Urbana:

Made it home safely, had some fun, learned a few things.

ps. LISTEN to this guy.

Christmas:

This'll probably be my last post from Maryland in 2006, so I'd better make it a good one. Umm, it's past my bed time so it'll also be a quick one.

I'll definitely still be connected in Houston since all of my cousins are techies.

Anyway, merry Christmas. Thank you so much for the gift you gave to me. Don't you know? Your friendship and the relationship I have with you is something that I value over any type of possession. I hope my end of the deal is also worthwhile to you.

More scattered thoughts... Some things make me happy. Snowflakes, chilling, cooking, climbing, ridiculous movies, etc. They make me really happy... but in the grand scheme of things they don't bring me joy. I was thinking of the lines 'Joyful, joyful we adore thee' and 'giver of eternal gladness' today and was hit by the fact that in order to mean those words I must acknowledge the joy that Jesus gives to me. A lot of times I don't, and I try to fill that void with happy things. I wish I didn't. So during this Christmas season I'm going to try and focus in on that.

You know, all of the pretty decorations we put up and the beautiful songs that are sung in church... I think a lot of people do it for their own enjoyment. I sometimes see that attitude as wasteful. But anyway, I am learning to see things differently- where all the majesticness of the Christmas season is to reflect the majesty of God. Yes, Jesus was born in a dirty and lowly place... but what he was to do and what he is doing is majestic worthy of our decorating/vocal/artistic talents.

When I think of majesty (please pardon me for this reference) I think of the end of the third Lord of the Rings movie with the great ceremony and an entire city bowing down to a few short hobbits. Okay, I don't know where I was going with this... so that means it's time to go to bed. Goodnight.

Surrender:

I want to surrender all.

I'm not even at the point where I yearn for Him. My desire to follow and worship are lacking. I am only at the point where I want to yearn.

Self:

bleeeeeh... Mind vomit:

I feel inadequate. On one hand, I wish they would value me on a much more intimate level. On the other, I wish I weren't so gosh darn selfish about getting attention. I'm stuck because I desire vanity- I am only self assured through others. Saying that makes me feel gross and dirty, but that's what I am and admitting it is the first step to change.

Sorry about the lack of specifics. You know what I mean.

Beau:

Pictured: Beau, October of 2004.

I first met this fine young fellow outside of the North Campus Diner on September 15th, 2003 at around 5:50 PM I think. I'm not sure who started the conversation, but we were both early to the first small group and were looking for the leaders to show.

This picture is of Beau on our small group camping trip. He was kind enough to follow me from our freshman SG into our sophomore SG.


I guess he is one of the first persons I met here at college and someone who has always been around for me. I would consider Beau to be one of my most loyal friends, and for this I am thankful.









So as the end of this semester marks the end of an era, may a new one begin. Long live the adventures of the two people whose names always get mixed up even though they sound nothing alike.

Finals:

Well it's that time of year again. We're all pulling our hair out and trying to remain as disciplined as possible. With finals starting in about 7 hours, I'm a little unsure about how I feel about the next week. Honestly there is not a ton of studying that I need to do and I'm not very worried about my classes. Also, I have the first final slot and one in the almost last slot. So when looking at the density of stress/studying over the whole time period, it's actually very low.

But still, based solely on principle, I am forcing myself to not have any fun... which doesn't make any sense. I should be working hard and playing hard, not working hard and staring off into oblivion the rest of the time. So with that in mind, please call me up to do something fun and random.

Let's see other scattered thoughts:
- I want to try more ethnic foods
- Being around couples drains me
- I need to be around people, though
- I smell bad
- I over analyze things way too much
- It's about time I start getting my priorities in order
- Traveling over break will be really fun but sort of hard to deal with emotionally

Yikes:

I just realized that that was my last IV Christmas Ball. It was a great one for sure, but I'll miss them dearly.

Break:

You only live once and you only go to college once (hopefully). That's why I'm still up. I'm currently amidst a small break in between exams and I'm allowed to blow off some steam without worrying about school. So forget sleep; let's go do something ridiculous.

Christmas:

I'm ready for Christmas to come.

Po-po:

The law hasn't been so agreeable with me lately. A cop pulled me over for cutting off my friend. It wasn't even marginally agressive... I wasn't even speeding. He didn't even give me a warning because I didn't do anything wrong.

While a bunch of us where standing in a parking lot, another cop pulls up and asks us what we're doing. He then proceeds to tell us to "keep out of trouble". I wouldn't be surprised to see that there was another shooting on Knox Road tonight in the Diamondback on Monday.

Then I got a notice today that I got caught by a red light camera in DC. I swear that that light has the shortest yellow I've ever seen. I'm certain the intersection is rigged that way... I am sooo certain.

Right now it would take a lot for law enforcement to redeem itself in my eyes.

Help:

I have a really hard time admitting it, but I need help. I can't do much on my own and my efforts alone are not putting me where I want to be.

Thanksgiving:

Man... food. Two KO's and I'm down for the count. Details later... I've got an early morning tomorrow. In short, I'm super thankful for you if you're reading this. Peace.

Unexpected:

I feel like God has been answering prayers right and left. The funny thing is the results mostly come in unexpected ways, and therefore it is only in hindsight do I realize the providence of it all.

Slump:

I guess I haven't been blogging very much recently. Things have been pretty busy... and by that I mean there have been a lot of fun things to do and I've been doing them. School has been sort of pushed to the side, even though a bunch of midterms are coming up and things are going to start getting crazy. Whatever, I've been enjoying what time I have left here and I don't regret it.

Love:

In small group tonight we took a look at the love passage from 1 Corinthians. You know, the one they always read at weddings. Anyway, it was really easy to take a look at what love is and is not and think of how poorly we emulated those characteristics. It was a lot harder to pick out traits that we would consider we execute well. For me, I think I fail the most at being patient and not being proud. I also think I am pretty decent at always protecting. I would like to think that in the hypothetical situation of someone messing with someone I love, I would step in and lay the smackdown. Hopefully to the point where I get thrown out of whatever establishment this hypothetical situation takes place in. That would be pretty sweet.

