Video Blogging?

So yeah, I was just sitting in the car today on my way over to Castile and I just thought..."You know, I'm not doing anything...so heck, why not do a little blogging right now? I got a camera, I got the time, I'll start blogging at the moment...except when there are people around. So here it is I guess:

Go with the Flow

I was talking to a friend just a little while ago, and they said sometimes you need to go with the flow...this was about a trivial matter that I was jokingly being very rigid about (I think it had to do with like a type of potato chip of something of that nature). Anywaz, it got me to thinking...in this instance going with the flow meant nothing really, but going with the flow often lends itself to destructive behavior, the kid with his new license caught street racing the family minivan; agreeing to go to the party you shouldn't be at and compromising your beliefs and morals. My mom wrote a little quote in the front of a Bible that I have, "If you do not stand for something, you will [CERTAINLY] fall for ANYTHING."

I began to think about this in a deeper way along with going (or not) with the flow: Peter (of the Bible) was called the rock, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it." Matthew 16:1. Really as Christians we are all called to be a rock...a solid place on the foundation of Christ. But I ask you, "How can we be a solid place, where someone can stand; if we are going with the flow?" Can you hold onto a rock as it rolls down stream? NO! Can you stand on a rock as it rolls down stream? NO!

Be firmly planted in the Word of God:

"10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil...13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." Eph 6:10-11, 13-20 (NKJV).

Think on this one last question I pose, "What kind of impact does a rock on the side of a stream have on the stream in comparison to a rock located in the center of the stream?" If you want to know what I think you will have to wait; but a clue is to use the above verses...oh suspense...can't wait I bet...

Well, thank you for reading, it has been a pleasure.

What is the Reason?

I wrote this actually for yesterday’s post, but I didn’t post it for some reason. Why do we put God on hold and go off and do our own thing? God loves us yet we push Him into the corner. Why? We say we are Christians, but never change; we act like nothing ever happened. Right after I was thinking this a song came on: Empty Me by Chris Sligh. The lyrics that caught my attention was in the chorus:

Empty me, Of the selfishness inside, Every vain ambition, And the poison of my pride, And any foolish thing my heart holds to, Lord empty me of me, So I can be, Filled with you. The thing that I keep remembering is at the beginning of the chorus as it repeats the second time, “I know how I can stray, And how fast my heart could change”

God, let Your light shine through the darkness of this world, “Cuz everything is a lesser thing, Compared to you, Compared to you, Cuz everything is a lesser thing, Compared to you, So I surrender all!”

IDK...let me know what you think...I enjoy getting feedback.

Early Morning Bible Study

This morning I was sitting in my dad’s truck, just reading my Bible before class. I just opened up my Bible and it fell to Hosea. Hosea was commanded to take a prostitute at wife. As I read these verses about how Hosea was to name his children, Jezreel,

" 4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel's bow in the Valley of Jezreel’.”

I saw this in sorts as Hosea took this harlot, in the same way as Israel was given to harlotry with other gods. I have tried to take all that I have learned and somehow apply it to my life in some way. One way that I can see this in our daily lives is when we give ourselves to things other than God. Our fleshy lusts, which command our attention from the One Who should be getting out full attention; our “gods” that take the place of Him.

Tuesday, College and Gramm's

Tuesday:
I am tired; this past week and a half I think I am up to 28 hrs of sleep. I got a total of 16 hrs of sleep Friday and Saturday nights...and 12 hrs to split up among the bed times from 2-4 only to wake up at 6. I had history, psychology, and English today; I hate these classes. They are evil, I really do mean it. So much of what is being taught is so wrong, morally. In history, America is evil, Imperialistic, found on Deism, and greed. True some of these things are correct, but there is so much more to it than that. What about the Puritans, Pilgrims, and so many more groups who came for religious freedom? They are ignored. Psychology: we are all animals with only two things in our minds, survival of ourselves: protection; and survival of our genes: procreation. WHAT?!?!? We are taught that we are animals, and there is no right or wrong; everything is chemical reactions to experiences that we have had...again I say, "WHAT?!?!?" English: study of the humanities, arts. Do we study "The Last Supper", "Christ on Calvary", or other "good" works of art by da Vinci, Raphael, Angelo, or others? No...we study crap; worthless, corrupt crap, not even worth mentioning.

Well I did go to my Gramm's house, and that was fun. Got to hang out with Erica and Cory two of my cousins. We played the game "Fact or Crap" and that was fun. I won, I got 52 tokens. The game is all about trivia from around the world in every topic imaginable. Pretty fun game.

