Life as it Is

Are People Open-Minded about Abortion?

2011-12-13T12:08:00.005-06:00

I've recently been exposed to new information and ideas about Abortion that have reinforced my stance on the issue.

The first is the 33-minute movie called 180 Movie, which you can watch below. The most powerful thing about the movie was not necessarily the information itself, but the fact that people's minds can be changed. Which my goal is not to simply change people's minds just for the sake of it, but to save innocent lives.

The second resource that has really impressed me even more is the book, Why Pro-Life; Caring for the Unborn and Their Mothers, by Randy Alcorn. I had ordered some DVD copies of the 180 Movie to give away and they sent me this book for free. Once I picked it up, I could not put it down. It offers scientific reasons for not aborting a child that simply amazed me. It's a book not only to reinforce the stance for those that are pro-life, but also for those that are pro-choice / pro-abortion, it gives reasons for being pro-life, ones that most likely are arguments they have never been presented before. One example he gives is a true story, in which Mr. Alcorn once gave a pro-life presentation to a class and the 50+ year old teacher admitted he had never heard the pro-life argument.

So even if you are pro-choice, I would highly recommend it, even if it's just so you can learn the arguments that pro-lifers use. I purchased 50 of these books, so if you happen to be reading this and would like a free copy, I will send one to you for free. It's a very easy read. It only took me a couple of hours to read and the chapters are very short.

http://www.180movie.com

How Big is Houston?

2010-09-13T14:10:00.005-05:00

About six years ago I was in Phoenix visiting a friend when her dad casually mentioned that Phoenix was bigger than Houston. I kindly corrected him only to recieve a reply of disbelief.

Fast forward to this past weekend and I was spending time with this man's son, again in Phoenix. We were discussing Carmelo Anthony possibly being traded to the Houston Rockets. He was somewhat astonished that I'd think Carmelo would want to go to a smaller market than Denver. I had to kindly correct him as well.

So I am not sure if this perception that Houston is small is just from this family, Phoenix or even nation wide.

Have any of you run into this?

Wiki Link Showing Population Rankings

Pick Six: Lottery or Football?

2009-10-31T11:44:00.007-05:00

Has anyone else noticed every sports tv and radio personality using the term "pick-six" this year? It's used when a defensive player intercepts a pass and runs it back for a touchdown.

Maybe it was used sparingly in my football watching years or even before I was born, but I never remember hearing it until this year.

And guess what, it's annoying the heck out of me.

In the past, announcers would normally just say exactly what the player did, "he picked it off and ran it back for a touchdown."

It's not annoying because of anything inherent in the term. I don't care that as far as I know it originated as a lottery game. It's annoying because it's a fad, and every sports personality is catching onto it like H1N1.

You know, people study this kind of stuff, it's called etymology. If they were to study this term if it's still used 20 years from now (I sure hope not), they'll look back and say, "well, it was initially used as a name for a lottery game and then somewhere in the year 2009, it blew up out of nowhere after some mysterious announcer used it in one of his telecasts."

Even sports talk guys I respect have caught on, sadly enough. I hope that some of these guys would get some backbone and stop using it, but I guess by the time they do, it'll be the end of the fad anyway.

-----

This kid scares me:

The Wooden Bowl

2008-06-19T15:30:00.002-05:00

I usually delete forwards upon recieving them, but this one some how got past that point. I think it's worth a read.

The Wooden Bowl
I guarantee you will remember the tale of the Wooden Bowl tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now.

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson.

The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered.

The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.

The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. 'We must do something about father,' said the son. 'I've had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor.' So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner.

There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl. When the family glanced in Grandfather's direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.

The four-year-old watched it all in silence.

One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, 'What are you making?'

Just as sweetly, the boy responded, 'Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up. ' The four-year-old smiled and went back to work.

The words so struck the parents so that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took Grandfather's hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.

On a positive note, I've learned that, no matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles four things:
a rainy day;
the elderly;
lost luggage; and,
tangled Christmas tree lights.

I've learned that, regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.

I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as making a life.'

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.

I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But, if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I've learned that every day, you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch -- holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I need to work on my patience with the Christmas lights :)

The Frustration of Oil Under Our Noses

2008-06-12T18:15:00.002-05:00

It's not news.

We've known we have plenty of oil under American soil and just off our coasts for decades.Yet people still choose to blame the oil companies for rising oil prices. Blame the stupidity and selfishness of our own government. And at years end, we'll be able to blame our future president, whichever candidate it may be, because they're both against drilling locally.

