SCUM!

Noone has an advantage towards God:
-We lack desire to follow God
-Our character is warped
-Our language stinks
-Our behavior is destructive


"There is no one righteous, No, Not ONE" Rom 3:10

Even when the Rain Falls...

This image is one I created with Wordle- a text clouding website- www.wordle.net

Need to Breathe- Washed By the Water

Daddy was a preacher 

She was his wife 
Just tryin to make the world a little better 
You know, shine a light 
People started talking 
Just to hear their own voice 
Those people tried to accuse my father 
Said he made the wrong choice 
Though it might be painful 
You know that time will always tell 
Those people have long since gone 
My father never failed 
Chorus 
Even when the rain falls 
Even when the flood starts rising 
Even when the storm comes 
I am washed by the water 
Repeat Chorus 
Even when the Earth crumbles under my feet 
Even when the ones I love turn around and crucify me 
I won’t never ever let you down 
I won’t fall 
I won’t fall 
I won’t fall as long as you’re around me 
Chorus 
Even when the rain falls 
Even when the flood starts rising 
Even when the storm comes 
I am washed by the water 




This song is a powerful for me and my family. My Daddy is a preacher, and we had something like that happen at a previous church when I was younger and that was a very tough time for all of us. Accusations that were not substantiated by people were what brought my father down from his position at the church and it was a quick-deep pain for the whole family. It was the church that I grew up in. The only church family that I knew, the church where all of my friends were. This was incredible tough for us.




And so you can see why this song is just amazing at portraying the feelings of my family about that situation. The great thing is to know that Even though the Rain Falls and the floods are rising, I know that MY God is always there, and no one can take that away from me.


Thank You Lord God, that you are always there and have a perfect plan, even if it can hurt sometimes. I know that You will always be there to catch me and save me!

Nostalgia for Fun

Well, I have to say, I had some fun this morning.

I got on my Online Class stuff and came to one of my couses that was talking about education games and their prevailence.

It game some links to games from the 80's and so I proceeded to this site talked about all the great games that I grew up on.

Most of the games, I knew and had played, or at least seen.

The number one educational game- The Oregon Trail Game.

On this site- I was very delighted to see that they had links to web versions of the games and so of course I had to go and play the Oregon Trail game for nostalgia.

It was great, and I almost made it all the way, but alas:

So, if you want to go try your luck at the Online Version of the Oregon Trail game, go to virtualapple.org then click on the O section and you will find it under there.

They also had Number Munchers too, and many others.

The Design I just completed for SWITCH MS at New Hope (and mostly just for a class I had to do)

Remember a Day!

Don't worry, I did not take the time to transcribe all this, I just copied and pasted from another website, but I wanted to display the amazing rhetoric of Martin Luther King JR. on his day of Remembrance. May we all be forward thinkers like him.

Excerpt of the I Have a Dream Speech:

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!




^{Do I have a Dream? Do YOU? Let's keep these dreams that MLK had in mind as we talk with others around us.}

I Felt BAD!

So, the problem with having one class at the start of the week and the rest of the week being cooped up in my room, is that I loose track of the days. I went the whole day today thinking it was Tuesday, and all because of my day yesterday.
I should explain more. I have one class on Mondays. That is the day that I go into Monmouth, to WOU. Every monday, I am on my way to that class. THEN, yesterday, Tuesday (I know that NOW), I traveled AGAIN to WOU to do some Research for my class. That got me in the mindset that it was Tuesday today. I went the whole day thinking it was Tuesday.

Now, you might think that because I only have one class, it wouldn't really matter if I thought a Wednesday was a Tuesday right>?? WRONG. I have Worship practice on Wednesday nights, and now I have joined the choir, which is directly after.

So, there I am in my room at around 5:15 just hanging out, not doing much and I get a text from my Worship Pastor asking if I was on my way??? This puzzled me. Now, in just a daze, you might get a whirl of info coming at you saying, "ITS NOT TUESDAY, ITS WEDNESDAY" but that shows how much of a mindset I was in that it was Tuesday, I did not get that whirlwind of info. I of course, CALLED Nate back (because everyone knows that I am not a texter) and said Nate, I thought we were having practice on Wednesday. And he said, Yeah. Now, at least you would think by now, that I would have gotten the clue right?? NO, I still had NO clue that it was Wednesday.

So, finally, Nate set me straight and I learned that it was WEDNESDAY, not tuesday, and I rushed out and arrived at practice late. I HATE BEING LATE. I pride myself on being on time, and usually I give myself TOO much time and arrive at things incredibly early. But better early than late is my mantra.

Needless to say, I will not be doing that again anytime soon. I am going to be meticulously looking at my days to make sure I am on track!

Redbox and Redface

I was a bit impatient tonight. I went to RedBox after my Veritas group to get a free movie. Of course, a couple were there and searching through movies. Now, as a courtesty, if you do not know what you are going to get at the Redbox, you might take a look online to see what they have and have a few choices lined out so when you get there, it is in and out, but NO, These two took their sweet time and looked at each movie that was in the redbox and opened alot of them the see if they wanted them. Now, I was not there the whole time that they were picking out their movies (Thank Goodness) but there were 7 pages of movie titles, and they got all the way to the end. That was alot of waiting, and I try to be patient myself, but there comes a point... So, finally they make their one choice and are waiting for the Redbox to stick its DVD out like a huge red tongue, and the girl has the audacity to say "Hurry up Machine!"..
I was shocked. Had she really just said that?? Because she had to wait 10 seconds for a machine to spit out a dvd, she felt she needed to say Hurry Up Machine?? Well, needless to say, I wanted to say something to her, but decided not too.

