The Lungs of the Ocean

The Life and Death of Critical Man: A Examination of the Broadband Village Through the Front Page of the Internet.

2011-12-12T15:15:00.002-07:00

For the record, I have lots of good things to say about Reddit as well. This paper is more of a critique of the Internet and New Media as a medium using Reddit as an example of some important issues.

Could get crucified for this on Reddit, but hey, where's the fun in just playing along?

I couldn't pull over the references from Google Docs easily, so I am including a link to the original document for that purpose. Any time you see a "#" sign, there is a corresponding link associated with that passage. The Google Docs Copy

The Life and Death of Critical Man: A Examination of the Broadband Village Through the Front Page of the Internet.

The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.
Bill Gates - Founder of Microsoft
The Internet... the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.
Eric Schmidt - Executive Chairman and Former CEO of Google

Mass media technologies have erupted violently over the course of the last ten years. In 2001, Google was still in its infancy, Facebook didn’t exist, and many people didn’t even have cellphones (let alone smart phones). The Internet was still a cultural afterthought.
Today the World Wide Web has reshaped the landscape of the human experience. Nearly 78% of the US population has access to the Internet#, there are over 800 million Facebook accounts#, and over 90% of all cell phones active in the US have mobile Internet accessibility directly on the device#. US culture has so deified Internet access that President Obama included expanding broadband accessibility as a major economic growth initiative last year#.
The Internet has grown so fast and become a part of daily life so potently that governments have struggled to create sound policy around it# and scholars have strained to understand the vast-reaching implications of it. The result has been a sort of “forced ethnography” where society is left with the difficult task of dissecting and making sense of a powerful medium that has already fundamentally changed the way we view the world. “I think, therefore I am” has become “the Internet is, therefore I think.”
McLuhan argued that a medium such as the Internet, and the implications on society and culture that accompany it, are similar to an unstoppable virus: once the form has infiltrated our consciousness, its spread and effects are inevitable. Jaron Lanier argues in his book, You Are Not a Gagdet, that new technologies are often created overnight and on a whim but become quickly locked-in to society#. The critical examination of the Internet, therefore, is done retroactively and not proactively. Like rhetorical analysis, technology is observed of as a conglomerate of the past.

Much scholarly work has been done as critical thinkers try to wrestle with the symptoms of Internet exposure. In Distracted, Maggie Jackson’s critical analysis of new-media culture, she argues that the nature of the Internet medium centers around constant distraction. This degrades the ability of its users to focus and reflect upon information, and therefore think critically. This paper examines how the form, structure, and content of the popular website Reddit, and its community, are a powerful example of this phenomenon. We will accomplish this by looking at three compelling examples. First, the image culture of Reddit is evidence that Internet communities are moving away from a text based society and into an image based society. Second, the use and domination of Internet “memes” as a vehicle for communication on Reddit fosters degraded critical thinking and creativity. Lastly, the structure of Reddit rewards conformity and punishes individuality, resulting in hive-mind-like behaviour sometimes associated with the pancake communities inherent to the Internet form.

The Front Page of the Internet
Reddit.com is a popular, community driven, web-aggregator. The self-proclaimed “front-page of the Internet” has over 28 million unique users in the US, a number that has more than doubled in less than a year.# In the same year between 2010 and 2011, Google Searches for “Reddit” have more than quadrupled.# Reddit currently ranks as the 49th most popular website overall# and the 8th most popular news website worldwide, ranking above NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, Reuters, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Forbes.#
On Reddit, users are encouraged to submit links to other websites, news, and web-based content. These submissions are then voted up or down and commented on by other registered Reddit users (we will examine the process and its effects in depth later in this paper). Reddit then organizes submissions by popularity so that the most popular content eventually appears on the home page, reddit.com. From Reddit’s online FAQ#-

Reddit is a source for what's new and popular on the web.

Users like you provide all of the content and decide, through voting, what's good (upvote) and what's junk (downvote).

Links that receive community approval bubble up towards #1, so the front page is constantly in motion and (hopefully) filled with fresh, interesting links.

The benefits of critically analyzing a website as popular as Reddit are apparent. Furthermore, because Reddit depends on and is fueled by community involvement, we can gain insights into the effects of the Internet on culture and society by examining the website's content and form. We will begin this process by inspecting Reddit’s most popular genre of, the image.

The Image is King

Of Reddit’s most popular content submitted in the past year, over half of the top 25 submissions are direct links to singular images.# Furthermore, the top five most linked-to websites on Reddit are all image-hosting sites, the most popular being imgur.com, meaning that Redditors are constantly submitting and being linked to images.# Images are by far the most prevalent genre of content uploaded to, voted on, and consumed by Redditors.

Conversely, text is the least popular submission on Reddit. Of the top 25 most popular submissions to Reddit in the last year, only two of them contain text alone. In both these cases, the two text submissions are remarkably short: less than a page in both cases.

What is particularly fascinating is that many of the images submitted to Reddit could have been submitted as text only. An example of this is the 12th most popular submission for the month of November 2011, an image of Jimmy Wales creator of Wikipedia. It has a popular image of Mr. Wales and next to it reads “I’ve done all your essays since 2008, now give me some f*cking money.” The image is poorly photo-shopped and, in all likelihood, took the Redditor a mater of minutes to create. The same concept could be done easily without the use imagery. The creator is making an argument but has chosen to do so using pictures instead of just words. Many of these same types of submissions are wildly popular on Reddit. Users are constantly taking the time to reconstitute their ideas and communications into image forms. Why? The answers are found both in the effect of the Internet as a medium and in the reinforcing nature of Reddit’s exaltation of the image as a form of communication over the written word.

The Internet rewards fast-consumption. Delayed gratification is a concept foreign to the rising generation of young-adults in the United States. Facebook gives us “friends” now, YouTube gives us entertainment now, and browsers take us anywhere we want to go now. The invention and evolution of the “smart” phone have brought all of these things to our fingertips, making the distance between “instant” and “gratification” even shorter. It is now possible to order pizza from your phone and have it at your home within a half-hour. YouTube and Netflix are instantly accessible from anywhere. A handful of button presses and you can buy anything from diapers to flat-screen TVs from Amazon.com and have them delivered to your front-door in a single day.

The result of this fast-gratification is that the people who are immersed in it think differently. Matt Richtel of the New York Times reported on this fact:

“Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing,” said Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston. And the effects could linger: “The worry is we’re raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently.”#

This Internet culture is trained to value distraction and repetitive dopamine reception. Playing off our evolutionary tendency to become easily distracted for survival purposes, this medium places a higher emphasis on images because they have the potential to convey an idea much more quickly than text can. As a result, people who spend a great deal of time on the Internet not only consume information in this way, but they themselves begin to primarily communicate using images as well.

Reddit nurtures this behaviour by adding additional incentive and reward to communicating through images. When a user receives an upvote for a particular submission, they also receive a “karma point.” These points have absolutely no real-world value. Users cannot use them as a form of currency or trade them for other rewards. Karma points simply “exist” and provide some sort of ambiguous credibility or bragging rights in the community. These points say, “I’m accepted by my peers in this group. They like what I am submitting and therefore they like who I am.” From Reddit’s FAQ:#

“What is karma?- It reflects how much good the user has done for the reddit community. The best way to gain karma is to submit links that other people like and vote for, though you won't get karma for self (text-only) posts.

Why should I try to accumulate karma?- Why should you try to score points in a video game? Why should your favorite sports team try to win the championship?

Or, to look at things from a less competitive and more altruistic perspective, read what philosophers have said about the matter -- namely, don't set out to accumulate karma; just set out to be a good person, and let your karma simply be a reminder of your legacy. Note: Reddit makes no guarantees about attaining Nirvana.”

Reddit nurtures an image culture in this setting because the only types of submissions for which users are not rewarded with karma points are ones that contain only text. These submissions can still be voted up and down by the community, but the original creator of this content receives no point rewards whatsoever. Put simply, images receive karma, text alone does not. As a result, content that could have been submitted as plain text is forced by the user into an image form so that they can receive points. This marriage of an already existing tendency for Internet culture to communicate with images and a structured reward for doing so creates a powerful tool for breeding an image-culture.

It is possible, however, for Redditors to submit links to other sites that contain a great deal of text and still receive karma points (so long as the submission is a viable link to an already existing web-page). It is also possible for a user to submit text-only and still receive enough upvotes to make the front-page of Reddit. While the user gets no points, having any post make it to Reddit’s front page is rewarding in and of itself. In both of these cases though, the Reddit community still values the instant gratification inherent to images and reinforces this desire through its negative treatment of the text-based content and its creator. Short text is valued and rewarded while longer texts are punished. If a Redditor submits text that is over a page long, the community backlashes with downvotes and responds with the comment “TL:DR!”, meaning “Too Long: Didn’t Read!” For users that submit links to other web pages with a significant amount of text, it is recommended that the user give the entire “gist” of the article in the subject heading so that other Redditors don’t even have to read more than the link description.# Reddit’s submission guidelines state that post titles to articles must be “descriptive, concise and specific,” and “must be able to stand on their own without requiring readers to click on a link.”#

There is little surprise that the image is king on Reddit. The shift to an image culture from a written culture carries with it profound effects. The written word is essential for progressive reasoning and science. Advanced mathematics, physics, and engineering all require that a society first have a system of reading and writing. Even democracy needs a written culture to survive. Critical thinking stems from the ability of a culture to focus on abstract ideas for extended periods of time, allowing them to reflect on and solve complex problems. Oral or image based cultures are fundamentally different. A culture based on images and distraction has a much more difficult time actively engaging in critical thinking.
Advanced thinking begins to fade just as quickly as the use of the written word has. Critical thinking carries with it no instant gratification. It is, by definition, delayed. Without focus, even creativity and the arts suffer. If one cannot focus long enough to develop skills that take enormous amounts of time and concentration, how else are they to develop these talents?

This death of critical thinking and degradation of creativity are perhaps no where more apparent than in the Internet meme.

Memes as vehicles for “truth” and the erosion of focused creativity.

In order to understand the effects of the Internet meme, we must define what a meme is and where the concept originated.

The term “meme” was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins argues that “memes” are vehicles for carrying self-replicating, cultural ideas and symbols. The word “meme” is a play of the word “gene” and the concepts are alike in that Dawkins argues that memes also respond to natural selection. Memes self-replicate like genes, mutate like genes, and survive based on natural selection like genes.#

The Internet meme is similar to the concept of a meme. Internet memes transmit and propagate certain cultural ideas, symbols, and arguments using types of media popular in web culture. By far the most widely used version of the Internet meme is the “image-based” meme. Images are easy to create, disseminate, replicate, and change. As a result, the Internet meme is largely defined and shaped by popular images that become appropriated and manipulated by Internet culture.

Two of the most popular examples of Internet memes are “Scumbag Steve” and ‘the Philosoraptor.” Scumbag Steve# first appeared on Reddit in January of 2011.# The picture originated from a local rap group’s album cover but was appropriated by a Reddit user and uploaded to the Internet with the added words “Borrows your lighter... permanently.” From knowyourmeme.com-

Scumbag Steve is an image macro series featuring a kid with a sideways fitted cap standing in a hallway. The overlaid text generally centers around unethical behavior regarding drugs, partying, and other hedonistic behaviors.

The meme became and instant hit, inspiring thousands of remakes. Eventually the iconic hat that “Steve” wears became so recognizable that users began photoshopping the head-wear onto other public figures to argue that this person is also a “scumbag.”

“The Philosoraptor” is an image of the dinosaur “Velociraptor” from the 1993 movie Jurassic Park. The image has the “philosoraptor” looking pensively into the sky while scratching its chin with one claw. The original image came from a t-shirt designer who sold the shirt on “lonelydinsosaur.com” in 2008. The meme was born in 2009 when the website memegenerator.com was launched. This website made it possible for users to upload and edit images for the purpose of creating memes without the use of image editing software. Users then began adding short blurbs to the philosoraptor image with the intent of posing philosophical questions.#

Memes are wildly popular on Reddit. Of the websites most likely to be visited by a Reddit user, the sites “Memegenerator,” “Quickmeme,” and “Knowyourmeme” are in the top five.# In my time studying Reddit over the past six months, there has not been a single instance that a popular meme was not on the front page. Many Internet memes that become widespread throughout Internet culture, like Scumbag Steve, find their beginnings in the Reddit community and disseminate to other websites as they become prominent vehicles for cultural ideas and arguments.

The image form of these memes and the brevity of the text they contain meet the requirements of distracted communication on the Internet perfectly. People who consume memes are potentially less likely to think critically about the arguments they contain because of the distracted nature of the Internet: click, consume, move on. These memes serve as vehicles for truth and enhanced argumentation. Each of the memes is making a statement without providing any supporting evidence for those arguments. The effect is something similar to “bumper sticker truth.”

Furthermore, these statements are generally accepted because the familiarity of these Internet memes give the arguments they contain artificial credibility that may not have otherwise existed. The repetitive image used gives the consumer a sense of familiarity to the content that may cause them to be more comfortable accepting the meme’s arguments without a critical examination.

Internet memes also signal a decline in creativity. Memes are the pinnacle of rehashed art. No new art is created, only rethinking of old ideas. Now, one must admit that all art takes part in this sort of “inspired creativity” to some extent, but there is a fundamental and undeniable difference between the amount of time and skill it takes to reconstitute a particular meme and the time and skill required to create the world’s most prized works of art. One can argue that perhaps our culture is simply redefining what art “is,” but it would be hard to argue that there is not a vast difference in the effort and creativity it took someone to remake Scumbag Steve versus how long it took Picaso to create Guernica. If the Internet meme is one of the most popular current venues for creativity, one must wonder if this environment will ever be capable of producing any “Picasos” in the future.

The Internet and Its Pancake Devotees
“The power to shape minds is often more effective than physical forces”(Tang and Yang 2011).#
It can be argued that written cultures foster individuality in a way that oral cultures do not. Oral cultures depend, to a much greater degree than written ones, on the social interactions of the community to survive. The identity of a person is made up of the connections to the people around them in a way that is profoundly strong. Written cultures are much different. Knowledge can be gained in ways not possible in oral societies and one’s individual thoughts can be recorded for future reflection. As a result, oral cultures have the potential to be made up of people who are much more likely to share radically common ideas and worldviews.

The Internet has the possibility of acting in similar ways to an oral culture. Instead of recording ideas and emotions through journals or literature for future reflection, these same ideas are posted in summary to the Internet. One who posts these short blurbs in Twitter-like form to the Internet then depend on reaction from the community to form their viewpoints and opinions instead of developing reactions based on individual reflection.

This concept can be seen in Reddit, and is made more powerful by the websites form. Through upvoting, downvoting, and comment responses, users are conformed to the dominant ideals and worldviews held by the most vocal participants that frequent the website. This behaviour punishes opposing viewpoints and rewards conforming ideals much in the way that public social pressures do. However, when coupled with the rising anti-written culture of the Internet, these pressures become extremely forceful.

As discussed earlier, when a user submits content to Reddit other Redditors then have the option to either “upvote” or “downvote” that submission. Content that is upvoted moves closer to the front page and the original submitter receives a karma point for each upvote unless the submission contains only text. Submissions that move closer to the front page have a much higher chance of being seen by other users and becoming popular. Conversely, submissions that are downvoted move farther down the pages of Reddit and into the abyss of its servers. The original poster then receives “negative” karma, causing their overall karma to decrease.

