Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

You may know it as SCUBA, but however the hell you refer to it, it's probably ranked high in the top 5 list of "Coolest Things Ever". I'm pretty much glad that I have the ability to participate in this delightful activity as often as I do. For those of you that don't know (aka All of you), I am a certified Open Water Diver, and am currently seeking my Advanced certification. I am actually doing this through my school, so yes, every Tuesday I spend the first period of the day underwater all hour. It's pretty amazing. Today's dive went well and we accomplished half of our "Open Water Skills Review". It's really stinking easy, but in no way boring whatsoever because it's still Scuba. I've taken quite a fancy to it. Well, I wish I had time to write more about the day's events, but It's semi-late and I really really have to go to bed, 'lest I become even more sick in the face. Yes, the sinus infection has passed the one month mark, and is still kicking...and that's what it feels like. Someone kicking me in the face a lot, that is. Anywho, may you all be blessed in whatever endeavors you may pursue tomorrow.

P.S. I know I say that "may you all be blessed" line at the end of all my posts now, but I kinda like it as a trademark sign-off phrase. It's better than "And that's the way the cookie crumbles" anyday.

Weekend Funtime...

Well the weekend is officially over the second I crawl into bed this morning. I'm up this late trying to milk the weekend for all it's got. It ended up being relaxing and enjoyable, but certainly too short for my liking. I ended up not going to the birthday party because I felt like trash when I woke up Saturday morning. I ended up staying home all day just sitting around watching TV and playing "Myst" on my comp. It's a friggin great game, and I'll be honest, at the age of 17 there are times in that game that I'm actually scared/paranoid. The main selling point of the game is the slow-paced immersive environment that seems a refuge from fast paced thriller games. However, for me, I've played too many fast-paced games, so the entire time I'm worried somethings going to jump out at me etc. It's really crappy because I'm on the edge of my seat the entire time I'm playing this happy/easy-paced game. Well, school promises to be challenging this week, but I'm hoping Tuesday will make up for it. Tuesday is my Scuba Skills Review, so I'll get to spend all hour underwater. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm really hoping my sinus infection yields that day. In-fact I wouldn't mind if it just yielded itself right out of my face forever. We're hoping to go rent some more "24" DVD's and watch the heck out of them so we can go get even more after that. I've become decently hooked, but it's a good show that's easy to get hooked on. It's 12:42am so I'm calling it quits for tonight. All I can hope for now is that somehow when I get to school tomorrow and I open up my planner, there's no homework due tomorrow. I seriously don't know because I haven't touched my backpack all weekend. I'll be praying for that, and that this week goes well and gets itself over with fast. May you all be blessed in whatever endeavors you pursue this week.

Down, But Not Out...

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted. This week has been hectic beyond all reason. Between school, youth group, and doctor's appointments, It's been long and taxing. Today I went to see my ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor) for the second time in 2 weeks. I've got a sinus infection that's been hanging around for a month now. I'm beyond sick of it, and I really wouldn't mind getting rid of it. I have to be in tip-top shape for Tuesday, because we'll be doing our first dive of the semester in Advanced Scuba. I really really really would hate to miss out on it because of my stupid sinuses. Hopefully God will heal me before then. I got to spend some awesome hang-out time today with one of my great friends, Andy Denlinger. He's the only Senior guy in our youth group and he and I are as tight as brothers. Andy's life is quite the story. His parents were a missionary couple for 15 or so years so immediately his life has to be different than most. He was born in the Philippines ( my birthplace of Aurora, Colorado is so boring compared to that) and lived there for a month or so, before they moved to Caracas, Venezuela. He, and later on his younger sister, lived there for 11 years. He's fluent in Spanish and has a very different perspective on life due to him having grown up in a country as different from ours as Venezuela. Their family moved back to the U.S. 6 years ago and ever since they've fit right in very well. In fact if you met any of them you'd never tell by looks, or by the way they speak that they've ever lived anywhere other than Highlands Ranch. It's pretty freaking awesome. So after that brief bio of Andy, back to the good stuff...me. I just did a sinus infection therapy called "Nasal Irrigation". Basically you tilt your head down and flood (not squirt, flood. We're talking 8 oz of solution in 15 seconds) your nasal passages with a PH balanced Saline (Saltwater) solution. It's the creepiest thing ever. Because your head is tilted down, the solution can't go up your throat, so you can totally keep breathing through your mouth while you're doing it. Because it goes in one nostril and floods back out the other, you literally feel like you're drowning. Imagine the feeling when you're in a pool, and a little water goes up your nose...now multiply it by like 300. It's pretty much the oddest thing I've ever felt. If you're really claustrophobic, or if you can't handle the idea of drowning whatsoever, this method is NOT for you. I'm not too scared of drowning or anything, and this is absolutely freaking scary. But I do feel somewhat better now, because as I sit here typing this, I can breathe clearly through my nose. I may have nightmares tonight, but I can still breathe. :) Well, hopefully this weekend will be enjoyable and relaxing. I've got a birthday party to go to tomorrow, but other than that, the weekend is looking pretty open. May all of you be blessed in whatever endeavors you may pursue this weekend and I hope to post again sometime soon. -"the JOJ"

