Innovation at its best...

This amazing piece of machinery that you see before you is the next generation in gaming. Not PS3, Not XBOX360, but the Nintendo Wii. Wii is just a creative spelling of the word "we" that indicates "we the gaming community".

The day after the Wii came out I was over at a friend's house and he had gone to Target very early that morning to get a Wii. It was the most amazing thing I have seen in a long time. And there have been a lot of cool things that I have seen in gaming recently. Stellar graphics, amazing interfaces, incredible environment interaction, etc. But this takes the cake by far.

Imagine being able to pick up the sword and shield of the legendary Link from the classic Zelda games. Imagine swinging that sword at enemies in your path. Imagine holding up your shield and blocking blows from the enemy. Imagine playing a game and getting your daily exercise at the same time. What will happen to the good old days of lounging around on the couch playing games you say? They are gone with the winds as the Wii takes the gaming community by storm.

All the things I mentioned above are completely accurate. The two controllers used to play the Wii are gyroscopic, meaning they detect motion. This means that when you hold the Wii remote you may as well be holding Link's sword because it moves with your hand. And when you pick up the Wii chuck (the other side of the controller) you are picking up the shield of Link.

And this is just one of the incredible ways that this technology can be used. Also imagine playing tennis, or bowling, or golf simply by using the Wii remote.

The cababilities are virtually endless.

This my friends, is why Nintendo is making millions while Microsoft and Sony are barely breaking even.

We are witnesses of a drastic shift in gaming. Perhaps not in the fact that Nintendo is going to become the dominant force in the market, but this will certainly redefine the way that games are made. Prepare yourselves for the next generation in gaming.

And if you are convinced that games are the devil, read this blog that a friend of mine wrote.

For all the rest of you, I will see you on the other side ;)

sbombalicious

So I decided that it was high time to update my blog. And what better topic than one of the awesomest things that happened this summer. I am still kinda processing through some of the stuff that happened in Peru, so maybe I will put some of my thoughts about it as they come up. But anyways, that isn't the topic here.

If you aren't on Facebook or Myspace (or even if you are) you may or may not know that I have a girl now =D I met Lauren at InterVarsity spring conference in February and thought she was pretty cool. I got her email (which was a knee shaking experience) and we emailed a little bit and found out that we were both planning on going to Peru on the IV missions trip this past summer. So that was pretty cool. We emailed quite a bit and then went to IV chapter camp together in May which was pretty cool. At one point she invited me to be her "date" to her sister's wedding reception with (supposedly) no relationship strings attached. Which she realized later was not really possible. Inviting any friend to a wedding is kinda immediate strings attached lol. But anyways, I went and it wasn't nearly as awkward as I thought it would be.

Three days after said reception we both arrived in LA for training for Peru. The entire 5 week trip we did our absolute best to focus on what God wanted us to be doing there and not hanging out with each other as much as we really wanted to. I think we succeeded as well as can be anticipated. But anyways, about a week after we were both back at home I called her house and asked her dad permission to date her and he said yes =D And yeah I know that it is kinda wierd to ask dad about dating, but hey, when I am a dad I would totally think that was awesome so I did it anyways.

So we have been together almost 2 months of awesomeness now. My mom laughs at me when I am on the phone almost every night (she lives in Greeley - 1hr away). She laughed even more when the minute bill on my phone was like 2400 minutes for 1 month. For anybody curious that is like 36 hrs or something like that.

Ok so all of that is the main story. Now I'm going to go back to the title. Sbombalicious is a word I made up to describe the awesomeness of us. When I got the email about being invited to the wedding reception, I was texting one of my good friends and was trying to come up with a phrase that would adequately describe my emotions. What I came up with was

"sheiza-biscuits-of-the-mother-bloody-hell" where sheiza is basically the S word in another language lol but I can't do the special b looking letter to spell it right. So anyways, later on I decided to abbreviate it as SBOMB. Which I used a few times, but didn't quite capture the whole essence of the word. So later on I was trying to come up with another word, and my friend Tom came up with "biscalicious" which I thought was incredicaly awesome, but coutldn't quite capture the full meaning either - mostly just because he had come up with it and not me. So later on I realized that I could apply the same suffix to one of my own words, and sbombalicious was born - fit only to describe the awesomeness that is this gift that God has given me =D

Till next time (hopefully soon) peace...

New Website

After a week and about 6-7 hours with tech support I finally have my website up and fully functional. Yay!! I have some of my drawings up, some of the songs I have written/recorded, as well as some pictures from my Peru trip this summer. So feel free to take a looksy =D

http://www.masterofthesword.com

scary...

