a couple days into it

i have been in training for about 5 days now, and i have had a chance to get on the floor, I really like the job, and what comes with it. i am glad to have a job that is more rewarding.

I Start tomorrow

i start training at my new job tomorrow, 8 am...fun.

As Requested

My Hotty Wife and Me before the Wedding

Sunday afternoon

Sunday morning i had to work, i hate when i have to work sunday, it really takes something from my life...it takes the quality time i have with jen away and it takes a tole on my spiritual life to not have that community and spiritual food. I mean working for me the last couple of years at wedgewood has been good, i have met lots of friends, met my current wife, it was a job that could sustain me all through college, i learned a lot about people, but it has taken away other things from my life as well. I hope to regain those things with the new job. I will start with US Air, in a few weeks, and i am a little nervous.

I really just wanted to reflect on my sunday afternoon. I got home and bought a New York Times paper, ($5) made some good french press coffee, sat on my porch read and drank coffee in the cool spring afternoon air. None of this made me in a good mood, i was stll grumpy all afternoon. I was just real frusterated with myself for not being able to enjoy my afternoon with Jen. now the weekend is over and i have to start over. Jens weekend is over today is mine. i feel like i am in some sort of rut.

the Santa Ynez wine

The last week Jen and I didnt go to Rome, or Athens, we went to the city of angels. Los Crazy. while on our trip we visited the beach, china town, hollywood blvd (which happens to be very dirty), and 2 hours north of the city, Santa Ynez (a small wine region) the best parts of the trip involved the wine tasting and the beach with my wife and seldom seen sister Shalom. We went to 3 winerys, the favorite was sunstone, organicly grown grapes, and gorgous landscape.

open forum

We just finished our 3 open forums with jared, and i think it went really well, lots of great conversations, lots of great people, all good. tons of great food, tons of beer and wine. i really liked it. and it felt like we really gave a lot of our friends a good experience.

Coffee

One word "French press" I have finally purchased one, and I love it. I love it for a couple of reasons.
first reason...Its just plain hip to have a French press
second reason...The coffee is so good and unadulterated
third reason...Something about a process makes it better, the fact that I am not just grinding the throwing the thing together in a maker makes it more fulfilling
fourth reason...Its much stronger.
fifth reason...Its hip/cool

this new 90 day thing

so there is an idea floating around, if your bible is around 1000 to 900 pages you can read the entire bible in 90 days if you read 10-12 pages a day. reading the bible in larger portions can give us a better idea of the larger picture, after all it is a story not a rule book. how many of us watch a movie 10 min at a time?

My Time

So I would like to make time for good time, time that i can use for good, and good i can use for time. if time is the one currency that has the same value for all, then I am rich and others, who are "really rich" seem to be "poor", but am i rich since my time is not all with my wife, with only 3 nights, and one morning together a week, we seem to be poor in our" time".

great thoughts by NT Wright

...He doesn’t give us the Holy Spirit in order to make us infallible – blind and dumb servants who merely sit there and
let the stuff flow through us. So, he doesn’t simply give us a rule book so that we could just
thumb through and look it up. He doesn’t create a church where you become automatically
sinless on entry. Because, as the goal and end of his work is redemption, so the means is
redemptive also: judgment and mercy, nature and grace. God does not, then, want to put
people into little boxes and keep them safe and sound. It is, after all, possible to be so sound
that you’re sound asleep. I am not in favor of unsoundness; but soundness means health, and
health means growth, and growth means life and vigor and new directions. The little boxes
in which you put people and keep them under control are called coffins.
...Because, again and again, we find, as we submit to scripture, as we wrestle with the
bits that don’t make sense, and as we burst through to a new sense that we haven’t thought of
or seen before, God breathes into our nostrils his own breath – the breath of life. And we
become living beings – a church recreated in his image, more fully human, thinking, alive
beings.

the things we love

I love...
the smell of really good coffee brewing
the smell of a old book, or new book
the smell of my new bible
the smell of an old like 60-70's car
the smell of my wifes hair and neck
the smell of new clothes
the sound of good music
looking at a candle thru a glass of wine then smelling the wine knowing that it is going to taste great
and doing that, till your tongue waters
then tasting the wine
the sound of my wifes soft breathing in a deep sleep
reading a part of the bible that just seems to make more sense than ever at that moment you never expected
the sound of my wifes laugh
my wifes kiss in the morning, knowing i have horrible breath
knowing she is mine forever and knowing i could not have chosen her cause she is too perfect for me

fly

I really want to see sigur ros play on the 13th, at the promo west, it could be awsome.

Isnt this weather great, I really enjoy it, i feel sad that i dont enjoy it more. I need to go flying. ohh it is something else when i get to go, because of the stuggle it took to get my licence.

Let me give you a quick story for those of you who dont know.
When i was about 3-5 yrs old i wanted to fly, I consistantly asked for wings from the store. I remember spending hours not moving but in my mind soaring over the landscape.