Goodbye Blood and Strength.

Monday:
Did I mention I gave blood on Saturday? I don't think I did. Well I gave blood on Saturday. K, I mentioned it. Well Monday I had my typical weight lifting class...only I couldn't lift ANYTHING with my arms. It was pretty bad. I had karate class today too; we did parts of a black belt test, which was kinda annoying. The thing that killed me was having to do 80 snap kicks in 90 seconds and 80 knee smashes in 90 seconds...I pulled one groin muscle doing the snap kicks and the other doing the knee smashes...so yeah. It kinda hurt to walk...but I wasn't walking with a noticeable change...least I tried not too.

In between weight lifting and karate I watched some Steel Roots DVDs. For those of you who don't know, Steel Roots is a group of Christian professional snowboarders. Jim Rippy is the oldest guy, he is 33 at the time of the filming. They do some pretty crazy stuff and also have a time of devotion at the end of each episode. One of the things I tpyed into my phone when I heard it was, "when we stress out about something, it is because our perspective is not on Christ." I thought, "how true is that?" He is the author and finisher of our faith, when we thing, "Oh crap, I can't do this!" You know what? You are 100% right! Hate to break it to you like this but...YOU CAN'T! Not me, but Christ, Who worketh THROUGH ME! When we start applying God's principles to our lives, things change. Things will change in drastic ways; He knows what is best for you and all you have to "do" is for us to yield our control to Him.

Notepad blogging. Sunday. No Half-Jobs from HIM!

April 19, Sunday:
Today was awesome, I got to lead worship with Jac and Laura; they did a really good job. We played guitars tonight, we did a couple songs that we weren't too familiar with, but I think we did a really good job. ALL PRAISE TO GOD! He saw us through. I played for all the songs and Jac and Laura switched on and off of the other guitar...half way through the main set of songs my wrist started KILLING me. It was hurting so bad I started messing up; and I thought I wouldn't be able to play the rest of the songs, but like I said, "God saw us through." I prayed that I would be at least be able to finish the songs, that God would slow the spread of the pain till after service, but the amazing happened...have you ever noticed that when God does something, He does it perfectly? Like He never does a half-job? Have you ever noticed that?...OK back to the story...the amazing happened when I was about to stop and give up, starting to believe that this was a sign from God wanting me to stop, when my wrist hurt so bad that I couldn't actually bend it...the pain stopped...not like stopped spreading, but stopped...ceased to indwell my arm, wrist and hand. It was amazing...but that's not all folks, we were playing the song "Give Us Clean Hands" and I have been experimenting with doing different bar chords from different octives to change the sound up a little bit, but none of the standard chords were sounding right at all. Generally that is a sign that there is a problem with tuning...or the player. And since I tuned the guitar with a tuner just before playing, I knew it had to be me. But once again I felt this feeling to move out of my comfort zone (...into the realm of the unknown, were Jesus is, and He's holding out His hands...) and try something I have been learning and practicing for months. I prayed before doing this change, and God blessed me once again with this ability, and IT SOUNDED GOOD! So...have you ever noticed that when God does something, He does it perfectly? Like He never does a half-job? Have you ever noticed that?

Our God,
Is an awesome God,
He reigns...

Check this video out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lvTsn32pWg

I am going to try something.

Since I have the Motorola Krave I have been pecking in little 360 character notes on notepad throughout the day. So I am going to start uploading the notes. I don't have time tonight, but will start it up tomorrow night. If anyone notices this before I post again, drop me a line and tell me what you think, as I will start tomorrow night, Lord willing that is.

Good Day.

Today was just one of those days...you know, the ones that everything just seem to go...right?

First off I got to play guitar today, I haven't done that in a while. That was fun. And I did a bunch of sanding on our door, which we also put wood finish on too. The weather was wonderful, it didn't rain at all, and I kept thinking it was going too. I wanted to go to the cafe today but couldn't as you will see in a bit. And secondly we got our phones upgraded. I have needed an upgrade (actually just a working phone) since before Thanksgiving. The battery was drained and never worked, I couldn't make a single call without having the phone beep "low battery" as soon as the other person would pick up their end. We finally left our house at 7:00PM to head to Batavia...I could not get my dad off Facebook...he is such a FB addict...So we (me and dad) ended up going to the Verizon store in Batavia...but they had no good deals (something for free). That was a problem cause my dad does not like spending money if he can get something of equal or greater...or lesser value...for free.

