Let the photos begin

Well, I got my new camera and I love it!
Here are a few shots I got today just messing around. Right when I got it I went outside to take some shots. Later tyler, sam, natalie and I went to CBU to play some tennis. After our rigorous games I picked up the camera again while the others played around. Here are some of my things (click on them for a larger view) ...

my car


my front "yard"


my ball


CBU's net


me


my glasses/raquet/reflection

Life

Here's what is going on in my life right now:

-- Tomorrow is my last day leading music at Mag. Steve Brown has been hired to take the position and run with it. I am really excited to see what he does with it. That pretty much summs up my feelings about it - I'm excited.

-- In 7 days I fly home for my sister's graduation. She's graduating from High School (kinda weird). I'll be in Fresno for 5ish days. I'm pumped to be with family for a while. Believe it or not, but this is sort of my vacation this summer - I'm taking time off work and going into an unscheduled schedule.

-- I'll fly home from Fresno on Wednesday morning, get picked up by an ISP teammate, re-pack a bag, then leave for 3 weeks in the Carribbean Wednesday night. I'm super pumped about going (obviously), but nervous about the ministry aspect. I know it's unconventional to say that before a trip, but I'm trying to be honest. We don't know a ton about what we're doing there ministry-wise and I'm scared it will revolve around kids. That's not the mission trip I necessarily want. Some team members are stoked on it, but not I. It is here where I need to trust God that He placed me on this team for His purpose and step out in faith on that. Overall, not a bad place to be.

-- All us roomates (minus the phantom Curtis) talked about our bill/rent paying system. We have a good plan, and the conversation came down to - we all need to be honest with each other and communicate well. I'm blessed to have the roomates I have, and am excited to deveop deeper relationships with them.

-- Whitney is gone for a couple months. I was fine before she left. I focused on her cool ministry opportunity, and the fact that (Lord willing) we will have a long time to be together. Now I am not so ok. I'm not depressed or suicidal (don't worry mike). I'm just experiencing lonliness. I want to learn how to turn lonliness into something productive, like: study (either reading or actual studying something), or working out (pushups, running, cycling), or even worship (any thoughts?). I'm learning to pray differently too - not sure how, will update.

-- When I return from St. Vincent I'll have a totally re-vamped roll at church. I'm almost immediately shifting from High School Associate / Contemporary worship leader to college minister. There's some High School stuff still lingering for the summer, but basically my focus is making the jump. College minister - I'm intimidated. Here I am again in the spot of needing one to support me, fill me, guide me, impart wisdom ... (this could get long). My faith is being stretched even more. Despite the fear, I still thank God for putting me here in the first place - here where I am nudged (if not more) to rely on Him. The only way to fail is to ignore the nudge and go solo.

-- I think I'm at one of those reflective moments in life, like life in general. Where am I heading? What does the next 10 years look like? Who (more like when) will I marry? Money? Job? A reflective moment, only it's not a moment, it has been a while; hence this long post labeled "life." Life... (sigh). I don't want to mess up what God wants me to do, but, embarrassingly and regretably, there are times I'm not seeking what He wants me to do. Hopefully this reflective time leads me to the pursuit of He who is my guide for life.

Overall, things are OK. I miss Whitney, but am excited for life. Someone reminded me recently that I have one major thing going for me right now, and that is time. Time is on my side. If I live to be 80, then I've only lived 1/4 of my life. 3/4 are lying in front of me, waiting.

I'm not sure how to end this one - sorry if you read to here and are disappointed that I didn't have another great 'scaring my roomate' story. This one is probably one of those "just for me" posts that I may look back in a while and recall this pericope of life. I know that isn't the right word (my life is not Scripture), but I never use it so thought I'd throw it around a little. So, here's the end of the post: bland and mediocre. Go Ducks.

Sniper

So I've entered into the arena of e-bay snipers today. My mission to snipe a Canon XTi 10.1 Megapixel digital SLR camera was sucessful, thus confirming my masculinity. For those of you who are unaware of this technique called sniping, let me introduce you.