Blogging for School?

Who ever heard of such an atrocity? Well, apparently it's not as insane as it initially sounds. At my school, the most recent thing is to have a "Class Blog" that students can access and post comments to. The teacher posts up topics usually involving some aid such as a poem, story, quote, picture, or some other device provoking discussion. The students then respond to the topic and the Blogging fun begins. I personally enjoy this style of class discussion due to it's non-confrontational nature. Most students never share ideas or thoughts in-class because it involves speaking in front of the class and risking being shut-down or disagreed with. Being able to share ideas and reactions through online writing allows students an almost "anonymity" to express whatever they want without the risk of fumbling in their words or thoughts on the spot. Two of my classes have blogs and I will be checking them daily.

The rest of today will involve me watching some "24" and possibly...some more "24". By the way, my Birthday ended up going quite well. We had delicious home-made chocolate cake. We had a good afternoon and watched the Broncos lose...but the day went well otherwise. I've got no homework tonight which is a first for me in nearly...this entire semester so far. I'm going to soak it in, and go to bed around 9:00pm. I deserve it. May my visitor count jump to 20 within the next 2 days. Mostly because it would be more Fantastical. I don't know why it would, but...it just would.

24

I'd only heard of the TV show "24" like 2 times before I saw a re-run on TV. Suprisingly, I found it to be very enjoyable. I seriously don't know how it could possibly be on it's 5th season and not been very well known for all this time. It's definitely been under the radar, but I've since become quite hooked. I actually rented some of the DVD's of Season 4 and have proceeded to watch about 4 hours straight. It's like a movie that's really, really long and I think that's why I like it so much. They definitely do a good job of making you want to come back for more. In the mean time, I've gone through the 2 DVD's I have right now and so I've got to go get more...I have to. The B-day Dinner went well tonight, but the B-day action didn't go very well at all. My parents decided to head to bed at 8:20 which is about an hour earlier than normal so when I tried to start the B-day before they went to bed, they started getting angry at me saying they were ready to do the B-day earlier, and then somehow my Mom got all mad and went upstairs. So now my Birthday is on hold until further notice. I know they'll try to do it before my dad leaves on business on Monday, but It'll be very forced and not much fun. It's the first time this has ever happened for my birthday, and I must say I'm not too excited about it. I actually turned down 2 other activities tonight just so I could be with my family, and It was rewarded with all 3 of us going to bed angry. It was kind of like a smack in the head, but I'm going to try to not let it get to me. Hopefully I can just fake my way through the cake and gift and card etc, and just get all of this crap behind me. It's hard enough with my dad gone every week for the next 4-5 weeks, but to have a short 2 day period when he's home in which to try to cram a fake Birthday celebration makes it very taxing. It's hard on us when he's gone, and it ticks me off when something happens to make it hard on us when he's home. I'm just going to wait tomorrow for the right timing where we're all going to attempt to make nice-nice so we can get through the B-day. Why do emotions and relationships have to be so friggin' complicated and convoluted. Well, I'll post tomorrow about how it went, if I can find time to do it between the Bronco game and Homework. 'Till Then...

Teachers care?

As a student in Public High School, a profound statement like that should take me by surprise. However, It really doesn't due to the fact that I've been blessed with some amazing teachers in my schooling career that have done so much more than cared. I've had teachers who have made it their complete goal to see to it that I understand and comprehend and retain the information presented to me. I had a teacher who made a separate curriculum just for me and was suited to my style of learning. I've had teachers who have cared enough about me to not let me fail in their classes. Even to the point of working hours on end individually to see to it that I pass and actually use the brain the God has given me. But to fully appreciate what these teachers have done, you have to know a little about where I came from.

