week are abnormal. But for someone who has limited water and only can bathe once a month, showering even every day would see very odd. The way we spend monday in North America is a great example of such behaviour. We believe that our overspending, undersaving, get-into-debt-to-buy-crap-we-dont-really-need attitudes are normal, when really they are just a destructive pattern that SEEMS normal. what is normal in my mind may be very different in your head. How we spend our time, our money, what we give to, how we talk, how we physically interact, these things are all governed by the patterns and environment we have invested time into.

so basically my point in all this is encouragement to check your normals every once in a while. has anything unhealthy become normal in your life? do you have habits and lifestyle attitudes that are not beneficial? have you let things get out of hand and repeated them over and over so now they seem less wrong than they once were? on the other hand, have you actively worked at creating positive patterns that will benefit your life and do good? are you helping others? are you doing things to be less selfish? check your normals and avoid the patterns that will destroy you.

some normals for me:
3-5 cd purchases a month
couple pounds of candy a week
doing laundry every two weeks
sleeping 6 hours a nite

McDonalds new Angus burger came out today. My buddy nick was telling me all about it over the weekend(he works there) and i tried to order one yesterday but they wouldnt let me. So today I purchased my first(of what will hopefully be many) angus burger. Its a big patty, with red onions, pickles, a couple sauces, throw some REAL CHEESE and bacon i it and viola, you have one tasty burger nestled in a ciabatta bun. it was good food.

Also new today was a free song “Violet Hill” by Coldplay: http://coldplay.com/song.html you should get get it, its free and legal and pretty good. Its soft and its loud and its almost 4 minutes long. looking forward to this album quite a bit actually.

Two months from today I will be getting married. Its coming fast, very fast.  We have figured out where we are going to live at least, so thats happy. And I have half-figured out what me and the guys are gonna wear at the wedding.

Its a new day, go get a angus burger and blast some fresh coldplay.

 The weather today called for snow but it hasnt percipitated all day. on saturday i went on the biggest hike of my life(so far). we hiked up through the snow along Williams Ridge to like 4500 ft . Their was really good views, really cold air, and really frozen fingers. Im currently looking for a place for Kat and I to live (I would like to find somewhere for June to get it set up ahead of time). I finished my Marketing 1199 course on thursday, I love being done things. Step out of class after your final and it feels so good. If you want to check out my part of our team term project on lululemon go http://bluekey.backpackit.com/pub/1439370 .

take care of the small things. when the small things are small, they are a lot easier to handle/fix/look after/repair/heal. When you let the little things go on or let them happen over and over again or you ignore them, problems start to happen. If your car makes a little ticking noise, stop to check it out. If you are getting into bad habits that dont seem bad at first, like not doing your dishes when you dirty them, fix it now and it wont pile up into big things. The longer things dont change, the harder they will get TO CHANGE. most of those little things are effort things, a bit more effort and the problem is solved, a bit more effort and everyones happy, a bit more effort and no ones upset with you, a bit more effort and your boss loves you. the little things add up quickly, so do them whenever you get a chance.

life happens upon us. sometimes it comes fast and sometimes its oh oh oh so slow…

sometimes we make life happen. we make the bad choices and bad things happen. or we do the good stuff and our life moves the right direction. but sometimes the good and the bad, the challenges and the blessings, they just come at us no matter if we want them or not.

its been pretty busy lately but some good stuff has happened. it looks like the canucks are gonna make the playoffs. we are gonna have our honeymoon in puerto rico on the island of vieques. ive got some really good new music lately by cath crescendo, foreverdown, and jon foreman. school is going as great as can be expected. i seem to be good at marketing(or studying and answering questions). i have hot chocolate at work now. its sweet. my competitions at the lab have been working out pretty well and im looking forward to Katrina being a part of the lab next year.

other things sometimes happen, like the scariest snow storm when your in a car on the fastest freeway in bc.  not being able to tell what lane you are in is not normal driving conditions. but i guess we have to learn when to just hold on and make the best of the situation and when do do something about it. and sometimes the only thing we can do about it is pray and learn.

