How do you describe downtown Tilburg on New Year's Eve?

New Year's in Tilburg is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Everyone loads up on fireworks and firecrackers and sets them off all day long all around the city. Then at midnight they all bring their trees downtown and have a huge bonfire. Then it's down to the business of fireworks. The city does not provide the fireworks. Every household around the city buys their own and sets them off all at the same time. The guys we were with spent around $500 on fireworks. It was absolute chaos for a good 30 minutes...




Danelle: "It brings back childhood memories. It doesn't even phaze me at all. I'm a military brat and so this is just normal. When I was in Camp Pendelton bombs used to shake the house and knock things off the shelves. Don't ever use the bathroom when the military is in the field."

Wayne: "I keep turning to war, and my impressions of what urban warefar must be like. With explosions and small bursts going off all around you. You can picture yourself as it would be back in World War 2 if you were fighting in Tilburg. Grenades going off and machine gun fire. Tanks rolling through the streets and firing on buildings. And you're just a young 18 year old kid from small town Saskatchewan, taken out of everything you could ever imagine put into the line of fire. Fighting against someone that you would have to kill or they will kill you."

Lindsay: "A huge firecracker went off about 5 feet behind me and I went down like I was shot. So did about 10 other people all around me. Stupid kids running away laughing. But I bet if I was younger I think it'd be the funniest thing in the world to scare people."

Marj: "They're very loud, and very close, and very obnoxious. All these young hooligans running around with firecrackers... Nothing seems to be illegal here."

Adrienne: "I don't know Brendan, I don't think anything about the fireworks. I was accomplishing other important missions. It's not fair that I have to go so late because everyone's already said everything that I would say."

Brendan: "Imagine 4 teenagers dressed all in black with blonde spiked hair. Imagine an incredible complex to show off, and the confidence you get to do stupid things when you're with your friends. Imagine the drinking age around here is 16 and that marijuana is legal. Imagine that they're all carrying bags of firecrackers. Imagine using the cigarettes you're smoking to light the firecrackers and dropping them by unsuspecting people as they walk by. And imagine the scared thrill you get running away in 'ring and run' but times that by the closeness and loudness of a firecracker."

Jill: "Just so irresponsible. If they were my schoolchildren..."

(This is the aftermath. The smoke was over the whole city afterwards, no word of a lie.)

A Good Old Fashioned Family Christmas

The structure of this day is that we got up early, went to Ieper and Flanders Fields, then went to Brugge, then had a nice meal at a fancy French restaurant, then came home. The story, though, has a lot more in common with a Salvadore Dali painting than any of the simpleness of the so-called supposedly gives. The beginning is simple in that we got up early and left early. (Early meaning actually early, meaning 6:30 AM. Early usually referring to anything before lunch. How lazy have I become? Well... Sometimes I like to set my alarm early for example at 10. The alarm goes off... I get up, I laugh to myself a little, I turn it off and go to sleep... It's kind of like a little pick me up in the morning. AND to be honest, 6:30 is a lot more closely related to what I consider as late, as in late the night before. BUT yes, I will one day be responsible and get up early, and be in a desk and drink lots of coffee... but did you know that Winston Churchill also didn't get out of bed until late each day? The guy would sit till all hours dictating to people and ordering them around from his bed.)

But the story. The story of jumbled confusion begins at Flander's Fields. We all thought that Flander's Field is the big place with all the crosses and poppies not unlike the poem of the same name. We all thought that it's all about Canadian things considering a Canadian wrote the poem. The true story is it's a small American memorial where two American divisions pushed the Germans back on the last few days of the Great War. The real memorial is about 30 minutes away near a town called Ieper. But in honor of Danelle and my mom's parents we stayed and had a guide take us through the memorial. Who, in his British accent, couldn't believe we didn't know the history of this place. ummm... Haven't we all learned by now about the death of the individual? Names, dates, and places don't matter... Don't we know that the official version is usually the wrong version? And that if you really need to know anything, ask Jeeves... And most importantly, that the only really important thing in history is to learn how not to repeat our past mistakes? Such as don't ever tell anyone ever that you went to Harvard if you've just been wrong about something people are supposed to know...