The same mechanism is seen in the comments section for each post. Every post has a comments portion where other Redditors can engage in discussion about the submission. Users then have the option to either upvote or downvote particular comments. Comments that receive upvotes reward the original commenter with a karma point and those statements then bubble up to the top of the page where they become the most visable. Comments that are downvoted give the original commenter negative karma and those posts then move to the bottom of the page where they are likely to become unseen. If a comment receives enough downvotes the comment is hidden from view altogether.

The results of this structure of upvoting and downvoting are many-fold. First, posts that may present an unpopular viewpoint do not have to be held up to scrutiny or argued against critically. To “argue against” or shut-down an unpopular viewpoint the community simply has to downvote the post. The same is true for popular ideals. Posts that fit into the popular ideals of the active participants of Reddit have the potential to be upvoted to the front page without scrutiny. As a result, certain popular perspectives are constantly being presented to visitors of Reddit while opposing viewpoints never see the light of day.

Secondly, the posters of content that may oppose the dominant ideals of Reddit are punished with negative karma. This karma score then functions as a visible, tangible, quantifiable metric for community acceptance. This discourages users who are downvoted from continuing to post similar content in the future.

Lastly, people with opposing viewpoints are more likely in this environment to begin submitting content that fits popular ideals in order to become accepted by the Reddit community. Critical thinking, then, becomes less important than acceptance by the community as a whole.

When combined with the image culture of the Internet and the persuasive power of memes, the form of Reddit then becomes a pervasive culture-shaping tool. The environmental features of Reddit, when working together, have the symbolic power necessary to shape the minds of the Redditors who spend hours upon hours a day on the website. This is significant because, until recently, this ability to wield changing symbolic power was available only to the church, schools, and the media. The Internet “equips ordinary people, instead of just the powerful and the elite, with the resources to exercise symbolic power, that is, to produce and transmit symbolic materials across time and space” (Tang and Yang 2011).#

Conclusion

Like the printing press, railroad, photography, and television before it, the Internet has become a commanding force shaping every aspect of the human experience. Like society and government, scholars are left scrambling to catch up to the message this medium carries. In this paper we have examined how the form, structure, and content of the popular website Reddit, and its community, give compelling evidence that the Internet has the potential to fundamentally change the way we think in ways that may not be desirable. The image culture of Reddit is evidence that Internet communities are abandoning written based culture. The use and domination of Internet “memes” as a vehicle for communication on Reddit are evidence that the Internet is degrading our ability to think critically and be creative. And finally, the structure of Reddit shows that individuality on the web is becoming a concept of the past.

SOPA

2011-12-10T18:03:00.001-07:00

This is an excerpt from a piece I did on the Stop Online Piracy Act. Places where footnotes to references exist in the original work are denoted by a "#" sign.

On October 26th, 2011 Representatives Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), and Howard Berman (D-Calif.) introduced HR 3261# the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” or SOPA.# SOPA, as we will refer to the act for the remainder of this paper, is one of the most prominent examples of congressional reaction to free speech on the Internet. The act claims to “promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.”

SOPA would give the Department of Justice the power to take legal action against websites both within and outside of US jurisdiction that infringe upon or enable the infringement of copyrights.

The bill also bypasses safe-harbor laws passed by congress in 1998 by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which set the precedent for “good-faith” action. The DMCA protections allowed companies, usually technology based and dependent on innovation, to conduct their business in “good faith,” protecting them from being retroactively prosecuted for illegal actions done by other parties using their services.

The new restrictions posed by SOPA would require search engines like Google and Yahoo to remove any violating web-site from their search query results, effectively censoring those results. SOPA also gives the DOJ the ability to take more aggressive legal action against persons who, knowingly or unknowingly, violate copyright laws. These new standards would make many forms of copyright infringement, including streaming copyrighted content, a felony.

SOPA has been hugely controversial. Besides garnering explosive backlash from Internet communities as a whole#, corporate identities have split sides on the matter expressing themselves quite vocally in either opposing or supporting the bill.

Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, eBay, Twitter, Mozilla, AOL, Yahoo, the ACLU, Reporters Without Borders, and Zynga have all banned together to oppose SOPA, taking out full page ads in the New York Times to publish open letters to the authors of the bill.# While these companies support the spirit of SOPA, they oppose the power that the bill would give the government to censor the Internet as a result.

Conversely, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Macmillan Publishers, Viacom, Nike, L'Oréal, NBC/Universal, Pfizer, Ford Motor Company, Revlon, WalMart, Disney, the NFL, the NBA, and other trademark and copyright dependant companies have actively lobbied congress encouraging them to pass the bill.# These companies argue that failing to pass SOPA “puts American jobs, consumers, and innovation at risk.”

There has not been a more important or controversial bill regarding free-speech and the Internet since 1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Stop Online Piracy Act would fundamentally change the way that the Internet is structured in America. Does this bill censor the Internet, inhibiting citizen’s freedom of expression? Or does it ensure the protection of intellectual property, which is arguably essential to a creative marketplace of ideas?

SOPA places unnecessary restrictions on the fundamental structure of the Internet and results in the violation of free expression rights and creativity.
The Internet is perhaps the most important tool for free speech and freedom of expression available today. The Web has provided a forum for US citizens to gather, share ideas, develop vital cultural and artistic practices, and enact change promoting social justice. Facebook and Twitter have been used to enable the Egyptian revolution and organize movements like Occupy Wall Street. YouTube and Vimeo have been integral platforms for new musicians and film directors. Flickr and DeviantArt have provided visual-artists with a forum to share and collaborate on new, cutting edge art-forms. Even the White House has recognized and utilized the ability of the Internet to enact political change. The Obama administration uses its website to give citizens a place to sign petitions and discuss important national issues.
The Internet enables “the people” with the potential to wield the symbolic power necessary enact social change on new and progressive levels. This is significant because, until recently, this ability to wield changing symbolic power was available only to the church, schools, and the media. The Internet “equips ordinary people, instead of just the powerful and the elite, with the resources to exercise symbolic power, that is, to produce and transmit symbolic materials across time and space” (Tang and Yang 2011).#

The Internet is also an important place for citizens to express themselves and innovate through the businesses and services they provide. Companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Aol, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and LinkedIn have all generated huge revenue streams and stimulated the economy through some of the most innovative and brilliant minds America has to offer.

It is obvious that the free-flowing form of the Internet, its accessibility to the general public, and its ease of use make it the most important modern platform for freedom of expression in the United States.

It is my argument that the Stop Online Piracy Act threatens this vital First Amendment right of free speech on the Internet. Three compelling claims provide strong proof for this argument. First, when examined closely, SOPA places restrictions on free speech that are not narrowly-tailored and therefore undermine the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit inherent to the Internet. Secondly, the vagueness and power of SOPA creates a chilling effect that will silence freedom of expression. Lastly, SOPA fundamentally fails to accomplish the one thing it claims to do: stop online piracy.
Claim 1- SOPA places restrictions on free speech that are not narrowly-tailored and stifles free speech on the Internet.

Copyright laws are important to thriving culture. Protecting the ability of a content creator to receive reasonable incentive for their work is essential to the continued production of ideas, arts, and sciences. The Internet presents a very real problem in the pursuit of these protections. However, the Internet also provides a venue for producing ideas, art, and science that was previously impossible.

Freedom of Expression on the Internet has been granted full First Amendment protections by the Supreme Court. As Tedford and Herbeck report in Freedom of Expression in the US, “the Court (has) affirmed the importance of the Internet as a unique medium of communication and extended freedom of speech into cyberspace.#” In addition the Court has recognized that, when acting on behalf of a compelling government interest such as protecting children or copyright law, the government must use the “least restrictive means” possible.

SOPA violates the First Ammendment rights of US citizens. SOPA also undermines and stifles the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit inherent to the Internet. It does this by giving big media corporations two new and overreaching powers. First, the bill places unreasonable responsibility on websites to filter content that is copyrighted. Secondly, SOPA harshly punishes US citizens who violate copyright laws regardless of whether they are even aware that their actions are doing so.

In March of 2007, Viacom Inc. sued YouTube for more than one billion dollars in damages, claiming that the users of YouTube had uploaded content that infringed upon many of Viacom’s copyrights#. Many of these videos that “infringed” upon Viacom’s copyrights simply had music or video playing in the background of amateur home movies shot by ordinary US citizens who had no intention of breaking any laws. If successful, Viacom’s lawsuit could have easily been severe enough to put YouTube out of business, which was then a fledgling but vibrant cultural service.

The courts rightly ruled in favor of YouTube by upholding a bill passed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which was created to protect entrepreneurial companies like YouTube from being criminally liable for content that its users might upload through its service#. The DMCA requires that a site like YouTube must remove content that is copyrighted when made aware of its existence. This allows start-up companies that have been so important to the US economy to thrive and adjust without being shut down by big media corporations like Viacom, while still protecting copyright owners in the process.

SOPA, if it existed five years ago, would have favored Viacom. In fact, SOPA would have gone a few steps farther in smudging YouTube, and the freedom of expression that takes place there, out of existence. Under SOPA, websites become criminally liable for any content uploaded to their website, regardless of circumstance. In addition, any website that has even one offending link directing users to unauthorized copyrighted content can be removed from the Internet almost entirely. Internet service providers would be required to block that website, making it almost impossible for their customers to access the page. In addition, search engines like Google would be forced to censor their search results as they would be held criminally liable for any offending website that might pop up in a search. Twitter would have to troll its users astounding 9,000 tweets per second to filter out any copyrighted content or links. As this task is virtually impossible, sites like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter may cease to exist if SOPA passes.

Additionally, SOPA places extreme pressures on US citizens who access the Internet. Under SOPA, any US citizen that posts a link to unauthorized copyrighted material, or uploads an unauthorized film clip to the Internet, or even streams an unauthorized song from a web page has committed a felony and can receive five years in federal prison. These kinds of restrictions are vastly inhibiting to the free speech rights of US citizens.

To put the egregiousness of SOPA’s provisions into perspective, we must examine a recent event in US pop culture. In 2009 Michael Jackson was found dead in his California home. Shocked by this news, the public demanded an explanation. Two years later Los Angeles court found Conrad Murray, Mr. Jackson’s private doctor, guilty of involuntary manslaughter. As a result, Mr. Murray has been sentenced to four years in prison#.

Under SOPA, if a you were to simply upload a video to YouTube of yourself dancing to one of the late Michael Jackon’s many popular songs, a violation of copyright laws under SOPA, you would be rewarded by the US government with 5 years in prison. So, under SOPA, by uploading a video of yourself enjoying one of Michael’s songs, you would get one more year in prison than the man who killed him.

Claim 2- The Chilling Effect.

SOPA creates a chilling effect both in potential start-up, Internet based companies that promote free speech and in the citizens that use the Internet for free expression.

SOPA makes it impossible for many community-oriented, web-based companies to survive. Under these harsh restrictions, it becomes financially unwise for any potential entrepreneur to consider creating a web-based service. Not only does this have the potential to hurt the United State’s already struggling economy, but it removes modern forms of viable self-expression. After all, if YouTube can’t survive, why would anyone dare to attempt a similar business model?

Secondly, and most importantly, SOPA creates a horrific chilling effect with US citizens. Sharing experiences and collaboration on the Internet has become a dominant form of self expression. Free speech in the US today depends greatly on the ability of bloggers and users to express themselves without fear of retribution. What happens to that dynamic when parents begin to do hard time for the content they have uploaded to the Internet? How much of the blogging world will survive after having to carefully edit each post for fear of committing a felony?

The chilling effect created by SOPA is obvious and should not be allowed. This would erode the very fibers of what makes the Internet a viable and progressive free speech forum. Indeed we agree with Justice Stevens who said “governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas that to encourage it.#”

Claim 3- SOPA does not stop online piracy.
SOPA fundamentally fails to accomplish the one thing it claims to do: stop online piracy. Under SOPA, any website that infringes upon copyright laws would have to be blocked by Internet service providers. However, these websites can still be accessed by typing in their physical IP address. Since most of these websites are located outside of US jurisdiction#, the government cannot shut down the site like a web-page that is hosted on US soil. So essentially, anyone who was highly motivated to pirate copyrighted materials would still be able to access the websites that allow them to accomplish this.
Users who have the intention to pirate copyrighted materials also have the ability to circumvent the IP address tracking technologies used to find the identity of the guilty party. Setting up a static IP address can be done with relative ease#, an action that masks personal identity from outside sources. Public computers are also readily accessible to anyone wishing to pirate materials without having their actions traced to their personal residence.
Under these conditions, the only people punished by SOPA are the entrepreneurs who want nothing more than to give back to the US economy and ordinary citizens who are have no intention of breaking copyright laws.
CONCLUSION-

The First Amendment rights of the people of the United States are perhaps exercised and enjoyed in no other modern venue more than they are on the World Wide Web. The Internet is arguably the most important tool for freedom of expression available today. We have seen that the Stop Online Piracy Act threatens this vital First Amendment right of free speech on the Internet. Three compelling claims have provided strong proof for this argument. SOPA places restrictions on free speech that are not narrowly-tailored and undermine the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit inherent to the Internet. We have also examined the chilling effect that will silence freedom of expression if SOPA is passed. And finally, we have seen that SOPA punishes innocent US citizens as it fundamentally fails to accomplish the one thing it claims to do: stop online piracy.

Ecclesiastes 11:5

2011-10-29T18:43:00.004-06:00

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

Can a brother get some cold weather?

2011-09-29T17:37:00.002-06:00

Another wonderful summer has passed us by. Though you might not know it considering how lazy Fall is getting here.

We did, however, make good use of this past Summer. After finishing the semester in mid August, Cyndi and I headed to Los Angeles to visit her Grandma (who I had never met and immediately fell in love with), to see the ocean (which we loved and miss dearly already), and hit up the happiest place on earth (can you go all the way to LA and not go to Disneyland and Amoeba Records?).

Vacations unfortunately don't last forever (though contrast in life does help us appreciate the good times). Now we are back at work and studying. Cyndi is awesome. Working her butt off at the good ol' 'Bucks while I try to finish school as quickly as possible. Only one more semester! We have had a hard time finding time to hang out together, so we decided to take Kung Fu lessons together. It was Cyndi's idea really. Don't know how many other dudes have their wives suggesting that they take Kung Fu, but let me tell you I feel like a pretty lucky guy. Its been a LOT of fun, though I am realizing just how out of shape I am.

Indi and Nukka are shedding their summer coats in preparation for their winter ones. Can I tell ya'll how messy that is? An hour of brushing and the hair keeps coming. On the plus side, they are such wonderful dogs that we don't even bat an eyelash about the mess. Its a small price to pay for having two of the coolest animals on the planet. THE SHED GOD DEMANDS A SACRIFICE!

This weekend our good friends Steve and Amy are getting married. And you'll never guess who is officiating the whole thing. That's right. Yours truly. Speaking of which, I need to go put the finishing touches on the message for their ceremony.

What is the GOSPEL?

2011-03-27T23:38:00.000-06:00

The Four Holy Gospels ESV Preview

2011-02-16T18:40:00.000-07:00

Is the Bible Reliable?

