Archives For Learning

Natural Pain Killers

November 17, 2018

I recently crashed on a trail I hadn’t ridden in years; which by the condition of the trail, hadn’t been ridden by anybody else either. Ned’s on Mt. Seymour was a trail that my brother and I rode a lot when we first moved to the North shore. I don’t think I’ve ridden the trail in 3 years, if not more, but the day was so rainy that any other trail would be washed out and full of puddles and running water. Since Ned’s is basically just a river full of rocks, it is pretty good in the wet, in fact, the rain washes away all the dust and dirt from the rocks which makes them quite grippy. This was the same for the wooden ladders. Since nobody, or very few people had ridden it in recent years, the rocks were still grippy, but the wood was slippery. My front wheel washed out as soon as I touched the wooden ladder on a relatively fast section. Since the trail was mostly rocks, it wasn’t a soft landing and I stuck my hand out and my palm hit a big rock. It was pretty painful and got very swollen and bruised, which usually doesn’t happen when I have big impacts, so I was a little worried something may be wrong.

After 2 X-rays over a couple weeks the Dr determined nothing was broken, but it was still pretty tender. I started doing some research and learned that the use of Advil and other similar drugs can interfere with the healing process if used long term. Several articles suggest that athletes shouldn’t use these drugs over long periods of time and should look at natural pain killers instead. I went to a health foods store and picked up some things that may help me heal a little quicker.

 



The Curcumin reduces inflammation and research shows can be better over long term than more mainstream drugs that do the same thing. The Piperine helps the body absorb both the Curcumin and White Willow Bark, which helps reduce pain and is safer long term than Advil.

This is sort of an experiment to see if these help my hand get back to normal quicker and I’ll keep you updated with the results!

Nature Destruction

March 12, 2015

A few days ago, a few friends and I went riding on Seymour. We decided to go check out where the big rockslide was that took out Twin Bridges earlier on and this is what we found. The picture does not do it justice. I couldn’t get back far enough to get all of the rocks that fell in the frame, so this is just a little taste. I would have liked to have been near it when it happened so I could feel the ground shake as the rocks fell. I must say, I live in a pretty interesting area.

IMG_5689

2009 Macbook Revived

January 2, 2014

I just finished putting in a M500 240GB Solid State Drive into my macbook because It wasn’t able to edit videos that well. It was actually quite easy! These are the directions I followed.

http://www.tuaw.com/2013/05/14/mac-101-upgrade-to-ssd/

Now I’ll be able to edit the videos that I’ve taken this past summer and the ones I am taking now, so stay tuned!

Screen Shot 2014-01-02 at 11.49.53 AM
Final Cut Pro working smoothly…

Quick Trip to Whistler

August 10, 2013

After the BC cup race in Golden which I was unable to do because my head wasn’t feeling up to it, we went to Whistler for the week before Crankworx. It was really dry and dusty and the trails were pretty blown out, but we still had a good time. We also got to do the Air Dome twice and I landed my first backflip! I think it’s always a kids dream as a mountain biker to do a backflip and I had a pretty cool feeling after I landed it first try. If someone told me last year that I would be able to do a backflip, I probably wouldn’t believe them!

 

The Cay

July 2, 2012

Levi Harapnuik

June 24 2012

 

The Development of a Young Man in The Cay

God sometimes wants to teach us things that we wouldn’t know if he didn’t give us that little push. We need to be pushed to do some things that we don’t necessarily want to do at the time. It might turn out well and you end up enjoying it and being glad that you tried something new. Sometimes he pushes us to take risks and guides us in directions that we don’t know where they lead, but there is always a reason. Just like Philip in The Cay,  written by Theodore Taylor, God sometimes drags us kicking and screaming toward change in our lives to learn about other people, to learn new things and to learn about ourselves.

Philip thought that the black people in his town were weird and he didn’t want to be around them that much. It was sad that Philip had to be stranded on an island fighting to survive and lose a close friend, Timothy, who was a black, for him to realize that the blacks weren’t weird or strange at all. After what happened on the island, when he came back home he started to befriend the black people and hang around them more. He considered them friends. They were really good people. He learned about other people and the sacrifices of which they were capable.

