Can I get an 'amen'

Around Thanksgiving time I submitted an application to a new CostCo they just build by my school. From what I saw on their website, it looked like they would be paying more than minimum wage and there would be benefits. I was sure they'd hire me.

A week went by. No call. Ten days passed. No call. I figured they would have called me by then if they intended to even interview me. So I simply have given up on that.

But I really need a job still. I have a good amount of free time, plus I could really use the extra income. Actually, I straight up need more income.

So last night at a Bible Study I was at, they asked for prayer requests. I simply said that I need God to provide a job for me. So my highly respectable man of God prayed for me.

Lo and behold, I received a phone call from CostCo! I have an interview Friday. Now, I know I don't have the job, I still need to pass the interview/impress me session.

At the Bible Study we talked about what the deal is with 'hope.' The simplest, main thing I got out of it is that hope is a joyful expectancy, an assurance of what is to come. I am confident this is an answer to my prayer, and I hope that I get this job.

But there is a slight down side. Just today I had become comfortable and excited about having a month off for Christmas. And if I get the job I will probably have to work. Sad face.

But praise God for answering my prayer so quickly! What an awesome God.

One man... one mission... one vacation... one city...

In an unknown land, one man is on a mission so adventurous words cannot describe. The land is not entirely unknown, simply unknown to that man. That land is what modern folk call "Memphis, Tennessee." This man was in this city on one mission, which can be described in one word: vacation. But actually it really wasn't just vacation, because he was also there to visit his friend. He was really just there to visit his friend, and it happened to be during the man's fall break from school, so he just called it vacation. This man was there to visit another man, namely named "Super Suave." What an epic name. They say the Super Suave once defeated an army of people with dandruff in one single shampooing. Unbelievable.

That man is me, Tony Nelson. It's true. I went to Memphis, Tennessee to visit my friend/superhero, Super Suave. I rode a megabus down there. The megabus itself wasn't bad, but the 10 hour ride wasn't too pleasurable. The one down there left Chicago at 10:15 PM. The returning bus left Memphis at 11:15 PM.

However, everything else about the trip was just dandy. I really didn't see anything special about the city itself, except for the fact that there was a pyramid and a prominent police presence. But just being there with Super Suave was fun. I had a good time. Here's some of the stuff we did:

• Ate BBQ nachos
• Skipped rocks along the Mississippi River
• Walked along a 5 block long replica of the Mississippi River in a seemingly deserted park-like place on Mudd Island
• Went to Hope church, which has it's own recording studio (which I got a nice tour of), and a sanctuary that fits like 5,000 (and I got to see their video control room)
  
• Spent 2 hours at Guitar Center
• Went on an adventurous hike in a park, ended up on private property checking out abandoned farming vehicles, and getting about a billion of those seeds that stick to your clothes stuck on my shirt.
• Went to Texas Roadhouse and stuffed myself (right before getting on the return 10 hour bus ride... not smart)
• Ate pizza while sitting on a fence
• Watched Law Abiding Citizen
  
• Got semi-lost looking for a disc golf course
• Went disc golfing on a dusty course

I think thats most of what we did. It was a good trip. I'll probably go back. Super Suave, you're my man.

New Read

Just started reading The Barbarian Way by Erwin Raphael McManus. Just finished the first chapter, and I gotta say... I love it so far. I am definitely tired of how ritualistic, institutionalized, and lethargic Christianity and the Church has become. I want to embrace a barbaric faith that is real and untainted, true and passionate. Lets just say, I look forward to the rest of this book, and I look forward to seeing God make some changes in my mind and my heart.

Not Impossible. Inevitable.

Procrastination. I wonder how many times I've thought, prayed, blogged, complained, and struggled with procrastination. Each year at the beginning of the school year I plan to battle against the procrastination from within myself.

Every year I lose the battle miserably.

Procrastination is completely inevitable for me.

Homework always ends up being done a few minutes before its due. It ends up being finished halfway or skimmed through. It ends up being late. Or it ends up not being done at all.

But for some reason, which I can't explain, as of this moment I have done all my homework. I do not owe any work for any class. I am not behind. Everything has been read and done.

So maybe this is this year where I gain an upper hand. Maybe this is the year where I let procrastination rule me no more. This is the year I rule the air.

Who do we pray to?

Sometimes when people pray, I hear them pray to God. That's great. Sometimes I hear people pray to Jesus. That's cool. And sometimes I hear people pray to the Holy Spirit. And I wonder... are we supposed to pray to the Holy Spirit. We are to pray in the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26), but do we pray TO the Holy Spirit. Technically, the three are one. But still... do we address the Holy Spirit directly when we pray? I think about this from time to time, but I've never taken the time to investigate.

Back to School

It's the end of the summer, so you know its time. School is back. With a vengence. As of August 15th, I owed Trinity like $4,000 for last spring. So I wasn't planning on going back. Then comes August 16th and I find out that one of my relatives planned to help out with the money. God doesn't provide late. But He doesn't provide early, either. I actually didn't know if I should go back to school, with everything that's going on with my family, ya know. But here I am. Thursday, September 2nd, enrolled in school, a week of class gone. As of right now, I'm not positive if going to school was the right choice or not. I'll know in about 2 months. I know this semester will prove to be one of the toughest semesters of my life... maybe I should just say busiest.

Class List: Pentateuch, Life of Christ, Elementary Greek, Pauline Epistles

Book List: Handbook on Pentateuch (Hamilton), Basics of Biblical Greek: Grammar (Mounce), basics of Biblical Greek Workbook (Mounce), Jesus the Messiah (Stein), Jesus I Never Knew (Yancey), Writings of New Testament (Johnson), Paul's Letter Collection (Trobish), Paul (Wright), In Praise of the Inexpressible: Paul's (Paillard).

"Remember Me"

What gods do I serve? Really an easier question would be which gods don't I serve. I'm a slave to the seven deadly sins. And then I'm a slave to a thousand false gods.

In the Old Testament, people go astray when they forget. The simple truth is I forget too. I forget all the time. Everyday.

Right now after reading God's words to me, I feel loved by Him, I feel love for Him. Right now I want to serve and worship him. But in 30 minutes when I forget about God's heart for me, then I will not want to serve Him.