Fool:

Some days I feel like such a fool.

If I was in a TV show, my character would be the one everyone yells at through the TV screen telling me to get my act together and do something with my life.

Morning:

I just wanted to note these late hours. I wonder what time I'll get up tomorrow.

Purity:

I desire faith like a child. Then I wouldn't worry so much about things- primarily what I'm doing with my life. When I think too much about it, I feel like I'm moving with no direction and wasting away. Other times, when I'm doing stuff I feel like I've accomplished nothing and wonder if my actions, words, and presence could be completely forgotten by the morning. I wonder a lot about whether or not I'll end up alone. But according to small group, the answer to all of this is to pray. Pray for faith, pray for patience, pray for peace. I can't do this on my own.

Leafless:

Just a rather artsy picture I want to share with you.

Markings:

3 years tomorrow.

Zombies:

This is all that is wrong with the Humans vs. Zombie game:

"I just shot a bastard in mid pursuit of one of our own, just outside of North Campus diner. I gave the undead fiend a taste of my Buzzbee tek-10."

"I shot one of the little wretches ealier today near the Symons building. She was dragging off a fresh kill, so I threw down my pack and ran her down with my Maverick. She paniced and started to flee. She ate warm, foaming dart in the back after a short chase. I refuse to become prey."

I like when people get excited about fun events and games. This is going a little too far.

Opposites:

I enjoy my opposites. When I'm walking with someone who's obnoxiously loud, my first reaction is to be embarassed. Then I realize that they're just living life with nothing holding them back.

For example, today Jayme got the one-eyes, one-horned, flying, purple people-eater song caught in her head and wouldn't stop singing it while we were walking to our cars. That sort of... childish exuberance (another way of saying craziness) just makes me smile, because something as simple as those moments today will challenge my pride. That's something I need desperately- my walls of pride need to be challenged, pushed, and broken.

Photos:

Create Your Own!

Update:

It's been a while since I've written anything here. I don't think I've had many deep thoughts recently, so maybe I'll just briefly go over my past week. That's what blogs are for anyway, right?

Monday, I don't have any classes so it's hard for me to remember things with no reference points to work with. I think Jayme dropped off the lawnmower in the afternoon. Then there was small group in the evening and we talked about praying. Huh, the whole day seems a little fuzzy when I try to think back on it.

Tuesday, I had classes all day and then I stopped by the climbing wall before heading to Large Group. Shane Claiborne spoke and I found what he had to say very provoking in that good sort of way. Afterwards we had a guacamole party at home and Johnny P taught us a few breakdancing moves.

Wednesday, I overslept and had to work extra hard in the morning to pound out my neuron paper. I spent the afternoon working on a take home exam, but quickly got tired of that and went to the Fe to grab wings with Jas & Jen and Ry & Jul. I stopped by the North Campus Diner, and then went home to waste away.

Thursday, I had classes all day again. After I finished and grabbed dinner, I had to drop my parents off at the airport. Upon my return to CP, I spent the evening at the CH eating creme brulee and sipping hot apple cider. Oh, and wretched people on TV deserve wretched things to happen to them.

Friday, I went to class for awhile and then waited around for Maryland Madness. I've gotta say that this years was one of the better ones I've experienced. The program was good and entertaining all around.

Saturday, I spent all morning and afternoon on campus doing homework and studying. Kurt's parents came down from NY and cooked us the most delicious dinner. There was steak, salmon, cod, asparagus, twice-baked potatoes (yum), salad, and a bread medley. Oh and dessert was ice cream with a banana foster over top.

Today, Kurt's parents cooked us eggs benedict before we left for churches. After church, I watched a little football and climbed for a bit. Then I went cell group and now I'm here.

I now realize that my life this week has been rather dull. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't read any of the above. I should probably start spending time with cooler people... that would help, I think.

Champion:

Don't get me wrong. I love being in College Park, but I wouldn't mind sitting out on the big rock listening to bull frogs for a bit. I feel less grown up there.

Take:

You can have anything of me. Won't you take it?

Jazz:

I finished Blue Like Jazz today, reading outside on the mall instead of actually getting work done. What a great book.

I don't think I have any more direction.
I don't think I am much wiser.
I don't think I've found too many answers.
All I've got are more questions.

Melancholy:

I'd think that word accurate describes me. Definition 2 from dictionary.com says: sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness. I would hope that most of the other definitions don't fit me. Maybe I take myself too seriously. Maybe that's why I surround myself with people who are good at not taking things seriously. I need them.

Whirlwind:

Party weekend.

Friday night was the U street excursion with Cheryl, Jonathan, and Farrell. Notes to self: DO bring hot dates to lovecafe because the cakes there are delicious. DON'T take hot dates to Ben's Chili Bowl unless they're into spicy foods and me dripping chili everywhere like a slob.

Saturday night was chilling with old people who actually have real lives and real jobs. It was neat to hear from some genuine persons. Oh and also the food was finger lickin' good.

Sunday night was a classic game of A's 2 A's and some wine tasting with the old crew. Everything about that night felt so familiar and very right.

Today was a pretty darn nice day. Since it was so nice out, I set out to play bocce ball with some peeps out on the mall. Then we lounged around for a bit and I think I picked up a tad bit of sun. Following that, I went to dinner where I unexpectedly received my awesome t-shirt blanket. It needs to get colder soon, or maybe we'll have another outdoor movie night. And finally, this whirlwind of a weekend wrapped up with my first time at a bar. I found a beer that I actually was fond of, which may be a good thing or a bad thing. Anyway, as I write this I can think of 50 more things I'd like to do on weekend nights before this year ends. Party on, dude.

Magic:

I just read this and it stood out to me so much that I thought it would be appropiate to share.

