Today is one of those days where I just didn't wake up happy. I hate those kind of days. It's when that happens that the devil likes to rub it in your face and make you miserable anyway he can. I think one of the areas that devil most likes to attack us is in our thought life. So on days like these, he likes to plant things into my thoughts that just get under my skin and make me sick. I'm not going to go into details though. I just know that because my life is good and I think God is blessing me immensly, Satan doesn't like it and on days like today, he finds anyway he can to bring me down. I'm not going to let him bring me down though. I can learn from these days and grow through them. In fact, I kind of have a song forming in my head about it. So, if you could or would, pray for me on this day that I feel under attack, I would greatly appreciate those prayers. Thanks. I hope your day is great!

My best friend, Jason, and his wife, Kristin, have a little boy just over a year old and last week Monday he was diagnosed with ecoli. There is nothing the doctors can do, so Jason is asking that I get as many people as possible praying for little Brock's health. Please also pray for Jason and Kristin and their other son Jacob, that they may be strong as a family and that through this trial their dependance on the Lord will be strengthened. Jaon is really shaken up about this, so pray for peace and comfort. Thanks.

 

 

Been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely. lonley, lonely time.

 

Well, it's been a while since I've written anything or updated movie trivia or something, so I'm writing now! Sweet!

 

Speaking of sweet... I won this wicked sweet guitar on Ebay earlier this week and it will soon be on it's way to be in my hands! It's a Tacoma C1C and it is rad. I am super stoked about it. I've been getting so sick of playing my Seagull all the time. The Seagull has been a great guitar, but it's time to step up and play a real guitar. So, I guess I should welcome myself to the real guitar world now!

 

- Welcome to the real guitar world, Chad.

- Thanks, it's great to be here.

- Do you have anything you would like to say to the people?

- Well, this is really all possible thanks to my dad, for putting me to work and getting me off my lazy tail. Without working on the job with him, this wouldn't have been possible. I would also like to thank God, because without Him, I would have no reason to play guitar and sing and lead youth into worship. This guitar really belongs to Him! Thanks.

 

Anyways, I hope to someday start chasing my dreams of singing and writing songs and this guitar will be a new tool to take myself one step closer to completing that dream. Maybe I will one day be in a coffee house at a location near you!

 

Robyn and Amy do this all the time, so I thought I should give it a try.

Here's the rules: Guess the movie that the quote is from. Every correct answer gets 1000 points. No cheating (which means no searching google or imdb or anyother search engine for that matter, for the answers). You either know it, or you don't. So there. Quotes that are black have been answered correctly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daylight come and me wanna go home.

 

Well, realistically, daylight has been here for quite a while, but, I do want to go home. I'm almost done for the week, but I'm waiting on CDs that are printing. I have everything ready for the weekend, I just have to wait for these CDs to print so I can bring them over with everything else and be done for the day. Then it's on to softball to see if we can turn around our MAJOR slump. We are currently 1-7. Last spring we were 6-6 and last fall we were 11-1. We have turned it completely backwards since last fall. Maybe if we would all quit trying so hard, we'd quit popping up the ball. And maybe if we played a little tighter defense, we would get so many runs scored on us. A lot of the games we lose, it's because we give them so many runs from us hitting homeruns at the wrong time (two homerun limit until the other team catches up, then it's progressive... if you hit a homerun after you've hit your limit, then you get an out and the other team gets a run... what a rip-off!). Well, maybe we'll turn it around tonight.

I was tagged by Robyn to continue this game, so on I go.

what I was doing...
10 years ago (1995) Technically, at this point of the year I was starting my junior year. I had a huge crush on my first girlfriend, but this was before we ever started going out. That was in December. I wasn't doing anything really exciting... playing football (JV superstar lineman), playing the Eb Contra Alto Clarinet.

5 years ago(2000) I was starting my 7th quarter of art school (an 8 quarter program... but I stretched mine out to 9). I had just turned 21 and was venturing out a little bit to see bands in bars. I never really enjoyed any of the shows I went to in Seattle. College is all kind of a blur for me... it was a year round school, no real definition of "classes," (Junior, senior, etc...) so there is nothing that I did that really sticks out about this time of my life. I guess I was working at Red Robin, just about to quit to become a manager at Finish Line, which I never did and tried to find an internship instead...(I wound up going back to Red Robin)

yesterday (9/11) It was a bright, sunny morning and I woke up and thought... I have to be to the church in 35 minutes. So I showered, brushed my teeth, put my dog out and went to the church to play bass ont he worship team. I played two services. After church I went to the grocery store and bought some carne asada steak and a Coke (I won a free 1 liter Coke product on the cap!), and proceeded to Sean's house for a youth ministry leadership taco lunch (what the steak was for). When that was done, I went home and took a nap before I had be back at the church at 6:30pm. After church I went back home, wrote down some words for a song that was on my heart and then watched a bunch of sports recaps (I'm so glad the NFL in in full swing) and then went to bed.