I don't want that to happen. I pray that I remember God.

Summer

Is it just me or is this summer flying by unbelievably fast? I blinked at June was gone. There were a couple things I wanted to start this summer and haven't been able to because I've been so busy doing other things. I need to shift some priorities around for sure.

It's definitely been weird being at home without Jeremy, Jesse, or my Dad. But now Jesse's back home, so that should spice things up a bit.

This summer I had a few things I wanted to do, and some things I have done, some things I haven't done so well at so far:

• Spend time with Faith
• Go to Six Flags
• Go to SBR
• Start a Bible study with my family.
• Do my email bible study
• Clean and organize garage and basement
• Do a personal computer tutor for Greek
• Pay off my credit cards
• Lose a bit of weight
• Repair some things around the house.

Check in later to see if I've improved.

Rules

I recently got a ticket for not wearing my seat belt. It cost me $55 for the ticket at $8 for a cashier's check (because the city doesn't trust personal checks I guess). Obviously I wasn't too happy about that. I almost would have preferred if I got a speeding ticket. Why? Because I think the seat belt law is dumb.

You see, I have no problem following rules that make sense to me. It's when there's rules that I don't understand or I think are dumb that I don't follow. For instance, it makes sense that not speeding is a good rule to follow because you are endangering other people (I don't always follow the rule, but I think it's a rule that should be enforced). It's a good rule not to drink bleach...because it will kill you. It's a good rule to clean your bathroom every week... because it gets frickin nasty if you don't. It's simple. I follow rules that I get.

Maybe not all people agree with my logic about which rules are right, but I think the idea behind it is true for most people: follow rules that make sense.

For years I've wondered why I repeatedly fail at reading my bible and having a real prayer life. I'm beginning to think those are rules that don't make sense to me. After all, my life is pretty easy most of the time. Pretty stressless. Why do I need Jesus when my life is going fine, or when I am completely capable of handling the problems in my life? Why do I need to read the bible or pray? Why do I need Jesus now?

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.

1 Thes. 5:14-22

But his answer was: My Father is still working even now, and so I am working.
John 5:17

who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father
Galatians 1:4

Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Galatians 2:20

What else needs to be said?

I'm in a mcdonalds waiting for my brother to get done with work, so i'm just blabbing.

It's about that time of the year. School will come officially to a close May 14th. It's not going to be an easy ride for these last few weeks. I've got two big papers and a mammoth project to work on. I am really looking forward to school ending. I just don't have the discipline to get my homework done so that I can enjoy school better. Even though I've put these assignments off, I am trying to be disciplined in doing them before the day they're due. But next semester I'm really going to work on it.

I've officially been a leader in the youth group at Faith. The high school group is called "TEAM" and I dont know what it stands for or what it means. The boys are divided up into jr/sr and then sophomores and then freshmen. I started out with the jr/sr. small group, which already had two leaders. The past few weeks I've been with the freshmen small group tho. I'm not sure if I'm going to stay with them (I'd like to). Some of the guys like to do parkour, and thats pretty sweet. I like to parkour with them. Soon I will learn flipping.

This semester I've gone to like 5 different churches. I've visited Redemption Bible Church, Northwestern Family Church, and Faith. I've regularly attended Baptist Tabernacle and Crossway. I really don't like going to a different church every week, so I recently decided I'm going to cut it down to two churches. One for when I'm at school and one for when I'm at home. I don't really know what it is about BT, but I'm just tired of it. So for home I chose Crossway. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do about when I'm at school. It would make sense for me to go to Faith, since I work in the youth group. I went there for their sunday morning service for the first time this past sunday. It reminds me of BT. So I'm kind of repelled from that. Didn't like Northwestern, so I'm leaning towards Redemption. Not really sure if what I'm doing is right. I should probably stay at BT because that's where my family goes. And I should probably go to Faith, because I'm already connected in there. I just want to go to a church that engages me, a church that feels alive and is growing.

I owe 4100 for this semester of school. It was due last wednesday. I dont have money for it. Anybody want to pitch in?

This summer I'm going to be working in the mail room and maintenance at Trinity. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be mail room, and Tuesday/Thursday will be Maintenance. I'm not really sure if that's a good thing or not. I'll have to drive down there and back about every day. But I get about 24 mpg in my truck, so it's not too bad. I was thinkin about takin the train, or even riding my bike.

Oh, what to celebrate?

I wrote this on the ride home from Iowa this past Sunday

What is the purpose of holidays? A holiday is to remember an event, right? To remember and celebrate?

Well, today is Easter. The holiday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There’s nothing better to celebrate, except for maybe the birth of Christ, which is just as important. But today, outside of church this morning, nothing was said about Jesus. At least nothing that I heard. The focus was on the Easter ham. We didn’t even pray before we ate today. We may celebrate on this day… but we certainly didn’t celebrate Easter.

Jesus simply wasn’t part of Easter this year.

Being with family during holiday’s isn’t wrong. Pigging out during holidays isn’t wrong. But when you don’t celebrate with Jesus, it’s meaningless I think.

So what did you celebrate this Easter?

The Prayer I Fear

So I've been thinking about how I live so much like I don't need Christ. So I thought about praying "God, show me that I need Christ." But I didn't pray it. Because I fear what will happen. It just sounds like a dangerous prayer. In my mind, the way God would show me would be to take away things from me, the things I depend on. This brings to mind my truck, my laptop, my job, my family, and a few certain friends (not necessarily in that order). You know, I really don't feel like losing any of those things. So I'm still afraid to pray that prayer. I do really need to be reminded that I need Jesus. I can easily just say that to myself, but to feel like I need Him... it's just not happening. And I'm too afraid to ask.

(This doesn't mean I want you to ask for me, either.)

Practicing God's Presence

Reading through Lousy T-shirt, I came across the chapter entitled "Monk." It's about Antonucci reading books by monks. One in particular stuck out to me, for I had read some of it at NBI: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.

The main idea of that book is that God is constantly with us, and it was Brother Lawrence's goal to always be aware of God's presence in his life. Strangely enough, lately I have been becoming more aware of God's presence in my life. But it's not enough. I want it more. I find myself getting more and more excited about being in love with God (when in the past, that sounded like such a weird, slightly gross thing). I find myself wanting more and more to read God's word, and other people's words about God. Anything to help me get closer to Him, and anything to help me become more like the man I should be.

