One day at a Time

St. Augustine

2011-11-20T23:40:00.000-05:00

So this weekend we had a little fun. Britney, Josh, Lindsey, and I drove up to St. Augustine for the day, which was a Saturday by the way, mainly to watch the lighting of the town and to go to the Ripley's Museum. But we did some other things here and there too. Fun fact: St. Augustine is the oldest town in the US….and it shows. I ended up driving, which I had no problem with, I actually really wanted to see how the Kia would fare on the interstate at 75mph. Shockingly…..ok. Not great, it shakes and sounds like the engine is running around 5K rpm, but it made it there and back, and got pretty great gas mileage too! I'm proud of my little Kia.

Anywho, back to the important stuff. We ended up driving straight to the Ripleys museum, which was alright, not as great and grand as I had expected. I think the TV show was better than the actual museum. But they also had some pretty cool stuff, like a thirty foot erector set ferris wheel, and this spinny tunnel thing that makes you feel like you are falling when you walk through it, when you are actually stationary. Its sort of like walking down a spinning barrel with a platform bridge down the center, but it really messes with your head and made me feel kind of sick.This poor old man, probably in his 80s, was in front of us in this thing, holding onto the railings with his life, taking a step every three seconds. It had to be horrible for him.

Then we headed to the Castillo de San Marcos, which is right next door. I really wanted to go in but it was like six bucks a person so we said forget about it. I think we probably missed out though. It was pretty neat to see something that old though. You don't really get to see three hundred year old things around the States too much. After the castle we walked around town a bit, checked out the old stores and restaurants and such. Pretty touristy place.

Later we headed to a winery that was nearby, but only after getting lost in the ghetto of course….I think. The neighborhood looked like a ghetto but they all had pretty nice cars, so I'm not sure. Hmmm. Anywho, the winery was kind of a letdown too. Everyone that worked there seemed pretty disinterested in their jobs and in us. It was kind of a large winery and you could tell that they give tours constantly because they just send you with a group of people and you stop at four or five different stations to taste a couple of wines. Some were good, some weren't. Getting free wine is always good though.

Dinner was ok, just some bar/restaurant with some pretty odd live music from an older man who would literally just pick random strings on his guitar then tell a weird story about Walmart or some girl he met. Maybe he was being innovative, or maybe he had done too many drugs in his life, I don't know. We ended up missing the actual lighting of the town by the way haha. It was during dinner, which was a few blocks down the street. The lighting of the town was a pretty big deal in St. Augustine, I mean they had bands playing and vendors and the whole nine yards. Once we got downtown, it was awesome though, really impressive! So me and Josh got out our celebratory cigars that we had bought earlier in the day, and destroyed our lungs and the lungs of various nearby children with them. Ahhh, good times.

Oh, we also stopped by Flagler College on our way to the car. That is one beautiful place! I was in awe of how elegant it was! We went into what looked like their union to use the facilities (pisser), and it was like we were in some type of kings court. Not the bathroom (although they were also very nice), but the whole place. So if you get a chance, google it or something.

So that was our Saturday. We drove home after that.

Heres that tunnel

1992 Jeep Wrangler

2011-11-16T23:37:00.001-05:00

A few years ago I was surfing craigslist, like I do very very often, just checking out some things here and there, you know, seeing whats on the market. I still had the BMW at that point and I don't think I wanted to get rid of it yet, I just wanted to see what kind of Jeeps were for sale. And I came across this little gem. It was a 1992 Wrangler with a 4.0L, 5 speed, 4 inch suspension lift, nearly brand new 33inch ProComp mud-terrain tires, nearly new aluminum rims, hard top, full steel doors, all for only $2800! I told Britney that I had to have it and I could turn a profit on it in no time. It was a steal! Its hard to find a lifted Jeep with a 6 cylinder, hard top, and steel doors for that kind of money. So Britney loaned me the money (she had some inheritance money from a great aunt) and I promised I could pay her back in full. It was an investment!

It did end up having a little bit of rust on the frame, actually I think it was a hole, right where the rear shackle was. So my dad fixed that in no time. Really, I think the only other problem with the Jeep were cosmetic issues: tore up drivers seat, "custom" spray can paint job, dings and dents everywhere, missing parts, no rear brakes(no biggie), that sort of stuff. I did end up doing some things to it while I had it though. I found a guy that was parting out his Jeep and I ended up buying a spare tire and mount, roll bar padding, and a couple others things that I can't remember.

Man was that a great little Jeep though. Brit loved it too, probably even more that I did. We were planning on selling it right away for a profit but ended up keeping it for like 6 or 8 months, it was just too fun to get rid of! We took it offroading a couple of times, loved going cruising out in the country with the top off, and I loved just puttin' around town in it. I drove it so much that I just parked the bimmer for weeks at a time.

Heres a funny story: I had just posted the Jeep up for sale, and maybe two days after I am driving through Lafayette, going to the mall or something, and its raining pretty good out. Im daydreaming, like I usually do, and everyone in front of me stops pretty hard, but not hard enough that would normally cause and accident. Well, unless you are in a lifted Jeep with mud tires and no rear brakes. Needless to say, I locked up the front brakes, slid a good distance, and smashed into the car in front of me. No one was hurt, but the car was smashed up pretty good. Heres what happened to the Jeep: one fog light fell off. That's it. No other damage. Maybe some scratches in the bumper, but its hard telling because they blended in with the other scratches. The car I hit ended up getting over $5000 in damage, which ultimately totaled the car. So I JB welded the foglight back together, and sold it a few weeks later. I ended up selling it for $4300, a good little $1600 profit. I ended up buying my DSLR with the money I made from it. We still reminisce about the white Jeep from time to time. I should have never sold it. Towards the end though, it was developing some transmission problem. The clutch would make a weird sound when disengaged. And the track bar broke off in the rear. That's not essential though.

This is from a few days after I bought it.

Here is when Brit and I got stuck at the Badlands. I drove up a hill and didn't see this massive drop on the other side….

Here are the photos I used for trying to sell it.

Oh I forgot that I also put new taillights on it, I always like these type of taillight so why not put them on the beater Jeep?

This is out at Brits moms property, we went down to the creek a lot in the Jeep

Recent drawings

2011-11-15T23:14:00.001-05:00

Here are some recent drawings that I have been doing. Since we've moved to Florida, I had plans to do a bunch of paintings and get into galleries and all that jazz….but thats not really what happened. Actually, I started doing some car drawings just for fun and haven't gotten around to painting too much, just some things here and there. But everyone really loved the drawings so I just kept doing more and now thats pretty much all I do.

The new Chevy Camaro ZL1

BMW M3, just sold it the other day!

Heres a Porsche Spyder 550, I dont remember what year it is though.

(Crappy cell phone pic) This was a commissioned drawing, the same car as above, just modified to look exactly like the owners

This is a Confederate X132 Hellcat. I've always been a fan of Confederate motorcycles, so I drew their most recent bike! Which isn't even finished yet haha.

(Another crappy cell phone pic) This is a commissioned drawing for a tractor dealership, this is an Apache Sprayer. Just finished it today actually! I have one more tractor I have to draw, which I will probably start tomorrow.

So there you have it! Thats what I've been up to lately.

1997 BMW 328iS

2011-11-14T23:50:00.001-05:00

Vehicle number two, the bimmer. I sold the Jeep during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. Since I wasn't allowed a car as a freshman, it didn't bother me that I couldn't drive long distances in the Jeep, but since I would now have to drive to school and back often, around 100 miles one way, I needed something a little more reliable. So I bought a BMW.

I found it in the Auto-RV, it was a salvage car and only cost $3700…..for a BMW! That wasn't that bad a price for a 9 year old car! So I bought it, had to replace the hood, front fender, grill, radiator support, headlights, front corner lights, fog lights, and a bunch of other small things, and it was good to go! I ended up selling my Jeep for around $7300, so I made out pretty good on it!

Man I loved that car. It was sooo fast! And surprisingly economic, it usually got between 25-30mpg, depending on how I drove it. But it did have its fair share of problems over the years, everything from replacing the same rear wheel bearing twice, to the water pump exploding and shredding the fan and belt, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere during the middle of a very cold night. Actually, it has left me stranded more times than all of the other vehicles combined that I have owned……but I still loved it! I remember shortly after I got it fixed, I drove down King road out in the country and thought "lets see what shes made of"…..before I knew it, I was doing 130mph. I know that these cars have a limiter of 155mph, I bet it would have done every bit of that, but I got too scared and had to slow down. It was night afterall…..

Oh and the sound that it made! Sounded like a Ferrari or something. I loved the sound of that engine, it sounded so clean and in tune. Most other engines sound clumsy and unbalanced. It was so torquey too. It had a lot of low rpm power, you could go from 60 to 80 in no time without even downshifting. What a great little car!

Specs: It had a 2.8L straight 6, around 190hp(new), automatic trans, leather, 6 disc cd player (that didn't work), AC (that wasn't very cold), I didn't do too many modifications, most of the money I spent on it went to repairs like drilled/slotted brakes, shocks, engine parts, suspension parts, ect. I did make an intake for it out of PVC pipe and an Autozone cone filter with a custom heat shield and air scoop coming from one of the brake ducts…..but other than that I didn't really do any modifications to the car. I bought a few different types of wheels for it over the years though…..I like wheels haha. And this was another car that I loved to keep clean! I was in the car wash what seemed like once a week, and waxed it regularly.

Anyway, I had it for a few years, from 2006 to 2010, I ended up trading it on another Jeep Wrangler, which turned out to be a huge mistake because the bimmer was right where I liked it, (almost) everything was fixed on it, and I really liked how it looked and drove. Oh well, you live and you learn.

Here it is shortly after I got it fixed and road ready!

After the first set of wheels.

This was a regular occurance…..underneath it fixing something. Actually I think I was putting the air scoop on that ran up to the air filter.

Shortly before I sold it :(

Cars-1995 Jeep Wrangler

2011-11-10T00:24:00.000-05:00

Ok, I gotta do this. I love cars. Every since I was a kid I have loved cars. I remember as a child, I don't know exactly how old I was, I wanna say 5, but I vividly remember one Sunday morning before church, my dad and I were watching some drag racing on TV and I was sitting there with a pencil and paper drawing the dragsters. That's one of my first memories of drawing btw. But anyways, that's how long I have loved cars. In this post I want to write about my cars, the ones that I have owned and loved over the years. I know that I'm young and I've only had a few, and no one really cares about my cars, but they were important to me, and this is my blog dangit, so I'm going to write about them!

My first vehicle, and probably my favorite to date, my 1995 Jeep Wrangler. What a beauty she was! I got her when I turned 16, and probably poured every penny I made into it! My dad was the rightful owner before me and he decided to let me have it because he wanted another, newer Jeep. What a blast we had with those things! We often frequented the sand dunes in Michigan, and I went to the Badlands offroad park a few times with mine. I remember one evening driving home from wrestling practice (I think), both me and my dad in our separate Jeeps, and the Yellow River was flooded over 3rd road. So of course we had to plow through it! Or rather, float across it, because thats actually what we did. I know that the water was up to the body on mine, and up to the doors on his! Thats a good 30 inches of water I'd say. And oh the memories: going muddin several times with my buddies who also had Jeeps, almost hitting a pole while I drifted around a corner on a dirt road, running over my dog with it, getting in trouble with the police for driving over huge stone piles on the side of the road….stuff like that.

Anyways, some specs on the Jeep: 4.0L high output inline 6 engine, 3 speed automatic transmission, K&N filter, Flowmaster 40 series muffler, no catalytic converter, (eventually) three inch body lift, four inch suspension lift, 33inch Super Swamper Thornbirds, Pioneer sound system with 6X9s in custom built boxes and an 8" sub behind the back seat, I think it had 187,000 miles when I sold it, but it ran like a champ! And it was very very clean…..unless it was muddy, which was often. I kept good care of it though, polishing the wheels at least twice a year and washing it probably once a week. What a great vehicle, I should have never gotten rid of it. I only did because I had started college and it wasn't very practical to drive on the highway, it only got about 10mpg. Plus it needed new tires and I couldn't afford them at the time. I'll post on the other ones later in time, its getting late. Enjoy the photos! I don't have many, I've lost most of them all over the years.

This is when Andrew and I drove up on top of each others Jeep after school one day, it was very impressive. I took these photos with the old camera we had to borrow for photography class.

This is shortly before I sold it :(

List of Impossible Things

2011-11-08T22:06:00.000-05:00

For starters, I had a job interview today, FINALLY! It took me 4 months just to get an interview! Granted I didn't really try looking for a job until two months in, I just really wanted to succeed at making art. BUT, things don't always turn out as you plan. Anyway, the interview was at a golf course. Brit had found a job posting online somewhere for maintenance on the golf carts for the City of New Smyrna Beach Golf Club, like cleaning them and whatever, and I also applied for just any available position. I'm not confident on how the interview went. The actual position was just part-time for doing little things around the course, like edging the sidewalks and cart paths and sand traps, trimming trees, string-trimming, just stuff like that, which I am pretty qualified for considering I was crew leader at a lawn care company for a year and its also pretty much the exact same stuff I did at the cemetery. But I also felt way overqualified. My interviewer inquired a little about art and photography, so I told him that Brit and I own a photography business and I mainly do artwork but business is suffering since we moved down. I don't know, I just felt like I gave him no reason for me to get a job trimming at a golf course. Oh, plus I have to take three weeks off at Christmas time in Indiana, we already bought the tickets and I'm not going to work alone in Florida while everyone else is enjoying Christmas without me back home. I feel like that was the final blow of the interview. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

Ok, back to my list of impossible things! I've had the idea for a while of writing down my bucket list, or things I would like to do before I die. What prompted me lately was one of my friends had started a thing called the Blog of Impossible Things, which is basically a list of things that you feel are impossible for yourself to do…..and you do them. Brit and I both did this, and they are pretty similar but not really haha. I can't wait to get started too! Some of the things I wrote down I feel really are impossible for me, especially the physical ones. I feel like it will be an ongoing thing, but here's what I have so far:

-Travel to every continent in the world
-go skydiving
-go bungee jumping
-write a book
-drive from coast to coast across America
-bike from coast to coast across America
-climb a mountain
-run a marathon
-learn to fly an airplane
-be vegan for a month
-be in a race (cars)
-go one year without driving a car
-participate in a triathlon
-bench press 300 lbs.
-don't shave for one year
-change someones life
-own a gun
-perform guitar and sing in front of an audience
-save a life
-walk where Jesus walked
-learn to surf

So there you have it, my impossible list thus far.

ChiroGames

2011-11-06T23:49:00.001-05:00

So this weekend was chirogames at Cocoa Beach, which is when chiropractic students from all over the county come to compete in various different sports, Britney was signed up for tennis. We got there Friday evening, went to dinner at a place called The Pig and Whistle, or something like that. It was a bar….and bar food is always good food. We didn't really do much Friday night though, just hung out in our room with our roomies Josh and Lindsey and drank a few beers. All the other students there were crazy though! It was like one giant party all weekend long. I know that a lot of Palmer students stayed in the same hotel as us, actually I think all of them did, and they were absolutely nuts! It was a madhouse outside. Makes you wonder about doctors….

In the morning we had breakfast then drove over to the tennis courts where Brit was playing. Oh by the way, it was freezing Saturday! It was in the 60s and cloudy and windy. I didn't like it. Anyways, we watched a few matches here and there, and waited for the time when Brit would get to play…..but it never happened. The whole thing was pretty unorganized so no one really knew what was going on, and it turned out that some guy didn't show up for the team that Brit had to play, so they had to forfeit. So I guess she technically won, but was pretty peeved that she didn't get to play at all. So we left and had lunch and drinks with some friends, watched some beach volleyball competitions, and watched the air show. Oh by the way…..there was an air show going on! It was pretty awesome! There were fighter jets breaking the sound barrier and doing tricks and stuff, it was pretty sweet. We were at the point on the beach where they would turn around and head back to the good spots, but it was awesome nonetheless. After that, and going back to the hotel to nap for a few hours, a group of us headed to dinner to a place called Fish Lips, or as I would call it, Fish Tits haha. Probably the coolest part of the whole trip was right before we went into the restaurant, there were like four or five Navy guys (and girl) parachuting down from a military plane to the restaurant! They landed somewhere across the street from us and I later saw them at the bar. It was freakin awesome! What show offs. I took a picture of it with my phone.

So this morning we got up and headed home, stopping at Dunkin Donuts first, of course. While we were walking up, a man (I can only assume he was homeless) with his bike was sitting on the sidewalk trying to get my attention, so I went over to talked to him. He said something about the weather then asked if I could get him a couple of donuts because "he looooved donuts". So I said I would see what I could do. The guy in line in front of me said that he had already given him a dozen or so haha, so I brought him back one, a sprinkle one (good thing he looooooved sprinkle donuts) and he was chit chatting about how when he was young, before him and his friends would go surfing, he would stop by Dunkin Donuts and recalls the coffee being soooo hot that….I'm not really sure what he said about it being hot actually haha, but he did mention that he would put his donut on the dashboard of his car and the heat would melt the icing off, so he would put the melted icing into his coffee. Seems logical. Anyways, we shook hands and parted. Brit and I ended up taking the long way home, through Cape Canaveral. I really really really wanted to see the launch pad…..but we never did. I'm not really sure where it is. We did see the Kennedy Space Center though, and some type of astronaut hall of fame. I really wanted to go to the Kennedy Space Center, but I'm sure we will visit it in a few weeks when Abby and Trent come to visit for Thanksgiving. We are supposed to see a rocket launch then! Can't wait!

So anywho, that's how the weekend went. Brit and I started writing our Bucket Lists tonight, but this post is getting long so I think I'll postpone that. Bye!

This cup was in our hotel room, thought it was funny.

Heres Josh "planking" the beds

You can just barely see one of the Navy guys (or girl) parachuting

New Post

2011-11-04T00:10:00.001-04:00

Well I finished my book last night, Beautiful Outlaw. It was pretty good. The ending was great I thought, very thought provoking. I won't go into detail, you'll just have to read the book yourself…..or at the least the ending haha. But no, the whole thing is worth reading. I just started A Catcher in the Rye tonight, I've always wanted to read an old book like that and I've had it forever, just never got around to reading it.

Not much to talk about, I really haven't been up to much this week. Brit's mom commissioned me to do a couple of drawings for the salesmen that she works with, she wants to give them to the guys as Christmas presents. She works at a tractor dealership, so one of the images will be of an Apache sprayer and the other of an old tractor that her boss owns. Pretty cool stuff, I'm excited about it. I love commissions because I get to be knit-picky about the drawings and I actually have a deadline, so it makes me work harder. If I'm not commissioned for a drawing, I get lazy and it takes me forever to finish a drawing with sacrificed quality. I'm also doing a painting for our friends Josh and Lindsey, they found a painting online that they wanted to buy, but they also wanted something unique and something from me in my type of style, so here I am making them a painting! But it is based on the one they were going to buy, and I'm ok with that. (I don't really like reproducing other peoples work). It looks pretty cool and is different from what I usually do, but I'll make it my own.

I did get to create some (what I think is) unique forms of art this week. I don't know, I was just sitting at the computer and saw Brit's camera next to me so I started messing around with it, taking blurry images of what was on the screen. And I thought they looked pretty cool! So I took about 200 more haha. I messed around with different colors and different subjects like the blinds on the window or the lamp or the ceiling fan, and created some pretty cool looking images. I did some editing in Photoshop too, but not much. I'll post some pictures at the bottom. I think they look pretty "modern artish". I'm gonna try to sell them on etsy, but I'm pretty doubtful of that site. I've tried selling things on there before but it's next to impossible (for me), it's just so large that its hard for people to find my stuff! We'll see how it goes.

Brit and I are going to Cocoa Beach this weekend for "chiro-games". She is playing tennis for her school against other chiropractic schools. It should be a good time, I'll let you know how it goes!

Lets make it a book

2011-11-01T00:10:00.000-04:00

I think that someday, when I get around to it, I would like to print out all the pages of this blog and make a book for myself. I think that it will quite enjoyable to read later on in life when I have most likely forgotten what its like to be young and cool haha. I'll be old and mean and Ill probably yell at children for being too loud, so it will be nice to reflect on how nice and wonderful I used to be. Actually, I would really like my children to read it and see how daddy used to be, especially if something happens to me before they are old enough to know (aka die).

Yeah, I think I'll do that.

Beautiful Outlaw

2011-10-25T23:50:00.000-04:00

Like I said in last nights post, I'm reading a book right now titled Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge. So far its a pretty good book, kind of slow at first but picks up speed. I'm just over half way through it right now, so I'm getting into the meat and potatoes of it!

Basically the book is about the true personality of Jesus. I say "true" because, as mentioned in the book, religion over time has made Jesus into a sort of cartoon figure that is good and holy and perfect, but not really.......real. He is kind of monotone, with a serious expression on his face, and yells at you for doing bad things. He is put on a pedestal. He is made out to be too holy for us. His robe was always brilliant bright white and his hair always perfectly shampooed and brushed. And that is kind of depressing because it means that he is not equal to us. But I agree with what John is saying in his book.....that Jesus was a real person with real feelings and real pains, just like us. And he had a personality like the rest of us, he was joyful and playful and fierce and angry and sarcastic like us. At one point in the book (this really set me aback) he explains that Jesus "left Judea and headed back once more to Galilee." Usually when we read that in the bible we pass over without any further thought.......but that's over 70 miles away! And he walked! In sandals! Several times! Imagine the blisters! Did you know that in the original version of the bible, there was no Thou or Thee? They didn't write Jesus' words in red? They didn't even capitalize the H when referring to "him"? Over the years we have glorified him so much that it is setting him apart from us, he is too good for us anymore. And thats a shame, because I don't think that was Gods intention.

The purpose of the book is just great because it brings into perspective what God did for us, sending his son to die for us....for the sole purpose of wanting to be closer to us, wanting to be at ground level with us, not be some unattainable, fierce warrior God that we should constantly fear. But he wants to be friends with us. He wants to let us know that he knows what we are going through, because he did the same things we are doing. I know that this is not ground breaking but when you read the book it makes it much clearer, you realize that its more than just words that you've heard over and over, it's.......well, real.

I thought of this the other day, Jesus was just an ordinary person right? He looked like a regular human being, dressed like one, walked like one, talked like one, because....well, he was one. What if God were out there today somewhere in the world? What if he were just an ordinary person in the mall, that guy with the potbelly that sits and watches everyone walk by? What if he were that person that you honked at or cursed at in traffic because they were going too slow? Or what if he were that waitress you sneered at for forgetting to take the onions off your burger? Or what if he were that person you passed and ignored instead of saying hello? Or that guy you laughed at because he looked funny?

I think that he is all of those people.

How terrible would that be if I laughed at God because he looked funny?

Whats been Happening?

2011-10-24T23:51:00.000-04:00

Hey Yall! (in a Cleveland sort of accent....from Family Guy) Wow its been forever since I last posted and I have been itching to for quite some time now. Got a lot on my mind! First of all, whats the deal with the security on this thing! It took probably a half hour just to get logged in! Dang thing made me jump through hoops of fire to verify it was me! It's me I promise!

Things have changed. I live in Florida now, Daytona Beach. Brit is at Chiropractic school down here and I followed. Follow? Good, you're nice and caught up.