2010-12-08T17:35:00.005-07:00

I recently finished an upper division Theories of Argument course. It was one of the most challenging, yet fulfilling experiences of my life. My professor, Dr. Rieke, is one of the foremost minds on argumentative academia and law.

This is the final paper I submitted for the class. I received an A grade with gleaming reviews from my professor, a compliment I will forever remember. Thought I'd share my paper with you. Its a brief introduction into the support for the reliability of the Bible, which itself is a well supported and compelling case. I hope that you will find this stimulating.

ULTIMATE PURPOSE- To establish successful criteria for the assessment of ancient texts.

PROPOSAL- The modern day gospel accounts in the New Testament are historical, reliable documents.

DEFINITION OF TERMS-

New Testament: the account of Jesus and the early Christian church as presented in the modern Bible.
Reliable Document: the document is, to the best of the authors ability, a historical account. It is considered reliable if this account appears today as it was presented when it was first written. The original meaning and intent has not been changed throughout time.
Gospel: One of the four canonical, narrative accounts of the life of Jesus as presented in the modern Bible. They are the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
For the sake of space, in this paper the annotation “NT” will sometimes take the place of the term “New Testament.”

RELEVANT MATERIAL-

Virtually all modern scholars agree that the existence of Jesus and his followers are historical facts.

NEED-

The vast reaching impact that the Bible has had on our culture is universally recognized. The title itself, “Bible,” comes from the Greek word “Biblia” meaning “the Book.” Much of our western morality and ethical standard find their roots from this singular piece of literature. There is perhaps no one written literary work that has had a greater significance for the western worldview.

Accompanying the Bible is one of the most influential men to have walked the Earth, Jesus of Nazareth. Two-thousand years later Jesus is still as potent as ever. Our system for recording time is built around his birth. His name is both used in honor and in profanity. Pop-culture t-shirts emblazon the phrase “Jesus is my homeboy.” One can buy Jesus stickers, candles, books, key-chains, music, and movies. His followers now number in the billions.

The account of Jesus’ life and ensuing wake after his death are recorded in the gospels of New Testament, the four books recording Jesus’ life and ministry. In light of the influence that both the Bible and Jesus have had on our culture, there is perhaps no greater question one can ask than whether the account of the gospels can be trusted or not.

AFFIRMATIVE- The New Testament gospels are reliable.

Through this paper, I propose that the New Testament gospels are historically reliable documents. We will observe this proposition through three claims: first, the New Testament author’s narratives are reliable because they contain eye-witness accounts. Second, we can trust the reliability of these accounts because of their content. Lastly, there are an abundance of early manuscripts in existence that prove these gospel narratives have preserved the original intent of the authors for our time.

Claim #1- The New Testament accounts are reliable because they were contain eye witness accounts.

Craig L. Blomberg is widely considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, also known as the four NT “gospels”. He received his doctorate from Aberdeen University in Scotland and later served as senior research fellow at Cambridge University. During his stay at Cambridge, Dr. Blomberg co-edited Gospel Perspectives, vol. 6: The Miracle of Jesus and wrote The Historical Reliability of the Gospels . His pedigree is matched only by the company he keeps. Dr. Blomberg is a member of the Society for the Study of the New Testament, Society of Biblical Literature, and the Institute for Biblical Research. He is perhaps the most qualified person to question about the reliability of the NT gospels.

When asked if it were reasonable for an “intelligent and critically thinking person to believe that the four gospels were written by the people whose names have been attached to them,” Dr. Blomberg replied emphatically, “The answer is yes.” Blomberg further reports that “it is important to note that, strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous. But the uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew, tax collector and one of the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel in the NT; that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark; and that Luke, known as Paul’s “beloved physician,” wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. There are no known competitors for these Gospels, it was just not in dispute.” In other words, it was the uniform agreement of the people living at the time the books were written that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were indeed the authors of those works.

Dr. Blomberg also notes that this is important because three of these men were unlikely characters for the early church to attribute authorship to. “Mark and Luke weren’t even among the twelve disciples. Matthew was, but as a former tax collector he would have been the most infamous character next to Judas Iscariot.” If we compare this to the apocryphal accounts that were written much later, we see that people chose the names of well-known and respected characters to be their fictitious authors- people like Peter, Mary, and James. The simple fact is that there remains no real reason to attribute authorship to these three much less respected individuals, unless it were true.”

The reality that the gospel accounts were actually written by eye-witnesses or people with access to the eye-witnesses themselves has significant weight when you consider the culture these histories were written in. Everyone remembers the “telephone gossip game” we used to play as kids. You whisper one thing to someone, then they whisper down the line, and by the time the message gets to the last person its true meaning has been severely distorted. This was not true for Hebrew society. Jewish culture relied heavily on memorization. Without the aide of a printing press, the process of passing on knowledge took place through careful recitation and memorization. According to Dr. Blomberg most Jews memorized large parts, if not all of, the Old Testament text by reciting and memorizing from an early age. This culture depended on a sharp memory and was regularly self-critical. For instance, if one of the disciples said, “Do you remember when Jesus said this...” and then got a word wrong, the other disciples who were also listening and carefully memorizing would correct the account in order to preserve what actually was taught.

This careful attention to memory detail and authorship by people who were either with Jesus, or learned from his close friends, holds considerable weight when arguing our claim that the NT gospels contain eye-witness accounts and are therefore reliable.

Claim #2- We can trust the reliability of the NT gospels because of their content.

“So we can trust that the gospels were actually written by the authors whose name they bear,” one might question, “but how does that guarantee that the accounts themselves were not embellished or changed to fit the needs of the people who wrote them?” This is a valid train of thought. Why should we believe that the authors, Mark, Luke, John, and Matthew were reporting historical fact and not just formulating stories that fit their own agenda in a post-Jesus world? Furthermore, aren’t there numerous contradictions and disagreement between the gospel narratives, which would call into question the historicity of their accounts?
Richard Bauckham is a New Testament scholar and professor of New Testament studies at St. Mary's College, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He wrote Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which won the 2007 Book Award in Biblical Studies from Christianity Today. He suggests that these questions can be answered by looking at the content of the gospels themselves. First, Dr. Bauckham says that if the gospel accounts were changed to fit the needs of the people who wrote them, one would expect to see those individuals painting themselves into the narrative as respectable characters in order to maintain credibility. When studying the accounts we see that, amazingly, the opposite is true. Matthew for instance does not hide the fact that he was a tax collector, a profession that during his time would be akin to prostitution. Not the best picture to paint for an audience when trying to gain credibility. The apostle Peter is recorded as publicly rejecting Jesus and going so far as to call a curse down on his head. “Why would anyone in the early church want to play up the failures of their most prominent leader?” Dr. Baukham asks. “No one would have made such a story up.” In fact, in each gospel the authors recount the prideful attitude of the apostles, their rejection and betrayal of Jesus, and their lack of faith and self-motivation. Instead of highly respectable heroes we see a picture of petty, jealous, and almost impossibly slow-witted men. This does not seem like men who are trying to gain clout or influence by formulating fanciful stories. The only good explanation for such brutal honesty is that the gospel authors felt a need to be honest in their reports of what really happened.
If the gospel accounts were changed to fit the needs of the the people who wrote them, one would expect to see Jesus make definitive judgements about topics that were of debate in the early Christian church. After all, no words could have more profound persuading effect than Jesus himself. Following the death of Jesus, circumcision was one of the most debated subjects as is seen in epistles written by the Apostle Paul. The gospels, however, make virtually no mention of this topic at all. If an author was formulating a gospel narrative to either promote or condemn circumcision, wouldn’t one expect them to have Jesus to speak up on the matter? The fact that the NT gospels do not record Jesus taking a stance on many of these highly debated topics suggests that the authors were not making their histories up but in fact reporting what really took place.
What about the apparent contradictions that appear between the four gospels? Aren’t there many times where the gospel accounts do not agree with each other? For instance, each gospel records the discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb differently. According to Matthew, Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary" discovered the empty tomb. Mark records Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James. Luke does not mention names but cites “the women who came with (Jesus) from Galilee. Finally, John only mentions Mary Magdalene. If the gospel accounts can’t even agree with each other, how can we trust them?
Dr. Blomberg, the biblical scholar mentioned in our first claim, offers a compelling explanation. The gospel accounts are written from the perspective of four different people witnessing the same events. This means that each account should be expected to have varying styles of paraphrasing and abridgement, explanation of events, selection and omission of details, etc. Blomberg says “Once you allow for (these elements)- the gospels are extremely consistent with one another, especially by ancient standards, which are the only standards by which it’s fair to judge them.” The differing accounts of the empty tomb, for instance, are not outright contradictions, just different details are included or excluded. “If the gospels were too consistent,” Blomberg argues, “that in itself would invalidate them as independent witnesses. People would then say that we really only have one testimony that everyone else is just parroting.” This idea of “corroboration” is common in our judicial system. If various eye-witness testimonies are too similar, it actually invalidates their accounts.

Finally, the reality that the gospels report that it was women who found the tomb is astounding. In this world, a woman’s eyewitness account was legally inferior to their male counterparts. Women could not vote, own land, testify in court, or file for divorce. If the gospel accounts were being made up, the authors would have picked legally trustworthy males to have discovered an empty grave site to make their story believable. The fact that this did not happen suggests that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were more concerned with reporting history than any ulterior motive.

Claim #3- Manuscript evidence proves the gospel narratives have been preserved for our time.

Dr. Bruce M. Metzger passed away in three years ago at the age of 93. His legacy of works are heralded as the some of the most comprehensive, in-depth, and important studies of the NT. He received two masters and a doctorate degree from Princeton University, and has since been awarded honorary doctorates from five other universities and colleges. In the years leading up to his passing, Dr. Metzger was professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. He authored and edited over fifty books, including The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content; The Text of the New Testament; and Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. Metzger also co-edited the prestigious New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apochrypha. His reputation is so well respected that, if one were to check the footnotes on almost any authoritative book on New Testament texts, you’d find his name cited repeatedly. His work is the undisputed authority on the NT manuscript texts.
Dr. Metzger was confident that the manuscript evidence for the NT gospels was unlike any other ancient script. During his early research though, he admits he was a bit taken back by what he discovered. “When I first found out that there were no surviving originals of the NT, I was really skeptical.” he recalls during an interview, “I thought, “If all we have are copies of copies of copies, how can I have any confidence that the NT we have today bears any resemblance whatsoever to what was originally written?””
The absence of the original, however, is not a literary problem unique to the Bible. Its an issue facing nearly all ancient texts. “What the NT has in its favor, especially when compared with other ancient writings,” Dr. Metzger explains, “is the unprecedented multiplicity of copies that have survived.” In fact, the numbers supporting the NT in comparison to other ancient texts are astonishing. In a study done by Princeton University, great works such as Homer’s Iliad, Tacitus’ Annals of Imperial Rome, and the Tertalogies of Plato were found to have an embarrassingly low amount of ancient copies to reference; Homer has 643 copies, Plato has seven, and only one copy of Tacitus’ work has survived. Metzger points out that in contrast the NT copies have been almost uncannily more resilient. He reports that “over 5,000 copies of the Greek NT manuscripts have been catalogued. In addition to the Greek manuscripts, there are thousands of other ancient NT manuscripts in other languages. There are 8,000-10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts, plus a total of 8,000 in Ethiopic, Slavic, and Armenian. In all, there are approximately 24,000 manuscripts in existence.”

Also compelling are the dates that the copies of the various ancient texts were written. Take for example Homer’s Iliad; the earliest copy of this classic work is dated from the second or third centuries AD. Given that Homer wrote this influential book in approx. 800 BC, that's quite the gap. The same is true for Tacitus. He wrote his historical account in 116 AD and the earliest, fragmented copy in existence was written 750 years later. Dr. Metzger says the same is true for the majority of ancient texts, “in most cases, maybe five, eight, or ten centuries elapsed between the first surviving copies and the originals.”

Contrast this to the earliest copies of the NT that were dated to an astonishing “few generations after the originals.” In fact, fragments of papyrus from Egypt containing the gospel of John have been dated to between 100 and 120 AD. Metzger finds this particular copy to be especially compelling, “Here we have, at a very early date, a fragment of a copy of John all the way over in a community along the Nile River in Egypt, far from Ephesus in Asia Minor, where the gospel of John was probably originally composed.” This means that the original must have been written years earlier and strengthens the argument that it was a reliable, eyewitness account.

But how well do these thousands of NT manuscripts agree with each other? What good do 24,000 copies do us if they are riddled with textual variants? The English Standard Bible Committee, a team of more than a hundred biblical scholars from various international and denominational backgrounds, did a comprehensive study on the number and scale of the textual variants contained in ancient NT manuscripts. “The NT contains approx. 138,000 words.” they report, “The best estimate is that there are as many as 400,000 textual variants among the manuscripts.” That seems like a crippling statistic, but the committee offers an engaging explanation.

“If this were the only piece of data, it might discourage anyone from attempting to recover the wording of the original. But the large number of variants is due to the large number of surviving manuscripts. Hundreds of thousands of (textual variants) exist only because tens of thousands of such documents exist.” Their study continues, “Furthermore, the vast majority of textual alterations are accidental and trivial, and hence easy for textual critics to spot.”

They go on to explain that the largest group of textual variants exist in non-sense, unintentional spelling errors. The next largest group of variants contain minor changes in grammar that do not affect the meaning (ie. Greek uses a definitive article with proper names (the Paul), but English does not (Paul)). The final and smallest category of textual variants are ones that are are meaningful. These comprise less than one percent of all textual variants. For instance, some manuscripts read Romans 5:1 as “we have peace,” while others have “let us have peace.” The committee believes that these changes would “rarely effect the original intent of the author.”

The support for the preservation of the NT gospel texts is overwhelming. The date, overall textual consistency, and number of ancient NT documents points to only one conclusion: manuscript evidence offers some of the most compelling evidence that the NT gospels have been preserved for our time.

Affirmative Conclusion-

Assessing the reliability of ancient records is a difficult task. This is especially cumbersome when handling a text as influential as the NT gospel accounts. Thankfully, experts have been able to establish pragmatic guidelines for doing so. It is, however, important to be consistent during this evaluation process regardless of the case. In summary, the gospels are dependable because they contain eyewitness accounts. Furthermore, the content of these accounts proves that the authors were writing to be as accurate in their reports as possible. Lastly, there are an abundance of early manuscripts in existence that prove these gospel narratives have preserved the original intent of the authors for our time. By using these standards we can see clearly that the NT gospel narratives are reliable.

I can haz literacy?

2008-08-22T09:53:00.008-06:00

There are a small number of activities that fill the hours of my days. Most of my time is spent either working or fighting for time with Cyndi. Yes, I believe "fighting" is the best verb for the situation in this case. There are many days (like today) where I will work one shift and Cyndi will work another time completely opposite me. We've found it absolutely essential to find time each day to connect. To spend our moments together sharing our hearts and minds. Even if we just spend an hour talking about the day. Then, of course, to seek God together. Two people seeking God will eventually meet at His feet no matter what else is going on.