So I was just checking out the news and looked this story up. It particularly caught my attention because I just finished reading "Piercing the Darkness" by Frank Peretti. But here is a part of the article:

"But they [the woman's attorneys] said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her and was trying to save them from hell."

So I understand this is the media and they would never print anything like this, but I wonder how many people actually understand what most likely happened here. There is such a thing as demon-possession, the Bible states clearly many times that Jesus and His disciples cast demons out of people. Are we just trying to kid ourselves into thinking that that kind of thing only happened in Jesus day? Heck no!! After Jesus death Satan is working all the harder because he knows his time is limited. The battle is on. So are we going to realize that we are in spiritual warfare or just come up with more fancy names like "postpartum psychosis" so that people think it is just a medical thing? Seriously, I bet even alot of Christians believe that crap.

Oh so yeah the connection to "Piercing the Darkness" is that in that book a woman had drowned her only child in a bathtub because of a demon possessing her. So yeah it was just kinda jarring to realize that that kind of thing (even the same exact situation) doesn't just happen in novels.

Anyways, I think I am done venting for now. This blog definately started off as a more informative thing, and definately turned into more of a rant about people being naive. So yeah I'm done.

Back in Colorado

So after a 5 week adventure, I finally got back to Colorado at about 10:30 on Friday night. It was a really intense experience and I have more stories than I can count. I have pretty much told stories to my folks non-stop since I got back and there is no way I have gotten through more than a sixth of them. As I remember some of them I will try to post some of the cooler ones. Don't expect all of them though. If you want some more general stories you can check out the journals that I wrote during the trip. They are all up on http://www.urbana.org/feat.trek.2006.cfm?recordid=767 on the right side where it says "Journals." If you haven't checked them out yet you should. But anyways, I am slowly recovering my sleep and energy. I am back at work today, although there is still nothing for me to do :( Oh well, I won't complain too much. I see it as a little more of a blessing to have my job after helping people sort recycled trash (that's how some of the people we were with make money). I am still trying to figure out what all happened to me, but I trust that God will be faithful and show me things that I learned when I am ready to see them.

I am also working on a small scrap book of some of the cooler pictures. I figure not everyone wants to see all 600+ of the pictures they gave us. So Hopefully I will have that together soon, and maybe if I can find somewhere to put it I will have on online version, but don't get your hopes up. Anywho, ta for now.

2 days until Peru =D

Well on Monday I will be flying to LA to meet up with the team that I will be going down to Peru with. For those of you I haven't talked to, I am going on a 5 week missions trip to Lima, Peru with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. I am really looking forward to it (although I am still not packed yet).

But anyways, if you would like to follow what is going on there will be periodic journal updates (and I think pictures as well) posted on www.globalurbantrek.org under the "Peru" link. So feel free to check that out. Anyways, I appreciate all of your prayers and look forward to being in Peru for the next five weeks. Tata =D

the man next door....

So I got attacked by the hair-eating-lawnmower today. During my time of mourning this afternoon, my loss was so great that I felt I needed to express my loss in the form of a song. If you would like to listen to a poorly recorded and intentionally poorly sung version of it, here ya go... the lyrics are below.

Ok I got the mp3 to work finally. Somehow geocities doesn't allow outside links for the mp3 I had uploaded. So you have to go to this temporary page and then you can play it.

The Man Next Door

Last Tuesday started off like any other
Went to work and then came home
But when I got out of my car
I was attacked by the most fearsome of beasts
See the man next door was trimming his lawn
And he sicked his lawnmower on me
It went straight for my head
And took all my hair clean off

So in righteous self-defense I attacked him right back
Gave him a black eye or two
And then took a buzzer to his head
And left him as bald as I

Now unfortunately he had a cell phone
Called 911 right quick
I tried to explain, but ol’ sheriff Blane
Would have none o’ my lip
He said I was delusional
And had gotten a haircut that day
But in a saddened state at the loss of my hair
I attacked my very innocent neighbor

He said in a rage I attacked the man next door
Gave him a black eye or two
And then took a buzzer to his head
And left him as bald as I

Now the moral of this story
Is that when you get your hairs cut
Make sure your neighbors aren’t out trimmin the lawn
Or the men in white coats will come find you

this present darkness....

