Sunday, February 28, 2010

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...

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

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!.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

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?

Monday, February 15, 2010

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.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

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.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

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!

Monday, February 8, 2010

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.