One thing Cyndi and I have enjoyed doing together is gardening. Cyndi has a serious green thumb. Its been so amazing to watch all of our plants grow from little seeds to huge sunflowers! Unfortunately, last week a huge storm blew through late one night and wreaked a bit of havoc on our little haven. Here's a pic of one of the sunflowers that survived. God is amazing.

In the time that I'm NOT at work, or with Cyndi, or writing new music, or serving at the Rock, I read. A lot. In fact, when writing this blog I had to stop and go make a list of everything that I am actively reading because I couldn't remember them all.

I say actively reading and not just reading for a reason. Just reading means that at some point in time in your life you started reading the book, never finished it, but you have the intentions of finishing. For me a good example of this is the Harry Potter series. Yes JK Rowling uber-fans I am still reading the series, don't get the mob together just yet. Its just that the last time I picked up a Harry Potter book was about 2 or 3 years ago.

Actively reading means that you read at least something from the book every 1-3 days. You have the book, you read it often, and have every intention of finishing it on your current pace. In all I have ten books I am actively reading. At once. I don't know how this came about. It just did. I just woke up one day, looked at my nightstand, and thought "dang son, that there is ri-dic-ulous."

To help illustrate the point I took a picture. I am lazy, so I took it with my camera phone (which is a piece of hud) and sent it to myself via the e-mails and the intertubes. Behold, the glorious tower of mind food.

Actually, now that I am going back and counting, that's eleven books and not ten.
Ah crap, upon further inspection I see that one is missing from the pile, left upstairs on the coach. That makes twelve. Dang. This is getting outahand.

Here is a running list of everything I am actively reading right now. In listing I'll start on the top left, work my way down, and then pick up again on the top right finishing with the book that is upstairs.

1. The Case for Faith-by:Lee Strobel (and about a million other of the smartest scholars on the planet).
The Case for Faith is a journalistic investigation into some of the hardest "heart" questions regarding God and faith. "How could evil and suffering exist if God is the creator of everything? A loving creator wouldn't allow pain, so doesn't that prove He doesn't exist? How could Jesus be the only way to God? How could a loving God send people to Hell? Isn't church history littered with oppression, confusion, and violence?" This book is part of a series of 3 that examines the case for Jesus Himself, the case for a Creator, and the case for faith. I've read the other two and am 2/3rds of the way through this one.

2. Reaching for the Invisible God-by:Phillip Yancey
This book takes a look at one of the most difficult questions facing man-kind, "If God is the most important relationship I can have, how do I have a thriving relationship with someone I've never seen?" Life with God doesn't always work like we thought. High expectations slam against the reality of personal weakness and unwelcome surprises. And the God who we've been told longs for our company may seem remote, emotionally unavailable. This relationship with a God we can't see, hear, or touch- how does it really work? Phillip asks these hard questions and ultimately finds the answer in He who offers it: the God who invites us to reach for-and find, Him. I'm about 3 chapters in.

3. The Screwtape Letters-by:CS Lewis
CS Lewis gives satirical incite into "Hell's latest novelties and Heaven's unanswerable answer." Comic, entertaining, and hauntingly inciteful, The Screwtape Letters, in my opinion, shed much more light on our own humanity than they do on the inner workings of the demons that fill the stories in this book. This is my second time through.

4. Intended for Pleasure-by:Ed Wheat MD
Ed and Gaye Wheat, along with their medical associate Dow Pursley, combine biblical teaching on love and marriage with the latest medical information on sex and sexuality. The book discusses in depth God's intended relationship to us and what that means for how God intended marriage and sex to be in the first place. Drawing on years of experience in counseling couples, Intended For Pleasure is highly recommended reading for newlyweds and an excellent resource for pastors and marriage counselors.

5. Vintage Jesus-by:Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears
The books cover suggests that Jesus offers "timeless answers to timely questions," and Mark and Gerry prove that He does. They take a deep, biblical look at the life of Jesus and the truth that His life offers, especially when you accept what the Bible says about Him. While offering brutally honest information (the in-depth description of what happened in the last hours of Jesus life, his torture and crucifixion, was stomach turning), Vintage Jesus also addresses hard questions that people have about Jesus while using the Bible as the source of the answers. "How human was Jesus? How did people know He was coming? Why did Jesus mom need to be a virgin? What did Jesus accomplish on the cross? How can we know that Jesus rose from the dead, what evidence is there?" I am surprised by how honest this book is. It speaks to our generation, and does so while using the Bible, not personal opinion, to answer some of the most timely questions. My favorite part so far? Just exactly what does it mean for Jesus to be our prophet, priest, and king. Changed my life. I'm about 125 pages in.

6. Come Thirsty-by:Max Lucado
Come Thirsty shows that God offers a long drink of cool water to parched throats and "dehydrated hearts"- people whose faith has run dry as well as those whose faith was never watered very well in the first place. As with Lucado's other titles, this one is saturated with grace. It's ours for the taking, regardless of who we are or what we've done or how we think of ourselves, and it's central to all of Lucado's books. If we allow it to, he writes, grace will saturate our lives and become as inescapable as the water that surrounds us on all sides when we dive into a deep pool. My favorite part so far? Part 3-"Trust His Lordship", Chapter 11-"Worry? You don't have to." I'm on chapter 14.

7. Shadow Puppets-by:Orson Scott Card
THIS is one of those titles that has gone from actively reading, to reading, and now back to actively reading again. I've read every book in the Ender's Game series, up to this one. And I've been attempting to read it for FOUR YEARS! Its just so much slower than all the previous books. I've made it half way through the book 3 times now and NOTHING happens! Never fear, I'm a stubborn man. Never underestimate the power of a stubborn man and his vices. I'm halfway through... ...again.

8. (top right-hand side of the pic) THE BIBLE-by:GOD
The worlds all-time best-seller. God's masterpiece of non-fiction. It has been so heavily sold since its first printing that, after years at the top of the list, the New York times officially disqualified it. It may not say "#1 New York Times best seller 2000 yrs and running," but we all know the truth. I'm in Samuel, Isaiah, Romans, and Luke right now.

9. The Book on Leadership-by:John MacArthur
MacArthur (one of the smartest Bible scholars alive) takes a look at the life of Paul to define Biblical, practical leadership. He outlines "26 characteristics of a True Leader." He discusses that real leaders are raised and appointed by God, and that a person's character means much more than a title does. I just got this one two days ago. I'm on the first chapter.

10. David: a Man of Passion and Destiny-by:Charles R. Swindoll
David is one of the most amazing men to have ever lived. The greatest king of Israel, the conquerer of nations, the slayer of a giant. His story of music, humility, sin, and grace is staggering. No one else in the entirety of human history has been called "a man after God's own heart." ...by God himself. Charles does an amazing job of recounting the story of David verse by verse and then presenting relevant applications from David's own successes and failures. Charles nails it, breathing life into David from his anointing by Jesse to David's final moments as an old man on his death bed, praising God in song. MAN I want to know God like David did! I bought this book YESTERDAY and I'm almost half way through.

11. Axiom:Powerful Leadership Proverbs-by:Bill Hybels
Bill Hybels recounts a lifetime of practical experience from a Christian perspective into one 200 pg book. He presents 76 leadership proverbs and what they mean when a man is putting himself under the authority of God. This one is a bit difficult to tell you how far I am, as it allows and encourages you to skip around. I'd say I'm maybe a third of the way?

12. (the mystery book from upstairs!) Cesar's Way-by:Cesar Milan
Ok, how do you describe Cesar? An uncannily energetic person, a self-professed illegal alien (well, he's legal NOW), raised on a farm in Mexico, a successful businessman, and a humble father. He also just happens to be better with dogs than anyone on the planet. ANYONE. This dude is so good you wonder if his tv show on the National Geographic channel is rigged. His book presents that humans try to make dogs little people instead of letting them be what they are, dogs. He presents a simple formula for how to care for one's dog: exercise, discipline, and affection (say it with me Cesar lovers! "IN THAT ORDER!"). I have really appreciated both Cesar's incite and his life's story. Now all I need is a dog.... I'm 7 chapters in.

That's it! There's no more! Presented before you are all 12 of the books I am actively reading right now. I must apologize as I forgot to include two other classifications of books that could have been previously listed. Both categories are fringe extremes. First we have "inhalation books." These aren't books on "how to breathe", but rather the books you don't really read; you just stare the pages down till they give you in information you need. This usually takes an afternoon depending on the level of intimidation you display. The final category of literature are the "fuel books." An example of one of these is the ever-so-popular Twilight series. These are books that you don't read at all, but rather use them for firewood when camping. Mmmm. Pop-culture never burned so bright! Speaking of burning, I think I see the torches of a few hundred angry housewives and teenage girls marching towards my front door (momma, Sam, you two are the only exceptions. The rest of you HAVE NO EXCUSE!). I think I might need to crawl out the back window.

I want a baby too!

2008-08-08T12:26:00.006-06:00

Since when did everyone start having kids? It seems like a new "baby craze" has swept the nation. Never before have more babies been added to more households in the entire history of man. Population levels are rising, Dora the Explora dvd sales are at an all time high, and the worlds leaders are meeting to discuss how to feed the literally trillions of new, teeny, tiny, infantile mouths.

Well I want in on this action. Sort of. I think its high time I took this baby craze and brought it to the next level. I want to adopt 4 puppies. At once. Thats right, four, sinco, quad-puppies up-in-here! Who wants to change diapers when you can scoop and scrub instead? Plus, when they grow up, I can have REAL kids, we can put saddles on the dogs, and have hours and hours of the cutest baby cowboy videos on YouTube the world has ever seen. Then everyone will be so captivated by how dang cute my dogs and babies are that they'll forget about having their own, therefore solving the worlds population crisis (say it like the British people! CRY-SEAS!!!!).

Anyway, I'm sure everyone is just DYING to know which 4 puppies will eventually grace the sweet buttcheeks of my future offspring. Well, you are in luck. I found visual aides to help!

I present:

The Hungarian Kuvasz-

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The Alaskan Malamute-

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The Hungarian Viszla-

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And (to use the cliche appropriately) last but certainly not least,
The Welsh Corgie-

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There was MIND-BLOWING response to my request for computer part donations (I literally had 13 boxes from FedEx on my front door just 1 day after asking for anyone to donate parts to rebuild my computer! I built 7, yes SEVEN super-computers with all of your generous support! And I am now the proud owner of 4 Digital SLR cameras and more HD-DVD VideoCameras than I know what to do with). Because of the success of my previous posts, if anyone has a tender heart to my cause, please feel free to donate any one, two, or all four of these wonderful animals to me and my sweet wife. You'll be helping to save the world. Plus, no one likes a tightwad.

So, uh, its July...

2008-07-31T14:21:00.005-06:00

...and maybe almost August. So much for regular updates!

I think the reasons behind our present habits in regards to blogging can be listed as such:

-my computer is STILL toast and I don't particularly like working with Cyndi's Mac. So sue me if I like the sleek, virus-ridden domains of Micro$oft.
-we have no multimedia devises. I would be way more excited about recording our lives on the Interwebs if I could dork out with HD video cameras and 10 megapixel digital photography devises. Alas, boring old text is my only friend.
-I have a hard time, and I mean a REALLY hard time, spending my time doing anything that I don't count as a worthwhile expenditure of my time. Is this gonna matter in ten years? Five? One? Who reads this thing anyway? It might be a different story if more than just my sister Amanda read it (no offense sis), and sense this blog doesn't really serve the purpose of a blog (ie. being read), I have a hard time feeling like its worth my efforts.

Yet even in the face of these perfectly good reasons for being lazy, here I am updating 4 months late. Fashionably if I do say so myself.

So a lot has happened in the previous months. I find myself in a new and strange land working alongside the woman I love, and saving gas money all the while. Thats right, I have been transfer-ed to Sugarhouse Starbucks. Cyndi will eventually transfer to a different location, and I will eventually be down one rockstar shift supervisor. Alas, the pains of progress. Its been 3 yrs since I've worked in the same city as the one I've been living in. I must say, this ain't such a bad gig.

A few weeks ago Cyndi and I had the pleasure and privilege of taking a two week vacation to Alaska. Its hard for me to find the right adjectives to describe the benefit that our trip had on our souls. Cyndi got really sick just after our wedding, and as a result we counted this Alaskan getaway as our honeymoon. It was the perfect mix of socializing with family and friends, vegging out, and exploring the Alaskan wilderness. Highlights of the trip include:

-spending hours with the parents, talking about life. eating and cooking, watching movies, tromping around Anchorage.

-watching copious amounts of the Office season 4 in bed and on the plane on my Zune.
-hanging out with Cyndi's cousin Mandy and her two baby daughters.
-BBQing enough food to feed all of the great white north on July 4th. Playing badminton, or backgammon, or girly tennis. Whatever you call it.
-camping in broad daylight. All night. Meeting an old married couple in our campground and talking with them about life till midnight.
-Seward: the ocean-side, Alaskan version of Moab. Complete with whales, sea otters, sea lions, puffins, fjords, and the biggest fish I has ever saw.
-working on crafts of leather and making table decorations with garden flowers.
-Shopping for fish, cooking them every imaginable way, and devouring until our stomachs couldn't hold anymore.
-2 weeks of uninterrupted time with the most amazing woman on the planet.

Its really interesting how Cyndi and I work. The more time we spend together the less annoyed we get with each other. That's not to say that we are annoyed with each other the rest of the time. Its just so weird to me; the more time we spend together the better it gets. We never need a break. Its like hangout-with-your-BFF-all-the-time-party-extravaganza-2008-up-in-here. So, 2 weeks where we never had to leave each other's side was absolute heaven. God's love, mercy, and grace is completely tangible to me because Cyndi exists. I did not reap what I sowed in that blessing. I was given, by God, yet another completely undeserved gift that proves just how much I am loved by Him.

I'm thinking about writing a book. Well, a collection of stories or essays that amount to a book. I need more time.

I really want a dog.

ALMOST forgot. In Oct I'm headed to New Orleans to rebuild houses and discuss the economy in sessions with thousands of other administrators and management leads. Should be an intense week!

2 things I can't stop thinking about. Our inability to save ourselves which creates our consequent need for a savior (and how the entire message of the Bible lays it all out for us), and what it means to be Christian; one of the "Christ-ones." The difference between who we are on our own and who we are with God living inside of us. Its the difference between a hollow box of wood and the Arc of the Covenant. Its not the box or the gold that matters, its what dwells inside that counts. Its also whats inside that determines our identity and ultimately our actions. The repercussions of this are unfathomable. It is perhaps the most important subject man can consider.

More later. I'd like to promise soon but I can't really do that considering the track record eh? If you'd like to speed up the process I'd be more than happy to accept a donation of computer parts or digital camera.

My Gracious God

2008-03-30T21:05:00.006-06:00

gra·cious-[grey-shus]-adjective

the act of showing compassion, benevolence, and mercy without provocation.
____________________________________

God is impossible to define. He is a great deal of things that we can describe and put into understandable words, but to attempt to limit Him to a human definition is laughable. We are humans with 8 lb brains who are confined to bodies with a system of birth and death. We are bound by time, fatigue, sin, and endless limitations. Scriptures tell us that God is infinite, that he has no beginning or end. We also know that he is omnipresent, all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfect. And since we have never known anything that is even one of those things, you can see that it would be quite impossible for God to be defined by our human terms. We have never known anything that can be everywhere at once, that has no limit to its power, that knows everything, that has never made a mistake. We certainly haven't ever experienced anything that hasn't had a beginning and won't have an end.