An e-bay sniper is one who watches an item as the auction is about to close. With minutes (or in my case seconds) left, the sniper will place a bid rendering the competition paralyzed due to lack of response time. Some call it trick-theivery but not I. I call it "playing the game." Don't hate the player...

I basically purchased this brand new, never opened camera for just under $100 less than I could have bought it at Costco, and just under $200 from BestBuy (including what I payed for shipping). All in all, it was a good hunt. Pictures will follow...

She's gone

Well, Whitney left me for Turkey today. Her family and I drove to LAX and hung out for a couple of hours before her and the 6 people she traveled with had to go to their gate. I'm doing pretty ok right now. I'm excited for the chance for her to live overseas for an extended period. She'll be there for almost 3 months. I think it will be an awesome time for God to shape her and work through her. I'm excited to hear about the things He does there.

On the other hand, I will miss her a lot. I think I'm going to learn just how much I appreciate her this summer because I'm not going to have her around.

I'm almost positive that I'm going to take up a new hobby (starting immediately) to preoccupy me while she's away. I'm going to buy a camera and take up some photagraphy stuff. I just bought a video camera, but am rethinking that purchase. I think hard disk video cameras are going to advance a lot in the next year or so leaving my camera in the dust. I'm gonna put it on ebay and use the money to invest in a Digital SLR. Living with two photographers helps too. Hopefully they'll teach me some stuff and I can develop quickly. Check out Trever and Tyler Hoehne's blogs - they're listed in my friends column. They are great photographers and I'd love to learn how to do some of that stuff.

Anyways...
Pray for Whitney and look for my photos coming soon to my blog...

New Apartment (continued)

Today I had the day off of work, so I decided to finish building the desk in our office room at the new place. Since there are 5 of us in the apartment, we decided the best layout for us was to all sleep in the big bedroom, and make the small one our office space. Trever has a huge desk so his is out where a dining room table would be.

That leaves the 4 of us to make desk space for. We wanted to build instead of buy because a) its way cheaper, and b) we could make it fit the room the best. Here's the outcome:










Notice my new globe on my section of the desk. My gift card to Barnes and Noble provided that - I'm pretty excited about it actually. Oh, and St. Vincent is on it. I decided tonight that it is going to be a great tool for reminding me to pray for our world. Tonight I prayed for China because I have friends there.

The 'L' shape made it a bit more difficult to complete, but it was a fun day. Here's a funny story - I was drilling the big hole through the top of the first desk (the one all the wires go through) - and about a minute into drilling the hole I realized my drill was set to reverse. The bit was spinning the wrong way - no wonder it wasn't making much progress. In that moment I was glad no one was with me.

New Apartment

Well, I graduated college and moved out "on my own." I'm not really on my own, you see, I'm living with 4 other guys. I managed to move a whole 200 yards away from CBU - to the Northwest to Parkside Villeage Apartments. Our place is pretty sweet - decked out with everything IKEA, a Nintendo Wii, and thousands of books, all 5 of us with our college textbooks and such.

Here are some pictures of the living room (with my sweet new flat TV) and Trever's desk/the washroom/the kitchen.

It's long, but read it.

The following is a recount of actual events. Names have not been changed for protection - they are kept so that this true event can shame them both now and in the future. Let the records show that I type this blog with my right arm resting on the Holy Bible as to verify the integrity of my words.

It started a month or so ago. My roomate TIM WILSON, managed to unscrew each and every light bulb in our apartment, then flip the breaker that supplies our entire apartment with power. My other roomates and I had gone out for some midnight Wendy's. Upon our arrival, we noticed that the lights didn't work - and then that they were uncrewed - and then that the power was off. We had no idea what was going on. After a few creepy moment I realized that the breaker was in the downstairs closet. AJ and I walked timidly over to the door and opened it. It was normal - having only our hang up jackets, a bike, surfboard, 2 snowboards, sleeping bags, and other closet stuff. A moment after feeling safe about the closet, Tim jumps from behind the hung up clothes scaring both the Holy Spirit and our recently digested, waiting to be released food waste out of our bodies. He got us indeed.