Well its the perfect time of night to blog, my favorite time of day to just think about stuff. I was just reading a little, I'm about halfway through a book called Beautiful Outlaw, and it's about the personality of Jesus. Great read so far. I'll have to reflect on it later. I wrapped up my chapter and thought, "man I just need to blog." So here me is.

Times are tough down here in Florida. It's rough going from a place where you know almost everyone to a place where you know no one. I have no connections. No family members or close friends to help out with jobs or entertainment or what have you. It's just harder when you are all by yourself. I mean, I'm not completely alone, I have Britney and her classmates, but they are all in the same boat as us. Alone and scared. haha, not scared, but alone. I have been riding the struggle bus when it comes to income. My dream was to move down here, make a bunch of artwork, sell it independently or through a gallery, and make millions of dollars. So far I have made around $300. And I am thankful for that. But making $300 in four months is pretty pathetic. Now, I went the first two months or so without even looking for a job, full or part time. I just really wanted to quickly succeed as an artist....I've been to or have contacted several galleries looking for.....really any type of involvement, but man its tough. They just don't want anyone else. It's like a party that your not invited to. My lack of income is starting to really hurt us now. I ran out of money today. We had some saved up from weddings and different things here and there, its was mainly our honeymoon money.....and I spent the last of it today.

Oh the stress......I have student loans to pay, and insurance. Britney gets a good chunk of change for living expenses from her school, student loan money. Its a good amount of money for one person....its really cutting it for two people......even more so when you add my bills. I am paying student loans with student loans.

I need a job.

But apparently everyone else does too. I was told by some Floridians, even before I moved down here, that you would be lucky to get a job that pays more than ten bucks an hour........I think it's true. I think you are lucky if you even have a job! I thought, oh with a bachelors degree at Purdue it'll be cake getting a job. HA! No such luck yet. I have applied to several different places, mainly places that require little responsibility so I can still focus on my art and photography. Not a single call yet.

Not yet, but I'm still hopeful. Just got to keep on keepin' on. I'm going tomorrow to apply to a grocery store, and check to see if there are anymore art opportunities around here. Someone will accept me sooner or later!

I'm a whipped man

2010-11-30T23:16:00.000-05:00

Im back! Lets dive right in….

This will be a little short and simple. I had an epiphany the other day while I was driving….I thought back to my youth, back to my single days of just a few short years ago and remembered a thought that I had once thunk. I remember thinking that if I were ever in a relationship with someone, either married or dating or whatever, I don't ever wanna be one of those guys that is told what to do, one of those whipped guys that just tags alongside his partner like a puppet on a string, obeying every command that is given. I didn't want to do things because I was being forced to do them. I wanted to do what I wanted, be my own person. If I wanted to go out with my friends and run a muck on a Tuesday night then who's to stop me? Certainly not my girlfriend or wife. I'm too independent to be told what to do and what not to do. Sure, she'll have to deal with it, but that's the price you pay for dating an independent man.

So as I was driving, I thought to myself, "I'm not really like that guy. I'm pretty obedient towards Britney. Why is this?" I mean, I am still a pretty independent person….sort of. I am still myself of course, and I cater to my own wants now and then, but really I do a lot of things for Britney, and I TRY to do a lot of things for her. But you know what, it's not because I'm whipped or anything, but because I love her deeply.

As a single man, I would have NEVER of this. I do things for Britney, sometimes things I have absolutely no desire in doing, for the simple fact that I just want to make her happy, I want to give to her, let her know that I love her. It all seems so simple and logical now. I mean theres a difference between being whipped and doing things for a girl because you feel you have to, and doing things for her because you WANT to.

I guess this is what happens when you stop thinking about yourself for once.

Gods Presents vs. Presence

2009-07-01T21:06:00.003-04:00

Today I was trimming at the cemetery, like I usual do, listening to my ipod, to some Christian music that I havent listened to in eons, and I cant for the life of me remember who the band was or what the song was called but I remember hearing just two simple words in the song that really caught my attention. "Gods Presence." At first, I misunderstood the meaning, I instantly had a visualization of a wrapped 'present', one with silver wrapping paper and big red bow on top. This got me thinking, of course. I mean, what else is there to do while trimming at the cemetery than think.

Lately I have been trying to do something a little different. I have been in such a blah mood since around Christmas time, so I have been backtracking to see what Im doing differently in my every day life, to try and see if I can change whats been going on. And one conclusion that I came to was that I had not been looking for Gods presence, I had been looking for Gods presents. I think that so many of us think this same way. We all want what He has to offer to us, what He is capable of, what He is willing to give. And we constantly pray for his presents. "God, do this for me......God, can I please have that.....God, help me in this situation" We start looking for his presents and forget about his presence. And the only time we ever acknowledge His presence in the process of following His presents.

Follow?

Since some time last week, I have been doing a little experiment. The thing I have been doing differently was I have been trying to find God everywhere. I have found him in my trimming, in the face of a gopher, in the joy of a redneck prancing around in a storm, in the expressions of children at a parade. Sometimes, He is just so easy to find. Other times, He isnt. Hes hard to find in times of struggle. Hes hard to find in times of need. Hes hard to find in the clutter. But as He promised, He is still there.

As I had mentioned earlier, I have been reading a book entitle God is Closer than You Think. The book compares God to Wheres Waldo. In the Wheres Waldo books, you stare at a page for an extended period of time to try to discover the goofy looking, striped shirt wearing nerd of a Waldo. And its much easier to spot him at the beginning of the book than toward the end, right? Well, just think of it in terms of Gods hiding. He isnt always right there in front of you, most of the time you have to be patient and look for him. He is lost in the clutter of society and often times seems to blend in, but He is there.

I have noticed a change even in the past few days. Worry is slowly melting away and optimism is setting in. And I remember now what made me feel so warm and content last summer, discovering Gods presence.

Ben and Britneys Grand Adventures

2009-06-29T16:09:00.002-04:00

Yep, we went on some grand adventures this weekend with lots of driving, lots of laughing, and lots of fun. And Id like to tell you a little bit about what went on. It all started on Friday afternoon, we all left work early, that is, the cemetery guys and I, which was great because I knew I had a long drive ahead of me that night so it gave me some time to get cleaned up and packed for our adventures. So I got home, ate some lunch, showered, got things together, and left around 1pm. I finally got my car back and fixed on Thursday, it only took forever to get it finished, and just in the knick of time for some roadtripping. And of course it was insanely hot on Friday and my air conditioning in my car wasnt quite up to par, so on the way down while I stopped to get some gas I also bought some freon to recharge my air conditioner. And, of course, I had no idea how to do it. So as I was fartin around with it for about 10 minutes, I asked the guy at the pump next to me if he could help. And of course, he didnt know how either. So I said screw it and went on my way.

Two hours later, I arrive at Britneys apartment in West Laffy. I took a little rest and we got everything together and packed up the JEEP. Yes, I said Jeep! If you know me, you know that I love Jeeps. Britneys mom has a really nice 2008 Wrangler and had let us borrow it for the weekend. I cant thank her enough for letting us take it, that was the highlight of my year, just having the privilage of driving it. Anyways, we set off for St. Louis from there.

Well, actually, before getting to St. Louis, we had to stop and visit one of her friends that she had met in Greece. I dont wanna say that we HAD to visit her, lets say that we WANTED to see her, just for the sake of me not getting yelled at by Britney. Anyways, she lived somewhere in central Illinois, Im not really sure where we were though, but the GPS did. So we went to TGIFridays with Melissa and her boyfriend, not sure what his name was, Im bad at remembering names. We'll say it was Dan, just for the sake of the story, he looked like a Dan. It was a pretty good time though, Melissa and Britney just gabbed the whole time so that kept us boys entertained. After a little while there, we hit the road again, straight for St. Louis.

A couple hours laters, we see the big arch! St. Louis was absolutely beautiful at night, the sky was clear and the moon was out, and there were big spotlights on the arch, it was great. Well, from what I could see in the 5 seconds I got to look because I was driving in heavy city traffic. It was great....for a while, until we ran into some construction that our GPS didnt know how to get around, and we got lost. Im not really sure why we got off the big highways, but I think that was the wrong thing to do. Oh yeah I remember why, I thought there was a detour so I was following a car that I thought would take us around the construction....but didnt. This place that we were stuck in was shady. I saw one white person the whole time we were in that neighborhood. I mean, I dont have anything againt black people, but when your from a small town like I am, this place is pretty scary. That turned my mood quickly. It was late, about midnight our time, I was cranky, and that place was the last place I wanted to be at that time. This is the time that Britney had discovered that I had inherited my fathers temper. Luckily she was the calm one the entire time. So we stopped at a gas station, of course I didnt want to but she made me, and asked for directions. I swear the directions just took us into deeper and darker places. So we just punched in the Fridays that we had eaten at into the GPS and got the heck out of there. We wound up back onto the road we had entered the city in, turned around, and found a bunch of detour signs that we had missed the first time. Whew! We finally made it to our hotel around 1:30am I think. We were both terribly exhausted.

The next morning, Saturday morning, I had discovered how nice our hotel room really was. I couldnt tell you what floor we were on, but it was up there! And we had a king sized bed, there wasnt a position I couldnt lay and have a limb hang over the edge, I think it was bigger than a dorm room! And the best part was, it was all free! And included a free breakfast!! We were in St. Louis to visit a chiropractic school that she is thinking about attending after Purdue, like a Day on Campus sort of thing, and the school payed for the hotel room.

So after our delicous free breakfast, we headed for the school. It was pretty nice, and they had a lot of credentials and impressive statistics, but ill say that the day on campus thing was pretty boring. Just a lot of people talking about how great the school is. But, there was a lot of free food. AND.......I got to see a dead body. During one of the tours, they took us to a lab where they have a bunch of cadavers, probably 30 or so, laying on metal tables, covered in plastic, waiting to be disected. They told us ahead of time that we dont have to go look, but of course I wanted to. So they pulled back the plastic on one, and there he was, cut open down the center of his back. The doc showed us some muscles and nerves and stuff. The entire time I was thinking about two things. First, my mind kept saying "so this is what lies beneath my feet at the cemetery." And second, "Those muscles sort of look like dark meat turkey." MMmmmm, turkey.

After our little campus visit that lasted most of the morning and part of the afternoon, we got back in the Jeep and headed for good ol' grampa Toms house. He lives about two hours from there, so we thought we'd make a visit while we were in the neighborhood. Once we got there, I gave her a tour of the town, we took some pictures of the huge energy windmill thingy, and then headed to nowhere else but the Cardinal Inn, my grampas favorite restaurant on the face of this planet. After conversing with anyone and everyone, we had decided that we wanted to go the bus derby that night at the county fair. If you dont know what a bus derby is, Ive run into some people who dont, its where people get old schoolbusses and wreck them into each other and the last one standing is the winner. Its the best thing ever. There was a lot of steam and fire and crunched up busses. While at the derby, we ran into a little bit of a thunderstorm. Luckily we were under a roofed stands, but man that wind and rain and lightning was nuts! After the storm passes, we watched a boring round of bus derbyness, it wasnt exciting because the rain had made so much mud that the busses kept getting stuck. So, we left after that. Went back to grandpas and went to bed.

The next morningSunday morning we got up, went to the Cardnal Inn for some breakfast, and decided to do some riding! That is, motorcycle riding. My grandpa has a couple of bikes so he lent me and Britney one for the day. We rode with my grandpa and a couple of his old retired buddies. I think we went about 80 miles that afternoon, down some back roads and some really nice places near the Illinois river, and I think we were running parallel to the Mississippi River for a while. I enjoyed it, and Im sure Britney did as well. She made a good addition to the bike. After riding, we loaded up the Jeep again, said our goodbyes, and heads back east for lots of driving, LOTS of driving. I was so freakin tired the whole way home, Britney drove probably most of the way back while I was in and out of conciousness. We got back to West Laffy, and after a long goodbye, we parted and I headed back to Bremen. I got back about 10:30pm. Whew, what a weekend.

It was great being able to visit my grandpa and especially nice to spend some time with Brit. Its amazing what you learn about someone by spending every waking moment with them, especially on car rides. She learned that I can have a bit of temper when I am cranky and lost, and I learned that she likes to change the radio station a lot haha. I kept my mouth shut until now, but once she reads this Im gonna get it. But all in all, it was a great weekend. Sorry for the long post, its hard to fit three days into a single paragraph.

God is Closer than You Think

2009-06-25T21:11:00.003-04:00

So I was rummaging through some of Todds books this afternoon, through his grand library/dining room, I was looking for a book that I had read last summer, 'Blue Like Jazz,' and I came across this book, 'God is Closer than You Think.' It was pretty intriguing because it didnt have any pictures or a fancy cover page or anything, just a bare hard back cover with 'God is Closer than You Think' written on the spine. I couldnt stop thinking about it for the rest of the day, I felt like it was calling me, "Ben, read me.......READ ME!" So I finally got a little bit of time tonight and I wasnt 5 pages into it when I read this:

"How lonely life is! Oh, we can get by in life with a God who does not speak. Many at least think they do so. But it is not much of a life, and it is certianly not the life God intends for us or the abundance of life Jesus came to make available."

Reading continues.....

Whats so different?

2009-06-24T22:48:00.002-04:00

This summer has been kind of weird for me so far. When I moved back to Bremen I thought I would have a great time like I did last summer, but somehow things are different, and I cant figure out what. I was so happy last summer, so content with everything going on around me, I felt like I had so many options and unlimited freedom, every day was an adventure for me. But this summer, I just want every day to be over with, and I dont notice the little things anymore. The little things that made me so happy last summer dont have the same effect anymore. Take biking for example, that was such an adventure everytime I went out into the countryside to explore and breathe in the fresh air and feel the wind, but now I bike every day to work and those things arent quite as invigorating anymore. Its just a mode of transportation now. I dont see beauty in life anymore. I feel like I am just waiting for something, trying to get through each day as soon as possible instead of enjoying each passing moment. All that life had to offer me a year ago has seemed to fade away and now Im stuck in this monotonous rhythem of week and weekend, week and weekend. Wheres the adventure gone? Whats so different? Is it because I have a job that I am forced to go to from 7-4 every day? Thats a pretty big chunk of my day, and when the work day ends, I just feel exhausted and dont want to do anything the rest of the night. And all I do is worry now. Im forever worried about my car and what to do about that, worried about what Im going to do this weekend, or next month, or next year, or years from now. Im worried about what people think of me now. I dont have the same carefree 'go with the flow' attitude that I used to. And I hate it. I was happy then. Where did I change?

New Website

2009-06-23T21:46:00.002-04:00

I have some exciting news. Britney had sent me a link to a website that lets you create your own page for your business or for photography or whatever, called wix.com. So I am currently in the process of making my own page for my art and photography, and not only will it be for people to view my stuff, Ill have some contact info on there to hopefully get some buyers and some photography clients. This is gettin serious now! Now I have hopes that when I graduate from college next year I will already be established and have some experience of independent work under my belt.

Actually, I even got yet another photography job for this fall. I got an email from a girl that I went to high school with but who I dont really know asking if I would like to do her engagement pictures for her. I told her straight up that I would love to do them but I dont really have a lot of experience. She said thats fine because she has seen the stuff Ive done already and loves them. And Ive got plenty of time to plan it out and get some things figured out like pricing beforehand but hopefully I can get this website done soon so I can start to market my stuff.

The only problem I have for now is that my stupid computer doesnt seem to be allowing me to create this website, the darn think cant handle the feature. So I think Ill have to use Trents computer or something. But, as you can imaging, its gonna look amazing! Out.

wtf

2009-06-19T12:53:00.000-04:00

I am SOOO pissed off right now. So I took my car in last night to get worked on and the guy calls me this morning saying "Well, I thought you needed the front wheel bearing replaced instead of the rear, there is a lot more involved with that so we are going to have to charge you more." I was a little upset but cooperative because it came out to be about $240, which is what I was expecting to pay. Then he calls me at lunch and says "well the bearing wore down the wheel hub assembly so that needs replaced or else it will ruin the new bearing." I couldnt believe it. The bill is now up to $420. How could a $90 job turn into $420? Its a good thing that car isnt in my driveway now because I would literally just set it on fire. Im searching online now for a cheaper hub, but its still gonna be about $100 for one, he was gonna charge me $170. I hate this freakin car! I will never buy a BMW again.....ever.

ooooOOOOOooooo!!

2009-06-18T12:15:00.002-04:00

Well, I have a little bit of time to kill today since we left from work at 10 this morning because of rain. So Ill take this time to tell some stories from the cemetery....some HAUNTING stories.

The guys there have told me a couple of stories, they say that things happen all the time but they cant remember every single event. Theyve worked there for like 30 yrs, so their stories have been piling up. They said that they hear their names being yelled while they're mowing all the time, and when they turn to see who it is, there is no one there. There were haunted flowers one time. They threw a set of flowers away at a gravestone one time, and the next day, the exact same flowers were there again. So they threw those away, then they were back. This happened for about a month. They even took the flowers to the dump, a few miles away. Trent told me that one time everyone was sitting around in the garage just talking and the chain lift, the one attached to the roof joists to lift the mowers, fell from the ceiling and landed on one of the mowers. Trent said he has no idea how that happened since it was chained to a joist. I hear things cluttering around in the other garage all the time, sometimes its from the wind, but other times the door is shut and cant explain the sounds.

Here are some stories that I have since I have been working there. Once while I was trimming in the old section, I smelled perfume like there was a 90 year old woman standing right in front of me. I stopped trimming to see who was around, to see if any old women were anywhere in the cemetery, and there wasnt a single person around. I only smelled it for about a second, so I tried to see if there was a trail and sniffed all around the grave I was trimming, and found nothing else. Then a couple of days later, I was once again in the old section just trimming my life away when I saw Troy walk up to me, right behind my right shoulder. I figured it was time for break or something so I turned around to say something to him and there was no one there. Troy was on the other side of the section. That really freaked me out because I clearly saw someone walking from a distance right up beside me and slightly behind. Sometimes Ill see movement in the cemetery and Ill turn around and it will be those small American flags on Veterans' graves, but it wasnt this time. I really dont like trimming the old section, Im completely fine everwhere else, but once we start on those last two sections, I feel really really uncomfortable and I dont know why. Im not thinking about hauntings or anything, I just feel uncomfortable. And I saw two snakes yesterday in those sections, I hate snakes.

So there you go.

Cemetery Days

2009-06-17T13:19:00.004-04:00

I work at a cemetery this summer, and I love it! I know that its kind of a weird place to work and it kind of catches people off guard when I tell them where I work, but I think its a great job. I mostly just trim around the gravestones, but we do have to pull up sod and dig graves too. Oh, and the common misconception is that we dig the graves by hand, you wouldnt believe the number of people that think that, but we dont. We use a backhoe. It makes things much easier and quicker.
I also like the people I work with too, thats what makes the job fun. Steve is the head sexton there at the cemetery, and hes hilarious. Hes a great boss too, hes a pretty relaxed guy so hes not always on our case to rush around and get things done, but its not like there is much to do anyways. But it makes it easier to follow his orders when he does really need something done. George is the assistant sexton. Hes a character, I dont think I have gone a single day without telling someone somthing about him. Hes a different guy, kind of a nerd, and he tells some pretty crazy stories. Russell, hes probably my favorite. Hes the old guy, I think hes 74 or 75 years old. Just the things hes says sometimes, just have to make me laugh. He always guesses the weather wrong, every single day. He refused to buy a Ford truck, only ever owned Chevys. Hes fun to tease because Ill say something to him or about him and he wont even hear me, or Ill blame things on him and he'll put up a strong defense. And he loves to smoke and drink Mt. Dew. Hes just a typical, confused old guy. And then theres Troy, my fellow trimmer. The other three guys mow, and me and Troy trim. Hes a couple years younger than me and worked there last summer so hes been showing me how to do things.

Ive already had some experiences there, some hauntings, some funny stories, and just random stuff. Heres my day usually goes: We work from 7am-4pm, Mon.-Fri, unless its raining, then we dont have to go in. From 7-9, we usually dont do much, sit around and drink coffee, I usually catch a little nap in there, or sometimes we will dig a grave or trim a little if we're behind. From 9-9:30 is our first break. Me and Troy usually go to Burger King or Mrs. Ts Bakery to grab some brunch, but recently got into the Pancake House. Then from 9:30-10 we will sit around a little longer, or get right to work. Then we work all the way to lunch, noon. We get a one hour lunch break, thats when I go home and watch Full House and enjoy my turkey sandwich. Lunch ends at 1, and we will usually catch up on some more trimming or grave digging/filling that needs to be done. Then our second break is from 2:30-3. Then from 3-4 we will sit around some more and reminise on the day. Great job eh? Next Ill have to tell of some of my haunting experiences. So long.

Boating Adventures, with a Twist

2009-06-14T21:57:00.003-04:00

This weekend I went down to West Lafayette to visit Britney and have some adventures with her. My sister let me borrow her car for the weekend so I was actually able to make it there without any worries! And its a convertible so of course I drove the whole weekend with the top down....and of course burnt my face and head from the blazing sun.

On Friday night, Britney and I went and saw a movie, Life in Ruins....or My Life in Ruins.....or something to do with Ruins, it had the same woman from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It was an okay movie, Britney really enjoyed it though because it was all about Greece and she had just seen all the places in the movie from over the past month.

Then on Saturday we went boating with her family. That was a pretty good time but it was kind of on the nippy side most of the day, and the water wasnt much better. I had fun otherwise. We did a little bit of swimming and tubing, not much tubing though because I was kind of afraid of Deans driving style....he liked to make us hurt.....and drive us into packs of geese. Her family is really fun to hang around though, I felt like part of the family the entire time. One moment that is glued into my head about this weekend is sitting at the front of the boat with Britney, she was looking out over the water, looking for driftwood to dodge for the tubers (although she would never tell the driver when she saw some, just say something quietly to me or herself), and she just looked so beatiful with her hair blowing in the wind and her outfit of bikini with shorts and a white sweater jacket thingy set into the green and blue background. It kind of took me aback, and made me smile. I wish I wouldve had my camera, that wouldve been an amazing picture.

Oh and I met her real dad this weekend. He seemed pretty scary to me at first, hes tall and has a really deep voice, and had just woken up from a nap when I met him so he was kind of disoriented and looked aggrivated. But after a while I figured out that hes a pretty nice guy, not too mean I guess....but ill probably still be afraid of him.

And tonight I drove back early because we had a little something going on back home, some big plans. If you havent heard yet, let me be the first to tell you about Abby and Trents engagement proposal.

So Todd and I got to be a part of something really special tonight, we had been helping Trent out with his proposal for a couple of weeks now and tonight was the big night. Heres how it went: Abby and Trent left for Lake Wawasee to get some dinner and stopped by Mary and Jerrys house. Meanwhile, Todd and I were about ten or fifteen minutes behind them. Abby and Trent get to thier house and Jerry offers to let them take the pontoon out on the lake for a spin. So they head out on the lake and come to an area across the lake next to the shore where you can park your boats and its really beautiful and so on and so forth. After about ten minutes of waiting, Todd and I pull up on a speedboat, all dressed up in black pants, white dress shirt, and black tie. We are thier servers for the night. And as Todd and Trent and I are helping to get dinner ready for him and Abby, Trent sets down a fancy napkin in front of Abby that is embroidered with "Abby, will you marry me?" So he gets down on a knee and asks. She says yes of course, then proceeds to fight back some tears and loses the fight miserably. This, in part, makes me tear up also. But once we got the food on the table, she calmed down a little. Then we all ate dinner, well not together, Todd and I ate on the other side of the boat. Oh and I was also the photographer for the night. I ended up taking nearly 150 pictures of them and the ring and the cups and whatever. Some of them turned out really really good though. Ill put some on my flickr when I get a chance. But yeah, after five and half years of being just boyfriend and girlfriend, they are now an engaged couple. Isnt that special.

