Life for Dummies

Life is like a box of chocolates and i just grabbed the toothpaste filled one.

2009-01-03T02:04:00.002-05:00

So yeah... lately God has been showing me how much farther I have to go. Which is a good thing. I was getting sorta complacent. I haven't cracked my Bible in who knows when, and as for talking, lets just say that me and God are due for a date. It's frustrating to know that I'm still not perfect, but it does give me something to shoot for.

So yeah basically this is simply to say: I am not perfect. I need to grow and move.

New stuff

2008-11-04T04:38:00.002-05:00

Well not too much has happened in this period of silence. Just school and work mainly. Not very interesting.

However, in the past 4 or so hours I have decided that I will be writing a novel this month. November is National Novel Writing Month and a friend of mine was talking about it a while ago so I started thinking tonight that it would be pretty cool if I could have a novel to my name. There is an organization for people who feel like participating in writing a novel this month. The point is not to make a pretty piece of prose but instead to get the majority of the work done. they encourage quantity not quality. The goal is to write a 175 page or 50,000 word novel in one month. I think this is a good thing because the hardest part of writing a book is actually writing it. If you can get 175 pages in a month you can take the rest of the year to make sure those pages are amazing. I think it's going to be a pretty interesting month. We'll see how this thing goes. Maybe I'll make this an annual thing. Well if anyone wants to join in just let me know and maybe we can swap ideas and plots off of eachother. Be aware that it is the 4th of november already and it needs to be done by the 30th. You can submit it at the site and they award little prizes (cirtificates of recognition and stuff like that) if you finish. And other people can read your book.

Any who. time for bed. More writing tomorrow. Yay :-)

Wow

2008-08-20T00:20:00.003-05:00

Well It's been another month and still, not much has happened. I'm sorry I'm posting so infrequently but I just don't have much to post about. I go to work come home eat and then sleep and do it over again. Not very interesting.

Apple is an amazing company. I'm just saying.

Well School starts in two days and I still don't think I"m ready. This past week has been awesome because I've gotten to see some of my best friends (college and high school) and things are getting back to this weird state that many people call "normal". I don't know I'm just happy that I get to see all my awesome friends pretty much whenever I want to. It's nice.

Well I'll end it with this amazing song by an amazing band. Enjoy. It's a cute song about love. and the video is kinda sweet too.

Here (In Your Arms) by Hellogoodbye

Wow is it that time already!!!??

2008-07-10T18:19:00.002-05:00

Well another month (or two) has come and gone, and all I have to show for it are a couple hundred hours of work, one paycheck, one vacation, and a lot of sleep.

Really nothing has happened.

I did get to play Rock Band today and a week or two ago. It was fun.

"Don't give up on the hope
That keeps you breathing
'Cause after it's all said and done
It's all your lonely heart has"
- "Song for the Broken" The Wedding

Hiya

2008-05-15T13:13:00.002-05:00

Well I figure it's time for another post, having almost been a month since my last one. Sorry about leaving you in suspense for so long. Well I have once again done it. I passed my classes and pulled a 3.0 cumulative GPA. That is all that is required so I'm happy with it. I cannot describe my joy at being done with school for another summer. I need the break. The last month and a half of school was a killer. For the last week and a half I was routinely going to bed around 3am and waking up at 7am. It wears on you. I am happy to announce that in the last two weeks I have not slept less than 9 hours a night and if feels so good.

Not much has happened or will happen over the summer. I am hoping to get a job (aka signing my soul away) at starbuck's over the summer and then continue through the semester. Other than that I'll most likely be sleeping and hanging out with my friends. Should be a fairly lazy/work-filled summer. I'm happy.

End of the night

2008-04-18T06:38:00.002-05:00

Well I just got done pulling an all nighter. Zero sleep. The night before I got 2 hours with a 2hour nap. So I'm gettin ready to start my next set of 24 hours with 4 hours of sleep under my belt. Wonderful. I'm really exausted but can't stop now. I gotta be at work in 20 min. It's 7:40am. and all I want to do is sleep. At least the paper is done. Now for the Project. And that other paper. and that book I have to read. I hate the last few weeks of class.

In Sight

2008-04-14T22:29:00.002-05:00

Well here we are once again. Months and weeks have come and gone and once again I stand on the brink of exam week. This year held some other interesting things though. I've had some crazy professors hold onto tests till these last three weeks before exam week. I have a couple papers and presentations as well as another book to read. But all in all I'm excited about the prospect of being done. Of course I don't mean done for good. I have another three years of this to look forward to. But I am definately ready for some rest and relaxation. Unfortunatly all i have to look forward to this summer is working hard enough to make up for all the money I spent this year and prepare for the expenses of next year. And I have to spend the summer away from Jess.

But I'll make it through somehow.

"Cause your time is limited
All you have is the breath already exiting your lungs
If you won't live you might as well die
You can't afford to lead that life.

Life is but a breath
Don't waste it." - The Wedding

I don't know

2008-03-25T01:37:00.002-05:00

This week and last week have been some of the, physically and mentally, most strenuous weeks in a long time. Late nights and early mornings are zero fun. Especially when you have a whole week of them.

I hate being human. Sure there are some perks but overall it's disappointing. I can't focus on what I need to because if I do then other things get overlooked. If I do those other things then I can't get less important but more persistant things done. It is a vile cycle.

I have just started realizing exactly how busy I am.

I like easter with friends.

I would much rather be sleeping right now.

"What new mystery is this?
What blessed backwardness?
the Immessurable one is held and does not resist
struck by wicked words and foolish fists of senseless men
the Almighty One does not defend."- mewithoutYou

Wow

2008-03-03T01:50:00.002-05:00

The past few weeks have been intense. I feel as though, to borrow from Tolkien, "I'm like butter that's been scraped over too much bread." I'm feeling stretched and worn out. Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually too. I'm ready for spring break.

Masks On

2008-02-28T01:00:00.002-05:00

I'm teaching a lesson in house church tomorrow on Unmasked Christianity. We're reading the book "Messy Spirtituality" by Michael Yaonelli. It's an interesting book that sets about answering the question What does a godly person look like? I don't agree with everything but it does raise interesting questions and interesting ideas. I would def recommend reading it. But if you do read it read with an open mind as well as a critical mind. Don't just accept something he (or anyone) says because they say it.

Any way I think it's going to be a very interesting lesson because I'm gonna be very open and honest with everyone and I don't know everyone that well. It's a hard thing for me to do. I struggle with openness and honesty with people until I get to know them. During highschool I learned that if you keep your head down and don't talk there is less chance for you to get hurt. But I've found during college that by opening up you can get to know some really beautiful people (beautiful on the inside, although sometimes beautiful on the outside as well). I'm not really sure what exactly I'm going to say so I think I"m gonna work on that for a bit.

Here We Go Again

2008-02-21T01:46:00.002-05:00

Up late and not doing what I should. It's sorta the way I do things these days.

Saw a lunar eclipse tonight. Pretty cool. Well this is me procrastinating. I should go to bed or study or do something more productive with my time.

I like cheese.

Times they are a changing

2008-02-05T03:37:00.000-05:00

I need prayer. In general. I find that the more I learn about life the less I like it.

Someone asked today why can't people just be nice to each other. I think if more people asked this question less people would have to ask this question.

I am starting to realize that I need to trust myself more. I doubt my wisdom alot and I'm starting to see that God has blessed me with some amount of wisdom and that if I trust myself I can bless others.

I hate questions that crush the human spirit.

I hate questions that have no right answer.

I hate questions that will never ever leave anybody happy, and usually end up hurting innocents.

I hate finding out that life isn't as simple as we thought.

I'm going through this book right now called "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell. It's a really interesting and fresh look at Christianity. Rob Bell has some very interesting views of the meaning of being a Christian and for the most part I agree with him. I would highly recommend him to anyone who has real doubts about their faith and would like to read something kind of modern on the question of spiritual authority. I'll give you a little excerpt I read earlier today that really caught my attention. "The ultimate display of our respect for the sacred words of God is that we are willing to wade in and struggle with the text-the good parts, the hard-to-understand parts, the parts we wish weren't there. ... when you wrestle with the text you walk away limping."

Well I have a lot of thoughts wandering through my head, some deep some not so deep, some distinctly bad, so I'm having trouble sleeping, but that's par for the course lately. Well I think I'll go take a shower or something.

Faith Hope Love

Wow

2008-01-19T15:53:00.001-05:00

Two years.
Two years ago today, in computer class I decided to start a blog. That was a long time ago.

A lot has changed and a lot has happened.

Not much to say other than wow.

Try out this awesome game. Basically you test your knowledge of vocabulary and every time you get a word right 20 grains of rice are donated to needy countries to help feed the hungry. Sure 20 grains isn't much but I played for about 15min and was able to donate 2500 grains. That's a whole meal at least. The rice is paid for by ads on the page and donated thru the UN. And it's just plain fun to test your knowledge of words. It's also good to know that your helping people thru this simple act. Take 15 minutes out of your day and help feed some hungry people
"...Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me."
-Matthew 25:40 Help someone one out today.

New Year

2008-01-10T21:49:00.001-05:00

Well I am a few days away from the start of a new semester and I'm still trying to decide whether or not I'm excited. I'm excited to be back in Columbia, not so much for the city, but for all my friends here. It's nice to be back in this place where I'm only a few blocks from some of my best friends. I do mourn the fact that I was unable to see anyone from highschool over the break but sometimes life does that to you. I had a pretty good time over the break. I got some cool presents, got to see some people I haven't seen in a while, and got to see some pretty cool places and do some cool things. I was kind of sad that I couldn't be in Columbia over new years and see my friends but I guess there's always next year. I had a good time anyway. I was once again reminded of the brotherhood of all believers. If you ever want to know that God is really real just go to a church where you know either no one or very few people and take part in a prayer circle. It is an awesome feeling to look at someone and have no idea what to pray for and then ask for guidance and suddenly feel words placed in your mind. I really enjoyed that. Then afterwards I enjoyed a discussion on faith and belief with a man who was older than me. It was nice to see that getting older doesn't answer all your questions, that it is okay to ask questions.

I have been having some spiritual struggles lately. Nothing exactly I can put into words. Just general doubts. I've been questioning if I really believe and if so what exactly I believe in. I think this is an important process in any Christians life. Belief that is not attached to yourself really isn't belief. It's also kinda a struggle because this is something I've always lived with so by doubting this I'm doubting every other aspect of my life and whether or not I've lived for nothing.

