my bipolar tuesday...

Today is making for a strange day. it's been a sort of building thing, all slowly creeping to a point I suppose. But today feels like a very bipolar sort of day. The rain makes it seem all the more appropriate really. 

First, there are good things. I'm enjoying working at starbucks in my free time, and the free coffee I get for working there isn't hurting any either. But at the same time, I'm starting to dread waking up at 2 am to feed Lucas (once that happens) and then wake up at 4 to go to work. That'll be so worth it, but so exhausting, it makes me tired just thinking about it.

And I've found a new toy to enjoy. Adobe has launched this new thing called Photoshop Express, and it's super cool. I've posted a few pics that I've taken lately of the day lilies we have in our back yard, and they look pretty good. Most of the work was actual Photoshop, and not express, but it's a super cool place to put your pictures if nothing else. Feel free to stop by and check out the flowers that are taking over my back yard in a jungle kinda way here. 

Here's where things get stupid. So, we bought a crib a few weeks back, second hand, from a friend of a relative, one of those my friend will cut you a deal kind of things. So, we got a crib, a changing table, and a dresser for like $400, which each of the same pieces & same brand new costs $400 a piece. Good deal, eh? Here's where it gets sticky... the crib is a piece of crap. So, really we paid $400 for 2 good pieces of furniture and a headboard. Because after order $50 worth of screws & bolts from the manufacturer, we learned that the screw holes that hold the whole thing together are stripped out and won't work. Here's where it gets stickier... the lady told us we could return it if we couldn't find parts, but because we found parts she won't take it back. So, then we bought a new crib this weekend, which sucks, but we got it about $100 less than we should have. And it holds together like it's supposed to, which is a plus of course. So, anyone who's thinking about having kids, make sure you have the parts, and that they all work BEFORE you buy a crib, even if it's a friend of a friend... sometimes those turn out to be the shadiest of all people.

And so life feels like this a lot lately, a lot of swings up & down & up & down. It's quite draining, along with everything else in life all going on at the same time. And all the while, I'm trying to dream things for what our family wants, what I want life to look like, the things that I'm praying for and hoping for my son, all sorts of stuff, and it gets exhausting. Then there's all my thoughts about youth ministry, and the youth ministry that I'm in, specifically. I have thoughts on that, but that's a post for a later time. Come back soon and check it out if you're curious what I think about it, but know it's bipolar too.  : )  it's that kind of season. maybe it's in the water...

pics from Lucas' ultrasound

This is only a link to the rest of the pictures, but feel free to take a look at them if you want. I know it's a lot of pictures, and maybe more than some of you want to look at, which is totally fine. Anyways, here ya go!

why I love sarcasm

Well, I've been busy lately, but I thought, if you're looking for some other great material to read while I'm in limbo, I'd pass along a couple of the sites I read. I find them both stimulating and entirely hilarious. Here's one of them:

The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus. For those of you who - like me - have zero idea what ASBO is, here's his definition:btw. for the non british among you… an ‘asbo’ is an ‘anti-social behaviour order’… the courts here award them to people who are deemed to be constant trouble in their neighbourhoods… presumably according to their neighbours!"Great stuff, the ASBO. I put an example up at the top here too.

Another one I like to check is "Stuff Christians Like." Very similar to "Stuff White People Like," except that this one hones in on Christian sub-culture and hits it pretty square. It's been hilarious to read honestly. Really refreshing to see someone thinks we do some things wrong and doesn't mind having a laugh about it. Stuff white people like just hits everything in white people world, and makes fun of us for it. Also a GREAT read.

On a bit more serious note, here's something I found interesting. This website called "Dear-God.net." Setup by the same people that run "the cool hunter" it's basically an online prayer experiment. It looks at "God" in the broad "God/god/chi/whatever energy is running the room & world" sense, so if you're expecting people to pray to Jesus, you'll be let down. It's not always to Jesus, or the Christian God. Regardless, it's quite the amazing commentary on our world, and the things that are on the minds of people around the world. 

I guess I write this mostly because I wanted a break. Please indulge me and forgive my ranting. Life has been bumpy as of late, and while the heaviness I feel is good in some ways, in other ways it is not good. Maybe I'll blog about that later, but for now, I needed a breather, and thought I'd point out some fun brain food to you all. 