Try to grasp some of these quotes...

"...the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank."

"Engineers recently perfected refining solid shale rock into diesel or gas, which may amount to the largest oil supply in the world – perhaps as much as 1.8 trillion barrels in the American West. That's enough to meet current U.S. oil demand for more than two centuries. Yet as late as 2007, Democrats attached a rider to the energy bill that prohibits leasing the federal interior lands that contain at least 80% of America's oil shale."

"This has led to the believe-it-or-not situation in which the Chinese are prepping to drill in Cuban waters less than 60 miles off the Florida coast. American companies are banned from drilling in American waters nearby."

"California won't drill for the estimated 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off its coast because of bad memories of the Santa Barbara oil spill – in 1969. We won't drill for the estimated 5.6 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil in the moonscape known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because of – the caribou."

"Our waters may hold 60 trillion untapped cubic feet of natural gas. As in Brazil, these are surely conservative estimates."

"As for anticarbon theology, oil will be indispensable over the next half-century and probably longer, like it or not. Airplanes will never fly on woodchips, and you won't be able to charge your car with a windmill for some time, if ever."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322599645166029.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322872046666269.html?mod=todays_columnists

Words Only Used in the World of Sports

2008-04-16T21:08:00.000-05:00

You never hear, read or say them except when you're watching sports. It's jargon used by athlete wanna-bes, has-beens and junior varsity journalists who sit inside our tv screens. You may or may not recognize the words I'm talking about. Once I write down a few, I think you'll agree.

I actually can't think of all of them right now, but I intend to add to this list. If someone ever stumbles across this blog and actually reads it and has something to add or even disagree on, I'll submit changes to it.

Not all of these words annoy me, I just find it odd and a little cliche-ish for them never to use it in real life, but when talking on tv about sports, their vocabulary suddenly increases. It's almost like talking to someone who's really smart and is speaking way over your head. You nod your head in conversation but run to google when you get home to crack the code of their message.

It's almost as if these commentators feel like these words somehow legitimize their takes and validates what they're saying. It doesn't. Actually, makes them sound silly to me. And I'd even bet they don't even know what the words mean half the time. They just remember the context in which they're usually said and they parrot them back when it sounds right. Heck, I don't even know what they mean. Basically, I get the gist of what they're saying and move on.

Enough of my writing. Here's the very very short list as of now. I thought of two today. Actually, I heard one on the radio and the other is one I despise. If you think I'm wrong and you actually hear or use these words used more than two times a year outside of sports, I'd love to hear about it.

1. Ill-advised
2. Perennial

EDIT: So I may be halfway wrong on these so far. I googled news with these words, and this is what I found:

(1) http://news.google.com/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS270&q=ill-advised&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&sa=N&start=0
So maybe I need to read more?

(2) http://news.google.com/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS270&q=perennial&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&sa=N&start=0
Notice the word is almost exclusively used for sports or botany. How they stole this one I don't know.

What a typical American Eats

2008-04-14T17:01:00.000-05:00

The main events of the last ten mintues for me: Walk in the door from work, check my mail, grab a snack to eat, sit on the couch.

Then I thought to myself, "I wonder what a typical meal is for an Italian."

I think the reason I thought that was because I was wanting variety in my meals. Why I thought that, I don't know. But I figured that if I knew a handful of real typical meals from different cultures around the world, I'd always have something different and interesting for each meal.

The problem is finding that information. An American Google search will bring results, but they'll be produced by an American born Italian, and most likely it won't be authentic in some way. I could be wrong.

But take my experience with a gyro for example. In Greece they put french fries inside the sandwich. Here they put the fries on the side.

I'm not a full believer in the thought that only natives can make their own food well. Non-natives can too, it's just that in the process of transferring information, something was lost, misinterpreted or wrongly substituted. Take my gyro example again. In the simplest way, we Americans could put the fries in the sandwhich. Simple as that. (Although I won't get into other ways we probably make it wrong. Well...briefly; they soak the bread in olive oil, and everytime I ordered one they asked me if I wanted pork or chicken, not lamb.)

So anyway. I want to be a source of information. I am going to share my meals in hope that some Euro, Asian or African will search the words, "typical american cuisine," and find my blog. While I'm only a "typical" American in the sense that I'm American, I know that my next door neighbor might have completely different eating habits. But hey, if we all do this, we can help transcend the cutlture of food and bring everyone on this planet to a happy tummy! K, not really.

Anyway, here it goes.