"The older you get, the harder it is to believe in magic. The older you get, the more you understand there is no Wizard of Oz, just a schmuck behind a curtain. I pictured my pastor as a salesman or a magician, trying to trick the congregation into believing Jesus could make us new. And, honestly, I felt as though he was trying to convince himself, as though he only half believed what he was saying. It's not that Christian spirituality seemed like a complete con, it's just that it had some of those elements.
"The message, however, was appealing to me. God said he would make me new. I can't pretend for a second I didn't want to be made new, that I didn't want to start again. I did."

- Donald Miller "Blue Like Jazz"

Aha:

Case in point. 50 stitches is a lot of stitches.

Home:

Some days just feel right. And I thank Jesus for them, because they make life worth living. I love the fact that I can spend an afternoon with a friend and not stop laughing the entire time. Also I find my core self being challenged constantly just from being around someone who lives life to the fullest.

That may just be it. I desire to be around people who will never let my life be boring.

Singing:

When I was a kid, I could sing better than those kids who sing with Jack Johnson on his Curious George album.

Likes:

When people ask me what I like to do in my spare time I usually answer, "rock climbing and hanging out with friends," but the words "hanging out" don't do it justice.

On the most superficial level, it's watching a couple of movies while snacking on scrumptuous brownies. On the next level it's the random people showing up and the constant friendly banter. Dig a little deeper and you'll find the constant hilariousness of strange, random, and inappropiate comments and actions. And then if you stay long enough, every little event becomes a commotion that inscribes you into the memory of the house. Most importantly, though, is the seeing and talking with those I love dearly, and just sitting together to share life with those I care for.

That's what hanging out really is. That's what I like to do.

Saved:

I'm like such like a Hillary-Faye.

Goodbyes:

People are moving on with their lives and it feels so strange.

Crazy House is as crazy as ever.

Today, my performance at the climbing wall was just embarassing.

I'm glad it's almost the weekend.

For the longest time, I used to say "for all intensive purposes"... my professor who has an English accent is the only person I know who says "for all intents and purposes" clearly.

Harmony:

Sing with me a new song.

Sunday:

I wrote some stuff about the volleyball tournament I watched today, but I lost it. So instead, here's a video of the tournament a few years back. My friend plays of the Hip Sing B team, FYI.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4141277950699485380&q=volleyball&hl=en

Thursday:

A potpourri of events today.

1. The professor for my 9:30 class didn't show. It's probably not a good thing to miss the first day of class, especially if you're teaching it.

2. Lunch in the Union, which is always nice... but I miss the South Campus Dining Hall lunches.

3. I watched the longest tennis match of my life. Agassi won, which is awesome, in a 5 set match. It was pretty ridic.

4. I now only know of two people who don't have cell phones. No, make that three since J Molinatto doesn't have one because he isn't allowed to have one at work.

5. I spent several hours of my evening trying to mod the software on my cellie, though if I'd read some forums I would have immediately known that Verizon blocks out all of the mods and that's why I was getting all these errors.

Somehow the day seemed almost wasted. Now I'm not sure if any of my Thursdays are going to be any fun.

Pogs:

Tonight we ressurected an old pastime. POGS. Sometime last year, Andy mentioned that he used to collect pogs, so when I happened to see some when I went home last year I couldn't help but pick them up. While shuffling through Andy's stuff, Ryan and I found the pogs and started a tournament. I don't think a full game of pogs has ever been played by college students. They were popular in like... 5th grade.

Maybe there's been some sort of trend going on, considering the amount of time and effort put into trying to do cat's cradle. Back in the day, we used to be entertained a piece of string or throwing a piece of plastic at a stack of cardboard circles. You could pick up a pog for a nickel (though the collectable ones were something like five bucks).

Afterwards, we found an online pog game and we played each other in that for a while.

Oh, and Andy ordered a lot of 1500 pogs off of Ebay. This trend is coming back, my friends.

Beginnings:

The beginning of the end. Maybe.

Either way, Seniors- here we go.

Truckin':

Whew. Three books down, two more to go.

Gypped:

Wow, what a weird looking word... gypped... I think that's how it's spelled anyway.

Today was a pretty neat day. I woke up lateish and read a little bit. Then in the afternoon I met up with Dede for lunch and a stroll around downtown Silver Sprung. I got home and finished my book (more on that later). Then I met up with Seye and Joel to stroll around the Washingtonian/Rio area which very much resembles downtown Silver Spring but has a lake and fountains and a nice boardwalk. From there we went to Jeff and Kristal's who had just finished up dinner with Jason and Jenn. A little bit later, we left the married couple to themselves and went to hang out at Esther's. All in all, a good day.

Now, about this book thing. There's a little bit of a confession mixed into here. As of last post, I had read two trilogies, where the second trilogy was the sequel to the first. I skipped the second book in the whole six book series, though, because I got impatient. From there I picked up the same author's earlier writings, two series of five books. More accurately, I am still waiting on the second five books. Anywho, today I finished the fifth book in this series and pages 363 and 364 were missing out of 372!!! What the heck. I had read through close to 2000 pages following this adventure and a couple of the pages that were supposed to give me closure were gone. Man that was upsetting at the time. Of course, I still have five more books in this second series that I'm waiting on so I guess I don't really need that much closure.

Maybe I've just been reading too much and nothing blog-worthy happens in my life so I document these things to make my life seem interesting.

Confession:

I just spent the last 14 hours reading, with a one hour break for dinner. Similar stories for the two days before yesterday. I've been in a different world this week.

Random:

50 out of 259 online on the buddy list. I wonder if that's a record for me.

Montgomery County Public Library System is awesome. I can search the catalog online and then reserve and renew books with a simple click. And if it's not at the Gaithersburg branch, I can request it and it'll be delivered from a different branch within a couple of days. Pretty sweet.

Monopoly:

Tonight was a Monopoly night. I, of course, came away as champion.

