New House

So far in my life it has been exciting every-time I’ve moved. It looks like I’ll keep that streak going.

The lease at my current apartment is about to come up and its been nice but I need to move closer to work. So it was time to start looking for a new place. After waiting too long and missing a nice town-home, my future flatmates and I just today signed the papers for our new house! It is sooo exciting. Its brand new, the sod isn’t even in yet! Its a nice 2 story, 3 bedroom, 2 bath and 2 car garage place near Nicholasville RD and Man O War. It should take less than 20 minutes to get to work, less than ten to get to church and they’re putting in a new movie theater nearby. Jason has been real productive and already put in orders to get the DSL, water and electricity set up.

Race Day

Ahh, the big race is today. The Haggin Hospital Sunset Run 5K at Shakertown, starts at 6 tonight. It will be my first race since high school, which has been a long time. I don’t know what time to expect, haven’t really been timing myself in training, and this is a very hilly course. My personal goal is just to finish the race strong and at the end feel like I had a good run. Right now I’m starting to get excited and nervous all at the same time. I’m not fully excited or nervous yet, but just ask me again at 5:30.

Wish me luck!

Big Fish and things that matter

Coughed up 3 bucks to see Big Fish at the Carmike, I know its on DVD but it was just one of those movies I thought would be better to see for real.

I saw the movie Big Fish this weekend. A very good movie, “fantastic” in that the stories in it are so over the top. (If you haven’t seen it yet, go read someone else’s blog cause I might ruin it for you.) The father is always telling people, he’s son in particular, about all these life adventures that can’t possibly be true because the stories are just so over the top. I kind of thought about my own dad and how good he is at telling stories. I have always loved sitting at a table late at night surrounded by his siblings and in-laws as they reflect of some of the great things that have happened since last time they talked or reflecting on adventures from when they were younger. I know my father better though sitting in on these story times. I know more about my aunts, uncles and grandparents as well. Unfortunately, theses stories would have no occasion to be simply told to me. Adults know kids probably don’t care about getting carded when trying to buy diapers. It is such a treat to hear about the lives of those who have came before you. This really all goes back to my blog a couple weeks ago on what Ecclesiastes says is really important in life. It is all about our relationships, especially our relationship with Christ, that’s why communication is so important. Whether it be through stories or prayer it is so good to get to know people. More than just how their day was and what their job is.

Its a shame when the memory of people is lost. How many of us don’t even know the name of our great grandparents or where our great-great-great-grandparents came from. Recently I and some other relative were able to sit down and video tape a conversation with my grandparents about their lives. About their brothers, sisters, parents and how they met. My grandpop was shocked when I asked basic questions that he might have thought were common knowledge. We don’t know what those who came before us had to deal with in their lives. I have a copy of Band of Brothers on my desk right now, an incredible miniseries about World War II. Being from the generation I am, I knew almost nothing about how much of a strain on life that war on the world. I am so glad I did not have to live through it. I am so much more appreciative about what our grandparents did now that I have seen it. I have heard almost nothing about my granddad’s own time in the army.

I think this might be changing though, thanks a lot to consumer photography. Right now I am scanning hundreds of pictures for Steve’s memory video that will be shown at his wedding. There are just so many pictures. I know what he looked like after his first hair cut. This was something those 100 years ago didn’t have the advantage of. Hopefully with the advancement of affordable photography my grandkids will see pictures of my on the wall from 2004 and ask me what that was like. What will we do with photos once their owners pass on? I hope we don’t just throw them all away. My poor kids (if that day ever comes) will literally
have thousands of pictures of themselves.

Big Fish leaves the viewer with two possibilities for the larger than life stories. Either the storyteller exaggerated everything, or the young listener made up his own size for a giant. That’s going to be one of the disadvantages of having pictures of everything, kids won’t have to leave things up to their imagination. They’ll know that the giant you traveled the country with wasn’t really 15 feet tall. Secondhand Lions was another really good movie I saw not too long ago. Both are about lives who’s stories seem bigger than reality. As each movie draws to a close we learn that for the most part the fantastic stories are true, and its believable because as my dad says “truth is stranger than fiction”.

Ichthus is over

Another Ichthus is behind us, all we really have to show for it is a bit of mud on our floor boards and memories we won’t remember which year they were from.

A week ago I didn’t even know if I would be going to Ichthus this year. After some plans changing (see previous post), I had some extra time this weekend. 2004 marks my fourth Ichthus and least amount of time, I was actually able to spend on the grounds. With a real job and all, most of friday was shot. Skipping a full work day really isn’t the same as skipping a couple classes and chapel.

Overall I had a good time, but no where near the fun I had while in college working the video crew. Its fun trying to sell Audio Adrenaline stuff to underage fans who have twenties burning a hole in their pocket. “I have $16, what can I get?” I did get an Audio A CD free for volunteering at the sales tent and working their table.

Now all I have to do is scrap the mud out of the washing machine!

Ichthus is a coming

Its that time of the year again. Time for Wilmore to quadruple in size and see how bad a record group of kids can smell after not showering for 3 days.