Breakfast: Whisked two eggs. Tore a slice of ham into pieces and mixed it with the eggs. Scrambled the eggs and ham. Toasted an english muffin. Used half a slice of american cheese to put inside the sandwich. Drank a glass of milk.

Lunch: Ate quesadillas. Grilled chicken. Cut the chicken into slices. Placed chicken slices onto a corn tortilla. Sprinkled mozarella cheese on top. Put another tortilla on top. Put on a frying pan until cheese was melted.

Dinner: Ate "Weta's Sphagetti." Boil pasta. Simmer tomatoe sauce. Add pasta to sauce. Add chopped onion. Enjoy. Oh yeah, ate freshed baby leaf spinach with homemade ranch dressing.

My Return and the 2008 NBA MVP & NCAA Player of the Year rants

2008-04-13T16:38:00.000-05:00

This is my first posting in what seems like forever. I did take a hiatus to blog on myspace, but this is my first back on blogger. I skimmed through former posts and realized just how horrible they were. I'm not sure if I just didn't proof read or what, but they were pretty bad. Hopefully I won't make that same mistake again, although I wouldn't be surprised if I did. My primary goal is to regurgitate ideas, and practice my writing second. But I do understand those mistakes can be a distraction, so we'll see.

2008 NBA MVP Pick
The season is winding down and talking heads are making their bold and thoughtless predictions for who deserves to win the League's most valuable player award. I want to first admit that I haven't followed the NBA too closely this year. Our satellite package doesn't include the channel that carries the Rockets home games and honestly, I've just found more important things to do than watch sports 24/7. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Most media have the candidates down to Kobe and Chris Paul, with Garnett and Lebron just outside the conversation. I'm fine with that. Lebron is great, there's no doubt. What hurts him is the eastern conference and his teams record. Garnett has less than stellar numbers. People point to the change in culture and attitude he's brought to the Celtics to support his case, but I don't think his numbers are big enough and unfairly, he has received too much help in accumulating wins with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce as sidekicks.

So I too have Kobe and Paul in my final ballot. I really cannot say anything bad about Kobe. His numbers are great, and he's brought what he thought was going to be a lottery bound team to a top team in the tough Western Conference. He should receive much credit for that. But I can't help but pick Chris Paul. The guy has great numbers and is a true leader. What rattles my brain most about the guy is that he could dominate even more than he does now. I confess that this pick may be based off one game. It was against the Rockets during the winning streak. The Rox were dominating, but Paul kept them in the game with amazing shot after shot and pass after pass. Every decision he made was the right one, and he executed each one flawlessly. It was simply sick. Each pass was on the money and made shots were nothing but net, every time. I couldn't believe my eyes the guy was so amazing. He was so good and plays with such class, that you find yourself cheering for the guy even when he's playing against your team. Beware, this is not a sentimental pick, nor is it some anti-Kobe pick either. I've observed Paul's game and I love to watch Kobe as well. It's just that Paul has done so much to put his team in first place. That's right, first place. The New Orleans Hornets. Heard of 'em?

If he continues to play like this in the playoffs, he will become one of the greatest PG to ever play the game, if not THE greatest.

2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Player of the Year
Tyler Hansbrough has snagged every single Player of the Year award this year. What a joke, kind of. I respect him and will even admit he's a very good player. But he's not even close to being the best player in Division I basketball. Michael Beasley is. Hansbrough won the award not because he was the best player, but because he was a great hustler. Hustling should not determine who the best player is. Performance should. Beasley outperformed everyone this year, no question. I'm not sure if it's fair to compare two different seasons, but how can Durant win it last year with lesser stats and then Beasley lose it this year? Not only did Beasley have better numbers than Durant, this UT fan believes he's better than him too.

I probably wouldn't have even brought this subject up, but I have no idea how Hansbrough swept all the awards away. Durant didn't go any further in the tourny than Beasley did. Beasley had way less to work with in terms of teammates, hurting any chance of making a deep run.

Not to take away from the great season Tyler had, but I just felt like someone needed to say that Michael got the shaft. Here's to Beasley haven't a brilliant NBA career.

From Here to There

2006-02-02T21:41:00.000-06:00

My eyes are heavy and my mind is probably in shutdown mode, but I'm still gonna write anyway.

I'm in a transition stage right now. I'm not in college anymore, but I don't feel like a completed adult right now either. Part of the reason is because I still haven't completely taken over all my adult responsibilites. As of today, I'm still living w/ my parents, I don't pay all my bills, and I still eat from my mothers hand.