Summer Reunion

2009-06-12T16:14:00.002-04:00

Last night was fun.

One of my good friends from college is in the area this weekend and he gave me a call the other night to hang out. So after my busy day of not working (rain) and running around doing other things, I called up another friend, Ian, to see if he would like to join our shenanigans for a night. So we went up to Hacienda in South Bend and had some frozen long islands, which I thought were super strong, and conversed for a while. Then we headed to another bar, Corbys was the name I think, and got a pitcher of beer. I could only drink about a half a glass though cause that long island was effecting me too much and I had to drive. It was funny though, there was a ten dollar minimum to use a debit card, and I was the only one to have cash. But all I had were hundreds (I was prepared to buy something for my car but never did), so I paid a $4 pitcher with a $100 bill. I felt rich. And then I forgot to tip her, whoops. Then we went to another bar called The Linebacker up by Notre Dame. Overall it was a pretty fun night and Im glad I got to hang out with my ATO bros.

Now, Im off to West Laffy for a few days to see Brit. We're going boating tomorrow so that should be nice and tiring.

Wedding Photographer?

2009-06-10T22:13:00.004-04:00

So since I got my camera for Christmas, Ive been pretty interested in photography. Well, Ive always been interested in photography, but now Im able to actually act on that interest. And with my background in art, I feel that I would be a pretty decent photographer, but its only a hobby for now. I have gone out a couple of times and taken photos with Trent, and then once with Britney, and every once in a while Ill get inspired and go out on my own and see what I can capture. Its a pretty good time. Photoshop is my specialty though, thats where the magic happens.

But tonight I got a phone call from a certain Meghan Phillips with a proposal. Meghan is engaged to Chuff (Chad Huff if you dont know him), who is Todds brother......very confusing I know. But anyways, she asked me tonight if I would like to help Jane take pictures for thier wedding. I was thrilled! Of course I said I would help, this will be great photography experience. I have already taken some pictures for Stacee, just some of her and her family, and Stacee already wants me to take her engagement photos AND wedding photos. So this has gotten me ramped up even more about photography! That would be so much fun to be a professional photographer.

But I have a long ways to go. Ill keep it as a hobby for now, but keep it in the back of my mind as another profession. Man, being an indepentent artist is gonna be great.

Parents Date

2009-06-10T12:22:00.003-04:00

Last night was interesting. Britney finally arrived back in the states yesterday, home from Greece. She landed in Philadelphia yesterday at like 3 or 4. I had known for a while that she was coming back this Tuesday so I wanted to surprise her and be there at the airport in Indianapolis waiting for her. So a couple of days ago I talked to her mom and made plans to meet up with them then head over to the airport.

I was going to meet her mom and Dean at the Starbucks by I65 in Lafayette at 6:00pm, and it takes two hours to get there, and I dont like to rush, so I sacrificed a whole $8.25 of hard "labor" and left an hour early from work to get showered and such. So as I was driving down, Britney calls me to tell me she was in Philadelphia waiting for her next flight and during our conversations she asked if I was driving somewhere, and me being the worst liar in history, I say no Im just sitting at the house. She asks why its so windy there, and I change the subject. I think she figured it all out right then.

So I arrive at Starbucks and meet her parents there. Oh by the way, I was terrified the whole drive down because my car has been in horrible shape lately. The wheel bearing is so loud I cant even hear myself think, my dads friend Mike told me a story about a bad wheel bearing on his truck one time, he said the whole wheel flew off driving down the road. And its got like half the power it used to because of.....something else wrong with it, so I can barely even make it up hills. Stupid car. Anyways, once I met up with Kim and Dean, they tell me her flight has been delayed an hour, so we had plenty of time to kill. So we hung out at Starbucks for a while, then went to a super fancy/expensive car wash. Then slowly drive down to Indy. We had time to stop and eat so we went to Ruby Tuesdays and had a nice little meal. Somewhere between our drive down and dinner, Brit calls again and says shes in the plane but there are more delays, I guess something was wrong with the plane, or the pilot was drunk and they had to wait for him to sober up. So we have another couple of hours to kill. So.....we went to the movie theatre across the street. We saw Night at the Museum 2. During the movie, Brit calls again, upset and histerical according to Dean, and says that her flight has been cancelled and theres nothing available until the morning. So she had to stay in a hotel overnight and wait for another flight. Meanwhile, our movie gets done at around 11pm. So we drive back to Lafayette, me and Dean talk about wrestling the whole way, and I begin my drive my two hour drive back to Bremen. I talked to Britney on the phone for about an hour on the way, well, tried to, the cabin of my car was so loud from that bearing I could hardly hear what she was saying. Oh, and I saw an accident on my way home, it looked like a semi driver had fallen asleep and went off the road, I mean he was WAY out there. There were tons of cop cars and ambulances there too.

Anyways, I was pretty tired on the way home and disappointed that I drove all the way down there to see her and didnt get to. I ended up in bed at 2am, then had to get up at 6am for work. Im not really that tired though. So that was my date night with the 'rents last night. All things considered, I still had a good time, I have a good time no matter what happens.

Flickr

2009-06-08T22:28:00.003-04:00

Ive got some new pics up.

Check them out here ----->

Or here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benmiller87/show/with/3174284067/

Most of the pictures are of Stacee, but also include special appearances by her sister Holly, her fiance Steven, and her Mom, Dad, and brother Jimmy. I took all of these pictures and tinkered with them in Photoshop.

There are also a few pictures that Britney sent me from Greece that I had touched up a little. Enjoy!

There is no Fear in Love

2009-06-07T10:05:00.006-04:00

John 4:18 says "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

Last night at church we talked about risk and this was one of the quotes that was brought up. Of course John is talking about Gods love, but this got me thinking about Britney and relationships in general.

I have always been terrified of relationships. Even just the first step of starting one. I mean, I have always enjoyed dating, but only up until a certian point. I would much rather play it safe and be single, so thats what I did. I mean, relationships are risky. Here are some of the fears that I have had in the past: I always thought I would lose my freedom. I dont like to be told what to do and when Im around my friends who have girlfriends, it seems like they dont have any decision making abilities anymore, they always have to ask their signifcant other if its ok to do something. It always made me cock my head to the side and think, why would I want to be like that? Another fear, what if I change? Or what if she changes? What if we arent the same people we were so attracted to in the first place? Then what? Or, what happens if I get tired of this person. I have some friends that if I see them too much, I get tired of them, tired of being around them so I need to quit hanging out with them for a while. And sometimes I see people who have been in a long term relationship who just seem bored with each other, like they dont even want to be together, they just are because thats all they know, they dont even consider the possibilty of breaking up because they feel like theyre stuck with each other. I always took these things into consideration when choosing whether or not to continue a relationship with a girl. And most of the time, I chose not to. It wasnt worth the risk. I wasnt worth breaking her heart or getting mine broken. These fears also have always hindered my ability to show emotion or express any sort of love. I have never told a girl that I love her. There was always just too much involved with the word love, too many expectations, too much to live up with no room for failure.

But after hearing that quote "There is no Fear in Love" I realized that my fears have always held me back from love, not the other way around. I always thought that love would hold me back, but it was me that was holding back love.

Like I said before, I have been dating Britney for a couple of months now. I have had a couple of conversations with her before about relationships and told her how I felt. Ive told her about my fears of commitment and relationships. And she has told me about her fears. But last night, I thought I would take the risk. I wrote her a little email (since shes in Greece, its hard to communcate otherwise) and told her what I thought. Heres a little blip from the email:

I have something I want to ask you, and its probably pretty lame that I do over email, but I had a thought tonight. I know, uh oh, Bens thinking again, this cant be good. But I heard a quote tonight, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." That got me thinking about relationships. Like I said, Im terrified to be in a relationship, and that has always hindered my decision to move on with one. And that fear has always held me back from expressing any emotion or thoughts of love. But I want you to know that I do really like you. Youre different from other girls Ive dated. Youre not selfish, you can make me laugh, you are very caring, and youre one of the sweetest girls Ive ever met. Like I said before, its hard for me to find things that I DONT like about you. Im in love with your soft voice, youre girly girl nature with a rugged farmer girl background, your curly hair, and your beautiful BROWN (no matter what you say thats what color they are) eyes. I guess I just want to ask if we should make it official, if you would be my girlfriend. I know Im probably making a huge deal about this, but it is a huge deal to me.

She said that email made her cry, in a good way. She said yes of course. So for now, I guess Ill have to set aside my fears and just go with it.

It has been QUITE a while...

2009-06-06T16:37:00.002-04:00

Agreed? Agreed. Once I got out of the habit of blogging every day, it was hard to get back into it. There was so much crap going on that it was hard to find time to blog, then I really didnt even know what to say anymore, since I knew who my readers were. But now that no one reads this anymore, it will be much easier to say what I want haha.

But to start off, heres a little update. Its summertime. Schools out. Ive been back for about a month now, maybe a little less. I got a job at the wonderful Bremen Cemetery for the summer, which I think is great. I mostly trim graves with a weedeater, but sometimes I help dig graves and fill them. I like my job though, I get a good tan, its nice being outside all the time, I dont have to work if its raining, and I get paid decent. And its haunted, but Ill elaborate on that another time.

Ive been dating a girl named Britney for about two months now. I met her at a formal party we had at the beginning of April, shortly after I took my blog break. Shes great, one of the sweetest girls I know. I love being around her, but havent been able to for the past few weeks because she has been in Greece for a study abroad program. But she gets back this Tuesday, so that will be nice. She'll be living in West Lafayette for the summer so Ill only get to see her on weekends, but Im looking forward to hanging out with her this summer.

Really, those are about the only big changes from last time I blogged. I have a lot of time to think at the cemetery while Im trimming, so I will put down some thoughts over the summer. A lot of things about life and death, since death is the business there. There will probably be a lot of cemetery stories this summer, since it consumes the majority of my day. So theres the update :)

Life Drawing III

2009-04-14T12:06:00.028-04:00

ATO 2009 Serenades

2009-04-03T15:24:00.001-04:00

Check it out!

Im one of the guys with that chairs. On the far left.

Its nice out

2009-04-02T16:58:00.001-04:00

Its sunny and warm today, and I actually got a lot accomplished and felt more energized. Its gotta be a seasonal thing.

Oh Dear...

2009-04-02T02:24:00.003-04:00

So lately I have been in a pretty weird mood, Id say for about the last few months. Id say ever since I had mono, Ive been feeling this way. Nearly every day, I feel like doing absolutely nothing. I have no interest whatsoever in doing even the simplist tasks like going to class, going out with friends, sometimes eating, and sometimes I dont even want to get on my computer or watch TV or anything, I will just sit in my room and stare into space, or pick at my guitar for hours on end. It seems like when I have to do these tasks, it is somehow a burden to me, my instict always says to do otherwise, which is nothing. But, I force myself to do stuff every day. I lay in bed nearly every morning (sometimes afternoon) having to talk myself into getting up to start the day.

And there are other things, little things. I havent dated anyone this semester, I havent even tried. I was all about dating last semester and looked for every oppurtunity. Its not that Im not confident anymore, its nothing like that, I just dont feel like it. I dont feel like meeting new people. The other day I was at a restaurant and our waitress was pretty cute, and she seemed extra nice to me. I thought to myself, I could probably pull something off and get a date with her, but eh, I dont feel like it. I cant even get around to making plans with anyone, or returning phone calls, or really doing anything. Everything seems like such a burden for some reason. All of the things I used to be interested in before like drawing, blogging, photography, being creative in general, meeting new people, dating, all that stuff is just boring to me now, is seemingly not worth my time.

Also, I have been extremely tired every day. I thought at first it could be that Im not getting enough sleep, or too much sleep, but no matter how much I get, Im still tired every single day. At any given moment of the day, I could just take a nap, and thats all I want to do, and thats all I think about, how tired I am. I even find myself drifting off in class sometimes. I slept for 40 minutes in a 50 minute class one day. Today, I layed down to take a cat nap before class, and woke up an hour and half later to find out I had slept completely through my class.

I figured that these might be some symptoms of depression. But the thing is, I dont feel sad or anything like that. Im actually pretty positive, Im still the same old Ben when Im hanging out with my friends, I just have no drive or motivation to do anything anymore. So I got online tonight to look at some of the symptoms of depression and sure enough, a good portion of these were there. And as I read on, I came across an article about nervous breakdowns. Here are some syptoms of a nervous breakdown from the article I read:

Loss of interest in normal daily activities
Agitation or restlessness
Persistent crying
Appetite changes
Sleep disturbances
Trouble concentrating and making decisions

I have most of these except for persistent crying. Although, on a couple of occasions I have felt emotional for no reason. While I was driving home for spring break I started to tear up thinking about all of my friends being in Florida while I would be at home. I cried during the movie Bolt. Sometimes I will even see a commercial or some tiny tidbit of something touching and get really emotional. In the past, I rarely cried. Cartoons or commercials dont generally tug at my heart strings.

One article I read linked caffeine to depression. I have been drinking coffee and tea and workout stuff like its my job this semester. In that past I hardly ever had that stuff. Maybe this has sparked it? I dont know, but I think Im going to give it up now after reading that. I also noticed that I feel a whole new sense of renewal when the weather is warm. Maybe its just cabin fever or something.

Man, a nervous breakdown? Just the words sound terrible. What is this, a quarter life crisis?

Life

2009-03-26T03:21:00.004-04:00

Yes, its nearly 3:30 in the morning. I have been studying for an exam for the past several hours, had a couple cups of coffee around 1am, and of course, now I cant sleep. My exam is at 10:30 in the morning. Im sure Ill be fine though.

But anyways, during my studying, I would take little breaks here and there to watch some Demetri Martin footage on Youtube. If you have some time to throw away, about 40 minutes or so, I would highly recommend watching this (Trent, you would find it interesting). He is a comedian, but also a thinker, and analyzer. And a very very smart person. He starts off by saying "The unexamined life is not worth living." Those are the very first words he says. Of course, this sparked my interest. I over analyze nearly everything. And life is no exception.

So Im laying here in bed trying to sleep, and I cant stop thinking about life and why I do the things I do and where I want to take my life and all of the options available. And Im thinking about other peoples lives as well. I dont know how others view life, what their thoughts and opinions are about how to live their lives. I dont know if they think the same things that I do. But in my mind, they dont.

I view a steriotypical American life as this: birth, childhood, adolescence, college, career, marriage, children.......long period of previous three.......retirement, lots of golf and cadillac, then death. That is the image of how everyone should live their lives. Those are lives natural steps.

As I was lying in bed, a visuallization popped up into my head about life. I feel like Im living in a box. It is finite, there are edges and limits, but there is very much room to move around, and I can go in any direction I would like. And eventually, no matter which direction I choose to go, I will hit an edge and that will be it. I will no longer be trapped in the box. And compared to whats outside of this box, the box is unbelievably tiny. And compared to the unbelievably tiny box, I, as a person, am crazy tiny.

But this is how I view others. Im probably wrong, and Im probably generalizing, but I view others as living on an infinate line on a sphere, the line just goes round and round. They have no other direction to go but forward. There are several dots on the line, and they are just traveling from one dot to the next, or one goal to another, traveling from college to career, check that off the list. And they think that this will go on forever. They cant see past the horizen of the sphere, but they think it will just go around and around. They arent concerned with limits or boundaries. Are you following me?

Why do I visualize this? Do others think that way because thats how they were taught? Because society makes us beleive we have a set pattern or direction to life?

These 'other' people have goals. I just figured out that I have no goals. I also have no career ambitions. Why is that? Im trying to figure it out. Maybe I dont have goals because if I have no goals, then there will be no disappointment if I dont acheive them. Or maybe its because I expect the unexpected to happen, which will interfere with my goals. My only goal is to wake up each morning. Thats all I expect from life. When I no longer wake up in the mornings, Ill know that I have succeeded in my goals of all of the past mornings.

Like I said, I have no career ambitions. The only thing I expect from a career is to earn me enough money to survive. Because really, what is a career anyways? A career to me is something that I am forced to do from 20-something to 60-something to obtain things, to make my family happy, to keep me busy, to make me believe that Im contributing something, the list goes on. I hate the idea of a career. But then again, I cant avoid it.

Its well past 4am, I should get to sleep if I can. I would continue on to marriage, but ill save that for another time. I told you I overanalyze everything. Ill just remind myself that "The unexamined life is not worth living"

Serenades!

2009-03-23T23:45:00.004-04:00

Its that time of year, serenade time! This is when our fraternity goes around to most of the sororities on campus and dance for them to try to make them fall in love with us, actually we are just trying to get them to come to our philanthropy (event to raise money for a cause, if you didnt know). The greek system is very complicated, I was trying to explain the things we do to a GDI (gosh darn independent, to be clean) and most of it sounds crazy and complicated but its still fun.

But anyways, serenades. This year I am part of the dance crew. We just started going around to the sororities tonight....and I just learned the dance last night. Originally I was supposed to be Patrick Swayze's character in the SNL Chippendales skit, but I never practiced and I didnt really want to do itanyways, so now I have a different part. Me and three other guys have four chairs, we dance a little to a song, then pick four girls out of the audience, sit them down, then dance for them, and eventually get on one knee and sing to them. Its so much fun! While Im dancing, I usually turn around and shake my butt for them, one girl actually spanked it once. Then while Im on my knee, I hold her hand, kiss it, do the little 'boop' thing (finger to the nose), and gaze into their eyes with my cute puppydog eyes. Im sure their hearts just melt. We did four tonight, I think we are doing sixteen altogether all week long. Good times.

Asking for Help

2009-03-22T00:41:00.004-04:00

Ive had to do a lot of this lately, and I hate it. Asking for help is one thing that I absolutely dread doing.

Since I have been in college, I have become rather independent, or at least Id like to think I have. I try to do things on my own now, I have become quite the problem solver. Before, I relied mostly on my parents for....well just about everything: buying and making me food, doing laundry, paying for school, setting up plans and arranging schedules for certian things, finding jobs, you name it, they probably had a hand in any given decision. But with four years under my belt of relative independence, I have changed quite a bit. I like doing things on my own now, I like making my own decisions. I would rather solve my own problems, with my own approaches.

But sometimes there are things that I cant do by myself, so I have to ask for help, but this is always a last resort for me. This is a fear I have developed and I have no idea how it came to be. I dont know if its a pride issue or what, but I would rather jump off of a bridge (not literall (or if literally, not too high, maybe 6 feet)) than ask someone to help me out. I get knots in my stomach when I have to do this. I just feel like I am hassling someone by asking them to take some time out to resolve an issue that I had brought upon myself. Its my problem, why should someone else being dealing with it? I know if someone asks me for help, although I am usually willing, sometimes I dont really want to help them. And I feel like when I am in need of help, some people dont really want to help me, they just do it because they feel obligated, or maybe even sorry for me. This is why I would much rather resolve an issue on my own.

Lately, I have been pretty broke, for most of this semester I have had very little money. And its no ones fault but my own. And even more recently, a couple of days ago, my car broke down. Broken water pump, fan, serpentine belt, and several other issues, and I have needed help with that. It broke down around midnight on a weekday, while everyone else was asleep. I sat in my car in the freezing and dark for about ten minutes trying to find a way to get out of that situation on my own. I really really really did not want to call anyone and wake them and have them take time out of sleep to pick me up or tow my car. That was treachurous for me. And now, I need help fixing it, I need help getting around, I need help getting back to Purdue, I need help with money to fix it, its pretty overwhelming. My gut gets into knots whenever I need to ask someone if they can do a favor for me.

This fear could apply to so many different areas as well. Being home for spring break this week, as mentioned before, I have to find places to stay. Most of my family and friends say they are willing to let me stay with them, but I still have that fear of asking if its okay. I feel like I am intruding on them, I feel like a nuisance to them. I dont feel right being here in Bremen anymore. Nothing is mine anymore, everything I take is someone elses. Someone elses bed, someone elses food, someones time, someones roof over my head, someones TV Im watching, someones computer I am using to blog on. I just dont feel right taking things from people.

This has developed into an acceptance of gifts as well. Since high school, I dont feel right accepting gifts. Although I am more than willing to give to someone else, I still dont feel right taking from someone, seemingly being in their debt. Its like my life motto is "What mine is yours, and whats yours is yours." I remember telling my mom that she really doesnt have to buy me anything for Christmas anymore, I dont expect anything. And its true. But, with mom being mom, she is great when it comes to giving, and most of the time I feel like I shouldnt accept what she gives me. Especially in these times with the economy, when she gives me money, I feel like she needs it more than me. I dont have any bills to pay or anything, so really what do I need money for? But I know its rude to decline a gift, so I usually accept. And although I am truly thankful, Im not really sure how to express it.

This even hinders my relationship with God. When I am in trouble or struggling with something, I rarely pray about. I just try to work things out on my own, or ignore the issue altogether, which I know I shouldnt do either. If I pray about something, I feel like its a selfish request. Why should God care about my student loans or girl issues or illnesses? Arent there more important issues for God to deal with like world peace or starving children?

Anyways, theres a good long post of rambling.

Casino night!

2009-03-14T11:47:00.004-04:00

So Im officially on spring break. Im a little bummed that I had to come home for spring break. A good majority of my friends went to Panama City for spring break this year, but Im not able to go because I dont have any money or a reliable car to take me down there. But then a few nights ago, a couple of friends and I had come up with the idea to take a roadtrip to California, one of them knows some people in Fresno. We figured it would take about 36 hours to get there, and we would live cheaply, sort of like my Fall Break trip. But then yesterday, the day we were going to leave, the driver decided he didnt want to take his car, so then we had no car, which means we had no trip. I was very disappointed. That drive home was the most depressing drive home ever. But I feel like I am offending people back home when I say that I didnt want to be back here. Its not that I dont want to see my family, the problem is, I have lived here for 18 years, Im not missing anything by being gone. Bremen will always be here. Spring break in Panama City with all of my best friends happens once in a lifetime, and I cant go.

But anyways, casinos, that what I wanted to talk about. Last night my mom took Abby, Rachel, Trent, and me to the Blue Chip casino last night. I thought it was a pretty good time. I went to a casino once in Wisconson with Todd and Chuff, but I only played with three dollars, and I lost it all, so it wasnt that much fun. But last night, my mom surprised with $100 to play with.

So I started off with the penny slots, I was a little hesitant to spend the big bucks at first because I didnt want to just waste my moms money. And, I lost. Then I got brave and played with the $1 slots. I put a $20 in, got down to my last two dollars, then.....won $50! That was pretty exciting! After that, I wanted to learn some of the other places like the roulette table. My mom taught me how to do it, we played together at the same table, and right off the bat, on my very first bet, I won $70. I bet a couple more times, then cashed out. Later on, I pleyed roulette again with Trent, he was trying to win back the money he had lost, and I won another $40. All in all, I almost doubled my money, I made $90 last night. I tried giving it back to my mom, but of course she refused.