Other things in my life. I've realized that I need to be stronger in my convictions and how I stand up for those convictions. I don't have a problem having convictions, I have a problem standing up for myself. If I have a problem with something or if someone challenges my conviction I'll tell them I have a problem or that I really do believe that. However, if they persist I just quickly drop it or act like I've changed my belief just to get out of the conflict. I think part of this comes from me as a highschooler. When I was in junior high and high school my plan was to stay below the radar so people would not take notice. I didn't follow rules to not get in trouble but so that if I did break the rules people would think well of me and not get as mad at me. I've lived a lot of my life doing everything I can to stay out of conflict. The problem is that when I have a serious topic I need to discuss or that someone else needs to discuss with me, I shut down very easily. Seriously, if I feel any conflict starting, I will immediately stop what ever I was saying or listening to to stop the conflict. It's good if I was always getting into fights but since this is just in conversations it is becoming a problem. So I guess my resolution is to try and work on becoming a braver and stronger person who can deal with conflict.

Other stuff. I just finished reading the book "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman. If you've never heard of "The Golden Compass", it is the newest center of controversy. Published in 1995 this book is the first in a three part series Philip Pullman wrote as the opposite of C. S. Lewis's acclaimed "Chronicles of Narnia" series. This book was made into a movie of the same title released this Christmas. Philip Pullman is not a big fan of the Church, in particular the Catholic Church. He himself said "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian Belief" (See Here). I'm not going to discuss the movie (I haven't seen it), I'm going to talk a little about the book. After reading the book, I can see why the Catholic Church and groups like focus on the family would be in such outrage. The books portray the religious authorities as evil conniving people who are willing to go to any length to keep children in the Church, even if it means killing them. Basically he says not that religion is bad but that the people who say they know everything about religion are evil. This does not bode well for the Catholic Church or Focus on the Family. While I do not agree with Pullman on everything or even fully on this issue I do think it is something that all Christians should keep in mind. Being a Christian is not about what music you listen to, how you dress, or even what you say. It is all about how you live. If you listen to the right music, dress right and say all the right things but live like your better than everyone else (which you probably will) you probably aren't truly a Christian. To be a Christian you must live loving everyone else and putting every other person above you. Screaming at people why they are going to hell is not being a Christian because you are exalting yourself about them. Singing songs about loving God then refusing to even listen to a homeless person or some hardcore kid with his hair in a mohawk is not being a Christian. Christ came into this world and loved the most hated people of his time and he rarely told people (and never large crowds) that he was perfect and that without him they were going to go to hell. Christ came and people listened to him not because he was perfect but because he was different. He came and he shook things up. I just think that sometimes groups like Focus on the Family lose sight of that and focus too much on the externals. God is all about the internals.

Well that's about it.

End

2007-12-25T01:21:00.001-05:00

Well this is the end. Another year is gone. Another day has finished. 1am Christmas morning and it still feels like christmas eve. I feel kinda bad right now. Christmas is a time for joy and cheer. But right now I'm finding it hard to find things to be cheerful about. I have lot's to be thankful for but that doesn't exactly make me cheerful.

I'm really kinda mad at my family right now. I know that sounds really high school and cliche but it's true. Tomorrow (technically today) is Christmas. The next day my family is planning to leave and go up to my grandparent's house in Virginia. Two days after that me and my brothers are leaving from there to go to New York with some old friends of ours. Then me and Dusty will spend New Years with our friends. Finally we will return home on the second of the new year. Sounds like fun, right? Wrong. This means that on Christmas day I will have to pack my bags for about two weeks. Then as soon as I return I have to pack up for college because I have to move out of my dorm on the morning of the 7th so I have to go up on the 6th at the latest (I'm hoping to go up the 5th and spend some time with friends). I'm excited about the trip as far as new york and new years goes (although it means I'll have to miss out on New Years with my girlfriend). But this trip to my grandparent's house for the two days before that is what makes me most mad. This trip means that I will only spend at the most ten days at my house. This means that this entire break will have less than 5 stress free days (lack of stress is why I was excited about christmas). Also it means that I will miss out on seeing many of my good friends from highschool. And frankly I don't want to spend two days at my grandparents house. They are never all that nice to me and if my other set of grandparents reaction is any clue, my lip ring will cause me to get ignored for two days. Yes this will be a fun little excursion. I'm most mad about the fact that this means that I'll actually have to do stuff on the two days after Christmas. I was hoping that I'd be able to take a little time and enjoy what I get for Christmas. Oh well so much for that. When I get back I'll have at most a couple of days to actually use the stuff I get and I'll also have to pack up for college. Good thing I didn't unpack yet.

I think the summery of this post is how much i hate the holidays when they get stressful. I try my best to not get caught up in the consumerism and stress of Christmas but try as I might my family won't let me just sit around. I know that sounds lazy but as soon as I get back to school I have a lot of stuff to do. It would be kind of nice if I could just take a break occasionally. But that's life and sometimes (read most of the time) you have to do stuff you don't want to. Hopefully I won't be a downer on the trip b/c I want to have a good time. I'm really hoping I don't have to drive tomorrow because I have no desire to drive to a place I don't want to go when a few days later I'll probably have to drive a lot longer distance. Well that's all I got.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Mark

2007-11-30T01:43:00.000-05:00

Yeah so I should be doing logic homework but I thought this was more important.

So I go thirsty tonight as I was driving home from my girlfriend's apartment (She was too tired to drive me home so instead she just let me take her car and then drive it back to her tomorrow). So stopped off at a gas station not too far from the garage I was going to park her car in. As I walk in there is a rather rough looking guy walking in. He says hey to me and I reply in kind. We chat a little as I grab a Dew and he grabs a beer. We make our way back up to the counter and he's mentioning about how he is going to have to walk all the way to st andrews road and how it's going to be a long and kinda scary walk (it's about 1am). As I walk out the door he asks me which way I'm heading. I gesture in the direction of my dorm. It was the opposite direction he wanted to go. I ask him where exactly he needs to get to. He tells me he needs to get to Broad River Road and then asks me for a ride. It is now that I probably make the most stupid decision but also the best decision. I decide to give this guy a ride. I didn't know whether or not this guy was going to rob me, carjack me, or simply take the ride I offered. As it turns out he just wanted the ride. As we drove along (it's about a ten to twenty min drive) he told me about why he was all the way down where he was. I couldn't get everything he was saying as he was using a lot of indefinite pronouns but apparently someone kicked a good friend of his out of the place that he was staying (in a cemetery in the woods). This man (mark) was in downtown because he was planning on beating the crap out of the guys who did this. When he couldn't find them he went down to a gas station that they frequented in order to wait for them. By the time I came along he had cooled down enough (and sobered up enough) to have thought of the consequences of his plan. Basically he said that I had saved him from going to jail. I dropped him off and drove back here where I'm preparing to do some logic.

Now I know as you read this you're thinking to yourself "David, it's freakin 1am, you're driving a guy who almost got sent to jail for assault, and no one is around or awake to help you if it turns out that he was making up his story of needing a ride. What in the world were you thinking?" You know I don't know why I gave the guy a ride. It was stupid and reckless but I did get to meet a really interesting guy. I also now understand that logic homework isn't the worst thing in life. And I got to show the love of God to a pretty nice guy who is simply a little rough around the edges. All in all it was a worthwhile experiance.

Yay

2007-11-06T00:54:00.000-05:00

Well I've had the most amazing weekend. Me and God had a few really good conversations, a fight or two, and finally God kicked me in the butt and showed me what I've known all along. That seems to be my relationship with God right now. I'm happy to announce that, for the past two days, I've finally had my priorities straight. Having said that, it is a struggle every second to keep God on top. God is a gentleman and will allow himself to be displaced by other things. I have to make sure he is not. It's a struggle.

This weekend was also pretty crazy as far as how I've grown emotionally. Ever since about 6th or 7th grade I've had a really hard time trusting people and opening up to them. I think this stems from the fact that I used to trust people only to have them turn around and use that against me. I've developed this shell I hide in when ever I get hurt. I don't like it in that shell but it's my reaction when attacked, to slip back into the shell and hold all my emotion to my chest. This weekend has been good for me because I had to apologize to people for a couple things I had been feeling earlier in the week. But it made me feel good to open up. Sorta like a breeze after a long time in prison.

One last awesome part of this weekend was the fact that I got the chance to get baptized by a really close friend of mine. This guy has been a pillar in my life since coming to college and I was so happy that he was willing to baptize me. I feel that by going thought this symbolic action I could shed my old self who was very closed and had his priorities in the wrong order. I think it could also have something to do with the insanely cold water. It was really awesome because I told Bob (the friend who baptized me) to hold me under for a while. I let him hold me under till I felt the need to come up so that it felt like I had really died. It was an amazing feeling.

On a completely different note I've started listening to Blink-182 again. Some of their songs are a bit rough but the one I've come to love in the past couple days is their song "First Date"

"First Date"- Blink-182
In the car I just can't wait
To pick you up for our very first date
Is it cool if I hold your hand
Is it wrong if I think it's lame to dance
Do you like my stupid hair
Would you guess that I didn't know what to wear
I'm so scared of what you think
You make me so nervous so I really can't eat

(Chorus)
Let's go
Don't wait
This night's almost over
Honest
Let's make
This night last forever
Forever, and ever
Let's make this last forever

When you smile I melt inside
I'm not worthy for a minute of your time
I really wish it was only me and you
I'm jealous of everybody in the room
Please don't look at me with those eyes
Please don't hint that you're capable of lies
I've dreamt of the thought of our very first kiss
A target that I'm probably gonna miss

(Chorus)
(Chorus)

Feelings

2007-11-02T03:31:00.001-05:00

I don't like feelings. They confuse me. Things are just a lot easier when you don't have to feel. Love is such a weird emotion/feeling/state-of-being. I used to think I knew what "love" meant. Now I've come to see how confusing and imprecise that word is. What is love? Is it what one feels for a good friend? Is it what one feels for a parent or other relative? No matter how you look at it there is no simple explanation for love. Christian school teaches you to answer the question "What is love?" with the rote response "Love is putting another's wants, needs, and desires ahead of one's own." Sure that's a good response and I think it actually is a good definition of this insanely complex word. But what does that mean to put another's desires ahead of your own. Does it mean that you should always be miserable as long as others are happy? Is it even humanly possible to put another's wants and needs ahead of mine without having some sort of ulterior motive? If I show a friend love am I showing them love for no other reason than that I should love them or am I trying to stay in their good graces?