Picture someone who has lived their entire life in a cave deep into the earths crust. Tell that person to describe what the sun is and you have yourself a problem. You can try to explain to that person what the sun is, what light and the sun's warmth are, but that person will never be able to accurately define what the sun is until they experience it for themselves. Even the concept of what light is would be too much for that person to comprehend. God is the same way. We can try, but the reality is that we simply can't define Him.

People get themselves into a great deal of trouble with this. Most atheists I know have come to that particular philosophical conclusion because there is some piece of God, or many pieces of Him, that they simply can't understand. How could God be the literal definition of love and still send people to hell? (though I would argue that God doesn't send anyone to hell, we send ourselves there). If God created everything, and evil exists, doesn't that mean that God created evil? Could God create a box he couldn't lift? What about all the people who haven't heard about this Jesus Christ? Hell isn't fair to them.

Or some people have struggled with understanding the intricacies of God, but couldn't bring themselves to deny God's existence (I mean, look around people), and so instead of accepting that we can't define Him, a new belief system is created to help explain God or a characteristic of Him. This is called "putting God in a box."

I could go on for hours about the failure of man to accept God and how much of Himself He has shown to us, but I must digress (for now at least). That is not the reason I'm writing. My desire is to give glory to God by praising Him for the things we can understand about Him. And despite the vast mysteries of our Lord, He has made the majority of Himself plain to us, and it is most certainly worthy of praise.

In my short 2 years since I've given my life to God, I have come to understand on a very personal level some of His personality traits. As I mentioned before, He is a great deal of things we can describe and understand. Perhaps the most potent of these that I've come to comprehend is that God is eternally, undeniably, and unfathomably gracious.

Psalm 116:5-8
5 The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
6 The LORD protects the simplehearted;
when I was in great need, he saved me.
7 Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.
8 For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.

God is gracious, without exception, to every human being on this earth. He has been gracious to everyone who has ever lived and he will be gracious to anyone who ever will live. God gives life without prerequisite. He brings the sun up for the righteous and the unrighteous. He gives rain to the priest and the sinner. God blesses the entire world without favoritism. If you don't think God is gracious, consider this; everything, and I mean EVERYTHING you own is because God gave it to you. It is all a result of His creation. Every moment of happiness you have ever had is because God allowed you to experience it. It is virtually impossible to even number the amount of blessings God gives one person in one day. Even a gift as simple as the laws of physics preventing you from floating off into the cold emptiness of space is God showing you His unsurmountable, gracious love.

Isaiah 30:18-19
18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.

Not only is God infinitely gracious to us, but He longs to do so. It brings Him joy! The God of the universe rises to show us compassion and listens the second we cry for help.

Which is hard, because part of my understanding just how gracious God is, was discovering just how little I deserved it.

I got to a certain point in my life where I realized that, no matter how hard I tried, I was still going to make an unbelievable amount of mistakes. Jesus told us that even THINKING about doing something wrong was the same as doing it. Thought about a man/woman that wasn't your husband/wife? Congrats! You just committed adultery. Even repentance isn't enough. God's definition of repentance is turning away from your sin and choosing Him, but that doesn't pay for our sin. Even if it did, there isn't any way I'd be able to keep up with every sin I'd committed or even thought about committing. If that isn't enough, the fact that everything we have is a result of Gods love and a gift from Him presented even more problems in my attempt to right myself with God. Everything good I've ever done is credited to Him, so how could I ever take credit for myself and hope to pay the penalty? Its like stealing the judges money and trying to pay the fine for my crime with it. I realized I couldn't do anything to make myself right with God. The more I became aware of my own unrighteousness the more I realized how little of God's blessing I deserved. It also donned on me that since I am God's creation, and He's given me everything, that I don't really have an inherent right to anything at all. God doesn't owe me a thing. SO, not only have my actions made me undeserving of God graciousness, but I've never had the right to claim His graciousness in the first place.

This presents a problem that goes far beyond just earning or deserving the gracious blessing of the creator of the universe. By reading Gods own word I came to understand that the only thing I have ever earned in my life is a one way ticket to hell.

Random side note (because I love them so much). Hell is complete separation from the graciousness of God. Right now everyone on this earth is blessed by God regardless of circumstance, but in hell there is a complete and infinite separation from all of His blessing. It is the most terrifying scenario I've ever thought of.

The problem with being imperfect is that God IS perfect. In fact, God is so perfect that He can't exist with sin. The very nature of God is that His presence destroys sin. Its like fire and wood. The very nature of fire consumes and destroys wood. Its a chemical law. God is also just, which means that instead of earning blessings from God, my actions have obligated God to send me to hell. Why? Because I earned it and God has to uphold his nature and law.

Yet God continues to be gracious.

Nehemiah 9:17
17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked... ...But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them.

1 John 4:9-10
9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God sent His only son, Jesus the Messiah, to pay the price for our mistakes. The price is more than we could ever hope to pay. But God loved us so much, He is so gracious, that He took the responsibility of our sin on Himself by placing the penalty on His son, and Jesus was crushed for our sake.

So not only do we not deserve any of Gods blessings, but God was gracious enough to take upon Himself the only thing we've ever earned. Death.

Psalm 86:12-13
12 I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
13 For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

Even after years of developing my relationship with my Father in heaven, I can't even begin to comprehend Him, His greatness, His power, His capacity for love. I am grateful for glimpses of Him, the breadcrumbs He left for me. I am grateful that I can look into the night sky and witness the utter infinite of space and have a picture for how endless He is. That I can watch a thunderstorm and witness a shred of God's power. That I can look at my wife and begin to understand His deep love for me. God. Is. Gracious.

David understood God's love for us. So much so that he worshiped God with music in his palace 24 hours a day. David wrote many beautiful, and divinely inspired songs for God. We now regard them as scripture. This is one.

Psalm 18-Written by David
1 I love you, O LORD, my strength.

2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

3 I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and I am saved from my enemies.

4 The cords of death entangled me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

5 The cords of the grave coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.

6 In my distress I called to the LORD;
I cried to my God for help.
...my cry came before him, into his ears.

7 The earth trembled and quaked,
and the foundations of the mountains shook;
they trembled because he was angry.

8 Smoke rose from his nostrils;
consuming fire came from his mouth,
burning coals blazed out of it.

9 He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds were under his feet.

10 He mounted the cherubim and flew;
he soared on the wings of the wind.

11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—
the dark rain clouds of the sky.

12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
with hailstones and bolts of lightning.

13 The LORD thundered from heaven;
the voice of the Most High resounded.

14 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies ,
great bolts of lightning and routed them.

15 The valleys of the sea were exposed
and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at your rebuke, O LORD,
at the blast of breath from your nostrils.

16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.

17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.

18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support.

19 He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Did you hear that? The Lord delights in us. Yup. Gracious.

ReprAmanda Post

2008-03-27T16:04:00.001-06:00

So my sister tells me I'm not very good at blogging regularly. Ok, I'll agree with that. Granted I PROMISED to write every week and I have really only written once since vowing that. Its just that I have a hard time writing without purpose. I've made a habit of spending a fair amount of time blogging about things I've cared about in the past. It seems weird to me to switch from putting a lot of heart into expression to plainly documenting the weeks events. Who cares about the generally mundane happenings of the past 168 hrs of our lives? I barely care! I want to write about things of PURPOSE! I want to change minds and enlighten, not bore and yawn. Klimt NOT Kincaid. And given the audience who reads this blog, I'd rather have the one person a year who stumbles across here be effected by what they read rather than put to sleep.

LUCKILY I do have something worth blogging about. ADVENTURES!

I've spent the better part of my life, as most of us do, contemplating what aspects of life are worth while. I'm talking about the things that bring us joy, that have significance, that give purpose, and in the most destructively difficult days, give life a reason to live.

I experienced one such event this past week.

Cyndi had gone to work just minutes before I had returned home from the morning shift. Ain't much worse than being scheduled from 7-4 when your wife is also scheduled from 3-10.

Side note, I've taken up the habit of making crappy situations seem less crappy by comparing them to things that truly do suck. Example-'that's ALMOST as bad as being nearly drowned, being allowed one breathe of air, and then being drowned again.' or 'man that's ALMOST worse than winning the lottery and then dieing from dehydration because you can't stop crying tears of joy.' Ironic? No Alanis, its just a bummer.

So Cyndi texts me while she's at work telling me that she's having a particularly hard day. People are being less than kind, as people often are in the habit of doing, and no amount of good customer service seems to help. On top of that she is feeling restless. Winter is getting old. 'I want an adventure,' she says 'need to go to the mountains.'

I had to work the next day, Cyndi was getting off way late, and the weather wasn't so inviting, so an adventure in the mountains that night just wasn't feasible.
Luckily I'd had an idea I'd been wanting to use for a long LONG time.

We had a lot of the things I needed at home already. Tent, check. Sleeping bags, check. Lamp, stove, living room, check check check. All I needed now was camping food and junk for smores.

Our tent BARELY fits inside the living room. I must say I'm pretty proud of being able to set up such a large, domed monstrosity in such a small space all by myself. Sure I may have broke a few lamps and managed to give myself an involuntary enima with a tent pole, but the end result was well worth the pain. And the setup looked legit. Way legit. Indoor living room camping complete with brats and mallows. I rule.

Cyndi has a dance she does when she gets really excited that melts my heart like butter on the surface of the sun. I live for it. She jumps up and down nimbly, one foot at a time, at an alarming pace. Her face lights up and her hands fly in the air as she waltzes over the kitchen floor and then jumps into my arms. I can feel her heart ticking loudly against mine. I'd swim across the ocean with one arm to see her jubilee hoe-down.

We enjoy our food and the make-shift living room mountain adventure, but most of all we enjoy each others company. The quickly approaching day of work and the past days less than desirable retail experiences slide out of the forefront of our minds and into oblivion as what makes this life truly worthwhile becomes even more blatantly clear. The Beatles were right, love is all you need.

As we fall asleep inside 64 square feet of canvas Coleman shelter, I look at Cyndi and realize just a bit more why Jesus said that marriage is a picture of Gods relationship with us. If Jesus loves us even more than I could ever love Cyndi, I'd say we're in a pretty good spot.

Update: So... a lot has happened.

2008-03-13T13:00:00.005-06:00

Lets see here. Where to begin. Its been technically about 12 hours since the last post, but its been over six months since the last RELEVANT post. There is a lot to update on.

First and foremost, I married the love of my life, Cyndi Sharp. Well, Cynthia Dyana Sharp. Well that isn't true any more either. Cynthia Dyana Meszaros. She's the girl I refer to in all of my last blogs. If there was ever an ambiguous reference to love, she was that ambiguous subject.

We were married on February 20th in our downtown church. It was perfect by our standards. Our family was there, lots of them from out of town. Our friends were there and the place looked amazing.

Now that I'm going over the past three-fourths of a year, everything else is dwarfed by that single day of holy matrimony. In the last year we dated, we went to Alaska, I got promoted, my car got totaled, and we got married.

Since we got married life hasn't slowed down at all (a phenomena, I'm told, that just doesn't quit). One day after our wedding, Cyndi developed pneumonia, which caused an early return from our honeymoon to Saint George. Just after Cyndi recovered I contracted some sort of respiratory blahdity-blah that I've been battling for a week until now. Hence the frequent blog updates as being ill is very boring aside from all the coughing and cool narcotic cold medicine. Which does make for exciting times as I tell Cyndi "Good-night!" in the middle of the day and then reply "What?" as if she had said it and I had missed something. What fun.

This is our list of things to do now that we are married.

-Get a dog.

Not a bad list eh? I like to keep it simple.

This, however, is quite unfortunate as our lease does not allow for pets as large as a canine. So I suppose this adds one more item to the list.

-Move into place with yard.

Now this presents another problem. We like the place we live now. Aside from being more expensive than I like, its perfect except for said dog problem. A second issue. I don't make enough to afford a house right now in SLC.

Fine. One more formality for the list.

-Finish school. Get job that makes a billion dollars a year. Buy ranch. Own 800 dogs that all love us more than anything in the whole frick-frackin universe.

There. List complete.

Back Again

2008-03-12T21:06:00.003-06:00

So I guess we'll give this "blogging" thing a go again, since it seems to be all the rage with the hip and young married couples. Personally, I find these things to be oh so very drab.

Time to brush up on some HTML skills and set a goal of writing once a week. My computer is still busted, so we are going to have to blog from Cyndi's mac. We just got a pretty nice digital camzilla, so I suppose we could get some pics up too. Once I upgrade to Vista, get my computer fixed, and get my hands on a digital camcorder we should be able to add video as well. So you can expect that sometime between next year and never. Cause we is POOWEHR PAPA!

Love ya all. Talk soon.

rrrr

2007-06-27T00:02:00.001-06:00

There are times when starting a fire is the only way I know how to cope with life. When the rhythmic swinging motion and strong sent of punk smoke seems to be the only thing that calms me down. Its an event that brings me back to the earth. Back to where we were created. Back home where we were intended to exist.

Any activity that begins with a conversation with God is on the right track. Maybe thats the trick. My inner most soul must be in the hands of my loving Father in order for this to ever work. When its not, and my heart is waring against the world around me, all the pressure and friction and work and smoke in the universe would just bring me frustration. Frustration, broken fire-boards, lost spindles, cut hands, and split knuckles. My pulsing valves and responsive synapse receptors must be carefully placed into the will of my God.

Preparation is everything. Absolutely everything. In order to release the potential contained within these slumbering pieces of dead wood, each movement must be carefully planned and then seamlessly executed. Piles of pine graduated from slivers to logs lined up neatly together, a delicate tinder bundle set strategically close yet safely distant, hourglass notched chimney cut fireboard placed firmly under the arch of my foot as the socket slowly pushes down the rope entwined spindle. The bow must be tied just tight enough, the chimney must be cut just deep enough, the wood must be just large enough, the tinder must be just loose enough, and my heart must be just calm enough. If not all of this is for nothing.

I've done this so many times that I barely even think about my movements anymore. I barely think about my hands as they unravel my fireset to separate the pieces of my art. I barely think about my foot as I place it firmly on the ground, or the spindle as I twist my wrist around the bow and lock it into place. I don't even notice the socket in my hands push all of the pieces of this wild puzzle together. Pumping my arm back and forth, keeping my arm steady and firm, seems just as natural as my inflating lungs.

Before I know it, every bit of energy I have is focused in my arms, feet, and chest. I could run 3.2 miles in 16 minutes and 20 seconds, and yet this minute of my life seems to tax my body to the same degree.

Smoke swirls around the focal point of my efforts and rises into my nostrils. The smell of burning yucca invigorates my muscles, giving my tiring body the extra motivation to finish what I've started. Count, sing a song, do anything to keep yourself going. Just say a prayer and keep pushing until you finish. Soon enough my feet and hands are hidden behind the fog of a birthing coal. I have to lower my shoulder down and push with my entire chest and back just to keep going. Right when I know I can't go any farther, the soft red glow of an infant coal coughs into life.

