Eric Bailey's

Seems like I'm on the road a lot lately. I am posting this from a Days Inn in Calgary. Tomorrow we head off to Fairmont to stay at the timeshare. I am not sure, but my body does not seem to be reacting well to traveling. Last time we came to Calgary I started coughing a week before we left. This time it was only a day before we left when I started coughing.

Either I am allergic to travel (which I cannot possibly believe), or I start coughing in anticipation of traveling through Saskatchewan (which I know I am allergic to). A long shot could be something about not sleeping much before we go, and stress about getting things done before I leave and taking the right things with me to get stuff done while I am away. I doubt it has anything to do with the last one.

I hope to be able to post from Fairmont, but I am not sure what internet will be available there. It seems wierd to be so disconnected (from internet and from those we are used to hanging out with). Hope to hear from people as we travel and to post updates so that you too can enjoy my trip.

I have less than a week to put together some of the planning groups and plans that our church has been working on for the summer. I am not sure what happened, but it just does not seem to get done. I wonder if I am the bottleneck at the top of the plans.

Family Camp, there are things here and there that are not getting done that need to be finished soon. I finished a quick menu planning based on previous years and yet I discover that our speaker is suddenly not available! I still have to confirm that, but it sounded that way last night in aconversation about something else. I am starting to freak ut now, but I hide it well most of the time.

I am also to be putting together a strategic planning team, I was given some names before I left for the Canada day long weekend. I still have not contacted all of them. The leadership team meets this week and is going to ask about this group and I don't have much to say about it, except that it is not together yet. If I can talk to one more person and chase down the other yes that I think is still waiting out there, then I will have it done. Yet last night I didn't do any phoning. That leaves today and tonight to finish it.

Pressure seems to be building. We will see if get this done or not. This is only a slight freak out blog. I have to go visit a friend in the hospital.

I guess I missed posting on days 2-4 but I know that yesterday I came in looked at my computer and passed out. I have been staying out and visiting with people (one man in our church lost his mother last week), and then getting up early to set up my room and make sure that I am prepared for the onslaught of little ones.

One aspect I did not like was that the material said I needed to change the room significantly each day so that it would seem different to the kids each day. I left one wall up for all five days (wall being a series of table cloths separating a part of the room from the rest of the room.

It was exciting for the kids so I suppose I can't complain too much. I long for the room changes like the year I got to the Jonah. Limited set up and take down with maximum effect.

One of the things for the room was to make paperbag bricks. I did this once three or four years ago, but I don't think I made the bricks as well this year. The problem with the bricks was that the basement is moist and the bricks would soak up water from the air and not be as solid as they could be. If I stuffed them with more paper then maybe they would have stood up better too, but they lasted basically through today when the wall of the jail fell down (on some of the students ... hee hee hee).

The stories this year had three Old Testament stories (usually they only have two) so I was particularly excited to get to tell these stories. Gideon, Daniel, and Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo. The New Testament stories were Jesus and Mary Magdelain at the tomb, and Paul and Silas in Jail. Some really good stories with lots for the kids to enjoy. If you want to find out more, show up in Thunder Bay this Sunday and you might just get a taste of the fun.

Today we started our Bible Day Camp at church (for those who are older than teens, this is VBS). We have been useing Group Publishings packages for the past few years. Boy does this make a difference. We don't have to originate things, and the pressure for bringing it all together is a lot less than it has been.

I run one station that various students shuffle in and out of, and this is how I think Bible Day Camps should be done. All I have to do is use the creative direction form the materials that Group Publishing sends with the package to tell the Bible Story for the day. What kind of a job is that, tell kids a Bible story. The story I enjoyed telling the best was the one from two years ago when I told the story of Elijah, but this one was right up there for the telling. The set was not near as intricate, but the story of Gideon is a fun one.

The set for Elijah was a tub with sand and rocks, and a small altar built to sacrifice a chocolate bar. Before we get to calling down fire from God to light the altar a fireman bursts in and sprays down the altar with his extinguisher and gets after me for trying to do what Elijah did. The kids loved it.

That year we also did Jonah where I build the belly of a whale. I used a fan, two large sheets of plastic and duct tape. With the fan on the lowest setting I inflated the plastic (it even pulled the carpet off the floor until I anchored it). We used flashlights to see and told the story from the belly of the whale (including being spit up at the end of the story).

The Gideon set was that of a stone ledge, three trees, a light in the roof, and a camp fire. We were up on the stone ledge and could not see down into the valley where the Midianite army was and we burst paper bags and waved glow sticks to scare them. It was fun. Tomorrow I tell the story of Daniel. I'll let you know how it goes.

Today I started with going out and trying my new golf clubs out at the driving range. Since I couldn't play hockey lasst night I thought I should be in the right condition to try golf (like all hockey players when their season is over - it is either that or go to Europe). I bought (my wife bought) these clubs yesterday at Play It Again, used, for only 65 dollars. It does not come with a putter, so I am putterless right now. Lucky for me I don't need that part of my game.

You see, while I was trying out the clubs I discovered that the cut on my hand is at just right place that I cannot swing correctly. My father-in-law was coaching me through various little corrctions to my swing and with each one, the ball still spun like a ping-pong ball. When the pain in my hand got worse (a closer to correct swing) I realized that my hand was not letting me swing the club the right way. There was nothing I could do to fix my swing today.