I find that, yes, my relationships are better when I love others, but most of the time it's the hardest thing to do. I have to say the one thing I hate most about Christians today is the annoying way in which they describe the Christian life. They try and describe it as giving up your life to God but once you do you'll absolutely love your life. I think a lot less people would go to church if they actually had to unconditionally love others. I know that I wouldn't. Yes I try to love people unconditionally, but when someone comments on the quality of service you're providing and they are completely rude that makes it so much harder to love them and I typically don't love them. The hardest thing in Christianity is not dying to self, not obeying God. The hardest thing any human could ever be asked to do is to love people especially when they don't deserve your love. It's really hard to love people who kill others for no reason; it's really hard to love people who protest at funerals for something the grieving family is not at fault for. And yet these are the people I'm called to love the most.

The Killer is Me

2007-10-31T02:12:00.000-05:00

I've noticed lately that I do a lot of things that not many people do.
I go to class even though I despise the class.
I do homework and research on my own, even when I have every reason to copy off of someone.
I don't care what I wear or how I look.
I listen to scremo music.
I can understand scremo music.
I find scremo music to be some of the most beautiful poetry and heartfelt lyrics of all music.

Yeah those last couple are things that very few people agree with me on. I must say that, even though most people see scremo as a group of people who can't sing or play instruments well so they just try and make as much noise as possible, I see it as one of the most technical forms of music. One band that I really enjoy right now, Chasing Victory, has some of the most intricate drum, guitar, and singing parts that I have ever heard. And I really like the messages they have. One of their songs, The Killer is Me, is the feelings of this guy who wants to stay pure till marrige. He constantly screams to anyone listening that even though he wants to stay pure he most likely will give in to "the power of his weaknesses." "You can bet that I will throw it all away for her tonight, 'cause I'm oh so human and I am losing every second of this fight." This single line is the reason I love this song so much. This line seems like something I would have written.

I'm not trying to get into a musical debate or force anyone to listen to Chasing Victory. I'm only commenting on how interesting it is that G-d gives you the right kind of music for the exact right moments.
PS I love the iPod shuffle. It lets G-d play a part in your daily music choices. I find that no matter what I'm feeling, when I need it G-d has the exact right song play at the exact right moment so I can hear exactly which words I need to hear, not the words I want to hear.

Thoughts

2007-10-28T23:35:00.000-05:00

I'm a mess. I've learned that with G-d its safer sometimes to say nothing at all than to think you have anything right. Every time I think I have a hold on something G-d shows me exactly how little I can actually hold onto it. It's kind of annoying.

Why am I so scared of work? Why do I fear pain? Why do I avoid physical discomfort with every cell in my body? Is this all I'm made for? To fear what I'm going to feel? That's not living. That's hiding. I have so little control over myself. Sure I can stop myself from hitting someone, but what's to stop me for brutally murdering him in my mind. You can control yourself? Good for you. So can a dog. What makes us human is that we can control our minds and our desires. The only problem is that it is the hardest act you will ever do. It's like killing yourself every second of every day. And it's not a painless death. Killing who you are so that the Mind of Chr-st can reside in you is like ripping every inch of skin from yourself. It takes a lot of will power and concentration. And frankly sometimes it's not worth it. Living for myself is the most fun way to live. Unfortunately I have this annoying thing called a conscience. When I live for myself, it doesn't let me sleep till I am completely distraught. Who thought that Jimmeny Cricket could be this annoying?

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Chr-st J-s-s." Such simple words. But as the saying goes "Talk is cheap". "He will not let you be tempted above what you are able." That's not what it feels like most of the time. Most of the time if feels like anything the Devil's got is being thrown at me, whether I can stand it or not. Who am I, fighting this titan who knows me more intamatley than I know myself? I am starting to see how foolish it is to fight Satan by myself. He's not all knowing. But he knows enough. He's not omnipresent. But he has enough servants. He's not all powerful. But he is a lot stronger than me. He's not infinite. But he's less finite than I. I need prayer. Plain and simple. I'm a proud pompous SOB who thinks he's strong enough to defy an angelic being. For that alone I deserve hell fire. I don't know why G-d loves me but for some reason he's really patient with me. Pray for me. Not that I'll be given the strength to fight the temptations that strike me every day. Not that I'll be able to have a proper view of the world. Pray that I lose my prideful "Christian school" attitude. Pray that I need G-d more. I don't trust him enough. Heck I don't trust him at all. Stupid western upbringing. Heh, as much as I want to I'm too scared to pray to G-d for brokenness. I don't know what that prayer will bring, all I know is that my life will be destroyed. And I don't think I'm ready for that.

Now on to what sparked my desire to write. I don't deserve my girlfriend. I was reading her blog and she was talking about how G-d's doing "amazing" things in her life. I'm listed under that as and obvious thing. I don't know what I did to deserve that but I'd really like to know. At shack tonight we were discussing how repentance comes from changing what you believe. And it struck me right then that I don't believe the right thing about Jessica. I've noticed a bad trend in me lately. I've gotten extremely selfish of this absolutely amazing girl. I get jealous when she spends time with other people. I feel cheated when I can't spend at least an hour or two with her every night. WTF is up with that attitude. When did I become the most important person in the world that I deserve time with someone every night. Sure it's a natural feeling to want to spend copious amounts of time with someone you really like. But last time I checked, thats borderline abusive to feel jealous that that person wants to spend time with someone else. I've come to realize that not only is this selfishness on my part, but I'm also objectifying her. I treating her as this thing that is there only to please me. And that's not how it is nor should be. I need a change in my perspective. In what I believe about her. I need to see her as a beautiful girl who is gracious enough to put up with my awkwardness and social ill grace. A girl who is willing to take valubable time out of her day to listen to my small and typically blown-out-of-proportions problems. I could use everyone's prayer on this. Pray that I will see Jessica as G-d sees her: A beautiful creation that is living for him with every breath. Frankly I need to put G-d first. I need to put G-d first, Jessica second, and myself after everyone else.

Yeah this was a weird one. I don't know what I was typing most of the time. Heck I don't know what I am asking ya'll to pray for. Just pray for me in general. I just need a lot of work.

Beauty

2007-10-04T23:57:00.000-05:00

Sitting on a porch at 1 in the morning I'm struck by the amazing awesomeness of God. I have no idea where I'll be in two days or what I'll be doing and God already knows and loves me despite the fact that I'll more than likely fail him in whatever I'm doing. I hate being human. It's aweful knowing that you will fail your amazing awesome God and knowing that no matter how hard you try to do your best it's still going to be like slapping him in the face. I don't know why God loves us but all I know is that he loves me.

The band mewithoutYou is an awesome band. They have some amazing lyrics in their song "The Soviet". The first few lines in the song go like this: "God is love, and love is real." I think those 7 words sum up the existence of God a lot quicker than anything you or I could ever say. I said this in house church the other day. When someone asks what the very essence of God is the answer to that is love. Imagine the love you have for the person or thing you love most on this earth. Then multiply those feelings by a couple thousand. The product of that equation is equal to just a fraction (if that) of God's love for us. And not just love he has for us. When you love someone, I believe that that feeling is God to some degree.

I don't know where this is going. All I know is that I think I might love this girl and I'm trying to work out what love is.

More about me

2007-10-01T13:56:00.000-05:00

Well sorry about the last post. I didn't have much time but I felt like writing something. In case you are wondering what the change is I will tell you. On tuesday September 25th 2007 I got my lip pierced. I now have a half ring in the hole in my lip. It will take about six weeks or so to fully heal and once it does I want to get a full ring in it. I don't have any pictures of it so I can't show ya'll what it looks like. When i have pictures I will post them.

I will go ahead and answer the most prevalent questions I have gotten. 1. Did it hurt? When I got it no it did not hurt. However in the past few days it has started to hurt more due to the fact that it is healing and that it is slightly infected. 2. Why? Well this is a multi faceted answer. First I got it because I think it looks good and so do many other people. Second I got it so that I can disassociate myself with certain sects of Christianity. I am not trying to distance myself from Christianity but from certain hyper conservative sects that come to USC campus and condemn people for being slightly different. In case you do not know this about me I absolutely hate people who condemn others based on surface things. If one of these "preachers" can look me in the eye and tell me I'm going to hell for having long hair then why in the world would I or anyone else in that crowd want to be a Christian. These "preachers" dress in nice clothes and "preach" against the evils of rock music and the "fact" that God hates anyone who partakes in any kind of sin. These are the people I'm trying to distance myself from. I don't want people who learn that I am a Christian to immediately associate my name with these bigoted idiots. My parents have asked me how I'll explain this to the young children at our church and that I should stumble them in their faith. My answer to that is also multi faceted. First, if the young children can be stumbled so easily perhaps their parents should allow them to work through their faith a little more and figure out some of it for themselves. In all seriousness, if a 14 year old is stumbled because of my lip perhaps they need a bit more maturity in their faith. And second of all, I think that a lot of the problem comes from the parents attitude towards change. If the parents are completely against the lip ring then their children will most likely also hold the same view. Children look up to their parents so a lot of the views of those young children hold will be molded by their parents views. The second part of my answer is that I will make sure those children understand that if they want to do something like get a lip ring or whatever that they must make sure their parents are ok with it. If their parents say yes (or at the very least don't say no) then I say that they go ahead and get one but only once they turn 18 (the legal age to get a piercing in SC). The second thing I'd tell them is to make sure they want one. Don't get a piercing if it's something someone else wants you to get or if it's something culture wants you to get one. Not many people know this but since the age of about 15 or 16 (about 10th or 11th grade) I've thought about getting a piercing and where I'd get it and why. And ever since I started considering I have always known that the reason I would get one would be to distance myself from close minded, quick to condemn Christians.

Now then I'm going home on the 6th of october and will be at my home church on the 7th. This will be an interesting time as it will be the first time my family sees the ring and also the first time my church finds out about it. After six weeks or so I should be able to change the ring myself and at that point I will get myself a retainer. This is a little flesh colored stud that goes in the piercing to hold it open but without being very noticeable. After i get that I will wear that to church so that it doesn't become as big of an issue. I'm not out to pick a fight with anyone. I will be as accommodating as I possibly can and I am only asking people to meet me half way. This first trip back will have a lot to do with whether or not I return to Myrtle Beach Bible Chapel.
Well I gotta go to class but I'll post again later.

Me 2.0

2007-09-30T14:17:00.001-05:00

Yes that's right I have been updated. Some people aren't happy with it but a lot of people are. And I am too.

New Post

2007-09-20T00:44:00.000-05:00

Well this is a new post. I've noticed I've been writing on this blog a lot more than I have in the past few months. I hope I keep it up.

I've realized in the past month that I'm a very lazy person who finds it arduous to do even the simplest task.