But I'm getting closer and closer to fully transitioning to full adulthood. Lately, I've been getting my W-2's. I know what they're for, I'm not that dumb. But I don't know how to use them. So I asked my Dad the other night, "Is the government gonna send me some kind of deal, telling me how to do my taxes?" He said no. I wasn't totally surprised, but my thinking was, "What the heck, they reel you into the real world and don't even tell you now to live in it? I mean, taxes are pretty important to them. You'd think the least they could do is send you a little pamphlet that telling you to take your W-2's to some accountant, or whoever does them. Don't they want their money?

Ahhh, but no. I think I'll soak it all up. Learning how to live life is a fun experience. All you can pretty much do is laugh.

I've been watching Friend's re-runs a lot lately, and just last night I really connected with the lyrics to the opening song. "So no one told you life was gonna be this way. You're jobs a joke, you're broke. It's like you're always stuck in second gear." How funny, right? I just kind of wish I had those friends to be there with me to discover this thing we call life.

I think where I go wrong is that I just assumed that everyone older than me and already in the real world, know's how to live in this place, and know's how to do everything. At some point, there was a first time they took their car to the shop, payed their first bill, payed their takes, took out a loan, or planned for a funeral. There's so many things in this world that so many people have not done yet.

Sure you might haver observed somebody else go through it, but that's not always the same as actually going through it yourself.

Soon I'm gonna be moving into my own apartment, kind of. I'll be living with another intern. But it won't be a dorm room that'll have community bath's which custodians clean up after me, nor will it be my parents house. I'll have to buy the apt essentials, get my own groceries, and make every decision on my own.

Now, everyone begins this whole process at a different time. So I don't care if someone my own age is laughing at me b/c they've been doing it for the past four years. Big whoop. You're better than me. But I'm just gonna have fun w/ this.

Hopefully I'll become the responsible adult, and not just take on the responsibilities an adult takes on.

Alright, it's 10:00. Friends is on, haha. Peace

p.s. - it's good to be back

Dwindling Yet Again

2005-05-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

My passion for sports that is. Today will be the fourth day I've been home from school, and I have yet to watch an Astros game or an NBA playoffs game. I've checked the score to the Astros game twice, and both times because we were playing a friends team and I wanted to puff up my Houston pride, which is a bad idea to try this year for Astro baseball.

Other than watching tv, I've turned it to sports radio just a few times as well, and only then because there were no songs playing on the FM dial.

Worse than just watching or listening to sports, I haven't even hardly thought about sports. The thought of going to an Astros game before I leave on Sunday crossed my mind once.

I guess for now, I have three theories as to why my interest for sports has come from a flaming ball of fire to the campfire that needs blowing on and more wood.

First is the obvious theory--that other things in life have become more important and I've just naurally lost interest in sports as I would for anything else.

But to tell the truth, a whole lot more goes into this theory, including: lack of interest in players' egos, Houston championships, and the list goes on.

Basically though, sports is just less interesting in general, for what exact reason, yo no se.

Second theory--I've been so busy with preparing for Europe, that I just haven't had time to think about sports. Of course, I have been thinking about other things quite a bit, so maybe that's a bad excuse. It's possible that I enjoy thinking about what I am, excluding Europe, much more than I enjoy thinking about sports.

As for the third theory--I've forgotten what it was for now. If you know me, then you're not surprised that it slipped my mind. Maybe I didn't have a third theory. I said I did at the beginning of the entry. It's all because I decided to write about that first theory first. And it was the simplist.

Well, I gtg, my friend is here. We're going shopping and gathering all our last minute supplies for our trip. Peace.

Purposeful Practice Directs you towards Perfection, Right?

2005-05-19T11:52:00.000-05:00

...Well, that's what I'm thinking anyway. Dr. Simons said that the best writers write every day, and for longer periods of time than what I think anyone really should, unless you're a writer I guess. But my purpose is not to just write garbage everyday, even though that's what it might end up being to some people, but I want to apply what I learned in class, and that is to be specific, concrete and sensual. So, if I'm not doing that and you notice that or can't understand what I'm saying, then let me know. But if you're just reading it wimsically and don't understand it, then don't say anything. I believe that readers have the responsibility to focus and try to understand the best they can what the writer is trying to say. Some things will be more difficult to understand if they are deeper or more abstract, but other things are just difficult to understand because the writer didn't do a a good job of communicating the idea. So yeah, if you stumble across anything you don't understand, then tell me specifically what it was. Of course, you only have to do this if you feel like it. I guess most likely I wouldn't do it for someone else if I were just casually reading their blog, but if you're in the mood, go ahead. I don't need a one page resonse. A one or two sentence reply will suffice.

