You remind me of myself

garrulous |ˈgar(y)ələs|adjectiveexcessively talkative, esp. on trivial matters

The Season

Thanksgiving came again this year heralding in the holiday season of which I so vocally despise. So then, what am I thankful for this year? As I've taken stock over the past few days I find I easily see the negatives to this season. I don't like the weather. I'm not a fan of the false masks of happiness and humanitarianism that people put on for one month of the year. And I'm not a fan of the inevitable family disputes. However this season I know how I can be thankful. I will choose what to focus on and take joy in. I am thankful for my family that is close enough to bug me-my closest friends aren't that close. I'll enjoy and appreciate the good cheer and good deeds even though I'll miss them the other 11 months. I'll listen to Christmas music before the 23rd. But most of all, I'll enjoy and thank God for the original Christmas present, His Son that was sent and brought the best news. More importantly I'll try to live by that for the additional 11 months of the year.

Skunked!

The other week I followed a skunk down a road to a drainage pipe but lost it when somebody drove up in their car.





Spotted skunks do handstands as a warning sign before they let it fly.

Location:Near My House

Dude Where's My Car?

Today my front brake handle for my dirt bike came in the mail today! I got home from work and excitedly went back to the post office to get it. I excitedly ran in and sure enough the package was there! There was another key for those temporary boxes, I went and got that package and turned out it was actually for the PO Box next to ours. I walked out putting the mail in a stack in order to size and as I walked out I looked up and the parking lot was 100% empty. I realized my car should be there however it was not. I pondered this riddle for a minute then decided that I had indeed driven to the post office and something was wrong. Turns out I had neglected to put the car in gear as well as pulling the e brake. My car had rolled across the parking lot and then down the big hill and almost onto hwy 105, but instead it took a hard turn on its own and missed a phone pole by about a foot and a half. I backed up onto a lawn and drove away to home with zero damage to my car. Praise God.






I was parking at the front door of the post office (center of building on left) and ended up on the far side of the phone pole.

Location:Palmer Lake Post Office

Goodwill Hunting minus Matt Damon

I was at goodwill the other day and as I was trying on suit jackets a random lady standing by started giving me of her opinions about each one I tried on then I tried another one on and it hung up on the back on my belt-she fixed it for me in a super awkward reach.

Day 6

Day 6 started off with a jolt. I woke up and noticed an absence of Shaun. I realized that this way was the long awaited 11/9. The day Call of Duty Black Ops came out! I jumped out of bed and got dressed and was running out the door, realized Spanky was in the shower and shouted a farewell as I sprinted past the door. I made 3 wrong turns I was so excited but finally upon getting back I played and it was as good as anticipated maybe even better. After a little bit if that, a little bit of malt-o-meal and a while lotta 2 Fast 2 Furious, I burned out again on my way to Spanky's school. I hung out there for a good amount of time and finally had to say farewell.
I went back to the apartment, packed up and left. When I did my heart did something unexpected. It hurt deeply. I didn't want to go home to Colorado. Usually some emotion would be one of regret as if I didn't take advantage of the time I had. This time however I had no regrets and didn't want to leave the connection I had made in a relatively short time. My heart ached and I came very close to crying.
I wasn't quite embarking on my trip home yet. I stopped in Diamond Bar Calvary Chapel to see a good friend Steven Cameron. I'd only hung out with Steven a total of 3 times but the Lord clearly has brought him into my life as a very influential person. He's a guy that easily respectable and clearly is striving for eternal treasure. We spent some some at his job in the bookstore at the church then went to Starbucks spending time that wasn't allowances but I was happy to give up. After the fellowship I had to yet again say good yet and my distracted sadness once again surfaced but even more so this time.
The drive back was rather regular and I was able to stay awake the whole way home (except for a few seconds that the Lord protected me in). When I got home I had been awake for 31 hours straight and I went 40 before sleeping at work.
Overall the trip was amazing and exceeded all expectations by miles. I am so blessed to have Shaun Jorgensen in my life and his generous hospitality and I am able to say that I have no regrets for the trip and it was such a nice vacation!

Day Five

Day five was a fun day. I went out to California with really only two things I wanted to do: the dinner with relatives and bogey boarding! So on Monday, super sore I headed down to Huntington Beach to the rental place I had seen on Friday. In Fullerton it was cloudy and not all that warm and I was a little nervous but at HB it was perfect weather, just a little windy.
I was able to rent the bogey board and wetsuit for only $12! I jumped into the surf and loved every minute of it. The water was not cold. It was amazing and so much fun.I ate lunch at Wahoo's then did a little shopping.
I came back to the apartment and hung out til Spanky got back.
At 6, we set out for Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa for their college croup "Monday Nights Live". It was a good service and pretty cool to see where it all began.
We hit up In-N-Out on the way back and I asked Spanky to ask for a hat. Wanted to not look like a little kid, Spanky made sure to say "this guy (pointing at me) wants a hat". The girl laughed at me then told me there was no shame in it but made it sound like there was :P We got back to the apartment and I crashed real quick.