Philip was taken out of his normal environment onto an island with a person he knew nothing about and was forced to learn to adapt to his surroundings. He learned how to fish, survive on his own in the wilderness, how to tell when bad storms were coming, and tell what the weather was like. Timothy left behind some useful tools so that Philip could go on living without him like the rope he put up for Philip to move around the camp and to fish. He also learned a lot about himself and what he could physically and mentally endure on the island.

Philip changed over the time he spent on the island. At first he was just a curious kid that got into trouble quite a bit and didn’t listen to his parents that much. He went from his comfortable life in the city to being blind on a raft with somebody he didn’t even know. He was really scared and disorientated. He also was angry about losing his eyesight and not being able to see a single thing he was doing, but eventually he got over the anger. It was hard enough being on that island, without many supplies, but with his injuries and disabilities, it took a lot of strength and courage from both Philip and Timothy. After Timothy died, Philip had a lot of determination, the skills, and the courage to live on his own until he was rescued.

God sometimes brings tragedies to our lives to learn about other people, to learn new things and to learn about ourselves. Philip experienced these tough times and it changed him into a better, more mature young man. When we’re going through tough times is usually when we can learn the most about ourselves and other people. So when tough times are ahead, we should think of what we could learn.

A Musician’s Journey

June 1, 2012

Back in 2006, my two friends and I could play instruments, and one of them could sing. We made up a song called “The Woodchuck Song”. It was basically just our singer yelling “How much would could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”. It sounded pretty good to us and to our families, but unfortunately we moved away from them that summer and couldn’t do it anymore. When we came back to visit in 2010, my friend, the singer, and I sat down and wrote an actual song with lyrics that didn’t just include things about rodents and had actual structure and guitar chords. That’s when we realized we were really good. The next summer, I moved back to Edmonton and we wrote our second song which was even better and started playing them in his basement.

I started taking piano lessons when I was 3 and I played for quite a few years until I was 9 or 10. We got a drum set when I was 5 and I took lessons until I was 10 but I still continued to play and I’ve never stopped. I got an electric guitar when I was around 11 and took lessons for a month at a music store then I took online lessons called Jamplay for the rest of the school year and taught myself from there. I haven’t taken lessons for a while but still use the online every once in awhile if I can’t figure something out.

What I wanted to do with this project was to write and record a whole song with instruments and vocals. I wanted to have at least two guitars, drums, and some keyboard. I didn’t really plan it out. We just were playing the chords and writing the music and the basic idea seemed to come together in an afternoon. I did most of the writing in my friend’s basement in a tiny room with all the instruments. I did the recording at my home by myself. The vocals came after all the tracks were laid down. Even without a plan, the results were astounding.

I had fun with creating the music and also recording it and playing with the different sounds I would get from placing the mic in different places. Writing the lyrics was also interesting. I also learned that it is ALWAYS a good idea to use a metronome when recording music. It makes it much easier when recording multiple instruments and vocals. I didn’t use one on the first version of the song that I recorded and it was off beat in some places. I remembered to use one on the second version of the song so it is almost all on beat.

I started using a program called Garageband that can record music at a camp in Texas so I was already familiar with it. I didn’t really get into any of the effects because they were a little complicated. I recorded the main guitar first. After that came the rhythm guitar, the drums, and finally the keyboard and vocals when my friend came over. I had to do the drums on the keyboard since the real drums wouldn’t record well with just one mic. Once we got a good mic, I had to try and figure out how to use it and what the different settings did. After I figured it all out, it was pretty easy to record and it sounded really good compared to the mic on my laptop which is what I used for the first recording.

I had quite a few problems. When I did the first version of the song, I was using the mic built in on my computer. It wasn’t that bad, but there was a lot of background noise from the furnace in our basements and it wasn’t as good quality as the song recorded on a higher quality mic. The new mic, called the Yeti, also didn’t record as much background noise as the one on my laptop. It was also tricky working with GarageBand and getting used to all the different effects that there are. It is hard to start recording in the middle of the song if you took a break or something like that. There is a delay on the time that you press the record button and when it actually starts recording and the music kicks in.

Also, I went to school for the second semester so that limited how much time I could spend on the recording. I didn’t really do much work on it after the day when we did the vocals. I think it sounded alright and it didn’t need much adjustment.