When things seemed grim and I was reduced to $1 and a few mortgaged properties, the dice finally rolled my way and people started to stop in at Park Place and Boardwalk. The fatal error of the game came when my sister accepted my offer of a free Baltic if she would let me buy Park Place if she landed on it. She took the deal, knowing that I already owned Boardwalk. Before long, no one could withstand the mighty Boardwalk empire.

Plus I went climbing earlier and I realize how out of shape I am.

Heat:

It was so hot out today, my sweat glands are sore.

Dream:

Oh man that was freaky. Surely my it was tainted due to recent events, but those details seem to be minor.

I was driving Roberto and Henry to some retreat and we wanted to see if Brian wanted to ride with us. So we stopped by his house, only to find him sitting with his family and sobbing. When he saw us, he composed himself and told us he couldn't go. Henry said some pretty funny things at this point in his usual semi-serious tone. As we drove off, the road right in front of me suddenly ended and I found myself driving down a grassy hill. It dropped off very quickly and we were flying really fast way out of control. Then the car flipped and stopped right in a little nook of a strange cliff. The cliff was 200 feet down to the ground and it wasn't made of rock. It jutted in and out in a random pattern, but the formations were completely geometric... every face was flat and every edge was straight. And the cliff wasn't rock. It had a strange mossy feel, similar maybe to artificial turf or maybe the padding found under carpet. How bizzarre. I remember it so well because I was holding onto a feature of the cliff for dear life, watching my car slowly tumble down the rest of the cliff below me. I guess I'm not the fondest of heights. Nor do I feel very comfortable on non-rock elements.

I certainly hope that one's not reoccuring.

Summertime:

You know, there are some things you can do in the summertime that are just so right, you don't even mind the heat.

Shower:

I've been thinking a lot about this. Which is better- taking a shower in the summer or taking a shower in the winter?

Sale:

Tomorrow is REI's Attic Sale. Used and returned items are marked down to some very reasonable prices. Anything you'd like me to look out for? I'd gladly pick it up if I can find it.

Hawaii4:

The last island we stopped at was Kuai. We spent all of Saturday kayaking up and down the Hanalei river. When we hit the ocean, we took some time to do some wave riding and snorkeling. This island is the really tropical one. They shot Jurrassic Park and the original King Kong on Kuai (along with a dozen other movies I can't remember). There was some pretty exotic flora and fauna, plus some incredible mountains. Since kayaking took all day and we were spent, we relaxed for the rest of the evening enjoying the hot tub and duck for dinner.

The next morning we woke up really early again... I think it was about 4 AM... to go see Waimea Canyon. It was basically a lot like the Grand Canyon except on some parts the canyon was covered with wildlife. Around noon, the boat set sail again as we cruised around the Napali Coast of Kuai. It was a nice coast line. I'm not sure how to describe it and I can't post pictures so...

The cruise ended the next day in Honolulu, where we did a little more shopping and did a lot of waiting at the airport. There were a bunch of fiascos on our return trip with the airlines being all screwy, but whatever. And that was basically my trip... pictures do it better justice.

Hawaii3:

I'm having troubles uploading pictures these days, so you'll just have to deal. Or I guess you can go to facebook and look at some of the pictures I put up there.

Maui. We woke up and did the "road to Hana" (pronounced like Hana Quon), which is a long 4 hour drive to a remote town in the middle of the island. The brochure said it was more about the journey than the destination. We stopped to hike a nice 2 mile trail and checked out some nice waterfalls. Round trip, the drive took the whole day so just crashing back at the ship was a welcomed relief.

Day two in Maui started out beautifully. We woke up around 4 AM to catch the sunrise at Halakalea crater. Basically we drove to the top of one of the tallest mountains on the island and watched the sun break on the clouds. The view was simply awesome- standing above the clouds with a few peaks breaking through the cotton floor, a giant crater rolling far down below you, the beaches and endless ocean behind... it was all there.

After staring at the sun for awhile, we headed back to ship for breakfast and then headed out to hit the beaches. This is when I had my incident, which you can read about in one of those previous posts. After surgery and dinner, we ended the night with a magic show on the boat.

The next morning we set anchor at Kona, which is on "the big island" but on the opposite side of Hilo. Kona is well known for it's coffee, so we went to Greenwell Coffee Farm. It was pretty awesome to learn about some incredible coffee. I'm not the biggest coffee fan, but I could tell this stuff was pretty good from the free samples. I hope the experience doesn't turn me into a coffee snob. So we bought some expensive coffee and did some shopping around town and then went back to the boat for dinner as usual. Also worth mentioning, one of the dishes I had was the ahi sashimi which was absolutely delicious. Maybe one of the best things I had eaten on the whole trip.

Phew... I'm tired and you're probably getting bored since there are no pictures so I'll pick it up from here next time.

Syracuse:

Just a quick insert inside of my slow coming Hawaii epic... I'll be heading out to Syracuse tomorrow morning for the weekend, so if you need me then try contacting me the way you normally would... I probably can't help you, but you can ask if you'd like. Peace out, bean sprouts.

Hawaii2:

We boarded the boat Monday afternoon. It took a little bit of time to get all registered in, but it was relatively painless. Upon boarding, we took a little bit of time to look around and familiarize ourselves with the fun things the boat had to offer. Then we had our first work out session followed by an excellent hot tub session.

Later in the evening we enjoyed tapas for dinner and called it a day.

The next morning we arrived at Hilo, which is on the big island (it's name is Hawaii... but so is the state so they just call it the big island). We met my recently wed cousin and her husband and they took us on a personal tour of Hilo since they lived on the island. We got to see some Volcanic craters and walked on some lava rocks. Then we went to a black sand beach that was only 10 years old. It was just like a beach, but the sand was actually black! How weird and cool.

