My Next Adventure

I was saving this post for when I had nothing to write about and today is that day! So in the last week of March, I will be visiting my friend and old roommate, Aaron, in Japan. I'm excited for this for so many reasons. The main reason being I've never been to Asia so I'll be able to cross off 3 continents that I've been to (counting my own). (I'm still way behind my dad who has been to six and lived in four of them.) Anyways, you can read about Aaron's adventures here. I will be staying with him in Osaka for a little over a week.

It was only five years ago that I got my passport. I hadn't really been outside the country (except for Mexico and Canada) since 1977 or maybe even earlier than that (I can't really recall). Now that passport is almost stamped full in 5 years time. I think I have only two blank pages left. I'll have to order more pages after this trip.

Go to this page. Put your mouse cursor over the picture of four men. I told you CJ Mahaney was a nutty guy.

Just Like Old Times

Yesterday, my roommates and I cleaned out 1 1/2 bags worth of trash from a trashcan that holds only one bag. I think it was three days past due. If you don't think garbage can go from bad to worse, let me tell you it can. But that's not the horrific part. There was this watermelon in our fridge and no one was claiming that it was theirs. It was getting so rotten and the finger was always pointed at someone else (it's not mine, really!). So yesterday we finally took it out of there. What was in this bag was no longer a watermelon. I swear when I threw it in the dumpster, it burst open and demons flew out of it. It looked like some kind of alien pod. So the moral is, don't buy watermelon unless you're going to eat it every day until it's gone. Also write your name on it so your roommates can go after you when its time has come. Anyways, the experience reminded me of my college days.

Some More Stuff About the Conference

There were a couple concerts that happened during the conference. The first was Derek Webb. I didn't know he was even in Caedmon's Call which kinda shows you how lame of a fan I am of Caedmon's Call. I have one of their CDs. But once I found out he was one of the lead vocals of Caedmon's Call, then I was really looking forward to it. His wife sang too. She was pretty good as well.

But my favorite group of the weekend was The Hodges which is a family band from my old church. They are like a real life Partridge family. Their music style is really interesting. It's like a rockin' bluegrass funk kind of music. I didn't think I would ever like any band that had a banjo in it, but these guys are the true exception. Here's a sample of one of my favorite songs. They totally rock.

This weekend I went to the Resolved Conference. For me, it probably should have been called the Reunion Conference as I saw many people I hadn't seen since I switched churches and some I hadn't seen in a couple years. The speakers were Steve Lawson, C.J. Mahaney, Rick Holland, and Kirk Cameron. The theme of the conference was the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards thus the name of the conference. Jonathan Edwards was a name I was familiar with but this weekend I learned so much more about him. He wrote 70 resolutions of how he wanted to spend the rest of his life and while the context of those resolutions is amazing to comprehend that a person would be resolved in practicing all those things, it is even more amazing that he wrote all these when he was only 19 years old. I think about what kind of person I was when I was 19. It doesn't really matter cuz even at age 29, I'm still not even close to being so committed in my Christian life as he was at 19. Take the time to read them. He then practiced reading them all once a week, at the end of every month, and at the end of every year for the rest of his life. It was troubling reading many of these because I knew in my heart that no matter how much I wanted that to be my resolution, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. But the encouraging thing was the preamble of his resolutions indicated that he knew he would not be capable of any of these without the grace of God. He depended on God for his growth and didn't rely on himself, but he really strived to rely on God. That's something I hope I never forget to do.

Anyways, I wish I could write everything I learned at this conference, but I can't. I wouldn't even know where to begin. I don't think it has even all sunk in yet. The good thing for you though is the sermons will be available to download online pretty soon and you can have your own experience and probably learn more than I did. One thing that was said that really struck me was when C.J. Mahaney said, "the Christian life isn't hard, it's impossible". This weekend showed me just how high a fallible man can go to pursue holiness. I know that we shouldn't compare ourselves to men, but to Christ for He is perfect. However, it is humbling to see what a man can do and then know that all his success had come from the power of the Holy Spirit.