We had an opportunity to play for Capilooza http://www.capilano.org/capilooza-2012/ which is a fundraiser for a Haitian orphanage put on by our church. We jumped at the opportunity to play in front a crowd of more than 4 people. There were only two of us and we needed at least four to have all the instruments that would make it sound good. I got my brother to play drums and a leader at our church to play bass and it ended up working out pretty good.

Practicing for the fundraiser was a little difficult and I couldn’t make all the practices. I missed the first one so my friend and my brother had to teach our bass player the chords and notes that I wrote. They did pretty well, though, and they played all the songs except one which they couldn’t figure out. We practiced three or four times at our house with everyone except the bass player and three times on the stage at our church with everybody.

Even though it was hard at some points, I learned some things. I learned how to use the new Yeti microphone and use GarageBand more effectively. I got better at making up my own beats and riffs on the guitar and drums instead of playing music that somebody already wrote. It’s sometimes hard to come up with new music when there is already so much out there. You have to be careful not to copy someone else’s music. You can also use the same chords and progressions just as long as you don’t copy the words or beat of the song. I also learned a bit about poetry and songwriting and how some words fit to make a good rhyme and how some don’t. My friend and I would write the lyrics together when we had the time, and emailed each other when we had a good idea.

My band and I played at Capilooza and played three of the songs that we had written and two cover songs. We used all of our own amps, guitars, and drums. We brought all the stuff to the church early for sound check and to see how everything was going to work out. There were quite a few other bands there too so we got a little feeling of what it would be like before we even got on stage. We set up and played three songs to let the sound guy see how loud everything should be. We finished, got all our stuff off the stage and went home until when we were supposed to be playing.

Our equipment was already at the church so we drove there and listened to the other bands before us. The bands were slower and not that exciting at the beginning but they were nice to listen to. When it was our turn, we set up quickly and started playing. I was quite impressed on how we did and how everything worked out. My mom and dad each had a video recorder and we got some good footage. We also had a Gopro camera set up on stage so it would get us from the same position all through the time we were playing. It was the first time we played in front of a big audience. There were about 200 people there and I was surprised that I wasn’t scared. After we were done, I just wanted to play more, and so I did.

A few days later we got to play again at a Battle of The Bands at a local high school atrium in front of about 25 people. It was set up by a music store, Axe music, but we didn’t get to use our own amps and guitars. There were a few problems with the guitars and sound and I don’t think it was nearly as good as when we played at the church but it was still not bad. My mom was recording with a mic on an iphone and my dad had the video camera. I had fun doing both and we got some good videos to show from it. We helped pack up the equipment and it was pretty neat stuff, but I wish we could have used our own amps. The ones they had were restricting and didn’t have much adjustment.

Here are the three original songs that we played at Battle of The Bands and Capalooza.

The song we wrote summer 2010 is called “Here We Go Again”. (Click on link to go to song and lyrics)

The song I recorded is called “Save Me

Our newest song which we played at Capalooza is called, “Worlds Apart

The fun just doesn’t stop here. Hopefully there will be more opportunities to play at different places and get our music out there. Who knows, maybe we’ll get to tour around someday and get paid to play music. To get there is a long road and we probably need to start by getting some more official band members.

English Assignments

April 26, 2012

Levi Harapnuik

April 9

 

 

Cause and Effect Paragraph

 

The Cannibals accepted John Paton after he dug a well and provided them with water. They had previously been drinking dirty water and they were getting sick. He dug the well and gave the people all the water they wanted. When the villagers asked how he did it, he said that God gave them water and that they should thank God. The village leader said that none of the other gods they worshiped did such a thing for them and asked if John would preach a sermon to them on the well the next Sabbath day. When the day came, the chief gave a short speech to encourage the people to listen to John. That day, many idols were rounded up and burned as the people changed their minds about thinking that what John said was lies.

 

In the biggest stadium, the ground shakes as the crowds roar. A young man prepares for his first joust. A joust against a much older and experienced opponent. Will he bring pride to his country, or will his dreams of being a highly esteemed and well-respected knight be shattered to pieces? Here I have for you, an overview of a knight, Myles Farworth, and how smart, stubborn and brave this knight was in the book, Men Of Iron.

 

Myles was smart in that he always wanted to make the right choice and to do the right thing no matter what he had to do or what happened. He went to his friends or elders to seek wisdom or to ask them what they thought he should do. He didn’t always do the right thing and it got him in trouble and even got him hurt sometimes. I think he was smarter or wiser than the average fellow.