Fast forward ...

Last night I took my wing (although it's not really a wing in UP - its more of a side or cluster) out for some In-n-Out at around 11:30pm. Tim was in Fountain Valley for church. My RA budget had some love left in it so we splurged a little. On our way back Tim calls to see if we are still at In-n-Out. We aren't. He says he's back in Riverside. The boys and I stopped in CVS to see if there was anything cool or explosive we could buy. There wasn't. We drive back to our apartment where I make my own parking space between two cars parked along the wall. My parallel skills are unparalleled.

Luke (my roomate) walks into the apartment to find no power. Immediately he runs back to us to tell us the news. The adrenaline is released. We know Tim is back in town and therefore know that he is trying to scare us again. We stand around outside our door with a few other neighbors and think about what we can do. We know we don't want to get scared again - therefore allowing Tim to feel victorious over us once again. We also know that we just ate 8 pounds of In-n-Out each and needed a restroom soon. "I've got it," I said. We huddled up. "Let's call Public Safety and tell them that our power is out and we think someone is lurking in our apartment (I'm not sure I've ever used the work lurking before). We'll tell him we're scared and ask if someone can come search out apartment to be sure." Everyone loved it. AJ makes the phone call and performs excellently. He sounds a little bit frightnened, just enough to convince Public Safety we're serious. A few minutes later (I'll admit I was concerned by the response time), Joe, the biggest, badest, blackest Public Safety officer rolls up in the CBU Public Safety Taurus - probably an '01 or '02. He finds us quickly because there is a group of us waiting outside our apartment. By this time we turned on the concerned face. "What's the situation?" Joe asked. "Well, our power is out and we are frightened to enter our apartment, officer" I said. "We think someone could possibly be inside," I tried to spice up the fear in my voice. "OK, you guys wait out here, I'm going in..." "Thanks Joe."

I swiped my card and stood back.

Joe rushed in, maglight ablaze.

"PUBLIC SAFETY, PUBLIC SAFETY, IS ANYONE IN HERE" Joe screamed. But not a girly scream - it was a scream from the depth of him - more of a roar.

silence

"PUBLIC SAFETY"

We almost wet ourselves standing outside listening.

a weak voice, "i'm in here"

"GET OUTSIDE NOW!" Joe barked.

Out walked TIM WILSON, Joe right behind with maglight cocked. "WHO ARE YOU?" Tim reached for his wallet - Joe thought it was going to be a weapon so drew out his mace and fired directly into TIim's face... Tim cried, literally.
Ok, just joking. Tim reached for his ID card and Joe let him. Tim said "I live here, I was trying to scare my roomates."

"Oh, it's only our roomate Tim" we all said in unison to Joe. At this point we acted extremely relieved. "We were scared someone dangerous was in our apartment." Joe understoon the situation. He turned to Tim and began to lecture him about how this kind of thing is not fun for the other people ... that just after the Virginia Tech shooting and the recent bomb threat at CBU this sort of thing is ridiculous ... that the Riverside police just called him hours ago saying they are looking for a missing criminal in the area and to keep an eye out!!!!! The helicopter with spotlight aimed down verified Joe's story. Yet my favorite part of the story is yet to come ...

After the lecture, Joe turns to us and says, "You did the right thing." I looked up, having just gone through the trauma of attempted murder, found Joe's eyes and replied, "thanks officer, we were just concerned for our safety." From Joe my big, thankful eyes turned to Tim. He was shaking his head with a slight smirk on his face - the kind of smirk that communicates "you are an unbelievable liar and I can't believe my plan backfired so hard on me."

I revel in the moment. Even revisiting via storytelling brings me joy.

Tim Wilson, senior B.A.T., has officially been gotten back. He has experience humiliation not only in front of his roomates, but in front of his neighbors, and in front of Public Safety.