It's exciting to me.

The Exciting Life of Me

So I've just been dilly dallying around with RealPlayer. I'm considering switching from Itunes to RealPlayer. Maybe I'm just tired of the scenery with Itunes, but I kinda like RealPlayer. I hate Windows Media Player. I haven't tried anything else. And I'm not in the mood to try anything else, either. I will keep you updated on this important issue. And I will give you a final decision within two months. Let the battle begin.

Bucket List

I saw my bru's post about bucket kicking stuff, and it reminded me of the movie "the bucket list." I was encouraged by this memory to make a bucket list for myself. So here it is... at least the first version of the things I want to do before I kick the bucket.

• Skydive
• Visit New Zealand
• Participate in a demolition derby
• Visit every theme park in the U.S.
• Race in a car
• Mountain bike in a mountain all day
• Go to Egypt and Jerusalem
• Swim in a pool filled with something besides water (like spaghetti or syrup)
  
• Be in a major motion picture
• Go on a cruise
• Go into outer space
• Smash an expensive guitar

Good day, sir

Yesterday was an ultra-pleasant day. I got to disc golf instead of going to chapel, and I got to disc golf after work. Each course was only 9 holes, but they were a blast. I think I ended up around 5 under on the first course, and then around 12 under on the second course (no joke). I double eagled two holes. I don't remember how many feet the holes were, but I know they were short (but my throws were still wicked awesome). We got Craig hooked on disc golf now, he bought his own set of discs after discing once.

After disc golf, we went to CiCi's pizza buffet for a special price of only three dollars and ninety nine cents! Dude, it was freakin delicious! I love CiCi's! There cinnamon rolls are just to die for.

Then we went back to craig's apt, then to best buy, and back to craig's. And we watched "The Life of David Gale." Pretty good moooooovie. I give it an A!

Now today... its snowing? I'm staying at Trinity. I don't know what I'm going to do today besides watch 24. Adam said he was coming, I expected him around 1 or 2 and now he says it will be after 5. What the heck Adam.

Break of the Spring... Spring Break, that is.

Yesterday marked the end of my Spring Break. I had a great time during my vacation, but it ended too soon. I spent Wednesday through Sunday morning in Iowa, hanging out with the Duey's, my bru, Super Suave, and Zak. Went disc golfing three times, ate a ton of food, saw some new movies, played sacapunta, stayed up late... a typical trip to Iowa. This trip resulted in me getting sick though. I've got some kinda cold or something now. Slept for ten hours last night and could slept for at least 4 more. I got a crap ton of reading to do tonight too.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. Let's go back to before I went to Iowa. Monday I spent the entire day cleaning and organizing some stuff in my house. Tuesday I spent the whole day watching TV. Although, it may have happened the other way around. Maybe I watched TV Monday and cleaned Tuesday. I don't remember. But that's typically how my days look when I go home from school.

I finna fo fake a fap. (that translates into "I'm going to go take a nap")

Anthony Nelson logged off at 12:05 P.M.

Parkside

I was thinking about going to Parkside next year and taking some Gen Eds. I'd save myself a bundle of cash. It costs about 30,000 a year at Trinity, including room and board. Parkside would be around 7,000... without room and board. I'd just live at home. After talking with a few people about it, and spending a considerable amount of time pondering, it seems like the way for me to go. So as of right now I plan to go to Parkside next year.

Now if I could just decide about this summer...

Music

Decided it's time to stop hauling my big black file cabinet of music around. So I'm working on getting all my worship music on my lappy. For each song right now I'm making a total of 4 documents. Two are PPT, and two are Word documents. I will have a copy of the guitar music on Word and PPT, and a copy of the lyrics on Word and PPT. I want my guitar music on PPT so I can plant all my songs from a set on one PPT and just push the next button to get to the next song. Now I won't be fumbling through papers on stage. I'm concerned about how distracting a laptop on a stand on stage might be... Plus it's a lot of work getting all four documents. I think I just spent at least an hour, probably closer to two hours working on the first song, All Creatures. I would upload them here on my blog, but I don't know how to, or even if it's possible. So I'll just post a pic of what my guitar PPT looks like, because that's what I'm most excited about!.

Spider Sticks

I went to the Field Museum today as a field trip for my music class. We had a worksheet that we had to fill out as we worked our way through the Africa exhibit. There was a story on an exhibit that was about a spider who communicated to the people for the gods. The spider lived in a hole in the ground and only one man knew how to communicate with the spider. By placing 3 sticks over the hole of the spider's home, and interpreting how the spider arranged the 3 sticks upon his exit of his house, the man could tell anybody how to solve any problem.

So I've got a problem. About a month ago I was thinking about whether to stay home this summer or work at camp. About two weeks ago I decided to stay home. I was still willing to work at camp, but God would have to give a pretty big sign to show me that way. Today I was told that camp could really use me in the tech department. Like they really needed me. (Not because I'm super cool or amazing, but just because I know how to do the job and I'm capable of doing it properly). I'm really torn because on one hand, there's thousands of kids and families that I could be serving and ministering to this summer. But on the other hand... I want to be able to spend the summer with my family (especially Faith), and Adam, and get a money making job. Can you interpret the spider's sticks for me?

Heratio the Fox: the Move

Heratio the Fox has now moved to a new website! It's exciting, we know. For further Heratio readings, please go to and bookmark, heratiothefox.blogspot.com Thanks! And Pleasantly Enjoy yourselfs and the world wide website of heratiothefox.blogspot.com. Once again, that's 1-800-555--I mean... heratiothefox.blogspot.com.

Heratio the Fox: Plazo Cinco

Here's a picture that I made of Heratio the Fox. He's camel sized.

One day, day one of month one of year one, a sly, a cunning fox named Heratio was there. Where was he? Well, he was there. This "there" happens to be next to that "there" and in between "this" and "that," as you might say, possibly. So he was in Rome. Rome, WI to be precisely precise with precisionally precision. He had finished eating his fox food that he was eating, if you must recall from The Fox, Heratio: Season One Episode Four Section A Subsection I Subsubsection α.