Now its a race. I have only a few moments to tend to the coal and nurse it into adulthood. The delicate ember is too small to breathe for itself, but anything more than a careful exhale could blow it into oblivion. I need every bit of punk surrounding the tiny red dot to glow into life if the coal is to survive the next leg of its journey. The two inch drop from my knife into the tinder bundle is a dangerous one, and many coals don't survive the fall. Especially when the creator has a hasty hand.

Nursing the ember in one hand, and carefully lifting the nest in my other, I unite the two ever so slowly. It is your destiny. You were made for each other. Every last bit of preparation, all the hard work, the exhaustion and sweat, all of it has lead you up to this point. Your creator carefully wove your paths separately and then, just at the right moment, brought you here. Before now placing both the coal and the nest together would have proved disastrous, but at this very moment something very beautiful is about to happen. And with the careful breath and hands of their creator, the nest bursts into life.

I have made fire.

The Return of C

2007-06-07T21:24:00.000-06:00

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark
should burn out in a brilliant blaze,
than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in a magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live,
not to exist.
I will not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I will use my time.

I don't think we've ever visited these mountain walls and canyon crests during the daylight hours. Our elevated, nighttime refuge.

The first evening started much like the one that followed it when Cyndi returned from Portland. A series of texts and phone calls followed by delayed, but much needed rendezvous. For the sake of memory and sanity, I'll recall each occasion separately.

Don't leave. Cmon, don't leave yet. Just give me two minutes, that's all the time I need. Answer my text, don't be gone.

Apologies, plans, and then we're gone. I think we both need this drive. My life has been the most volatile mixture of peace and restlessness lately. How lucky am I too have someone who understands me on such an acute level?

One part of me wanted to protest the idea of ice-cream sandwiches and soft santa candy, but then again, has this girl ever failed me before? I trust her. So we obtain our eccentric treats and head east for the canyon, recalling our previous day and sharing more of the bits of our lives we haven't had the opportunity to be a part of. As I listen to Cyndi talk, I remember hoping that I would someday run out of Cyndi-absent memories to recall. "Remember when we," just has such an appealing ring to it.

I had no idea how long we would drive, how late we would stay up, or how many deer we would slap, but I was pleasantly surprised with the numerical outcomes of each of these categories. We would drive for 53 miles, stay up till around 3 am, and slap 3 deer. We would also consume enough santa candies to feed a small elvish army and plan enough future adventures to keep us busy for at least a week.

The moon cast a helpful glow onto our surroundings. Enough of the canyon wall was illuminated to keep us basking in the glory of God for the entire night. I had a hard time focusing on any one breathtaking sight. So much around me that demanded my breath, its a wonder I stayed conscious.

Cyndi and I claimed our first piece of land that night. I was witness to the shiver dance for the first time. We have further evidence to our uncanny ability to stay uninhibited by any fence or blockade.

Seems like every time we have a nature adventure, my ability to return to the urban wasteland decreases alarmingly and my desire to set up camp for the rest of my life grows at an exponential rate. Really. God made us, and He made the wilderness, doesn't it make sense to put both of those together? Doesn't everyone feel this alive when they reconnect with what God put us in charge of in the first place? Seems like the great failure of man has been separating himself from God. It just makes sense to reunite yourself.

Cyndi realized that while I will always bring her adventurous plans and dreams to life, I will also always do what's best for her, even if it means killing the fun for the night and returning home in time for a decent nights sleep. Still, even with the charge of caring for your best friend, its extremely hard to pull yourself away when you are surrounded by two of your most favorite things.

I felt a certain degree of peace about leaving our night to fall into memory though. I knew it would only be a short while before we returned to the comforting safety of the mountains.

5 days really can feel like 5 months when you are missing just the right person. The ocean called for Cyndi, and the mountains called for me.

I didn't think it was possible to miss someone even before they had gone. The list of impossibilities with all things Cyndi continues to grow and grow.

I think my writing style has changed. I'm being a bit less ambiguous and a bit more straightforward with my feelings. Might have something to do with the fact that she knows just how much I care about her.

Cyndi brought the rain home with her, a feat that was absolutely integral to our next adventure. The restlessness caused by her 120 hours of absence inspired, or should I say required, a 3 hour drive around the greater Salt Lake valley. Some good music, the windows down, and the open road ahead of me seemed to be exactly what my pacing heart demanded. That is until Cyndi requested my presence and gave me a whopping 10 minutes to rendezvous with her. This would have been much easier to do if I weren't traveling at 80 miles per hour in the wrong direction. I'm grateful that Cyndi is so forgiving. I am also grateful for the second of many inappropriately long hugs. The soft glow of Holiday gas station parking lot has never felt more welcoming.

Cyndi argues she texted me too much while she was gone, I argue she didn't text me enough, but something we both agreed on is that we didn't hear each others voices enough over the previous week. This became quickly apparent when it only took 18 seconds for Cyndi to call me after we had left to retrieve her truck (apparent by both Cyndi's 18 second action and my counting every one of those 18 seconds).

I had already been planning what adventures we would embark upon when Cyndi returned from her much needed Portland trip, and I had a varied enough list to meet anyone of our needs or moods. This particular night unfolded in the midst of mountains, rain, darkness, lightning, stars, boulders, fog, mystery animals, and open gates. I couldn't have planned it better myself. It becomes more and more obvious to me that God is even more wild than I am by the situations I find myself in with Cyndi. I'm sure He just loves planning nights like this better than I ever could.

That girl is mighty handy with a bottle of EasyCheese and a box of Ritz crackers. Too handy in fact. With mouths full of preservatives and sweetened tea, we recall our days apart and laugh at our connections that occur even when hundreds of miles separate us. Once again, I'm at home.

The more and more time that passes, the more and more I realize just how homeless I was until now.

The gate thing happened again. Don't ask me, I don't understand it either. Like I said, I think God has more fun planning our adventures than I do.

As my car door opens I take a moment to drink in the beauty sitting next to me as the interior lights slowly brighten. I test the unknown with my hand. Snow, not heavy, and its swiftly melting into rain. I steal one more glance before I emerge into the murky night air. Its cold. I don't even have to look across the roof of the car to know that Cyndi is doing her frozen dance. Funny how that dance warms us both. I only mind the cold for a few seconds, then she has her arms firmly wrapped around mine. Nothing in the world could distract me in those moments between the car and the forest, especially not a bit of silly cold. After all, we are warriors from the north. This is nothing right?

Wrong. The wet cold began to soak into my bones and with it a sense that Cyndi was becoming increasingly uncomfortable in the mountain chill. Should have brought the sleeping bag.

The soft ticking of Cyndi's wonderfully miraculous heart became drowned out behind the thumping of my Chacos against wet planked pathway. My heart began to race and my lungs pumped harder to catch the elevated air. Thoughts of Cyndi left behind me in the dark drove my unwilling legs to pass each other faster and farther with each increasing stride. In my mind, and with the uncertainty of the shadows, getting back to Cyndi with my sleeping bag suddenly became an unjustified matter of life and death. I reached the car, fumbled with the trunk, and then returned to the thud of the pathway back to my abandoned friend, only stopping to find my way in the black blanket of the forest. Her confident voice and the treasured ticking of her heart were the only thing that could calm my adrenaline filled nerves. She has an unnatural knack for that. No one can delicately hush my heart like she can.

Our conversations transcend normal adjectives able to describe wonderful things. Words flow naturally and beautifully. No pain, no fakeness, and only a hint of awkwardness. And so, our thoughts fill the air with an accustomed outpouring of dreams, hopes, and memories unlike anything I have ever experienced with anyone else. Moment after moment, as miraculous as it seems, I am overwhelmed by an exponentially increasing feeling of love for the friend sitting next to me. The best friend I never knew I had. The best friend I've ever had.

God knew our hearts desires that night. He gave us exactly what we needed and even everything we wanted. Lighting struck miles away, stars shown through patches of heavy clouds, and I felt Cyndi's heart beat against my chest for the first time. I can vividly remember the aroma of rain water filtering through pine needles and then dripping down from the trees above to wash Cyndi's hair. Up to that point in my life, I can't remember ever being happier.

Turns out God likes to throw rocks into lakes just as much as Cyndi and I. He threw a big one that night. Thats my explanation and I'm sticking to it.

I don't remember exactly why we left that night; the cold, a feeling of obligation to responsibility, whatever it was we eventually made the cold trek back to my car. Sleeping bags, especially awkward army ones, are NOT easy to control while trying to move as quickly as one can down a slippery pathway.

Boulders, trees, fog, there might as well have not been a road down the canyon, but we didn't care. It could have taken us a week to get home and it wouldn't have mattered. I felt a heightened urge to keep the car safe as we descended the slopes of big cottonwood canyon. Still, it didn't seem fair that I had to keep my eyes on the road, and Cyndi got to keep her eyes on whatever she wanted.

I think this is the point were ridiculously and inappropriately long hugs became the only hug I was satisfied with. The hardest part of the night was not the cold. It wasn't sprinting back to my car or downing 40 easycheese sandwiches. The hardest part of the night was not turning an inappropriately long hug into a hug that never finished.

I don't think we've ever left these mountain walls and canyon crests after our adventures at any time other than the twilight hours.
Standing in front of Cyndi's truck I realize that, despite being out of the wilderness and back in the city, I am just as calm as ever. You see, its not the mountains that have remained our refuge, but the person with which we retreat to them with.

Death

2007-06-01T12:29:00.001-06:00

I just noticed that both of my birds are dead. I'm going for a drive.

Near-Death Experiences, Saturday Morning Rushes, and the 80's. In one day.

2007-06-01T11:22:00.000-06:00

Like so many adventures do, this one begins with a tragic death.

Or a near tragic death....

Not that the death itself was near tragic. More like tragic-near-death. Someone ALMOST died. Gah, you know what I mean.

It didn't take many minutes past the pre-agreed time of 8 am, when combined with unanswered texts and years of brotherly paranoia, to begin formulating a missing persons rescue plan. He or she could cover my shift, he or she could help me scour the Salt Lake Valley; there are more resources than one might think to track down a missing person. Believe me, I've had enough experience with flaky sisters who show up hours late for everything to know what my options are.

The glimmer of a white truck has never looked so good in my parking lot. There are a lot of reasons for that, one being because I no longer had to track down a GPS and borrow a blood hound. Though, every reason this truck looked so good was due to the cargo it held.

Who'd have thought one morning surrounded by my two most bestest friends in the entire whole wide world could be so utterly HORRIBLE? This was supposed to be a morning of rejuvenating qualities, uncontrollable laughter, and the occasional epic memory. The cause of the dream turned nightmare is simple, there were too many of "them," and not enough of us. Apropos, its not the morning, but what followed and contrasted the morning so greatly that will echo into the vastness of history with such ferocity that I won't ever forget it.

Its funny how easy it is to convince someone that they were not a part of the original plan but in fact inviting themselves. Like superman and superwoman (only not as lame) we change our clothes and suddenly everything is different. Or was it the diet Coke that changed everything? Or perhaps the music and lowered windows? Nope, its all in the company. A car with a sunroof, carbonated beverages, and Queens of the Stone Age blasting is still JUST a car ride without the proper company. And in this case, there was only ONE proper company. Anyone else would have driven me crazy. Cyndi just has an uncanny way of calming me down.

She learned that day to be careful about what kind of crazy plans to present to me. Like "Lets go down that dirt road in your new car." I take your thoughts and paint them into real life girl, so be careful what you think. Someday you may find yourself in the backcountry of Alaska with only your hands and your company to keep you alive. Course, that doesn't sound like such a horrible idea.

There are the damnedest names for towns in the mountain valleys of Utah. Most of them seem fairly childish to me, but who am I to argue against Crayon and Hamster? The founders of those two great gas-stations may have been very fond of little rodents and adolescent writing utensils. Course, I hear sniffing glue has a grand effect on the ability of oneself to use normal brain functions, and sense it rains glue along I-84, I'm not going to argue with some poor retard naming his colony after a horrible excuse for a pet.

We could have kept driving and been just fine. The scenery, the company, just being away from the world was enough to keep me happy forever. We didn't need a time-warped lake nestled in the midst of greening trees and terraced landscapes, but God has a funny way of blessing you with more than you asked for.

"Lets go jump in there!" Now thats an idea both of us are serious about. Most ideas that Cyndi comes up with, I have actually been able to bring from brain to action. I can only think of two, ever, that haven't.

After testing the fate of my soda on the roof of the car, Cyndi karate chopped a fly into oblivion and we were off to seek the exact particulars of our adventure. This town was simple. Simple houses, simple gas stations, simple names for grocery stores. Suddenly, we were missing the towns greatest attraction, which Cyndi so wisely made note of for us to come take part in later. A rope swing would have been amazing, but this afternoon held other journeys for us. Like a journey back into 1986.

I didn't really plan too much before plunging into the freezing cold, Echo reservoir waters. It kind of just came. Look, theres a pull off. Park. Some solitary rocks bordering the waters edge. Walk. Look, theres Cyndi. Joy. Theres the water. Ah what the hell. Jump.

I learned a lot that afternoon. I learned more about Cyndi's heart. In so many different lights I learned about her heart. I don't think I could ever know enough, and I hope to have plenty of long, glorious summer afternoons to discover every nook and cranny contained therein. I also learned that jumping into redonkulously cold water for the 3rd time is always better when holding hands. I remember the exact moment that Cyndi's hand grasped mine. I do very distinctly remember the feeling of our interclasped fingers, and I remember the exact moment our palms somehow found themselves alone again. I don't remember leaving the safety of the rocks or slamming into the waters surface. I don't remember Cyndi hitting her foot or our faces breaking the cold depths into the more familiar mountain air, but I do remember one hand being acutely jealous of the other.

Cyndi isn't supposed to drink alcohol. Not because she makes bad choices or because she is an uncontrollable drunk, but because it isn't good for her heart. I, on the other hand, don't drink much any more because I don't make good choices and don't really enjoy the whole experience. Funny how something that has a similar effect on our bodies can be a GOOD thing. The waters chill made us speech slurvingly drunk. The few rocks that separated us from the road suddenly looked like Mount Everest, Cyndi's shoes became a puzzle too advanced to solve, and the road block may as well have been forty feet tall. Somehow, by some miraculous power, we manage to return to my car, change clothes, and not kill ourselves in the process. My car is a sorry excuse for a changing room.

This is right about the time we realized we were on the proverbial yellow brick road to the 80's. No flux capasitor needed, no 821 gigawatts, just plain old american intuition and a little bit of good ol hillbilly magic. That Thriller boat really DID move 80's! And I don't care what ANYONE says, those fishermen were brandishing shotguns.

And yes Cyndi, that 12 year old man-boy riding that little girls bike WAS one of the creepiest things I've ever seen.

3 hours can pass in 3 minutes so easily when you have exactly the right person to spend those 180 seconds with. Every second counts. Every second becomes engraved into the deepness of your mind. Years and years of experiences, emotions, troubles, fears, and joys, and somehow those few moments take precedence in the priority of your mind over the entirety of your life. It doesn't really change who you are so much as help you realize more of who you REALLY are.

Like so many adventures, this one ends with a life full of near-life experiences transforming into a day offering life to the fullest (wrap your head around THAT). It took the entire ride home, all of dinner, the whole evening, the next day at work, a day at the zoo, and whole week to process everything that had happened. Its been an entire week. Yet every moment is still vivid and alive. Breathing with every bit of life that God blessed me with last Saturday.