 

He also was very persistent or stubborn in that he sometimes didn’t do what his elders told him to do. When he wanted people to do something for him, he wouldn’t stop asking or yelling at them until they did what he wanted. In the book, he was dueling against another guy who he worked and lived with. Myles hurt his opponent quite badly but the opponent didn’t want to give up. Myles didn’t let him walk away until he surrendered to Myles. This was a good and bad characteristic of him.

 

Myles was really brave and wasn’t afraid to accept a challenge, even if he knew he couldn’t defeat that challenge. There were times where his friends would have to try to stop him from doing something that would get him seriously injured, or even killed. He accepted to joust against an older knight that was a lot more experienced than him and would probably beat him. It seemed as though he wasn’t afraid of anything, even though he was sometimes.

 

And this is why I think Myles Farworth was smart, persistent, brave and a hero in the book, Men Of Iron. In the story, he went through a lot of good times, and hard times. He worked and trained hard to become a knight. All the work paid off and he defeated the older and more experienced knight.

 

Levi Harapnuik

 

Cue For Treason Book Report

 

He was running from a man that would never give up; running to escape prison or even death. The 267 page book, Cue For Treason, was written by Geoffrey Trease in 1940 and was published by Blackwell. I read the online version of this historical fiction from the University of Toronto archives. Reviewing the plot, characterization of Peter, and the things that I learned, we can conclude if this is a good book to read.

 

This is the story of very determined young man who would save the Queen’s life. Peter Brownwigg, a 14 year old boy, who lived in Cumberland, England at the end of the 16th century, was involved in a protest against a ruthless leader, Sir Philip Morton, who wanted to kill the Queen. During the protest, he threw a rock at Sir Morton and left behind a clue that could identify him. Peter ran from his village to escape the consequences of throwing a rock at a ruthless leader. He joined an acting group that preformed Shakespeare and used it as a way to hide from Sir Morton. Another “boy”, Kit, also joined the group to run from Sir Morton for different reasons. Amazingly enough, Peter, Kit, and the acting group tricked Sir Morton into thinking they were soldiers and brought Sir Morton and his men to justice.

 

Peter Brownwigg was normal looking 14 year old boy, but he wasn’t afraid to stand for what he believed. He was of average build, and could swim, climb and run like any other boy. When he set his mind to something, nobody could talk him out of it. For example, he and his family were trapped inside their house and his father told him to wait inside. He wanted to escape through a window and go get help and his father couldn’t talk him out of it. He didn’t respect authority of Sir Morton and his men. He once got free from a man who was taking him prisoner and knocked him out with a rock to escape from him. He didn’t show respect to anyone who was against the Queen.

 

This book made me realize three things that I never knew before. I learned that actors were only suppose to be male in this time period, and that surprised me. I also learned that it didn’t matter how old you were, the punishment was the same. There was no “easy out” if you were young. The last thing I learned from reading this book was that villages stood up for each other and it was like the whole village was a big family. I wish it was still like that in our world today.

 

Having looked at the plot, Peter’s character, and the things I learned, I have determined that it is a good book to read. It is full of adventure, doesn’t have dry, boring sections, and there are surprising turns in the story. Peter’s character of integrity makes this book appealing. It’s fun to learn about history in this way. If one likes historical fiction, this is an exceptional book to read.

 

Levi Harapnuik

 

Classifications Paragraph

 

From royalty, to popes, to common people, saints in the middle ages were often persecuted. Some saints were disrespected or even killed for what they believed. Duchess Elizabeth of Hungary and Sir Francis of Assisi were rich and ignored the people who harassed them and helped the poor and listened to what Got told them to do. Others, like Bernard of Clairvaux, were disrespected by their families, but also were able to reach out and changed many lives. Unfortunately, others like John Huss were burned at the stake because they wouldn’t stop preaching the truth and the Good News to the people. These Saints all had the same goal in mind, but achieved it in different ways because of the different times in history, countries and leaders. Although the middle ages was a very hard time for Christians, there were times where their ministries thrived and changed a lot of lives.’