rock and roll baby,
Jon

Things that have really good from this last week:
- reading my Bible in the sunshine
- drinking cream with strawberries
- watching the floor move like 2 inches as young people jumped around at the revolution conference
- the canucks winning a game by more than one goal
- alexandre burrows scoring even more goals
- the writers strike ending!!!(yaaaaa, scrubs and office are gonna make some new episodes)
- brett turning 25 so now im not as old
- another marketing quiz, that i think went well
- marketing teacher deciding we have one less chapter to study for on our mid-term next week
- seeing kim this weekend

I think its been pretty good.

http://www.joncampbell.ca

So my roommate Josh and I went to a Canucks vs Oilers preseason game back in Septemeber at GM Place. Then a couple months later Brett and I went to a Canucks vs Nashville game on Nov 1st. We were enjoying the nicest seats I’ve ever had at a canucks game and the canucks lost 3-0. Losing 3-0 isnt that bad. Its the way they lost, its the fact that two of our best defencemen got injured with freak accidents in the same game. Its that Nashville is not a good team. Its that the canucks had lost 5 of their first 6 home games this season and the crowd wasnt happy.

November 1st became the bottom of a bad bad hole that the Canucks managed to climb up out of through November and Decemeber, putting together some very good wins. Now its mid-February and we are stuck in the middle of the pack, just trying to make the playoffs. Last week we had 5 of our 6 “starting” defencemen injured and things were looking very bad. We have won the last two out of 3 and now things are slowly hopefully heading the right direction.

In two of those last 3 games my best buddy Alex Burrows has scored goals. The guy gives it every night. He skates hard, hits, throws his body in front of shots, bugs the other team, and doesnt give up. His interview technique sounds like he has never had to give a oral presentation in high school, but he is real.

A few weeks ago I actually had a dream that I was hanging out with Mr Burrows. We were playing hockey and killing some penalties together. And he introduced me to the rest of the Canucks. It was a really great team. I am glad that burrows has got things going the right way, last year it seemed things just werent working out but now he is argueably the Canucks most consistent forward night and and night out.

Alexandre gives his all, every game. He does whatever the team needs and he works really hard. He has the heart and passion for the game. I think thats something we can all learn from. Whether you are very skilled or feel that you have no skills, the key is to contribute and do what you can and put your very soul into the good things you do.

Go Canucks Go

http://www.joncampbell.ca

last tuesday it snowed. the tuesday before it snowed. today their is no new snow. its good and bad.
the bad: its less pretty outside, less fun walking/forklifting/driving as well
the good: no sliding/crashing/bussing/walking/stressing to get to work and the lab

lets go backwards:
last week when I woke up and it had snowed it took a lot of detours, half a hour to move technically “0″ blocks(from 96th on one side of the freeway to 96th on the other side, physically probably like 4 blocks). Got to work around a hour late, but I was able to drive all the way there. By the end of the work day the roads were fine for the drive home.

two weeks ago I woke up and their was snow all over the place. the radio said to only drive places if you had snow tires or chains. I drive 12 blocks to the top of this freaky hill. Decide to ditch my car at the corner store cause the radio said the hill was a mess with people sliding off the road. So I walk trudge those “0″ blocks across the overpass and am lucky enough to get picked up by the bus between stops. The bus takes me to the skytrain, and then I catch the skytrain and a bus. Get to work over a hour late(and I left home early) and have a trucker waiting for me. That morning we put the chains on my forklift(45 minutes of fun!!!!) so I can drive around in the foot of snow

two months ago we(Katrina, Josh, and myself) were driving to church. It was a bit very icy out and I was checking the slipperiness every few hundred feet. we are driving very very very slowly down the hill on 92nd ave in Port Kells. My lovely lancer just could not stay on the road and it veered to the right and we slid into the ditch and BOOOM BANG SMASH we tapped a cement wall(the wall was there because of someones driveway crossing the ditch). Called BCAA and started walking home. Some nice crazy people with pickup game by and sped us home, seriously we were sitting in the back of the pickup holding on for dear life wondering if we should have just walked. Then BCAA called and was ready to pull us out of the ditch so Katrina carefully drove her car to the top of the hill and we got towed. Then we went to church and were late. My car now has some surface blemishes(scratches) on the front, and my bumper is twisted. But it still drives alright. From further than 37′ft out you wouldnt know that anything was wrong with it.

