The drive

Nat and I drove back to San Diego from her grandparents house (by Chico) on Wednesday. It was the most beautiful drive through central California I've ever been on. Everything was St. Patrick's day green. I was reminded of Scotland, or what I imagine Ireland to look like.



Not only was it beautiful, but it was a great drive for my wife and I. We were able to laugh, enjoy God's incredible creation, sing sweet 80's songs, saw 4 rainbows, and stop for a really good lunch at our new favorite stop at Harris Ranch (near Colinga). What a great way to spend 11 hours of a Wednesday.

Middle aged man

I am a middle aged man...
It's my 29th birthday, and I am using all of my birthday $ to buy new knives to cook with... I am old! I love to watch sports center, am trying to get good at golf, I just bought a Honda accord when I could have gotten a sweet truck or something fast, and use phrases like "easy turbo" or "don't get your panties in a bunch"... (what does that mean anyways?) So in other words, I don't feel as young as I used to.

Addiction

I'm not sure if I have addictive tendencies, but I may need some help. I think I am addicted to Jetman. Jetman is a game that someone introduced me to over facebook, and I love it! I love to sit in Panera, listen to my podcast sermons for the week and play jetman the whole time. It's just mindless enough to not distract me from what I am listening too (ADD) but competitive enough to want to do well.
Right now I have the 2nd highest score of all of my friends who have this application. I love it, and you should too...

A 1st for everything

I am sitting at Natalie's grandparents house up in Paradise California right now. We just finished eating some burgers, and now are sitting next to the fire in the living room.
I'm supposed to be in Mexico right now getting ready to wrap up a house building trip with my high school group. So why am I here instead of there? I'm not really sure...

About 5 weeks ago I read an article about all of the sketchy things that were happening to people traveling throughout Baja. A bunch of people got robbed, and worse... This is nothing new for places we go for missions trip (look at L.A. Urban), but for some reason I couldn't shake this out of my head. Instead of fading as the trip got closer, my uneasiness grew, all the way to the point that I decided to do something that I have never done before... I canceled our trip.

Now, this isn't like me... I've never been one to avoid situations that God has called us to because of an uneasy feeling, but I couldn't bring these kids down for this specific trip for some reason. I don't know if it is because I feel alot like a protective father to some of the kids that were coming on this trip, or if it were something God put on my heart. Whatever it was, it was weird, and I think it was the right decision to make...

Irresponsibility is fun!

So someone broke into our church and stole 6 guitars (two of which were mine)...
One was a graduation present from my parents (a beautiful breedlove guitar), and the other was a Martin DX1, that someone gave me $ to buy, to replace my guitar that was broken at Hume Lake this year (see previous post). These were major purchases that I don't normally make, and that I probably will never be able to make again.

So we filed a police report and all that fun stuff. Now, I didn't know if our church insurance would cover the guitars, and Natalie and I don't have any home owners insurance to cover these losses. So I thought that the guitar playing phase of my life was over. But, it turns out that our church will cover the stolen instruments!

In order for this to happen we had to go to guitar center to get the serial #'s to the stolen guitars. On my way over to the store I calculated what it would cost to replace my 2 guitars, and so assumed that this is what I'll get from the insurance company... (assuming is a bad idea) As we walked in, my friend, who had 3 guitars
stolen, suggested we go look at possible replacements (another bad idea).

So to make a long story short, here is my new guitar bought with $ I hope is coming from the churches insurance sometime soon.




It's a gibson hummingbird custom quiltback...



I absolutely love it, and it sounds like butta!

Irresponsible... yes.
Would I do it again... probable not.
Am I happy I did it? HECK YES!

Hairspray

Every now and then Natalie and I will suffer through a movie that the other really likes and wants to watch @ home. The worse one to date for me was "Bring it on".
So for the last 3 weeks Natalie has been bugging me to watch "Hairspray" with her. I was hesitant but slightly curious about this movie.

So a day after watching John Trivolta dressed as a fat middle aged woman, and watching the main character dance in ways that made me quite uncomfortable, I have officially decided that I did not like this movie.

Christopher Walken was hilarious, and some of the characters were well cast, but that wasn't enough to make this a "Sure, I'll watch it again" movie.

It's on my black list.

Humanity

So our church has added a 3rd service to our Sunday mornings. Partly because we don't have that much room since the fire, and partly because it is going to help solve some of the music issues that our church has been unable to resolve. (lame)
So for better or for worse I am the primary speaker @ our 3rd service called "Awaken".
I don't know if it is because of this new responsibility or what, but have been spending alot of time thinking about humans.

Eric Tonnas is a biola prof., and some friends of mine just heard him speak @ hume. One of his main points was that the human being is the crown-jewel of God's creation. I tend to stand in awe and marvel @ sunsets, the ocean, or the mountains, but I overlook God's most incredible creation all the time. I makes me think that I am just not getting it when it comes to people.

People bother me, get in my way, make my job difficult, and are everywhere. I love them sometimes, and want to avoid them at all costs @ other times. I don't know if it is human beings or their fallen condition that I tend to dislike, but I don't want to get the two confused.