... 30 minutes later we're in Ieper. With a museum about Flander's Fields and a map to the big memorial. Interesting fact: It was also one of the cities in Europe that was completely destroyed in the war and has a list of all the other cities that were destroyed as well on a large stone slab... Berlin, Beirut, Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima, Ieper, Leningrad, Nagasaki, Rotterdam, Sarajevo, Stalingrad, Verdun, and Warsaw. It was rebuilt with modern tools to look old, if that makes sense? Ieper also was a foreshadow of bigger problems to come. Once we parked in Ieper everyone Instantly got out of the car and went in a different direction. Washrooms, food, shopping, maps to the cemetary, and coffee. (I think a lesson from this experience is that the less plan you have, and the more you're able to just go wherever the flow seems to take you, the more joyful and the less annoyed you'll be in big groups.) Luckily it actually worked out really well, surprisingly, and half an hour later everyone had coffee and food, and we had a map to the memorial. The real Flanders Fields...

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/inflanders.htm

From Flanders Fields we went to Brugge and again everyone went off in every direction. But this cannot for a second be mistaken for the teamwork of Ieper. Our meeting place was a huge area, our time to meet was uncertain at best, and the crowds separating us were in the thousands. We possibly set a record for how quickly we lost Mom, Adrienne and Danelle, on the very first street in Brugge, while going to see some Michaelangelo statue in a church. Shopping is more important than history apparently. Then I split off from Lindsay, Jill, and Dad when I went to climb the tower in the middle of town. Then escalation. I guess Danelle lost Mom and Adrienne in hopes of meeting up with the rest of us, and Dad got separated from Lindsay and Jill for similar reasons the other way. Danelle and I ended up waiting around the same meeting point separately on opposite sides of the building for the same 40 minute time span in hopes that we'd find someone else. She busy feeling sorry for herself and me busy taking random pictures with my camera. A full 3 hours after we all split up we got back together in the same place once again. Successful, depending on your definition, as only 3 of us didn't want to talk about the afternoon ever again. Nobodys and everybodies fault. The fighting through crowds, the awesome shops, the beautiful town, the nothing enough to eat or drink, the sleepiness from an early morning, the highs and lows of family time, and possibly a headache... overall I'd say a great and terrible day. But, just like Disney movies, this trip came back together at an amazing French restaurant with a great beef stew and an even better Salmon in white wine sauce. Enya was playing, there was a fire in the fireplace, it was a long day, we literally all fell asleep between ordering our food and getting it brought out to us. Similar experience actually to my last time in Brugge when I fell asleep not 10 steps from the restaurant in the middle of the church service. Danelle was so embarrassed, but I reminded her that Jesus himself said, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest." Needless to say I win more arguments than I lose. But ya, that was our day, great day, tonight is New Year's and I think I've heard about 400 firecrackers, fireworks, and I don't even know what going off around here, so I better get gone and start celebrating.

Nice People are Idiots... Merry Christmas!!

Brugge is the happening place in Europe over the holidays. Maybe 20,000 people showed up at its winter festival to see the ice sculptures and shop. This story revolves around the 1000 or so that made their way up the huge castle tower to get a bird's eye view of the whole town. More specifically it's about all the nice feelings and inclinations one might have in the spirit of the holidays... about a really nice guy that I was stuck behind on my way down the steps of the tower. Now, THE RULE, as far as unmentioned but socially acceptable rules of climbing towers goes, is that for ever time you pass someone on your way down (making them wait on the side), you let the next person pass you on their way up (by waiting off to the side). 1 for 1. The nice thing obviously then must be to let everyone pass and wait off to the side every time, isn't it? The nice guy, spirit of the holidays and all, a so-called manifestation of all that is best about Christmas, blah blah blah, was far and away the nicest and most patient of anyone on the stairs that day. The problem with nice though, is that every quote I've ever heard about it says it's not the way to go... "Nice guys finish last" comes to mind... "Nice only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades" is another off the top of my head... and this guy was definitely not playing hand grenades... no, no, no, being nice did not work for him today... because the line going down always, always, always waited, backing up all the way to the top of the tower... and the line going up always, always, always went, logjamming people half way up the tower. In summary, the whole top half of this tower, with stairs big enough for only one person to walk up comfortably, suddenly had two people on each stair, one wanting to go up, one wanting to go down. And all waiting on this nice guy who revelled in his own niceness and was still waiting on people to pass him, even though those people had nowhere to go. On par with the similar idiots on a two lane street that nicely stop to let a car or pedestrian cross the street only to be hit by the car in the second lane.