Most of us got pretty lucky last night. My mom made a good pretty good chunk of money, Abby was up for a while, then lost most of it. Trent found $20 on the ground, then made his loss back on the roulette table. Im not sure how Rachel did, her boyfriend Derek was down when I left. And my moms husband Mike was up to $250 from $100 on the roulette table.

I found out that at a casino, you have to bet big to win big. Playing penning slots is a waste of money, you get nowhere. The roulette table seemed to be the best chance for winning, unless your name is Abby. It was a minimum bet of $10, but you had a 50/50 chance of doubling that each time. Also, you have a very good chance of getting lung cancer in one night from secondhand smoke.

Im able

2009-03-11T15:40:00.007-04:00

I had an epiphany today, one that made me glad to be alive. I had just gotten out of class, walked out of the art building to once again realized it was cold and windy outside as the thought "I hate cold weather" had crept into my head. It was just warm yesterday, warm enough to wear only a tshirt and no jacket, now today it is in the teens.

Then it hit me.

It sounds a little strange, but I thought about how lucky I was to have the opportunity to feel the cold, just the chance to actually feel. Im not talking about thinking of other people who are in warm climates who have never been in freezing temperatures. Im talking about being alive, as in not dead. This isnt the first time Ive thought this. Sometimes while I am hating the cold weather because it makes me uncomfortable, at the same time I embrace the feeling of the bitter cold air on my face, its hard to describe why I do this, Im just happy to be alive I guess, happy to exist, glad that I have gotten the opportunity to be human. Im just trying to embrace the little things. I feel like I wont get these opportunities after I die. Or maybe its just a taste of what Ill get. Not sure.

This is a hard concept to describe. Just imagine that there are things out there, maybe angels or something, that dont have the opportunities that we do. We have certain abilities that we are born with. We are able to build relationships, laugh, cry, hurt, love, breathe oxygen, create, destroy, reason, eat, sleep, wonder, I feel like we are completely free, we have no bounds. It sounds really crazy when I write it down, I probably sound like I am mentally ill or something.

But this feeling makes me forget about the craziness of life, about the things I want or think I need, about problems with school and girls and money, and helps me see the big picture. Im just trying not to let life pass me by without noticing the characteristics of living, of existence in general. God had made the choice for me to exist, or to not exist, why shouldnt I embrace it?

Active Thursday

2009-03-07T03:02:00.004-05:00

I learned two life altering things yesterday. Two things that dont really apply to life, but are some amazing things to know.

I learned how to do a backflip, and learned how to solve a rubik's cube. Those are pretty big deals.

So yesterday it was really nice outside and warm so I decided to do a little "porch fratting", as we like to call it. A bunch of us in the fraternity go out front and toss a football or play cornhole or just sit around and talk. But Lauren, an ex-cheerleader, happen to be out front yesterday also. So Lauren, Jason, and I were having handstand contests, trying to do one handed handstands, and just doing random tumbling stuff together. It was probably pretty odd to passerbys seeing two guys and a girl doing all of these gymnastics stuff surrounded by a bunch of other frat boys doing manly frat boy things. But anyways, Jason has been trying to learn how to do a backflip lately. This sparked my interest. I can do a backflip on a trampoline and diving board, but have always wanted to do it on the ground. I asked them how to do it, they told me the basics, but I still wasnt really sure how. So I had Jason spot me, did the old "Im going for it!" and backing out thing a couple of times, then I just went for it. And you know what, I landed it! With a little help from Jason of course. Since then I have done about 10 backflips, Im getting a little better but still dont have the confidence to do it without a spotter. Ill keep working on it.

Also, I learned how to solve a Rubik's cube. Aj has been playing with one for the last couple of weeks, learning to solve it himself and he finally learned how, so I told him to teach me. Its pretty conmplicated. There are different algorithms for different situations and about a hundred million different steps involved. I solved it once, but I keep forgetting the algorithms so I have to go back to Aj and have him tell me. Again, I still need to work on it to get it all down.

But yeah, those are some pretty major things to learn, especially for one day! I should learn things like this everyday!

Sex Offenders

2009-03-06T01:34:00.005-05:00

So for the last couple of hours, Ive been looking at this Family Watchdog website, and for some reason I am hooked on it. I would not recommend looking up this website, simply because it is very addicting. Its a website with a list of sex offenders all around the US. The descriptions include a picture, what they did, when they did it, where they did it, where they are now, and a bunch of other personal info.

I started with, of course, Bremen. There were a few in the area, more than I thought would be. One person in Bremen was convicted of rape and voluntary manslaughter, but luckily he lives on the other side of town from my sisters. That just blows my mind that there is someone in my town that had killed a person.

Then I moved on to South Bend, West Lafayette, Los Angeles (full of rapers), and have now been stuck on New York City for quite a while now. I cant even describe how terrified I am of New York based upon the number of sex offenders. It has taken me a good half hour to forty minutes to look at all of the people within one mile of the center of New York. I am completely astonished.
In West Lafayette, there is a man that lives within a few blocks from the apartment I will be living in next year that had committed murder. MURDER. He killed a person, and he is living within bullets distance of me.

But most of all, as I am going through this list, I try to look at each and every person and see them as a person. I have to try and understand why they did what they did. I look at their picture and wonder what went on throughout their life that led to that moment, the moment where their one wrong decision would affect the rest of their life. I had to imagine each person committing their crime, how it happened, why it happened, who the victim was, how it affected that person, if they feel bad, if they even care at all.

I imagine these people as children, each and every one of them was a child at one point, playing with their friends, going to school, looking up to someone. Were they teased? Were they abused? Were they fatherless, motherless? Who were their influences? When was the turning point from innocence?

I imagine each of them was a newborn, at one point their mothers had wrapped them in their arms after birth.

I try and love them. I try to see them as human beings and love them. But then I go back to what they had done. These people look terrible. They look jaded, worn out, most of them look either drugged up or intimidating. They rape children. They sexually abuse their wives. They commit unimaginable acts. I can't love them. I can't love a rapist. I can't love a child molester. I can't love a murderer. But God does.

Why?

One man had committed 1st degree rape, incest, and sexual abuse...on a five year old. Why does God love him?

I have never committed a crime, sexually abused someone, raped anyone, or even been in a fight. I have a personal relationship with our God and love and worship Him. And He loves these rapists just as much as he loves me. This is astounding to me, and also very confusing.

Those were my thoughts from Family Watchdog.

and finally....Life Drawing III

2009-03-02T22:27:00.012-05:00

Life Drawing II

2009-02-28T16:36:00.018-05:00

Life Drawing I

2009-02-25T22:47:00.018-05:00

In my Life Drawing class, we do so many drawings a day that I couldnt decide which ones to pick for my blog, so Im gonna make this post a several parter. These arent really that good, they were from the beginning of the semester, there are some better ones on the way.

Im back online!!

2009-02-25T01:23:00.003-05:00

I finally got my computer fixed! I still dont know what was wrong with it, but I was cleaning my room the other day and found a recovery disk for my computer, so I had my friend use it, I dont have a clue when it comes to computers. He basically copied my files (pictures, music, Photoshop files, the important stuff) to an external hard drive, completely cleared mine, then copied the files back to my computer. Somewhere in that process it fixed the problem.

And I really want to get back into blogging every day, Ive had a lot on my mind. But for now, its late and I have to get up in a few hours. So Ill call it a night.

Artists from the Past, and me

2009-02-12T13:49:00.004-05:00

So, Im taking an Art History class this semester, Post Modernism, and all in all, its pretty boring. I guess its interesting to see the different styles and get some inspiration for my own work, but I never really paid attention to the artists and their lives, until recently. I was listening to our instructor discuss one artists life, Yves Klein, and it hit home how related his thoughts are to mine, and the way he lived his life. Then I started thinking about all of the other artists we had talked about in that period, and how their thoughts are also very similar to mine.

Artists are pretty weird. We are thinkers. We are definately outside-the-box thinkers. Average, everyday things dont really concern us. We think more about the complexities of life, why we think certian ways, why we do this, what does that mean. Then we try and give an answer with a different perspective. This has been proven in the art world time and time again with all the different movements. A couple that come to mind are the Dada movement, and Zero, which are actually pretty similar. Artists are constantly trying to change the way we view things. Our brains run at a hundred miles per hour, constantly.

Today, I had an exam in that class. Four essay questions with 15 minutes to complete each question. The exam was easy for me, I have gone to every class so I remembered everything we talked about in class. But anyways, we got a spare sheet of paper to write thoughts down before we write our essay, and I just started writing random notes that I was thinking at the time. Right after I finished one of the questions, I started thinking about why I always write with a pen, especially essay questions. I wrote on my spare paper something like,"With pen, its easy to make mistakes, mistakes you cant correct. Your mistake is present, there is no way of hiding it. You may try, but it only makes things worse, you cant cover up your mistakes without everyone still able to see it. Such is life." At another point during the exam I wrote,"We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war, our Great Depression is our lives." Its from Fight Club. Then I thought, without suffering, there would be no happiness. We need suffering to become happy.

I didnt know we had to turn in that sheet, my instructor is gonna read that haha.

Then, later on after I came back from class, I went to AJs room and hes reading this book about the four behavioral styles: Director, Thinker, Relator, and Socializer. I was almost definately a Thinker. The book said that a thinker is the only group that thinks about the complexities of life, is generally introverted, has trouble making decisions, trouble sleeping, creativity, things like that.

AND.....the other day I was in that same class, thinking about these artists lives, thinking about how their thinking has left an impact on the world....a very small impact......and mostly in the world of art.....but an impact nonetheless. That was inspiring.

But then again, they lived....then they died. Their lives were short. Their lives are now defined by their artwork, not their thinking. And several of them had committed suicide. Thats depressing.

Yep, Still Alive

2009-02-04T17:47:00.002-05:00

It sucks not being able to have a computer. I tried getting it fixed, one of my friends in the fraternity is a computer wiz, but he said that he has no idea whats wrong with it. I dont know what Im gonna do, and I definitely cant afford a new one. This is why I havent been blogging lately, I just dont have time to go to a computer lab on campus just to blog, Im never near one.

But anyways, Im on AJs computer right now, he always keeps his unlocked, and since hes nowhere to be found, Ill take a few minutes to update. Im really enjoying my classes. Well, some of them. If you dont remember, Im taking Life Drawing, History of Modern Art, Agronomy, and Jewelry and Metalwork. I really enjoy Life Drawing, its pretty challenging, but Im learning a lot in that class, and I feel like I can be more creative and draw super fast now. All of our drawings are less than five minutes, its nuts! It sucked at first, but now Im getting used to it. Ill get some pics posted when I get my dern computer running again. History and Agronomy are just lectures, pretty boring classes. It gives me some time to do crossword puzzles. And I thought Jewelry and Metalwork would be a lot more enjoyable, but I really dont like that class so far. There is so much to know about metal, and everything has a certian order of process, its just too much information to know, and drawing is much easier for me.

Also, I signed a lease on an apartment for next year. Im living with my friends Jim and Jordan. Jim is a brother in the house, and Jordan is one of my friends from Industrial Design days. Its about the same distance to campus, well, to the art building, but a heck of a lot cheaper. Its $350 a month plus gas, per person. Its a heck of a lot better than $623 a month in the fraternity. Maybe Ill actually have some spending money next year.

And currently, my funds are unavailable to me. My debit card got cancelled bacause someone got a hold of a bunch of numbers, and mine was one. It also happened to AJ. So I have no way of getting money for a couple of weeks, until they send me a new one in the mail. I could drive back to Rochester and get some money at that bank, but thats way to far away.

So, theres a short little update, Im really sorry for this, I want to get back in the swing of blogging, but its hard when your giant paper weight of a computer just sits on your desk and stares at you with a blank face.

VIRUS!!

2009-01-20T19:09:00.002-05:00

I know that I havent posted in quite a while, mostly because I have been busy catching up and hanging out with all of my friends. But now, I have a slight (major) problem with my computer that has rendered it useless. Its gotta be a virus of some sort, Im not really sure, I dont know computers very well. So now, I am unable to use my computer for now. Im at a computer lab right now typing this one. This is really a bummer because I have some MAJOR things that I have been thinking about and really want to write them down! So stay patient and some good posts will be coming!

He Makes Me Smile

2009-01-11T23:27:00.003-05:00

So tonight I went to church here at Purdue, the one I always go to, Purdue Campus Christian House. I went to the 8pm service alone tonight. I was gonna go with Cam but he bailed at the last minute so I went by myself. Luckily I knew someone there and she let me sit with her and her husband.

But anyways, there are certain, little things in life that just absolutely thrill me. And one of those things is worship. I love it! I love singing, I love thinking about the words, and I love singing to God. And I always have to close my eyes during worship because I get easily distracted by pretty girls and shiney objects.

I didnt always like worship though. Actually it used to be my least favorite part because I dont really like to sing in front of people. But I always used to aim my attention toward myself during worship, only thinking about peoples reactions if they heard my voice. Once I realized that its not about me, it became much more enjoyable. Now I sing at the top of my lungs for Him.

But anywho, every single time we worship, I have to smile. I cant help it, there is just this overwhelming joy that comes over me. I start thinking about how happy it makes God to hear the words I sing, and that these words are only for Him. And sometimes, I just stop and listen to everyone else sing. Not because I wanna hear who is singing and who isnt, or who is good and who isnt. I stop and just listen to the beauty that we are creating. The beauty of all of these different voices mixed with the talent of the band. And its all in the name of God. All for Him. That makes me smile even more! What a powerful connection this gives us with God.

But sometimes I dont smile during worship.

Lately I have been pretty out of touch with God. I feel like I am pretty much a Sunday Christian nowadays, and that really bugs me. I havent touched my Bible since.....probably this summer. And I just dont see God in everyday situations anymore. I want to, but I hate to say that life consumes me nowadays, and frankly, Im just not looking anymore. I cant look up anymore, only at my feet.

I was thinking about this tonight while walking back from church. I was thinking about how this had happened. Im still not sure exactly how, but its probably because I have been thinking of only me. Living selfishly. Which is not a good thing. Not at all. Ive been walking alone.

But last weekend I went to church back home, Horizen Ministries. And of course, I couldnt wait until worship. But this time I didnt smile. I sang the words, processed the words, and was overwhelmed by this huge feeling of love. I usually feel this way during worship, but this time it was different. I started thinking about the way I had been living the past few months, being so selfish and shutting God out of my life, and when I was overcome by this feeling of love, I couldnt handle it. I felt like I didnt deserve it. And couldnt fathom why He would still love me after what I had done to Him. This time, a smile didnt cover my face. This time, tears filled my eyes. And I tried my hardest not to let it show, being so prideful and all. But these tears started out as sad tears, then turned quickly into joyful tears. Isnt it amazing to think of His love and forgiveness. All we have to do is give Him a chance.

Back at School

2009-01-10T15:55:00.002-05:00

Well, I came back to Purdue on Thursday morning. I swear I was the first person back on campus, I was at least the first one back at ATO. Immediately I checked my situation with my classes and such. Again it wasnt quite as easy as you would think to schedule just one more class. First of all, the money I paid a few days earlier didnt actually go towards my hold, it went towards my tuition, which financial aid would have covered once I got the money. So I was running around all day Thursday trying to get this resolved, running from building to building, and calling and emailing people. Finally, Friday morning they got everything squared. It was a very messing situation. Then I got online to finish scheduling one more class, and none of the classes I needed to take were available. Not one single class had any room for me. So I had to sign up for some agronomy class. I dont even know what agronomy is.

And again, I will have no money this semester. I am getting a check from the school here in a couple of days for $10,112. Your probably thinking,"holy crap Ben, you will have a TON of money for this semester." Once again, wrong-o. Rent for the rest of the year (plus late fees) is around $4,700. I have to pay my mom back $3,000. I have to pay my dad back $1,100. Meal plan for lunches at the house is around $400. Dues for the fraternity are about $300-$400. That leaves very little money left for living. So, of course, I need to get a job. Ive been looking around already and have asked at a couple of places if theyre hiring, but havent had any luck yet. I might be able to get a job at a sorority cleaning dishes, and I get a free meal out of it, which would be great because I wont be able to afford dinner. And I wanted to get a second job on top of that. So hopefully I will make enough money to survive this semester. Ive already been budgeting, I bought a ton of Ramen noodles for dinners and some other cheap food like PB&J. Its gonna be a challenge this semester, but I think I can do it. Im gonna have to skip out on going out to the bars a lot with my friends though, and control my impulse buys.

So yeah, thats whats going on here. Im really excited to be back, and pretty motivated to do well this semester, for some reason. Usually I dread it when classes have to start back up, but Im pretty excited now. That will probably change in a week.

Motorcycles, Paintings, and Ceramics

2009-01-07T00:52:00.020-05:00

Just to finish up some stuff I never put up, here is some more artwork from Christmas and some of my ceramics projects from the past semester.

Christmas present for good 'ol grandpa Tom Christmas present for Dad

Christmas present for Mom (first time using watercolor)

Another for Mom (first time using acrylic)

Hand made from clay, it had to be as lifelike as possible and twice the size of a real hand. I accidentally broke two fingers off right before my final critique, so they are just superglued back on. Oh, and the whole thing is hollow. Yeah, it was tough to make.

It looks pretty creepy, huh.

Lidded box

Pot, not an urn.

Abstract that had to be inspired by song, poem, literature, etc.

My inspiration was Today is Alive. Read this below, its an explination that I had to write about why I used this poem and how I incorporated it into my piece.

Update on Life

2009-01-06T14:19:00.003-05:00

Well, Christmas break has been kind of crazy this year. Im not used to floating around so much, that is, trying to find places to stay. Well, its not that I cant find places to stay, I just have to find which places easily fit my schedule. Its been hectic, but bearable.

Im finally over my illness. It stuck around for just about three full weeks. And it was probably the worst illness Ive ever had. I wouldnt wish mono on my worst enemies. It started out as flu symptoms: fever, chills, massive headaches, stomach aches. Then it progressed to extreme weakness, there would days where I would do nothing but lay on the couch and watch TV, I didnt even have the energy to get up and eat. Then it progressed to strep like symptoms. My throat was a mess, for a couple of days it was tough breathing because it was so swollen. Then when I would sleep, I had to breathe through my mouth because my nasal passage was nearly swollen shut, and when I would wake up in the mornings, all of the mucus and flem in my throat would dry up and it would just be a nasty mess back there. (Arent you glad Im going into such detail!) All the while, Im still getting fevers about every day. Toward the end, I began to regain strength and I would be fine for a day, then the next day it would seem to come back. This happened for about four or five days. But now, all I have is a little bit of a sore throat, but its not bad at all. Im feeling about 98% better.

I went to the doctor yesterday to get checked for ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder, if you didnt know). Ive known for a while that I for sure have it, but havent really done anything about, just put up with it. But lately its been affecting my everyday life, read I forget EVERYTHING , so I figured I had to do something about it. So I went to the doctor, he asked me a bunch of questions about my studying habits, memory, time and money management, organization, and, no surprise, I was diagnosed with ADD. Actually, I was diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), which was kind of a surprise, I never really thought I was that hyper. But in adults, the hyperactivity is mostly impatience and impulsive behaviors, which are obviously me. So he gave me some trial pills, today is the first day Ive taken them, and I already notice a difference. But we'll see how it affects me in the future.

Hmm, what else. Oh, I never updating my housing situation for second semester at Purdue. I had a couple of people come up to me and ask if I was still getting kicked out of the fraternity. Well, Im not. I met up with the Board of Trustees, a group of people that oversee the decisions of the house, and I pled my case to them. Their conclusion was that I really didnt do anything wrong, so I get to stay in the house. But my roommate and one other guy got evicted. So they are getting an apartment together for spring semester.

I also had another huge ordeal involving registering for classes and paying Purdue more money, its a huge mess and Im still dealing with it. The problem is that I still havent finished registering for my classes, so Im still not a full time student yet. And since Im not yet a full time student, I wont get my financial aid money. But I have hold on my record, I have to pay $3,938 before I can finish setting up my classes. But I couldnt get that money until I get my financial aid. But I couldnt get my financial aid until I got my classes finished. But I couldnt get my classes until I got that paid..........do you see the mess here? Yeah, it is complicated. But, I did get the $3,938 paid today, I had to borrow some money from my parents, which I will pay back when I get my aid money. So now I just need to finish registering for classes. And since classes start Monday, I need to do that as soon as possible, but I have the wait till I get back to school because all of my classes information is there (which ones I need to take). Ill need to head back sometime in the next couple days. So that has been a huge hassle also.

But other than all that crap, Ive just been lounging around. Ive been playing with my camera a lot and messing around with Photoshop even more. Ive got some pretty good pics that I adjusted in Photoshop that will probably show up on here sometime.

Photos!

2009-01-02T23:39:00.011-05:00

Well, Ive been playing around with my camera a bunch the last couple of days, and these are some of my more favorite pictures that Ive taken. Most of them were taken today at my aunt and uncles house while playing pool (obvi), the rest were at Todds on New Years Eve. Enjoy!!

Stitch Assisted photo of Jane's Park in Bremen (click on it for detail)

Turkey Sandwich

2008-12-26T13:50:00.003-05:00

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I went to the doctors office today because I am still feeling quite ill, and was diagnosed with mononucleosis, the kissing disease. And what do you know, the doctor can't do anything about it. There are no prescriptions or remedies for this illness, I just have to wait it out. He told me it could last from 1 to 4 weeks, just in time for Xmas break to end. I ran another fever last night, and this morning when I woke up, my throat was nearly swollen shut. Worst Christmas ever.

But on the bright side, I got some pretty sweet gifts. I didnt get a lot, but thats alright, I dont really expect to get a ton of gifts anymore. I mean, of course I got the usual, socks and underwear (which I enjoy getting), candy, gift cards, a ukulele. You know, the usual. Haha, yeah Trent and Abby bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I havent played it yet, but its right next to me waiting for the tickle of my fingers.

But my favorite gift of all is my Canon PowerShot SX10 IS. This is one awesome digital camera. I started reading the owners book it came with, but I just barely tapped into its capabilities. Im planning on reading that book for days until I know everything there is to know about this camera. Ive already discovered some pretty amazing features already, like the color accent and color replacement features. The color accent feature allows me to single out one color, take red for example, and turn everything else black and white. Its pretty cool. The other feature lets me turn one color into another. I took a pitcure of some trees in Trents back yard and turned them orange. I thought that was really neat. And Trent got a Nikon D60 from his parents, so we went out yesterday to the park and took some pictures.

By the way, this post has nothing to do with a turkey sandwich. And, my moms internet isnt that good, so this is the only picture it would allow me to upload. It with the color accent feature. Ill have more when Im able.

Still Sick

2008-12-24T00:56:00.003-05:00

Well loyal readers, I apologize for not putting up anything interesting in the last week or so, Ive just been really sick. Im pretty sure its the flu, or maybe even a sinus infection, but either way its 8, going on 9 days that Ive had it. And its been getting worse the last couple of days, I dont even feel like moving from the couch. Im back at my moms house right now and she keeps telling me to go to the doctor, but Im stubborn and refuse. I figure that my doctor is only going to tell me what I already know (that Im sick) and charge me an arm and a leg for that bit of useless information. So, Ill just keep living off of Ibuprofen until I get better. I figure if Im not better by the day after Christmas, Ill go see a doctor, see what he has to say.