Since the Verizon store was a miss I told Dad that we should check out the Verizon kiosk in BJ's, where we got the good deal last time. HIT! They were running a special for 3 Motorola Moto UV204's for free with the purchase of ANY phone. We also had a $50 credit to apply toward a phone. Well, I wanted to maximize our purchase and noticed this pretty cool looking phone for $49.95 (after $50 mail-in rebate)...SCORE! $50 credit applied to phone with an immediate price of $99.95-$50.00 mail-in rebate=FREE! I told Dad, and used my persuasiveness (I told him that we might as well spend all the credit we are given cause they won't carry it over.) to convince him that we should get the Krave and give it to me. The Krave has a touch screen like a PDA, but a flip cover like a standard flip phone to protect it...and the flip is clear and actually the touch screen is made to opperate through the cover, which is pretty cool. I also found out I need to be VERY careful since if I was to just buy the phone...it would cost $360!

So yeah, we bought the phone, I love the phone, and I'm still trying to work out the texting issue (so I can txt with the phone)...but we are making some progress.

I got hit by a car...

I haven't posted in a while and was trying to catch up. I haven't had too much time cause of my school.

So I'll tell you about something that happened to me the other day...I was walking to the college building through a parking lot, and was in kind of a hurry and I walked between two big pickup trucks and the security dude that drives a Jeep all around campus came around a corner and hit me...I saw him coming but didn't have enough time to get out of the way. So I put my arms out and jumped, and he basically hit my legs as they moved...and my leg muscles hurt...but other than that I'm fine...how are you?

No wallet, no debit card.

I can't believe it, I forgot my debit card again...I can't get my license until tomorrow...grrr!

Well I had classes today, history, psychology, and English. I think I will be able to go for certain on the 2nd. We have a meeting with the teacher in English class, my last class of Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I should be able to get home before we have to leave. That will be good. I $10 in quarters so I went to BJ's and bought some "Big League Chew" (don't worry I don't chew tobacco, for those of you who don't know what "BLC" is, it is shredded bubble gum...and also is the stuff Napoleon Dynamite is chewing in the bathroom of the school. I got the big pack (its like 10 pouches) for just under $10, which is good cause thats all the money I had. Danny really wanted some and I told him I would get it for him.

We went to my grandparents' house. We weren't gonna stay real long cause Midge didn't get a very good nap but as it turns out we didn't leave until almost 10:00...she was crabby; and my mom made me drive home, and I am still driving illegally cause you are supposed to have your license on you at all times when driving...grrr.

Lesson learned: Don't lose your wallet.

I still can't find my wallet

I CAN'T FIND MY WALLET!!!! still...I went to the DMV today to try to get another license...but found out that it cost $15...If you read my earlier posts, you already know that, I DON'T HAVE $15!...epic fail. I also forgot my debit card at home...so I couldn't pay for it that way, and I was kinda pressed for time cause I had to get home eat and then leave my house for karate (I had my weight lifting class just before I went to the DMV.) So I went home ate, filled out the replacement license form, and went to karate; government agencies are annoying... We learned some more self defense stuff in karate, its pretty fun. It tires me out.

I figured with my luck...or lack or it, I figured I would be pulled over by a police officer or get in a accident or something fun like that. But that didn't happen, thankfully. I have to go tomorrow to see if I can get it. I hate not having that stupid piece of plastic...grrrr.

The lesson I learned today was, NEVER LOSE YOUR WALLET WITH IMPORTANT STUFF IN IT!!! OK, I'm good now.

Tiring Day at Church.

I was tired today...what else is new? Like really? I'm always tired. Partly because my body clock is all messed up and I can't fall asleep until after 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and also cause I wake up so early at 6:00 every day. The other part of my tiredness is the fact that I am STILL sick (probably because I'm not getting enough rest). I was supposed to plan out worship for this week and I forgot partly and didn't have the time when I remembered. So because I dropped the ball on this one Jac ended up helping me out and planning the whole thing (which I feel very bad about cause it was my responsibility and I messed up.).

It was pretty hard to sing this morning, I am not really that great of a singer anywaz, but with a cold it is worse. The morning service went well, Mike helped me out a ton in one of the songs that there was a guy and girl part...evening service was a challenge, I ended up running sound board and because I didn't have the songs prepared I did not know what transitions I had to do. But through it all God did what He does and despite my failures His message came through. Don't worry I'm not taking this as an excuse for not having to fulfill my responsibilities but that despite my short comings my God is there to back me up.