So I figured I'll free write for about thirty or minutes or so. I wanna do my best, but I'm not gonna put more time into writing than developing my spiritual life through prayer and studying the Bible. I guess the only way I'll get to write more is if I spend more time developing myslef. Ok, and to qualify my reasoning, I don't believe that I can't spend more time doing something else other than developing my spiritual life if it outlasts it, it's just that this is personal development. And not that personal development, or writing is meaningless, I just think that it shouldn't be a higher priority than feeding myself the words God has spoken that will lead me to live the life He wants me to. And I don't want to say that there's some kind of dichotomy either between secular and spiritual, because God's word would lead me to work hard at my writing. But at the same time, unless I learn from reading and praying that that's what God wants me to do w/ my writing, then I must put that above it to a certain extent?

You get what I'm sayin'? Ok, this is probably a good time to jot down a note to yourself that you didn't understand that last paragraph, and so later when you're bored reading this hecka long entry, you can send me a comment about it.

Ok, so yeah, this is free writing and I'm just gonna write about whatever; so beware!, it can probably get real boring.

EUROPE!!

For those of you who don't know, I'm going there! And if you click on my profile details and scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll see a link for another blog I'm doing so that anyone who cares can keep up with my trip and what kind of exciting things are happening; at least I hope exciting things will happen.

But yeah, I don't want to spend too much time talking about Europe on this blog.

How Does it Feel?

That's what everyone asks after you've accomplished some task or a major turn turn in your life has happened. Well, that question for me has followed my college graduation which took place in California. While in California and asked that question, I would respond with, "the same." Because it did. But now that I'm home, it doesn't necessarily feel different (which I've come to the concusion people don't really mean how do you feel, they mean, how has your thinking changed. I know, y'all are thinking, "duh". Well hey, I think too much, and I take things a little too literal, but I'm learning to change), but now that I'm home in Texas and not in California, I can feel a change. It feels a little weird because now when I think about the future, California and college are no longer in my future, at least not right now. I'm not leaving home in August. I don't have to sign up for any classes. I'm staying home. I'm looking for a job, and an apartement.

Life is changing, and in a way that it never has before. I'm used to preparing for school. Now I'm preparing for interviews and then my job. After that, I have no clue what else I'll be preparing for. Marriage? Moving? Missions? Kids? Death? Guess I'll have to trust in the Lord more than I've ever had to before. I'll need to expect the unexpected for now on. The only stability I have is in Jesus. I hope and pray I'll trust in that.

Time's Up

That's right ladies and gents, thirty minutes has come and gone. It's time to leave you with a line from a Seinfeld episode I heard last night.

"We take the money, it's what separates us from the animals."

Say night-night to the nightly news

2005-04-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

The National Network Evening news that is.

Apparently, since all our news anchor icons are retiring or getting sick, and viewership is down, some experts are thinking that we may be at the end of the eveneing news; that or it's going to radically change.

I don't care if we don't have Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather as the face of our news. Who really watches the news because of the face anyway. Some may choose one station over another for that reason, but they don't decide whether to watch it all or not based off that reason.

Ok, and viewership is down, and while the icons are too, they think this might be a good time to change or do away with it. The reason? Because people don't get their news the same way or at the same time anymore. Internet, 24/7 cable news? Of course, if you have those means, you're going to use them, but I still like to sit down to dinner and watch the evening news. They do it differently

The evenening news may not be good for major stories, but I really like the assignment stories no other news stations don't cover. Those are worth watching. And so are the reports they have on the White House or Congress. They give a more in depth look into things, as opposed to the 6 second soundbytes cnn offers.

Icons or not, I'll still watch the evening news. I like what they bring.

Hard time = Fun times

2005-04-06T15:48:00.000-05:00

Ok, so maybe hard times aren't always fun, but when things don't go as planned, and they don't kill you, they can make life a little more lemony.

For instance, I was in a car accident last week. Most people, and somewhat including me, would think of all the trouble this is going to bring (especially when the other dude who was without a doubt at fault, makes up some stupid lie). And yes, it is a hassle, and something you may not want to deal with, but look at the bright side, it threw a wrench in your life, and sent you on a detour. Who likes driving on a straight road all the time anyway. Bumps and curves in the road make things more interesting and give us something to do.