If you have not read "This Present Darkness" by Frank Peretti, well, you should. This is probably one of my favorite books ever. I am reading through it again when I don't have anything to do at work. I think what strikes me about this book is just the shear power of it. The intensity of how he describes things is just above almost every other book I have ever read. Even at work where there are other people around and it is extremely bright, I can't help but get a little scared.

If you haven't read the book I will attempt to not spoil it. But in one of the parts I just read, the legions of demons (no rhyhm intended) are attacking two people in force. They both handle the situations very differently, but just the intensity of the darkness and the opression that Peretti brings into the book... I usually feel pretty safe at work, but I started reading through that part and it was honestly like the walls were closing in a little bit and the lights got a little dimmer.

At the same time though, the sections about the angels give me goosebumps. After reading about the mighty warriors and their desire to fight, I am left with a longing to just leap into the spiritual realm and kick some demon butt.

Every time I read this book, it just seems more and more powerful in its message. I have a hard time putting it down - though occasionally not putting it down late at night has been a bad call lol.

Anyways, I am going to go back to reading now.

The Can Strikes Back...

So last night I was helping my mom finish making dinner - taco salad. She needed me to cut up the black olives to throw in there. So I was cutting up olives and then the unthinkable happened... I must have slammed the can down a little bit hard and pissed it off, because it suddenly sprouted a little sharp pokey thing that stabbed my finger the next time I reached in the can! Needless to say, the next episode will be The Revenge of the Ninja, where the can is thrown into the endless pit that is the trash can - to be crushed into oblivion for all time.

something to do with the date?...06-06-2006

So I meant to post this last night but it was way too hot upstairs where the computer is, so I went downstairs and watched Firefly instead. But this is a recount of my day, and you can decide whether to attribute it to the date or not.

It started out fairly simply with me running out of shampoo. I had to use some of the other stuff in the shower, which is unfortunately rather smelly.

Then I went to work and did absolutely all morning because all of my bosses were busy trying to fix a very unusual problem that sort of cropped up overnight and they couldn't figure out why it had worked the day before and then just stopped. So all that to say they were too busy with other things to have time to find stuff for me to do.

Also unfortunately, Caleb just happened to be sick and not come to work yesterday, so I didn't even have anyone to entertain me when I was bored.

This is where the wierd stuff starts...

So then I went to lunch, and was planning on going to McDonalds. But on my way there I swear it was like a demon convinced me to go to Taco Bell instead. I was going straight to McDonalds and then my hands were totally like..."Nope! U-turn!!" and straight back to Taco Bell. I was still planning on getting something cheap, but somehow managed to spend like 5 bucks instead of the 2-3 I was planning.

So then I went back to work and messed around with a 4-Dimensional Rubik's cube for a while. That was crazy. But I swear someone was looking over my shoulder the whole time.

So then I went home and played guitar for a while, but the darkness of the basement seemed to creep in on me. It was wierd. It was like the brightness of my music was the only thing keeping the shadows at bay.

When it was time for the whole family to go to see a movie I was relieved to get out of the basement. We went all to Elvis to see Inside Man. We sat there in the dark and waited. Finally, 10 minutes after it was supposed to start the film started to roll. And then 5 minutes later stopped rolling. There was some strange screaming from the back that on a normal day might have sounded like cussing, but today sounded like creatures from the deep come to torment us. After another 20 minutes they finally came out and told us that the film had come unfed and for some strange reason yet unkown to them, their mechanic guy had dissapeared. So we got free passes and left the theatre.

Since we were already up north we tried to visit my mom's parents. They were mysteriously not at home either.

When we finally got back to our house it was like everything was just wrong. My mom was reading into things too much and was grumpy and my dad was strangely silent and didn't want to watch Firefly with me. Everything was in turmoil. I retreated to the basement to watch Firefly, and again my thought process was tormented into choosing a different episode to watch than I had initially intended. As I watched I felt alone in the dark. And there seemed to be an extraordinary amount of the little DVD bugs where it stops for a brief second and you aren't sure whether you really just saw what you think you did.

Finally when it was around 10:30 it was cool enough upstairs to try to get some sleep I got ready for bed. I walked into my room where there was not a light on. The shadows seemingly groped at me as I walked to my bed. I laid down but had only closed my eyes for a brief moment when suddenly... I fell asleep.

Now comes the moment of truth. Was this just absolute paranoia, actual strange things happening because of the day, or just a skillfully written over-dramatization of my day =D

If you answered the last, you win! I don't know what you win, just something - not from me. Yeah I really had a pretty average day. The only abnormal thing that happened was that the movie broke at the theatre. I just firgure I should write something about the date and how absolutely nothing happened lol.