There were some funny moments at the retreat too. C.J. Mahaney is a pretty nutty guy. He started his sermon 20 minutes late last night because he wanted to play with the band. And when I mean play with the band, I mean he didn't play an instrument, but helped each band member play their own instrument. The man does not play an instrument and has no musical training and there he was conducting the band, strumming on their guitars, and playing chords on the piano. He was really getting into it. He was totally grooving up there. And when he was finished with all that he says, "clearly you see I have the gift, it just has never been developed". It was the funniest thing I had seen in a long time.

As I said earlier, it was a reunion weekend. I saw many of my Foundry friends to which I got a bunch of varied responses. "You made it!" or "Wow, you're here!" or "Sup". I was really surprised how many people remembered the skit I did for them at the last retreat. As much as people like them, they usually forget quickly enough. That was 6 months ago and people were still raving about it to me. I was really flattered. No one likes the skits as much as me and I was surprised to see that there were some that enjoyed that one just as much as I did even after all this time.

Anyways, the weekend was a great balance of joy and conviction. I wonder if that's healthy to have your heart leap and then have it crushed over and over for three days straight. It's definitely spiritually healthy. I enjoyed all the speakers, but I was really impressed with C.J. Mahaney most for his brokenness over the suffering of Christ. I prayed this weekend that God would make me into a man like that and a man like Jonathan Edwards because I sure can't do it by myself. Not so that I would have their outward success, but would obtain their inner love for God, the part that only He sees. I have no idea how many trials that would take to mold me into such a person. I don't even know if God would fully answer such a prayer cuz it would probably require trials that are too much for me and could quite possibly destroy me. One thing is certain and that is I am accountable for what I know and I ask that God would never stop reminding me to obey it.

Clean Slate

So I was on my computer at work showing someone how to increase their virtual memory size. And while I'm browsing through the system properties, I notice there are a couple unknown account profiles that are taking up alot of hard drive space on my computer. I thought it was the IT group's maintenance accounts so I deleted them. "Ha ha, suck on that IT!", I thought. Anyways, as soon as I hit the delete button, all the icons on my desktop disappeared. Uh oh. Then I looked in the My Documents folder...completely empty. I just deleted my entire legacy at this company (nearly 7 years worth of project stuff!). I was a bit shocked at first. Good thing I'm in between projects right now and the most recent project is backed up on the network drive. No one will ever ask me for any of the other stuff since the other projects are dead. The only thing I really wanted to have back was my resume since I really don't want to recall everything I did from scratch. So it was like a clean slate except I kinda felt bad that all that stuff I worked on was just gone. It's like I never worked here. So today I tried some undelete programs. I'm surprised how much stuff I got back, but some things were corrupted and useless including my resume, doh! Even though alot of the files are corrupted, at least I have the appearance of having my files back. I was probably never going to open any of them again anyway so it looks like my legacy has completely returned, ha ha. Oh, and then I remembered I had my resume on Monster.com, so I got that back, too!

New MSN Search

While I'm talking about computer stuff. You all have probably seen the ads boasting the new MSN search and how it's "so great". Well, I'm telling you that Google is still better and is still the best as far as I'm concerned. Don't believe me? Try using the new MSN search and Google to find "skitguru". I rest my case.

Hitch

I saw Hitch last night which was the first movie I've seen since December. Crazy, I know. This is totally out of character for me. Anyways, I was looking forward to this one cuz I'm a big Kevin James fan. You probably don't know who that is, but he's on this sitcom, The King of Queens, which is like the only show (other than The Simpsons) that actually makes me laugh out loud by myself on a regular basis. Anyways, the movie didn't disappoint. It's a really good date movie. Too bad I watched it with two guys, ha ha.

Online Gaming

So Harrison and me both have this Lord of the Rings game where you build armies and fight each other. So last night we took our skills and took on the world. We played some guy in Saudi Arabia and he totally killed us. Other people we played just had these cheat tactics that make them no fun to play. I tend to hate online gaming because you always play people that are ridiculously good so that you have no chance and the game is not fun then. I don't want to get really good either cuz I think of the countless hours these people have played to get as good as they are. I think as a rule, success online is invertly related to success in your social life.