Moral... sometimes the worst results come from the best intentions...

Top 10

Top 10 list of the most crazy things I've seen so far this year in hockey...

10) Fans throwing pennies at us whenever we got into the o-zone, then throwing beer all over everyone sitting on our bench, and then again throwing beer on us after we win... haha... suckers
9) Fans trying to get through the cages around our dressing room to fight us after the game. Guy on our team thinking it would be a good idea to invite them out after the game for a couple of beers to settle differences.
8) Flying elbow by a guy on my team to an opposing D trying to step up for an open ice hit. Then the very next shift another elbow to the head, but this time straight from behind. (1 game)
7) A guy going full speed from the blueline, not even a slow up, to hit a player directly from behind about 3 feet away from the boards. Quote, "ya, maybe I shouldn't have done that." (0 games)
6) Our goalie going after the ref after he didn't blow the play down and the other team scored. Hit the ref with a blocker to the face. Ref literally waiting at the other end of the ice until our goalie left the ice. (10 games)
5) A guy on our team gets the puck, stops at center, fires a slap shot at the other teams bench and then calls on the whole bench. (preseason so 0 games)
4) A guy on our team trying to slash someone over the glass from inside the penalty box. (preseason)
3) A fight during the end of game handshake. The guy wouldn't let go of our players hand. (2 games each)
2) A guy on the other team trying to fight our coach. Picked our coach off the ground and slammed him against the wall, but didn't get any punches away before some guys stepped in and stopped him. (no games)
1) A guy on our team dumping the puck on the other teams' goalie and then running him from the blueline, knocking the goalie (in the air) from the goal line into the end boards. Literally 3 guys were lined up to fight this guy after he did it. On account that the goalie faked to fall and drew a penalty on him the shift before. He told the goalie, "I'll see you in 2 minutes," came right out of the penalty box and ran him. Oh ya, and of course flipped off the other teams bench on his way off the ice. (7 games)

The colour is in the words, not the pictures...

So these are all my thoughts about the holidays so far...

1) We have 6 days of Christmas with the family in Holland, which by happy coincidence is the same number of days I remember in the 12 days of Christmas song (6 geese a laying) that's playing right now in the background... That's not a whole lot of time considering 2 of those days are a write off on account of the jet lag. My first plan is, stop time, race around everywhere, recreate all the old, good memories I have of Christmas past, and try to create the most bestest Christmas ever for us.. Cause how can you fit everything in to so few days without some effort? And how can you try to connect with a family that you unfortunately only get to see a few times a year without so deliberate -ness? But there's this great poet that in paraphrase says if you try to force/control things you end up destroying them, all you can do is just enjoy the ride wherever it takes you. Can I learn to be up for anything and just go with the flow? Well, right now the flow is taking me to an all-night techno rave party tonight with DJ Diablo..

2) So this repetitive song that's playing in the background... does anyone really know all of the 12 days of Christmas? Survey says of course not because nobody cares about birds in fruit trees these days... I figure... And plus this is 2007... so if it's a bird of some sort and not a computer and an ipod, r a wallet with a money clip, I'd rather not get it for Christmas anyways... in light of the new spirit of Christmas, and in light of everyone doing their own version of this song, here is 12 days of Christmas Bernakevitch style...


"On the 12th day of Christmas yadda yadda yadda...

...12 hours spent on layover in an airport and a free plane ticket voucher,

...11 scented candles with real christmas tree smell cause the one we have is fake,

...10 batches of pistachio nut cookies, ginger bread men, and fudge

...9 dollar starbucks coffees (based on dollar to euro conversion rate and no Splenda)

...an 8 thousand piece puzzle

...7 games of cards

...6 Christmas movies that we have to watch every year on constant replay

...5 new amazing memories

...4 different dishes + egg rolls + won ton soup

...3 screaming babies on the plane ride from Boston

...2 of the same John Grisham book from barnes and noble

...and 1 New Year's Resolution that we will never keep...