Roots...

From May 15-20 I was at Bear Trap Ranch for an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship retreat. It was really great. I was in the "chapter leaders" track where we learned how to more effectively lead our fellowships on our campuses.

One of the things that really struck me on the second day was when we talked about character. Character was defined as "what you do when no-one is looking." With this in mind we talked about how character is alot like tree roots. You rarely see the roots of trees but they are a deep network that holds the tree steady and keeps it from falling down. The same goes for character. People rarely see it, but it is what keeps you standing tall.

The full force of this metaphor struck me later as I thought more about it. Trees can be burnt in a fire, and they can grow back if they have a deep enough roots structure. And the biggest thing that struck me was that tree roots never stop growing. In other words as I grow in my faith as a person, I should never stop trying to develop my character.

I am still not sure how you exactly "develop character" but however you do it I know I need to try.

if i had 5.5 grand laying around....

I would not buy a segway. However, if I had alot more money laying around and didn't miss 5.5 grand I might actually look into getting one.

There was a group from the local segway dealer demoing the things at Mines today and I got to try one out. It was in actuality pretty cool. I kept trying to compensate for it though. Like if I was riding a bike or something you have to turn your body a little. And you kinda do with this, but differently. I think I could have gotten used to it pretty quick, especially if I had gotten to ride it for more than like 5 minutes. Oh well it was still fun.

But I still don't plan on buying one. Way too much money. And I value my agility a little to much. For example if a segway is coming at me I can dodge a little easier. Someday when a segway can instantly side-step I might be more likely to buy one.

I strangely have the urge to be violent....

I just read an article on slashdot about Jack Thompson talking about the new game Oblivion. That man...ugh!! One of the comments on the article pretty much sums up my feelings... "Video games don't make me fell violent, morons do." I don't think I could have said it better myself. I don't know if this guy just wants political attention and is only partially moronic, or if he was just born completely without a brain. So maybe some video games take violence a little too far, and they should be rated accordingly, but this guy doesn't even do founded research. He claims stuff about video games and tries to use gaming language like "mod" for modification, and really has no idea what a mod is. *sigh* I think I need to go play an extremely violent video game for a while so that I don't take my rage out on people in the real world. Course maybe I should do something in real life, then maybe there might be a little more basis for him to make claims against. UGH!! Yup I can definately agree with the fact that morons make me more violent than video games. Case and point.

Something more...

So yesterday was my last day of classes for the semester. I still have finals that start on Monday, but all the classes are done. Today I spent doing absolutely nothing. And honestly, it kinda sucked. I used to love doing nothing. Doing nothing was my dream after a long week of school. Just kick back and play games all day long Saturday. Well, I didn't want to do that today. I did anyway though, because I didn't really have anything else to do. And after doing it, I kinda wished that I had found something to do. Anything, just not sitting around all day doing nothing.

I don't know if "lonely" is the right word. I might have thought it was last week after I spent all of my Saturday doing nothing, but I think maybe I am starting to get a new perspective of it now. I think it is just "worthlessness." I think I just feel like I wasted an entire day that I could have been doing something better. Something more.

I think it comes down to the fact that God is shaping me. I am turning into someone different than the shy freshman kid that kinda kept to himself and really liked his private time on Saturday's playing games. I think that God is beginning to turn me into someone who doesn't want to sit around on his butt all day doing nothing, but someone who wants to be out there living life - but most of all, living life for the kingdom.

I saw part of "You've got Mail" within the past 4 months. There is a line in that movie that has haunted me. Meg Ryan's character says "So many things I do in life remind me of something I read in a book or saw in a movie, but shouldn't it be the other way around?" I think it is beginning to hit me why that haunts me. I don't want to live my life like that. I don't want to sit around for the rest of my life like I did today and watch like 4 movies in a row. I would rather be out doing something. I don't even know what, just something. Something more. I think it is funny, at one point I kinda asked God to stop making me grow, because I was tired of growing. Well, I think I have decided that no growth sucks. No growth equates to sitting around on my butt watching movies weekend after weekend, and I think I am just about tired of it.