Enjoyment Tips

I tried this Peanut Butter M&M's candy bar out of the vending machine the other day. On the label in small letters read:

Enjoyment Tip: If inner foil is broken, do not eat.

There are many things to be said about this statement. 1) This is not an enjoyment tip, it is a warning. However, to avoid panic, these folks decided to put somewhat of a spin on a warning and made it sound positive. 2) How will I enjoy something if I don't eat it? Again this is a gross spin on reality. Yes, I will enjoy life more if I'm not poisoned by a tainted candy bar, but how does this candy bar help me enjoy anything if I have to toss it? I suppose the absence of agonizing pain or death is a type of joy. 3) I don't need tips to enjoy things. Usually my instinctful pursuit of enjoyment works pretty well. It's like those instructions on the Hi-C drink boxes where the third and last direction is "Enjoy". Duh.

Well, in the spirit of the good people at M&M's, I've taken upon myself to share with you some other enjoyment tips for life...

1. Enjoyment tip for crossing the street, look both ways.
2. Enjoyment tip for eating, chew the food throughly before swallowing.
3. Enjoyment tip for cleaning with household products, don't eat or drink them.
4. Enjoyment tip for high voltage, don't touch it.
5. Enjoyment tip for waterfalls, don't swim near them.
6. Enjoyment tip for rock climbing, don't let go.
7. Enjoyment tip for camping, don't feed the bears.

May these enjoyment tips enrich your life.

Super Bowl XXXIX

I went to a Super Bowl party this weekend. This year's was the most of a Super Bowl I have ever seen seeing everything but the first five minutes. (I still have not seen an entire Super Bowl all the way through.) The biggest draw for me is the commercials, but since you can watch those online in much less time, the reason for going was to just hang out with people from my church. I've never been much of a TV watching sports fan. I like to go to games, but I've never really found watching them on TV that interesting. I try to remember this about myself when other people tell me they hardly ever watch movies (shocking!). We all have our likes and dislikes and no matter how popular they may be to some, it just isn't that for everyone. But sometimes it's better to pretend you know stuff than to go through all that nonsense in trying to explain it to someone. So I found myself giving tips to the girl next to me about how to convince sports people that you know sports too. You'd be surprised how much of a conversation you can participate in just reading one ESPN article (or sometimes even the headline, ha ha). But anyways, I'm not as shy about it now as I used to be. This particular party was funny because they had a nice crisp picture on satellite and a snowy smaller picture on antenna. All the guys were watching the smaller snowy television because the satellite picture had a 5 second delay, ha ha. So all the people in our room would cheer or boo and then in the next room you would hear the same in 5 seconds, ha ha. I was trying to get people to respond the opposite way to throw people off in the other room. Or just boo all at once for no reason and then the other room would be waiting for the bad news that never came, ha ha. So that's how I entertained myself at the Super Bowl party.

So the Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to count each Super Bowl. I suppose it looks really cool having all those X's, I's, and V's up there, but I wonder if they are going to stick with it. Like for the fiftieth Super Bowl are they going to put "Super Bowl L" on our screens or are they going to switch to "Super Bowl 50". I guess in eleven years we'll find out. Or what about the hundredth Super Bowl being "Super Bowl C"? Somehow it doesn't seem as cool. But at least in the near term, we can wonder for the next Super Bowl, will they be saying, this is an extra large Super Bowl because it's "Super Bowl XL"? I guess we'll see.

192!?

So I weighed myself at the gym on Saturday and found I now weigh 192 pounds! It was about 4 1/2 years ago I decided to go the gym to try and put on some weight. I weighed 140 pounds back then. So 4 1/2 years ago, 52 pounds of me didn't exist. That's more than 1/4 of my body. I was only 3/4 of a man back then, ha ha. My goal weight back then was 200 pounds, but I considered that a very high goal. Now it looks like that goal will be met without too much difficulty. I hope my metabolism hasn't slowed down. That would stink if I passed 200 and couldn't stop, ha ha. Then I would definitely have to do my transcontinental bike ride.