I'm going to miss college.

Praise report!

So ... can I just say that God is faithful! Only hours after voicing my lack of funds for my ISP trip a friend responded with "oh, don't worry about it, I've got that" !!! The money is on it's way.

I'm still awed by the situation.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

Funds ...

My ISP trip is so close ... it's a little scary. Today my team was commissioned during chapel at school. It was awesome to be prayed for by people - I truly felt God's power during our prayer time. It was awesome. I thought this one guy was praying for me in tongues ... I could have sworn. I was a little weary about it, not sure how to reacty. After he was done I turned around to see who it was ... it was my Korean friend Choi. He was praying for me in Korean, not tongues. I laughed a little at myself.

I'm worried though. I have to raise $500 more dollars before I go. God has truly been blessing me with funds, and I totally trust Him with it. However, I know I can't sit around and do nothing about it. Here's where I decided to start ... by blogging. I would ask if you are reading this to begin to pray for me. After today's commissioning chapel, I really believe that having others pray for you is powerful. Please pray that God provides $500 more for me to go on my trip.

Since I'm pretty sure only 2 people read this ... maybe you could ask one other person to pray. That would make 5 people total (myself included) praying intently for $500. 5 people praying for $500, that sounds good. Maybe go a step further ... pray at 5 o'ckock, or every 5 til or 5 after the hour ... be creative. I'll update when I hear any news on how God is providing.

Thanks Mike and Lucas ...

Oh, and if you have any fund-raising ideas let me know.

taxes

this year is the first I've done my own taxes ... can I just say that taxes suck. Not only do they make it super complicated to fill in numbers (8,300 worksheets in a separate booklet to figure out numbers for my form), but I even have to buy my own stamp to mail them in. You think they could put one of those "no postage necessary if mailed within the US" things on the envelopes - but no, they make it an opportunity to ding you again.

And why are all the forms named with numbers and letters. Aren't there enough colors or disney characters to name the forms after: "don't forget your bluish-grey form," or "you, you need the steamboat mickey form" - thats way more fun.

to top it off, I don't even get a rebate. I went through all the lame paperwork and worksheets and booklets to figure out that I owe money.

God bless America.

Santa Barbara, PKs, & St. Vincent

So I'm definitely ready to be done with school and be on my ISP trip. I'm starting to experience what they call "senioritis." I find myself wanting to sleep in and miss classes, not do my absolute best on assignments, and dream about what it will be like outside of this place. Just a few more weeks ... I can do it.

The flag above is the St. Vincent flag. It's way better than ours. My trip is fast approaching and I'm ready to go. Fund raising is still an issue ... I've been able to raise half of what I need. If you have any ideas for raising money let me know ...

This weekend I am going to a Pasor's Kid retreat. I'm going as a counselor/music leader. Mike is running the show - him, another PK counselor (from CBU), and a pastor's kid from our church and myself are leaving tomorrow afternoon for Santa Barbara. I hope it runs as smoothly as we hope. It should be a pretty laid back time to hang out and meet PK, but most importantly, allow these PKs to connect to each other. I'm excited to slow down on a weekend instead of speed up.

To be honest, it's going to be cool to skip church on Sunday. Montia got a guy, Steve Brown, to do the music.. It will be nice to not worry about looking, sounding, or being a dork on stage this week. I pray that God will be praised both at Mag and in Santa Barbara where we will be.

adios

Spring Break

Spring Break '07 recap:

Monday afternoon Whitney and I left for Irvine. Whitney's roomate's dad is like a billionaire and owns a condo in a huge building where other billionaires live. It was incredible and fancy.

From there we left for San Clemente where we stayed until Thursday night. We stayed with our friends Travis and Haylie Collins. There were 9 or 10 people staying there with them (all people from CBU - mostly girls). Us boys stayed in the guest room. Travis and I shared a bed for 2 nighs - I was glad to sleep alone in my bed last night. Tuesday it rained and Wednesday was nice.