Anyways, I think this blog is a little too long. So I will stop there. And maybe I should get a little sleep.

fire...

so i am not quite as much of a pyro as a few of my friends, but i still have a pretty deep fascination with fire. it is just so amazing. water is pretty cool too, but fire is definately the coolest.

given my liking of fire, metaphors with fire in them have always struck me pretty hard. particularly ones that relate fire to my faith. e.g. being on fire for God, refiners fire, etc.

well a couple weeks ago at church, pastor Jim was teaching from Romans 12, that talks about being a living sacrifice. and the way he described it just really ripped at my heart.

he was talking about what being a living sacrifice would look like physically speaking (not metaphorically). he said that you would be on the altar, and that the wood would be lit and you would start squirming and trying to get off because it would be hot and all your physical sense would be telling you to get off.

after making that point he said that what God is calling us to here, is to chose to be on the altar. to climb up onto it of our own free will and offer our bodies as a sacrifice to God. obviously not that he wants us all to burn ourselves alive but you get the point.

well i thought that was a pretty cool image about what God asks of us, but what he said next was what really hit me the hardest. he said something along the lines of "if you are truly on the altar and on fire for God, people will be drawn to you just to watch you burn. they will come as close as they can and hold their hands out to catch the heat coming off you." immediately something in my heart just cried out that i longed to be like that. i realized that one of the deepest longings of my heart is to be truly on fire for God, but in the same token it dawned on me what the cost of that would be.

i just now thought about it, but it seems like this is the case in real life too. when there is a fire going everyone just seems to be drawn to it. conversation may or may not cease, but everyones eyes just go to the fire. its like its a homing beacon for the eyes. everyone is just mesmerized and transformed by the fire. i think that it would be the same for spiritual fire. people will just be transfixed by the beauty and the mystery of the flames.

Science and God

This blog was partially inspired by an article on Tim's Blog. He was talking about this article which talks about a new fossil that scientists claim disproves religion yet again. I had actually read this article on slashdot and there was ALOT of discussion about it. Some of the people's comments just really made me sad. One particular comment that just really hurt me was a guy that was ranting about how no sane person - in particular most of the smart, educated people that frequent slashdot - could possibly believe in God. According to him religion was disproven by Darwin over a hundred years ago and those of us that still hold to it have no excuse but insanity and we needed to read a book by someone other than a creationist to see that God really didn't exist.

Well, all of this really strikes me deeply, being a scientist. And this whole topic of science vs God has been something that I have really been struggling with. One of the things that has really helped me along this path is a book by Lee Strobel called "Case for a Creator". Unfortunately I haven't had a whole lot of time to read it as of late, but what I have read so far is truly incredible.

It has really helped me see science in a completely different light. While most people (non-christians in particular, but many christians as well) believe that the two are very separate and non-compatible. Science disproves of God and any smart scientist knows that God cannot possibly exist. Like that guy on slashdot said, science disproved God long ago.

Well, with God and Lee Strobel's help I see this all alot differently. Studying science is an amazing way to really dig into all of the amazing things that God has made. Right now I am in a circuits class, and just the way that electricity behaves blows my mind. I mean I understand it, but I also know that there is no possible way that all of the properties of electricity just kinda made themselves up by natural selection. The more I learn about science and the way the world works, the more I am simply taken aback by God's creativity. I firmly believe that God gave man science as a gift so that he could reveal himself to us in entirely new ways. After learning about circuits it is like seeing a whole new dimension of God.

Now I haven't looked up the statistic officially, but I seem to remember reading something somewhere that said that almost 50% of leading scientists today are creationists. Again don't quote me on that, but whatever the statistic is far far higher than the media would like you to think. According to Strobel, as leading science makes more discoveries, it is far more proof of intelligent design than of evolution. Modern science is not moving towards disproving God.

With all of this in mind, I don't believe that science can ever prove the existence of God. I believe that that would destroy my faith because it would remove faith from the picture. I do however believe that science can give us a more complete picture of God's creativity, and see that our universe is far too ordered and complex to possibly have come about without a creator.
I have lots and lots of thoughts about this running around in my head, but many of them aren't organized or pertain to this particular blog, so I think I will be done now. But as a final thought, if you are interested at all in this whole debate, I would highly recommend "Case for a Creator".

Spring Break

So my Spring Break was just about as good as any other school week. I spent the first 5 days of it sick with a nasty virus, and the next 5 trying to recover all of the energy that had been sapped from me while I was trying to fight off the virus. Unfortunately I was not the only one that was sick as my computer came down with a virus at the same time. So my computer at home is now non-functional. The up-side is that I have easy access to computers at work and school. So it won't be too much of a hassle.