I've begun to feel like I'm jogging on a path to a place I want to go. However, I have yet to know where this point is. I'm hoping I can find out where it is soon. I do take comfort in the fact that God knows where he's taking me and that no matter where it is and no matter how I or others feel about it, it will work out to good somehow.

This is a really random blog. I just have all these random thoughts floating around and, while I need to go to bed, I really enjoy the band that is playing on my iTunes so I might stay up for a little longer just so I can listen to them.

I miss couches. It's nice to have someplace to sit that has no designated purpose. When I go to my friend's apartments I now take serious pleasure in just sitting on a couch and relaxing.

It's interesting to see how much your body changes based on circumstance. A month ago (when I first came to college) I had to drink a whole lot of liquid every day to keep from having a headache. Now I can drink only about 40oz of liquid a day and be perfectly fine. I'm also to a place where I only get hungry twice a day. It's kind of cool.

I'm almost positive I'm going to get my lip pierced. Many people, including my family and friends, think I'm insane to do it. I frankly don't care what others think. I feel almost as if i need to do this to break with the old David. A David who would look at someone who is different and condemn them based on my 2 second relationship with that person.

I have a girlfriend now. It's kind of strange. I've been praying for about a year and a half now that God would bring a girl into my life and now that she's here it's almost as if I can't remember why I wanted this. But every time I see her or hear her say my name it reminds me. Let's just say I'm really thankful to God right about now. I would appreciate prayer for us, that we will keep our relationship centered on God and that we will both keep God first in our lives.

This is me and Jessica Moody (the girl I spoke of earlier) at a Relient K concert.

Sitting still makes your butt hurt.

2007-09-14T01:14:00.000-05:00

This has been an interesting set of 24 hours in my life. In the past 24 hours I have learned a lot about myself and a lot about God. I've realized that sometimes what you think is adequate is simply so much less than adequate. I've learned I have a lot farther to go than I originally thought. It's been depressing, exciting, annoying, and pleasant all at the same time. Needless to say, class was one of the last things on my mind. Thankfully I only had 2 classes today. I've also learned that the things and people I value the most are also the things or people I will always hurt the most. If you are reading this blog and are a praying sort of person pray for me now because over the next couple days I'm gonna need all the help I can get.

Amazing Weekend

2007-09-09T23:34:00.000-05:00

This weekend was simply amazing. Friday after class me and two of my friends left USC and drove up to Asheville, North Carolina to see the band Relient K perform. Simply put it was an amazing concert with an amazing opening band. Then we drove home and got in at like 2am. Then the next day was the USC vs UGA game. USC has not beat UGA in five years and it's been longer since we beat them at their own field. Well turns out this was the year to change all that. It was a tense game with the final minute deciding the game in favor of USC. After hanging out with friends till 2am after the game I finally got to sleep. Then on Sunday I went to a concert by The Almost. It was a pretty good show but mostly it was a great experience. It is not truly a concert until you are so thirsty you suck on ice cubes to get water in your body and it is so hot that you drip with sweat before the concert even starts. I think one girl even got heat exhaustion. Overall it was an amazing weekend hanging out with two of my really good friends. What more could you ask for in a weekend (aside from large sums of money and a nice car)

COLLEGE!!!!!!

2007-08-21T01:32:00.000-05:00

Well it's the start of another year and surprise surprise I'm up late again. The past three days have been amazing: hanging out with my friends and getting back into the atmosphere of being in college. It's really nice to be back here and actually know what you're doing. I find myself laughing at the freshmen who are doing the same kind of things that I was doing about a year ago. It's interesting to see a year ahead of me and, knowing how much I've grown and changed in the past 12 months, think of how I'll change and learn in the coming 12. I think it would be interesting to meet the David I'll be 1 year from now.

Well I gotta get to bed.

Oops

2007-07-22T00:49:00.000-05:00

Ok so I forgot that I promised to post some pix from Europe. What can I say I'm forgetful. If you're thinking to yourself that you have missed out on a huge part of my life then all I can say is that, well you missed out on one of the most awesome trips ever and one of the most boring summers ever. After I got back from Europe (more on that later, sorry this is going to be a long one) I began working like ......something that works a lot (fill it in for yourself). Now if you ask my dad or mom about my work habits you'll probably hear a story of a young man who arived late to work because he stayed in Columbia too long. However, in case you do talk to them, let me explain. I have, so far in my life, been late for work twice. Yes those two times were two weeks apart but they were between 14 days of showing up on time and leaving late. I stay and work until I finish what has been set out for me. But most people won't bring that part up. They only notice my failures not my successes. It kinda makes sense because if succeeding is normal then failing is abnormal and more noticeable, but it doesn't make it less annoying. Any who all i've been doing this summer is working. I have taken two trips, the one to Europe and one on the 4th of July to VA Beach. I probably won't put too many pix up on this blog (for those who have a slower internet connection) but if you want to see a lot of pix you can click on the link that says "Pictures of Me". I'll put up an album of pix from Europe and pix from the 4th.

So the trip to Europe was absolutely awesome. I love traveling but this was awesome. I have decided that the best way to travel is by train with a big group of friends. It is simply an awesome experience. It was especially awesome because of all the cool people I met while on the trip and all the people I became closer to on this trip. I am going to have friends from this trip for the rest of my life. The trip did bring me closer to God in some interesting ways. One thing I learned is how much I dislike people who complain about uncontrollable circumstances. I also found that I have been blessed with a very good sense of direction. In most of the cities we traveled in I became a designated group leader. It was kinda fun but got annoying whenever we got slightly lost. Any way it's kinda late so I'm gonna try and finish the stories from our trip in another post. Here are some pix. Enjoy.

I'm Back

2007-06-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

Well it's been a while since I last wrote about myself in this thing. Sorry to everyone who was hoping to read about my life but not much has happened in the last month. I have now come to the point in my life where I will no longer have any kind of free time. I have gone from going to classes and living my life around school to living my life around work. It's kinda annoying if ya know what I mean. Well I can't remember if I mentioned this in my last post but I was planning to take the month of May off and not do anything besides relax. Well my plan for taking four weeks off lasted all of one week. By the beginning of the second week of summer my dad had roped me into working at the shop again. I don't think I've ever mentioned this but I hate working at the shop. It gets really boring really quickly. I've decided that the point of college and the jobs you hold in college and high school are to determine things that you do not want to do for the rest of your life. I now know that I definitely do not want to ever become a farmer or an assembly line worker. So thats two down about a million other jobs to mark off the list.

Well other than working I haven't been doing too much. It's surprising how tired you can be after standing for 8 or 9 hours. Memorial day was nice. I got to go to the beach for the first time this year. Living ten minutes from the beach you'd think I go all the time but that's not true. Last year I went twice but I'm hoping to go a lot more this summer. I have decided that whenever I graduate from college I'm going to move somewhere not near the beach. Preferably Denver or someplace in the mountains.

Well I have to go and get a shower so I can then go and put some money in the bank, get a hat, buy some shirts, and then pack for my 10 day trip to Europe that I leave for tomorrow. I never procrastinate on anything. Later and next time I post I'll have some pix from the trip.

Worn Out

2007-04-14T23:48:00.000-05:00

For anyone considering a job at the local cinema I have three words: DON'T DO IT! It's not particularly hard or stressful, but for me (who hates having to interact with stupid people) its a big bother because of the length of time you have to be there. This is the second night in a row I have not returned home until after 12am. Not good for my sleep (or social life). But hey I'm making money (not much due to the level of pay afforded to slave laborers in the US). It's also nice because I have the chance to see a lot of movies for free as well as before they come out :-D.

Other than that, school is just getting crazy (as it is wont to do during the final month). I have one paper due each week, both on topics I don't care about, in a style I'm no good at, and for classes that I hate. So as you can guess I don't have too much incentive to do any of the papers.

Beyond the day to day stuff life throws at me I'm just getting sick of always having nothing to do. No I'm kept pretty busy with school but sometimes you just want to get away and do nothing ordered and away from your typical locals. Unfortunately because I am unwilling to lay out the money for a car or all the other costs that come with one, I am stuck on this campus 7 days a week (except for when I go to work which isn't much fun). The other day my mom visited and took me out to dinner. When asked where I wanted to go I said I didn't care as long as it was far away from campus. Being unable to see downtown columbia was a sight that almost brought tears to my eyes :'-). If and when I get a car, I will begin taking monthly trips...somewhere. I probably won't even figure out where until I've left. It will be nice to just get off this annoying campus.

Alright well I gotta get to bed.

The Title

2007-03-27T22:48:00.000-05:00

Yeah I named this blog "Life for Dummies" because I wanted to show how I learn to live. Well I'm starting to realize life isn't formulated. You can't buy it in a supermarket in a specially formula specially designed for your character or abilities. Life is pretty unscripted. And I like it this way. It keeps things interesting. And, yeah, the routines of life get pretty boring really fast, but there are always those little things that spice life up. Another thing I am realizing. As much as I hate how complicated and hard life is, it's a lot of fun sometimes and every second is worth it.

Mountain Tops

2007-03-19T23:07:00.000-05:00

Well life is officially weird. For about the past month I've been going thru a period in my life where nothing seemed to be going my way and it really put a strain on my faith and it made me really question why I believe as I do. College really does stretch you. I found within me a strength I didn't know I had. I found how beautiful life can be but also how painful. I have come to the conclusion that pain is really really not cool but necessary (sorta like math). If life didn't suck sometimes then the awesome parts of life wouldn't be worth so much. I've also realized that the secret to life is not to try and find happiness in life but to find life thru happiness. Don't look at life as something that's supposed to be happy and joy filled, but look at those happy times as the best part of life and hold them close when the crappy times come.

Cliche as it is I'd like to take this time to share a verse that I believe is a life verse of mine. Ecclesiastes 3:1 "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:..."
Many people dislike the book of Ecclesiastes because of it's negative connotations and pessimistic outlook on life. All I can say is that it is a book that looks at life head on and doesn't over look the bad parts (another good verse in Ecclesiastes is found in chapter 12 verse 8 "'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Everything is Meaningless!'") I think that people should look at life more like Solomon did. Don't live life for the good and hate the bad parts in life. Instead realize that life is cyclic and if life is bad right now eventually it will have to get better. It's simply the way of life. Now this is one of those things that doesn't help much when you're feeling depressed and pessimistic but it does help keep yourself balanced.

Ok so now onto what brought this to my mind. Well for the past month or so (incase you haven't been keeping up or incase you can't read very well) I have been going thru a low spot in my life. Finally I'm out of it and now I'm seeing some reason behind it. Which is nice. So yeah that's the reason i'm posting. Sorry I waxed so philisophical.