He wanted to experience something that's experiential, so he decided to try base jumping. But he was a fox, and they didn't have parachute packs that fit foxes, especially camel sized foxes like Heratio was, so Heratio decided to make his own parachute. He made four ropes out of fox hair, for this was the only available item that Heratio could use. Heratio didn't think of making ropes out of anything else because he got the Zackly disease. It's where you're mouth smells Zackly like your butt. Anywhoville, he tooketh the rope that he so fasioned out of his own fox hair, and he tied it to the four corners of The Earth. Heratio had taken the sheet from his bed and named it "The Earth" so Heratio didn't really tie his sheet to the earth, but rather to his sheet, which was named "The Earth." But he pronounced it like Calypso from Pirates of the Carribean does, so it sounded more like "De Ert." Then he tooketh said home-made parachute and jumped off of a cliff. His parachute failed.

Luckily, Spiderman happened to be dilly dallying around near this cliff, and sawr what trouble had become of Heratio. Spiderman and Heratio were actually pretty good buds. They even gave nicknames for each other. Spiderman was named "String Flinging Fairy" while Heratio was named "Clement." String Flinging Fairy swept Clement out from the sky, saving him from his most certain death. Clement said "thanks" and Spiderman left.

Heratio was mad that his parachute didn't work, and he thought it was the fault of the cliff. It was the fault of the cliff because it was angled the wrong way and made wind flow incorrectly, which cause the parachute to fly unproperly and fail. So Heratio cast the mountain into the sea. He did this by using the Force to send a Jupiter sized meteor to the mountains, and that crumbled the mountains to pieces, and then there was a rockslide that proceeded to the sea. So the mountain became one with the sea.

Then, a peacock happened to walk by, and Heratio had never seen a peacock before, so he ripped off the peacocks head and made a pleasant feathery like coat for himself to wear (for he lost all of his fox fur to the rope for the parachute) and ate the peacock's body for nourishment cause he had expended all his energy on taking care of them darn tootin mountains, yeah, bru? And the peacock was no more. Turns out though, that the peacock had the swine flu, cuz the peacock drank water from the same stream as little miss piggy. Fart. So Heratio got sick, and was near death.

Will Heratio get over the swine flu? Will Heratio ever eat a peacock again? Should you make your own parachute and base jump with it to prove that Heratio is just incompetent? No. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a toostie pop? The world may never know. Because Heratio knows, but he might die, but he can't tell anyone right now because he's got a breathing tube down his fox throat. So he couldn't talk.

Next episode we'll find out what happens to the fox. Or we might just continue the story like this episode never happened. Because a day with Heratio the Fox is like a day with no steak: meaningless utterings.

Until next time, meet single koala bears in your zip code.

to sponsor or to follow...

I've been reading through a few books lately. Just finished reading through two of Donald Miller's books. Currently reading "Do Hard Things" and "I became a christian and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." I'm just being challenged to change. In "Do Hard Things" there was this idea that many people have become complacent in their lives, wanting to just do the bare minimum and get by comfortably. That's like the story of my life! In the lousy T-shirt book (I'm only like 3 chapters in), its challenging me to think more about following Jesus than just supporting his cause by wearing a 5 dollar T-shirt I bought. The combination of all of these books (plus reading a lot of scripture lately) has just caused me to become aware of my apathy. I want to live a life that can be turned into a great story. A story about a guy who decided to follow Jesus and experience life on the edge, full of excitement, adventure, dangers, failure and success.

Too bad I'm already in college. It's too late for me now.

Teaching the Bible

I'm in this superfine class called "Teaching the Bible" where we just so happen to learn to teach the bible. I just recently did a passage research study on Galatians 5:16-26 and a topical research on the Holy Spirit, using 5 different passages. These things had to be thorough with background information, interpretation, application... pretty much like an old school commentary. It was honestly a ton of work. I'd definitely be prepared to teach on that stuff though (except I kinda did a cheap job on the topical research, but the Galatians one I'd kill on). I haven't taught many lessons. But in this class we are really being exposed to all the work that goes into writing a lesson.

It always seems like when I look at Jon's blog that he's always talking about how it's "kicking his butt." It really does kick my butt. When I am typing up application stuff... geez. It's so convicting doing all this study and getting solid applications. How can you teach something you haven't already experienced? How can you tell somebody to do the hard thing and apply what you've learned when you haven't done it.

My whole life I've made it normal to not apply what I've "learned." It's going to be interesting to see how things work out now. If I continue to not apply, what happens? I burn out? I really do need to start applying. I need to do the hard thing.

An Unforgiveable Sin

I went to Crossway with the Gerlachs. The message was on Matthew 12:22-37. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. They talked about what exactly is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and what is not. Here's basically what they said:

• Not blasphemy: getting angry and having a cuss fest with the Holy Spirit. Having thoughts or doubts.
• Blasphemy is: actively and willfully denying the work of the Spirit. Rejecting the truth of the Spirit. Crediting the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan.

Nothing I really haven't heard before, but it's always great to have a good refresher and reminder. It's also good for me to hear the same thing more than once because then it will come to my mind faster the next time the topic comes up. YEE HAW!

The Fox, Heratio. Season One Episode Four Section A Subsection I Subsubsection α

It was a cool summer afternoon, about 9am, temperature 106.7 (the fish), and Heratio the Fox was walking upon his wooded forest. It had regrown since he burnanatored it. Recuerdas? I do. The trees were tall, as tall as tall trees normally are. Not tall like California Redwood Trees, cuz those are from the aliens. Heratio was strolling amongst the tall trees and he sawr a crow. He spoke to the crow in Elvish, “sovh hotne soe hofnay froothe ehiay” which translates into “Hi.” Then he communicated telepathetically with the crow and requested the crows name. Turns out the crows name was “Heratio” but it was pronounced not like Heratio the Fox (which is pronounced her-ash-e-oh) but the crows name was pronounced her-hat-t’you. Heratio the Fox was pleased with this, for Heratio the crow had a pleasant name. What Heratio the Fox didn’t know was that the crow was associated with the DUTCH! Uh-oh.

Some ask “Why is Heratio so violent?” But he’s not.