Wednesday night Whitney and I drove to Hollywood to watch Wicked at Panteges theater. It was really good - I'm definitely a fan of musical theater. That's the second play I've seen at Pantages. The first was The Lion King.

Thursday was another beach day - I think I got a little burned. Then we drove back to riverside. Overall, it was a good break. The pace was slow (meaning I got bored sometimes), but it was a good change from the regular schedule. Now I have to push through the last 6 weeks of college, and then ... graduation!

Blazers

Today my ISP team is raising funds by going to watch a TV show taping. I'm pretty excited about it actually ... I've never been to a taping before. The show is new, I was told it is an improv-type show. I'm not positive about the name, but it's something like "who's at the door." I guess they are going to have some kind of movie or tv star enter a door on the set and walk into a scene where they have no idea what's going on. It has potential to be pretty funny. I have to wear a blazer - I think this is the first time I've had to wear a required blazer for something. I wonder how a coat got the name blazer. Maybe it was a loyal coat that earned its owners trust and so he named it - then it stuck.

Anyhow, my team is raising like 20 bucks or so per person and were bringing about 15 people .... so thats ... $300. Excelent.

Welcome to March

I have been blessed to hear from a few old friends in the past few days. I've finally sent out my support letters for my ISP trip. At the end I asked people to e-mail me so I can send them updates and such. It's neat to hear from them and hear how things are going in their lives.

March should be a pretty good month. It is the 2nd to last month of my college experience ... weird. There's not a whole lot going on at church except for a Koinonia worship night. That will be interesting since we've never done that before, but I'm excited. Also, Mike and I are leaving at the end of the month to go to a Pastor's kid retreat. Mike is organizing it, I'm going as a the music guy i think. It should be pretty cool.

ISP intensive training

This last weekend was nuts. I had an all day class on Saturday (now i'm CPR certified), was a part of an ISP worship band, led music at my church on Sunday, and all of this was on top of the already INTENSIVE training that lasted from Friday night to Sunday evening.

The training was definitely intense. Some things we did:
- I had to literally beg for my dinner Saturday night. I was given a bowl of rice for me and 4 others to share, then we had to beg from the rich people who ate huge dinners at nice tables for food; only, they weren't allowed to give the beggars food. I was hungry: catch 22 as Michael Scott would say ...

- Sunday morning I was awakened by yelling leaders demanding we get dressed in 3 minutes and go outside for prayer. We couldn't even brush our teeth. As I walked outside I heard an Islamic call to prayer being sung ... I felt like I wasn't at CBU anymore. I was scared I would have to bow and pray to Allah. We were led in a prayer that Muslims would pray, only we prayed to Jesus (so I bowed).


- Sunday all the girls wore coverings over their heads. They couldn't walk in front of us guys, sit down before us, eat before we were served ... they couldn't even look at us. The guys were told not to look at the girls and that we would be making all decisions, and have to be served by the girls all day ... not bad huh? It was terrible. It was eye-opening. I felt like a jerk all day.

- I went to my church on Sunday ... I had to slip out of our training for a little while. I didn't feel American at church. It was weird. After worshiping God like different cultures do all weekend, I was forced back into American worship. There was literally a 2 minute transition from an Islamic church service (again, we worshiped Jesus) to an American Christian church service for me. Even though it hadn't been but a few hours into "Islamic day," I experienced culture shock going back into American church. It was more than a culture shock too ... it was spiritual shock. It kind of messed me up on Sunday when I was at church.

I'm super excited about my trip and my team now ... I can't wait for June.

Blogging

It’s been a while since I’ve posted …

I’m going to try to be more consistent with my blogging. I realized some of its benefits the other day:

1. you remember funny things that happened to you in the past
2. a couple of people may give some input or advice on any given situation
3. its basically journaling, which is a discipline I’d like to develop

So here’s my kick-off blog, the blog that starts my consistent blogging

This week was pretty rad. Here’s some highlights:

- Seek Week at school, it was the best seek week since I’ve been here.