Bed time =-)

Spring Break

2007-03-18T20:04:00.000-05:00

Well I have five weeks of classes and a week or two of tests left to this semester which is a good thing but it also means that my first spring break has arived and past. It's amazing some of the things you can learn over spring break. For instance I learned why it's not intleligent to go clammbering over some rocks to go look at a waterfall without any shoes on. I also relearned the laws of gravity and motion. But I also realized that my mantra (if I'm not bleeding by the end of the day it's not been a good day) is actually very true. The days I lost blood and or gained bruises were some of the most fun days.

So how did I learn these lessons you may ask. Well the waterfall thing involved me stepping on a small chunk of glass and having blood drip off of my foot (which looked kinda cool I must say). The whole thing with gravity was learned a rock climbing gym. I'll just say that I learned that gravatational acceleration is 32ft/sec and the law of motion stating that any object will continue on its path until another object or body comes in contact w/ the first body is quite painful. And the thing about bleeding by the end of a good day is simply because the three days I lost blood (however small or inconspicuous) were some of my most enjoyable days.

Well I got to go do homework again b/c this is school and work never stops. I do have some pictures related to the above topics. Play a game and see if you can tell which lesson I'm in the process of learning or if I'm just having fun.

It's that time of year again

2007-02-27T23:23:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah it's that time of year again. no not February. It's Random Picture Time!!!!!!!!!! (ok you can stop clapping and leaping up and down it's not that exciting.) Yes It's time for me to post a whole bunch of random unrelated pictures that have nothing to do with me or each other. Enjoy!

After Vday

2007-02-15T11:22:00.000-05:00

Well the results of Vday as promised.
Not a whole lot of fun. It started out ok. I had some fun and felt pretty good for most of the day. Then after I got back from hanging out with shackers (the 80s thing was canceled) I got back to my room to finish "celebrating". Needless to say I just sorta sat in my room and did nothing for about 3 hours. so yeah Vday was decent but certainly no where near good.

I have to say that I am appalled at the lack of empathy people have. I believe that on at least three occasions I was asked how I was enjoying Vday, and when I replied that it wasn't exactly my favorite time of year, they told me I should be glad I'm not in a relation ship because it is much cheaper and there is less emotional baggage. The best part is that all of these people are either dating someone or are married. Yeah I don't exactly care what you say about relationships when you're in one. I almost asked one of these people if it sucks so much to be in a relationship why don't we switch places. I'd take their girlfriend on a date and pay for it and everything, and they could do what I do: sit in their room, hoping against hope that someone will get on AIM so that they can at least talk to them. And then at the end of the night we'd meet up and give our impressions of the night. I think for some reason that people who look at me think that I hang out with people all the time or that I'm some sort of uber popular guy. I don't know why people think that but I wish it were true.

Well that sorta sums up my experiance w/ Vday. Oh and to conclude w/ this wonderful post I'll include my Valentines Day song. I love how upbeat it is.

The Killers - Mr Brightside

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Valentines Day

2007-02-13T23:56:00.000-05:00

I love the fact that in the United States we have an entire day dedicated to love. You know what makes this day really ironic is that we celebrate this festival of love on the anniversary of one of the bloodiest massacres of peaceable people in the history of the world. Yes that's right, the St. Valentines Day Massacre is a real event. It was when the French government decided they no longer enjoyed the Huguenots (French Christian sect), and decided to either kill all of them or drive them all out of the country. At least 100,000 innocent civilians were slaughtered on the day of the feast of St. Valentine. Yes this might seem a bit of a depressing story on this day of "joy" and "happiness", but it always makes me happier to remember that even this holiday was not originally intended to remind those of us not in love how much of a loser we are. :-D Yes Vday is a bit of a down time in my life mainly because it just reminds me of the fact that I don't have a girlfriend, which is something that I don't really need to be reminded of with an entire day celebrating relationships and love.

Now I know that love and being in a relationship is not the most important thing in the world and that sometimes it can bring more problems than happiness. However, what it does is it leads me to be a very big party pooper. Tomorrow night The Shack is having a "Un-Valentines day 80's dance" to give those shackers without a significant other something to do. However, I am going through a serious debate of whether or not to go because it really is a useless waste of time to go dancing without someone to dance with, and because I'm an extremely awkward dancer, it's nice to have someone to dance with. So if I do end up going I'll most likely end up sitting on the couch until someone coerces me to dance with them, which I'll do until they inevitably leave to go dance with other people, at which point I'll just sit back down on the couch until someone attempts to get me to dance again. To top everything off I have to buy food to get in to the party, and I'm supposed to wear stereotypical "80s" garb. Yeah that ain't gonna happen in this lifetime, not b/c I don't want to look like a fool (I'm dressing up as a bunny tomorrow. Don't ask), but mainly because I don't own anything that looks like stereotypical "80s" garb and I don't have the money to spend on buying clothes. So yeah I'm really not looking forward to Vday. But, if I've learned one thing in life, it's that Life really doesn't care what you want it's gonna happen anyway so you might as well find something you enjoy in any and every situation, b/c it's probably not gonna change just because you want it to change.

Ok well I have to do my homework so I'm signing off, but maybe I'll give you an update tomorrow night after whatever I choose to do to celebrate this day.

Randomness

2007-02-10T22:55:00.000-05:00

Ok I have some more videos. I'd like to post some pictures and stuff but at the moment it doesn't seem to like pictures. :-(

This first is a video by MxPx. It's called Chick Magnet.

Ok that's it I'm tired and I don't want to post anymore.
I'll try and figure out the picture thing so I can post a picture of my new hair cut :-\. TTYL

Ok Go

2007-01-28T15:21:00.000-05:00

This is a band known as Ok Go. They have become famous on youtube for their original and visually pleasing music videos. I really enjoyed watching them and I thought ya'll might as well. So here are some of Ok Go's best music vids

Welcome to the Black Parade

2007-01-27T23:50:00.000-05:00

Man this is an amazing video. It is "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance.
It is completely awesome.

In other news I went to see the movie "Deja Vu" in the russel house. It was a great movie but it left a few unanswered questions. It was pretty good at hiding the ending so you are surprised. I really did enjoy it so if you're into complex questioning action thrillers then this movie is for you.

What in the World?

2007-01-22T15:55:00.000-05:00

Well last night was pretty dang exciting. Now I'm not a football fan so I'm not talking about the football games (although the New Orleans/Chicago game was pretty good). I'm talking about the relese of the Bob Day t shirt line. Oh yeah. That's right. For an extended time only you can purchase an american aparel shirt with Bob Day's visage on it. I know you're getting excited now. I also know that you're asking the question "What is the meaning of life???". But that has nothing to do with this situation. If any of you were wondering "Who in the world is Bob Day????" (I'm sure very few were) he's a guy who goes to my church here in columbia. Basically the story goes that Bob was talking to the pastor of The Shack and telling him this story about some of his friends who found some graffiti on a USC shuttle bus that said "Bob Day loves cake". As a result of this message Bob's friends started making t shirts with sharpies and iron on letters about how much Bob Day loves cake. Our pastor got the idea to make the shirts professionaly and use the funds generated to fund outreach works in columbia. So that's what happened last night. I know you all want to get on the Bob Day train and get your own T Shirt. Well if you want one click here. Also if you have any questions not answered on the website give me a comment on any post and I'll try and answer it with a comment on that same post.

Well that's about all that's worth while going on in my life.

Why Bother With This Sign?!?!?!?!?!

2007-01-14T17:54:00.001-05:00

Um.....Don't ask. I found this picture online and it was just so awsomely (is that even a word?) retarded that I had to post it.

In other news I'm sick. Yep that's about it. Oh and I'm back up at USC. :-\

Why Bother With This Sign?!?!?!?!?!

2007-01-14T17:54:00.000-05:00

Exam Week

2006-12-15T10:37:00.000-05:00

Well it has been exam week now for one week. Funny how that works out. Any way, so far I've had three exams and emailed a fourth one. Now I'm just waiting for my final exam, tomorrow, and then I can go home. Yay. For the past couple days now I've been revising and rewriting papers for my english class which also happens to be the same exam I'm waiting for. Another one of those funny coincidinces.

Um...yeah I don't have too much more to say. Um....................................................................................................................yeah I'm drawin a blank.
I think I might write another post around Christmas time. Maybe I'll post a picture or something.

The Phantom Mullet

2006-12-05T16:15:00.000-05:00


Awesome song by the most awesome band about the most aweomse haircut. Enjoy many times The song is Phantom Mullet by Five Iron Frenzy

Panda Sneezes

2006-12-01T03:13:00.000-05:00


Sneezing panda, priceless! http://www.vayadesign.net (VayaDesign - Standards based web development)

Medical Professionals?

2006-11-28T17:23:00.000-05:00

Ok so I went home for thanksgiving and I had a glorious time eating turkey, visiting w/ some of my friends and family, and jumping into bushes (more on that some other time maybe). However, little did I know it but my family was giving me a little present. And I only thought you got presents on your birthday and christmas. Well I came back here with strep throat, a hideous disease that makes it feel as if thousands of insanly tiny midgets had crawled in my mouth while I slept and decided to do interpretive dances with ice skates on in the back of my throat (in other words my throat hurt really badly). Well I didn't know for sure if I had strep or not b/c I had not gone to see a doctor yet but I was pretty sure I had strep throat. So I decided to go to the free doctors they provide on campus to any students. Well I go through the ordeal at the doctors office (the swab being shoved down my throat so they can jab it against my throat that already hurts is not my idea of helpful or healing) and I discover that my hunch was correct. Well as I get my results back the nurse who had originally checked my throat seemed surprised that I had strep even though I was displaying many of the symptoms of the disease. This raises the questions of exactly how professional our doctors and nurses are b/c if I, a history major, can recognise strep throat better than a nurse, maybe there is more training needed for our nurses. Oh well so I am now doing drugs that will aid me in defeating this foul infirmity that is plauging my every step. Oh and I am also poping tylenol (little "R" in a circle) (sorry I don't know the key for the registertered trademark sign) like it is candy. In fact my tylenol (little "R" in a circle) has an "Easy to swallow Sweet coating" so it's sort of like candy. Except with this candy you can kill yourself so maybe it's not like candy.

Well that's about all that's going on right now. Oh only 8 (count 'em eight) days of classes left and four days of exams after that. Woo Hoo.

Undepressed

2006-11-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

Wow, after reading my last post again (it was really late when I was writting that and I hadn't had much sleep) I realize that that was a kinda weird post. Sorry about that, but I was in argument forming mode (writing english papers and such) and I just felt like writing some of my thoughts down.