 

Levi Harapnuik

 

 

 

Challenges of The Early Church

 

 

The early church faced challenges from without and within. Outside the church, some people and rulers like Caesar wanted to kill Christians and put them in prison just because of what they believed. This is what happened to people like Polycarp and Blandina. Rulers like Caesar even had arenas where they would throw Christians in a pit with wild beasts to be torn to pieces. Also, people from other religions kidnapped Christians, like in the story of Patrick, where they took him to their homeland to be a slave. The early church also faced challenges from within.  Some Christians tried to lead other Christian people away from the Bible and do things that the Bible didn’t say like in the story of Athanasius. A church leader named Arius said that God created Jesus and, therefore, Jesus was not equal than God. Athanasius said that from what the Bible says, they are equal. Those are some examples in how the early church faced challenges from within, and without.

 

Analogy Paragraph

Levi Harapnuik

March 28

 

 

The work of the wind moves a ship forward, while the work of the Holy Spirit moves a man forward. The wind can only blow one way at a time but by moving the sails, you can control the direction of the ship. The Holy Spirit worked in the same way with John Newton; it didn’t matter what kind of person he was or which way he was moving, towards or against God, the Holy Spirit will be able to turn him in the right direction. The Holy Spirit is like the wind in that you can’t physically see it, but you can see what it does. You can’t see the wind blowing, but you can see the effects of the wind filling up the sails and creating the waves in the ocean. Just like the wind can bring a ship to its breaking point, the Holy Spirit can do the same to a man such as John Newton. The Holy Spirit changed John Newton’s life from a slave trader to a minister.

 

Levi Harapnuik

 

A book report of Albrecht Durer

 

 

 

There once was a man of many talents. The book, The Story of Albrecht Durer, written by Joyce McPherson, tells the story of a man’s life in 110 pages. He was a man who lived as an artist from May 21, 1471 to April 6th, 1528. This version was written in 2001 and was published by Greenleaf Books, LLC. This essay shows a bit about his life, his art, and what we can learn from him.

Albrecht Durer was an artist who lived in Germany. His father was a goldsmith and at a young age, Durer became skilled at working with gold. Later on in life, he was an apprentice for other artists. He was married to Agnes Frey. She had a keen business since which helped him sell his art. Her father was also a successful goldsmith. Durer and Agnes didn’t have any children, but Agnes treated the young boys that Durer apprenticed like sons. Durer did paintings as well as engravings, woodcuts, drawings, and he also wrote several books.  He was a talented man.

The main point in this book was to tell the story of Albrecht Durer, not only about his life, but also his paintings. Durer was good at drawing and painting what he saw, but he was also good at transferring the visions in his mind into drawings. He was a Christian and that was shown in a lot of his work. A teacher of his, Herr Wolgemut, once said to him, “A true artist must know the scriptures if he would paint truly.” One of his drawings showed how he thought the Apocalypse was described in the Bible. He called the drawing, Knight, Death, and the Devil. In this drawing he couldn’t see it happening in real life; it had to come from what he imagined in his head.

 

Durer was an extraordinary man and was sometimes called “the Appelles of his day”. He was well known, but surprisingly quite humble and wasn’t arrogant like some other artists. At first he didn’t sign his paintings with his own name because he wanted the glory to go to God. Later, he signed only his initials. That shows no matter how talented one is, one can still be humble. Another thing we can learn from this book was something his father once told him, “The greatest artist is the Creator”.  He taught all his apprentices this lesson to help guide them through their artistic lives.

The Story of Albrecht Durer, tells the story of his life, his art, and what we can learn from him. He was skilled at a young age, and kept on getting better at what he did as he got older. He had a good imagination and was very good at putting those images from his mind onto paper. He was very talented, but also humble in his work. Although I don’t like reading about artists or about this time period, if one likes to read biographies about artists, this is a good one to read.

 

Dry Ice Fun

March 7, 2012

This is what happens when you mix dry ice, hot water, and a brave young youth leader.

School

December 1, 2011

Today, Mom and I went to a highschool to see what the courses were like and take a tour and stuff. I ended up staying the whole day. I guess you could call that my first day of school. Ever. It was pretty good. The students and teachers were nice and since I didn’t have to worry about tests, it was fun.

http://www.edmchristian.net/OurCampuses/seniorHighCampus.aspx

River Valley Trail

November 9, 2011

Here’s a video of a trail I found in the river valley near our house.