Location:Huntington Beach/Costa Mesa

Day Sore er Four

Day four was uneventful for the most part. Sunday morning we woke up in the Mojave Desert in the toy hauler. We packed up fairly quick after a quick morning drive in the RZR and headed back to Palmdale.
After burning some time at Spanky's parents house we went to dinner with my awesome aunt and uncle. We went to Rattlers BBQ in Canyon Country which was delicious! It was a great dinner with great conversation! We were there for three and a half hours! We got back to the apartment and were so tired and sore, fell asleep right away.

Location:Palmdale, CA

Day Three

The day started early at 6am packing up the "toy hauler" with gear, the RZR, and the two quads. We left the house at 6:30 half awake and arrived in the Mojave Desert at our campsite two hours later.
We unloaded and set up the trailer. We then registered and got ready to leave the line at 10. The race was 50 miles long and rated at a 7.3, a 10 being easy and a 1 being impossible.





I was the third off the line right after Spanky.





I was on a 400 Suzuki, number 66.





The ride was so much fun. As expected, there was so much variety on the 50 mile track. The first few was hilly and I took it somewhat slow as I adjusted to the feeling of a quad. After that, it opened up and early on I was able to max out at 60.1mph!
The track was marked but some unsavory people not associated with the race had taken down the markers and therefore Shaun and I got lost and drove around for about 10 miles trying to find the course again. During this time Spanky was leading as we booked it down a road and I mildly crashed into a ditch but Spanky didn't see me and kept going. I was able to pull it out of the ditch after a little work and right then Spanky came back for me. We went back and found the trail. And kept going. In another area I was going about 50mph and there was a little washout and I dropped of one side and came down hard on the other side uphill. I got bucked off but held onto the handlebars and got suspended superman style and drove through half a large bush as I tried to remount. The rest of the trail was fairly regular off road material: rocks, "whoops" (like extrapolated washboard), sharp turns and plenty of fast straight-aways. We made the track in 2 hours, refueled, and did it all again! This time without getting lost! We took it a little bit faster and my only mishap was running over my foot.











We did that lap just a bit quicker but still around 2 hours.
When we got back Shaun's dad had sandwiches ready in the 26 foot camper and I ate and then took a nap. When I woke up we had dinner. It was steak and cous cous and was very delicious. Then we went outside for a night ride!
When we got back we sat around the fire for a while. During the campfire something amazing happened. One of our "neighbors" who was sitting across the small fire grabbed a shovel and dug into the fire. We had no idea what was going on and before we knew it, he had put a small piles of hot coals under his folding chair. It was unbelievably brilliant soon all 7 of us around the fire had small piles of hot coals under our seats and were enjoying the heat.





After a few more piles of coals we turned in warm, but super sore from over 100 miles of off-road riding.

Location:Mojave Desert, Cal City

Day Two

Got to sleep in today! Yesterday I bought some malt-o-meal and wanted to make some for breakfast this morning. This turned out to be more difficult than expected. A little background: when I first arrived Wednesday night with a quarter box of triscuits and some honey roasted peanuts that was more food than all of what Shaun had in his apartment. All he had was a can of chicken noodle soup. Thats it. Apparently he doesn't really eat. This morning...me: "Hey man, where are the measuring cups?" Spanky: "uhhhh" me: "Do you have measuring cups?" Spanky: "Don't think so." Luckily we found some stashed away in plastic wrap and I was able to measure out water for the malt-o-meal. Me: "Dude do you have salt?" Spanky: "Nope."
Finally around 1 we packed up and went to the beach because we'll be in Palmdale all weekend long.
The beach was awesome. Walking around a corner in Huntington Beach the salty air hit me full in the face. It was a beautiful thing. I could hear the foreign noise of waves crashing as we walked up. The tide was way out and we walked down the pier to see the large crowd of suffers waiting for a good wave.



I got to see the Hyatt and Hilton I cover at work.


Then we headed up the 405 to Palmdale where Spanky's parents live.



Tomorrow we're going on an off-road 50 mile race! It should be not too hard and a whole lot of fun! And we'll be "camping" in their 26 foot trailer Saturday night!
We took out the "RZR" off-road vehicle on a quick side street ride. Then went to BJ's for pazookies. It was delicious.
When we got back. We worked on the lights a little on the RZR.



Tomorrow's gonna be a blast.

First day in California

My first day in California started off with Spanky's alarm going off for an hour without waking Shaun. After he left for school I went back to bed for a little while. Then I went and drove around for a little while and got some food at Albertsons for breakfast. I cooked and watched the fast and the furious then burned out afterwards on my way to Spanky's school 1.6 miles away.











We hung out there for a few hours and did some random stuff among which was welding.





After that I returned to the apartment when Spanky went to class but not before getting some food.