And did I mention Cyndi told me I have beautiful eyes? That means a lot coming from my best friend.

The Salt of the Earth

2007-05-20T15:04:00.000-06:00

Any given night has untapped amounts of awesome potential. I think its a shame we don't take advantage of that fact often enough. Except last night. Last night was lived to the full extent. Sleep is for the dead. Coffee is for the living.

Evolution, the Rock, family, and casual dresses. The perfect beginning to our evening. Surrounded by the people we love. The people we will live and die with spreading the good news of a God who loves us beyond comprehension. The reason we are here and not somewhere else. The reason we dream of other places and live for Utah.

Cleanup, carpool, and then finally Blades of Glory. Or, as is more fitting, Blades of Semi-Glory. Still, the company makes every moment worth the 20+ dollars it took to make the experience happen. Sometimes I laugh because Will Ferril is funny, sometimes I laugh cause I'm surrounded by the people I love and I just can't help but laugh for joy. We are all going to be a family for eternity in heaven and that is just too much to stay quiet about.

Awkwardness, no left turns, and near-death trax experiences transition into the end, and the beginning, of the night. Talk of higher things, and driving with the windows down sparks an unwillingness to return home to unconsciousness. Like I said, sleep is for the dead.

As I was about to text Cyndi to ask her opinion on how to spend the greater part of my sleepless night (music, movie, book, sprinklers? so many good choices), she answers my question before I even have a chance to ask it. "Uh... ...what are you doing? Cause we don't want to go to sleep! Is it ok if Kaylene and I come over?" "Duh" is such a silly word, but sometimes it just does the job so well.

Dans, Harmons, and then peanut M&M's. The Fountain, loud floor fans, and a missing roommate. Who needs to watch the whole movie anyway? Sometimes you just need to get a glass of water, and there isn't a damn thing wrong with that. Cyndi has an extraordinary heart and mind. Cinematic and sonic explosions via the television just can't hold a candle to that. What are friends for anyway? I'd rather pick her brain apart than just about anything else I could be doing, and I know she feels the same. We can watch the movie again later anyway. DVDs last forever, and moments... ....well... ...last for only a moment. I'd give up all the dvd's in the world for just a few good moments.

230am? THE NIGHT IS YOUNG! Still WAY too much life left in the night yet to leave it for dead. Creating adventures is one of Cyndi's most admirable traits (a mutual list that got a lot longer that night). Hows about we visit the second most salty body of water on the planet eh? Whats that? Still in your dresses? You're damn straight they are. No little girls here, only women.

Pile in the truck, Wilco, and an attempt to recall favorite memories of each other while we create new ones. The gas station apparently doesn't want all of my money. What are we rationing gas here? Thats a scary thought. Cyndi cleaned the front windshield.. ...or moved the dirt around.... ...or just experienced a moment of ADD... ...or maybe all of the above.

Turns out they don't keep the Great Salt Lake open a half hour after dark. Silly government! You should be making rules that promote ADVENTURING! Luckily, you do hire lazy people that leave gates open at night which leaves the realm of possibilities wide open. Ten is about to miss something very epic.

Think every road has an end? Think again. We found a stretch of asphalt that trails of into the abyss and leads to virtually no where. What are seagulls, dogs, brine shrimp, and geese doing up that early (or late) anyway?

Alright, enough vagueness. Time for some details.

Cyndi didn't want to hear any scary stories or urban tales of masked murders while we walked. Who could blame her? We were either walking in an amazing piece of God's creation or in the midst of a horror movie, and which one of those we experienced was entirely dependent on the topic of our conversation. Turns out linking arms like Dorthy and her friends helps too. The road seemed to last forever, which was just fine with us. These are the moments you WANT to last forever. The road progressed, the waters edge of the Salt Lake appeared, and the time came to cut across a field of undefinable weed and goo in search of our adventure. Keep in mind Kaylene and Cyndi are still in casual church dresses and new shoes. These girls are beyond the definition of awesome.

Loose the shoes, roll up the pant legs, and claim our salty victory. Reflecting city lights on one side, black ocean-like expanse on the other, shallow waters below and the occasional falling star above. Just one meteor isn't enough though. We want an entire sky filled with small streaks of faint light. We want the dark summer night to swirl dizzily with the deaths of a thousand small stars. Is that one Venus or Mars? I think shes right, Venus is more blue.

You could walk for hours into the Great Salt Lake and only achieve a foot of submersion. And only two rocks. Cyndi loves to throw rocks into water. I love to throw rocks off cliffs. Heaven forbid the stars should ever align and we someday find ourselves at the top of a waterfall surrounded by boulders. The thought crosses my mind to throw Cyndi into the water. The better half of my brain argues and wins; it would be a long, wet, cold walk back to the truck. Still, I can't help but scratch the itch a bit, so my body stumbles into her. Little do I know she has been thinking the same thing as she stumbles back into me. This is dangerous business. Its damn hard to walk straight in muddy salt water and even harder to keep from walking drunk when you keep running into each other.

I don't know if our plan to keep Cyndi's feet from getting muddy was all that successful, but it sure did make us sink twice as deep into the muck! Turns out that this created a ghetto goo shoe which worked perfectly for the bare-foot walk back to the truck. Kaylene's got quite a stride.

Sometimes I wonder if people get as sick of me talking about Anasazi as I think they should. Regardless of annoyance, my half-conscious ramblings of a time long past helped to keep Cyndi's fading eyes open. Yet none of this stopped us from deciding the night wasn't over. Like Cyndi said, its not tomorrow till you sleep.

Who really knows how to pick a honey-doo anyway? Good thing Cyndi somehow has good instincts. Muddy, sleep-deprived, and happier than normal people should be, we decide against orange juice and discover that, despite popular belief, pancake mix is not in the cereal aisle.

Did you know that Cyndi is a kick ass kung-fu queen? Neither did I. Turns out she could kill you at any time without even trying. A ninja AND a kung-fu master disguised in a black dress? Thats right, you don't have a freaking chance.

Sleep really is for the dead, but just this once we allowed ourselves to slumber, despite feeling more alive than I can remember feeling in a long time.

Refining Fire

2007-04-16T22:36:00.000-06:00

to be forged anew and rise again above with
arms of fire.

holding this common language in our hands.

find solace in the landscape.

the best laid plans carry the weight of an entire season's hope.

our city waits with shattered skyline for its missing hero.

to lay low those beneath and cast aside the restraints of
hopeless inertia as winter's chill fades below me.

now we are silent, holding this common language in our hands.

find solace in the landscape.

watching,
waiting,
holding on to victory's kiss.

like alloys we shape, bend the hammer to the anvil of self.

the smithy screams with exertion as the flames drive out impurities.

bend the hammer to the anvil of self.

the soul screams with recreation bathed in the furnace of ascension.

winter's chill fades below me.

Oh Mylanta

2007-04-09T23:28:00.000-06:00

There is a constant frustration in my chest. A tension maybe. Definitely an anxiousness.

Want to use the phone. Cant use the phone. Want to use words. Cant use words. Want to see. Cant see. Want to scream. Oh, I can scream.

I want to know my God more. I want to be able to know Him so well that I would recognize His face and feel at home with His smell. I want to read everything, serve in every way, and pray every second. I want to be so solid in my relationship with God that a hurricane couldn't move me.

I don't want anything I used to hold valuable. Its all worthless anyway. Its all temporary. Its all a distraction.

I want God to beat me into the man He wants. Do what You see fit. I trust You even in the hard times. Especially in the hard times. I will find Your glory in everything because I know You love me enough to show me that.

Its 11:33 and I open in the morning. Why do I do this? I am so stupid. Hanging out with Niels after a disappointing night of studies can force one to loose track of things like time.

And things like socks. I can't find any.

I'm going to throw my computer out the window and launch my 360 into space. There are too many things of worth to be involved in to waste time with 0's and 1's.

I hope I dream tonight. I hope my dreams are comforting. I need a vacation, but right now I just don't have the time to run the Amazon.

I have dreams of Orca whales

2007-03-23T00:47:00.000-06:00

Can't sleep tonight.
Seems to be an ever increasing problem these days.

I worry a lot. A lot lately. Lately, I worry... ...a lot.

I spend nights at home alone.
And mornings too.
This morning I watched Joe jump into a volcano with Oscar. Well, Oscar didn't jump into the volcano with Joe, Oscar and I watched Joe jump into a volcano. You know what I mean.

The smell fades in the fabric but is vibrant in my mind.
My dreams are saturated with sounds that remind me. Remind me constantly of what I have to avoid and don't want to.

So very kind. So very sweet. So very brilliant. So very... ...me.

And so very NOT me. In all the best ways.

I have no clue how to get answers to prayers like these.

DANG! God is real. 1

2007-01-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

Bummer dood

2007-01-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get really bummed out on the human race.

One noteworthy instance of particular disappointment happened to me the other day at work. A group of various law-enforcing men decided to spend their lunch break at Starbucks. I recognized a few of them from previous visits and new that the posse included at least a fireman, two police officers, a lawyer, and a sheriff.

It is worth mentioning that in previous visits, a few of these men had said some off-color things that could have been taken the wrong way given the right company. Words like "white-trash", "turban", and "black" had caught my attention coming from these mouths before.

This occasion seemed to have been a particularly bigoted. I only caught parts of the conversation, but enough to know that I didn't feel comfortable with my tax dollars paying for this group of Caucasian males to sit around making prejudicial remarks. A few comments that stuck out:

-"You know you don't have to do that yourself you know. Just go down to the nearest Home Depot or fast-food joint and find yourself some illegals. You don't have to pay them dirt. Hell, I just deport them afterwards."
-"I was just prayin the dirtbag had a weapon. I would have liked to cleaned him off this earth instead of pay for him to be in jail."
-"I've got an answer to overcrowded prisons. Capital punishment needs to be easier to sentence. That's all."

Yeah. Pretty cute eh? I was surprised to find out just how popular the word "dirtbag" is with Bountiful's finest.
I tried not to judge at all. With so much going on in the world its impossible to be justified with any sort of judgemental thoughts. It was, however, hard not to get bummed out.

Then again, humanity sometimes surprises me with the way it redeems itself.

Going to the homeless shelter was a great experience. I've gone before, but each time is potent in a new way. God is present here just as He was when He was on earth. Jesus hung out with the poor, wicked, and homeless then, and He still does today. Nice to know that God never changes.

The trip re-affirmed my desire to be involved with adolescent social-work. I can't wait to finish up school and dive into serving these kids. For that matter I can't wait to start volunteering soon. I'm just glad that I won't be stuck behind a desk for my entire life. Then again, you can be involved with serving God no matter where you are.

For anyone I haven't talked to in a while (which is a lot of you). I'm going great. Life is AMAZING. Even when the shaz hits the fan we really can't complain eh?

This is what I am doing as of late.
-work
-school
-Rock
-staying up way to late on a frequent basis to fit my loved ones in.

And thats it. Isnt that awesome! Life is good.

Last part then I'm done jabbering.

Thanks-

-Amanda. Thanks for the love on Christmas my sister. You ARE the GREATEST WOMAN ALIVE. I miss you very much. I can't wait for your little girl!
-Dax. Thanks for lifting me up and for letting me into your life a bit to do the same. We are in this for LIFE son! You are stuck with me!
-Andrew. You are an amazing roommate. You have done so much growing up and have done it so effortlessly. And thanks for farting so much.
-Randall. Really brother, that phone conversation we had a few weeks ago while your brother was here changed my life. You are inspiring.
-Ten. You are the only person who laughs at ALL my jokes regardless of how dumb they are (and they is DUMB). I am so grateful for your intellect as well. I love talking God with you.
-Tony. I am thankful for your prayers and encouragement. You help me feel like anything is possible with God when I feel like I'm on my own.
-Shannon. The voice of reason. ps. Your tired hysteria is UNBELIEVABLY funny.
-Rachel. Where do I start? Laughs, debates, lists, music, God, games, bus-rides. You are quickly becoming one of the greatest women I have ever known. Thank you for loving God in every second of your day.
-Collin. I have a new brother! YAY! Thanks for being every bit as weird as I am. Only a mind like mine can keep a pointless conversation about yetis going like we did.
Zach. Without you there would be no harmony and then it would just be my voice wondering where yours was. I can't wait to work more with you.
-Alex. Our conversations at Faithwalkers and since then have been so helpful to me. I can't believe I didn't know you better sooner. Another brother, yay!

I could keep going and going but I have to go pick up Dax from B&N and go jam out. Then I gots to study me some physics and go to bed cause I have a long day of work ahead of me. Sorry about anyone I missed. I'm not done thanking all of you.

I love you guys!

Everyone come to the Rock this Saturday! 645 pm on 2100s and just across tracks. Before, during, and afterwards we shall pardy hardy.

It takes one to know one

2006-12-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

What a Christmas.

My little sister is now engaged. He asked her this morning. They are getting married March 2nd. Mixed feelings about that.

My older sister is adopting a little girl. Due April 5th! I'm so happy for her.

I fell asleep after opening presents and then woke up with a migraine. Ended up sending WAY to many completely unintelligible text messages. Rachel got the worst of them. Turns out she gets way more migraines than me though, so I felt like a complete moron complaining to her.

Leave for Faithwalkers tomorrow! I've really been looking forward to this. I open in the morning, work from 5-1:30, and then leave immediately to Sandy to jump on the bus at 2. Talk about cutting it close! I've just gotta hope for good traffic. I won't even have the time to shower, which is going to make the bus ride a little more uncomfortable than I would have hoped.

This Christmas, despite the migraine, ailed heart, and opposing views, was amazing. Being Christian during Christmas has been a completely new experience. I am so grateful for how much God has done for me. I was filled with joy as I spent a few days focusing on nothing else but my Saviour.

ps. Santa and consumerist america can all go to hell. If I've gained one thing from 5 years of retail its a hate for greed. Screw gift-mas, bring back Christ-mas. Yes!

Prayer

2006-12-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

My God.

My God is great, good, and immense. He is worthy, He is enough, He is all I need.

He will protect me. He will fight my battles for me. He will guide my heart and actions in ways that are good.

I have no need to fear.

I have freedom in giving Him all of myself.

God, have all of me. Take every cell without question. Make my ways Your ways.

Peace is what I have been promised. Peace is what I have.

I live to love. I love to serve. Service brings me peace.

Freedom through acceptance. My Father loves me more than I can comprehend. My Lord, how can I get so distracted by things that are of no worth?

Help me keep my eyes on You. Help me love you more every moment.

Thank you my Lord,
Amen

Orca

2006-12-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

Holy crap orca whales are awesome. COOLEST ANIMALS EVER! I'm gonna go do some reading, find some YouTube vids, maybe listen to some whale sounds, and be back with more geek thoughts on why killer whales are cooler than you.

Survival

2006-12-14T21:48:00.000-07:00

This is a familiar feeling, though I haven't felt it in quite some time. Surviving.

Do what it takes to carry on. Protect whats left. Nothing else matters. Its down to business and that's it. If it doesn't move you forward and help you stay alive, cut it out, burn it down, destroy it.

I can feel that old valve hardening, coagulating, toughening up. Can't take much more can we? Its not the end though. We aren't beat yet.