And who knows, maybe she was saying it for my sake, and wanting to get the movie and get out of the way for me to start my choosing, but at least if you are going to take a long time in the redbox selections, you can at least acknowledge the person who is waiting in the line behind you, and maybe say, sorry it took us so long.

Well, I have said my peace and counted to 10 (O Brother, Where Art Thou, in case you were wondering)

And just FYI- I got Terminator Salvation. We shall see how good it is.

Frightful Events at the Shilo Inn

Many of my thousands upon thousands of Blog Readers may not know this, but I used to be a Houseman at certain respectable hotel in Bend. For those of you that do not know (or call it something else) a houseman is a job that in the day goes around and takes the dirty towels and dishes and linens from hotel rooms and collects them for the laundry and all that. (Pretty much helping the housekeepers out so they don't have to carry all that junk back, they just focus on the new stuff and cleaning.) But that was not my job, for the most part. My job was the night houseman. I was the one who restocked the maids closets. I was the guy who took all of the washed linens that were hopefully, but not usually, folded and put them in a convenient location so the housekeepers would not have to lug all the new linens from the laundry room to their floor, they were already there, thanks to me. I was also the guy that tested the pool chemicals, and I was the guy that had the nifty walkie talkies (of which always seemed to be out of battery, BTW) and got calls from the Front Desk asking for me to take things to guests' rooms. I took all sorts of things, pillows, new linens, new towels if forgotten, extra creamer, fixed tvs (which weren't broken, people just didn't read the directions), fixed AC, all that stuff.
Anyways, so here is my story. So, I get a call asking if I would show a lady some vacant rooms so she can see which kind she might like for her friend that is going to be staying there. So, I get some room numbers, and I have the all-powerful key that works on pretty much any door, so I take her to a few rooms and I am walking her around and we come to one of the "Vacant" rooms and I open it and start to go in, and I notice that I am hearing things, and see some movement in the bed under the sheets and there are things on the floor. I start backing out quickly because, You guessed it, it was NOT Vacant. But hey, I am being quiet so maybe they won't hear me. Then the lady blurts out, is it not empty, and I say no, it is being used, and a guy yells from the room, Yeah, it is!
I was pretty upset I had to be in that situation, and what was worse was they were there doing the nasty business. Luckily, I was not far enough in to see anything but under sheets, but it was still VERY VERY embarrassing. I called the room number in again, and they got me another room to check, bit need-less to say, that couple that was intruded upon got their room free for the night.

Another "great" moment (Sarcastic BTW) of being a houseman, I was doing my duties, getting thing from the Laundry room to the Housekeepers closets one day, and I trudge past a room that has the windows open and guess who is standing in the middle of the room flipping through channels- a naked person. Now, I don't know why this person was flipping through the tv channels naked, and I don't know why this person thought it was a good idea to have the windows open all the way, especially since their room window was right in front of a major walkway, but they were. Something that I would rather not have seen.

So here is your tips from the former houseman-
#1- if you are planning to do the dirty deed in a hotel room, even if it is a door that locks right away and you have to have a key to open it, still take the extra precautions to double lock and deadbolt the door. You never know what hotel worker might be asked to open the door for someone because of a mistake at the front desk.
#2- even if you have a room that has a window that is more secluded, still take the extra time to close the window blinds if you are going to be prancing around in the nude, whether it is flipping through tv channels or just a quick exit of the bathroom to get your clothes after a shower. Just keep it in mind.

Those are the two lessons for the night. Who knows how these frightful events popped into my head currently, but it is never too late to warn friends, right?
PS- if you are any of those people I mentioned, that would be quite a coincidence that you read my blog. And I am sorry to the first couple, (the second person, it was your own fault)

My first design for my Design Class at WOU

Flashbacks and Friends

I had a crazy flashback this morning. I was at church, of course, and I was waiting for College Sunday School class to start and a girl walks in who looks very familiar to me. She reminded me of someone I knew in LaGrande at Eastern. So, I keep looking at her, and she at me trying to see if it really is Josey, this girl that I knew from EOU, and I found out that she was. She remembered me, and so we got to talking a bit and one of the other girls from WOU was talking about how funny it was that we knew each other.
Then Josey says to Jessica that she recognizes her too. Turns out, that I knew Jessica before I came to Salem as well, because I was a part of Campus Crusade at EOU (so was Josey, thats pretty much how we knew eachother, and church) and we had a leadership meeting thing in Bend one year, and I guess Jessica was a part of that too because many CC branches got together and did the leadership stuff as one.
Anyways, I am going to have to take a look at the Campus Crusade picture that was taken again (if I can find it on my computer) and see if I can recognize Jessica and anyone else too.

True Story.

Happy 20-10

Happy New Year to One and All!


And of course, I need to change my Blog colors again, Now it is time for Valentine's Colors!!