I continued to dream until I got to columbus, i dont even remember thinking about flying the whole year i was interning, then after a somewhat tough conversation, the thought was back in my mind, could i do it. Well I borrowed the money for what i thought was going to take 6-9 months and 5 grand.
2 years and 21 days after my first lesson, and 8 grand i had my licence. Well there is more but maybe you know already. so i hope i go today, i will take a picture if i do.

Books I am reading

Well since those of you who read my blog have shown me you are, (thanks Jed for the comment I returned the favor) I wanted to get any thoughts on these books I am reading...
Finding Common Ground by Tim Downs, I finished it about a week ago, very good, insight I have been thinking about and it is always nice to have a smarter person put thoughts like yours into understandable...Language?...
A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN -- by Brian D. McLaren
I haven't finished yet but have enjoyed his thoughts on different ways of interpreting scripture, worshiping God, viewing God, as long as taken with a grain of salt..Or is it sand?

to be continued...directly under this one

continued from above^

Breaking the de Vinci Code, by Darrel L Bock I am reading because of a suggestion that I should at least have some answers to Dan Browns book better than,"its fake"
Red Moon Rising: How 24-7 Prayer is Awakening a Generation -- by Peter Greig, Dave Roberts also recommended by a friend, so far its been great, I love a story when we get to see the process God puts people through.
The challenge of Jesus, NT Wright, a very literal bible reader but reads with his eyes in the bible and in history, a contextual reader...I am sure that's not a word. I like it though(the book and the word), does anyone see anything wrong with the way he interprets scripture?
The NASB translation of the bible, i love it cause its my new bible... and Gods word

My new bible

I just got back from a couple day retreat in mich seeing a lot of old friends, on the way back I stopped in Ann arbor to visit some a family that lived in my house when I was like 11 or 12. They moved up to Ann arbor to start a church since that is where they are from. They had there first boy when they lived with us now he is the age I was when I met them. Anyway Andrew loves books and we talked all night about interpreting the scripture and about good books, then we painted each others toenails...
well anyway as a wedding gift he gave jenny and I these awesome bibles, they are hand bound and stitched in a leather cover that only gets softer with age, and is guaranteed for life you can literally shake the bible by the pages and they will not rip out, anyway they are extremely nice bible and more expensive than I could ever afford. thanks drew

its been a long time

I am sure most of you have given up on me updating this blog.

well i am not.

have you heard of myspace? like my whole town i grew up in is on myspace, its crazy. i dont even know how to use it.

Well chrsitmas was really good. Jen, Ali and I all went to atlanta for 5 day and ate great food and good wine. her parents spoiled us and jen spoiled me with good gifts. in fact the greatest gift, a gift that says this is the meaing of Christmas...an...iPod, 30g video. I love it i have eternal sunshine and black hawkdown and this season of lost and music and all my wedding pictures, I love it. and still a lot of space left. its so pretty.

Anyway i have till the 20th off of work so...no work...no school, just ipod. i am spoiled.

Big news though, i might move to honduras for a while in june! i am excited.

enough for now...

this is real life

Well life is not what you always want, is it. I don know how to deal with stuff sometimes or if i can do anything about stuff that happens. I just dont know what to do. Jens Job is really killing her and i cant do anything about it. I am so helpless. I just want to help. Its not her fault. Why does life get so hard sometimes. I feel like winter is about life changing. I am feeling killed. My friends havent called me for a long time. I sometimes make the effort, and i do a bad job with it, so whats the piont. I dont want to be around people sometimes. I call some friends and they never call back. some people just dont call. I am so pathetic. I am like that little 8 year old crying kid, with his stuffed toy. talking to myself, but this is reality i am a wimp, a boy with out God. If i stop going to him i go back to being a babie. I havent really been reading his book as much as i should. I dont know why not i just dont have a taste for it. God hear me please and let me know you are present even in my absence. God i ask you to help. Be my dependancy. I come to you.

good simpsons quote

Homer: I just realised that the cat and the dog haven't had a wedding, they've been living in sin!

i am the 5th born but i think i fit the personality

You Are Likely a Second Born

At your darkest moments, you feel inadequate. At work and school. you do best when you're evaluating. When you love someone, you offer them constructive criticism. In friendship, you tend to give a lot of feedback - positive and negative. Your ideal careers are: accounting, banking, art, carpentry, decorating, teaching, and writing novels. You will leave your mark on the world with art and creative projects.

The Birth Order Predictor

rainy week

this week has been too long, like one of those weeks that can not get better just longer.
lets start with monday, wake up watch 24, starts cool...nature calls...nature clots the ultimate invention of the modern world, my porcaline meditaion seat...i caught it just in time to only dump about 2 gallons of water on the floor...after cleaning up i found out i had a hole from the bathroom to the kitchen ceiling light. so that sucked. tuesday my lack of edjumacation made me feel useless, then work...then i neglected my wife, then wed i woke up finished a sad book, got a bad hair cut, and now i sit in bed typing, next to my over worked wife and i feel responsible. ohh yeah i am watching really bad sci-fi tv.

i need to read more. be smarter. work more. eat less. work out. be a better husband. better friend, brother, son. and my neck hurts.