I got back, ate an apple and played some COD.
When Spanky got back and we went to Yogurtland and met up with some people for a small Bible study. Yogurtland was delicious with cookie dough topping and sour gummy worms and best of all I wasn't allergic somehow!
After the Bible study we walked around walmart for 20 minutes, Spanky's friend took off and I got a tour of where Spanky grew up and a trip to where the Rodriguez's use to live.

Location:Fullerton, CA

Drive to California

I left on my 1,053 mile trip at 6:15 on Wednesday morning right after I got off work. I started the trip off with some solid prayer in the parking lot then went to McDonalds and got some breakfast then headed out.

My first stop was in Grand Junction. I got turf burgled. It was awful.






I then was able to revisited the rest stop area where Greg Heredia and myself jammed out at midnight a year and a half prior.







I passed through Utah seemingly quickly.







I didn't listen to any music in the 15.5 hour long drive. Rather, I listened to Ted Dekker's "Black" which was pretty good! Good enough for me not to really notice the time and I got through Arizona and Nevada quickly.






My first In-n-Out stop was in Vegas and it was super busy but good nonetheless!







Once into California the drive seemed to go a little slower.






I arrived at Spanky's at 9:30 local time!

Where does a personality come from?

Recently I've been thinking about what makes a personality, the question of is a personality unique, and can I decide to change my personality to copy anyone else without having the appearance of a "wanna-be" with zero originality? This is what I've decided after three weeks of thought.

Everyone wants to be unique, special. The bible says we're all unique individuals, special to God. But what about traits, characteristics? Can we all still have unique traits and characteristics? By traits and characteristics I mean our personality. There are two sides that I see. I see an attitude side-such as upbeat, or serious. And then there is the physical side-such as smiling, or never smiling. There can only be so many combinations, being as their is not an infinite amount of single characteristics and traits. Where do these expressions of what's inside come from? Are we each issued a random mix of all at birth that we are resigned to for the rest of our lives?

When considering the development of personality the theory of "nature vs nurture" comes to mind. However if personality comes about through experiences does that mean we are still resigned to the fate of our experiences? Can we choose? Or do we just have to take a back seat and see who we become without being able to really decide who we become? We're posed with decisions every day of actions to take be it-if we change lanes in any random spot on the road, to what we will eat for lunch, to what we will do in response to a rude comment.

So if we can control our actions and emotions, can we control our personality? I believe so. Therefore if we can control our personality, do we? We need motivation, reason, to control our personality. Therefore we must decide what we want our personality to be. How do we decide then? Do we just "try on" personalities like clothes? How do we do choose what to do in any situation? For example one might go to a restaurant and order what "looks good" on the menu. Another example is that someone might buy a certain make and model of car because they have seen it before and liked it. What if it was the same way with traits and characteristics? What if we see attributes we like or admire? What if we see attributes we are specifically adverse to? If we care to observe peoples personalities what reactions do we have to them? Our thought process might go something like "I like that trait", or perhaps "I never want to be like that". The question then is: do we ever apply or act out these observations? If I come across a personality that I am abrasive to I definitely "make a note" to be the opposite of that person. I would submit that over the expanse of our lives we simply fine tune or mix and match personalities we get from others. Does that mean we're not unique? No-WE decide what we want our personality to be. WE decide what traits and characteristics we like. However is who we are unique? The end compilation is very unique without argument.

We've encountered a host of people in our lifetime-in passing at the store, in childhood friends, in family members-we notice all these peoples personalities and add their traits and characteristics to our "board" of existent traits in the world.

So if we can choose who we want to be and take our choice from our "board" of options-are we all just nicely wrapped compilations of cheap, unoriginal, copies?

Jesus Satisfies!

Matthew 14:13-21 is the account of Jesus feeding 5000 men besides women and children. Now these people had been around Jesus all day and were hungry when night came. I was reading this and a few things stuck out to me. The disciples said to Jesus to send the crowds into the nearby village to buy food for themselves. But Jesus told his disciples that they didn't need to send the crowds anywhere. He didn't want His people to leave Him-He wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. He then told the disciples to give the crowd food, of course the disciples were surprised that Jesus would make such a request and told Jesus that all they had was 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish-hardly enough to feed 5000+ people! Jesus simply asked them to give Him what they had and He did the rest. Most of you have heard the story and you know that all 5000+ people were fed from just the 5 loaves and 2 fish. Verse 20 says they all ate and were satisfied, WERE SATISFIED. I think that if the crowd had gone into the city they wouldn't have been satisfied. Not everyone had money, or would have had to share and not truly eaten all they wanted. They were satisfied with what Jesus had given them and there was even leftovers!
How great is it that our God wants to spend time with us, use and multiply what little we can offer, feed us and give us complete satisfaction!

Unraveled Thoughts Origins

I have lately been going over the words: Redeemed, Justified, and Satisfied in regards to my relationship with Christ.

I have been redeemed by Christ. Out of slavery I am free. (גאל Hebrew)

I am justified in Christ. Christ's blood covers me. (צדק Hebrew)

And I am satisfied with Christ. The song lyrics "All of you is more than enough for all of me" comes quickly to mind. (שבע Hebrew)