The other note is that the Muslim [this should be Mormon, but I think I had just watched Kingdom of Heaven the day before or something so I didn't notice when I wrote it. But thought I would leave it in because it was a funny mistake] guys are coming back over this afternoon. They came by once two weeks ago, and stayed for almost 2 hours. I am not sure I am really up to talking to them today, but I trust that I will be by the time they come over later. I think the thing that is most noticeably different in what they believe (from what I have learned so far) is that they believe that it was necessary for Adam and Eve to fall in order that they could have children. If that is the case then God would have given them two commandments - one of which they would be required to break in order to keep the other. I just thought that was interesting. More thoughts later.

The last hour...

So I just spent the last hour talking to two guys from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I have rarely felt so much spiritual warfare going on. Even as we talked I could almost feel the twisting that entered into what they were saying. I do not know what the twisting is, which is what I now want to find out, but I could feel it.

Right after they left I was overcome with a desire to cleanse the house spiritually. I felt like I needed to fight for the purity of my house.

They left me with a copy of the book of Mormon. I am tempted to hurl it from my house to make sure that no spirits attached to it can remain it my house. However, I think I am going to keep it. I am also overcome with a desire to fight this. Or to let God fight it through me. I desire to help the two guys who came here. I want to help them see the truth.

I wanted to make sure that I got my first impressions written down. I trust that God will protect my faith as I ask questions, but I want to make sure that my first impressions are not tainted later.

Instead of feeling a peace about what they were saying. I felt like little worms were trying to eat at the foundation of my faith. I did not feel as if truth was being revealed to me. I felt like truth was being preverted and twisted inside my soul. That alone tells me that what they say is false.

I think that they are going to be coming back next Friday. By then I pray that I will have truth to give them. More later.

Sky Diving...kinda...

So I was having trouble coming up with a good title. I didn't really like just saying "Peru" because that's way too boring. However, at first I left the title as "[Insert creative title here]". As I started actually writing the main part of the blog, I found a better title. Well the catch is that you have ot read the rest of the blog to figure out what the title is *evil grin*. Of course if you read this far you were most likely planning to read the rest anyway, but that is not the point.

Anyways, I have officially decided that I am going on a missions trip to Peru this summer. We will be going to Lima for 4 weeks and serving people in the slums there. The trip is through Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship (which I am pretty heavily involved in). If you have read the last blog I put up, this was one of those things that I felt God was calling me to and hadn't really said yes to yet. Well I finally decided that I was going to say yes.

wait for it....the title is coming...

I don't quite know how to describe the feeling other than I feel like I just jumped off a cliff without a chute. FINALLY!! I have never gone skydiving, but I think that I have now experienced enough of it to decide that I don't really need to go in real life. Maybe I will some day, but I don't know. So yeah I think that this is quite possibly the scariest thing I have ever done. I mean I grew up as a missionary kid so I know about living in foreign countries, but somehow this is so far different that it shouldn't even be compared.

The best way I can think of to describe how I'm feeling is a quote from Armagedon. Now I apologize it has been a little while since I saw it, I don't think the quote will be exact, but it should still carry the meaning. Oscar(Owen Wilson): "I've got that excited scared feeling. It's like 98% scared, 2% excited. Or maybe 98% excited, 2% scared. That's what makes it so intense, you don't really know." So there ya go. A terribly quoted line to attempt to explain my feelings about Peru.

I think that's all for now. I'm at work so I should probably actually do something.

spring conferenxe..

So I just noticed that I typoed conference, but I thought it was funny so I left it. Anyways, this last weekend I spent up in Boulder at CU at Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship's Sprin Conference. I have had a couple people ask me how it was, and I am really not sure how to respond.

When we were getting ready to leave, Ryan was talking about what we could do with what we learned. And he said that when we go home and were asked how the conference was, we could say "oh it was good" or we could say "it was life changing". And that is really grinding on me. I would like to say that it was life changing, and I have no doubt that it could be, but it comes down to me. I feel very not ready to do the things that Jesus is asking me to do.

I could go ahead and talk about all the things I learned while we were there, but I don't think it would make much difference unless I continue to practice what it is that I learned. In order for it to truly be life changing, I have to decide to say yes to what I feel I am being called to. And that is a scary thing. I know what I want to do, but part of me is holding back and I know that these are not things that I can do half-heartedly.

So once again my faith comes down to my choice whether or not to follow Christ. I think the decision is pretty obvious, but that doesn't make it easy.

Those are my thoughts so far on Spring Conference. Little different than I was thinking they would be when I started typing them, but I think that pretty much defines what my weekend has left me with.

guitar...

Ok so there are alot of things I have to say today, and I was hainvg alot of trouble deciding which should go first so I decided that they should go chronologically.

