IF I had tagged you in this note, it means in a way you have inspired my life and the way that I am now and while we may not be friends or even speak regularly. I want you to know that I thank you for your contributions to my life no matter how small and know I will always treasure what can only be measured after a life well lived.

However in that spirit to those I haven’t tagged, you are very special to me as well and I am glad that for all of you that call me friends and those that are in my life, just glad your along the way and hope we’ll meet each other at the goal.

Just had one of those moments where you come incredibly inspired and I wanted to sit down and let things write themselves out and see what happens.

My life at the college is coming to an end soon and as such it’s time to go out there and make my way into the world again at 27 years old and this time really take responsibility for all that I can create and it something about that I find very exciting.

I feel like I’ve truly been given a second chance to really good out there into the world again and really make a difference in not just my life but in the lives of others and it feels amazing and unlike anything I’ve really known.

Looking at the world itself and my relationship with it has been rough but one that I am grateful for and especially for all the interactions over the last few years with it. The best way to describe it would be falling in love with the place all over again. I mean, this is our place and this is our life and when I put those words in context, I realized a very powerful thing if that makes any sense, I am apart of something, the greater whole….the contextual family of everything.

Not meant to sound weird but i look at some of you and what you given me by simply by being in my life for a brief time as a classmate, a friend or even just someone who happens to be there at the right time. Some of you really allowed me to challenge myself to go further with my school, my work ethic and who I was to become but also allow me to see the flaws within myself and allow myself the chance to grow from those.
All of you have helped me find myself and become comfortable with that and now I want to give back to you as you have given to me.

I was driving home with Dave tonight and I realized that I really want to give back to the community and the world as a whole again as a volunteer and especially in these difficult times when people need hope. I want to accomplish something special like influencing a life or being there for someone and just giving back.
With that in mind, I think this year I intend to involve the TWIG crew into some humanitarian efforts and charities and really give back and Do it for no cause greater then helping our fellow man.

I believe that doing good will help the world and perhaps even “Save” it if that is the right word. I want to go out there and just be in the “conversation” and really do something really special. it might be something special like reading to people at an old folks home or it could be volunteering at an Animal shelter.
I am even considering taking up a government connection to go out there and help native communities and seeing what we can do to turn those trends around recently like drugs & suicides.

I’ve gotten alot of feedback from people that really have gotten inspired by us and by what we have accomplished in our time at Niagara College and I want to build upon that and in turn help build them into making their dreams come true and being apart of the process that helps create the leaders of tomorrow.  We have reached 3 million people to date and with that in mind, it’s been fun and all but I realized I might have missed an opportunity and its time to dream a little bigger and reach out our hand and see who grasps it in a moment of friendship and trust.

Sincerely not sure where I wanted to go with all this but really just wanted to share this and see what happens with it.
I wanted to write this partially to inspire and partly to get this out of my heart and into the world.
I wanted to share my dream and my vision with you and share a piece of myself with you.

This can also be seen as a pipe dream and unrealistic and overly optimistic but I see possibilities and the chances to create something new and powerful and something that can be a new force to be reckoned with.

I realized something when I went to see Barack Obama and the trip to DC to witness history, I believe in change and I believe in working together and so I ask you this,

Do you believe in change and will you work with me to see something truly great come about, whatever it maybe?

I believe these things in my heart

1: Help others
2: Love others
3: Forgiveness can be a wonderful feeling and always has it’s place in your heart
4: Fear not the future and what may happen but be excited for the unknown and the chances it creates
5: Living my life with love and peace and letting go of the anger, fear and disappointment and welcoming instead love,passion and enthusiasm

That’s all I have and I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts and your vision and finding my place within it.

I leave you with these  in closing

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

&

“He who has a why can endure any how.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche.

“One must want nothing to be different-not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not only bear what is necessary, but to love it.”
Neitzche

and lastly

Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.

It has been quite sometime hasn’t it?

I really kinda realized that the pace of life seems to catch up with me more often then not and I ignored this blog and for that..I suck.

However tonight, the mood just kinda hit me and I wanted to share some thoughts and see what flows out.

This past Christmas I happened to stumble across an old yearbook and it opened to the page of the first girl I ever had a serious crush on or even had serious feelings for. Yes, I realize it’s old like 15 years too late but it open up some interesting thoughts and how much it impacted a life and then what happened over the christmas break.

For the sake of privacy, I’ll call her by her first name and that’s all.

Her name was Amanda and I think on some level she is someone I first really fell in love with and it’s amazing how much that experience has reflected in me even to this very day.  I looked her year book picture and it brought back such a flood of memories and emotions I thought had long departed but I guess weren’t and it was like being 12 or 14 years old again.

