Love to worship more than you

love to perform

Love Jesus more than you

love to worship

the first was obvious for a long time

the second came tonight

Reflections

So I'm becoming a fan of reflections

It makes clarity from nonsense

in all too many ways

¡A Brilliant Weekend!

This weekend was a really cool time at a leadership retreat with Mosaic. It reminded me of a condensed Basileia with a Servant Team of 25 people. It was good and warm and I enjoyed it all in all. Finally got to sit down with no responsibilities and play guitar in the sun by the side of the lake for two hours. I've been wanting to do that since January. So Great!

I think this last one may be a volcano erupting over the horizon.

The Dancing Shoe

One big left orange foot, great for dancing I reckon.

Mein Auto

So I've been working on this car project for my Industrial Design class.

Class is over but I wanted it to look good for my portfolio.

So first I draw a beautiful Red Car with markers and time.

That takes about Forever.

Then I want to add a reflection, like in a 3D rendering program.

That's a lot easier on a computer.

So I draw a reflection on page 2 and glue it under page 1...

That has probably never been done before but I really want a reflection.

So for spray mounting I go to a "well ventilated area"

also called the basement.

It has one door to the other part of the basement,

which has a door to the upstairs,

which has two doors and two windows.

That means I'm well ventilated.

Below is the reflection,

the car,

and a practice of the car...

So yeah here is the reflection.

I put white paint over the marker so it would fade as it went South

Here is the final.

I wanted a picture in case I ruined it in the process.

Then we arrive at the final final.

Car is glued over reflection.

I still need to cut off an inch or two around the sides.

But overall, quite satisfied with project.

Always try out your ridiculous never been done sort of ideas.

You'll never have more fun.

Do it, Get Stressed...

Business and stress are interesting tools God has. On the one hand it makes you feel too busy and crazy to do anything for God, or even just spend time with him at all. It's like all the craziness should push you over the edge into failing at all the things that are really important leaving you to only fiddle around with schoolwork or whatever it may be. I'm finding this is not at all the case.

It's easy to lie to yourself about what's going on. Maybe not even lying, just that you have more self control when you're rested and on top of things so you sometimes don't even realize what your problems are because you keep them in control (and you should). The cool thing about stress is that all these things start to bubble to the surface. Maybe it gets to a point where others see the issues or maybe not, but the key is that you can then see them. As soon as you realize what's going on you can deal with the problems and grow.

That's what Argentina was like for me, the best time but the hardest time, and the time with the most growth. So many things from culture to schedules left me out of my element and uncomfortable. That's when I began to clearly see where I needed to be transformed and God began to do it.

That said, if my comments are correct, then by the end of this quarter I should have dealt with every problem possibly buried in my soul. Great when I get there, but I long road going. If you're stressed be encouraged.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

Perspective

So I've been thinking about a lot of things over the past two or three weeks, some of which are uncomfortable, while others are frustrating. I don't really get why God is doing what he's doing, and set things up to be the way they are. Those are always thoughts I used to push aside and just say "all's good, I trust God," and while I trust him, that doesn't mean I understand or am happy all the time about how he's doing things. That's all just to give some background on how I'm coming into this and I'm sure plenty of you can relate on one level or another.

I was reading Psalm 43:5 and remembered, "oh yeah, all this stuff going on here is temporary, and no matter how it's going I know that God has rescued me from hell and I'll spend eternity with him one day." That's not to say I'm totally ok with everything in life now, but it's good to realize how small all this really is. I had lost that perspective and it was hurting. Maybe I have that optimistic perspective back because it's sunny and beautiful outside. Who knows, but anyway it's good to have.

By the way my picture of Rochester on my last entry was biased... the sun does actually shine here sometimes during the day. If I had my cable for my camera I would post a picture.

Enjoy Spring Quarter!

Phoenix Day 6

Last morning in Phoenix on the drive to the airport. Since it's the desert there's lots of rock and the sides of the parkway have lots of cool designs like this all over the place. It's a bad picture but you get the idea. That's the kind of setting that fills Phoenix and makes it fun.

Here is the last picture of the sun... =(

So in contrast upon arriving in Rochester this was the sky. Darkness, gloom, and depression pouring down from above. These pictures are the difference between Phoenix and Rochester. (Nevermind that the picture from Rochester is actually at night)
So I enjoyed everything and sad it's over but looking forward to moving forward and having this weekend to spend on quiet times and guitar and whatnot.

Phoenix is so Great

The sun shines magnificently

Rochester is Great (too)...

I"ll be back in Rochester Friday at 9pm. This was my last full day here. I even spent time in the sun by above tree getting mildly burnt while reading/sleeping since we finally had a free afternoon. Enjoyed it a lot and it was definitely valuable on so many levels.

See y'all soon I reckon

Phoenix Day 4

So today we visited Ping. They make golf clubs. Whenever anyone wins a golf tournament with one of their clubs they make two gold plated putters like the ones that were used in the game. One goes to the golfer and the other goes in this room. Here is a few thousand gold plated putters. Let's say that was crazy...

So I just barely remembered to get the sun today. You can see it's on the setting horizon on a drive out to climb a mountain. We climbed it and got the picture below.

That's all, I'm tired.

Phoenix Day 3

So here we are at day 3 of 5. I picked up these beautiful cheap flat soled shoes that double as being great for longboarding and swing dancing. After eating and shopping some I joined up with Will to keep him company for dinner since he missed it to go to the gym. I think he got bounced from 3 bar and grills. I enjoyed not being the problem.

Here is a pretty cool picture of the sun for day 3. There are a few similar ones that are pretty great.

So anyways, today we visited Raytheon who has 73,000 employees of which 30,000 are engineers. We saw all the secret things they do with missile manufacturing and design. Security was pretty crazy. We also hit up Global Solar who manufactures flexible solar panels. Some cool stuff there but not that useful...

Concluded with a nice easy run hoping to help me recover from yesterdays 6 mile death race with Will, but to no avail. It just hurt pretty bad.

On the bus when we saw these barely snow topped mountains we watched "Contact." It was science fiction but talked a lot about how God and science relate. It was cool getting to have a brief discussion about that with the guy I was sitting with on the bus.

So anyway, things are still great, sunny, and enjoyable. See you in less than a week now.

(by the way, note that the events in this post did not happen in sequential order)

Phoenix Day 2

So here is the sun of day 2 from the bus on the way to see Microchip, which happened to be a very boring company to see I think. We did get to wear bunny suits in the clean room which is probably an important life experience but not something I want to do again. I now have a beautiful Microchip t-shirt. If anyone wants it speak up?

So after visiting an Industrial Design firm (juggernaut design, which was awesome and I want to co-op there. Real chill place with 6 industrial designers and 6 mechanical engineers in a small makeshift shop but doing a lot of cool stuff and it's in phoenix which I've decided is beautiful if nothing else... anyway i'll finish my sentence) Will and I ran a couple miles into the wilderness and ended up on top of this mountain. It always seemed like it was just over the next hill and then it was always a lot farther than that but it was worth it when we got there. I am certain though that I won't be able to walk tomorrow. This is just one of the sweet pics I took from it.

This last one gives Will on the side of the mountain. It was hard to capture the whole mountain in a pic so we'll settle with that. Ok, until tomorrrow, I need to sleep... Up at 5:45 to visit more companies.

Phoenix Day 1

So today was actually the only predicted overcast day. Fortunately weather is always good above the clouds so I have a real sun picture. Later in the day it cleared up so I got another cool one. Other thing that really surprised me was real grass. It's all over the place! people sitll through cigarettes in it though... Enjoy. (more to come on Facebook later).