(again, blogger isn't letting me insert pictures... yet)

From there we visited the Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory. The tour was closed so we just went the gift shop and got free samples. Yum! After getting back to the boat, we went for another hot tub run. At this point I invented a little game for us. We developed this method deemed "The Asian Clog" where the point was to be the final jaccuzzi occupants. It worked like this: first one or two of us would jump into a moderately occupied hot tub. Then a couple more of us would trickle in, making our family's presence in the hot tub more overwhelming. As the other parties surrendered and left due to our sheer presence, additional family members would be called in to fill in the spots until finally the hot tub was claimed as ours. By the end of the trip, we had succeeded 4 times and had never been defeated.

We set sail that night and stayed close to the shore so that we could see some active volcanos spewing out lava and forming new land. It was really pretty and neat; right in front of my eyes I was watching a new part of Hawaii being formed.

The next day we arrive in Maui, and that'll be our next chapter...

Hawaii1:

Let's see...

We flew into Honolulu, HI and crashed in our hotel since we arrived pretty late. The next few days we relaxed and took some time exploring Honolulu. It's a pretty cool city with a loooot of shopping and a lot of beach. We were right across the street from the famous Waikiki beach.

This is the view from my parent's room balcony.

It was a fun place, though as one would expect the waves attract a lot of young people and the beach becomes one giant version of "the show" around midday. Maybe it's just my conservative worldview.

We spent a day at Pearl Harbor and saw the museum and memorial there.


(It was more sunny there than it appears)

One afternoon we hiked up Diamond Head peak. It was a short, one mile trail but it had a lot of features like steep steps and tunnels. From the top you had a pretty good view of a lot of the island including our hotel, a neat light house, and the beaches.

Come Sunday we rode out to Hanauma Bay which was beautiful. It's considered one of the best places to snorkel. I didn't see any sea turtles, but I saw a whole bunch of different fishies. They were very tropical looking with bright colors and strange shapes. I saw this one fish that had a silver body and a long, bright red beak. I'm not sure what the fish is called, but it was absolutely beautiful. The rest of that day we spent riding along the North Shore visiting beaches and eating shrimp cooked in a vendor truck parked on the side of the road. It was an ultra local thing to do, which was refreshing because of all the touristy things we'd been doing. The next day we boarded the boat, so onto the next chapter...

PreHawaii:

While I'm still sorting through pics and stuff, I thought I should post about one Hawaiian experience because it had... should I say... repercussions.

Sometime in the middle of the cruise we visited the beaches of Maui. While kayaking and snorkeling in the Pacific, long story short, I had to debeach on some rocks. It was fine and safe and everything, but by the time everything was sorted out I felt like I had a small bruise on my right foot. Immediately, I disregarded it for the rest of the day. Finally when we got back to the boat and I was about to jump in the shower, I gathered enough sense to examine my foot. Much to my surprise, instead of a bruise there was a small black spot. It was a small piece of rock that was lodged in my foot.

I thought to myself, "no problem" and tried to pull it out with tweezers. It turned out to be a slippery little sucker so eventually my parents decided it best to give the ship doctors a try. They said "no problem" and tried to snatch it out with their fancy tweezers. But much to my dismay, after a half hour of picking and pulling at it, it looked like they were just pushing it in deeper. So they used a local anesthetic and took a scalpel to it. I've never gone under the knife before, but I wasn't worried or anything. I was more concerned with how long it was going to take them since dinner time was fast approaching and they were serving lobster that night. The doctors (that's right, three people tried using different tweezers and needles to push the rock out) called the procedure "coring" so you can use your imagination to figure out how they managed to get the little thing out.

The pain was and is mild, but I've just been hobbling around everywhere for the past week. So I won't be running any marathons these upcoming weeks, but anything else I am still up for! More Hawaii to come.

Travelling:

-Seven hours in the Honolulu airport (due to some baggage complication)
-A five hour flight into Phoenix, AZ
-Two hour layover
-Another five hour flight to BWI
-One hour spent looking for our lost luggage (eventually found)
-A one hour drive down to my brother-in-law's house
-One hour dinner
-One hour to drive back up here

In summary... I woke up at 6 AM Sunday morning, lost six hours and arrived home at 10 PM Tuesday night. I still haven't got my landlegs back yet.

Vegas:

Greetings from Las Vegas. There seems to be plenty of wifi access in the airport. Free, albeit slow internet. Yes, there are slot machines everywhere in airport... scattered around in clumps for anyone's gambling pleasure. As we were flying in, the pilot said it was a brisk 93 degrees out so I'm glad I can just sit in the airport. It's 2 PM here whereas it's 5 PM in the real world (Maryland). That's all I've got right now. See ya'll at the next access point.

Cruising:

Tomorrow I leave for the airport waaay early in the morning. Our flight isn't until 11:00 AM but since my sister is dropping us off and needs to be in at work, we'll probably be leaving the house around 6:00. We fly into Las Vegas and have a couple hours in layover. Then we're going to fly into Honolulu.

That's my hotel for a few days. It's right on the Waikiki beach front so I'll probably get a nice tan. Then from there we board our boat (I think it'll be Monday).

The Pride of Hawaii. It looks like a pretty nice boat from what I can gather from the floor plans. Apparently there's a tapas bar that is open all the time and doesn't charge anything extra. That's good news to me, because I enjoy a quality round of tapas. The only thing the ship is missing is a rock wall. I'll just have to find some other way to spend my time. I'll be bringing my laptop with me so I may be online whenever I can find a hotspot. But if I can't, see ya'll on the 11th.

Blue:

Six months and one day. And I've lost my blue hairband while changing my oil. That little thing meant a lot to me, so I hope I can find it.

Dirty:

Whenever I drive into school, I'm always scanning the radio stations to see if anyone's playing my song. Ridin' by Chamillionaire.

Bunnies:

I've consistently seen two bunnies in the front yard this week. One is of a smaller size while the other is about medium size. I'm pretty sure we dined on Papa bunny.

Happy Fathers Day, by the way.

Movies:

Tonight's movies included Memoirs of a Geisha and The Last Samurai. Very interesting.