Skit DVD Resumed

So I got the last bit of content that I wanted to put on the Skit DVD which means we are going to resume work on it. We are near the end so hopefully it won't take too long. Since all the work left is pretty much the box cover art and a little research on labeling, it pretty much falls on Harrison since I'm not a very good artist and he has all the programs. So Harrison is kind of annoyed that I'm taking so long with the DVD stuff so hopefully I can convince him to do the box art cuz he kinda wants me to do it. I did the title art for Signs of the Apocalypse. That's about as good as I get so I'll have to be tactful with Harrison, ha ha. Harrison hardly ever reads my blog. I think he has only read it twice. So hopefully the box art will be done by him before he reads it again. Moo ha ha!

Along with the skit I was waiting for, I also received all of the Foundry videos that were made to promote retreats. These are some of the best videos I have ever seen. I was privileged to work on some of them. I watched most of them last night which took about 3 hours. I wish there was a free way to put these on the internet for others to enjoy. It probably won't be for a long time though since I would probably need a gig of space. It was cool seeing all the people from the Foundry in the videos. It's been difficult to keep in touch with them since I moved. But I will be seeing them again at the Resolved Conference later this month. Woohoo!

The snowboard trip was pretty good. The new gear worked well and was comfortable which is something you just can't know until you try it. That's a relief! My skills have definitely improved as I was able to do runs this year that I couldn't do last year. The snow level was pretty high and alot of the runs were not groomed recently so there were alot of moguls which are pretty tough for snowboarders, but I got better at them over the weekend and overall the trip was still fun. So as usual, some weird stuff happened to me while I was there.

While waiting in line for the lift, this random older couple ask me what size my boots are. I tell them 13. And they were so shocked by that. They were chuckling to themselves and seemed really amused by that for some reason like they had never seen someone with big feet before. I guess they didn't realize I was like 8 inches taller than them. Perhaps they had never met a tall person before. The man said, "Wow, you hardly need skis." Ha ha, very funny. Yeah my parents kinda wore that joke out when I was a teenager. They finally got it though when the lady said, "I guess that makes sense though since you're pretty tall." Yes it does.

The highlight of the trip was when a cloud descended and covered the peak of the mountain. So I thought it would be really cool to go up there and most of our group agreed except for the most experienced person. We should have listened to him, ha ha, but then if we did, we wouldn't have had this cool story to tell. Anyways, we get to the top and it is intense up there. Visibility was 10 feet and maybe 30 feet at best. The wind was fierce and blowing ice so that it felt like thousands of needles were flying into your face. So we made our way to the Cornice run. When we got there, I couldn't see past the edge. I couldn't tell how far it dropped. Was it a few feet or had the wind made a 30 foot snow cliff? What was once black diamond had now become extreme. I was about 10 feet from the edge pondering about whether I should do it or not. Then a guy passed me and came right up to the edge and just sat there looking over the side. So I'm thinking I'll see what this guy does. Then I look behind me and there are about 20 people there just waiting and probably thinking the same thing. One lady says to me, I'm waiting for you to try it. I think that's really funny because this is that classic scenario, "if your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off it too?" I guess the answer here would be yes except these aren't even your friends, they are complete strangers. How can someone with no knowledge of my skill trust that I will make the right decision, yet I was thinking the same thing about the guy in front of me who was still there sitting and looking over the edge. So we decided to turn back and take the easy run down. As soon as we start making our way back up the hill, someone says, "they're turning back!" and the whole crowd behind us starts turning around, ha ha. Just think, all those people would have probably followed us blindly if we had gone over the edge. We did the run a couple times the next day though and it was great. The wind was still pretty heavy though. I was trying to go over the edge and the wind kept blowing me over. Sometimes I would just be stuck pointed downhill but at a complete standstill because of the wind, but eventually gravity overcomes.