Anywho, I'm really excited and happy right now b/c thanksgiving break is only four days away (for ten more min.) and I get to go home and see my family and friends. And get some sleep. Thats another thing on the top of my list of things to do.

Yeah that's about it.

I probably won't post while I'm home just because the internet connection at my house is really really crappy and it takes like 4 hours to post something so I'll try and update again after I get back.

Untitled

2006-11-15T21:12:00.002-05:00

Well there's not really a theme for what I'm writing. Sorta "stream of consiousness" type thing.
Mainly it's just on junk that has been bothering me for a bit.

Well, one of the most popular news stories out there right now is stories of all the lawsuits that the movie "Borat" is getting. So many people feel upset and distraught over the fact that their inner retard was played out on the silver screen. The amzaing thing about this film was its ability to destroy people's typical political correctness and say what they really think. One of the most infamous scenes in the movie is the scene in which members of the USC branch of the fraternity Chi Psi spoke of women and black's in degrading terms. After seeing these young men speaking freely and really upholding the redneck/southern sterotype I decided that my diploma from USC was not going to be worth as much as it used to be. The funniest thing about these frat boys is the fact that they are suing Borat b/c they say he got them drunk b4 they filmed or even signed relese forms. To me it seems if you sign something while you know you are drunk then it's your problem. If they had refused to sign the release papers then the material would never have been put in the movie. Instead they decided to sign documents while under the influence of alcohol. Stupid move. To all out there who read this, I have one quick suggestion: NEVER SIGN ANYTHING WHILE YOU ARE DRUNK!!!!! How stupid do you have to be to sign something without reading it muchless while plastered. I say they deserve to be publicly humiliated for their stupidity.

On a completely different topic, I've been thinking alot about the death penalty and crime and punishment. It's a really tough issue, ecspecially for a christian. How can I, as a christian say on one hand if you die in your sins you go to hell, and on the other say that b/c you have sinned I'm going to kill you b4 you can repent. But then I realized something, the Death penalty is only a small part of crime and punishment. I realized that b4 we reform the death penalty, why don't we change our prison system. Right now, if I was a homeless person, I would do every thing in my power to be arrested every night, b/c it's much better to sleep in prison than on a bench in a park. However, that shouldn't be the idea of prison. Prison shouldn't be some place where humane treatment at all times is the law. It should be a place where obediance is rewarded w/ humane treatment. Think about it. If prisoners knew that rather than being sent to solitary confignment if they act up they could be beaten and thrown back into general population, what a difference it would make. As it is now if some one in prison breaks the prison rules, there's not a whole lot you can do to them, they're already in prison. You can extend sentances, put them in solitary, but really that does about as much as slapping them on the wrist. If instead of having their sentance extended the prisoner recieved ten lashes and a public beating in addition to having their sentance extended, people would act up a whole lot less in prison. And people not in prison would have a reason to stay out other than bad food or bad cell mates. Now I know some of you out there are thinking "But David they're citizens too, they have rights." I say if you're retarded enought to commit crimes then you are responsible for your actions and should be punished not confined. I understand that confignment can be a big punishment, but it's obviously not enough when the exact same people continue returning to jails b/c they decide that if they commit a crime that the rewards are higher than the punishment. Prison is supposed to be a crime deterent, not a punishment.

wow that's some pretty heavy stuff. Oh well. I guess I'm in a sorta depressed mood right now.
Not an excuse but .... Maybe next time I'll be more optimistic. Until that next time good luck and good night.

Untitled

2006-11-15T21:12:00.001-05:00

What's Up My faithful Brethren (and brethrenas. Yeah female brethren)

2006-11-13T00:35:00.000-05:00

Well it's been quite a while since I have written on this thing. That's because I have found other more glorious and easier ways to procrastinate. Yes, that's right, addictinggames.com, MySpace, and Facebook have sunk their evil tenticles (if you know how to actually spell this word please let me know) deep into my flesh and I can't force them to release. And I've also been busy with this weird thing called college. Who knew they actually ment for you to learn stuff at this place. Go figure. Oh well on to the amazing and awesome stories of my times here at college so far.

It's pretty dang boring.

yeah those are my interesting stories. It's the same old, same old day in and day out, pretty much how it'll be for the next fifty seven or eight years of my life. Then there will be a short (read one to two month) period of excitement when I will get to experience the joys of retirement, then that too will become the same old, same old. I guess that is the curse of humanity, to never be satisfied, to alwayse crave the adventurous, exciting, and different. Oh well that's too much philosifising for this time of night/morning (there really needs to be a name for the time from midnight until about four or five in the morning. It's not really morning but it's not really night either. Maybe norn (night and morn combined)).

Well, I have had a couple of interesting things happen in my life in the past 1-2 weeks (the extent of my memory at college). One is that I have now come to experience the joys of back-to-back all-nighters. Yeah it was amazingly awesome. To see the sun rise and set twice before you go to sleep after it sets the third time is an almost religious experience that everyone should have. Alright I'll admit it, It wasn't actually 48 hours with no sleep, it was more like 48 hours where I was awake for about 41 of them. In other words I put a weeks worth of work into two days. Yeah, that was a lot of fun, and I would highly recomend it to anyone who enjoys feeling so worn out that they want to rest in between the refrigerator and their chair (which, in my case, is less than five feet.). Also if you are a health nut and love to stay healthy, definatly don't try this at home (wait till you leave home to try it so your parents can't yell at you and tell you what you already know, That you need sleep.) Oh and for those of you who know someone who is pulling back to back all nighters, remember this one thing: The only thing on their mind when they are cognizent of their thoughts is sleep, so don't be retarded and tell them "Man you look tired, you really should go to sleed." Trust me they already realize that and probably feel like punching you when you say that.

The next really cool thing that I did was I got to swim across lake murry when it was extremly cold. This is another wonderful experience that I would highly recomend to anyone who is not scared of hypothermia or dying. Simply phenomanal experience. One you won't ever forget (except for the part you don't remeber from the shock of entering the water, of course.) I was on a church retreat (The Shack for those of you who don't know and also for those of you who do) and we stayed right be lake murry so we were able to have the fun of swimming and holding a baptismal service in the freezing cold water. Tons of fun.

Okay this is a super long post and I apologize for that. I guess I'll go work on my paper, that's due tomorrow, now. Hopefully I'll write again soon, but if I die before then (not that I think it'll happen anytime soon, but you never know) good luck and goodnight.

White & Nerdy

2006-10-08T23:21:00.000-05:00


"Weird Al" Yankovic's music video from his new album "Straight Outta Lynwood" (in stores Sept. 26)

Sleep is good.

2006-09-29T22:32:00.000-05:00

College is a time when you don't sleep except for on saturdays and occasionaly on sundays.

Google will rule the Earth

2006-09-18T20:21:00.000-05:00

Google is an amazing company. What started as an awesome search engine, has now created the (in my opinion) largest and most useful set of services, on the web, ever. AND THEIR ALL FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's just awesome how many cool and awesome programs you can download from google for free. From google earth (a 3d map of the entire earth) to Picasa (google's photo editing/sharing software), the services are either free or there is a free version that poor kids like me can download and use. It is awesome. This is why I said in the title that google will one day rule the earth. Apple will probably be the military branch of the ruling council but other than those two companies there won't be too many free enterprise companies left. Well I should really go to bed. I'll post more doomsday theories later.

Papers are annoying

2006-09-12T16:17:00.000-05:00

People are always calling for people to stop destroying trees by using less paper. I found the perfect way. No more college papers. Allow students (if you absolutley must have the students write a paper) to turn the papers in via email or other electronic means. However then you run into the problem of needing electricity and then you have problems with the save our environment people. So I think in the end the safest move would be to ban all papers. And then you'd save a whole bunch of trees.
Incidently one other way to save some trees can be summed up in this phrase I read once: Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver. any who I've gotta go write a paper so I'll have to post again some other time.

No Comments

2006-08-31T10:50:00.000-05:00

Hey
Just reminding anyone who is crazy enough to read this blog, please feel free to post any coments you have about anything at all. If you want to post a question to me feel free and I'll probably answer you in a post or something. Any way I was just wanting to let ya'll know that it's very boring to come on to the blog and never see any comments on anything. Alright I'll post more later. I gotta get to class soon so I'm gonna go.

Funny Quotes from the creator of Calvin and Hobbes

2006-08-28T23:07:00.000-05:00

God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.
Bill Watterson

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.
Bill Watterson

If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.
Bill Watterson

It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool.
Bill Watterson

Mothers are the necessity of invention.
Bill Watterson

Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously?
Bill Watterson

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
Bill Watterson

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.
Bill Watterson

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
Bill Watterson

The world of a comic strip ought to be a special place with its own logic and life... I don't want the issue of Hobbes's reality settled by a doll manufacturer.
Bill Watterson

There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.
Bill Watterson

Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.
Bill Watterson

Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said, "I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!"?
Bill Watterson

College Kids

2006-08-24T20:23:00.000-05:00

Well I have now officially become a College kid. I have just completed my first day of class, and boy was it fun. We got to sit in class as teachers told us to be good, come to class, turn in homework, and follow our sillibi. Pretty much the same stuff our parents and teachers in highschool told us. So yeah it was a lot of fun. Sorry about the lack of posting but not much happens in my life.

Hey everyone I'm not dead

2006-08-18T10:40:00.000-05:00

Hey contrary to popular belief, I did not die in an awful attack of rabid mice and no I didn't get enlisted in SETI. I was just away for most of the summer in various undisclosed locations and my disclosing of the undisclosed locations would comprimise our agents in the field.

No, seiriously I first was at a Youth Leadership Training Conference in Washington, DC which was a lot of fun. We got to go on tours of various government buildings and stuff it was pretty cool. We also got to do a mock senate, which was pretty fun. Unfortuantly I had to role play a senator and the senator was Ted Kenendy himself. But that was pretty fun other than all the Ted Kenedy jokes made about me.

Next I left from there and flew to Northern Ireland for a series of mission teams. I will have to write about them later b/c my dog needs a walk so I'll have to post more about it later.

Religous Movies

2006-06-23T15:38:00.000-05:00

Well in the past 2 or 3 years there has been an upswing in the number of movies with religous messages. From the Passion of the Christ to this years movie The Da Vinci Code, there are many more movies with decidedly religous slants. The latest movie has casued a huge amount of conteraversy is The Da Vinci Code. Now I saw this movie about a week ago so I will not be offering commentary on the entire movie for that I recomoned pluggedin online a christian entertainment magazine. This link<http://www.pluggedinonline.com/movies/movies/a0002699.cfm> will take you to the review on Plugged in Online. This post is not a review of the movie but I will be talking about it.