... and 1 time a year we get out whole family together in the same place

3) So here is my problem with New Year's Resolutions. It's too much about striving and not enough about being satisfied. Isn't the secret of life about being happy with yourself and content with what you have, or you will always be looking into the future and never enjoy the present? I think maybe it should be both, to be content and still be striving. Why can't you be perfect how you are, and yet trying to improve yourself? And why can't you tell a girl she looks great but it still wouldn't hurt her to go to the gym or spend a couple hours a week on the treadmill? You know, step on the scale and take that weight and then subtract it by 20, and then, like, be that number? Is that really so bad? I don't think so. And I don't think we even have a word in the English language that means content but striving... Paul writes about it all the time about how you strive to be that which you already are. The yogis have an idea in their practice about giving total effort yet having no concern for the results... but I'm looking for 1 word, and I might have to make it up. Any ideas? Seratent maybe?

4) And a little bit about travel... travel sucks... especially during the holidays... especially when it makes you miss time with loved ones on account of an airline pilot not showing up to make a flight from Charleston to Memphis. But in the midst of this small crisis I got to thinking... How many people are there out there that have to work over the holidays and be away from hearth and home, friends and family? Pilots, Bus Drivers, Hotel workers, Policemen, Firemen, Paramedics, Doctors, Nurses, People fighting in the war, Santa, the elves (actually I think the elves might get Christmas off). We don't even realize the difficulty people go through to bring us our little time of joy as a family. So I think my point in all this is that all the time spent in the airport around Christmas made it so I couldn't possibly feel sorry for myself. Most especially after seeing the lonely bus driver that drove us to our hotel room. Therefore I did the only thing I could do, I wished him a very strong heart felt Merry Christmas as we got off the bus. And I think he felt better. Cause that's what I do, I make Christmas miracles.

4) And ya, Christmas miracles. How easy is it to go through the whole Christmas season and forget the real reason of Christmas. As the cast of scrubs puts it in it's remake of "A Charlie Brown Christmas"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Of_mna-Rs

"(It's not about the presents)... ... it's about friendship, family and devotion.. ... and most importantly it's about love... you can't live without other peoples love. So spend time with people. And if they laugh at you, laugh with them. And if they laugh at you again... hit 'em. And then go find some other friends. But remember this, you have to give love to get love, so start giving... now!"

But to go even deeper...

Friends and family are so important, but not most important. The second you look to others to find your own value or depend on others to create a feeling in you, that very second I think you're settling for second best. It's not like you shouldn't leave yourself vulnerable, or pursue to love and be loved, but like Erwin Lutzer says... You need to put God at the top, and look to him first, and then everything else in your life falls into its proper place. Your image of yourself, your image of others and how you treat them, and most importantly your ability to step outside your own selfishness and actually love other people. Without God at the center of our lives there is a hole that we simply cannot fill, and we'll spend the rest of our lives restless and not content seeking a million different ways to fill it.
And what if you don't believe in God you say? I've read enough to know a paragraph will not change your mind. I will say to people that believe in science as much as I do that although we've figured out certain laws that seem to be true, it's not like we can make any claim on being the source and creator of these laws. Something holds this universe together... And what about if you haven't thought about any of this at all and really don't think you will? Well... death is the only certainty we have in this life, so it's probably pretty important to at least try to figure out how death fits into the picture of your life. Maybe look into some sort of meaning for your life. I don't know... Either way though, because of its importance to me you will have to hear it.

6) The Christmas Story... This holidays is at the very top about an all-powerful yet all-merciful being, perfect, the source of all goodness and life, that wants to connect with His own creation. He made us in his image, and just as we are social beings God is a social God (Think trinity). And just as we would rather have someone choose to like us and not force them to like us, He similarily gives us the free choice to choose Him or to choose our own way. Who although He wants to commune with us cannot because of every persons own choice to reject Him. This same God taking the first step in the process by actually coming to earth to be like one of us, to talk to us on our level, point us in the right direction, and finally to give us the ability to choose to be in a relationship with Him again. When I say God I mean when God actually came down onto the earth as the man named Jesus. And when I say Jesus I don't mean the Talladega nights style 8 pound, 6 ounce, cute, cuddly, but still fully omnipotent "Dear baby Lord Jesus, thankyou for powerade" Jesus... I mean moreso how he describes himself.

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

The one that gives people the ability to be free from whatever it is they struggle with. From their traps, their compulsions, their habits, their situations, their vices. And not always physical freedom, but most importantly spiritual, mental, and emotional freedom (There's a big difference between being in a prison and being a prisoner.)

