Today I had the dubious distinction of single-handedly unleashing the ILOVEYOU virus on the entire Carleton University network. Needless to say, it has been less than a wonderful day. And while the actual propogation was not technically my fault, it stills remains to be seen that almost all users on the network received the virus from my account. Oops. The ironic thing is of course, that I do not have the virus myself, and had I been working on my computer this would not have happened. Oh well, it made for an interesting hour or two as we scrambled to shut down the SendMail servers and filter the email. Speaking of filtering, we had the latest virus updates running and while they recognized and quarantined the messages, they were still sent anyway. I guess we can chalk that one bug up to someone externally. 🙂 At least I’m not alone … As for this past weekend, I guess it was the first one in six that I was here in Ottawa. It felt good to actually catch up on sleep. Smile all.

This weekend I was down in Toronto for the YP weekend. On Friday, I left shortly after noon to drive down to my sister’s house and my nephew’s one year old birthday. I almost didn’t take my bike because of the threat of rain, but although the ominous clouds never disappeared, it was a cold but dry drive down. On Friday night, there was ringette at the rink there, followed by a general bonfire that night. Saturday morning began at 07:30 when the guys hit the ice for some full contact hockey. You would never think you could chase 30 guys from the bed for something so early in the morning, but they were all dressed and ready to go at 07:30. The day was non-stop activities and was lots of fun. The three meetings were on Jonah and were excellent, bringing up some thoughts and ideas that I had never seen or heard before, but were more than a little applicable to me. After fellowship tea and a meeting yesterday, most of the YP dispersed to their various ways and Rob, Mats and I headed back to Ottawa in just a minor downpour. I can be thankful for the prayers and safety, for we made it home both safe and dry (rainsuits can be wonderful) last night. OK. So we were a little tired, but it was an encouraging and nice weekend just the same.

Just a few more things about the new design. Every week I believe I shall change the icon in the upper left hand corner of the screen to just whatever pops into my head at the time. I also should note that this design was optimized for Internet Explorer 4 and above, but it should still run fine with Netscape. So what happened this weekend in my life. We ended up leaving Ottawa at 16:00 on Friday instead of 23:00, so we hoped to not get in too late. Instead, because of the many moose on the roads we were seriously delayed. We were the first car upon an accident in Maine where a Mother and her two little children had veered off the road to avoid hitting a moose and absolutely demolished their vehicle. It was a miracle, but none of them were injured, although absolutely terrified. The two little girls were strapped into car seats in the back seat and I have no doubt as to what would have happened were they not. The car dropped off a ten foot embankment and bounced off three trees and a telephone pole before coming to rest. We stayed around for the State Troopers and tow trucks and were held up for two hours. This was one time when the cell phone came in very handy. 🙂 As for the hiking at Katahdin, it was absolutely awesome. After getting in at 01:00 on Saturday morning, we woke at 04:30 and headed north to the mountain. While it was over 20 degrees at the bottom of the hill and sunny, at the top the wind was absolutely howling, well below zero with the wind shield factor, and we were getting covered in ice pellets while huddling down beneath the rock overhangs. Shorts and t-shirts were the clothes of the day, but I realized I was seriously underdressed as the temperature fell with the altitude and I began passing hikers completely bundled in toques, long woolen pants, gortex jackets, mitts and backpacks. If you’re afraid of heights, the trail called the KnifeEdge at 1.1 miles in length, ten feet (at most) in width, and over 4000 foot drops on either side of you, was probably not the best trail for you to take. Or, if you don’t like pulling yourself up by hands and fingertips over over-hangs and massive boulders, while ascending a rock face trail littered in snow patches and ice and bordered by drop-offs, then the Cathedral Ridge was definately not the way to the top for you. Regardless, the view from the top, when the clouds beneath and around you were temporarily blown off, was spectacular. Smile.