Pictures:

Tonight I was sorting through all of the pictures I've stolen from other people through webshots, facebook, etc. and I was pleasantly surprised. This past year had a lot of great memories and some great pictures, mostly due to some awesomely random bashes. You know, fun events that are thrown together just because. Booher's party, Jayme's ball, thanksgiving dinner, mystery dinner theater, nerf war, zombie party, and probably bunches of things that I'm forgetting. Who in the world does these sort of things? Well anyone who doesn't should because they're refreakindiculously fun.

I enjoy browsing through my pictures. Some remind me of the good times I've had, others remind me of how far I've come.

Earthtreks:

Holy mackerel. Never before have I had this much trouble trying to form a fist. Yesterday we had a climbing marathon and spent about six hours at Earthtreks Columbia. I've seemed to have hit my next level as I was able to do my first V2 and almost finish my first 5.10. I would be really happy if I could do V3/4s and complete several 5.10s because that would put me at about average climbing skill.

This is going to sound rather strange, but I've come to a new shirt-off policy. It's actually really intuitive. Before, I used to evaluate whether or not a guy should have his shirt off by his musculature. I mean, if you've got nothing to show off then please, don't go showing it off. But then, guys who do have it are probably doing just that and nobody likes a show off... put a shirt on. So therefore, a guy may only take his shirt off if 1) it is really hot or 2) he's fixing his farmer's tan. That's my new policy. There's no reason why somebody should have their shirt off in an indoor gym. Simple and settled.

Mensa:

Acronymers, you will love this: Mensa Puzzles

Download and fill in the blanks... it even has an answer checker! Thus far, I've gotten 20 of them.

edit: I figured out three more with an itty-bitty amount of help, so I don't think those count fully. Upon finding the answers, there are 5 of those facts which I definitely did not know so I don't think it would have been possible for me to figure them out.

edit2: Sorry about the broken link. It's fixed now.

Bachelors:

99 bottles of beer on the wall. 99 bottles of beer. take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall.

Yum:

And then I browned the meat, added water and a bunch of vegetables and let it cook for almost three hours. It tasted like stringy chicken. Andy's dad called to tell me that I was a brave man.

Yuck:

There are a couple of things that I can think of that I really dislike. One of the items towards the top of the list is breakups. I mostly hate breakups... and I say mostly because occasionally there are those relationships where you say (usually behind their backs), "Man, she has just gotta loose that jerk because she deserves better." But anyway, it seems to me that even the most amiable terminations of a relationship cut pretty deep. It's pretty easy to sense the pain and just plain awkward to listen to someone justify the breakup. How does one react when this sort of thing unexpectedly comes up in conversation? I am really bad at comforting people so maybe it's just me. Oh, and I should also mention that empathizing with breakupees only makes me more scared of relationships. Yeah so note to self, never become a breakup counselor.

On a completely separate note, I had a semi-strange dream last night. I was having a bunch of fun on some lake (apparently near the Crazy House) with friends, but then these guys in suits start chasing us all over the place. We try to hide and loose them by they keep following us. Finally, they do catch me and two other people and sit us down for interrogation. Somehow, I'm able to steal the gun out of the agent's holster and pull the trigger twice. I think I was feeling angry and really wanted to take him out because I tried to put two bullets in his chest without hesitation. Alas, the clip was empty... he pulled another gun on me and found that he didn't have any ammo neither. Then the guy in the suit tries to attack me, but I bludgeon him to death with the hilt of the pistol. It was kind of traumatic. I'm not sure why or how I can remember this particular dream in such detail, nor am I sure why I find it necessary to write about it here. I am interested, though, to see if anyone has some interpretations for me.

Summer:

I love the summertime.

Rules:

Usually, I am not good at enforcing rules unless 1) someone is snoring (for the good of the cabin, I will turn them over or exile them to a non-snoreless room) or 2) there is a ridiculous level of miscommunication. Situation number two seems to be the case in the house. It's not every day that I come home to find out that a stranger will be living in the house for some time. I'm sort of stunned and am not sure what to do. It's kind of like, "WTC is going on around here?!?"

Insomnia:

It seems as if I've got a mild case of insomnia tonight. Not really, actually. I just had a pretty decent dose of caffiene earlier tonight, not thinking that such a drink would have an effect on my system. Of course, after two hours (plus some) of trying to fall asleep I realize I was fairly off. I've tried a few of my techniques but have had little success. Eating, toe wiggling (a few minutes is supposed to increase blood circulation and relax the body and mind), and now blogging. That's right, I do associate blogging with falling asleep since I typically do it late at night. Anyway, I find that whenever I close my eyes my mind takes off racing. The effects of sleep deprivation are often compared to the effects of alcohol. I would most likely agree that some of my decision making processes are impaired right now.

Ah, a yawn. A big one too. Maybe the blogging is working after all.

Gatherings:

I love it when people just want to get together. Tonight, bunches of people just started showing up at the house. I always want my living space to be a place where people feel welcomed to come by and hang out. I heart it lots.

Churches:

Every time I visit a new church I tend to try and examine it relative to my own (this usually happens during the car ride home). I've gone to the same church all of my life, so I really enjoy experiencing different styles so I can expand my perspective. The easiest way to classify a church is to look into how conservative or liberal they are. What exactly does conservative or liberal mean? I don't know. Sometimes it's more of a feeling. Neither is necessarily better, but they're just different.

Anyway, the point I originally intended to make was that I like grassroots churches; churches that are started by people and ran by the community. This past Sunday I got the chance to attend Jay's church, called Horizons. Definitely a younger crowd than I'm used to (the average age at my church might be in the 60's), but I could sort of feel that the church exists because of the people. That is to say, the church doesn't exist because of the programs or because of the pastor or leaders. Unlike Lakewood. I probably shouldn't bash that church as much as I do, but oh well.