Ichthus is one of those things that every year I am more excited about then I thought I would be. Didn’t go, didn’t care, Freshman year, but now I can’t stand to pass it up. My mom was planning on coming in today, something I was excited about, but earlier this week she called and said she couldn’t find a decent flight time. A bummer, but it would have been a busy weekend for me and I would have not been able to give mom the attention she deserves. And not just because of Ichthus, I only really want to see one band anyway. I had work stuff from lunch through dinner. I was planning on weaseling my way in to Ichthus tomorrow for the 35 minutes Reliant K was scheduled to play. (Sorry about the unintentional rhyme.) With mom having to reschedule on Monday I had to find a more definitive way into Ichthus, cause there was no way I was going to sit around all weekend when everyone else is having fun. Luckily, I knew someone who still needed volunteers, I filled the last big spot in her volunteer schedule and I get a free wrist band. A win-win situation.

I actually like working more then watching the concerts. There is no way the sales tent can be nearly as fun as working on the video crew, but I’m sure it’ll be cool. Once I get there, I know I’m going to wish I was still an Asbury (check out the cool new website!) student running a camera or directing a show. That was so much fun, defiantly a highlight of my college career.

Ecclesiastes

I used to not put much weight in Ecclesiastes, I thought it was just some dude who was just angry at the world. But I did get something outa it in my most recent read. This book is good for more then just inspiring hippie songs.

Open up (or click on) Ecclesiastes and your greeted with some really encouraging sub-headers: “Wisdom Is Meaningless“, “Pleasures Are Meaningless“, “Advancement Is Meaningless“, “Riches Are Meaningless“, “Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless“, “Toil is Meaningless” and just to summarize “Everything Is Meaningless“. Wow, that just makes me want to shoot myself now. Well its good I’ve spent so much time working on “stuff”. “Everything Is Meaningless” but not “Everything Is Meaningless”. Read those first two chapters and you might realized that some things are missing from the “meaningless” lists. Never once are relationships with people or God labeled as meaningless.

EveryTHING might be meaningless, it doesn’t matter how much stuff we have, how hard we worked or how cool people though we were. If all this stuff is meaningless, then the writer (probably King Solomon my Bible says) might be using contrast to tell us what really does matter, and I’m pretty sure he is. Too often we work our whole lives so we can get a Benz by the time we’re 40 or a nice house with a mini-movie-theater. When have you heard someone say “I want to have 5 great friends by the time I retire”? Friendships DO matter, they are not meaningless. “If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” (4:11)

I want to be able to have fun, be honest and challenged by some really close people in my life. Who cares if I live in a mansion or a cardboard box, cause that doesn’t matter. They might be family or friends closer then family, but those are the things I’m going to remember on my death bed, not that a I got a 3.5% raise when I was 35 years old. Most importantly is my relationship to God. Who relocates when we do, is there when our family won’t talk to us and we can look forward to seeing after our death bed.

Remember, everyTHING is meaningless, but everyTHING doesn’t include everything. There are “things” that are so much more then “things” that do matter.

Sorry for the Delay

The program I use to blog with keeps screwing up the look of my site. A bit frustrating, and has made me devote my blogging time to fixing it, rather then blogging.

Its been a fun filled week, and about time for me to get a full sized blog in. I can’t believe that Easter was this week. I want to echo what Rachel and Julie said about how good of a time we had on Sunday. Its nearly inexplicable, we went to the 7 am service at church (I woke up at 5:30), then came back and had brunch (I was unhappy with how my waffles turned out), sat around and watched TV (I had seen better movies before), then went to a low scoring baseball game (I have done more exciting things in an afternoon). But, there was something about the whole day that made it sooo good . It was the kind of good, that makes me want to think we went to a theme park, watched the best movie ever, after eating waffles to die for and woke up at a comfortable 9am. We didn’t, but I have a hard time convincing myself that because those would have been my ingredients if I were trying to create a day that felt as good as Easter Sunday 2004. I can’t really explain it but Sunday had “it”.

Recent Song Purchases

Ok, so this one is a bit outa date, and you probably don’t care. But its my blog, I make the rules around here. I won’t know if you don’t read on, so don’t feel guilty.

A couple weeks ago I discovered a song called First Day of the Rest of Our Lives. It’s a cliche line that could be said about any day but some days really do feel like the first day of the rest of my life. Looking back in my journal I found that I wrote that in reflection to my first day on my first real job after college. That really did feel like the first day of the rest of my life. Beyond the title, the words of this song strike a cord in me. This song was also the first MxPx recording I purchased. The bands been around forever, and seem like the father of Christian Punk. I’ve heard their stuff off and on since high school but I’ve never owned anything of theirs.

I am not one to buy albums of music, that’s the main reason why I love the iTunes Music Store so much. I have embarrassingly few CDs, but there are some that I find have too many good songs to pass up. One night over a year ago I listened to a friend’s copy of Avril Lavigne‘s Let Go about 6 times in a row. She’s got so many good songs on there, and I already had stolen a quarter of them I had to give and any pony up the $9.99. I know she a record industry creation, sounds like crap live, and a poser but I like her stuff.

My most recent purchase was a mediocre cover of a U2 great. The only copy I could get my hands of Sanctus Real‘s rendition of Beautiful Day was a crappy MP3 that a friend downloaded for me. It sounds like it was taped off the radio with a microphone and then all the levels were jacked up. So I was very happen to find a quality version on iTunes. (I should be getting paid for how badly I’m endorsing this thing on my blog). Why do I need a track that is just “alright”. Well there’s this mix CD I’m working on and well, I just couldn’t use U2’s version again.