And yes, a lot of deepness just happened here, but I was just trying to give a small taste of the difference between the kids version and the adults version of the Christmas story.

Lucky Charms

So allow me to introduce you to a string of mildly unfortunate circumstances that all seemed to pile up on one particular day. It starts on a bus trip to play Heerveen to decide who's first place going into Christmas Break. It ends up with us losing 7-3 and me down 17 Euros. So the bus trip is 3 1/2 hours to get to Heerveen, and in my opinion is the most extreme high range of hours one should travel on game day if you expect the team to have any chance of winning the game. Moral of the story is that we're down 2-0 after about 5 minutes into the game. We get it as close as 2-1 before a series of incredibly unfortunate bounces decide to win the game for the other team. One is a pass from the corner off a players skate right top corner. Another is a shot from the point off our own players' stick, off a player from their teams stick, top corner. Another is a pass across on a 2 on 1 off our D-man's skate, back to the guy that passed it for a shot and a goal. Another is a point shot through traffic off their players skate five-hole. And I keep using the word 'another' here because it's probably gotten more and more annoying each time you have to read it... and that's exactly what all those goals were in the game, more and more annoying... because they mean we're down 3-1, then we're losing 4-1, then we're down and out at 5-1, and then we were never in it at all at 6-2, and then we are completely demoralized at 7-3... Needless to say the bounces did not go our way and that sucks. On the plus side we outshot them and worked really hard so chalk one up in the moral victories column I say.
And so on the way home the downward spiral continues. Our post game meal spilled on the floor so it ended up as us going to a McDonalds for post game. Do we realize that we have another game tomorrow? And then I end up at the back of the line, so thought it would be genius to offer to pay for someone's meal if they, being at the front of the line, could order for me. Last second tho, how could I forget, I realize that I don't have money or my bank card n me . I gave it to my sister in case she needed money seeing how she's here and all and wants to go shopping... Serious walk of shame all the way back to the back of the line... And fortunately a teammate lends me some money.... I'll have a litre of cola please...
And ya, so then cards happen... and I'm tired and I play terrible. And I called one guy out a few days ago as being the worst card player of the group and he wins everything today. And takes amazing pleasure rubbing it in my face. My back up is that the games we play have more to do with the luck of what cards you get and less about playing well, but it just builds on the momentum of 'make fun of Bernakevitch day' so I drop it. And almost redemption... I have 2 chances to win games and screw both chances up completely. First I don't call high enough to get to pick my suit, and second, when I do call high enough I by accident call the wrong suit. And after 10 minutes of arguing everyone decides that I can't change my call to the suit I wanted to play. They say that the "a card laid is a card played" rule is the one that applies to this situation. I say it's a good thing not many hockey players become lawyers or judges. I'm real close to throwing the cards in, throwing punches, and quitting the game, maybe for life, when I realize that life is too short to sit and sulk in a bus over things that are about 96% out of my control. And the stuff that I screwed up that was in my control will have to make me a better person in learning from it. And I can always throw punches my pillow at home anyways.

Game Theory

Speaking of expectations, first impressions and judgment calls... and of college... this has to be said about game... Game being the thing guys try to do/run to get a girl. Here is the contradiction. The guys with the best game are the guys that seem like they're not throwing game at all. They're also the guys that have worked years to develop their game to have no game, and are skeezy. The guys with the worst game, where you know they're throwing game, are the guys new to the field altogether, and possibly the most genuine. That's why it's so hard and why girls get so confused. Bad game = awkward, creepy, see through = genuine guy. Good game = laid back, comfortable, seemless = skeezeball.
Adrienne says sometimes guys are lucky enough not to have game, and not even to pretend to have game, and somehow get away with coming across genuine and as being genuine. But I say no. It's the first impression and the first meeting that a n%b just can't overcome. And unless you've worked at it, everything you say, no matter how harmless, ("Hey", "Hello", "What's up?", "How's it going?") comes out as awkward, non confident skizziness, and ends up somewhere in the middle of... "you come here often?" and somehow buying the girl a drink.
So who do you trust? How can you tell? If you're hot enough they'll stay with you... haha, but seriously you really can't tell. It has something to do with instinct and conscience I think. I say go with your first impression cause it's usually right.