- Voddie Bauchaum (sp?), he’s an amazing communicator – very intelligent apologetics teacher, using logic, scripture, and personal stories to educate and challenge

- Shane and Shane concert – traditionally my favorite musicians, they were awesome. They sing perfectly with ease, guitar skills that would make you salivate, and a heart to worship that makes a ‘concert’ church.

- Phil Wickham opened for the Shanes, he also is super good. I’ve had his CD in my car for the past month. Phil led me to the throne as well

- Meeting with Pastor Montia about my future at Mag. There is nothing set in stone, but it’s nice to be wanted still in the future. Things will be figured out closer to graduation

- Disneyland last night. Whitney and I went out for our Valentines day date because the 14th is a Wednesday and I’ll be at church. We ate at Tortilla Joe’s in the Downtown Disney walk then went into the park . Tortilla Joe’s was amazing – get the floutas – I inhaled them.

- I started reading “Deep Ministry in a Shallow World” its by Chap Clark and a woman … Kara something (its not in front of me at the moment). So far, so good. It’s all evaluating your ministry, constantly thinking about how to deepen it, its not a model of ministry, but a model of evaluating ministry. It’s nice to be reading for fun again.


Lowlights:

- for the past few weeks now our bedroom in the apartment has been smelling. It still smells

- today is laundry day

- starting an 8 pager at 11.30pm Wednesday night, it was due Thursday at 11am.

Closest Book Meme

The rules are:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next four sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest!


Here it is, from the Tyndale Bible Dictionary:
(wierd, i opened it up to page 123)

"The three centuries from about 1200 to 900 BC were marked by movements of different peoples such as the Greeks, Philistines, Arameans, and Hebrews."

Under pressure of people migrating from Europe, the Hittite Empire, which formerly had given political stability to Asia Minor and protected the trade routes, crumbled rapily. By 1200 BC it fell to attacks by the Sea Peoples form the Greek mainland. During the tenth entury BC, Assyria began to make a slow recovery. In the reign of Adad-nirari II (911-891 BC), Assyria again launched upon a period fo conspicuous economic and military expansion.

superhero

I took a quiz thing for RA stuff:


Your results:
You are Iron Man

Iron Man 70% The Flash 65% Robin 60% Spider-Man 60% Green Lantern 60% Superman 50% Catwoman 50% Wonder Woman 50% Hulk 45% Supergirl 45% Batman 20%

Inventor. Businessman. Genius.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

random plans / thoughts

(i love my macbook)














- I got Andy Stanley's 'communicating for change' and started it. I'll probably finish it this weekend. Its good

- Whitney is gone for the weekend at a powder puff football tournament.

- I have to write 2 10 page papers this weekend.

- I'm going on a bike ride today because I haven't gone in a while. I'm riding with my friend who rode across the country this summer.

- My ISP (international service project) interview yesterday went really well. I'm excited to see what God is doing with me right now.

I'm excited

OK, i'm super excited about my next semester class schedule. Here it is (from hardest/most demanding to easiest):

- Marriage and the Family in Christian Community. I'm excited to take this one with Whitney.
- Ministry with Youth. Professor Mike Lovato will be my instructor. It will be cool/a little wierd, but mostly cool.
- Jazz History. I'll bring my tobacco pipe and dark shades to class.
- Current Trends in Youth Ministry. This will be another directed studies course. I'll just read books on my own.
- Old Testament Survey. Thats right, the freshmen, non-CST major Bible class. I'll be there with Dr. Mooney.
- Bowling. Monday from 3.30 - 5.30, i'm pumped
- Tennis. Monday from 6.30 - 8.00 a night full of kinesiology!
- Outdoor Adventure. One saturday all day of playing on a high ropes course. How cool.

I think this schedule will really be a nice change from the hectic schedule of this semester, plus it's my last as a traditional college student. These are the only obstacles between me and a B.A.

Weird.