After we came back, the whole family went to Canadian tire, where they gave us $100 and then our family went fishing. My wife was teaching the boys to cast at a little stream in the city neaer our house. We were both surprised by how quickly they picked it up. Next Saturday we might just take a trip out to the stocked fishing hole just outside of town. There the boys will get to catch and keep the fish. The best part of that place is that the people there clean the fish for you.

I have just unwrapped my hand from the huge bandage that I have been wearing. I have a replacement to put on after I have cleaned up the hand a little. The cut looks ugly, but it could look much worse. Right now I am just airing it out a little. My mind keeps telling me that wound is parting a little and that if I wait too long the whole thing will open up again. Sometimes my mind can just get totally carried away with imaginary problems. I may actually be a hypochondriac with all the things I think are happening to me, I just don't tell people about them all. Don't tell anyone either.

Yesterday I was quietly going about my day, getting things done, unpacking from the trip, and moving furniture around the house. It all sounds so simple and yet in the midst of the fun I did something I haven't done in a long time. I had a plastic broom handle which we (Greg and I) tried to put under the entertainment unit so that it could roll. The unit squashed the handle. After moving the unit (by brute force aided by the sudden appearance of my father-in-law), I picked up the broom handle and easily broke it where it was squashed. I was left with a long piece and a short piece.

The short piece easily fit into the garbage, and so I started playing with the long piece. I tried bending it across my knee, but it would not bend. This just proved to Greg and I how heavy the unit really was. Determined at this point to break the pole once more and then to toss it, I set one end on the ground and held the broken end in my hand and stepped. While this action does cause a bend in the pole, it also pulls the pole downward so that the jagged edge that was above my hand would be pulled into my hand.

I knew right away that I had not been thinking, especially since I am sure that I have had minor brushes like this before in my life and the movements of the various objects, specifically the jagged edge are not that difficult to figure out. I also knew right away what had happened and that I had better rinse my hand and hold the wound closed. I used paper towel while Greg and I searched for a band-aid that would be big enough to cover the section of skin ripped open. We used one of those knuckle band-aids that had the four ends and secured the wound while I waited for a while for my wife to get off work and give me a ride to the hospital.

With the kind of wait that I had I wondered if it would be healed to the point that they would no longer be able or willing to do stitches. When they took off the band-aid I discovered that the band-aid was helping prevent bleeding, but the wound was no where near closed yet. The doctor looked at it and said that because it was a puncture type wound, stitches would not be a good idea and so instead he washed it (included everyone's favorite "irrigating the wound"), and then put gauze pads on the wound and wrapped the wound and hand in a roll of gauze. Based on the wrap I would think that there was a sprain or something, but it is only to hold the gauze pads on the wound.

So, my fingers work fine to do things like typing, but I cannot lift things anymore and I have to watch out for simple things in life like putting my hand down and lifting myself up. I hope the lesson of how I play with broken things will be remembered this time.

Oddly enough I didn't post from Regina or from Dauphin so there are no entries with those cities as a title.

I had a fun trip, but the drive back from Dauphin was an add one. We reached Dryden and the sun was still up. From Dryden on we drove and for a while (maybe Upsala) we could still see the surroundings. I am not used to seeing anything but what my headlights show me.

Before we left Regina, we cleaned out the car so that we could pack it even better than before. We had to fit all the stuff that we carried out back in (the boys stuff too) and anything that we purchased (somehow the boys went shopping without us and came back with clothes and sandals). Finally we also had a couple bags of my wife's sister who was travelling with us as well. I can't believe what all we fit into the trunk! Then we fit the two boys plus their aunt into the back seat (only a couple of small bags at =my younger son's feet).

While cleaning my wife found my missing wedding band. I had assumed that it came out of a pocket while I was washing laundry. I was preparing to take apart a washmachine to look for some kind of lint trap or garbage catcher. Now I don't have to. I am surprised it could stay in the car since it has been cleaned out before and vacuumed even in places I could not see. I have now been wearing it for two days and there is no rash yet. Stop! Everybody uses that joke!

It is nice to be back home in my bed, but I seem to have trouble winding down after a trip. I was up till about 3 last night then I finally crashed. Three is about one in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Too many time zone so fast... I guess it is time for me to get moving, we have a car, a truck, and a trailer to unload.

Just a quick note from Calgary. We have been hanging out at a reunion with people from high school. It is interesting the kind of reunion that this is. Many of these people don't like to go to the regular reunion. This sort of less formal and no "sales pitch" is what they want to reconnect with old friends.

I have heard of a number of people who officially celebrate Eric Bailey Day on February 7th every year. I received a ecard one year and an email from a different person another year. It can be fun to discover how people remember you (or perhaps that people do remember you!).

I am reading a book, "A Fish Out Of Water" and most of the time this weekend I have flet a little of this. I don't have a lot of shared memories with the people here, and so I have to figure out things that we can talk about.

For my wife the people who are here are the people who attended the years right around the her grad year. It has been good for her to connect with them and she tells me she has been having fun. I think I will check out her blog and find out.