How would life be if it were always groundhogs day? What if everything always went right? We would never grow from tough experiences, and I at least would probably contimplate suicide all the time (ok, not really) because the same thing every day is so boring.

So even though calling the insurance company, taking my truck to the body shop, and having to borrow my friends car to get to work takes time away from my busy hw and fun time schedule, it's something different.

I've never had to deal w/ an insurance company all by myself, and so now I'm learning a little about how things work. Now if I ever get into an another accident, I'll know how things work, and if a friend, spouse or child of mine get's into an accident, I can point them in the right direction.

So it's kinda cool to see how things in life work. The body shop guy uses high tech computer programs to log what's wrong w/ my truck, which leads me to wonder how in the heck they did all this before? As many problems computers have brought, techinically and morally, they can help out a ton as well.

I've also learned that the insurance people you deal with are unexpectedly nonshalant (sp? dictionary.com was NO help on this one. If you know how to spell it, let me know) with you. I feel like I'm chatting with a friend when talking to them; which is kind of nice but at the same time I miss a more stoic customer service approach. I don't know, a mix would be better.

So all in all, so far this has been an alright experience. I'm learning, and I'm glad I am early in life, so if I ever get married, my wife doesn't think I'm a fool. After all, don't most people learn through experience? I don't feel too bad about not knowing things some people think I should.

An Other First

2005-03-25T19:35:00.000-06:00

So, at the beginning of spring break, me and a friend went to stay at a friends house in Pheonix for a few days. I had a lot of fun. But anyway, I forgot my phone charger there and so for the past couple days I've been turning it only only to check voicemails. Today it pretty much died so this is what I did:

I actually took the advice of a friend and went to the Sprint store to ask them to charge it for me. I felt pretty ghetto, but that's alright I guess. I have 3 power bars I didn't have before, so I'm happy.

Good times, kind of.

Times could be better. I wish I was home right now

Dealing with Life's Annoyances

2005-03-16T16:38:00.000-06:00

I don't totally agree with the extent some of these tactics went to. But they're funny. The article gets better as it goes on, but that doesn't mean you should skip the beginning because you don't know where the middle begins! ;)

If you cant' figure it out, the link in the article is the Title text of this post.
Ok, so it seems as if the link isn't working, so here it is..http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/features/3086649

A Fraction of a Thought on Emotions

2005-03-16T14:48:00.000-06:00

We are made in God's image. God, made us. Besides sin, he gave us what we have. One of those things we have are emotions.

Before the fall of man, everything was perfect, which includes our emotions.

Now lets remember that after God made something, he declared it good. When he created man, he gave us different nuances that made us distinct and seperate from anything else (although animals and plants and other things do have other similar characterstics, only because their creator is also God, and therefore used some of the same designing methods - this for some Christians is not new, I know), and one nuance, whether it's unique to humans or not, is, once again, emotions. Those emotions were also declared by God as, good. Therefore, we must strive to go back to the days where our emotions were good, and ideal to how God wanted them to be.

Now, when are emotions good? I don't think it's hard to see that our emotions are good when we are joyful, happy, cheerful feelings like that. Nobody thinks that depression, bad moods, or being angry are good.

So my thought of this leads me to a change in thinking.

At my Christian college, people are "happy" all the time it seems. Since I've gone here I've always kind of looked down on that because I didn't think it was real or realistic. I still don't believe that it's realistic to be happy all the time, or even always have joy; and the only reason why I say that it's impossible to have joy all the time is because we are fallen and no matter how much we put our faith in God, we never have enough faith, God always has to be faithful to us and we just cannot be perfect and joyful all the time. God can have us be joyful 24/7, but our fallenness will not let us.

Since attending the school, I shyed away from being happy all the time since I didn't think that's how things really worked. Now acutally, I think I didn't try to act happy all the time, beacuse it seemed as though that's how people were acting.

Now that I look back on it, I think some people are still acting, but some are not.

We live in a community of believers, which makes it easier for us to by joyful and happy more often. Now once we graduate, the luxury of living around believers 24/7 will not be there. (Although I do believe that you can experience joy with unbelievers, but just not to the same extent because there's a breaking point that separates the two since the common bond of Christ is not there).

All in all, I believe that I have judged some people at school a little too quickly, but at the same time I think I have not.

Wow, great advice!

2005-02-24T19:51:00.000-06:00

I wish that whoever gave me that advice on my fickleness would have left their name so I could thank them. It was really good advice.