Heratio the Fox went for a quick fly around the forest and Heratio the Crow said “This new forest is beautiful.” And Heratio the Fox agreed. Except the crow said it in Dutch-land speak. So Heratio disagreed with that. So the crow was immediately killed by death by a wood chipper. But the crows skull was too thick to go through, so he didn’t die all the way. But he had no heart, because that was chopped up, so he died pretty quickly thereafter.

A sasquatch heard the girlish cries from the crows harrible incident with the wood chipper and came a running to the rescue like a knight in shining armour, but he was a sasquatch so he wore his hairy body instead of the armour for two reasons: firstly because his hair was really thick and was impenetrable and secondly because there were no stores nearby that sold shining armour and thirdly because sasquatch don’t have money and he wouldn’t be able to afford to buy anything, let alone expensive armour. The sasquatch was too late anyway and the crow died already, because sasquatchi (sas-kwaut-chie… plural for sasquatch) are big, fat, and run slow. Heratio the Fox chuckled an evil laugh. For he was sinister.

Heratio was a Fox and he was hungry, so he ate some fox food. I don’t know what foxes eat though.

Do Hard Things

As I was coming to the end of “Through Painted Deserts” by Don Miller, I remembered a book I got for Christmas that I thought would be a good read after I finished Painted Deserts. That was about a week ago, and I’m now on like chapter three of “Do Hard Things” by Alex and Brett Harris. That phrase “Do hard things” has been pounding on even before I began reading. “To Save a Life” (great film, go see it) was the movie I saw two Fridays ago that began this “do hard things” annoyance.

Yeah, I really do mean annoyance. That phrase has been popping up in my mind multiple times a day, and so far I haven’t given in. I haven’t done anything hard. But it’s starting to get harder to resist. In all actuality, some things that I thought were hard before aren’t really turning out to look so hard.

For instance, I’m really bothered when I see somebody eating lunch in the dining hall alone. Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like to be lonely, it feels terrible, and I don’t really want other people to have to experience it. Every single time I eat here, I find somebody who’s eating alone. Not because I’m looking for them, my eyes just wander and they pop up. “Do hard things” comes to mind. Crap. Now I either have to do something that scares me (yes, I’m scared to go up to a random stranger and strike up a conversation), or I have to live with the guilt of being a pansy.

Like I said, so far I’ve been able to resist doing the hard things. I need prayer and encouragement to do hard things, though. It’s tough doing hard things—heck, it’s tough doing easy things (when you’re as lazy as me). I’m ready to join the rebelution, though.

Heratio the Fox: Installment: Third of Three thus far

That which follows is the third-most addition to the instant classic "Heratio the Fox." For more information, please press 3. Para espanol, primera cuatro.

There once was a sly fox. This sly fox was cunning and dashingly good looking, eh? It has been one week since the bus incident, and Heratio got board. Like literally, he got a board. Of wood. From the forest that he burnt down, but some planks were left over that he rememberd he could use for certain things.

PAUSE! Please pardon the interruption, but some slight clarifications are needed to be made. Please note the fact that Heratio's name is not pronounced "her-aye-shyo" like you probably thought. His name is pronounced "her-ASH-yo" with the emphasis on the "ASH."

Resume film.

So Heratio was lumbering with his planks that he found. He thought the wood smelt good, so he thinked to himself that they might be-est pleasuring to eat, or rather, consume (but not consummate, just consume). So he took a small whale-sized bit of the plank that was near-most to himself, and he began to chew it. He got a sliver inbetween A tooth and his gums, and it hurt real bad, but he knew it would be worth it to chew through the pain, cuz it tasted so good. After that all was well, at least until be preceded to swollow, at which point he got this strange discomforted look upon his face, for he was choking and he threw it all up. It was mostly just wood, from the plank that he was eating, but there was a little bit of Buffalo Wild Wings mixed in, because he ate at there earlier today (for it was now about the 8th hour).

Speaking of Buffalo Wild Wings, now would be an optimal time to explain Heratio's (remember its pronounced her-ash-yo) terrible encounter with the ugly-betty waitress at Buffalo Wild Wings. So Heratio walked in to a Buffalo Wild Wings on the corner of 9th and 5th. You know where this is, yeah, bru, huh? And this was one of them Buffalo Wild Wings where foxes weren't allowed. At least, to say the least, Heratio was slightly engaged, or rather enraged. He was actually extremely enraged. He pulled out his Citizen's card proving once and for all that he was a citizen of the United States just as much as all the humans in there. So Betty, the waitress that was mentioned earlier (as the ugle-betty waitress, remember?), reluctantly gave him a table. Except he was a fox, and fox are tiny so he needed to be seated at a kiddy table. Turns out though, that it was a decoy fox, and the real Heratio the fox had walked in and demanded a regular-sized table. For Heratio was a camel-sized fox, if you can recall from "Heratio the Fox: Episode 2." Betty sighed and reluctantly gave him a table for three, for Heratio was having a guest in addition to his decoy fox. Heratio got 37 wings with no sauce. He ate every single one. All of them. Except he couldn't finish 2 of them, because he could tell they weren't Kosher.

So back to where Heratio had thrown up the wood. He decided that it may not be a good idea to eat wood again, probably. So he vowed to never eat wood that would certainly make him choke. But he might eat wood that wouldn't for sure make him choke.

That's it for now. So until next time, which will probably be soon, good bye.

Heratio the Fox: Episode 2

This is the second installment in a series of short stories. The first episode is only available on request. But Heratio's flashback in this story is a sufficient summary of episode one of "Heratio the Fox."

Once upon a time there was a sly fox. The sly fox was also cunning and dashingly good looking. His name was Heratio. While living in the woods, like he normally did, he saw a cloud in the sky. He wondered what the cloud was made of, and he couldn't figure it out, so he got mad. Heratio got so mad that he burned the forest down with a fireball shotgun. He burned down the forest like a mad-man. Except he was a fox, so he was more like a mad fox. A mad fox named Heratio.

Then Heratio had a flashback to a time in the past where there was a wicked witch and knights who say "Ni" that he chopped up and ate and a guy named David and Shelby and the witch subdued Heratio, but only half way, so the witch decided to grant the sly fox a wish and he wished for cunning (before this, the fox was not cunning, and this is why the fox is cunning now) and he blew up David and Shelby with thirteen nukes and then Heratio regurgitated the knights and they were all happy.