That was the biggest lesson I learned, not having it all together really bugs me. And I don't like it at ALL! But God is teaching me more and more to trust Him that He WILL take care of me no matter WHAT challenge we are put through; we can overcome, if we let God take control.

The Bridge @ the Cafe.

I went to the Cafe today, it was a lot of fun. Got to listen to the Bridge: Gary Murphee, on guitar; Jeff, on drums; and Jon, on bass, playing some sweet tunes. These guys are REALLY good. If you ever get the chance take the time...these guys are really good.

I got to hang out with some of my friends there; it was good to see some people I haven't seen in a while.

Gary started out using his acoustic at the beginning but used his Epiphone Dot for the second set. It was a beautiful day in Geneseo. I don't know what else to say. I didn't have classes cause it was a Saturday, and life was pretty slow...moving towards the 7:00 time.

Oh, I still don't have a wallet. I can't find it anywhere...it is REALLY annoying; cause like I don't have a license, or gift cards, or money, or hunting license. I DO have my debit card, which is good...so I can get SOME money...I just lost the money that was in the wallet. Also it is pretty unnerving having to drive around in police infested towns without it...I don't enjoy breaking the law. It just happens. This has taught me to drive more carefully...not that I was a reckless driver, but if you get pulled over for anything you get two tickets instead of one...not cool.

I BOUGHT A NEW GUITAR!

So I had my classes and all that, but none of that compares to what I got... bought... today. Its a guitar! I love it so much. It is a Yamaha APX 500. It has a internal pickup and built-in tuner. The neck of the guitar is closer to that of an electric guitar in width (which I like) and it has a thin body (which I also like). I like the fact that I can play it without having to be amped, but also like the sound of the amped guitar. The guitar runs about $400, $459.95 at Roxy's where I bought it, but they had the special you can buy the guitar and get the hard case, with is smaller to fit the guitar (go figure) for $399 plus tax. So it ended up being around $440. I love the finish on the guitar, it is kind of like a fire burst, so it still has some style to it...the finger prints arn't too bad...just closer to the edges they show up.

I could write about the rest of my day, like art class and weight lifting...but this was pretty much the best thing that happened...I did go to hockey and got to see some amazing people, and that was fun, but I really like playing that guitar.

More college...and sore muscles...

I had my "normal" classes today, gosh I hurt. All my muscles in my upper body KILL! We worked out doing lovely sit-ups, push-ups, and squats. I did 36 sit-ups in 60 seconds, 20 push-ups in 30 seconds, and 37 squats in 60 seconds. I was so tired...that was the first 20 min of class actually. After that we where to work out until 11:00...so I went and played around with some of the machines and started lifting on the bench press machine of sorts and was feeling VERY weak cause I was only lifting 85 pounds. I found out after the fact that that is 85 pounds per arm...so...yeah.

I still do not like psychology, even though it is easy...I don't like it. Ugh! Evolutionary psychologists...

Today Katy told me that I was invited to the Lutz's house on the 2nd...I hope that all works out, cause I haven't really had time to spend with them. Last time I was there I we didn't really have time to spend cause Cody and I were going to Holiday Valley for the day. I do just wanna hang out with them...it will be fun if I can work everything out.

Still sick but slowly healing...

I had classes today, the first classes in history, psychology, and English since break. My cold is still pretty bad, I am on like 3 diff meds. every day. Some form of either night quill or day quill, some "Zycam" stuff (doesn't do anything), tussen, and ibuprofen, plus a menagerie of cough drops or analgesic throat spray so stop from coughing up a lung. Its pretty annoying. I think it might be because I don't get as much sleep as I have been getting, or SHOULD be getting, but I'm working on that.

I forgot how much I hate my psychology class, and the obnoxious over emphasis on evolution and evolutionary psychology, which is basic psychology...same diff I guess. Ugh! Make me sick. Wait, I already am...nevermind!

I went to my grandparents' house for dinner, like we do every Tuesday, it was fun...I took my guitar and my lil' cousin (who isn't all that little) played around with it and playing some fun riffs from stuff like: "Stairway to Heaven," "Smoke on the Water," "Sweet Child O' Mine," and "Strutter." It was a lot of fun; I love playing guitar. We stayed pretty late again tonight, around 9:00, Midge started to get cranky so we had to leave. We watched more military channel...some show called "Top Sniper" it was pretty cool, basically was a training and proving course for elite snipers.