5 snacks I enjoy: Hershey's Nuggets (Toffee and Almond Crunch), Breyers ice cream, Haagen Daas Coffee Almond Crunch ice cream bars, wheat thins and Tabasco Cheese-Its

5 songs I know all the words to: Welcome to the Jungle - G 'n' R, Homesick - Mercy Me (and just about every other Mercy Me song), Blue Comb '78 - Five Iron Frenzy, Yellow - Coldplay, Wonderwall - Oasis

5 things I would do with 100 million dollars: pay all my loans (car and student), buy a house for myself, buy a house for my parents, buy my siblings new cars and give my church one heck of a huge tithe check

5 places I would run away to: England, Hawaii, Cannon Beach, Guatemala, Ireland

5 things I would never wear: PINK (I don't care if pink is punk or the new black... homie don't play that game!), anything gold, leather pants, anything Abercrombie, a Yankees hat (those will be memories of the past)

5 tv shows that I love: Overhaulin', King of Queens, Sports Center, American Chopper, Rockstar - INXS

5 bad habits: procrastination, not cleaning my bedroom, not washing my car, picking scabs, picking nose (ewwwwwww!)

5 biggest joys: God, my family and friends, music, sports, acoustic guitar

5 favorite toys: acoustic guitar, TechZilla, my softball glove, CDs, my digital camera

4 people I'm tagging: Well, I'll tag people, but I doubt they'll do anything about it! Rob, Stacey, Justin and anyone else who reads this...

The Governer of Lousiana has asked the nation to make Wednesday a day of prayer for the city of New Orleans and all of the other areas along the Gulf Coast that were severely hit by hurricane Katrina. There is billions of dollars of damage and many homes destroyed. Many people lost loved ones and it's just an ugly scene.

 

Will you join me and the rest of the nation in lifting up those who were affected by this hurriane in prayer? Thanks.

Man, nothing quite as nice as a clean desk in your office. I can't believe how much junk was cluttering up my office. I threw a lot of stuff away. I'm also amazed at how much stuf of other people my office gathers. Pens, pencils, post-it notes, charm bracelets, CDs, blank CD's...it's crazy. I am thankful, however, that I do have a desk and an office to call my own. I pray that I will never have to share this office with anyone. I have enough clutter of my own. I can't imagine having to share it with someone else's mess.

 

I hear Kurt singing down the hallway and it makes me want to start writing more songs. Too bad when I do write them, we never work on them as a band. Maybe that's a sign that I need to start doign solo stuff. Only God knows that. It is my dream to someday play music and make money doing it and also to record a CD of original songs. That would be awesome.

 

Man, Jars of Clay is cool. I'm listening to Redemtion Songs right now and it's great. I also loved their show at the Northwest Washington Fair. Most people found it kind f boring being it was just the main four guys playing acoustic... but that's why I loved it. I love acoustic jams. That would be awesome to be able to do that. Anyways, that's enough randomeness for today.

While I work at a computer all day, I was recently reminded that physical labor is difficult, yet somewhat fun. I got the opportunity to work with my room mate Chris (he works for Axiom and needed help on a job on Mercer Island, so I obliged...seeing how I need the extra income). First thing we do when we get there is pack up rolls of BlueSkin (underlayment for metal roofs) as we are also carrying tool belts loaded to the hilt (weighing approximately 30lbs). I was following Chris and he didn't know where he was going, so we went up some stairs. We got to the roof and Chris says "oh no..." Oh no isn't a good thing to hear when you just hoofed up a bunch of stairs with a ton of added weight. We on the wrong building! We needed to be on building B and we were on C. Down the stairs and back up building B. By the time we got to the top I had realized why I work a desk job.

 

Needless to say, this morning I was beat (we left at 4:30am to get to the job), so I didn't work with my dad. The extra money from that would have been nice, but it was also nice to do nothing all day. Just a chance to relax. Now I have a really bad headache. Oh well.

My head is barely above water at work this week. So much to do, so little time. Crazy thing is I have so much to do but I don't know where to start. I guess I'm not good at multi-tasking. I think that could be a good thing though. Sometimes we just need to slow life and the pace of life down a little bit and sit back and enjoy the ride. Maybe I'll try that this weekend. Or maybe I'll work with my dad to make some extra income. That'll be nice.

 

I need a vacation.

So today and tomorrow (Wednesday and Thursday), I'm going to be playing bass and singing backup vocals at the Northwest Washington Fair. One of our Pastors was asked to play... or maybe he asked if he could play... but either way, I was asked to play bass for him and sing backup vocals with his wife. We're playing three times. Today at 12:30pm at the Peoples Square stage and tomorrow at 11:30am on the Festival Square stage and again at 5:30pm at the Peoples Square stage. I invite ya'll to come check it our if you can.