Then Heratio was done with his flashback, only to find that a cross between a Kangaroo and a Moose (nicknamed KaMoose (kinda like caboose)) that pooped on his right hind leg. So he ninja'ed KaMoose to near death. But the Kangaroo Moose didn't die, but he was severely injured. every finger was chopped off, all of his limbs were broken, his heart ripped out and pureed, his liver was tickeled almost to death, and his spleen became it's own rational being and ate the neighboring appendix. The local Doctor was nearby strawberry hunting and antelope hunting and heard a Kangaroo/moose-like groan and came and put KaMoose on some machinery that kepted him alive. so KaMoose didn't die, but he was severely injured.

Running in, stage right, crying, Shelby walks in. We all thought Shelby died in the 13-nuclear-bomb attack, but she didn't. She was just severely injured and deformed. Because of the nuclear radiation, she grew 17 extra ears, all growing on the left side of her face, and the force of the bomb in combination with the radiation flung her legs backwards and they ended up next to her shoulders, so she walks kidna funny now. But there she was, and Heratio was shocked. Shelby didn't know that Heratio was the attacker in the nuclear attack, and she didn't know the doctor or KaMoose. Heratio didn't want her to find out and get upset, because he kind of had a crush on her now. But it was weird because Heratio was a fox and Shelby was a human. But she was severely disfigured, so Heratio thought maybe his fox-friends maybe wouldn't be able to tell she was a human.

Then Heratio got suspicious because the next day, Shelby got mad and started monologue-ing to herself in dutch. And Heratio couldn't stand the dutch (just like austin powers and his dad). So Heratio went to Reno, purchased a stolen bus, but he didn't know it was stolen, and he drove the bus back to the forest where Shelby had made a shelter out of the carcass of KaMoose (cuz he didn't make it through the night) and Heratio ran over Shelby, because he doesn't like dutch stuff.

So Heratio was a little upset, but he made himself a latte and it made him feel better. By the time he was done drinking it, he had forgotten about Shelby. But the latte was 87 gallons, so it took a while for him to drink it all. But Heratio's like an over-sized fox, like the size of a camel. So he actually drank it pretty fast. And he fell asleep because he felt like his stomach was about to rip open and all his guts and stomach were to fly out. Ne'er again shalt he drink an 87 gallon latte. Maybe an 87 gallon hot chocolate, but not a latte.

Dorm

Got a new leather couch. Had to re-arrange the room to fit it in. Here's what our dorm looks like. I used the webcam on my lappy. I compiled like 8 pictures to make this one perfect panoramic picture of the room.

Wingin' it

Today I was reminded, yet again, at what a complete failure I am. In my Teaching the Bible class, we had to give a teeny tiny presentation today. It was only supposed to be like a minute or two long. We had to share two sermon topics, and a verse or passage to support it, and briefly give a summary of the message. I thought to myself "Eh, no problem. I got this covered. Simple stuff." And I actually pretty much had it all planned out in my head. Then I stand in front of my class (which has only like 5 or 6 other students) and my mind goes psycho. I start talking, and I cannot control the words coming out of my mouth. They are not the words I intended, and they don't even really have anything to do with what I originally wanted to say. The whole time I'm speaking (seems like I was up for like an hour just babbling), my teacher has this just completely confused look on his face.

I don't know what my problem is. I guess I'm still afraid of standing up and speaking in front of people, even if it's half a dozen people. I'm tellin you... what I was going to say would have just been solid... but instead I just got up and crapped my pants and mindlessly babbled. Winging it is not my thing yet I suppose...

Party Like a Rock Star

Last night I went to see "To Save a Life" with my youth group, and then we had a lock-in kinda thing after. First, I'd like to say that I loved the movie. It was great, especially being an Independent Christian film. I thought it was a movie that people could really relate to, it was extremely relevant, had plenty of challenges and truth. The sucky part is that most people will agree with what I've just said... but then in a week or two we'll all forget about it. I hope that I don't forget. I hope my youth group doesn't forget.

Second... we had that lock-in jazz goin on. Pretty fun night. I think there were around fifteen guys there at one point. We played some Wii, Xbox, Settlers of Catan, some train board game, ate pizza and chips and twizzlers and drank pop. Some of the guys stayed up only till like 1, while others claimed to stay up all night. I went to bed at 4. I'm tired. But it was a blast. I enjoyed hangin with the guys and getting to know them better. May the force be with you.

Mourning

There has been the death of somebody near and dear to my heart. He's been with me for around six months, and in that time I've grown very fond of him. We've been through good times, through bad, through thick and thin. He's always been there when I needed him, of course except when I forgot to bring him with me. He's been such a nourishment to my soul, hydrating me whenever I needed it most. He always brought relief to me and satiated my thirst. If you haven't discovered it yet, I'm talking about the Royal Mug. A gift to me from my old classmate and friend, Rachel Peterson. I've been blessed by this gift. It has served me well these past six months, and it saddens me to say good bye. What caused this terrible death? He looks fine in this photo, eh? Well, there's a crack in him. The doctors say it can't be fixed. We're just trying to spend as much time together before he's gone. We're expecting him to last through tomorrow, so the funeral will be held Sunday. If anybody would like to attend the funeral, let me know and I can give you more information. Sending cards would be appreciated as well. Sending money to help with funeral costs would be helpful as well. To the rest of the world out there, live long and prosper.

I will miss you, Regal Gobblet.

Ketchup

It's almost been a week since I've blogged. I've been so busy this past week, so it's time me and you catch up (Ketchup, get it?). For the sake of not making you read this blog for hours, and for the sake of me needing to get to my hw, I shall remain brief!

