Tuesday, May 8, 2007

If there is one show on TV that holds absolutely no draw for me, it's "Dancing with the Stars." Really, nothing about it is interesting. Oh sure, there's good dancing, but seriously, who cares? Is this what society has come to? Do we really deify our celebrities so much that we care which of them can dance better? Argh.

Sorry to those of you who like the show--I know there are many of you, and I know you think I'm wrong, and I probably am. But I just don't like it.

Why do I bring this up? Because it's on right now, and wife and mother-in-law are watching it in the other room. Which is why I'm in here, blogging away.

Anyway. The pace of life continues to be frantic around here in the continuing aftermath of the move back. Boxes are continuing to be unpacked, compounded by the fact that we seem to have accumulated a whole lot more stuff than we had when we left. The house was full in September; it's fuller now. And everything has to go somewhere, doesn't it? In some cases, "somewhere" means straight into the recycling (which they pick up curbside here in the Lower Mainland, a bit of a change from Three Hills). The annual garage sale in our complex is this weekend, too, which should help clear things out a bit.

By the way, it turns out that this new blog template I'm using doesn't show bold type well, or at all. I've moved the usual bold words to bold and italics, which explains the changes. You noticed, right? Right?

So. I was thinking about which story to tell tonight, and I figured we'd start with good old graduation. Turned out to be a good day, if a little hectic. It all started Friday, with a rehearsal in the morning for the ceremony the next morning (a ceremony put on by the senior class, which is called the baccalaureate), and then a rehearsal in the afternoon for the ceremony the next afternoon (which was the traditional cap-and-gown affair known as commencement). Yes, we did practice coming into and leaving the hall. Prairie stands on so much formality that it's very important to make sure we all came in properly. It was a little bit hard to take, but it was for a good enough cause that we endured it. Had it been in the middle of exam week instead of at the end, I think tempers would have run pretty high, but we were all in our post-exam euphoria, so we didn't mind. Much.

Three sets of parents all arrived in town Friday as well, which made for a full, and exciting, house. After three months without any face-to-face contact with your family, it's amazing how much it means to see them again. It was also really good to have them out for grad.

Saturday was the actual grad day. I led worship at the first ceremony (the baccalaureate), which turned out really well. It felt good to be back leading a team of musicians again--I didn't realize how much I missed it. The service itself was a little bit meh, but good nonetheless. Too many speeches that weren't really all that engaging is what it boiled down to.

The afternoon ceremony was good, by which I mean too long and boring. Seriously, it was my own grad, and I wanted to leave. I think it went a lot longer than planned though, which doesn't necessarily make me feel better, but it's how it is. The keynote speaker was the CEO of World Vision Canada, which I was looking forward to right up until he started talking. You know, World Vision is a fantastic organization that does a whole lot of really great things in the developing world, but man, that speech was tough to listen to. It ended up basically being a fundraising speech, but we all could have predicted that.

The speech was so inappropriate for a graduation that it was almost funny. Right before the guy came up to do his talk, we sang the venerable old hymn, "How Great Thou Art." Too slowly, mind you, but whatever. The president of the college introduced the speaker, and the first thing he said was, "Whenever I sing that song it reminds me of the Rwandan genocide." Ouch.

There was a story behind it that was quite moving, but seriously, at a grad? Come on. He ended up talking for what I think was close to an hour, which is probably why the service went longer than they anticipated. Oy.

But hey, the end result is what I wanted: I got my degree. My name was called, I walked across the stage, I shook the president's hand, and I got my degree. Okay, I got a degree holder. The final marks weren't in on the day of grad (they were just due on Monday, which means I should know what I got by sometime next week, I hope), so they didn't really know if we had really graduated. I mean, I know I did, but the official grades weren't in. Anyway, I have a lovely letter from the president of the college (one paragraph of which is a plea for future monetary support--totally shameless, really), so that's good.

Afterwards, we all went out for dinner to the new restaurant in town, which was a total gong show. We had a large party (12) that they had to split between two servers. Unfortunately, one server was clearly more experienced than the other, and took the orders for one side of the table and entered them into the computer before the other server had finished (good teamwork, guys), which resulted in six of us getting our food 30 minutes earlier than the other side. They were clearing our plates before the rest had received their food. It was ridiculous. The worst part was that the best the manager could do for us was to take some appetizers off our bill. Useless. Not much of an experience, but I guess they don't care about keeping my business since I was leaving. Brutal. But an appropriate note to leave on, based on the general level of customer service throughout the province.

After dinner, a visit with some old friends of my parents who used to be missionary pilots, but now are working at the college. Good times. Then it was time for the ritual celebratory cigar that has become an integral part of any joyous occasion. It was a good one, too.

The rest of the weekend was hectic, but fun, and I'll tell you more tomorrow.

Something caught my eye as I was looking through the online news yesterday and again today: the dismissal of three crew members of the BC Ferry that sank some time ago. Seems that they weren't following proper operating procedures, including keeping a proper lookout. They were, rightly, fired. Two people lost their lives, hundreds of others were affected, and a hugely expensive boat is sitting at the bottom of the ocean, all because these three dolts didn't do their jobs. Cut and dry, right?

Not if you're the union representing the workers. You see, even though these three crew members didn't cooperate with the internal investigation, and even though it seems to be pretty clear what caused the accident, the union is grieving the firings, saying that "BC Ferries should at least have waited until that TSB report was completed before taking any action." Right. Because that would've changed things.

In my opinion, the fact that these three hadn't been kicked to the curb until now shows a whole lot more grace than we should be willing to extend. Because of the direct inaction of these three, a major catastrophe occurred. Is there any other appropriate way to proceed than to terminate their employment? Honestly, if they had any backbone at all, they would've fessed up and resigned. But I guess that's more than we can ask from lazy union employees.

Again, don't read too much into these statements. Not everyone who works for BC Ferries is as, well, stupid as these three. Not every member of a union is lazy and spineless. These ones were. And they deserve what they got. Sure, people make mistakes. But there must be consequences for those mistakes. Especially when people lose their lives as a direct result.

With that, I'm done for the night. Tomorrow, I'll tell you a travelling story, and regale you with tales of going to the Giants game. At least we have one championship team in this city.

See you tomorrow.