Official Christmas Break

2008-12-21T23:46:00.004-05:00

Oy! Finally, Im on Christmas Break! I went back to school on Thursday to take my final exam on Saturday. I went back kind of early because we were supposed to get hit by a huge snow and ice storm that night and I didnt want to drive through it. But once I got back to school, I was really surprised at how many people were still on campus. Usually during finals week, everyone leaves like halfway during finals week, but apparently there were a ton of people with Saturday finals, like me.

My exam was pretty easy though. It was for Spanish 202 (my second time around in that class), my fifth semester in spanish. I started studying for the exam about two hours beforehand. I had an energy drink while studying and it was pretty effective, so I had another before my exam. Then afterwards, while driving home, I had one more energy drink. Thats a lot of energy. But I needed it because of the long, boring drive home.

But right after my exam, I had to go to my aunts house for a Christmas party. I only showed up about two hours late. But at least there was still some food left! So I did the usual: ate, we did some gift giving, then I played Rock Band with my cousins and sister and Trent for the rest of the night while my uncle got drunk and stunk up that basement because he gets bad gas when he has beer.

And now, Im staying at my dads house in Granger. And Ive been really sick all of last week. It sucks....hard. I think I caught the flu. Im not throwing up or anything but Ive gotten fevers and chills and aches every night since last Monday. I hate getting sick, and I rarely do, Im usually a pretty healthy person, but this one has lingered for far too long.

Anyways, thats just an update from the last few days.

Shay

2008-12-18T22:52:00.001-05:00

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.

Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?'

The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.'

Then he told the following story: "Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps. I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the nin! th inning.' Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have e asily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!' Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!' Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball. The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball! high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay' Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run to third! Shay run to third!' As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team. 'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'. Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!"

I Like You

2008-12-17T02:48:00.004-05:00

I Love my car,
With its leather seats and cruise control.

I Love my job,
Its benefits and income are more than bearable.

I Love my house,
The hardwood floors and earthy tones are rather comforting.

I Love summer,
Everything seems so perfect and beautiful.

I Love cooking,
All that effort makes eating that much more enjoyable.

I Love singing,
My voice sounds terrific in the shower.

I Love snow,
The danger and possibilities have a clutch on me.

I Love ice cream,
Pretty much any flavor as long as its coffee flavored.

I Love music,
It can put you into any emotion you desire.

I Love these,
I Love those.

But you know what,
I Like You.

It seems that we are becoming desensitized to the word Love. We hear the word Love everyday, in even the simplest comments about the simplest things.

We've heard people say they love us since the day we were born. But it doesnt have that great of an impact anymore. We know that we will always be loved, but sometimes the people who love us dont even like us. So to hear them say, "I Like You" is so different and wonderful. Because, although they will always love you, in that instant....they Like You.

It Christmas Time!

2008-12-15T23:30:00.003-05:00

Well, Im back home from school already. Technically, its still finals week back at school, and technically I still have one final exam to take, but its not until Saturday. So Ill head back to school sometime Friday, study a little, then take the exam Saturday afternoon. Then come back home.

But Im wondering if I shouldve come home this week, again I feel weird just crashing at peoples houses, Im at my sisters' apartement right now. I wish I still had a "home" though, now I consider ATO my home. But I basically just came back this week to help out the high school wrestlers, when Im home I help coach them.

But being home has got me into the Christmas spirit! Seeing all of the presents and lights and snow (or lackthereof) has reminded me that Christmas is near. And fearful that Christmas is near. I came back to Bremen with $14. Then I went to the store tonight and bought some PBJ, bread, and some beans to eat this week, I dont want to eat all of my sisters' food, so I decided to get something cheap to live off of. That set me back $5. So now I only have about $9 in my bank account. My selfish spending and poor planning this semester has left me with $9 for Christmas.

So I have no money for gifts. I feel bad that everyone is buying me all of these expensive gifts for Christmas that I will probably love, and I have nothing to give in return. Thats a horrible feeling. And I hate taking charity. In the past, Ive had my mom or dad buy some gifts for other people and put my name on it. I hate that. Sometimes I dont even know what it is. Thats not right. Thats hardley even a gift for that person, its more of gift to me. But I do have a couple of things in mind that dont involve gift giving, but giving nonetheless. Some tricks up my sleeve.

But anywho, I do love coming home for Christmas break to see my family and wrestle and eat some delicious Christmas dinners. Hopefully this will be a good Christmas.

Sketches Part II

2008-12-14T12:46:00.011-05:00

We had to do 90 pages of sketches for the semester in my Drawing II class, I already posted some from the first half of the semester, but here are the rest. I had to do 45 more pages in the last 8 weeks......and I did 30 yesterday. It took quite a while. But anywho, here are some of the better ones. Enjoy! (Once again, if you click on the picture, it will enlarge)

Quick sketch for Old Man

Sketches for Sexy Girl

Experimenting with abstracts

Recreation from MDE-Art

My favorite

I dont know why I made her look anorexic, it was an accident

Another recreation from MDE-Art

Poor Decisions

2008-12-14T02:14:00.007-05:00

A couple of days ago I blogged about how I like being young because I get to be stupid and make poor decisions. Well, I made one the other day. And it actually doesnt feel that great, actually I feel really stupid.

For lunch on Friday, I went to Harry's Chocolate Shop, one of the more popular bars on campus. Adam and I go nearly every Friday because they have a good lunch special and its just great being in that atmosphere, especially when its cold out. We are like regulars there on Friday afternoons, the waitress even knows us and expects us. But since it was the last Friday of the semester, we decided to invite several other guys in the house to join us. So I arrived there with Brad at about 1:30pm and met up with four other guys who had already been there a while, Adam was still at an exam.

When we got there, the guys already had a pitcher waiting for us, it was their third and couldnt finish it, so me and Brad took it. And usually when Adam and I go, we'll each have a beer with our lunch, or maybe even nothing, but since it was the last Friday, I decided to allow myself a couple more, but not enought to get drunk because I was taking a girl out later that night and I wanted to be prepared for it. So throughout our lunch, Brad ordered a couple more pitchers. Then Adam eventually came, and we ordered a couple more pitchers on top of that. I kept saying no more, but would cave in and finish my share. All in all, I think me and Brad had about 4 or 5 pitchers of beer. Thats a lot! We left Harrys at 5pm after being there for 3 and a half hours. Needless to say, I was gone.

So I had to pick up Christine at 7pm that night, we were going to a dance show in the art building, a show for the dance majors. She is on the Purdue Dance Team, so I thought she might be interested that. But anyways, once I got back to my room I started eating a bunch of crackers and drinking a ton of water to try and sober up. But I eventually fell asleep (passed out) on my couch at about 6pm. I was awaken by my buddies at 6:45, and I felt like I was in no shape to go anywhere. So I texted her that I couldnt go because I wasnt feeling well, but never sent it because that wouldve been really really crappy of me to cancel 15 minutes ahead of time. So before I left, I decided that I needed to get all of that crap out of me. So I went to bathroom and made myself purge. Once I got back to my room and got my teeth brushed, it was 6:57. I put on my coat and shoes and a ton of cologne, headed out the door, and sprinted to her dorm....I mean, I was at a full out sprint the whole way, which luckily isnt too far, only three or four miles. Ha, just kidding. But once we met up, I tried to play off that I wasnt drunk, but probably wasnt very convincing. I probably smelled like alcohol and vomit, and couldnt really walk straight. So as we were walking over to the art building, I confessed that I was still a little drunk from lunch and apologized, she just laughed and said it was fine, but who knows.

I sobered up during the dance show though. It was actually a pretty interesting show, and a lot shorter than I thought it would be. But anyways, as we were walking back I invited her back to ATO to hang out, and she agreed. So we talked for a while, then popped in a movie, then I walked her back.

But I feel really stupid that I got that drunk right before taking her out. I should have just stopped at the first pitcher. And I hope she doesnt think Im some big stupid fratboy drunk or something because she is a really sweet and really pretty girl. But anyways, theres one more lesson learned. Idiot award goes to me.

Drawing II Projects

2008-12-13T12:32:00.008-05:00

So, the semester is finally over, I got all of my Drawing II projects done and Im about to turn them in for my final critique on Tuesday. But I thought I would share some of them with you before I turn them in. These are in chronological order, so they get progressively better.

Quick drawing of myself with charcoal
Created Scenary

Abstract

Clay hand using different media

Ok for this one we had to draw 4 animals and an object out of a hat, and combine them to make one crazy animal. I got a giraffe, praying mantis, pidgeon, shark, and a cake. This is what I came up with, it was silly but everyone loved it. (Not sure why that guy looks like Trent, I just created him from my head)

Pointillism of clay form(I almost went crazy drawing these hundreds of billions of dots)

Old man using marker and chalk

Sexy girl

Soon will be pics from my sketchbook (which I personally think are better), and some ceramics stuff.

Live to Dream, or Living a Dream

2008-12-11T01:31:00.005-05:00

Disclaimer: I have never really written poetry before, or even read any for that matter, but lately I have been trying to get into it. Its really helping me to sort out my thought, its more of a creative way to express my thoughts and opinions. And I apologize if its too simpleminded or doesnt make sense, or is just really badly written, Im no pro at this.

But for today, I just basically started typing and came up with this.

Live to Dream, or Living a Dream

Somedays when we wake, the only thing we want is to go back to sleep.
We feel that we can't face the world, all it brings is pain and sorrow.
On this day, our dreams are the only thing which make us happy,

Our dreams can carry us away from the misery.
They fill us with emotion, they let us be content,
They evoke beautiful thoughts of the past and sweep us away from the present.

All we need in that moment is to get away.
Its like a drug trip, just a mode of transportation for the mind.

Once there, and only there, can we become happy, can we become whomever we want.

Then there are the days where life is a dream.
You want to stay in that moment forever.
No dream that has ever been dreamt can compare to the dream you are living.

You wish time would stand still,
You wish life was really this great,
You wish that tomorrow would never come.

Nothing could happen to dull the moment,
As fragile as we are in this moment, we feel like steel,
Thinking that even rust couldnt break us.

Emotion can be a funny thing,
It gives us the power to create our world or feel invincible in this.
It can change each day from living a dream, to living to dream.

The Reformation of the Sushi

2008-12-09T11:30:00.004-05:00

Heres a Haiku I wrote while I couldnt sleep last night.

I have a poopage
But the radio is off
Silence makes me shy

Just a little bit of "occupational" humor from the "office".

My New Favorite Blog

2008-12-08T15:04:00.004-05:00

Ive really been getting into my drawing class, trying to discover new techniques and subjects, and I happen to stumble across this blog. Its pretty amazing. Expect to see some work like this from me in the future.

Here it is.

Oh and by the way, the semester is almost over which means that Ill be posting some more pics from my sketchbook and projects here pretty soon. Im pretty excited to show some of the new stuff, some of it even amazes me! And Im my own biggest critic!

Im getting so old

2008-12-08T01:56:00.005-05:00

I feel like Im getting old. I turn 22 in March. Twenty-two!! Then shortly after is 23. Which is nearly halfway to 50! Im almost 50 years old! Haha, ok I might be exaggerating a bit.

But seriously, I was thinking about this today, and I really dont want to turn 22. I dread the fact that everyday, I am one day closer to 22. I feel like when I turn 22, Ill have to grow up. But I dont want to grow up. I dont want to have responsibilities. I dont want to act mature. I like being young, making stupid decisions, having fun, dodging the real world. I still cant even believe Im 21 already, I feel like I just graduated from high school. And I dont feel any different from then, I feel like the same person as back then. I certainly dont act any different. Well, according to my dad, I dont act any different than a 5 year old though.

But, a couple of years ago, I had already realized that Im getting older, and I decided that Im not going to grow up.

I may grow old, but I wont grow up.

If you have ever met my grandpa Tom, you would know that he is the perfect example of this. He is, I believe, 68 years old, and he doesnt act much differently than me. He still likes to have fun and be goofy, popping his teeth out, making funny faces, being silly, and just enjoying life.

Alright, Im going to go off on a tangent here. But when I was younger, I used to spend about two or three weeks every summer down at my grandpas house. He lives down in southern Illinois, which is about six hours from my house, so I would only get to see him a couple of times a year. So for probably four of five years, I would live with him for a few weeks each summer. And I think that his personality rubbed off on me a little. I think that part of him had shaped who I am.

He is not a wealthy man. His whole house is about the same size as our kitchen and living room combined. He lives on a dirt road, out in the boonies, with a few old garages and barns around his house, and a bunch of, what he likes to call, "stuff." You may call it junk, but we refer to it as "stuff." His workshop is an old, gutted mobile home. He used to own two or three little Ford Festivas, and loved them terribly. Actually, I still think he has one, a newer one. And he knows every single person in town. And their brother. We would just be driving down the road, he would point to a house, tell me who lives there, who used to live there, who they are related to, where they work, how he knows them, and so on and so forth. He is also a recovered alcohol, and he could probably tell you to the day how long hes been sober. I think its been like twenty some or thirty some years. I have a huge amount of respect for that, that takes a strong will.

In those few years of spending time with my grandpa, I learned a lot, and Im still learning from him. I learned some things like how to drive a stick shift, how to ride a dirt bike, I rode my first motorcycle with him, and a ton of other little things. I distinctly remember him teaching me what a cliche is. I dont know, its one of those tiny memories that stick. But now that Im older and looking back, Im also realizing that Ive learned even more from him that I didnt even know I was being taught, or he even knew he was teaching. Like how to talk to people, strangers, how to treat them like people. Ive learned to not take life so seriously, because the things society thinks are important, really arent that important.

Ive learned how to be young, even when youre old.

But anywho, Im just saying, I dont really think I have to grow up quite yet. My grandpa hasnt, and he seems pretty happy. But I still dont wanna turn 22.

I forget EVERYTHING

2008-12-05T11:37:00.005-05:00

Its true, I have the memory of a 98 year old. I seem to always forget just about everything: important dates, where things are, peoples names, even people Ive known for years. Yeah, things like that. When Im going anywhere with my friends, I always tell them to give me at least ten minutes before we leave so that I can find my keys, license, shoes, whatever. I will set them down somewhere and forget where I put them. Every single time. Ask any of my friends.

I forgot my friends first name, one of my friends in ATO. I always call him by his last name, and one night I could not, for the life of me, remember what his first name was. Its Matt, I was thinking it was Ryan.

The other day I sat next to a girl in class who Ive known since my freshman year of college, MaryAlice. I havent seen her much lately, maybe a few times in the last two years. But as we were talking, I was trying to think of how I even know her. I have no idea how I met this girl, not a clue. The earliest memory I have of her is I used to talk to her while she was working at the CoRec (Sports Center at Purdue) before I would work out. Im sure I didnt meet her there, I dont just meet people that way.

And my poor memorization often gets me into trouble.

Last night I was laying in bed (couch) doing my usual two hours of thinking before I fall asleep when I realized that I forgot to register for classes for next semester. I was given one day to register, December 4th, and it completely slipped my mind. I already missed the first deadline, a whole week in early November dedicated to signing up for classes.....I forgot. I forgot a whole week. Then I kept forgetting to make an appointment with my advisor. And now, most of the classes I need to take are full, so Im not really sure what to do.

Also, I still havent paid rent this semester. And now they are considering encumbering my registration. That means that I wont be allowed to register for classes until I pay that money. Which, now I dont have enough money for the whole semester. So Im not sure what Im going to do. Its not that I refused to pay it, well I did for a while when I thought I was getting evicted, but its just that I usually cant find my checkbook, or when I do have it in my hands, about ready to write the check, my mind wanders elsewhere for a second and I dont come back to it until a month later.

Actually, Im starting to think that I have a severe case of ADD or something.

I cant study. I will go to the library for maybe 4 or 5 hours and only get about 20 minutes of studying in. The rest of the time, Im just thinking about other things, or playing with my pencil or something. I will sit there, focus hard for about 2 whole minutes, then my mind wanders for about 10 minutes and I will completely forget about studying.

Most people would call me irresponsible. I just dont remember to do things. Its horrible, really.

Stacee texted me last night and told me I forgot to take her out last night. I promised to take her out earlier in the week.

Im actually pretty pissed at myself for being so forgetful. Its sucks being like this. And its probably only going to get worse.

Music Pt. III

2008-12-03T12:23:00.002-05:00

So a couple of days ago I read Todds post on music, and then Trents post about the subject, and it has also got me thinking. It was a pretty good post about how when he was younger he always took music lessons, like piano lessons, and they would grade him on how well he could follow the sheet music, and how strikingly different it is now that he plays in the worship band and can just create the music as it comes. But the other day we had an impromptu concert at his house with me on the mountain dulcimer, Trent on the guitar, and Todd on the piano. We were just playing basically the same chords, but had no clue where we were going with it, freely playing as we went along. And you know what? It sounded pretty amazing, the concert turned out really well. Todds aunt even sent me an email saying how beautiful our concert was.

But what got me about Todds post was how this applies to our lives. Society has us playing sheet music, telling us exactly how to live our lives with no exceptions. And if we dont succeed on societies way of life, then we fail, just like if you dont play music exactly like its written, you fail. But if you can just create your own music with no boundaries or exceptions, you never know what you can create. It could turn out to be something beautiful, like our impromptu concert.

I was walking to class the other day, just listening to my ipod and dodging cars, when it hit me. No, not a car, a thought. Somewhere in the past couple of years, I have been creating my own music in life. I feel like I have been living an impromptu life. When I graduated high school, I had my whole life planned out. I was going to get a masters degree in mechanical engineering, find a wife in college, buy a brand new Jeep Wrangler after graduation, make $75K a year after college, have 2 children, a pool house, and live the perfect life. My life was just sheet music. But later on, I dont know if it was just common sense that kicked in or what, but I have completely changed my views on life now. I could have reached that goal though. I could have put all of my efforts in for that masters degree and Jeep Wrangler. But now, I am living life as it comes. I am a senior in college now, and I still have no idea what Im going to do or where Im gonna go. And honestly, I dont care. Its actually pretty exciting. Everyday is a blank canvas for me. I can create any scene I would like. Currently, my only set backs are graduation, I would like to graduate college eventually, and student loans, I need to make enough money after graduation to pay those. But other than those two things, I can do whatever I want. I can play whatever chords I feel like playing. Thats what hit me the other day, not a bus, although I have been close a time or two, those drivers just dont care.

Shenanigans

2008-12-01T16:29:00.002-05:00

Last year I had two roommates in the fraternity, Adam and Cam. And Adam and I would always play pranks on Cam, and they just kept getting worse and worse, and more creative. Actually, we started playing pranks on Cam even before we lived in the house. At first we started off with little things like putting his things in Jell-O or taping all of his possessions to the wall or ceiling, but then we got to more creative ideas. Its not like we dont like him or anything, hes just really easy to prank, and hes not creative or brave enough to get us back. But Id like to tell you about some of the things we've done to him.

The first big one I remember pulling was before Adam and I lived in the house, but Cam did. One weekend Cam went home to see his girlfriend, which kind of upset Adam and I because neither of us really liked her. So while he was gone, we figured it was the perfect time to pull a prank on him. We went to the store Priscillas, which is like one of those adult stores, and bought a gay porno magazine. I had to be the one to go up and pay for it, Adam absolutely refused. So we went back to the house and broke into his room. Once we got in, we ripped out all of the pages of the magazine, there were hundreds of pages of naked dudes, and hid them all over his room. I mean, we hid these things EVERYWHERE. We hid them in his bed, in his pillow case, his cereal, laundry detergent, behind his posters, in his books, in his clothes, everywhere! Once he got back, he found out what had happened and went on a search for them all. He found most of them right away, but still kept finding them weeks later. The very last one that was found was after he had moved out and the next guy, Brady, was moving in. Bradys dad discovered one while moving some old stuff around. Very funny.

Another small one included taking his towel while he was showering, which turned out bad for Adam because once Cam got back to the room, he chased us around naked and rubbed his balls on Adam. Bad news for Adam.

The next big one involved his vehicle. We put his car up for sell on craigslist, a 2004 Chevy Trailblazer, for $3500. I forget exactly what the discription said, but it was something like he needed to sell it quickly because he was leaving the country for a job and money was really no object. And we put his cell phone number on there so they would call him right away. Needless to say, he got a ton of phone calls. I think he ended up getting like 20 calls in the first ten minutes. But shortly after the sale was posted, they shut it down because it was fake, so Adam and I started calling a bunch of people having them call Cam about his truck. I even called my grandpa, who got a hold of Cam, and refused to accept the fact that the sale was a prank, my grandpa kept saying he needed it for his grandson. That was great.

Shortly after, we did another craigslist prank, putting his picture and information on the Men seeking Men section. I believe he got a few calls from that too.

Other small pranks. Adam got on Cams computer, onto Microsoft Word, and AutoCorrected the word "and" to say "Cam is gay". So everytime Cam would type the word and, it would automatically turn into Cam is gay.

We also signed him up for a Playboy tryout at Purdue. Playboy was in town trying to recruit girls for a special Big Ten edition, so we signed him up for a tryout.

We have signed him up for many online newsletters.

One prank that I am in the process of pulling is pretty creative too. I wrote a note saying, "Im terribly sorry, but I have smashed into you car. I have gone to the hospital to get my injuries checked out. Call me and we can work out a cash settlement, I dont have much money but I will help any way that I can. Call me at ************* and ask for Cam. Again, Im very sorry this happened." I made 50 copies of that and plan on putting them on 50 cars around campus. Some people think it wont work, since there will be no visible damage to the car. But I think that if I got that on my car, I would call and see whats up.

We have several other creative ideas, but havent gotten around to doing them yet. So there you have it, there are some of the shenanigans I get into with my friends.

Im still alive

2008-11-26T12:15:00.002-05:00

I just found out that its been quite a while since Ive posted anything on here. Ive been so busy lately, it seems like our professors love to make everything due right before Thanksgiving break, exams, projects, papers, ugh. And on top of that, Ive been sick all weekend with a nasty cold, I hate getting sick, Ive been drinking Zicam like its my job. But I am currently home (well, back in Bremen, I dont really have a "home" anymore), Im staying with my sisters at their apartment this week.

But other than that, not much has been going on. Ive been trying to prepare for Thanksgiving.....let me explain. I love to eat during Thanksgiving, a lot. During high school, I was unable to eat for thanksgiving because of wrestling, we always had a wrestling meet like two days after Thanksgiving, and I always had to cut weight. For four years, I could only eat like one strand of turkey and a roll maybe. So ever since, I have been trying to make up for those meals Ive had to miss. My goal is to eat twice my body weight in one sitting. And I love pumpkin pie, I look forward to eating pumpkin pie all year. Im really looking forward to this years Thanksgiving.

Oh yeah, and I love seeing my family and all that jazz, haha.