• Saturday I enjoyed watching Faith play (and win) two basketball games. Following the second game my body was blessed by Chubbies (perhaps the most delicious restaurant on the planet). I split a 12 inch deep dish pizza and a 1 lb bacon cheddar burger with Jesse. I gained at least 3 lbs from that meal.
• Sunday I went to OCB with the Gerlach's for breakfast, and then joined them at their church. Then Faith had another basketball game Sunday, which I believe she won. Sunday night I had yg. After yg the students decided they wanted to go to applebee's because they didnt' have school the next day. Man was it wicked having like 25 hyper high school students there. I'm sure the staff there hated us. We made sure to not tell them we were a church group, or which church we were from. I know they made a wicked tip, though. Probably around 60 or 80 bucks at least.
• Monday. In the morning Jeremy and I went to the Childers' house to pick up their leather sofa, for we planned to take it to school. It was a beast to carry. Then Jeremy and I joined just over a dozen people from BT to go skiing at Wilmot Mountain. We started skiing around 4:15 and went till about 10:30, with a break or two in there for food and stuff. Man was that a blast. I had such a great time. David hurt his shoulder, but other than that I don't think anybody in our group was injured. I did fall going off a jump, but I didn't get hurt. I want to go skiing again soon. I wish it wasn't so expensive. We got home around 1130 and Jeremy and I had to head down to school, because we had class the next morning. We got to school around 1am. We had the couch with us. We live on the third floor. Need I say more?
• Tuesday. I slept till I had class at 1050. Then after my two classes, I joined Craig, who was visiting Ben and Justin, who were on campus for a "summer camp fair" thing. Then I hung out with Justin and Ben for the rest of the day. They left around 8 or 9. It was great seeing them. Makes me wanna go up there to SBR really badly. Then after they were gone, Jeremy and I set out to bring the couch into our dorm, for it was still just sitting in our suite We figured out that the couch actually came apart. So we took it apart and brought it in our dorm. We couldn't just carry it in because there's hallways and doorways that just wouldn't allow us to bring the couch in as a whole. I know Jeremy and I did something else Tuesday, I just can't remember.
• Wednesday (yesterday, in case you didn't know that today is Thursday and so therefore wednesday would also be known as "yesterday"). Class, chapel (a stupid one... we had to fill out some survey that took like 30 minutes to do), lunch, work, shower, craigs, Jess's's soccer game (in a neighborhood ghetto enough that we had to get searched before they let us in), Alaina's for dinner, and back to school for some 24 on our new entertainment system (it's new to us). We got a 30"ish TV (old school), surround sound (thanks to craig), and a DVD player (thanks craig again).

Well, there you have it. There's stuff I left out, stuff I forgot, and I probably repeated some stuff in there. And yes, this is the short version. You are the weakest link. Good bye.

m'plan, bru

I have a plan to memorize the book of Galatians, and I have two friends who are joining me. We are just going straight through verse by verse. We're on verse 5 right now. We've been giving ourselves 3 days to memorize the verse, but it just seems too easy. We're gonna bump it up to two days per verse. There's 145 verses in the book, so looks like we'll be finishing around November, unless we bump it up to a verse a day, which we may do sometime soon. I really love the book of Galatians.

Thats my good news. My bad news is that I also have a read-through-the-bible-in-a-year plan. That's not going well. Today I'm supposed to have up through Leviticus 7 in the OT and Matthew 27 finished. I'm at Genesis 27 and Matthew 7. I'm about a week behind.

Also, this semester I've got 4 bible classes and 1 music class. I really have no desire to take Gen Eds at all. I just want Bible classes. That's it. I don't want to pay freakin 900 bucks to take a math class or a science class. I just want de Bible. You know?

A Nice Warm Slice of Peace

Today I got a chance to watch the sunset from my room. This pic is from my camera phone, so that's why it's so crappy. But it looked amazing tonight. At one point I got this picture in my mind, it seemed unusually real. As I looked at the sun, off to the right I could see God's face, and extending out towards the Sun and Earth were his arms extending, holding them both up. Then He looked down at me, smiled, and thought "All these people running around, too busy to notice. But this one here, he's enjoying this beautiful sunset I painted today." It felt so unusually good to just stop and stand there and watch the sunset with no agenda. There was nothing I needed to do that moment but enjoy the beauty of the sunset.

m'books, bru

Got my books all ordered for class. Full price for all the books brand new (not including shipping): 379.72. The amount I paid for all of them, including shipping: 125.40. Makes me feel good to know I've saved myself 254.32. The classes I'm taking are: OT Poetic Books, Pauling Epistles, Calvinism vs. Arminianism, Teaching the Bible, Survey of World Music, and Teaching OT creatively. Total credit hours: 16. Number of hours I'll probably spend doing hw: 60. It's gonna be a fun semester.

Slap-ah de bass, mahn!

I had the honor of slappin de bass this Sunday for church. I really enjoy playing bass, but I'd love to be able to play guitar and drums here and there. Last time I lead worship with a guitar was last summer. I miss it. But this past Sunday was great. I don't remember which song it was, but I was just in the zone. The congregation just faded out, and I was just jammin. I loved it. It's great worshipping God.

Special Saturday

Yesterday I had the honor of driving to Rachel's house, picking up Drew and Clair along the way. We had a big fire there, ate some delicious pizza (thanks, Rachel, you're a great cook), and hung out at Luke's for a while. It was quite enjoyable, being able to hang out with those guys. Always brings back memories of camp. The part that sucked: spending 50 bucks in gas (I had to drive our big van because Jeremy had my truck). I was not ready to spend that much money on gas, and it sure hit me hard. I've officially got $6 to get me through till this Friday. I'm low on gas right now (got around 50 miles left) and I have one trip to Grayslake and back here tonite, a trip to work at school tomorrow, and then a trip to move back in to school Tuesday. Convenient.

al basquetball

Got to go to Faith's first basketball game this morning. It was a great first game for them. I bet they'll have a good season. I think Faith had a fun time playing too.

Chapter Three

Just finished chapter three of Through Painted Deserts. I love this book and I hate it. Reading it just brings forth all these different emotions. This chapter tended to focus on what these two guys wanted in girls, in a wife. Bummed that I don't know of any girls interested in me. Excited to actually get married some day. I feel sorry... for the girl that ends up with me. You may not think so, (maybe you do...) but I'm one messed up guy. I feel grateful because I know God will find a girl who loves me regardless of my shortcomings. I feel jealous of Donald Miller and the guy he's on the road trip with, because I want to do what he's doing (in the book). And that's just the tip of the iceberg, the icing on the cake.

But drinking this Ruby Red Sierra Mist makes me feel all warm and tingly inside!