Classes...new ones...Phys Ed.!

This weekend I was still sick, and not much really happened, other than I helped lead worship with 3 amazing people, which is a LOT of fun. Now I know why Pastor Mike liked it so much. But yeah, that is the majority of the weekend.

Today I had my first physical education classes like EVER! At my school where I attended from 2nd grade, we had gym class, but we did not get a "grade" per say but a...level of satisfaction...basically we pass no matter what, but we might get a bad mark on our report card if we don't participate. Well my class(es) today was weight lifting and karate...weight lifting is a 55 min. class and we did absolutely nothing, while karate is a 1 hr and 20 min class and we did a bunch of stuff. The teacher, Jones, is an 8th degree black belt and is the 6th step from Bruce Lee's instruction. She taught some basic punches and form; in this form the punch is made with a vertical fist and the point of contact is the first 2 knuckles. It was kinda hard to take her seriously, but I should work on that if I want to get any where in this class. There was one dude, about the same age as me that made me mad. He was there showin' off all his cool moves like some jumps kicks and stuff and the teacher, who was clearly not impressed, asked him to stop and he kept it up...unfortunately this is not a dojo and we arn't allowed to spar, cause I would PAY big money I don't have to watch the teacher show him how much he knows...I hate people who have to show off how good they think they are...

2 cameras, 18 hours, 180 miles, 1 ski resort, 12 church hockey games and one cold=me being very tired and sore...

Today was AWESOME! I got to go skiing with Cody today! It was so awesome, took a bunch of pics with that awesome new camera. It was so much fun filming him! I took a bunch of videos and made kind of like a mini movie, that was a lot of fun, I never played with Windows Movie Maker before so the movie is pretty simple.

I loved every minute of the time, Cody did a lot of freestyle stuff, just warming up while all I did was work on landing my jumps. He is a really good snowboarder...he hasn't snowboarded too long either, I guess this is both of ours' first REAL year.

I left my house at 6:30 this morning, got to his house in Bliss at 7:30, left from there and got to Holiday Valley in Ellicottville at 8:30...only to find that the lifts don't open till 9:00...oh well! We waited until 9:00 and i went to get the White Cards but couldn't find the one that I borrowed! I looked EVERYWHERE! No where to be found. Cody kept offering to pay for his pass, but I had promised him that it wouldn't cost him anything to go to Holiday Valley so I wasn't gonna let him pay (after all it was my own carelessness that forgot the card). Then I remembered something, something that I know was God's doing...when I was skiing on Monday, I was on my way out the door to start the day off and I stopped to fix my boot. I was kneeling in the front room where the lift tickets were sold and I heard this guy using his White Card swipe AND his free March pass on the same day. You see, with the White Cards the card holder is eligible for 9 8 hour lift tickets any non-holiday weekday and one "anytime" 8 hour pass to be used in March. So yeah, it didn't end up costing anything because God reminded me of that, which was pretty cool.

Well we skied and then left for home around 2:30-ish...on my way home my friend Pat called me and wondered if I wanted to play hockey...OF COURSE I DID! So I played hockey at the church until pretty late. My teams won all their games! WE ROCKED! I was very sore...and tired.

Sick of being tired....and sick.

Well I was going to go skiing today with one of my friends, Cody, but it turned out for the best. It was pretty warm and a warm day skiing is not all that great, I'm talking like 50 degrees...that means more of those mashed potatoes that I had to deal with Monday...but tomorrow is looking better.

I bought a camera Tuesday...and I hate it! It takes the WORST pics EVER! For starters I don't like using the flash; my theory if I can focus on the object with my blurry eyes, then the camera should be able to focus...but this one doesn't, very disappointing. So I took it back today and bought another one from BJ's. It is a Olympus Stylus, 10.1 mega pixel, with a 7x optical zoom, it takes only the Olympus xD cards, but it comes with a micro SD card converter. I am glad it has a micro SD converter cause otherwise I would be stuck using a 128 MB card and a 16 MB card...and when I use the highest quality that 128 MB card can only fit 50 pics...not good.

But yeah, I can't wait to take it to Holiday Valley tomorrow and try it out. It will be a lot of fun trying to figure out stuff literally on the fly (skiing down the hill follow camming I'm hoping!)

But yeah, all this fun has come with a price, I am sick...not fun. I have a REALLY bad head cold. I woke up with it and it has stuck with me all day...I hope it goes away before tomorrow. If not the day won't be a waste...