I leave you with this little bit of fun. I found this on Marko's website, and was amazed that this qualifies as on the job training for someone. Pardon the one s-word in here, it's still insane.

something to do this weekend...

When I went to the Robbie Seay concert last Sunday night, I learned of another opportunity coming up this weekend that I thought I'd pass along. I'm way excited to see what this thing ends up looking like. And I don't just say that because I'm a friend & fan of bridgeway. As a guy who loves art and loves Jesus, I am really intrigued by what this could end up looking like. Here's the poster too.

I added some pics of the show from Sunday too. Robbie is such a cool guy. I'll apologize for the lousiness of the pictures. I didn't bring a camera, but thought I'd try to get a few shots of the night on my phone, hence the poor quality. You can't expect much out of a 1.3MP camera. Nothing like this guy's shots at least. But his camera, computer, & photo editing setup is probably worth more than my car.

Oh, P.S., anyone thinking about buying a new iPhone should wait. Just trust me, you want to wait...

AMAZING concert. we should all go!

I plan on going after youth gets out. It will completely be worth going. I'll probably miss a little bit of the opening parts of the night, as youth usually goes til 7:00. But I'll be there in time for Robbie for sure, and hopefully for Joel too. He's a great guy. 

Doors to the show open at 7:00, it costs $8 to get in. That is a steal on the quality of the show. It will be a great night. Hope to see you there.

oklahoma's rock song...

Okay, so apparently there is a vote going on in oklahoma for the official oklahoma state rock song. I'm having nightmares that it's going to be some crap by vince gill. PLEASE GO VOTE! http://www.oklahomarocksong.org/ if you want a 150% biased opinion, go vote for flaming lips. p.s. if mercy me wins, and "i can only imagine" becomes our official state song, i'm moving. texas, washington (despite all the flak i'd take in seattle), oregon, maine, i don't care. if that song wins, i'm getting the heck out of town. i'll probably do the same thing if hinder wins too. PLEASE GO VOTE FOR SOMEONE!

the crazies came to school...

Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, my buddy Steve & I hear that there is this crazy guy on campus up at school, so of course we have to go and see him. His picture is here, just go you can get an idea of what we walked into. The special part of it is that his board flipped around to say different things, but you get the basic gist from what is on there now. Basically, the idea that "God is angry with us every day." 

Now, he said his story was that God called him to what he called "confrontational preaching." Basically, his thing was that God told him to go to college campuses and tell everyone why they're going to hell. It was really encouraging. 

He was pretty much into telling everyone why they're wrong. I know that sounds like a blanket statement, but that's really how it was. He talked to a Catholic, and was only too happy to point out that he had been raised Catholic, but fortunately god had redeemed him of his sinful ways, because praying to Mary was the fast lane to hell. What surprised me was that there were people actually trying to have an honest conversation with him. If anything was a positive in this whole thing, it was that. No one really listened to him, but the Christians that were there were having an intelligent discussion about it. Probably the only positive to the day. But, in the grand scheme of it all, even the good discussion happening, it was getting drowned out by all the other people complaining about his presence on campus.

There were a couple of people that would just be antagonistic for the sake of being antagonistic, one guy said he was there to "watch this guy get his butt kicked" which never happened. Still others were there to pass out cigarettes because mr. sign guy was shouting about the sin of smoking among everything else. Oh, and being greek is like buddying up with Satan himself apparently. While the whole greek thing wasn't my speed, I know lots of people who did go greek, and they don't look anything like Satan. In fact, a lot of them remind me a lot of what I think Jesus would look like. 

In the end, I had to leave, because the whole thing just got to be too much for me. I get pretty mad when this kind of thing comes along. These guys are all about themselves, and making sure everyone knows how holy they are, and how unholy everyone else is. It completely misses the point. So, I kindly thanked him for making my job harder, which I'm pretty sure he didn't hear. I tried to join the constructive conversations, but they were mostly with people I didn't know. Steve told me later that he went up and asked to have a discussion about the whole thing of this guy's hostility, and he looked Steve in the eye and said "I don't have time for you," and went back to shouting. 

Why these guys come along and make those of us trying to actually point people to Jesus look like morons frustrates me to no end. Kind of like this group too.