First of all, I would like to say that many Christians don't believe what they say they beleive. When I was asking my friends if they would like to see the movie with me they all sounded horrified at the idea of seeing a movie that attacked Christianity. This revulsion at anything not christian brings my first two points. First of all, if you truly believe that Christianity is true it doesn't matter what anyone says it shouldn't raise any doubts in your mind and there should be holes in the arguments brought against it (which I'll get to later). Secondly, I remember when The Passion of the Christ came out, my church and school were encourageing everyone to go see it because it was such a good witness for Christianity. Which it is. But when somthing against Christianity comes out we aren't supposed to see it? If what we are being taught at church is true it should stand up to questioning. Also if we christians expect any non christians to listen to and respect christian things then it is important for us to respect and listen to their ideas. Many christians say that we should be intolerant to other religons. While yes we must not tolerate a dumbing down of scripture we must also respect others ideas or they will never respect ours.

Now on to the movie. In the movie and book the major plot centers around a supposed cover up of Jesus' humanity. In other words Jesus was a human who was said to be God. They say aslo that he was married to Mary Magnalene and had a child with her, and this child started the Sangreal or Holy Grail. This word sangreal can also be translated Holy blood. And this is the center of the movie. The evidence they use to back up their claims are three fold. They use the painting of the last supper by Leonardo Da Vinci, The Gospel according to Thomas, and the Gospel according to Mary. These are the major foundations for this myth. The problem is the painting by Da Vinci was painted about 1400 to 1500 years after the Last Supper. The two supposed gospels also have been dated to about 2-300 years after the last supper.

There are other problems in the Movie but I don't have any more time to write right now. So if you have seen the movie and have an opinion about the movie or what I have said please feel free to comment.

IT'S OVER

2006-05-28T21:11:00.000-05:00

well I graduated today. It was an emotional day. Well it was kinda sad as I had to say goodbye to all my friends that have been with me for the past six years. It is going to be a big change in my life, trying to make new friends and continuing my friendship with all my old friends.

Oh yeah. My family and I are now a foster family. We will be taking in little babies from the hospital that the parents don't wan't or can't support and we will take care of them until they are adopted. We will greatly appriciate any prayers that you might say for us as we begin our efforts in this.

Well that's all I have for now. I'll post later with insight in what it's like to be a real person in the real world.

Well here we go

2006-05-15T20:36:00.000-05:00

I gotta get me one of these.

I don't have anything to say right now so I don't know why I'm even posting.

I guess this picture says it all.

I guess I'll just post some sweet pictures I found on the internet. (none of these pix have anything to do with eachother) I hope y'all enjoyed the pictures.

Graduation

2006-05-09T18:42:00.000-05:00

Well it's almost that time. I have 8 full days and 3 half days of school left in my highschool career. I mean pretty much the only big thing left on my horizon in Highschool is final exams, so it's kinda wierd knowing that next year I won't be around the people I have know for like six years.

My class is pretty small and most of us have been in it since the sixth grade so our class is pretty tight. Even though we fight occasionaly we normally get along. I'm not involed in too much else as far as teens my age go so my friends at school are pretty much all I have. So when the day comes to turn the tassles it's going to be interesting.

Well that's about it for right now. I am going to be graduating on the 28th of May. So I am waiting with fear and trepidation for that day. I hope many of you out there will pray for me as this day draws closer and I will finally be flung into the real world.

Time is Ticking Away

2006-04-25T19:40:00.000-05:00

Well it's been a long time since I've done this. For those of you ready to lynch me or anything like that, I have been extremely busy since the last time I posted. I had a couple of papers and projects I had to do, not to mention preparing for nationals. Yes that's right, my debate partner and I made it to the national compatition for debate. We placed first in our state and then went on to nationals to place third behind the teams from Virginia and Indiana. Well now that I have a bit more time on my hands, well , I'm still suffering from writers block. Um, not much cool stuff happens in South Carolina or in Myrtle Beach for that matter, so that really decreases the type of things to type about. And in school not much happens so nothing there. And then nothing interesting happens often so very little to encourage my writting.

Well right now the only interesting thing going on is that lately the air conditioning is not working in my house. Now if you know anything about SC then you know it's hot and humid during the spring and summer .....and fall. Yeah pretty much the only cool dry time of the year is during the winter. Of course this year we didn't have any snow. We had below freezing temps but no snow. (the really wierd thing is that in SC when it is below freezing it is not impossible for it to rain and never snow. We did see a little snow and got out of class for like five min to look at it. Yeah that's how sad it is around here. If there is snow even if it does not stick we can get out of school. It's really sad.) So right now it's about 90 degrees outside with like 85% humidity. Now if you know anything like what that feels like, you know it's not condusive to sleep. Well that's the way it's been around here for about....two weeks. So finally today we had a guy come out and fix it for us, and we're hoping for cooler nights around here. Ya know you don't think about what a blessing air conditioning is until you don't have any. It really makes a difference.

Well that's all that's going on in my life right now, school and work, not too much else.
Well now I gotta go do some Pre-Calc hw so I'll try and post some more latter.

Debate and Stuff

2006-03-17T15:44:00.000-05:00

Well for those of you who don't know, I'm a debater at my school. This week me and my partner went to debate at the South Carolina Assosiation of Christian Schools (SCACS) debate tournement. Well it ended up being two teams from my school and another team from a school in Greenville, SC. Well, my partner and I won and get to go to nationals (big whoop because they are held at Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC, Not a big trip to take no excitement). Yeah so that's all that I have to say about that.

Well Sorry I havn't posted in a while. I think everyone who starts a blog has a period like this where they do not know what to write. I think it will go away soon enough though. I hope to post more regularly in the future.

Math

2006-03-08T16:47:00.000-05:00

YYYYYYYYYIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I passed my pre calculus test today. It is the first precal test all year that I got an A+ on. I got a 104% (there was a bonus question). It was also a happy day for many other people in my class today. Many people passed their first test for the entire year. All in all it was a good day.

Now on to somthing completely different.

My mom is still in Pennsylvannia. My dad is in europe. so far we have only broken one thing and that was not permementaly broken. That is the status report of my house for now.

Somthing else.

Nevermind, I'll write about that later. I've been having writers block latly which has decreased my posting efficiency. So I'm gonna save the topic I was gonna write about here for another day. Y'all will just have to display patience. Alright I'm gonna stop writing now before some one decides to send me a computer virus.
P.S. - STRONGBAD RULES

AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-03-03T17:08:00.000-05:00

Well at long last my pirate picture is up and posted.

This is me on pirate day at my school for spirit week.

I had a lot of fun but I lost the best dressed contest because I had less items than the winner. (he had a parrot on his shoulder.

well That's all for today.

PS in case any one is wondering those boots are the ones I wore at the farm.

I lied

2006-03-02T21:45:00.000-05:00

I said I'd post long today and I might but then again I might not. I don't know. I don't have much to write about, but I might think of somthing.

Hhhhhhhhmmmmmmm..............................................
Nothing interesting really happened today so I don't have anything to write about.
Tell y'all what. You guys reading this comment on it and make up the post for today and maybe tomorrow I'll have more on what's goin on in good ole' SC.
PS I hope to have my pirate pic online tomorrow but that might not happen

Sorry

2006-03-01T22:41:00.000-05:00

Sorry I havn't posted in a while.
This won't be much but I'll probably post tomorrow.
Yeah well I need to go to bed so I'm gonna stop and post this.

Musicical Mayhem

2006-02-24T20:39:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a while. I guess I need to post so people don't come hunt me down and string me up and tar and feather me and then draw and quarter me. Yeah, that would be most unpleasant. Well what can I write about. Hhhhhmmmmmmm................................... Oh well I guess I could talk about the things that made my school, well really hot and bothered lately.

Well let's see, the school I go to is a very conservative Christian place (in the office they have a list of the only hymnals allowed to be used in chapel). A couple of months back my principal began talking with the junior and senior classes about musical styles and why rock music is bad, including CCM (conteparary Christian music) rock music. So now, our principal decided to bring in a preacher to prove it to us.

Well for the last three days we have been listening to these sermons (two sermons a day). The first two were pretty good, with very basic points discussing musics importance and the need for standards. Then the second day the first sermon was okay but then the second opened a family sized can of worms. He began discussing the dangers of rock music. At first it was okay, using very basic logic to come to perfectally reasonable conclusions. Then he began the rythem argument. This basically says that any song with accented (easily noticible) 2nd and 4th beats are evil. After he finishes with this contreversial argument he asks for questions. Then the day became extremely bad. The students began to get annoyed that he wouldn't answer questions fully so then the argumentation became personal. Then the preacher got defensive. Then the entire chapel went downhill from there. No one left that chapel service happy. Those of us on the debate team met for around a hour discussing the sermon.

Well today was so weird that it really wasn't worth going to see the sermons. The preacher started out trying to make himself look good and look like his point was the right point. Well then he used for examples of church worship music groups like Thousand Foot Krutch, Pillar, and Grits. This annoyed me more than anything else becase the examples he gave for worship music were not meant as worship music. Using the above mentioned groups he procceeded to say that all CCM worship music w/ a rock beat were wrong and all Christian Rock is evil. To get to the last point he used the above mentioned rythem argument. The only problem is that I don't believe in the rythem argument and then the Q&A time became personal w/ the preacher not answering questions and not understanding the questions and the students were asking questions over and over and over .

Basically the last three days in school have been useless from a spirtual standpoint because no one was going to change their mind anyway.

So that's all that is going on in my life right now.

Procrastination

2006-02-21T20:31:00.000-05:00

I have a real problem, not with lifethreatening desieses or anything like that, but with procrastinating. When I have a paper due in school I normaly wait until about the week before it is due to get started writing the paper, whether it is 5 or 15 pages long. Most of the time it leaves me awake and typing furiously at around 2:30 AM (02:30) on the day it is due and I rarlely get more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep before school the next day. Another problem is I love to read. I can read hundreds of pages and not relize it. So I spend hours doing that normally. However this usually leaves me with about zero time to do homework. I really try to do the work but normally I just read and then go to bed without doing any homework. Well I think this is a more problem than anyone wants to admit, putting off what needs to be done. Well that's all I'm going to rant about for today. Later.
PS another good post on this type of problem is Calab Moyer's latest post. I have a link to that blog (Calab's Blog). It is a good post and his blog is very good.