I first really took notice of her in the 8th grade and it was such a thing to be that young and yet kind of be emotionally aware I suppose, well as much as I could be in those days. Still I’ve never been as caught as I was then by looking in someone’s eyes and just having that wow, moment you know? It was very much one of those moments you never forget. Still I think of it as one of those moments that defined me because I think then I really started to take a look in the inside of myself and pay attention to what I was feeling. There was something in being that young that had an innocence and purity of feeling that i know has been lost on the ignorance of youth. It was wonderful and one of those things that I hold on tightly because I think having that feeling is important to maintaining a happiness and an optimism. I believe the love that I have had and have right now makes me a more effective leader and I hope that love will somehow let me change the world.

It was alot of back and forth and sadly nothing ever really came from it and yet somehow I think I ended up hurting her and she never spoke to me again after Grade 8 graduation.I’ve spent years thinking about it and reflecting on it and even summoning the courage to do something about it and then finally I let slide by the way side till this christmas when fate would present me an oppourtunity…

So after discovering the yearbook, I had an inspiration to write a letter and send it off and see what would happen. Mostly I wanted to write it as an apology for whatever I did and not ask for anything but to express just how much I am sorry but also for what her impact was on my life. The gist of it was that I was really thankful for her brief involvement in my life and I think I owe alot of how I developed thanks to her just because it was the emotional core of my being.It was from those experience I learned how to love the world and love all those within it no matter who they are and where I go from here….People come and go through out the years and for each of them I am thankful and for each of them I am so glad they touched my life.

So I wrote about 2 pages of letter and saved it on my hard drive and figured I would mail it off but would wait till after boxing day..but little did I know fate had an oppourtunity in mind for me.

I went into town with my grandfather for some boxing day bargin hunting and not long after my arrival did I run almost headline into her. I opened my mouth to say Hello and what not and ask for a moment of time….but was quickly brushed aside with a look of contempt. Suffice to say, it hurt but at the same time it was a relief…because I took the time to write out my honest feelings out and let 15 years of emotion be realized and be completed and assimilated into myself. One of the important things I learned this year was to the ability to forgive one’s self and know you can’t always please everyone.  I had to let go of the hurt and focus on the positive experience of it at the same time…think of the gift you were given and how I use it every day.

I realized on some level I had done what I had wanted and I had satisfied what my old self could not accomplish. Yeah I would have liked to have thanked her and apologized for everything but I think that wasn’t the point on some level.

I’m not sure how good it could have ended but I’m glad I wrote that letter and saw her one last time, it really felt like apart of me just let go of some incrediable angst and regret. Despite the reaction I still treasure the memories of my youth and I sincerely hope that she has a great life and I thank her for being apart of mine.