When I first started reading it I thought to myself that I've already heard the whole deal about how we have to think with our minds and we can't just play off our emotions. But then the advice of how we should just direct our desires towards God that He'll take care of the rest. I'm not completely sold on what the person meant by "the rest", but yes, I do believe that Christ is sufficient for all things. It's just that I have a hard time balancing how much I should use my mind and emotions at the same time.

I guess I would say I should use 100% of my mind, and just remember I can't totally rely on my emotions.

What I really think I need to do though is pray about whatever it is I get fickle about and let the Lord direct me in the way He wants me to go.

Why, oh Why?

2005-02-21T16:04:00.000-06:00

Why am I so fickle? I hate it. It makes life harder.

Lets take the website, myspace.com as an example. I, like most people on it, got addicted for about two weeks. Am I now? No. My intial addiction was the cause of my great desire to get as many pseudo friends as possible. Then it was to see if people commented on my space. Now, now who cares.

Umm...Ok, so maybe I'm not as fickle as I thought I was because I can't think of any other examples at the moment, except for one that I'm not allowing myself to put on here for good reasons. But I'm pretty sure there are other things that I'm just not thinking of.

I think where I go wrong is my expectations, I think. I expect my feelings about something to last forever, or for whatever it is, lets say the myspace high, to last. I think its always going to be as fun as when I started. So as the excitement goes away, so does my interest. Why must I need excitement for everything to be enjoyable?

Oh, and here's another example I just thought of: This Blog. I intended to keep up with it everyday, and if not everyday, most days. You can see when I last posted to verify that I have not done what I had intended to.

I think another part of it is my laziness. Laziness to think and type for this. Laziness to care about whatever it is.

I need to find the source of this problem so I can fix it. I know it will make my life better, and I'll enjoy the decisions I make for a longer period of time.

Now will I actually take the time to think about what it is? Will I begin this thought process with great determination and then forget about it? Probably, but lets hope not.

Just a thought...

2005-02-07T00:35:00.000-06:00

...what's so wrong with staring at yourself in the mirror? We only get to see ourselves a few times a day. People that we come in contact with daily get to see us all the time. It's not fair that other people get to look at you but you don't get to enjoy who you are.

2005-02-06T23:54:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to make a not of something.

Last night at our basketball game I was reunited with one of my five roommates from freshman year. He introduced me to his wife which meant one thing.

I am the only one out of the six of us who is NOT MARRIED.

And you know what, that's ok with me. Not that I don't want to get married, but, ya know, oh well.

We'll see when rommmate number six gets hitched. I'll let yall know when I do.

myspace

2005-02-03T21:35:00.000-06:00

Well, myspace.com has taken over my life and any self control that I once had. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's a place where you put up your picture, write up a profile and just add a bunch of random or known friends. You can even blog on it, but the coolest part for me is putting down what schools you went to and then finding old classmates, ones that you weren't even good friends with. I for one really enjoy knowing where and how people are doing. I've only met two people from high school, but who knows, this thing seems to be catching on pretty quick around here, maybe it will with my hs alumni. But anyway, yeah, this place has taken control of me. I check to see if anyone has tried to add me to their list or if I have new messages, and I do this all the time. Before hw, during hw, after hw, when I wake up, right before I go to sleep. Ah! And the thing is, I know I'm not the only one. It shows when your 'friends' are online, and you see those people on all the time too. Friends here at school even admit that it's addicting. I'm scared thought that I'm more addicted that anyone else. Some people could care less about this whole deal or know that they don't have time for it. Well, I really don't have much time for it either, but I do it anyway. I just like to do stupid stuff like this, ya know, like get friends who I don't even know, and then don't even talk to them anyway. It really is ridiculous.

So, anyway...that's myspace.com for ya. So go to my link that I put on here. Add me as a friend, and if you don't have an account, get one and then add me ;)

Cruisin' to nowhere

2005-01-28T17:25:00.000-06:00

Well, here's my first entry and I don't think it's gonna live to "first entry" blogging standars. I just want to let everyone in the world (or at least those reading this) that this is my first entry and I'm at work.

It's raining today which I don't mind as long as the wind doesn't star picking up.
I was greatly comforted today in my essay writing class afer talking to a friend/classmate who also attends. I was worried that my writing wasn't going to be good enough and live up to the same level of writing all those english and communication majors are at. This is my second writing class but with a different professor this time. I am most proud of my grade in that first class since in some ways Article Writing is somewhat subjective and also in way art. It's my own and the professor thought highly of it. So although I am proud of it, I know that I could not have done it without the mind that the Lord gave me. Not that I want to minimize the mind that he has given me, but I don't think writing is the best gift He has provided me with, so I am very thankful that it was good enough for an A for which I know I was blessed with since I put in the hard work to earn it.