On Friday I picked up my gorgeous new Ibanez Acoustic Electric guitar. It has to be the prettiest guitar I think I have ever seen. I would say this feeling is a very dimmed reflection of how parents always think their kids are the cutest, but if you thought my guitar wasn't pretty you would just be wrong. Ergo why it is a dimmed reflection. So off to the right you will see a picture of my guitar. The picture truly doesn't do it justice. It is far more pretty, particularly the sides and the back (which are a very cool blend of the colors you see on the head of the guitar (blackish and orangeish)). So I am very excited and if I hadn't been gone all weekend (see next blog) I would probably have blisters on every single one of my fingers on my left had and possibly on the right hand as well (from picking).

Cookies..

So I have been trying to not post too much because I have all these ideas for stuff I could blog on, and in an effort to not blog like 2 times a day I realized that I haven't blogged at all lol. So anyways, tonight (in like 20 mins) I am gonig to go pass out cookies to the Freshmen in the dorms. We are going to be doing it weekly from now on, and it is a blast.

The first time we went I was very hesitant about doing it because I had so much to do and was just generally not enthusiastic about going. I am not exactly what you might call a gifted evangelist. So I have a fear of going out and evangelizing because I don't think I am good at it. Well I can say now that I don't think I will miss it again unless I absolutely have to.

I think another thing I will say about it is that is has totally shattered my previous thoughts about outreach and evangelism. I think most of my old visions and thoughts on evangelism were centered around walking up to someone and saying "Hey do you know about Jesus?". Well fortunately for me that is not what it is always supposed to be like. Obviously that has its place, but to me it is so much more powerful to just love people with no strings attached.

Another thing I have envountered that I did not expect was a good response from people. I also had a vision in my head of just being flat out rejected and door slammed in face when doing outreach stuff. So it was completely foreign to me when people were actually enthusiastic about getting a cookie. And the thing that totally blew me away was that last week one of the guys we gave a cookie to said "Dude christians are awesome! You take out trash (FCA goes around and takes peoples trash out every week) and bring cookies!" That just amazed me since it seems so ingrained in me that people should be hating us and reacting negatively to what we are doing.

I think that taking cookies around has honestly had as much of an effect on me as it has on the freshmen we bring cookies to. It far more life giving to me to give cookies to people than I ever thought it could be.

I could probably go on for another page or so about cookie night, but I actually have to get going now so that I am not late to cookie night =D

something different...

So I just got back from worship =D There a few folks here at Mines that have decided that they really want to focus on unity between the christian groups on campus. So they have organized several inter-group worship/prayer nights. The first one was called this, the second one was called that, and this one was called something different. Hows that for creativity. I have been to all three so far, and they have all been slightly different, but all happened to be exactly what I needed at the time.

Tonight I think I just need to be at peace in God's presence. All of the loads of school are starting to pile up and I am beginning to become overwhelmed with all of the things that I have to do. I mean I could go on for about 5 minutes about all the different things I have to do in the next two weeks and it is really starting to weigh heavily on me.

So I think that tonight was just really essential for me to simply rest in the arms of my creator. I feel now that I can trust that he will get me through the next few months when all my eyes can see is heavy burdens and little sleep.

Moviegoing...

So I am at work with nothing to do. I tried writing this particular blog yesterday, but I forgot to save before I went to look at something else really quick and deleted my post. *sigh* oh well. I will just have to write it again.

Anyways, the reason for this post is to hopefully help you avoid seeing a movie that is not worth seeing. Couple weeks ago I went and saw Underworld Evolution with some friends. Afterwards I wrote a review on christiananswers.com This is how it went...

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Let me say up front (so that you don't have to read my whole review to get this) that I am old enough to be living out of the house and seeing whatever movies I want. For those of you who still live with your parents and have to fight to see R-rated movies, save your breath. If you ever get exceptions (your parents let you watch R-rated movies) save those exceptions for much better movies. This one isn't worth it. <-- I'm guessing none of you have this problem, but I thought it was kinda a funny thought anyways

About the movie, let me first say that I loved Underworld. That movie had action and a good plot in a very classy way. Unfortunately, that tradition was not continued it its sequel. Underworld: Evolution was grossly overdone. There were two very gratuitous sex scenes. And I'm talking gratiutous. For those of you who have seen Matrix: Reloaded - one of the scenes was much like that except that the camera wasn't zoomed out. The other scene in Underworld: Evolution had pretty much full nudity and was just kinda sickening.

