Well, I'm up early and ready to go to the Ontario Mennonite Relief Sale in New Hamburg, Ontario. I may hate mornings (bleh!) but I'd hate even more to miss the Relief Sale! I don't believe that I have ever missed one — certainly not since childhood.

I'm going to buy some fresh made strawberry pies, help the youth from my church make those pies, and look at the quilts that will be auctioned off today. In the past, the most expensive quilts have gone for tens of thousands of dollars, so I wonder what the most expensive quilt will be this year?

Last night at the Rockway sping concert my Mom, Nancy Ellen Nafziger, was honoured for twenty five years of teaching at Rockway. Yay! Here are some pictures of her standing up at the front while Terry Schellenberg, the principal and Nacy Mann, board char, say a few things in praise of her dedication and years of service.

Well, thanks to changes in the firecodes and what home insurance companies allow, my Mother had to replace the wood we've had ever sicne I was a child. :-(

The new stove is a gas one, and to me gas stoves always smell funny, even if the view of the fire inside is virtually the same. I always liked building up a fire in the old stove, seeing if I could start it with just one match. (Which meant that I had built the little "log cabin" properly out of small kindling and surrounded it correctly with larger pieces of wood.)

Here are some pictures of the new stove

In the past couple of week there were a few PPCF Youth events. The fist was the sleepover at the church on 27-28 March 2004, at which I only got two hours of sleep. The last movie they watched (Bowling For Columbine) ended at about 5:15am. I still don't know what dumb idea made me stay awake with the youth while the two ather youth sponsors went to bed at 3:00am. Though now I have verifiable proof that I need more sleep now then when I was in high school. :-) Pictures for the sleep over can be found here

The second event was the annual PPCF Easter Breakfast which the Youth plan and serve. A few weeks ago, one of the sponsors, Elgin Shantz, said that if the Youth can raise $200 dollars or more by the Easter Breakfast, the Youth could shave off his beard — which he has not been without for 25 years! Since Jacob Yantzi raised the most money, he was the one who go to do the deed. Pictures of the breakfast and shaving can be seen here.

Tonight was the finals for the Waterloo Regional Improv Games in which the top five teams from last week's qualifying rounds compete. Rockway's team was in round three last week, and after that they were in first place but dropped to second after the four teams in round four performed.

The winning team gets to go to Ottawa to compete in the Canadian Improv Games against fifteen or so teams from other high schools across Canada. And guess what? Rockway won the regionals! Woohoo! I'd love to go to Ottawa to see them compete, but I'll just have to settle for wishing them all the best.

Just like last week, I had my trusty digital camera with me and took a whole bunch of pictures. Again, thanks to the no flash photography rule, most of the pix are rather crappy, but here are some of the better ones:
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Yay Rockway!!! (I wish we had had things like this when I was in high school, way back when... :-) )

This week was the first round of the Waterloo Region tournament of the Canadian Improv Games, so I went last night to see how the team from my old high school (Rockway Mennonite Collegiate) would do. And you know what? Heading in to the finals they are in first place – woohoo!

I took a bunch of pictures with my digital camera (72, actually), but because flash photography wasn't allowed, most of them turned out rather crappy. :-( But there were a few good ones, and I'm in the process of uploading the whole batch to my website right now. (Oh how I do hate dial up!). Since so many of them are crappy, here's a list of some of the better ones featuring the RMC troupe:

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That isn't the entire list of the good pix, so go and look through the thumbnails to find the others.

Yes, it is true, I have had another letter to the editor printed in my local news paper. This time it is about photo–radar, which almost every seems to be complaining about. Personally, I don't see what the problem is, as I say in my letter.

Bring back photo radar — it's not a big deal

I don't see what the big hoopla over photo radar is all about.

The biggest reason I heard in the public outcry back in 1995 when the provincial government cancelled photo radar was the same one I hear today: "What if that is not me driving my car?"

Well, that is just an excuse, and a poor one at that. If it wasn't you then it was a family member or a friend to whom you lent your car. If your family member or friend gets a parking ticket with your car, then they hand it over the next time they see you along with a promise to pay it back.

If they are not honest, and you don't find out until several months later when the second notice arrives in your mail box, then you go to them and ask to be reimbursed. And perhaps you will be more responsible about whom you lend your car to in the future.

We can deal with photo-radar tickets in exactly the same way. I wonder if the people complaining are the same people who get angry when they get a ticket for parking in a space reserved for the disabled?

I have little (if any) sympathy for people complaining about photo–radar. Don't speed, keep to the posted limits, drive safe. Oh, and be responsible to whom you lend your vehicle.