First and foremost, thanks to God for giving me the tools I needed to get to where I am now, keeping me safe and keeping me sane through the rough years, and for His many mercies in my life.
To my parents and extended family for always encouraging me in my musical and linguistic endeavours, for giving me a big kick in the arse when I needed it, and for always caring.
To Keith Clarke for nurturing my musical side, and to the Clarke household in general for being a massive help over the years. (Cheers to Andy for letting me use his horse trailer to move the reed organ!)
To Hans and Jannie Alderliesten for letting me into their house to use their reed organ and being so kind to me in all other aspects as well.
To the Blogg family for five excellent years in the School Band - Verla for being an awesome teacher who actually had a sense of humour, Trevor for being one of the best friends a guy could ask for, and Allison for just being Allison! :-p
To Mike Baker, wherever he's working now, I hope nothing but the best for you in your high-profile musical pursuits and I hope we actually meet up one of these days. 'Twas you who inspired me to continue with the electronic music business.
To the Senior Band Bunch - Trevor, Robin, Kirsten, Allyssa, Crystal, Jill, Jenn F., Juli O., Kevin, Vanessa, Andrea, Carey, Adam, Krissie, Nick, Brad, Chris N., Carlye, Janine, Jayne, Karen, Nikki, Julie d.V., Mark d.V., Beth, Kent, Brandy, Kim, Nicole, Kirsten, Rosalie, Cherie-Ann and anyone else I forgot - 2001 was the best Band year in Chemainus, EVAR! :D
To Steve, Shelam and Annie - the real regulars of the Christian group at CSS. God Bless you all!
To Mrs. Kelly, Mr. Gerbrandt, Miss Hitchen, and all the teachers at CSS that kept the Christian Group going.
To Mr. Marlin, whose infectious enthusiasm in linguistic endeavours rubbed off on me in a real hurry! :-p Sie sind so toll! :-)
To Mrs. Ruest, whose unorthodox and sometimes downright wacky teaching style made Grade 12 a year to remember and my marks go through the roof on the Provincials corresponding to her classes. You rule!
To Matt, Elena, Clare, Jonathan, Jackie and Angelika for making German fun to learn.
To the Johnsons, Brian and Debs, for mastering the Sarah Skeavington CDs and starting the Cafe.
To Kier for being Kier :-p And for all the footy chat. You should manage England. Seriously.
To Petri Kosunen for being a crazy, hilarious and downright lovable guy, an excellent musician and an even better photographer. Also, for introducing me to Cafe and to a few clubs' websites ;) Jumala varjelkoot!
To all the other cool peeps at Cafe - guys like Tek, Falcao, Nicci, Darren, Jamie, RT, and all the peeps who contributed to the Sarah Skeavington Project.
To the Skeavingtons for being an example to the world of determination, grace under fire, and especially in Sarah's case, of high spirits in times of great trials.
To Cody, Joan, Jen, Marty, Jared, Jordan, Mike, Tanya, Erik Lauder, Gordon, Scott McKay, Dan Bredefeld (I hope to God I spelt that right :-p), Gunn, thecanucker, Christine, Ben, lush, goodguy, Ted, and all the other cool peeps I met in my time at Sarke's Forum
To all the good, faithful people at Cobble Hill Baptist Church, Pastor Lech Bekesza and his family, the MacDougalls, the Fullers, the Willocks, the Whatmans, the Minkleys, the Clarkes, the St. Clairs, the Abbotts (an extra-special shout-out to Alexa-Rae for being there for me!) the Pauls, Len, Grace, the Stipkalas, the DeLanges, the Knolls, the Rathburns, the Monahans, The Smiths, the Sharetts, Ian and Nick Benson, the Siemens family, the Clarks, Cliff Clarke, The Kaleo gang, the Foskers (all three generations that attend that church ;-)), the Grays, anyone else who has passed through the hallowed halls of Cobble Hill, and an extra-special thank-you to Jabin, my best friend, one of the most amazing women I've ever met, beautiful in every way imaginable. God Bless your heart.
Props to Tielo, Rohit, Bhawan, Jason, Jag, Bikay, Joe, Cody, Kamal, Anit, Melissa, Chelsea, Erin, Steph Howdell, Steven Easton, Nick, Danielle, Kalen, Nicole Weibel, Tel Weibel (DU BIST VERRÜCKT!!), Derek, Robin, Michelle Lourenco, Alice, Ray, Crazy Eddie, Bri, Peyman, Kyliah, Steph Dawe, Molly, Shaehamange (God Bless!!), Dino, Zoe, Andrea, Yulja (Julia), Kevin, Ben Bisset, Gözde, Hornball Hugo (stop obsessing over Jabin, you gimp!! LOL), Onat, Laura, Hans (NEIN, DU BIST NICHT TOT!), Tim, Beth Vondette, Jolene, Kim, Alexis, Michelle, Clare, Yann, Rodna, Christina, Melissa Walder, Michelle Sekha, Erica, Briya, Sharika, Jimbo, Lubi, Bojan, Matt Wong, Nathan, Belvedere, the 403 bunch (Crist, Janet, Linda, Nora, Claire, Nic Welsh) and the 401 bunch (Nic, Andrew, Dolores, Janet, Nic Welsh), Becca, all the Linguistics people (special shouts out to Blazz, Gemma, Nate, Mark Pollard, and to Babi for the footy talk! GO PARAGUAY!) and all the other many, many cool people I've met through school - you know who you are!
To all the good profs I've had at UVic - Dr. Walker, Mmle. Taggart, Prof. Markham, Dr. Derksen, Mme. Daigle, Dr. Pollard, Profa. Lorenzi, Prof. Turner, Jonathan, Jackie, Dr. Bowman, Dr. Liddell, Dr. Littlewood, Dr. Schloss, Dr. Baraban, Dr. Nylvek, Dr. Saxon, Dr. McKercher, Tatemi, Dr. Gessner, Dr. Bird, Dr. Esling, Dr. Kirkham, and so forth.
To my twin in Christ, Steve Valleau, whose friendship I value so highly I would trade it for absolutely nothing. Shouts out to the Valleau family for being so cool.
To the people of St. Michael and All Angels Anglican Church in Chemainus, I love you all! Shouts out to their old reverends, Harry Costerton, Chris Stoker and Herbie Oldfield, and their families.
To the friends of our family - the Kuhnerts, the van Schaiks, the Kmets, the McKays, the Eatons, the Custs, Shirley Moore, the Henrys, and anyone else I forgot - the Banners and Sullivans, whose numbers cannot be counted, the Hydes, McKees and McKenzies from my mom's end, and all of my relatives in Canada, the USA, western Sweden, the UK, Ireland, and Germany - respect and love to all.
A big thank you to any of those people who have helped me and are helping me deal with my Asperger Syndrome.
Big-time props to JSS - Trevor, Bulldog, Jay, Mike and Rich - for being such cool people who seem so down to earth and yet rock everyone's ass off with their music, and to my fellow JSS fans for being so cool :D
To the producers at TranceAddict for being willing to review my pathetic attempts at trance :p Special shouts out to PDM, Nikolai, Bren-F and Icone.
Last but not least, to my late Aunt Dawn, for sowing the seeds that have grown to lead me as far as I've gone and will lead me down the path until the day I die. RIP 1948-1997.