I hate papers/essays, anything that does not exist that I have to produce from my own mind. This weekend I need to at least begin researching one. It's about the CRI, is what I think it's called (the Creation Research Institution?) I don't know. If I find out, which I guess I better, I might inform my blog followers (if I have any).

Well, since I have 15 minutes until my departure time, I guess I'll continue writing.

I could write on anything I want but at the present moment I can't think of anything worthy of writing except for my thoughts like I am right now. My writing professor told us the other day that this one guy, I forget his name but he was the first person to ever write an essay, or at least make it popular. So you could say that he's the father of the essay. (Anyway, that was a broken sentence, but I'll continue anyway because I dont want to go back and fix it, hopefully you're reading carefully enough that you can still understand what I'm getting at.) But this "father" sat in this one room for two years straight just to think of what he was going to write about. I dont know if he locked the door and threw the key away, or if he just stayed in there two hours a day or what. But he was in there, or at least DID IT for two years. That's a long time to think, but maybe they had more time on their hands back then, which I seriously doubt.

And as I wrote that last sentence, an idea on what to write a little about came to mind. I'll lead into it by telling you what made me think of this. I'm reading this book called What Color is Your Parachute?, and it's essentially helping me find a job for when I graduate this May. Anyway, in the preface he tells us that although English teachers across America probably hate him for it, he writes like he talks. So when I CAPITALIZED "DID IT" in last sentence of the previous paragraph, I did so because I wanted to emphasize it. I suppose I could have italicized it, but caps works just as well. I'm sure some English person right now is thinking that there are different purposes, but since I don't know, I'll play ignorant and say there isn't. So anyway!, yeah, why are there two different rules for speaking and talking? I mean, why can't we write like we talk? Especially commas. I remember being taught in Elementary that you place a comma where you would normally take a breath when you talk. I don't know if my teacher simply forgot that rule or what, but I was told in college that you do not do that. I don't see why whoever made up the grammar rules had to go and make things difficult. Now I'm aware that not one person made up all the rules, but I'm sure they were accepted by the writing literate people at the time when they were being established. So things could change, but there will always be grammar purists and say that it can't and shouldn't be done. So I should probably stop dreaming and just learn the dumb rule, which I'm still not really aware of. Well, that's pretty much all that is coming to mind about that. So, we'll proceed to the next topic, which IS...

Du, Da DA! Europe!
I was in my Christian Worldview class yesterday when we were talking about a few different things that make up our worldview. I can't remember them all, but I know one of them was metaphysics, and the other two I'm not sure of because...oh wait, I think the other one was epistomology? The last I probably couldn't remember even if I sat here all day long visualizing the white board. So, yeah...oh yea! I almost forgot what my point was. So we were also talking about subfactors that also play into our world view or "meta-narrative", and one of them was of course, our culture. As naive as a high schooler could be, that was me before college. I had never really thought of too much until I was challenged with it until college professors, which is sad, but true, and probably for many students, so I'm not too ashamed. But of course as the blogging reader you are, know that not everyone in the world thinks the same way. Not any two individuals, not to people from different states, and especially not people from two continents. Now I know generally people think the same way sometimes, as we in America do, but in a place like Europe or Asia, the people think of things from a totally different view. So the professor said that if it were up to him that he would have each student at our college live abroad for at least one semester. Not just any place, but a place where people had a different thought process, such as the places I mentioned before. I have always wanted to visit Europe and so I thought, why not live there?! The two things holding me back are of course, finances and language. I think it would be totally inconsiderate of me to go into another persons country and not know the language. The financial part doesn't bug me as much because I don't mind getting a job, but not knowing their language just seems rude. I feel like I'd be using them. I don't want to have to be catered to either. I want to be responsible. But at the same time I'm not going to learn a whole new language just so I can live there for a mesely 6 months. So what does that mean? Well, maybe just that I'm not gonna do. But!, what I could do is go with someone who knows the language. Or I could stay with a family. I dont know if there is any sort of program that does that, but I guess I could at least try and find out. It's worth the try. Who knows who I'd get stuck with. Probably some weirdo who sits in his little apartment all day writing on his blog nobody reads. Yikes, scary huh? Well, when I know what my future holds, I'll let y'all know if it happens or not.

5 minutes 'till I leave. I guess I'll get off this thing now.
If you read all of this, you're awesome!