 

Apparently Shari checks my blog everyday, so I am putting a new post on here just for you Shari!

 

Well, after rollerblading last night and trying to keep up with Rob and Shari, my legs hurt. It almost feels like I went running. I didn't hurt from the night before when I went, but that was because I was goig slow and at my own pace. Rob and Shari's pace was a little faster than I go on my own. I had three things holding me back too:

 

1) My boots dug into my shin like none other. It's still tender and it is swollen too. It's never happened before, but last night it did. Weird.

 

2) My back started acting up. Stupid nerve irritation in my lower back. Stupid going up hills which makes my back hurt worse than just going on level ground. Stupid body.

 

3) My rollerblades SUCK! Rob and Shari both have really nice blades... I have pieces of crap. I even greased them up on Monday night and they still suck. Guess I'll have to long board next time.

 

So anyways... I decided to start rollerblading because Lord knows I need some excercise. Especially if I ever want to get back down to the slimmer me of ol'.

Well, Sean and I just wrapped up today how we're going to paint the Area 32 Demolition Derby car. Our car is rad. It's a 77 Caprice Classic station wagon. The thing is a beast! They also took the headers, turned them upside down and converted them all to two pipes. The thing is LOUD! Anyways, it's kind of ugly right now, but one we paint it, it should look pretty sweet (we hope). We're going to try and win the best of show competition. So, if you can, you should get MOnday, August 15th off and come check out the afternoon demolition derby show, because that's when they do the best looking car award. The louder the cheers, the better chance we have to win. I'll put the picture on the bottom of what the car is going to look like.

I went to Creation Festival West. It was pretty cool. The lineup wasn't as good as last year's, but it was still fun. I saw most of the bands I wanted to see and discovered/rediscovered some new bands that I like. Mercy Me, Smitty, John Reuben, Lincoln Brewster, Casting Crowns, Barlow Girl, Michael Gungor, Jason Morant... just to name a few.

 

My admission into the festival was free, which is awesome. With the free admission pass came a free camping pass. When we got the tickets I was disappointed because they were cold shower passes (the cold showers are breath taking... not a good thing). So, we upgraded to hot showers for $10. The best $10 I have spent in a long while. I could actually control the temperature of the water. It was magnificent. I also got to shower on Saturday night when they usually close the cold showers at 4:00pm on Saturdays. So, I got to go home not stinky and slimy. Hoorya!

 

The reason my admission was free is because I was working the booth for the new Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe booth. It was pretty cool. I found out all sorts of good information about the movie and I am even more pumped to see the movie now. It should be awesome. You can see a preview here.

 

While there I also felt God putting on my heart to sponsor a child. I have a heart for Guatemala after going there last year. So, after going to all thre booths and looking through almost every single Guatemalan kid they had, I found one. His name is Santiago Cucul Bo. He is five (5) years old and is one of six children. Anyways, I hope to be a blessing to him and I hope that through sponsoring him I will grow personally. His picture should be at the bottom of this entry.

 

Yesterday (Sunday), I went to Artist Point with Rob, Dave and Liz (Rob's girlfriend). Dave had to leave early, so Rob and Liz and myself walked/hiked around artist point for a while. It's beautiful up there. Anyways, the picture album is up and running, so check it out! That's all for now. Time to go home.

So Justin just put up on his website all three movies of the two different mission trips we've been on. They're all pretty rad. My favorite is the CTK Guatemala video. But, for no other reason than the fact that I made it myself, I really enjoy the Mexico 2005 video. You can see them all here.

 

In other news...

I just turned in my application to Western Washington University to apply for the Graphic Designer/Illustrator position. I still do not know if I really want to work there, but I figured I would regret it if I did not at least apply for it. Besides, it pays better than what I make now. Anyways, pray that God will open the doors for the position if I am to have it or take it. Thanks.

In my attempt to go back to my English heritage, I think I'm going to start adopting some English "idioms." The first one I found that I like is "off one's chump," or in American English, crazy. For example: Rob has gone off one's chump = Rob has gone crazy. It's brilliant really. As is most things good in England. (have you ever noticed in interviews with English people, they say that a lot of things are "Brilliant?" They use it a lot: That show was brilliant... This car is brilliant... The idea is brilliant..., etc, etc, etc.) I don't know... maybe I've gone off one's chump here for even writing this... but I think it's fun.

I finally got to go eat at the new Wing Dome in Bellingham and I must say... it did not let me down. Hot Wings * Cold Brew * Big Fun (that's their slogan)... can it get much better than that? Not in my book. I will be going back. If you like chicken wings and you like spicy stuff, then the Wing Dome is the place for you! And me.