But wait there's more. The gore in this movie was just excessive. Up until last night I could say with pretty solid confidence that Passion of the Christ was the goriest movie I had seen. I can still say that, but not with as much confidence. I think that the thing that bugged me the most about all the sex and gore was that it was completely unecessary. There are movies that I have seen that need gore and sex to get the story across - Passion needs gore to get its point across; and Troy kinda needs one sex scene (only one mind) to create the problems with Helen of Troy. Underword: Evolution, however, did not need them. It could have been extremely well done like its predecessor, and done just as well without the gore and sex.

I think the only reason I stayed through the whole movie was so that I could with certainty say that I had watched the whole movie, and also say with certainty that there wasn't much at the end that redeemed the gore and sex. I had high expectations of this movie, and I am sorry to say none of them were met. Avoid this one and go rent Underworld.

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I would also like to add to that what one of the other reviews said: "It is a cheap, degrading, tacky, predictable, and poorly-made sequel to a much better movie."

Hopefully this will help you stay away from a not so good movie. Anyways, that's all for now.

Rethought...

So, after talking to a friend I have started to think a little more about what I am trying to accomplish. I realized I am not sure really. I felt like I wanted to be more real with people, I read (present tense there not read as in like I did it once) Tim's Blog and see the kind of stuff that he writes about and I thought it sounded like a good tool so I just did it.

I find that I do that alot. I get an idea and I know that if i don't jump on it right away it might not happen. The flip side to that is that alot of the time I am very much a person who likes to think things through before I do them. Which leads to too much thinking and too little doing. So somehow I need to find a balance in there. So that I can have some planning, but still actually do it at some point.

All that to say that I still want to stick to my initial reasons for creating the Blog, but I need to pray alot more about what I want to accomplish and how I want to do it.

Just a few thoughts I thought I would throw down so that I can put off doing my homework for a little while longer....

Some other cool stuff

Ok so I wanted to keep this separate from the first post since I was planning on linking that one so people would know why I chose the name. So now on to some normal stuff. I will hopefully end up with about half intesne posts and half just fun posts.

First off: SON OF A BISQUIT!!

For those of you who have never heard me say that, well you can blame Tim. I'm not sure how it started, but there it is. I have been saying that kinda as my cussing replacement for about a year now, and I have never heard anyone else say it (outside my circle of friends). That is until last week. I was in the weight-room for weight lifting (wow...thats deep) with my roomate. We were just getting ready to start our workout, when out of the darkness echoes a strong and clear voice "SON OF A BISCUIT!" I turned around and looked, but there was no face to put to the outburst. So I will have to simply know that there are others like me without actually knowing who they are.

Second off:

I am a creative person. I draw, I write songs, but the main thing I am getting at is that occasionally I work on a short story that I started many years ago. So if you happen to find points in my posts where it all of a sudden becomes very descriptive and story like, I apologize. i.e. the part about about the voice echoing - stuff like that.

Third off: Hmm....

Well I can't really think of a third off. But I will save you all from more of my randomness.

The Reason for the Desert

*does crazy first post dance*

Let me first apologize that sometimes my wierd side comes out a little stronger in text (as is evident above). If you can get past that hopefully you will enjoy some of my thoughts.

Let me start by explaining why I want to do this. I have just felt very strongly lately that I am called to be real. I'm not sure when I started feeling it exactly, but I have started feeling it more and more strongly as the weeks have progressed. The first time I remember feeling it, was when I was having a conversation with an old friend. He had been to a foreign country and said he liked it so much better than in the US because people were more real there. For some reason God just started pulling at my heart because of that.

As I contemplated that more and more, I realized that it's true. We as Americans are afraid to be open with people. We hide behind masks. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I don't want to be like that. So I have been asking God alot about what that would look like in my life. And he continues to show me ways that I can be more open with people. As Jesus says in Luke 8: "For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open." That just continues to speak to me that there is not much that I should be hiding about myself.

So through that call that I have felt, I have had a strong longing to just bare myself to people. Now I will also say that I don't think there has been anything scarier that I have embarked on it my life. Being vulnerable to people is a really scary thing. Especially people you might not know very well. But there it is, tugging at my heart. A desire to allow people into my head, even with all the darkness that lives there.

So if you will, embark on a journey with me, to a place where we as a people can be real with each other.

Hmm....ok so that last bit was a little much. So maybe I shouldn't be a speach writer.

But all that said, I feel like I would like to share with you the metaphorical desert of my very real brokeness, where the only life comes from the living water of Christ.