Not even close.

I don't care what anyone thinks about me. The bible says when you judge each other you're buying yourself a one way ticket to hell. Frankly then, keep it up and go there.

I am good enough.

Opportunity knocks

2006-12-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Received an invitation to work in Arizona at the Anasazi Organization. The option looks better and better all of the time.

My reputation, my integrity, my name is being ripped to shreds. The one I loved is gone. My family is gone. There is nothing left for me here.

I wish

2006-12-12T03:44:00.000-07:00

This was all over. I just want everyone to be happy now. I want Christ to come back tomorrow. I want love and truth to reign over all.

I'm sick of hurting. I'm sick of other people hurting.

My mom told me that anyone blaming other people is not in control of their own life. I can't blame anyone else. I can't judge anyone else. All I can do is take responsibility for my own actions, learn from them (whether they were good OR bad) and move on with my life, loving everyone.

That's what I'll do.

I hold no grudges. I harbor no anger. I am free from it. It feels good to be free of it.

Now, as cliche as it seems, time heals all wounds. God heals all wounds. I pray for His healing mercy.

The way things were

2006-12-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

I can't really describe today. Contemplative? Wrestling? Resolving? Enraging? Calming? Is there a word that describes all of these?

Me I guess.

I'm moving forward with the hope that someday things will change and that someday love will conquer all.
If this ever does happen it would be an ironic tragedy if I'd already given up with exhaustion.

Thank God that I am worth loving. I pray that someday, someone realizes that.

Back beast back!

2006-12-08T01:43:00.000-07:00

Holy crap. Whats the deal man? I don't want any sort of attention from the opposite sex right now and that seems to be all I'm getting. I guess the secret to getting the opposite sex's attention really IS not caring at all. AT ALL. The one person I care about the most seems to not be the slightest bit interested (though I'm smart enough to not judge), while the rest of the world seems to all of a sudden be very interested. I'm annoyed. Bro-in down is so much more fulfilling.

I really love Paul. His writing is amazing. I don't know if I like his writing or John's writing more. I like what Paul has to say, but I like John's writing style. The Good Book is one tough piece of ammo. I'm glad God's on my side (or I'm on God's side I guess). I can't wait to finish the Bible so I can go through it again, much much more slowly. I really want to finish reading the entire thing first and then start reading and digesting chapters a week at a time. REALLY feast on the word of God. I still think its crazy that I get to read God's words. A GOD. Craziness. I love it.

Speaking of God, I love talking to Him. The other night, out of no where, the way I prayed changed dramatically. I find it hard to express just what the change was. It wasn't anything I was saying different or doing different. I just felt like God was sitting right next to me. Like there was nothing separating us. It was much more personal. I already talked to God as my friend, and poured out my heart to him before, something just felt more connected. God becomes more and more real to me all of the time.

I'm excited about playing music for God. Singing to my Lord. Being in front of people but still just singing to and for Him. I feel a great deal of peace when I think about it.

I'm off to go watch a movie and fall into my dreamworld. I wish I dreamt more. Vivid dreams. What if one could decide the subject matter and then let the dream play out? The movie business would die, books would stop selling, people would quit their jobs, and everyone would sleep as much as possible.

Still, I think there are many people in this world that deserve a place to escape their suffering, like a world of controlled, slumbering thoughts.

Now I'm just rambling. Feels good to just throw out all my thoughts somewhere.

I'm going to go talk to my Savior. Night empty internet.

Had a good night

2006-12-07T01:29:00.000-07:00

The next level was really good. Talking to Dax was really good. Accountability group was really good. Hanging out with Scrib and Rachel Hahn was really good.

I feel a lot more comfortable about everything. I am amazed at how easy it is becoming to not judge and to hold people in a Godly light. To see the people I love from a truly Godly perspective on a more frequent basis.

Its day 4.

I fully expect to wait hundreds of days. It doesn't matter. Love is patient. God said so. ;)

I pray for insight, for love, for endurance, for the power to resist lies. I pray for the people I care for, for the will of God to come forth, for peace.

I am becoming more and more content with the position I am in. It is only possible through God and the eyes He has given me. At any other point in my life I would have lost it already.

Thank you my Lord. My Father is a great Father.

Come to think of it, both of them are.

Safe Home

2006-12-05T17:15:00.000-07:00

Ive been down this road once or twice before
Through the open door
I come falling through it
Theres a sign post up ahead
Like a watershed
And it opens my eyes
Ways, for me to begin
To be born again
And knowing for the first time
Ways, all so differently
Shine for me to see
The better man that I am

Ive been places in my head
Behind me worse than whats ahead
And on my path just like a dream
Takes me from the inbetween
From out of nowhere You came strong as stone
And now Ill never have to be alone
What it is I know

You have always been my safe home
I walk, I run, I burn out into You
You have always been my safe home
My whole world has moved on

I know what I am and Ill always be
Your reality, is better than I could dream
All my fears turn from black to white
And I'd stand and fight
The whole world for you
Faith, and destiny
I never did believe
My only God is love and
Faith, what I see in you dear
And I can hold it true
Like a weight in my hand

No one ever reads this

2006-12-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

So I figure I'll put my thoughts here. I don't have a journal, I don't have any friends I can really talk to about this, but I need somewhere to breathe. So, empty empty Internet, here is my heart on an iridescent screen.

2006-08-24T22:15:00.000-06:00

New Life

2006-07-31T02:40:00.001-06:00

IMG_0969[1]
Originally uploaded by TheBen.

God is amazing. I can feel Him taking over my heart more and more each day. Its a love affair. I am in love with God and He with me.
I was reading in John two days ago. It was talking about when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. I know the story, I've read it a million times. This time hit me differently though. I realized just how unbelievable Christ's actions were and what that means for me. Do you believe that a God washed his children's feet? I can't even imagine my Dad doing something like that let alone a God. It is absolutely amazing. While reading I felt just how much God loves me. I was able to see myself for a moment how God sees me. It is absolutely breath-taking. Nothing can describe it. Nothing is better.
I want to wash my brothers and sisters weary feet. I want to wash God's feet. Everyone deserves God's love. We must love as God loves and act as God acts. Or, at least the bast way we know how.
I hold no grudges. I hate no other man. God has taken me.

Life, God, and everything I owe.

2006-07-27T17:53:00.001-06:00

I can finally say with an assurity that I love God. Without a doubt in my mind I love Him with all of my heart.

Its amazing how God treats His children. A world where we screw up continually, where we make horrible decisions and kill each other and hurt each other. A world where He gives us everything that we have we have, but we are so concerned with our own-selves that we act like we own it all. From the looks of it, from how we act and treat each other, I would almost say that we don't deserve anything. No mercy, no love, nothing. Yet, despite all of our wrongdoings, all of our selfishness and betrayal, God gives us everything He has. He give us mercy, love, understanding, forgiveness, LIFE.

He died for me! A complete sinner! I have made more mistakes in this life than anyone could count, yet He doesn't count any of them. He has given me the greatest gift of all. Freed me from slavery, given life when I haven't deserved it, smiled at my feeble attempts to rescue myself and then He saved me anyway, forgiven me when I haven't felt like I deserved it, loved me in spite of myself. I didn't even do a thing to earn it! He died for all of my sins before I was even born! Before I could have a chance to try to deserve it. He doesn't ask me to prove myself to Him. All of this comes just because I love Him. God doesn't care how many times I have screwed up or how many times I will screw up. He doesn't care how much I try to do to deserve His love and forgiveness. He already died for me. God has given us everything we have and he only wants one thing in return. Heart. And Lord, you have my heart.

Life, God, and everything I owe.

2006-07-27T17:53:00.000-06:00

Today, tomorrow, the next day.

2006-07-21T18:32:00.000-06:00

Lots to do the next week over. Talking to people about God at the Warped Tour tomorrow. Then I somehow have to clean my house for my sister and brother that are coming on Sunday, make it to Bill's bachelour party, and run up to Kausy Dam for a camp-out with my friends. Then Sunday I'm gonna have to work all day, make it home for my sister and brother (and their dog and their friend who are also coming). I work everyday next week and then have a campout for church Friday Saturday and Sunday. BUT I have to work Friday. Oh yeah, Pete Yorn is coming to my store on Wednesday as well and that is going to be a mess. Man, my days off arent even days off.

Regret, remorse, remission, repentance, recollection.

2006-07-16T14:19:00.000-06:00

How do you make up for a lifetime of mistakes? Yes, I know the answer. I've heard it a million times, and I believe it too. I just can't grasp the concept right now.

I've become quite the piece of work throughout my life and I don't know how to overcome it really. Why can't I not care about myself? Why can't I be selfless and loving at all times? My ego, my pride, my selfishness, they get in the way of everything. Nearly every problem I face is a direct result of them.

I am a big believer that much of how your life goes depends on how you react to life. Your actions and your mindset are everything. Its sounds so cliche, but you really can't control the world or the people in it. The only person you can control is yourself.

Now I don't think that this means that one shouldn't try to "make a difference" simply because you can't control anything but yourself. However, I think that it is through controlling one's self that we are able to do something about the world around us. Funny how the only way to change the world is to change yourself.

All of these concepts, all of these truths and feelings I have about the way life is and what matters, about why we're here and what we need to be doing. I know what I have to do, why is it so hard to do it?

There's that pride again.

Its been one of those days. Weeks. You know.

2006-07-08T02:33:00.000-06:00

I can't stand stress. Its one of my least favorite things. What a serious buzz-kill.
Today was lamer than usual. My life hasn't even been lame lately so I think fate is playing catchup. Ashlie's friend commited suicide. I've worked 56 hours this week and I have a day of work left to go. I think I have strep or something, and have had it for a week. I busted a rib playing ultimate death frisbee. My phone bill somehow went over... ...again (not my fault... ...again). My parents discovered that I'm Christian and I don't think they liked it too much. I'm still in debt for school. I don't like this world we live in too much right now. I don't like the way our America is ran or how it was founded. I am sick of just living to work and working to live. I am sick of not having a body that can keep up with my life. I am sick of being sick. I am sick of stress. I can't handle this!
God, please take over my life. Give me the clarity to focus on what really matters. Help me give up my natural self. Help me see what You do for me.
This is haaaaard.... (end whine).

No really, I'll be fine. I'm just tired.

Hair cuts and such.

2006-06-23T01:20:00.000-06:00

Picture 7
Originally uploaded by TheBen.

Chopped my hair off today. Man it feels weird. I hated it at first but its slowly growing on me. ALMOST went back and just had her cut it all off down to an inch. I sound like such a baby, but I havent cut that hair in over a year! All I have to take pictures of it is my lame ass Logitech webcam. I need a digital camzilla yo.

Seems fitting to cut the hair off now though. So many changes going on in my life why not just throw that in as well? My place in Salt Lake is turning out really nice. I think I'm gonna be real happy here. Still wish I had a dog to go along with it though. Maybe I still will...

Going to update the Ears of the Ocean soon. Listening to some really noteworthy material.

Speaking of music, Discourse unfortunatly lost Eric on Wednesday. I love the kid. This situation sucks. I think things will work themselves out though. He's dating a girl who everyone says isn't good for him. I don't know cause I've only met her once or twice. I know where Eric is coming from though because I've been in his spot. Well, I can't say EXACTLY his spot because the girl I was with really WAS a she-devil and Rian might not be. In the end I'm glad I know Eric and am glad for what I have learned from him.

Which also brings me to my last topic. My vocals. Not really satisfied with them. This is a good thing though because I know I CAN BE satisfied with them. We have nothing but freedom to work with in our music. I am going to mess around a lot with ideas and sounds. Still trying to find my voice, but confident that I will.

God is Love. God is in me.

2006-06-04T16:21:00.000-06:00

God is real. God is good. God is merciful. God is love. Love is Real.

I can't even begin to paste my thoughts and feelings of the past few days. I can't wait to start my new life. What am I talking about? It has already started! June 3rd, 2006. I am new.

I pray I can keep focused. I pray I don't loose site. I am still so young and weak. I thank my God for the friends he has given me. I thank God for forgiving me, for being patient, for blessing me with more than I will ever know or deserve.

I want to shout to the world. I want to never sleep and always serve. I want to experience all of the beautiful things God has given us. I want to love as much as God has given me power to love. I am His son right? I have part of Him in me right? I have potential through Him. I have salvation through him. Only through Him. I pray that I don't loose site of that. It is so easy to get distracted or caught up in things that truly don't matter.

Both feet first, hit the water and run. No looking back. Hesitation and doubt are inevitable, but quitting is not an option. God has taken care of me.

How could I ever believe that I didn't deserve it? How could I not see that it was so easy. Its like He's been walking next to me for my entire life and all I've had to do was ask and He would carry me.

Peace. That is all I feel. I should be terrified. Absolutely stressed and worried about what lies ahead, but I'm not. I see life ahead of me and God at the helm. How could one be afraid with a God leading them? I am here, I am ready, I am new, I am His.

Numerous Like Sand, Varied As Snow.

2006-06-01T17:45:00.000-06:00

Thanks to "brownmusicband" at Flickr for the image.

I realized again today how much I love people. I forget this so much working in retail. It is so easy to judge strictly on appearance and first glance. I'm dealing with over two decades of learned behaviour and thought processes that don't follow the love-based life that I am striving for.

How many human beings are there in the world now? Hold on let me check... Ok, looks like according to the census there are close to 7 billion of us now. Compare this to when I was born. Hold on one more sec. Around 4.5 Billion. That is amazing.

I think about my life and how much I have experienced; my loves, my loses, my trials and my successes. I think about my friends and family and how much I love them. I look at all of the things that make us beautiful. Now I think about that when I think about the world's 7 billion people. How can I get so wrapped up in myself? How can I think that I am any better than anyone else or worse off? I want to spend the rest of my life talking to people, getting to know them, helping them feel loved.

I want to spend more time taking advantage of every minute that my friends and people I know bless my life. We waste so much time. Lets get everyone together and experience life.

Frustration

2006-05-30T16:33:00.000-06:00

Life can be a bit frustrating at times you know? Just when you think everything is going well you get sick, your car breaks and costs you 400 bones to fix, and someone forgets you have feelings. My body is a bit busted, my wallet has been annihilated, and I don't know how much more my heart can take.

Who knows, maybe I'm just being melodramatic.

edit: Just picked up my car. Make that 500 dollars. Bummer dood.

Camping camping camping

2006-05-29T22:14:00.000-06:00

Waterfall
Originally uploaded by TheBen.

Went camping last weekend with the whole crew. Well, not the WHOLE crew (you know who you are). Tons of fun. Lots of people so it took forever to find a spot. Turns out Eric and Chase were trying to find us and couldn't. Cell phones don't work too well in them there mountaintops. Guess next time we'll use fire signals. Jeff and I had a good time sneaking off and throwing things into the woods to scare everyone. Steph made a friend. Though I don't think she considers the rat a friend, I'm sure the rat thought she was good company. Too bad that the weather had to suck the next day, would have been fun to get over to the dam for some jolly old fun in the sun.

NEXT time (and next time is soon losers) everyone comes. Or we'll just have fun without you... ...again.

Speaking of which

2006-05-28T15:45:00.000-06:00

This is the dog I'm thinking of. Any objections?