I hope within the next year to see more churches. Cedar Ridge had a hippy flavor to it. Keith's church in Lancaster had a neat conservative feel, though I noted that I was the only minority in a crowd of about 200. Maranatha I hit up on a snow day so I'm not really sure what a typical service there might be like. If you would like to take me to your home church, I would love to tag along. I promise that I won't be as critical as I am here.

Napoleon:

"In life, we are kings and pawns."

Name that movie.

I'm on a movie watching spree. I like corn and gummy bears.

Ordered:

Go now, you are forgiven.

2301:

2301 as I know it... I'm gonna miss you.

Huh:

Do you ever have one of those nights where you lay down in bed to go to sleep and just think to yourself, "What just happened?"

These past few nights have sort of been like that.

Eclectic:

What an eclectic day.
1. Wake up and study, study.
2. Celebrating Jenn's birthday at Chevy's
3. Spend several hours at the Crazy House, making up games with a large hair band and a racquetball with Jeff, Jason, and Jayme. I'm really surprised how entertained we could be.
4. Visit Limestone as they smoked hookah and cigars. I've never been a fan of putting anything but good, clean air inside of my lungs, though I don't mind hanging out in the smoke.
5. Spectated several games of beer pong at home. We've never had beer pong here.
Now I've been up way too late. Tomorrow holds another exam and maybe a late evening in the fountains.

p.s. the boys downstairs seem pretty krunked... though Jayme was extremely high this evening even though she didn't have a drop of alcohol so maybe my judgement is off.

Camp:

I'm excited about Chapter Camp... but far, far, far from being ready for it.

Rage:

A lot of times I wish I could just get in an argument with some people. In that rage and anger, we would just blurt out all of the truth and built up frustations. It seems like it's the healthy thing to do in a relationship. But I just can't seem to do it. I don't have the confrontationabilitiness to do it. There are only a few things that would make me want to punch someone in the face (I'm not telling you what they are because then you'd try to test me), but there may be even fewer things that would make me raise my voice. I suppose I could work on being more confrontational, but I don't think it really fits me. Kind of like how those jeans look really good on you, but wouldn't really work well on me since I'm a funny shape.

Dreams:

"But if I had had a minute for every hour that I wasted I’d be rich in time
I’d be doing fine
Cause without you I was broken
But I’d rather be broke down with you by my side"

In a Jack mood right now. I think I read somewhere that Jack sometimes goes into some small local coffee shops on the islands and plays live music during the day. Maybe I'll see him around and I'll give him the chin-pop-acknowledgement, then say "sup Jack". He'd then write a song about me and put it in his next album. Yup. That's exactly what'll happen.

Zombie:

Hmm, going zombie wouldn't be so bad. You don't feel anything, and you get to feast on human flesh all day. Or all night maybe. Plus, I've decided that it's not a bad look for me.

Passive:

Apparently, I don't deal with frustration well.

On a completely separate note, why am I up so late when I have to get up early tomorrow morning? I was practicing folding t-shirts...

Hanging:

Sorry I've left ya'll hanging. I've been doing a lot of hanging myself lately.

Random:

A few random thoughts:

-Some girl was crying and venting on her guy friend about how her boyfriend just dumped her by the ODK fountain today. She sounded so irrational. I found that I had little compassion for her given the segments that I overheard (hey, I was sitting there first); I'm not sure if that's a bad thing.

- I stopped trying to go to sleep at 2:30 AM on Sunday morning to go walk around DC. Roberto wanted to find something to eat and he was about to roam around by himself. I knew of only one place that would be open within a 6 mile radius, and he was about to start walking in the wrong direction. If he had gone alone, I would have given him a 78% chance survival rating... which isn't bad, but not great. I've never walked around DC at 2:30 in the morning.

- In light of the competition on Saturday, we have really stepped things up around here. It's gotten to the point where it has become difficult to do simple tasks like opening a can of soda.

- I absolutely love getting wedding invitations. This is only my second (personally addressed invite to me). They're just so pretty and have so many parts. Somehow putting a single sentence of information on a separate piece of cardstock makes the whole invitation more exciting.

- Meredith, Esther, James, and I are MD Day beasts.

Falls:

Great Falls was incredible. Hopefully I'll have pictures up soon.

edit: or rather, just go check facebook.

Here's one. This was my favorite part. Bouldering is so much fun and is significantly easier to get set up than a top rope. This particular place was awesome because there's a flowing river behind us and rock surrounding us on three sides. Oh, and the ground there is not gravel, but actually small sea shells. Very unique. Jeff and I chalked a super intense, super fun problem there. I named it The Viper (V 2-, any feet).

Recruit:

It was such a beautiful day out, I decided it would be a crime to not stop by the wall. After a strenuous workout, I figured I should finish off with the usual "pull ups till failure". As I was just hanging there, a man walked by and said, "If you can do fifteen pull ups, I'll pay for your semester." And I was thinking, "Man, I bet he thinks that I can't" because... well you know. So I pumped out 15 quick ones and was like, "What now, *****?" Not really.

Andddd he hands me this card. On it, of course, says Maryland ROTC. Psssh, I ain't doing pull ups for no one anymore. Except for girls.

I completely destroyed myself today. But we're going again to the wall tomorrow. And then to climb at Great Falls on Friday. All this in preparation for the competition the following Saturday.

Wallets:

Some guys carry condoms in their wallets. I carry moist wet towelettes.

After eating an orange at lunch today, Esther asked if anyone had a moist wet towelette on them. It just so happened that I've been carrying one in my wallet just for such an occassion. Sadly, the towelette was all dried out even though it was still sealed in the silvery packet they come in. I don't really get it. Where does the moisture wetness go? It's a good thing I don't carry condoms around. I mean...

Facebook:

Confession:
Just a moment ago I walked into the West Lounge of the Union, and as I was sitting down some blonde girl at another table half waved at me. I had no idea who she was, but she looked vaguely familiar. I then proceeded to use facebook to figure out that she went to the same high school and is a friend of a friend of a friend in high school. Facebook is a blessing and a plague.

222:

Post number 222.