Fun Date

2008-11-16T14:11:00.005-05:00

So a couple of weeks ago I met a girl named Lindsay. Ive been hanging out with her quite a bit lately, but havent really told many people. I dont wanna get my hopes up, its seems like every time I do, I get my spirits crushed. But anyways, yesterday I called her to see if she wanted to hang out for the night, go to dinner or something. I didnt even plan anything for the night, just knew that we were going to eat somewhere, not even sure where. I picked her up at 6 and asked her where she wanted to eat. We agreed on a really nice place called Red Seven in downtown Lafayette. So we ate there, I got some salmon (which was scrumtulescent), and she got some Thai dish. Somewhere during our conversations we got to talking about Candyland, not sure why though (some foreshadowing), but overall the dinner was pretty fun. We always have these weird conversations about random things......which I love doing.

After dinner we decided to walk around downtown Lafayette a little to check it out. But we didnt do that for long because it was so freakin cold out. So we drove to Starbucks and got some coffee. And what do we see there as we're waiting in line? Candyland. So as we were sitting there drinking our coffee, we played a game of Candyland and ate a giant rainbow cookie. She won the game. I was very upset.

So as we were drinking our coffee, we were trying to come up with things to do for the rest of the night. She knew that I was taking a ceramics class and had been asking if we could go to the art building and play on the wheel. I was hesitant because I didnt want the instructor to be in there and chew me out, but figured it would be worth the risk. So we headed there next. They also had a gallery going on, so we checked that out first. Then headed to the ceramics room. We played on the wheel for a while, she made a nice plate with swirlies, I made a couple of cylinders, it was a good time. Cleaning up sucked though.

Afterwards we were at a loss for what to do. I brought up the idea that later we should buy a disposable camera and head to the bars and get our pictures taken with a bunch of drunk people, so we were planning on doing that later. It was probably 9:30 or 10 by this time, so it was far too early to meet drunks then. So we just got in the car and started driving around, thinking we would see something interesting and check it out.

Then we created a really fun game in the car. I told her to get a coin and at every intersection we would flip the coin to decide which direction to go. Heads is left, tails is right. And she came up with the rule that if its the same side as the previous flip, we go straight. But after every 10 minutes or so, we would forget which side meant which direction. So she came up with the expressions "Left our heads....", and "Right on our tails." And needless to say......we got lost. But we just trucked on until we found something familiar. We eventually made it back to campus and back to ATO. Once we got back we watched to movie Blow, and after the movie we were too tired to take pictures with drunks and she had to get up early for church, so I dropped her off and called it a night.

So that was a pretty fun, random night.

Colors Theory

2008-11-14T02:09:00.004-05:00

There are just some things in life we will never know. I think about these things a lot. I think more about the things in life that just pass by normal people. We will never know how others percieve us, how they view us, what their first impressions are. We will never know if the amount of toilet paper we use is a "normal" amount, how would we? We will never know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. And then, of course, I think of the more far out questions. We will never know how others visually view the world. A couple of years ago I was thinking about color and how people view it. Abby sort of touched up on this in an earlier post, which kind of reminded me of this.

My colors theory is how do we know that other people dont see different colors as I do? I know that there are color blind people, and I guess all they see is black and white and gray. But for the other people, how do I know that the color blue for me is also the color blue for them? What if my blue is their red? The color that they call blue is actually the color that I see as red, but they call it blue because thats what they have been taught to call it. Their visual perception of the world would be far different from mine. I mean, the same shapes would apply, but the colors that they see would be like a scene from a drug trip for me.

Actually, this theory has brought up several other questions in my mind. When someone is blind from birth, what do they dream about? When we dream, we see images of everyday life in our minds, but what would blind people see? Do they see images at all? What do deaf people think about? They cant talk inside of their heads like we do. When we think, we hear our own voices talking in our minds, but what do they hear? And then, think of people that speak different languages, they speak their own language inside their minds.

I think about some weird things, I really need a job or something. But Im sure that would just prompt more questions.

Weird Stuff

2008-11-11T02:00:00.005-05:00

I know that I think of some weird stuff a lot. And I usually think out loud. I will often times make a comment and in return get a, "whats wrong with you?" or "are you serious?" The other day I was sitting in my room hanging out with some guys, thinking about saliva for some reason. I wondered why we dont have a problem swallowing our own saliva when its in our mouths, but if we spit it out, say in a cup or something, we cringe at the thought of putting it back in our mouths. I mean, its the same saliva. Its not like its been too contaminated in the air. And of course, I said my thought to the group. I got some funny looks for that one.

Then I was walking back from studying tonight, and it was freezing cold outside. It was so cold I could clearly see my breath. And......I had to fart. But I hesitated because Im always unsure if when its cold enough to see your breath........if you can also see a fart. Unfortunately I was alone in my thinking on this one, I had no one to share my thoughts with then, and ultimately, no one to resolve my dilemma. I still dont know the answer to that one though. I guess thats just one of lifes mysteries.

Sin Management

2008-11-09T12:30:00.007-05:00

I have been thinking about this one for a while, just havent quite figured out all of the points I want to get across, but Ill give it my best shot. Its about sin management, as you can guess, and its the way we deal with our sins, how we manage them, in order to keep us pure. I feel that a good portion of Christians are living the sin managing lifestyle. Im not saying that its not good to shoot for a pure lifestyle, I just feel that most people are doing it for the wrong reasons. They are in it for themselves. They are only doing it to better themselves, but dont look past that and see how it affects others, or more importantly, God. Havent we already been saved from our sins anyways? The work has already been done for us. Why do they keep putting so much effort in controlling their sin "for God" when He has already taken care of that?

Its so much easier to not do something bad than it is to do something good, isnt it?

I think we should worry less about ourselves and how pure we seem, and shift our concerns to others. Worry about Charles and Heather and how we can help them, instead of how we look while we are talking to them. "But what if someone I know sees me?" Big whoop. What if God sees you? What would His reaction be? Delighted, Im sure.

I think this guy states it better:

"A focus on sin and its dynamics plays nicely into the enemies hands. We don't concern ourselves with the impact of the gospel on the world; we gather in tidy fortresses to ensure that we are a pure people. Instead of asking how our sin, and self-centered behavior, affects others, our primary concern is our own salvation and purity. We become self centered in an effort to live the gospel of the kingdom, which is meant to get us beyond ourselves in giving our lives for the world.

"In the kingdom of God it is not so. Rather, we seek first His kingdom and justice.. and let Him worry about the rest. Salvation is already ours.. the Father DELIGHTS to give us the kingdom. Let's concern ourselves with His concerns.. the hurting and lost outside the walls."

I think that God would be more delighted in us for doing something good rather than us not doing something bad.

Actually this has reminded me of some scripture: Matthew 25:14-30 (The Message)

14-18"It's also like a man going off on an extended trip. He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities. To one he gave five thousand dollars, to another two thousand, to a third one thousand, depending on their abilities. Then he left. Right off, the first servant went to work and doubled his master's investment. The second did the same. But the man with the single thousand dug a hole and carefully buried his master's money.
19-21"After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.'
22-23"The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master's investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.'
24-25"The servant given one thousand said, 'Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.'
26-27"The master was furious. 'That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.
28-30"'Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.'

Long post, I know, but I think you get the point now.

Charles

2008-11-07T18:54:00.003-05:00

So today I went to Walmart to buy some trinkets (CO2 cartridges, deodorant, and a box of cereal, you know, the usual) and as I was entering the parking lot, I once again saw a homeless person standing there with a sign. Once I saw him I again thought to myself how I could approach and get to know this person. So as I was leaving, I drove up to him, parked my car, got out and introduced myself. His name is Charles. This man was a little different from Heather in a sense that he looked like he was going to die any minute. I was in shock at the bad condition he was in. He was on oxygen, coughing and hacking, shivering, and just looked like death. Now I know that he could be putting on a show, and thats a shame if he is, but I really felt like I needed to do something to help. So as I was talking to him I told him that in exchange for a high five, I would give him $20 to help out a little. So he gave my a sweet high five, I gave him some money, then left. I also told him I would keep him in my prayers, I think you should too.

Im in a Puddle

2008-11-06T01:02:00.003-05:00

I was flipping through some of my older posts just now, and I came across The Puddles of Life. Im really glad I wrote this one down because I seem to be in a puddle these days. It seems that lately, nearly every day, something more goes awry. This week, I havent been feeling very well. I went to work out tonight and nearly threw up, and apparently I lost about 5lbs this week, from what, Im not sure, just being sickly I guess. And that just adds to list of crap that has already happened lately. Im not sure when I entered this puddle, but rereading that post raised my spirits a little. I just need to trudge through this puddle and search for dry land. Im trying to keep my head up, but Im sure theres still some rough waters ahead.

Elections are finally over!

2008-11-05T01:01:00.005-05:00

Im pretty disappointed that elections are over, Im really gonna miss all of those campaign commercials! Yeah right. Im pretty pleased with the turn out, I pretty much expected Obama to win, but wouldnt have been torn if McCain won. Obviously, I voted for Obama. Of course, if you know me, I dont like things to stay the same. Im addicted to change, remember.

Im really surprised at the reactions of people after the elections. I got on Facebook because I knew that people would have some things to say, but everyone just went nuts! It was like a war. People saying things like "the world is gonna be run into the ground", "heres to the new socialist republic", and my favorite "F*** Obama....Christian nation my a**, America is full of ignorant people." I left a comment to that guy, I was pretty upset about this comment, I probably shouldnt have but I said, "....and youre an ignorant Christian." As a Christian, I was offended by this comment. How you can be so judgemental to me? I really wish I hadnt made the comment though, because I now realize that I was also being judgemental.

But anyways, we'll see how Obama does with this whole President thing. Im pretty excited to see some things change, but hopefully he does it responsibly and with our best interests in mind.

Eventful Night

2008-11-04T01:01:00.004-05:00

So tonight was interesting and full of a variety of emotions. It started a couple of hours before chapter, maybe around 6 or 7pm. My friend Cam, a brother in the house, came up to me and told me that our Housing Director was coming to the house tonight to inform four of us that we are being evicted from the fraternity. This was a little upsetting, but I wasnt going to make a big deal about it since I didnt have all of the facts, and since I was proven innocent by the brothers, I figured I wouldnt be getting evicted also. So after chapter (thats our house meeting every Monday where we do fraternity business), we had a little discussion with Ty, the house director. He came straight out and said that all four of us were getting evicted next semester. Like I said earlier, I was proven innocent by the chapter, so had no punishments according to the brothers due to the fact that it wasnt my alcohol that was found in our room. But, since I knew it was in the room, the housing corporation decided to evict me, which is separate from the fraternity. I was just a tad upset about this, and told Ty what I thought. The whole thing was sketchy to begin with, it seemed like they were targeting certain people, mainly the people I pledged with. So I told him how shady everthing seemed, told him we deserved a second chance, and told him that because of this about a quarter of the house might be quitting.

So after our conversation, I was walking upstairs to my room when about three or four guys stopped me and asked about our conversation. I explained, and they were also upset with the decision. So they gathered as many guys as they could, and headed to the kitchen to have a huge discussion with Ty. This was pretty amazing. There were about 25 or 30 guys in there defending us four, we all told Ty how we disapproved of him, the corporation, and the Board of Trustees, telling him that they are more concerned with punishing us than helping us, which in turn is hurting the house. This whole conversation went on for a couple of hours, just Ty against all of us. It was pretty amazing how everyone came together to give him our opinions, and we were really blunt about it, telling him that his decisions and leadership skills are disgusting. We have had problems with this guy in the past, hes really unethical and unprofessional, but this was the breaking point. We eventually told him we wanted to get rid of him as housing director, that he wasnt helping the house at all, only ruining it. Im still not sure if I am still getting evicted though, either way it doesnt bother me, I had half of the brothers tell me I could stay in their room next semester. Shoot, I wouldnt have to pay rent that way.

So after that, Im sitting in my room talking to some guys about the events of the night when I hear some yelling and running coming from the staircase. Earlier in the day, some guys on the first floor had set up a fort in their hallway made of mattresses and challenged the second and third floor to a battle. This was the battle, and it was freakin awesome! We started out using brooms and frebreeze or axe spray as our ammo. The guys on the second floor (my floor) would charge and all of this smelly stuff would just cloud up the whole hallway. I was using a stick of deodorant as my defense, wiping it on anyone near me. Then I got my airhorn as a defense. And, eventually, someone got the idea to use the fire extinguisher, which, looking back, was a horrible idea. That thing left the biggest mess, white powder was everywhere, I mean, everywhere! Then everyone was on the verge of throwing up because of the white cloud of dust filling the air. We all ran outside and were coughing and spitting trying to get the taste out of our mouths. The dust cloud even made its way up to the third floor. We eventually settled down just before 1am. Im not sure who cleaned up the mess, but it was huge. Someone even threw a pumpkin. Yes, I know, we are wild and irresponsible, but we had so much fun!

Check These Out!

2008-11-03T00:06:00.008-05:00

These are some HILARIOUS videos I found. Today at church, we watched the second video, I was laughing SOO hard! Enjoy!

Random Thoughts and Events

2008-10-31T16:53:00.005-04:00

You know how movies have dramatic music in the background of each scene, and there are different types of music for each type of scene. During tense moments, theres the dramatic, high beat music. During love scenes or moments of happiness, there are the soothing violins and flutes and whatnot. During sad parts, the music makes you feel emotional.

Wouldnt it be cool if our lives had that music playing? Im sitting here in my room, just got up from a nap, and there is this music playing somewhere, Ive been hearing for like the last half hour. I looked all around to see if it was from the speakers, from a computer, from the house, but couldnt find the source. Its really faint, but it sounds beautiful. I thought for a moment that I might be going crazy (even more so than I already am). But I think I found the source, Im not 100% sure, but I think its the Purdue band, they are practicing down the road, I can hear some drums every now and then. But the music Im hearing sounds way too love storyish for a school band to play. But that got me thinking about having music to the events of our lives. I think that would be awesome, it would add to the emotion, but probably get annoying after a while.

My week hasnt gotten any better. Just as I predicted, it got worse. I might be getting evicted from ATO now. Its not because of the rent issue though. A couple weeks ago, while we were on fall break, some guys on the Board of Trustees decided to do room checks for alcohol. There was some beer in our fridge left over from tailgating with my roommates parents, and they found it. There were quite a few others that got caught too. We were sent to J-board (judicial board), which decides punishments for breaking the rules, and I was found innocent due to the fact that it wasnt my alcohol or refridgerator. But this week, I recieved an email that said that I still might be getting evicted because of the incident, although I was found innocent. It doesnt make sense, and its kind of a harsh punishment for my first house offense. But I dont really care if I get evicted, I will probably just turn in my pin (quit the fraternity), and find an apartment, it costs too much to live in a fraternity anyways. There are quite a few guys that are fed up with the drama around the house and are considering quitting also. Im actually going to look at a house off campus with some guys this weekend for next year. So, we'll see what happens with this.

But for now, Im just gonna listen to my lifes background music.

Bad Day

2008-10-29T14:40:00.006-04:00

I am having a bad day so far. First of all, I couldnt sleep last night, I woke up at about 4am because my bladder was gonna explode, and when I got back from the bathroom, I could not fall back asleep. I layed there for about two hours. My mind was just going crazy, I kept thinking about EVERYTHING. Then I got up this morning in just a blah mood. Lunch was blah also.

I went to my ceramics class, my only class of the day, hoping to brighten my spirits. The one girl that is in my class that I sorta had a crush on, well I asked her to be my date for a party we are throwing this saturday. I think her and her boyfriend split, but really it doesnt matter. This party on saturday is sort of like a high school dance type thing with food, dancing, hayride, but theres alcohol there, but you need to take a date. So I asked her a couple of days ago with no response, then asked again today and she said she couldnt go. I didnt get an excuse, but I dont really care what it was, she probably just didnt have enough time to make one up. She is the third girl to turn me down for this party. That didnt help my already bad mood. Then, we had homework due for this class, some sketches of an absract object based on a poem or song. So I did the sketches based on the poem I wrote, but didnt bring the poem to class. Needless to say, I got chewed out, and she didnt believe me that I actually wrote a poem, she thought I was making that up. On top of that, we are working on a hand made from clay, it has to be as realistic as possible, and I spent about an hour on just the thumb today. I got it attached, was in a bad mood for how difficult this hand had been to build, and...........it fell off the stand. The thumb broke, the hand became deformed, I had a few choice words, nearly grabbed the whole thing and threw it against the wall, but decided not to.

So that has been my crappy day so far. I just wanted to walk out in front of a car on my way back from class. Actually, the whole week has been kind of a rollercoaster. Im ready for it to be over. Except, it will only get worse since I have to be bartender for our Halloween party on Friday. So for the rest of the day, I might drive to Rochester to put some money in my account, I still havent paid rent for this semester. But once I do, I will once again be flat broke. Fun time is over.

Today is Alive

2008-10-23T23:37:00.004-04:00

Yesterday is dead
It occurred at midnight last night
Should we mourn its death?
Should we keep it in our memory
Going over its events
Either painful or joyful
Living in the past?
Or should we move on?

What about tomorrow?
Tomorrow is unseen
Like a being that doesnt exist.
Tomorrow has no thought
No feeling, no purpose
It doesnt mean anything.
Tomorrow is subjective.

Should we embrace this day
As its moments unfolds?
Never again will we experience
The feeling of this instant.
Have we forgotten
The worthlessness of yesterday and tomorrow?
Today is objective
Today we feel
We think, we have purpose
Today is Alive.

Girl on the Trek

2008-10-22T14:45:00.004-04:00

So, I have seen this girl about three times now, actually even twice today, and she makes me smile. There is a girl that rides a white Trek, just about like the one Todd rides, and everytime I see her, she just looks like she is really enjoying herself. Shes a fairly attractive girl, on a Trek, and is always smiling while riding. That makes me smile. I hope to see her around more, although, if she werent on her bike, I probably wouldnt recognize her.

People and our Things

2008-10-20T00:36:00.006-04:00

I am finding out more and more that people love their things, their possesions, their trinkets, their stuff. And it seems like the more things they have, the more they want. That just doesnt make any sense. And some people just wont let others be near their things. But then there are others who realize that their stuff is just that, stuff. Just this weekend I ran into a couple of cases of both. The first incident was that one of my friends let me borrow his car for the weekend. This was a very generous gesture, considering he has a pretty nice car and I would be driving a couple hundred miles the whole weekend. When I asked to borrow it, he didnt even put up a fight, basically a quick "yeah sure" and some basic rules like "dont wreck it." But then I ran into the other people. Someone wouldnt let my dad borrow his truck for a day to tow our Samurai. He said that he didnt want anything to happen to it, if something where to happen, it would rather be himself that did it. Thats such bullcrap. Not to mention an insult to my dad. Its just a truck.

Then there are the people that have it all but its still not enough. I hate to pick on people, but I have to give an example: A family friend has three motorcycles, two of which are his wifes(the 650 didnt have enough power), three offroaders, a boat, four vehicles, a hot tub, a swimming pool, and many other little trinkets, and the other day he was talking about getting another smaller trailer, aside from the long one, in case he only wanted to haul one vehicle instead of two. When is enough....enough? Holy cow, how can you own so much and still not be content? I have another friend (hes gonna read this and hate me) that has four ipods, just got a shuffle recently because the other three were too big, couldnt work out with them. I mean, Im not saying that Im perfect in this area either, I too like having "things" (luckily I can never afford to own more), I just have to remind myself that things, take my car for example, is just a bunch of metal and plastic and rubber strategically placed together to produce a swift mode of transportation.

While AJ and I were on our trip, while watching the sun rise we were next to this big, beautiful house on the beach and I made the sarcastic comment that their pool, hot tub, awesome veiw, boat, second story, and what was probably their second house probably made these people really happy. He got a kick out of that. Are our things making us happy? Maybe for a couple of days. I know that I get a thrill out of a brand new possesion. But does it make us happy to own more, and more, and more?

Todd and I had a conversation earlier this summer that stuck with me about people and their possesions. It was a little far fetched, but it would be awesome if it were true. He wondered why we couldnt all just share our possesions, he asked why every single family needs their own lawn mower, why not just have one mower for the whole block that we could use when we needed? During TNT(Thursday Night Thing) at Campus House Church, we are studying Acts in the Bible, and it says that the early church did this. They would share their possesions, their possesions didnt belong to one single person, but a whole group of people.

I really dont have a solution to all this, I just wish we wouldnt focus so much on our possesions. It seems like a waste of time.

Fall Break Part IV

2008-10-17T13:19:00.007-04:00

TUESDAY
So once again we woke really early, AJ set the alarm for like 5:30 or 6am, it was still completely dark out. We wanted to get up before the sun came up so we could watch it rise, plus we needed to get off the beach before patrol came by and arrested us. So we packed up the tent and sleeping bags, headed to Dunkin Doughnuts for coffee and a doughnut, then to a Kill Devil Hills beach. It took a while for the sun to come up, we had to wait like a half hour or so, but when it came up over the water, it was absolutely magnificant. I couldnt believe how beautiful a sunrise would be over the ocean, the colors were so saturated, I wanted to paint it or something.

While leaving the beach we discovered that this beach actually had outdoor showers to wash sand off....so we whipped out the bottle of shampoo and washed up a little bit before we hit the road. Kill Devil Hills had a bunch of monuments for the Wright brothers since its where they took the first flight. So we checked out some monuments, then hit the road again.

This is the last day of our adventure, and we knew we had a long day ahead of us because we had to drive all the way back to West Lafayette. After leaving the Outer Banks, we hit Roanoke Island, which was also beautiful. Most of the drive through NC was pretty uneventful though. Once we got to the western part of NC, we hit the mountains again, which were gorgeous once again. We knew that on the way back home, we wanted to hit the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic road along the ridge of the Appallacians. So we got on that shortly after arriving in Virginia. This road was pretty awesome, every so often there would be a lookout so we would stop and look at the views and take some pictures. They were pretty astounding. The road was taking forever though, we were on it for a couple of hours, and the speed limit was only 45, so although it was scenic, we lost a lot of time there. Once we got off in Roanoke, VA, we got lost and couldnt find the interstate, we had to stop again and ask for directions. We actually had to back track, we probably could have made it through Virginia in like a half hour, but it actually took a good part of the day to get through. We finally made it to the toll road through West Virginia, and somewhere in VA or WV, we drove through Tobaccoville, which as you can image, smelled like delicious flavored pipe tobacco. So we stopped there at a Wendys and asked people where the smell was coming from, apparently there was a tobacco factory there, which makes sense. And once we got to Ohio, it was beginning to get dark already.

So we drove in Kentucky along the Ohio-Kentucky line for a while, drove over the Ohio River on another awesome bridge, and stopped again in Ohio. We were both pretty exhausted, I had to get a 5 hour energy shot at the gas station. AJ got coffee, and drove for a while till we got to Cincinatti. My energy shot wasnt very effective, it gave me a hyper drunken feeling. So in Cincinatti I got a Starbucks double-shot drink, I needed the energy since it was my turn to drive, to get us back to West Lafayette. Man, that drive from Cincinatti to West Lafayette was a struggle. AJ was in and out of conciousness the whole time, everytime he would doze off I would jerk the steering wheel or roll down his window to keep him awake, but it didnt help much. We would even be in the middle of a conversation, and literally after one second, I would look over and he would be asleep. What a horrible co-pilot. I was just singing really loud trying to stay awake, it wasnt too hard for me to stay awake since I knew the consequences of falling asleep.

But eventually, at around 2am, we made it back to school!! Ill tell you what, this is one trip that I will never forget, it was probably the best vacation Ive ever been on. And, surprisingly, AJ and I are still friends after the trip haha. A couple of times we both got cranky, but it wasnt a big deal since we were running on little sleep the whole weekend.