Hey guys! This is not Mike. It is, in fact, David “Double D” Denis and I’m going to talk about the movie Alien 3 and yes, I think this film is extremely underrated, but I’ll get to that in a bit. For some reason, I’ve had this movie on my mind a lot lately, so I borrowed it from Mike and now I’m going to make my first ever blog post about this film, which I believe in many ways is an unappreciated masterpiece. The original Alien is actually my favourite of the series. I love how it captured everything it set out to do so perfectly. It was dark, isolated and scary. Easily, the most powerful sci-fi horror ever made with brilliant performances and a script that keeps its audience on the edge of their seats for the whole ride. I had to read the script for this movie for scriptwriting class and I was surprised that I was actually more frightened by the script than by the movie, which I hadn’t seen up until that point. Then I watched Aliens. I thought it was definitely exciting and really brought the action in a ways that first one couldn’t even dream of with loads of weapons, including “pointy sticks” and dozens of aliens attacking this time, the movie really took what was best about the original film and ran with it. These are two truly great films, generally respected by all as two of the best science fiction films of all time. Then we get to the third film and things get a little touchy. For fans of the first two movies growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, the third movie came off as a shock and disappointment. It’s not set on Earth, like some of the early promotions promised. Why not? Ripley spends the first two films trying to get back to Earth and now she finally has her chance. It would’ve been great to see the Aliens invade Earth or maybe explain what the heck that giant thing was sitting in the chair in the space ship in the first movie. Perhaps humanity and whatever race that thing was from could have a war and the aliens could get involved once again landing Ellen Ripley, Corporal Hicks, Newt and perhaps even Bishop in a whole heap of trouble. Sorry, no such luck. It happens on a completely unrelated planet with Hicks and Newt literally dying before the opening credits finish rolling. Then when Ripley’s ship lands, she’s thrown into a maximum security prison. There are no soldiers, no weapons and only one alien running around wreaking havoc. From a fan’s perspective, it didn’t expand the Alien at all. In a way Alien 3 feels like the right film in the wrong franchise. Then why do I consider it a masterpiece? Well, first off, to appreciate Alien 3 you have to take off your fan hat and put on your critic hat. Fincher, who has since disowned the film due to studio interference, didn’t want to make something that would simply please fans. He wanted to make a film that could impact audiences in a way that the first two movies didn’t. He wanted you to think about the death that you were seeing all around you, not just to witness it. I think that’s why this film is slowly gaining an appreciation from fans and critics. It’s not a smash-bang action film like the second movie or a suspense filled horror like the first one. Fincher wanted to bring the movie into a whole new and powerful direction that the series hadn’t seen before. In essence, it was a brooding dramatic opus, similar to, but obviously not as good as, The Shawshank Redemption. Fincher kills everyone but Ripley, except Bishop, who has two brief but important cameo appearances as the partially scrapped Bishop, who doesn’t want to be reworked because he’ll never be “top of the line again” and Bishop II, who appears at the end of the film, a familiar face trying to tempt Ripley to return the alien that’s inside her like Satan tempting Jesus in the desert. Alien 3 expands the motherhood themes of the first two movies by making Ripley herself the mother of a new alien queen. This adds a new level of suspense to the film. Also, the fact that it takes place in a prison with no weapons of any kind (the original script had the film take place in a monastery) with which to fight the alien definitely lends itself to the suspense and isolation of the film of the film. Alien 3 also dares to explore new themes barely touched on in the previous films. The prisoners themselves are barely redeemable, each one of them a horrible offender of some kind that have all embraced religion as a means of coping with their horrible sins. However, throwing Ripley into an all men’s work correctional facility is like throwing a turtle to an Alligator. Her biggest threat her is not the alien, who refuses to attack the host of its new mother, it’s the prisoners themselves. The main theme of Alien 3 however is loss and redemption. Ripley loses Hicks, Newt and Bishop at the beginning of the movie and then a lonely doctor named Clemens who Ripley falls in love with is one of the first to fall victim to the vicious alien. The next victim is the motley crew’s official leader, leaving only their religious mentor, Dillon to take over as the leader in the time of crisis. Weaver did an excellent job returning as a darker, more intense Ripley, a character who has lost everything she cares about and now must fight to stop a force that has haunted her for as far back as she can remember before another alien kills her. However, it’s really Charles. S. Dutton who steals the show here as Dillon. His speeches are stark and realistic. In fact he gives one of my favourite speeches in movie history when he says ”We’re all gonna to die.  Only question is how you check out. Do you want it on your feet or on your fucking knees, begging? I ain’t much for begging. Nobody ever gave me nothing. So I say fuck that thing. Let’s fight it!” Dutton is a superb actor and really steals the show here with a performance that I still think deserved a best supporting nod at the Oscars that year. Unfortunately this movie was overlooked in almost every way back in 1992 and still gets the shaft now in many ways. It wasn’t the summer blockbuster that people were expecting to see. It was more of a drama about loss and redemption. Ripley loses everything, but finds redemption at the end of the film when she kills herself to save humanity. The prisoners themselves find redemption by fighting and killing the alien. The film is presented with a somewhat overwritten, but surprisingly powerful script and incredible acting on all parts, led by future Fight Club director, David Fincher, especially in the Assembly Cut version. This version extends the film by 30 minutes, filling in gaps in the continuity, and spending more time getting the audience acquainted with the characters. Also, the alien comes out of an ox, not a dog, explaining its large size upon birth and Ripley falls into the lava before the alien pops out of her chest, unlike the original where she somehow survives a chest-burster before plunging to her death. It’s definitely the superior edition, although I don’t like what they did with Dillon’s speech, but that’s beside the point. Alien 3 eventually went through another year of editing after Fincher had already walked out and the studio continued to do damage to Fincher’s powerful vision. Ultimately a dark and nihilistic movie, with no love interest, no hope of escape and little chance of survival, it’s also a movie filled with hope and teaches its audience that although times seem bleak and it looks like there’s no one to help you. If you ban together and make sacrifices, you can always win. It’s a dark, yet powerful movie and a wonderful end to the Alien Trilogy (Resurrection was terrible and doesn’t count). So, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, watch the wonderful assembly cut or the theatrical version, they’re both good (although the assembly cut is better, obviously) and if you have seen it, watch it again. You may gain an appreciation for what has remained one of the most overlooked films of the past quarter century.

Hey Guys
Well Taking a break here while I wait for my conference calland decided to blog. It has been so hard to keep up with this blog and the one at Dailygame.net but well worth it.

Well what can I tell you?

I lost 20 pounds last month

Gained 5-10 of it back already

Worked out 3 times a week

Blew my knee out and now might need surgury…..

See a pattern here, I do and it kinda sucks but all it means is that I gotta get back into the routine and get back on the horse, No exscues and just gotta do it and that’s okay. I think I’ve seen something awesome just over the horizon.

Really hope to write more but gotta jet and pay attention to what I am doing

Trust me, will blog later but follow me @ facebook and @Twitter too!

Very cool to be asked to do an interview instead of the one doing the Interview!

Hey guys

I am writing a weekly column over @ http://www.dailygame.net on Fridays and here is the first one entitled Who needs love when you have Guitar Hero!
Birdman’s first friday Column!