So yeah I love the snow but it can really get my heart going and be stressfull. I did learn how to use my ebrake to slide my cars bum around for smooth drifting goodness.
Its too bad I didnt get snowed in at work, i really wanted to spend a night in my container.

http://www.joncampbell.ca

… dark nights, i wish i could enjoy some sunlight when im not at work
… fast food, its getting so boring and nothing seems exciting
… underachieving, it sucks to be doing less than you can in every area of your life or maybe i just think im better than i am
… pressure, everybody wants to put the pressure on and i think things grow best when they have some freedom
… repeating myself, i want to be fresh. i want new ideas, new sayings, new wisdom, and new stories
… my pants, ive been switching between 3 pairs(one of them a work pair) for the last couple weeks and my old sexy jeans wore out
… teeth that hurt when i eat certain things, like oh henry bars. they used to be my favourite and now they hate me
… the same music. bring the fresh and please dont let it talk about cranking anything
… the lack of new tv shows. its stifling my joy(or happiness?)
… smart people that dont apply themselves and settle for a less-than-smart-people life
… not caring
… ignoring the challenges that have been before me and i keep hiding from
… bad bad bad commericals. especially: home hardware, comedy central(south park), tim hortons
… food that goes bad. what a waste
… taking forever to write a list…

Growing up my dad had a collection of records, and he still does(more like a old stack than a purposed collection) and I didnt really know why you would want records. You cant easily repeat tracks, you kind of need to listen from start to finish, they skip, they can wear out, theirs so big and bulky. Then this fall when http://www.gileadmedia.net put out a mewithoutYou limited edition vinyl package, I just couldnt resist. If I’m going to start a vinyl collection, why not start it with two of my favourite albums, in cool colors with nice big artwork. So my vinyls arrived at my parents house and my sister phoned me and let me know and I got very excited. When I finally got the finals I realized I probably should get turntable to enjoy my masterpieces.

So for a few days after work I would go to the nearby pawn shops and thrift stores looking for a record player. I checked the big electronics stores online as well and it wasnt looking too good. The pawn shops wanted like $50 for a record player that doesnt even have a working needle and that isnt guaranteed to perform. I decided to check out the Source(used to be Radio Shack) and see what they carried. They only had one turntable left, their display model. It was priced at $99.99 and I asked if it would be discounted because it was opened and on the floor. They decided they would sell it to me for $60. The needle was broken on it and I was able to get them to put a brand new needle into it as well. Pretty good deal.

I got the record player home, set it all up, tried it, it sounded funny, figured out the problem with my amp, and finally….. I enjoyed stereo sound being produced by a tiny needle rubbing along a vinyl track. What a wonderful experience it was, enjoying the music as it was truly meant to be enjoyed, one track after another, as a whole album, picking up every flaw and every little detail of the recording. I love music. The vinyl collection has started, beware.

I dont want the physical album to die. I hate it when I am forced to purchase albums off iTunes because I want them but they are unavailable or way too overpriced at the time. But I need to have a real cd or vinyl in my hands. Files come and go, the cd will last for decades or maybe centuries(as long as we have players for them).

http://www.joncampbell.ca

Its been a very long time since I have had a working blog. Life gets busy and I get lazy and i feel uninspired. but now were back. In my absence I have gotten engaged, gotten a new car, made some posters, started a marketing class, attended two canucks games, moved from one house to another, gained 3 roommates, joined a day of defeat clan, and a whole lot more. I will touch on all these things in my upcoming posts. for now just be happy that were back. and i feel pretty alive.