Here are some stats from the trip:
Miles traveled: 2,528
Fill-ups: 7
Gas Milage: Appr. 28-29mpg
Hours driven: Appr. 45 hours
Money spend:
-gas: $272.10 ($136.05 each)
-food for me: $22 for seafood dinner, Appr. $20 in coffee and misc.
-helicopter ride: $22
-total: $200.05 for me
States traveled through: 7

Surprising twist: Wednesday, the day after the trip, I was on my way to the Indiapolis Airport to pick up Stacee and Steven, got about 10 miles down the road, and my car broke down. It started to overheat, so I pulled over, then steam started shooting out the hood. It turns out, where the radiator hose joins the radiator, the connection is busted off, so I now have to buy a new radiator for my car. God was on our side for this trip :) His hand must have burned like hell holding that hose on the whole trip.

Watching the sun rise

Wright bothers sign

The hill from the first flight

Blue Ridge Parkway

Scenic outlook

The end of the adventure!

Fall Break Part III

2008-10-17T00:02:00.009-04:00

MONDAY
Monday was also jam packed with adventure! Again, we woke up early, I think AJ set his phone alarm for 6:30 or 7am. So we got up, said goodbye to Steven and Stacee, and hit the road again. We drove for a few hours up the coast when I accidentally took a wrong turn to the Isle of Palms, an island off the coast. And since we didnt have a plan, we just went with it. We arrived at the Isle, found the closest beach, and watched the ocean once again. This time the weather was perfect, and there were some pretty nice houses along the beach. Also, I found a one-legged bird hobbling around on the beach, it cracked me up! AJ said that its other leg was just tucked under, but I still think it only had one leg. We didnt stay at the isle for very long, maybe 20 minutes, then hit the road again. We knew that we wanted to drive through Myrtle Beach, just to say that we've been there, so that was going to be our next stop.

On our way to Myrtle Beach, we drove through Charleston, SC. One of the highlights of the trip was driving over this big beautiful bridge. We could see it coming from miles away but had no idea that we were on the road that drove over it. What a shock! It was great though, theres pics below.

We arrived at Myrtle Beach sometime around noon, I think. Stacee had been telling me not to stop by Myrtle Beach, that it wasnt worth it, and was just a huge tourist attraction, but she was wrong, and it was probably my favorite stop on the trip. Shortly after arriving, we were driving down the highway when we saw a huge sign that said "Helicopter rides-$20." We looked at each other in disbeleif and agreed that we had to check it out. When we got there we found that it was true, the Intro flight was only $20. So we signed up, waited about ten minutes, then were in the air. This flight was the first time I had ever been in the air, I have never been on an airplane or a helicopter before. The flight only lasted a couple of minutes, we just made a small loop around Myrtle Beach and a little bit over the ocean. But we were so far up! Ill admit, I was scared for a second when we banked to turn. That was a great experience that Ill never forget.

After the helicopter ride, we headed to the ocean once again. I looked around for a while for a public bathroom or changing room so I could change into my suit, but for some reason there wasnt one anywhere along the beach. So....I changed on the beach, got as far down to just my boxers, put my suit on over them. Im sure people enjoyed that free show. Then we played in the ocean for a while, actually a pretty long time. The waves were huge, I mean, some of them had to be like 10 feet tall. After we played in the water, we had to scope the beach for some honeys, but unfortunately, the beach was full of old people and people that shouldnt be wearing anything less than sweats. I think we counted about three cute girls along nearly a mile stretch of beach.

After we left Myrtle Beach, we knew that we wanted to head to the Outer Banks, a long stretch of islands off the coast of North Carolina. It took us the rest of the day to get there. On the way, we did run into a few incidents. At one point, I pulled up to a guy on a crotch-rocket at a stoplight and once the light turned green I took off like a bat-out-of-hell to race him. I just wanted to see him fly past me, which he did. But that must have gotten him all excited, because for the next fifteen minutes or so, he kept driving crazy and doing tricks on his motorcycle to try and impress us. First he sat on top of the tank and stretched his legs out. Then he jumped off to the side of the bike and let his feet drag along the ground, which made his shoe catch on fire. He started shaking his foot to put it out, and it smelled pretty bad, we could smell burning rubber from inside the car. I pulled up to him at one point to tell him to stop because we didnt really feel like seeing someone die that day, but he couldnt hear because he had headphones in his ears. And......he died. Just kidding.

Later on, once it got dark, AJ was driving and kept whining about how dark it was. I think hes afraid of the dark or something. Plus, we kept missing our roads, and eventually got lost, we had to stop at a gas station and ask how to get to the outer banks. We had to drive all the way to the north part of NC to get to the north part of the outer banks because that was the only way to get to the islands, well thats what we thought at the time. But when we arrived to the northern outer banks, it was really creepy. It was night time, hardly any traffic, and nothing but swamps. Then I saw a random guy in overalls in the ditch facing the fields. I think he might have been a ghost or serial killer or something. That was pretty freaky. We finally got to our destination at around 11pm, stopped at a rest stop to brush our teeth, make a poopage, change clothes, then once again headed to the beach.

We stopped in a town called Kitty Hawk, which seemed like nothing but a residential area, there were nothing but nice houses along the beach. We got to the beach, scoped it out, then AJ brought up the idea to pitch a tent on the beach. I was hesitant, just because I knew that the other beaches had no sleeping as one of the rules of the beach. But we looked at the rules for this one and it never said we couldnt sleep, so we found a vacant house and set up camp right behind it in the sand. We got to bed at around midnight that night. It was tough falling asleep though because I was worried about getting in trouble for being on the beach, plus we thought the high tide might wash up and drown us. So I only got a couple hours of sleep that night.

The awesome bridge in Charleston
Nice houses in Isle of Palms
Isle of Palms

One legged bird

First flight ever

Banking over the ocean

Crazy dude on motorcycle

Just after sunset

Stay tuned for the final day of adventures!!

Fall Break Part II

2008-10-15T23:10:00.011-04:00

SUNDAY
Sunday was jam-packed with adventure! AJ set his phone alarm for 7am, so thats when we got up. Sleeping in the car wasnt that great. My car is pretty small, and the seats dont go all the way flat, but I still slept well enough to get a few hours. AJ didnt do well either because he had a steering wheel to avoid, and hes taller. We then headed to the gas station across the street to clean up. I got changed, brushed my teeth, and washed my face in the bathroom at the gas station. Then we grabbed some coffee, shouldve gotten gas, and hit the road again.

It didnt take us long to get to Tennessee. We were driving through the mountains, it was pretty astounded, when I realized that there hasnt been an exit in a while.......and we were getting low on gas. So I watched for exits, and watched the range. My car has a feature that shows how far you can go before you run out of gas. It was very low, so we started putting the car into neutral when going down hills just to save some gas. We finally found an exit with a gas station with only 16 miles to empty. That was a close one! So after that, we got back on the interstate, and after a long stretch we saw a road sign that said "tunnel" with some exit number. And of course we wanted to see it! So we took the exit, but couldnt find the tunnel. So we just drove down some back road for a while and stumbled across this awesome old train bridge. We got out of the car and played on that for a while, got on top of the tracks, thought we heard a train coming, and booked it off the bridge.

We went as far as Knoxville in Tennessee then headed east again, toward North Carolina. In our atlas, there is some tourist attraction information and AJ stumbled across the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, which I guess is the biggest mansion in the US. So we called the 1-800 number to get some information on tours, but it was like fifty bucks to get on the grounds, so there was no way we were gonna do that. But we went to Asheville anyways to see if we could get a glimpse of the mansion from another area. We stopped at an art gallery to ask some locals if they knew of a place where we could see it without paying, but they said it was impossible. Until we were leaving. A man stopped us and said that we could see it for free, but it would be risky. Theres an area on the grounds with a fence that we could jump, but if we got caught we could get into trouble. But we decided not to take the risk.

Somewhere in North Carolina we got tired of driving on the Interstate and quickly pulled off onto a back road to see some of the countryside. We drove several miles and saw a couple of cars pulled off the side of the road. Thinking it was a lookout, we too pulled over. The countryside was amazing! The other car belonged to a couple from Nashville, AJ and I talked to the husband for a little bit about our vacationing adventures while his wife stayed in the air conditioning in the car. Then we made lunch, more PB&Js, and hit the interstate again.

We had talked about going to Hilton Head for most of the morning, but were a little unsure since it was so far away, southern South Carolina. Stacee and Steven were vacationing there for fall break and she insisted that if we are in the state that we stop in for a night. Actually, it seemed she was nearly begging me to come. They were staying in a nice condo on the beach, so of course, we talked about decided to stop in. It took a while to get there from Ashville, but we eventually arrived at around 5pm. The weather at Hilton Head was really crappy though, rainy and windy. We had some time to kill once we got there since they were out shopping, so we stopped by the visitors center, got a map, headed to the beach, which was our first stop at the Atlantic on the trip. It was windy and rainy on the beach, not very appeasing. I met a woman named Virginia near the beach though. I was wearing my "Virginia is for Lovers" shirt and she stopped me and said that her name was Virginia. She was nice. We finally met up with Stacee and Steven, went to their condo, and finally got a shower! That was a great shower, I felt so refreshed afterwards.

On our trip, AJ and I had agreed that since we were going to the east coast we had to splurge and get some seafood, go to a local seafood restaurant. So we asked Stacee and Steven if they wanted to have dinner with us. We went to a place called Tapas. Apperently when you go there, you order two things and share it with everyone else. I was really dissappointed in the quantity of the food, they were in appitizer portions. I really wanted a lot to eat considering we had been living off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for most of the trip. But the quality was magnificant! It was probably the best food Ive ever tasted, Im not even kidding. I got lobster ravioli and salmon. MMMmmmm, I can still taste it, kind of. It was kind of expensive though. Then on our way back from Tapas we decided to get some beer. Its a good thing South Carolina sells beer on Sundays, we were a little worried about that. We got a couple of six packs and headed back to the condo. We made up a drinking game with UNO cards (I won), smoked cigars on the balcony, ate some cake, then headed to the beach. The beach at night was amazing! It was low tide at that time and it seemed like hundreds of yards of wet beach from the earlier high tide. The rain had stopped and the moon had come out, it looked awesome. So we played on the beach for a while and headed back to the condo. After a while of talking on the balcony about marriage and politics and life in general, we headed to bed. We got to bed a little after midnight. I had to sleep in a tiny bunk bed, but it was better than the car.

Railway bridge

NC skyline

Stop in NC

Fancy McDonalds in Asheville, NC

Making love to a tree in Hilton Head

AJ in the tree.

Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4 for even more and better adventures!!

Fall Break Part I

2008-10-15T15:52:00.014-04:00

Well, the trip did happen....and what an adventure!! Last week I had an idea to go on a road trip for fall break, just to go wherever, not even have a plan. The only plan was to make it somewhere along the east coast, it didnt even matter where. And I didnt want to take any major highways, no interstate, just state roads and back roads so we could see more of the countyside. I also didnt want to use a map, just a compass. And I was trying to do this trip as cheaply as possible, only wanting to spend about $100, I figured gas and coffee would be the only expenses. So I asked a couple guys if they wanted to go, everyone was a little hesitant to go since I asked just a few days before fall break, some guys already had plans, some just thought it was a dumb idea. But I had a couple interested, and I eventually got one person to go with me, AJ. AJ is one of my friends from high school and now goes to Purdue and is also in the same fraternity as me.

SATURDAY
So, finally, saturday at around 1pm, AJ made the decision to go on the trip with me. But he was back in Bremen, so he had to drive 2 hours back to Purdue so we could leave, because Bremen isnt exactly on the way to the east coast. So when he got to the house, we packed up a few things. We packed some food: two loaves of bread, peanut butter, jelly, nutrigrain bars, apples, grapes, granola bars, and some instant tea and grape drink mix. We also brought a small tent, two sleeping bags, a blanket, two jugs for water, a bottle of shampoo, some other toiletry knick knacks, and a couple days worth of clothes. And of course, I had to bring my compass. So at around 4:30pm, we finally left.

We started off going south to see where it would take us. Shortly after starting, we decided to fill up the tank, which only required about a half tank. Then we headed west for a while. It was great seeing the countryside of Indiana, passing through some small towns along the way, but it seemed to be taking forever. Our first stop was in Noblesville. The town was having a car show at the city hall so we decided to stop and take a look. While there we saw this huge dog that this guy was walking, I mean, it was nearly as tall as its owner. So I walked up to the guy and asked him what breed of horse it is. He didnt catch on to my joke though. We looked at some cars, took a bathroom break, then hit the road again. Once we reached Indianapolis (on accident, I didnt want to hit any major cities), we decided to change up our plans a little bit. It took us a good 2.5 hours to get to Indy, which should have only taken about 1. So we decided that if we wanted to make it to the coast, we would have to take some interstates. Plus, we wanted to drive through some mountains. So we got out the atlas from my trunk, jumped onto I-74, and headed to Cincinnati. After going west for a while, we hit I-75 to go south through Kentucky and Tennessee. After we got through Cincinnati, it got dark pretty fast, so we just wanted to drive until we got tired, then try and find somewhere to sleep. We stopped along the way at a McDonalds to pee and get some food in us. So we made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate them in the parking lot next to my car. We got some looks there, people wondering why we dont just eat at McDonalds Im sure. So we hit the road again for a while and wound up somewhere in southern Kentucky, not too far from Tennessee, when we decided to stop for the night. We searched for some camping signs, found one, and headed there. When we got there, we didnt realize that the front office would have been closed already, but it was at about 11pm, so it shouldve been obvious. And the cost to stay there one night was about $30, so we said screw that, and drove off. They did have a pool though, and we really wanted to just go swimming before we left, but didnt. We drove back to the town, found a couple of hotels there, tried to figure out which had the dimmest parking lot, and slept there in the car. It was a Hampton Inn. We got to bed (car) at about 11:30pm.

Noblesville City Hall

Fall Break

2008-10-11T00:03:00.004-04:00

Today was officially the start of my fall break. We get off monday and tuesday, but since I dont have class on fridays, I get one extra day. Woot! Technically, my weekend started Thursday night, as usual. But for once, I didnt go to the Neon Cactus. I wasnt in the mood at all. I injured my back earlier this week while working out.....then again the next day while doing squats and leg workouts, pulled it even worse. It hurts horribly right now, both my back and legs, I could barely move this morning. So last night, instead of the Cactus, I just went over to Stacees and hung out with her and her boyfriend Steven. We played a couple of games of beer pong, just to do something, then went to IHOP, the best restaurant ever created. I ended up staying the night there since I had to drive them to the airport in Indy the next morning. So, I did that this morning, it was pretty fun, but I hate driving in that traffic! Airports amaze me, there are so many different types of people, I was constantly looking around at all of the people. I could seriously just spend a day in an airport and watch people. I really didnt do anything the rest of the day, just sat around, took a two hour nap, watched Thelma and Louise, and now here I am blogging. Im in one of those moods where I dont want to be around anyone, just be alone for a night. I got several offers to go places, one to go to the University of Illinois with some guys, one to hang out with some sorority girls, one to go camping, but I just dont feel like being social tonight, just being left alone.
Like I said in an earlier post, I might be going on an adventure this weekend, a road trip, but my plan might be falling through. I wont go into detail about where Im going, I will after the trip if it happens. But if I go, Ill be leaving tomorrow morning with AJ. I have to wait and see if he still wants to go tomorrow, thats why it might fall through, but it doesnt look promising. If I dont go on that roadtrip, I will swing by my grampa Toms house in southern Illinois, he is always glad to have me visit, and I always love visiting him. Im not really sure why I dont want to go home this weekend, everyone else is. Ive been asked by everyone if Im going home, I just say no, but have no reason. Maybe its because home is too familiar.
But for now, I think I might watch another movie before I hit the sack. Have a great weekend y'all! Oh by the way, thanks for all the comments on my artwork!!

Sketches

2008-10-08T23:24:00.010-04:00

Well guys, I finally completed 45 pages of sketches in my sketchbook for my advanced drawing class, and I know I promised to post some of them. So I picked some of my favorites, and here they are. All of these sketches are done on 5.5"x8.5" paper, and most of them were completed in less than 15 minutes. And these are posted in chronological order, the first was done the first day of class, the last was completed tonight.

Once I started doodling and exploring with different techniques and media I was really shocked at what I could do! Next, I should be posting some of my projects for the class. I dont think that the work Ive done in the class are that great, but you might like them anyways, so Ill post them.

Ramblings

2008-10-07T00:13:00.004-04:00

I was thinking today about some of the worst feelings that I experience from time to time. First of all, when you have to pee really really bad. This is a horrible, horrible feeling. For example, if you are on a roadtrip and you have just drinken a 56oz drink while driving. Shortly after, you begin to have that feeling of a filling bladder, but realize that you just stopped twenty minutes ago, so you hold it in for an hour. This also applies to when you are sleeping and awake in the middle of the night with a full bladder. Seriously, you feel like you are going to die. On the contrary, one the best feelings in the world is when you actually get to go potty.

Another bad feeling is when you eat too much and you feel so full you feel like youre going to explode. I think that this is a worse feeling than being starving! But, unlike a full bladder, you cant instantly relieve a full stomach, you just have to suffer for a few hours.

Speaking of starving, I joined a club today here at Purdue called War on Hunger. I was walking back from studying at a friends apartment last night when I saw in huge chalk letters written on the sidewalk "War on Hunger" with very little information written below, just a time and place to meet. I stood there for a while, probably a minute or so, just staring at this trying to figure out what it could be. So I wrote the time and place on my hand and decided to see what it was about. The meeting was today at 6:30, Ian and I went to it. I guess it was just a club meeting, they acted like everyone there was part of the club, so me and Ian decided to join. We made some posters with statistics written on them, such as "A child starves to death every 5 seconds" or "Approximately 900,000,000 people in the world suffer from undernourishment." We also signed up for something on next Wednesday. Im not really sure what we are doing, but I think that we sit at a table in the center of campus selling buttons and raising awareness for hunger, I think Wednesday is National Hunger Awareness Day. This should be pretty interesting. Ian also talked me into doing a Big Brothers, Big Sisters club with him too. I think Ill enjoy that.

This week I have two midterm portfolio reviews for my art classes, so I will try to get some pictures soon of some of the work that Ive done this semester. One of the requirements for my advanced drawing class is 45 pages of sketches due thursday, and I have like 16. So I will be doing lots of sketching this week! We had since the beginning of the semester to complete these 45 pages though, so dont feel bad for me.

Also, I have Fall Break this coming weekend. I get off Friday through Tuesday, 5 whole days! I am currently planning a trip, but still dont have all of the details figured out, or who Im going with. Its going to be a roadtrip of some sort.

Noise

2008-10-01T00:59:00.005-04:00

So tonight I once again played in the band at Greek IV, this time on the electric guitar. It was an alright time, and again I only had about an hour to learn three songs, which I ended up not playing the last song because I had never heard of it and the chords were wrong on the sheet and everything was messed up about it. What was disappointing about tonight, though, was that there were very few people who showed up to Greek IV, maybe 25 people. But there are midterms going on this week, so I guess its understandable.

But the message tonight was pretty ironic. We watched a Rob Bell video tonight about noise. He talked about why we feel the need to constantly be listening to music, watching tv, talking to people, texting, surfing the web, playing video games, and so on. Why cant we just be in silence for a little bit. At one point in the video, everything went black and silent, for quite a while, and Ill admit, it was a tad uncomfortable. And Im guilty of this too, I even feel wierd walking to class without my ipod playing, or driving without the radio on. Why is it so uncomfortable to be in silence? It says in Luke(?) that Jesus constantly went places to be alone in silence and pray.

What was so ironic for me was that lately I have been trying to be alone. Ive been trying to get away and be in silence and talk to God. Trying to separate myself from all of the clutter and constant motion here at Purdue. In the past week, I have been out three times at three different places to just sit down and be in silence, to try and hear Gods voice, which is exactly what we talked about tonight. Its really one of my favorite things to do, just lay there and listen, try to make sense of things, try to get a sense of God, listen to what Hes telling me.

I always get interrupted though. Whether its a car driving by, or a nosey police officer, I cant seem to get away. During the video, Rob had a statistic from a man that recorded the sounds of nature for CDs or something. He said that back when he began, it took about 15 hours of recording get 1 hour of pure nature sounds, because of trying to avoid the sound of airplanes and cars and so on. But today, it take 2000 hours to get 1 hour of sound. We are very noisy, no wonder its so hard to hear God, it will take 2000 hours of listening to hear 1 hour of Gods voice.

One is a Tiny Number

2008-09-30T01:07:00.004-04:00

So today I was sitting in class thinking about the world population. Lately Ive been trying to be alone, trying to go places where I can just be by myself for a little bit. Thats why I went to the dirt road, a few days later I went to another secluded area near a highway, where I was interrupted by a passerby. Then Sunday I went to the top of a parking garage at night to watch people and cars below, where I was inturrupted by a police officer wondering what I was doing. So I was sitting in class today thinking that there is really no where I can be alone. There are 6.6 billion people on this planet, so I am bound to be inturrupted by one of them anywhere I go, it seems. Then I got to thinking about how big the number 6.6 billion really is. I mean, we all know that it is a pretty big number, but I dont think you realize how big it really is. So I put the number into seconds, to put it into perspective. One second is not a very long time, as we all know, but 6.6 billion seconds really ads up. So I crunched the numbers, and was astounded by what I found.

1 million seconds ago was 11.5 days ago, which would be September 19, not too long ago. I was surprised by how little time this was.

1 billion seconds ago was 31.7 years ago, roughly January 1977, this one shocked me!

But what was even more shocking was that 6.6 billion seconds ago was 209.25 years ago, roughly June 1799. June of 1799!!

I am only one second in 209 years!! One second in nearly three lifetimes! This is slightly belittling, but also very humbling.

Just Another Weekend

2008-09-28T13:12:00.011-04:00

I know its probably kind of boring listening to what I do on weekends, but I kind of just want to write it down just to get it out, you know. So again, my weekend started on Thursday at the Neon Cactus. I went with four of my "bros" and we met up with two more when we got there. It was actually a pretty tame night, I didnt dance at all. Actually I got turned down and it kind of crushed my spirits. But they had a signing there, a girl from the tempe12 calendar, which I think is like college girls from the Big Ten. So me and my friends stood there admiring her for a bit, and one of them said that I should get my chest signed. I thought about it for a split second, and agreed. She was signing calendars, so I got one, stood in line for a few minutes, walked up to her and said,"Hi will you sign my chest," and proceeded to pull my shirt up. Confused, she gave me an, "Okay?" So she wrote, in permanant marker, that she loved me, some XOXOs, and signed her name. I talked to her a little, but sadly, I didnt get her number. But I didnt ask, so thats probably why.

So then we left pretty early, just me and Frazier. Frazier is a character, hes an alumni that is some kind of royalty in Spain or something, so he never works, he just flies around the world doing whatever he wants....or so he says. But hes been at our house for about 3 weeks or so. So we left the bar and headed over to Lauren and Erikas apartment. Lauren and Erika are well known amongst ATOs, they are some brothers' ex-girlfriends, but everyone in the house loves them. So they were having party that night, we decided to head over, and it was pretty lame. The girls were obliterated, and there were only three other people there besides the girls. After a few minutes of the girls dancing around, giving hugs, and being foolish, we decided to leave. We just went to McDonalds then called it a night.