How do you wait for Heaven?
And who has that much time?
And how do you keep your feet on the ground
When you know that you were born to fly?
- Sara Evans

(insert illustration)

Win:

Woke up pretty early to do the usual in DC. Got back, read outside and played bocci ball with Ryan and Liz, mowed the lawn, and then I had to drive back home. I realized that I didn't have a pair of black dress shoes here so I drove all the way home, picked up a few things, waited around for a while since there was a bad accident on 495, and then drove back. Somewhat uneventful day.

Tomorrow starts at 4:20 am, with us out the door before 5:10. It's gonna be an early one. Church after the sunrise service, back here for a nap, and then climbing at the ORC wall. Pretty packed.

Let's play a game. I don't care what game it is, I already win. Because....

Booyah. Please excuse my overconfidence.

Labyrinth:

Today's labyrinth wasn't quite my cup of tea. I realized that as far as meditation goes, I am hyper-sensitive to sound and pretty sensitive to visual stimuli. By that I mean that I reflect best in silence since I can easily become distracted when I focus on the pitch, timbre, or rhythmic patterns of other sounds. And this includes not just music. I could be listening to a recording of a vacuum cleaner and still be tempted to try and understand the audile qualities of the sound. So the accented guiding voice wasn't really conducive for me. And the trancey music... I'll just leave that one alone. Silence, it's the way to go.

I also was hoping something more old schoolish. I think it would be neat to spend a couple of days journeying through an underground dungeon maze. I'd take a medium sized piece of cloth and turn it into a travelling satchel, just as they did in the old days.

Also of note, today I had a strange... something in between a dream and a vision. Jayme was dressed up in a pretty hardcore, stealthy geddup and had a high caliber sniper rifle... slightly older with a wood stock. She fires and the shot whizzes by just left of my head. Naturally I duck down, but then I know that I'm pinned and if I try to find better cover or run for help I'd be taken out. And that's all I got. What does it mean? Isn't that strange? I probably should avoid getting on her bad side for a while.

That's enough randomness for now. You know the rest.

Vent:

The past two days have proven to be more stressful than I had hoped. Though when I think back on what I did throughout the past 48 hours, it doesn't seem that bad. Oh well, the point is that they're now over. I was really looking forward to doing something exciting, yet relaxing this evening to vent but nothing seemed to pop up. So instead I cleaned and did laundry. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I am glad that my sheets are finally clean now that the washer is fixed. So tomorrow better be spectacular or else I'm going to be pretty disappointed.

Oh yeah, I also pulled out MD t-shirts to see what might work well. I think I'm actually short on red, much to my surprise. Somehow I'm seeing black overpower all the other colors. So if you have any extra red MD t-shirts just lying around, send 'em my way.

Sonrise:

Come with?
6:30 Sunrise Service, Lincoln Memorial Steps

Gymkana:

Gymkana is sick. And I mean sick in that cool, awesome sort of way. Everybody loves the exhibition that they put on during half-time shows, especially the ring of fire part. But the homeshow definitely took things to a whole new level.

You know how towards the end of the jumping they save the highest and most intricate jumps for last? You then immediately know who are the elite gymnasts, and that they're going to do something spectacular. Steve was that person for almost all of the men's events. I've gotta grab the videos from Andy and put them up on Google video... they're ridiculous! Basically he was just showing off some amazing feats of strength. I bet he was still feeding off of the amazing powers given to him through the Jesus-sash.

At the beginning of the show, right before they started doing the vaulting and the ring of fire, Andy leans over and says, "I've got a feeling that someone's going to be hospitalized." And boy was he right. One girl went over and landed wrong. She wasn't moving... at all. And the worse part- nobody stopped! Two or three more jumpers vaulted over and just landed on this (what we all presumed to be) dead girl... not even the spotters bothered to move her until at least three vaulters had gone over. They carried her off and she was still not moving. Then not a minute later, another girl went over, landed wrong, and laid on the mat not moving. This time they were a little better at clearing her out of the way, but didn't carry off her limp body until a few more jumpers had gone over. Obviously, both were rushed to the hospital. The first girl bit through her lip, and also had a concussion, hence why she was completely knocked out. The second injury was a torn ACL, which also sucks majorly considering the lasting impact of that sort of damage. What a craaaaazy show. Either time, we could have just witnessed one of those girls dying right in front of us... because it certainly seemed like it.

The beginning definitely was a reality check; those acts are actually really, really dangerous. But I guess such are the risks of promoting a drug free life style. I don't see myself doing Gymkana anytime soon, but we were fairly inspired to try and do fun and absurd things on our own. I'll one up them by learning to do a standing back flip... while my shoes are on fire. That's definitely something you can't do while stoned.

Rocked:

Yup, I'm pretty thoroughly rocked. Also, my stomach is sore from all the sugar.

Proud:

I really am geniunely proud of them. No, I nor anyone I know can claim to being a diehard women's basketball fan prior to their successes in the tournament, but I can still be proud. They definitely EARNED everyone's respect. We as a school have ignored them, and instead have always put the limelight on the men's team... even when they're being embarassing. Tonight the Terps showed skill, but really what's taken them all the way to the top is perseverance. And for that, I regard them as heroes.

Season:

It's that time of year again- when the weather is finally permitting of awesome outdoor activities; mainly climbing, but also a good dose of bocce ball and freeze tag. It's time to start getting in shape so that I don't get out run and shown up by anymore 11 year olds.

One of the first things you learn in climbing is to hang with your arms fully extended if you can (called a dead arm hang). If you have no where to put your feet then this applies even more so. A person dead hanging on a hold will last about three times longer than a person with bent arms, pulling their head above their hands. Note, the drawing shows a person in a bent arm hang, but naturally he has no where else to go so it is not considered bad form.

Now that you have that tidbit of information, it's time for you to start climbing. The wall is open every Sunday and Tuesday from 4-8 pm. No skill required... just the simple desire to be more like Jeff Schuch.