The Day

2006-02-20T11:55:00.000-05:00

Well, To all who have not relized it yet, today is President's Day. For every one who does not know what president's day is, it is a day celebrating the birthdays of both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Not much goes on for presidents day. There are few parades, or parties, or anything like that. What does happen is that school is not in session today (3 day weekend yyyyyeeeeehhhhhaaaaaaaa). Another thing is that there are television specials. Very few are presedent related but there are marathons of popular shows like "Law & Order", and also movie marathons where stations show movies for almost the entire day. So basically it is another excuse for people to stay home and watch TV. Yeah, so that's about all that is going on.

Flying Cars????? We can't even drive regular ones

2006-02-17T21:15:00.000-05:00

I was reading a magazine to day, and it was talking about the latest attempts at making personal civilian flying machines. I began to wonder, "why do we need flying cars? We already have enough accidents on clearly marked driving surfaces (roads) and at reletivlely low speeds (0-100mph I'm not sure of the kph). If we had flying cars people would be flying in the air (no lane markings) and at speeds over 150 mph (to stop the planes from stalling). With so much uproar currently about road saftey it is amazing that people would want to fly and increase the chance of crashes and death (the flight fuel is highly flammable leading to spectacular and deadly explosions). I guess the reason I think about these things is because I live in one of the most accident prone areas of the United States (Horry County had more accidents than any other county in the United States). This is partly because of the northern yankees coming down south to escape the winter snows and expeiriance the heat of summer as well as swiming in the ocean. All these tuorists have no idea where they are going and make sudden and stupid changes of direction leading to many crashes every day.
Well I guess that's enough with the whole driving thing for today.
PS: I am still working on having the pictures uploaded to my blog. I hope they will be up soon.

Bad Days are a'comin'

2006-02-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

Oh man, today was a really bad day. You know the saying, "Every cloud has a silver lining"? Well, I hate to burst anyone's bubble but that saying is simply untrue. There is nothing good about failing tests, or being made fun of or spilling your drink on yourself. Well that's what my day was like. Bad from start till now (I havn't finished my day yet so it has not been bad from start to finish but it probably will be). Any way It mainly was bad because I took a test yesterday and today and thought I did great on them and then found out to day I failed the math test I took yeasterday and got an 80 on the english one I took today. Then my government teacher went home so we had our principal substitute for her meaning no talking working the entire time after the test in that class (that I have not got the grade back on, but I probably failed because I think I did good on it which I have found, scientifically proves that you will fail or do badly). Then I got home and went to work and when I got home I found my ten or eleven year old car needed more oil and transmission fluid. While changing the fluid and stuff, I inadvertantly locked my keys in my car and my family was leaving to go to a church youth group thingy and my mom had locked the house. So then I had to chase down my mom's car to get keys to the house so I could go inside and get the spare keys for my car. So all in all it was not a good day.
I am hoping that tomorrow will be a better day
all right well that's all for now. I'll post later.

Stupid Computers

2006-02-13T16:31:00.000-05:00

Well I was going to have a cool photo on this page but my stupid computer took like five minutes to load the image to blogger and then the computer could not find the server, thus making the page unreadable resulting in my total frustration and annoyence w/ all modern forms of communication. Sure this blog thing is cool and AIM is pretty sweet, and as much as I like gmail, it would be a whole lot nicer if the modern things would work right. The only thing I hate more than computers are typewriters. Trying to do a college application on one of those ancient contraptions is torture. It is almost as bad as dethorning roses. Now I'm not one of those naturalist freaks who thinks that we should just "return to nature" or anything like that, but it would be nice if these so called "modern convieniences" were more convienient than inconvienient. Well that's all I have for now. If you have been following the blog for a while or have former postings, I am trying to upload the pirate day pix so they should be up soon. Sorry for the long wait and the lack of posting lately. I'll try to do better soon. Signing off.

A Rose without Thorns

2006-02-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

Well, As a senior I have the wonderful job of raising enough money to pay for a senior trip, the academic and sports trophyies, as well as leave a gift to the school. So, in order to raise enough money to pay for all this we must have fundraisers, one of which being selling valentines day themed gifts to the people in school. This includes roses. Well the roses we got were the roses that grew near a nuclear facility and mutated to such lengths as to require wire cutters to cut the two foot long stems. The thorns on these things were amazing in their teribleness. We had about 250 of these roses, all of them needing to be dethorned. Well it is not a fun experiance. At the end of the day we decided that if people wanted a more harsh punishment for criminals and pedophiles then we found the perfect punishment. Just give 'em about 100 of these roses to dethorn and they would never want to do anything evil ever again. Well just to let any girls know, if your boyfriend buys you roses, be thankful for the dethorners at the factory and pray for them in your spare time.
Well that's all I got for now.

I'm back

2006-01-30T09:52:00.001-05:00

Hey
I just got back yesterday from my little trip to Cincinati and Knoxville. It was an awsome trip w/ a little stop at Smokey Mountain Knife Works, the largest knife store in the world. It was awesome. The other reason we went was to see the "This is Your Anthem" tour w/ Superchic[k], KJ-52, Seventh Day Slumber, and Eleventyseven. It is an amazing show and I recomend it to any one who can go. so long for now

Having A Good Time

2006-01-26T09:48:00.000-05:00

Well this is one of the worst days of my life today. Yesterday I got about 4 hours of sleep and then last night I got about 6 hours of sleep. I am now extremely tired and all I want to do is go to sleep. Unfortunatly I am at school so I can't go to sleep. The only thing making me happy today is the fact that tomorrow I'll be traveling so I won't be at school tomorrow. This also means that I will not be posting until next week at the earliest. Talk later.

Early Morning

2006-01-24T16:13:00.001-05:00

Well, this morning I got up around 6:45AM so I could get to school on time. Tomorrow morning my class and I are going to see the state senators and maybe the govonor. The only problem is that it is a breakfast that we are going to and Colombia, SC is about 2 or 3 hours away (depending on how you drive). So in order to make the 7:30AM breakfast tomorrow, we must leave the school at around 4:15-4:30AM. So tomorrow do not be suprised if there is no new post. Well thats all I have.

Hey

2006-01-24T09:49:00.001-05:00

Hey what's up everyone. I don't have much to say right now. I'll leave somthing longer later.

It's raining It's pouring.... ah you get it

2006-01-23T20:39:00.000-05:00

Well it's raining here agian. We get quite a bit of rain each year, so I am quite adept at driving in the rain. Many people fear driving in the rain because of the longer braking distances and chances of hydroplaning and sliding off the road and dying.... well those do have a way of making you scared but if you don't think about it and just listen to nice music it actually becomes a rather pleasent experiance. A benifit of driving in the rain is the lack of other drivers. Oh well, thought I'd waste some time talking about rain because I have nothing else to talk about. Oh, wait. We had Pirate day today at school. We got to go to school dressed as pirates. It was a most inventive night last night. But in the end I got second best dressed in my highschool (not a huge accomplishment; I have under 100 students in 7th-12th grades and only ten count 'em 10 people in my senior class). It was a most tranquil day w/ not much going on other than the occasional skirmish between two disgruntaled pirates but other wise it was farily peaceful. I hope to have a picture of me in my Pirate outfit soon. Well that's it for today.
See ya later.

Happiness

2006-01-22T14:03:00.000-05:00

I feel happy today. I guess it has somthing to do with my family (I have an awesome family). Some times they make me mad and I get frusterated with them, and then other days they are just cool. I don't know it's kinda like having mood swings but it's a whole group of people not just one person. Oh well, it's much to early for philosiphising. Maybe I'll have a better post next time.

Most Important Thing

2006-01-21T18:34:00.000-05:00

Well now that I have a few posts done, I thought I'd tell everyone who reads this about the most important thing in my life or anyone else's life. Some believe in making money or getting fame. It's not about any of those things although they do matter a little. If you are the richest man (or woman) in the world and you die you die the same way some homeless person dies. Death is the great equilizer. Now once your dead, some believe that that is it. It's over. Sign off. Say goodbye and goodridance. Others believe that you have to have your good works out weigh the bad. Well, I'm here to tell you of "the way, the truth, and the life." It is not a way, a truth, or a life, it is the only way the only truth and the only way to live. I know this may come hard to some, but life is not about partials. In "The Princess Bride" Billy Crystal states "He's only mostly dead". Unfortunatly this does not happen in real life. Your never "mostly dead" your either dead or alive. The same is true after you die. Jesus Christ is the only way to have a good life. I am a Christian. Many mock Christians as being narrow minded. Well in life you must be narrow minded. In the Relient K song "My way or the Highway" the chorus states "You said it's my (Jesus Christ's) way or the highway to hell" and that is one of the most true statments in the world. If you don't follow Christ then you may have fun now, but once you die you'll face an eternity of torment and death where the dead don't die. If you accept Christ with your whole heart and give your life to him to lead and guide then you'll spend and eternity in Heaven, where the LORD God reigns. Now I'm not saying you need to go cut yourself or take a flail to your back like priests during the 1300s-1400s; all I'm telling you that you must do to escape hell is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that he died on the cross to take your sin and shame and save you from hell and he will come into your life to aid and guide you through life. If you have any questions then please write me an email. If you are not a blogger then my email address is dhglendinning@yahoo.com
Thank you for reading this entire post and please think about it. If you want to talk with some one about the things in this post then please go to a church near you and ask the pastor. They will be glad to help you.
P.S. sorry about the bad grammer. I am really tired right now but I'll try and put somthing like this up once a month or so. So come back and check later or write me an email on stuff that was not clear

Very Tired

2006-01-20T20:09:00.000-05:00

Man I'm tired. I got home from school today and had to hurry to get ready for work. I normaly work about two hours a day after school every day. I get into work and my boss gives me a list of enough work to take two and a half to three hours. So I get started and I'm almost done when my boss walks in and asks me if I'd like to come in tomorrow and work for some time. Well, I look at him and think to myself that I'd like to sleep the whole day, but I decide that I'll go in and do a couple of hours of work.
I am now just really getting tired of life in general. I just want to take a break for a very long time, because life is so hecktic right now I baraley have time to sleep anymore. Some of the problem is that I come home from work and rather than do homework, I come in and grab a book and read for a good hour or two. Then I do my homework and by the time I'm done it might be 11:00 pm.
Well thats all that really happened to me today

No time

2006-01-20T09:44:00.000-05:00

Hey
I'd like to leave a long post but I have a vocab quiz today I need to study for. I might put a post on later today.
So long

2006-01-19T20:03:00.000-05:00

Hey,
This blog is going to be a journal of everyday life through the eyes of a seventeen year old highschool senior preparing for college. As such, there might not be a whole lot of interesting stuff on it, or even a whole lot of posts at all, but it will be interesting.
I hope some people will read this and be affected by it, but that is a pretty big thing to hope for. At least I can give insight into life in general.
Oh well I guess that is all I have for now.