Friday morning comes. I really didnt do much all day Friday, which would be my typical Friday. I played Xbox for several hours. Ive been playing this racing game called Forza, I really get into it! According to my stats, I have 15 hours of racing time already, but Im only 40% complete with the game. It feels good to accomplish something here at college. And then, of course, I went and worked out. Friday night, I went over to Stacees house to hang out. We played a few games of beer pong with her boyfriend and thier housemate, some really intense games! But, me and Stacee lost all three games. We also played a few games of air hockey, which were also intense. Me and Stacee invented an air hockey game where we dont use the paddle things, just our hands. That was a blast! Then we played around on the pogo stick, which I now realize is very dangerous.

Saturday was fun....and not so fun at the same time. We got our new pledges this weekend. Saturday was our pinning ceremony, which officially begins thier pledgeship. But before the ceremony, the brothers go around campus and pick up the pledges....creatively. Me and Adam decided to pick up his brother, who is pledging. So we called him at around 4:45pm and told him to meet us in front of his dorm at 5 with five sheets of paper, a pen, three socks, and a jar of peanut butter. We told him this to throw him off, we said there was going to be a scavenger hunt. So we picked him up, made him put a hat over his head so he couldnt see, and made him lay down in the backseat, basically so it doesnt look like we are kidnapping someone. We drove about 15 minutes out into the country, nothing but cornfields and empty roads around. We stopped on this dirt road and made him get out. With the hat still over his eyes, we made him believe there were other people with, telling "everyone" to be quiet and dont take thier masks off until we left. So me and Adam left, sped off, tires spinning, just left him there by himself, out in the middle of nowhere. And we left him with a sign that said "Be back at the house by 5:45." It was about 5:15 by this time.

But before you think Im a horrible person for this, we did pick him up, we didnt just leave him out there. We just drove down the road, stopped and waited about 10-15 minutes, and went back. He said that he was shocked when he realized he was alone. It was great.

Then we had a party after the ceremony at a brothers apartment. It was pretty fun, it was fun getting to know the new pledges, fun talking to some girls, did a little dancing, but not fun at the end of the night. I had a few beers, some Killians Irish Red, pretty good stuff. But toward the end of the night a girl asked if I wanted to take a shot of vodka with her, I hesitated, but agreed. Bad choice. First of all, I hate hard alcohol, it tastes disgusting, and it never agrees with me. Instantly after the shot, I had to talk myself out of throwing up for about ten minutes. Then on the ride home, it hit me again. We dropped some girls off, and I got out also, walked to the bushes, and chucked all over. I hate throwing up, that shot put me over the top. Later that night, I threw up again, walking down the hallway to get some water, it just snuck up with no warning, and I threw up in my mouth. So I ran to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet. Never again. I hate vodka forever, I cant believe one shot did that to me.

Today, I just hung out with Stacee most of the day. We went to lunch, McAlisters, Ive never been there before, but it was pretty good. Then we went shopping....well, she went shopping and I was dragged along. I hate shopping, but I put up with it today. Then I went to church, which was great and thought provoking as usual. Later on I went to the art building to do some work for my ceramics class. Came back from that, wrote a paper in spanish, and thats that. End. Of. Weekend.

Laying Under the Stars

2008-09-25T00:03:00.007-04:00

Well, tonight I did a little something out of the ordinary. I was rushing around, doing my daily stuff like a walmart run, fixing a flat tire on my car, getting art supplies, you know, just the usual running around. It was about 9 o' clock at night, and I had decided on my way back from Walmart that I needed a break. I needed a break from constantly doing something, I needed a break from seeing people, being social. I needed to be alone for a while. So, I started driving. I wasnt really sure where I was going, actually I got lost pretty quickly, I just found some country roads and went from there. I figured if I got too lost, I would be able to just backtrack to find my way home. So I turned my music off, rolled down all of the windows, opened the moonroof, drove really slow, like 30 mph, and just took it in. Just enjoyed the air swirling around the interior of my car, seemingly smacking me in the head in all directions. I drove until I found no more civilization.

Then I decided that I needed to get out of the car. So I drove until I saw no more cars. I eventually hit a dirt road. I wandered down the road, not too far though, I didnt want to get my car filthy dirty since I just washed it a couple of days ago. Then I stopped. I pulled over to the side of the road, got out of my car, walked down the road a little ways, and just layed there in the middle of this dirt road. It was wonderful! It was great to just get away for a while. It seemed like I was a million miles from campus, when in reality, I was only about 10 miles away. I didnt really think of too much, just how great it felt to feel the dirt on my back and head, and feel the cool air swirl around me, and hear all of the crickets and insects around me. I mostly just thought about how bad it would suck if I got hit by a car, but that fear dimished quickly since I hadnt seen a car for miles. One thought that popped into my head while laying there was what it must have been like for people hundreds of years ago, wondering if someone was doing the exact same thing in the exact same spot from where I was two or three hundreds years ago. I was trying to imagine what it must have looked like. The powerlines wouldnt have been there. The corn wouldnt have been as tall, if there at all. The road may not have existed. No airplanes in the sky, no satellites to look for. But the sky would have probably looked amazing. No light pollution, just billions of twinkles lighting up the night sky.

I didnt stay very long though, maybe 15-20 minutes. But that was all I needed. I felt refreshed after that. And it was a good reflection time. I felt connected with God in that moment, I felt like He was there with me, enjoying the sights and sounds and feelings along with me.

Through Painted Deserts

2008-09-24T01:26:00.004-04:00

So, I finally finished reading the book Through Painted Deserts by Don Miller. It only took me like 5 weeks to read it! I was a little confused about the book at first, I thought it was going to be a little more spiritual just like Blue Like Jazz, but it was basically just a story about him travelling around the US with his friend Paul in a VW van. But I thought the book was great! Very interesting. There are points in the book that really agree with my simplicity concept. He said that for a few weeks he lived out in the woods with a few other guys, and it was one of the best times of his life. I 100% agree that the simpler things are, when its nothing but you and Gods beautiful painting called the Earth, when you are just out there building relationships, the happier you will be, life will seem like it has a point. I liked this book because I could really relate to thier situation. I believe Don was 21 when these occurances took place. I could definately see myself going on a trip like this, if it werent for this stupid, moneyhungry, college thing. Waste of time, waste of money, so far.

Since I have come back to school, I have gotten everything I have needed, and mostly everything I wanted. I can buy gas for my car now, so I drive a lot. I can buy food from any restaraunt, so I eat out quite a bit. I can afford to go to the bars with my friends every weekend, so I do that. And you know what, its convenient and fun. But Im really not as appreciative as I was this summer when I could afford nothing. I feel like Im taking everything for granted now. I miss the simple life.

The Power of a Smile

2008-09-22T16:41:00.005-04:00

I love it when people smile. I think that there is so much power in just a simple smile. I think that people even become more attractive when they smile, its a lot better than looking angry or sad. If you know me, you know that I love to smile and laugh and try to make others laugh and smile. I am somewhat witty, I like to crack stupid jokes and say things that I think are funny, but sometimes others dont get my humor. I love to see people smile, but not pitty smiles, or fake smiles. I like to see real, genuine, nonthreatening, loving smiles, teeth or no teeth, a smile is a smile.

The other day I was walking to class, it was just a normal, average day. Usually when I walk to class, I like to look at people, I look at everyone! Im a huge fan of people watching. And normally when I pass someone and make eye contact with them, they quickly look away to lose eye contact. Im not really sure why they do this. And sometimes when they look at me and keep eye contact for a second or two, I will shoot them a smile, guy or girl (but especially for the ladies, wink wink). But on this day, I noticed a very beautiful girl coming my way, and of course this put me in panic mode when she looked at me. Then she shot me a smile before I could. What a great feeling! That one smile from this particular girl just made the rest of my day. That is what I mean about smiles being powerful. Just a simple smile could make someones day. Just think, if you smiled at each person you passed, think of the number of people you are impacting!

Can you guys think of any other examples of what Im talking about? What are some other ways a smile could be powerful?

Rest of the Weekend

2008-09-21T22:28:00.004-04:00

Woke up at about 11am, I ended up staying awake until like 3am last night. I got so much sleep during the day, I wasnt really tired last night. I sat around during the first half of the day, just watched TV, got on the internet for while, just killed time. Then I left to go buy some new gym shorts. I lost my good ones somewhere so Ive been working out in my pajama shorts that I made. I get some looks in the wieght room. After I bought my shorts, I went to the ATM, went to CVS to buy some car cleaning products, then went to the car wash. It was time for my car to be totally cleaned. Got it vacuumed, armoralled, washed, the works. Came back to the house, only to leave again to work out. It was just a light workout, mostly just to do something because I was bored. I did 100 pushups, 20 pullups, and biked for 30 minutes. Came back, showered, then had to go to a cookout our fraternity had with one of the sororities, Kappa Alpha Theta....otherwise known as Thetas. I know several girls in that sorority, so it wasnt too awkward for me. I hung out with Meghan Phillips most of the time, I went to high school with her, we were the set of twins in our class. She gave me and AJ a tour of the house, its really not as nice as I thought it would be, thier rooms are really small and all look the same. But they have a courtyard in the center of the house, so that more than makes up for it. We also watched the Colts game while we were there, it was very exciting, yet disappointing. I met a couple more girls while there, it was just some typical small talk.

Then me and Cam left for church just before 8pm. The church I attend here at Purdue is called Purdue Christian Campus House, also known as Campus House Church, http://www.pcch.org/. This place is great, it reminds me a lot of Horizon, my church from home. They believe mostly what we believe at Horizon. And they have a great band too, worship is amazing. There are four different service times on Sundays: 9am, 11am, 6pm, and 8pm. I usually attend the 6 or 8 oclock services, mainly because I cant get up early enough for the morning ones. Tonight we talked about miricles. We are doing a series on who Jesus is for the next few weeks. This place really bring me back to seeing the big picture every week. I always get so caught up in everything here at school, Im always busy doing something, but its just me and Jesus on sundays. Unfortunately, it doesnt really stay that way the rest of the week. But it was a pretty good service tonight, as it usually is. And currently, I should be studying, but I dont really feel like it right now, maybe later. And Im watching Family Guy, so I have to wait till thats over.

So thats what happens for me here at Purdue. Just to let you in on what I do.

Weekends at the Due

2008-09-21T00:59:00.006-04:00

I just realized that its been a while since Ive put anything on my blog! The days are going by so quickly here at school. But never fear loyal followers, Ben is back with some stories! This weekend was kind of a typicle weekend for me. Jam packed with good times, bad times, random happenings, and little sleep.

My weekend started Thursday night, since I dont have class on Fridays. On Thursday nights, a group of my fraternity brothers and I like to go to the Neon Cactus, a HUGE bar off campus. Thursday nights at the Cactus are the thing to do, EVERYONE goes. Its cheap, five dollar cover charge with 25 cent beers. Plus, dancing! There is a ginormic dance floor in the center of the place, and it is always packed and sweaty and loud, and ultimately exhausting. So we got there and just hung out at a table and talked about nothing for a little while, then I got a call from Stacee, one of my really good friends, saying that her big sister was in town and they want to come over to the Cactus. Well, first of all, backstory on Stacee. She and I have known each other since like 5th grade, she lived in the next town over, Plymouth. I always had a huge crush on her all throughout elem, middle, and high school. We eventually dated in high school, on and off, for maybe a year or so. But now we are just really good friends. And her family is like my second family. But anyways, her 29 yr old sister, Holly, came up for the weekend from Virginia to hang out and also go to the football game. But we had a blast at the Cactus thursday. It was pretty much me dancing with these two beautiful blonde girls all night, I was the envy of the place, cant get any better than that. We eventually split, I went back to my house with my brothers, my uber-drunk friend unwillingly bought us pizza, and I eventually made it to bed at about 3am.

Woke up at noon on Friday. Thats the great thing about Fridays for me, I can sleep all day if I like. I didnt really do much all day Friday, played Xbox for a while, went to workout, just relaxed. Then Friday night rolls around. This was a very frustrating Friday night. My fraternity cohosted a party with Alpha Kappa Lambda, another frat, at their house. I went with AJ, we were there for about 15 min, it was lame, and we werent in the mood to party or be social at all for that matter. So we decided to go buy some cigars and smoke them. We went to a gas station, were standing in line to pay, and some drunk guy wanted to fight us for no reason. Seriously, no reasonat all, we said nothing to him, he just walked up to us and said, "Did I stutter? Now get the f*** outta my way!" I kind of just looked at him with a "wait, are you serious" look on my face. We just ignored him and left. We went back to the house, me and AJ and Nathan smoked on the roof and told stories. Nathan tells amazing stories. Him and a friend tried driving to the east coast on mopeds this summer......they made it to Ohio, his friend forgot a sleeping bag and got sick one night. While up on the roof, we saw three brothers walking back from the party, one of which was less walking and more leaning on the other two to stay up. All the while being followed closely by a police car. I thought for sure they were gonna get busted, but they made it into the house alright.

So I went downstairs to talk to the guys that came in, just wanting to see some drunken happenings. I was talking to the one that couldnt walk, he is one of the newer guys in the house. We were just having a good time, laughing and stuff, then he breaks out into tears. At first I thought it was pretty funny, but then realize that something was really wrong. He kept telling me that he needed to walk back to his apartment (2 miles away), I said that theres no way Im letting him, saying that he would definately get arrested, but he said that he wanted to get arrested. He was being very self destructive, he wanted to go back to his place and drink more, to get his mind off something. He wouldnt tell us what was wrong though. So for 2 hours I was keeping an eye on him, making sure he wouldnt leave, eventually wrestling him to the ground a couple of times to get him to stay. He was still crying the whole time. We eventually drove him back to his place, and had a little talk with him. Apparently, the girl he had been dating left the party with another guy and he was crushed. We tried comforting him, but he will obviously still be crushed for few days. When we left, we peered into his window for a few minutes to see if he went for the alcohol again. He didnt. I eventually got to bed at 4am.

So then 7am quickly rolls around. Time for breakfast club! Breakfast club is when you dress up in a costume and go to the bars before the football game. This was my first time going to breakfast club. I dressed up in my Kmart attire which I kept from when I worked there in high school. The crew I went with included Stacee, Holly, and Adam, my roomate. Adam was dressed as a pimp, Stacee and Holly were the Doublemint twins. We make it to the first bar at about 8:30am, Brothers Bar. It was pretty dead there, we each had a drink then went to the next bar, WhereElse. This place was happenin! Lots of people, dance floor, cheap screwdrivers. I had two screwdrivers while I was there. It was, again, a blast dancing with Stacee and Holly, and me and Adam were once again the envy of the bar. We left at about 10am, were giving free doublemint gum to random people on the way back, eventaully made it back to my room, then the girls left. I decided to make a third screwdriver. Now, Im a small guy, I hadnt eaten anything that morning, and the screwdrivers at WhereElse were almost double, each. On top of that, I got barely any sleep the night before. Needless to say, I closed my eyes at about 11am.......and missed the football game. I woke up at 3pm, not feeling well. Very dizzy. I spent the rest of the day laying around, trying to recover.

And on top of all this, my roomates ex-girlfriend is up for the weekend. Im not fond of her, she makes my skin crawl. I feel like I have to clean everything she touches. Im afraid to leave them alone in my room for fear that I will have to burn my couch after what they do. So, Im really not happy about this, and they obviously know that. Once again, Im not one to sugarcoat my thoughts.

Alright, its after 2am now, time to finish the day. Sunday....studying, I have an exam Monday. And church, woot! I love my church down here. kbye.

Mohawk No More

2008-09-16T00:42:00.003-04:00

Its true, tonight I shaved the mohawk off, my head is now buzzed. I was going to wait until the weekend to do it, but I am a very impatient person, so I spontaneously did it tonight. Im already wishing I didnt do it though. I miss the mohawk already and its only been like a half hour. Oh well, itll grow back. I just have to wait a little while. One thing I noticed was how thin my hair is now. Im not looking forward to being bald. One of my fears, losing my hair. Im off to bed.

Brokenhearted for No Reason

2008-09-11T00:46:00.004-04:00

Im feeling a little melancholy tonight. I was having a pretty decent day, pretty average day in terms of emotion up until a couple hours ago.

There is a girl in one of my classes who just takes my breath away when I see her. This doesnt happen to me too often. I see pretty girls every day here at Purdue, pretty girls who, for the most part, know that they are pretty.....which in part makes them ugly to me. Pretty girls who are pretty because they wear just the right amount of makeup, dye thier hair just the right color, and thier skirt is just short enough. But this girl in my class has a humble, natural beauty to her. And most of the time, I feel like I cant take my eyes off her, and I catch myself glancing over at her about 85 times during class period, which Im sure everyone has noticed. She is absolutely gorgeous, shes got beautiful wavey brown hair, big brown eyes, slender waist with long legs, and the perfect smile. She gives me a feeling that I havent felt since high school when I would see my crush that I never acted on. I guess you could say I have a crush on her. I havent really had a crush in a long time. Its nice to feel these feelings again. Ive talked to her a couple of times, she is usually sitting on the other side of the room with her back to me, so every once in a while I look for a reason to go over there and small talk. This class isnt like the normal classroom setting, its an art class where we are free to wander, where we work on our own during the 3 hour class period.

But, alas, she has a boyfriend. She is not available. I will never be with her, at least not anytime in the near future. My heart sank when I found this out. The feeling is similar to that of having a pet die or something. Maybe that is a little blown out of proportion, but I think you get my drift. So, tonight, I feel a little melancholy.

Tuesday Night Happenings

2008-09-10T00:15:00.005-04:00

Tonight, again, I went to Greek IV. I touched up on what it was two posts ago. Again, it is like a church service for greeks on campus. But tonight was a little different for me. I wasnt just a spectator tonight, I was actually part of the band! It was great!

Ever since I have become greek, I have been going to Greek IV off and on.....more off than on though. There are a few things that I really dont enjoy about this service. Im not just being pesimistic here, I mean, I think that its great that a group of greeks are getting together every week to worship our Lord. But, I feel like there are some holes that need to be filled. First of all, I love worship. I love singing and closing my eyes and feeling the words and music and giving this beauty back to God. But at Greek IV, worship is awkward. It seems like the band doesnt practice together, they arent sure when to come in, get the words wrong often......its awkward for all of us. Secondly, something that really really bugs me, it seems that the people that come, and who run it, are there for the wrong reasons. I feel like some of the people are really fake, just putting on thier Christian face. When they talk to you it seems that they could really care less about you, they just want to show you how good of a Christian they are by coming to church. Thirdly, something that really really REALLY bugs me.......they shift thier attention away from God. They are more concerned with numbers. During discussion, it seems that they would rather discuss how to talk to our greek brothers or sisters about Christianity, and how to get them to come to Greek IV more than they discuss God! Church service isnt suppose to be about numbers, its about giving and worshipping our Lord! And then, I sometimes get the feeling it is more of a therapy session than a church service, we talk about how we can improve ourselves through Christ. I mean, everyone wants to change, and change for the better, but shouldnt we focus more on how to improve the world, improve Gods kingdom?

So last week, after the service, I walked up to the stage and asked them if they needed any help with the band. I told them that I play guitar and can sing, they said that they actually needed a couple of new guitarrists, so I said I would be there early next week with a guitar and warm up with them. Turns out that this week they were crazy short on people.....there were two other guys and me in the band. So I warmed up with them about a half hour before service, and Andy asked if I felt comfortable playing tonight, of course I said yes, and that was that. It was kind of tough though since I had never played the songs before and had about a half hour to learn three songs, but I managed.

Im going to play it low key for a few weeks, but I think that I would be able to change a few things, at least, thats what Im hoping. If you have ever met me, I am pretty blunt about my concerns (Todds driving haha), so I dont think that I should have a problem expressing my concerns to the people that run Greek IV. I just hope Im doing the right thing here. And hopefully they are open to my suggestions and dont get angry. Plus I have a little bit of experience with worship bands, so maybe I could get the band organized and we could rock out in style. I hope Im not in over my head. But I guess its really not up to me.....

To end, this has absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about, but Jane sent me a picture that she had taken that was in reference to a Renoir painting. I saved it and played with it in Photoshop for a while to try to make it look like an actual painting that looks like it couldve been done by Renoir, and this is what I came up with. Im pretty proud of it.

More Art Stuff

2008-09-07T21:22:00.009-04:00

Well, Ive decided to post some more artwork that I have done in the past couple of years, most of which were done here at Purdue. These are actually some of my favorites that are included in my portfolio....the same portfilio that didn't get me into the Industrial Design program. I apologize again for slacking on the blog too, Ive been busy here at school, mostly socially, but when I do get free time I would rather read or play guitar or something. But Ill try to get back into the swing of things on the blog. So here we go, artwork!! Lets get excited!!

The picture of the girl is one I did back in high school. She was a girl that I liked at the time (then later on dated), but I never gave it to her....and Im actually glad I didnt, because I would no longer have it. The pictures of the cars were done my freshman year of college. I used to watch Overhaulin' a lot and watching Chip Foose create these drawings for show really inspired me, so I tried it out myself using pen and some acrylic paint laying around. They could be better, this was before I had any formal training on shadow and reflections and all that jazz. (Oh, and I believe that if you click on the pic, it will enlarge it) This was one of my favorite classes that I have taken in college, Intro to Drawing. We used nothing but graphite and charcoal. I love making charcoal drawings. In the first drawing, we had to draw something with texture, so I crumpled up a picture of Jesus, ripped the edges, flattened it back out, and drew what I saw. The next two were interesting to do, we had to cover the whole sheet of paper in charcoal, make it completely black, then use an eraser to make the highlights. I think that it is actually easier than drawing with charcoal. The middle picture is my face. We used a photocopy machine, put our faces up to it, printed, then recreated our print. The third is a vase on a vase stand. (not sure why this is underlined)

These pictures are from the very first art class I took in college. Intro to Design I think? It was fun to create these random pictures.

This is a fruit holder that I had to design and make in one of my ID classes. This was such a pain-in-the-butt project. It was called the Joinery project, and we had to make 3 or more equal pieces that connect together, without glue, to make a fruit holder. It was tough just to come up with an idea, let alone make it. I basically accidentally stumbled upon this design, just started putting pieces together and this is what I got.

This is a stool. Its made out of sheet metal and steel rods. Very sharp sheet metal. I cut myself several times making this one. This stool also took me forever to design, I probably drew a hundred different designs before I finished with this one. I was trying to make the whole thing out of one piece of sheet metal, and the design could be done that way, but my piece of sheet metal was about 2 inches too narrow.

Ok, you could call me a cheater for these drawings. I was looking at other peoples sketches when I drew these. I was just trying to get an idea of using different techniques of sketching, trying to figure out how they do it. So they arent really originals. But they look so good!!

These are some sketches for the Opus Design Competition. We had to come up with an inovative design for sunglasses. But we couldnt just design a pair of sunglasses, they had to have other functions as well. Retarded.....I know. Why cant they just serve one function......to keep the sun out of my freakin eyes. I ended up designing a pair that had little wipers on them in case it rained or someone spit on you or something. But they did look really cool.