Fire

Sometimes I just get a small desire to watch stuff burn. So last night in the snow, Adam and I had a fire. It was quite pleasant. It was a bit windier than we expected, so that was a little bit unpleasant. But we had Twizlers and popcorn and Ruby Red grapefruit Sierra Mist. My new favorite drink is Ruby Red Sierra Mist. It is insanely delicious. I could drink one hundred cans a day for the rest of my life and it would still be my favorite drink.

I got a ton of sweet drifting in from all the snow we got. I wouldn't complain at all if it snowed like that every day all winter.

Bowling

That's right. I went bowling again today. Pretty cheap again too. I wasn't doing that great, but somehow I beat my record and made a new one of 136. I know. I'm practically professional... or not. But I had fun again! Got to go with Jeremy, Jesse, Faith, and mi padre. We played like 7 games, got curly fries, pizza, and pop.

Also, got some sweet drifting in with Jesse. Probably going to go again later tonite with Adam. Gonna have a fire in the back yard tonite too. This is pretty much the best snow day ever!

Slow to snow

I woke up this morning hoping for a foot of snow on the ground, but only finding like 3 or 4 inches. Major disappointment. I was going to head down to Trinity today to work, but both my parents think it would be foolish to do so, so even though I'd go, I'll take their advice and stay home. Anyways, I'd rather not crash my truck right now. I'm still happy we got more snow. Now there will definitely be enough to go sledding this weekend. Who's in?

Genesis

Reading through Genesis...

5 Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”6 And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.

Gen 15:5-6 (NLT)

Abram believed the Lord. Abram was righteous because of his faith. But later, Abram goes out of God's will when he gets impatient. Abram believes. But he does his own thing anyways. What the heck? That's just jacked up. Jacked up that God still blessed Abram regardless of his actions. Jacked up that we do the same thing Abram did, and God still blesses us. How can God not get tired of blessing people who disrespect?

Bowling

Last night I got a chance to go bowling with Adam, Jeremy, and some of Jeremy's friends. Including shoe rental and 4 games, it cost just over 4 bucks. What a deal. You can't really beat that. I had a great time too. I'm not the best at bowling. I got like 108 the first game, about 20 more the second game. Then after that I'm not sure. One game we put the bumpers up and the rule was you had to hit the bumper at least once, otherwise it counted as zero. It was pretty fun.

When we there, the aroma of the french fries from the grill were overwhelming. It was so hard to resist not buying them. They smelt (that's the new abbreviation for "smelled") so delicious. I resisted, while Jeremy's friends could not. I tried one, and they weren't good at all. I think Burger King fries are better than those (and Burger King ranks lowest on my french fry ratings). And is it just me, or is it like like an unwritten rule that you're supposed to be drinking something while you bowl (I don't mean alcohol, even though most people do). It just feels wrong bowling without something to drink. Like bowling is an energy sucking sport that dehydrates you after each time you throw the ball. They should just put drinking fountains right at the ball return so you can take a sip and bowl, and take another sip so you don't get dehydrated.

Anyways, after that Jeremy and I went over to Adam's house and watch a Christ Farley movie. Don't remember what it was called. It wasn't Tommy Boy, though. I've seen it before, and it was decently funny. But watching it last night made me realize how not funny David Spade is.

Let it snow

I hear we're supposed to get 6-10 inches of snow tomorrow. I don't think I could type a smilie face big enough to convey how happy I am about that. But I will try.


....O....O

..................
.\ ______/

Eh. I tried. Just know that I'm excited for the snow. I am going to drift for hours. Get it?

Idodge

Got my truck back yesterday. They replaced my engine temperature gauge, a wire that connects my engine to my ignition, my catalytic converter, and my muffler. Ended up being close to 600 bucks. Then I was finna go to Adams house and before I left my house, it over heated. So they didn't fix the problem we originally brought it in for. So I brought it back this morning and we got it back this afternoon some time. I haven't driven it yet, but I'm about to go bowling, so we'll see if it works.

Room of Living

I rearranged my living room (or as some strange person would say "my parents' living room) today. It's a pretty delicious set up. I'll post a pic of it later, gater. I also ran the wires for our surround sound under the floor so they're completely hidden. I'm awesome, I know. Hopefully I can finish the work I'm doing in my basement before I have to go back to school. Know what I'm sayin?

The Gathering

Tomorrow is the Gathering at BT. Ealier this weekend Jesse asked me to do sound for them. I agreed, didn't sound like it'd be too much work. I found out that they had practice today from right after church till 4. I was not happy about that. They ended up practicing till like 230 or 3 maybe. Then I found out tomorrow they want us at church at 3. And it doesn't start till 630. So I'm gonna be at church from 3 till like 830... maybe 9. I'm not really happy about that.

I was just thinking about that and realized I've got such a crappy attitude about it. I'm participating in a big worship night. I should feel privileged and honored to be able to help. I get to give 6 hours of tomorrow to God. I'm lucky.

Jack Frost took his toll

My ma was washing dishes and there was no water pressure. She discovered my dad was showering. But he said the water pressure in there was low too. Nothing else in the house was using water. My dad said a water pipe probably busted down the road or something. A few hours later I spotted a van with an orange flashing light. Jeremy and I scootered down there to check it out. Sure enough there was a lake out there. Water was just gushing out of somebody's lawn. I didn't wear gloves. My hands just about froze off. But it was cool seeing a man-made/natural ice rink being made in somebody's front lawn and on the street.

Wii

Spending some time playing the Wii with my siblings. I really enjoy playing Wii. We're doing some Wii golf right now. I'm a pro. Seriously. I've got skills. Just wish I could golf in real life this well. At least I'm a pro at Disc Golf in real life. Speaking of Disc Golf, I just went on Friday. In the snow. And -1,000 degree winter air. It was a blast. I did really well until the last few holes.

Poop poop butt butt

I hate the transition from when I end one book to starting the next one. I just finished Blue Like Jazz. It was weird because I thought it really wasn't that great of a book, but I'm really sad to be done reading it. I moved on to Donald Miller's other book Through Painted Deserts. This book has grabbed ahold of me from the first paragraph. I finished the first chapter and I just don't want to set it down. It makes me want to get up and go do something. He's just on the road for fun, pretty much aimless. I have always wanted to do that, this makes me so jealous of him! So today, to get started on my adventure... I sit at church doing sound for 4 hours for the Gathering practice.