For me, school was great in kindergarten, but somewhere between 1st and 6th grade, I absolutely began to hate school. At my private elementary school, there was a separate 100 point behavior grade for the year on top of regular grades. Reprimands (Pink Slips) were given for anything that was considered inappropriate and carried a penalty of 2-4 points against your behavior grade. Missing/Late Assignments received "Green Slips" and would carry a penalty of 2 points. If you lost 10-15 or more points over the course of the year, you received a "Blue Slip" which meant an immediate meeting with the Principal, Detention after school and actually carried it's own 10 point penalty to your behavior grade. Now, each of these slips really was a slip that was filled out and had to be signed by yourself and returned the next day with a parent signature (If not, you received a repeat of whatever you forgot to have signed and the point penalty was doubled). As an 8 year-old kid, coming home with 2 pink slips and 2-3 green slips some days was absolutely terrifying. For me, I was a talkative little youngster. Teachers got to the point where they wouldn't even warn me about talking, they'd just pull out a pink slip, start filling it out, and call me up to receive it...in front of the entire class. After about 5 years of this, I was absolutely burned out on school. It seemed that there was no mercy whatsoever and when you slipped up, no matter how minor, you were going to get burned and you'd regret it. Some of my worst days would yield at least 1-2 pink and green slips PER CLASS. I would have single-handedly gotten myself a detention in one day and the stress of going home and having to tell my parents led me to extremes. I bottled up most of the stress from 1st grade through 6th grade, but it came back to haunt me. I developed a stomach ulcer from all of this bottled up stress. At age 12 I was burned out on school. Now, it's just my own personal opinion, but 12 is a little early to get burned out on anything. I still had huge dreams for my life, but my love for learning was dead. I would do anything to not go to school. Thousands of fake illnesses were invented by me to keep from going to school. In one slightly hilarious incident, I remember eating shaving cream so that I'd throw up at school and have to go home. It worked somehow. To me, it seemed the only way not to receive Pink/Green/Blue slips was to not be at school. Looking back, I'm not sure what I would do if I saw my 8 year-old son being reprimanded and belittled in front everyone, having to fill out a pink slip, tear off the Carbon copy, and sit down beyond humiliated in front of the entire class. Something about that would irk me as much as it did then. Well, when my parents finally realized that this school was killing me mentally, emotionally, and intellectually, we got the heck out of there. Walking out of those doors for the last time concluded what I still consider the 7 worst years of my life (No-one should feel that about ELEMENTARY school). With that school out of the way, I was accepted to Cherry Hills Christian Middle School. CHCMS was the turning point of my education and my schooling. In the two short years I was there I made close friends that I have to this day, and became completely revamped in my attitude toward school and learning. I was blessed with some of the best teachers I have ever had who are still my friends to this day. I left that school with a new love for learning, a strong backing academically, and an amazing group of friends that have gotten me through the thick and thin moments of High School. Without them, I would have enrolled at Ponderosa High School (The school that's actually in my district) with no-one that I know, and I would've lost all interest after 9th grade. But thanks to my current high school (Arapahoe High School) and the amazing teachers there, I'm hopefully on my way to applying to the Naval Academy with Projected ACT scores of 32-34 and a GPA of a 3.6-3.8 with multiple AP credit. I owe it all to God for giving my the strength to get through each day and do what he wants me to do. I also owe it to the amazing teachers at CHCMS, and several amazing teachers throughout my years at Arapahoe. So in short, my life went from burned-out, stressed-out, and quite depressing for a 12 year-old, to promising, hopeful, and very exciting for a 17 year-old. This semester I can actually say I'm loving school and while I'd love to sleep in every day, I seriously am excited to go to school. I go into classes like Advanced Scuba, American Literature, Western Civilizations, Physics, Pre-Calculus, etc and actually am excited to be there. With most people, as they go through High School, they become more and more bored and sick of school. For some reason, with me, as the years progress, I'm loving High School more and more and I'll be sad to leave, but excited to see what God has in store for me.

This post was inspired by the fact that I found a blog where several of my teachers are doing this huge massive project to better their teaching techniques and help each other by taking all of their ideas and thoughts and throwing them all into a bowl and mixing them up. I'm really exited to see how it turns out, and just through reading some of their comments and ideas, I was once again reminded that some teachers make teaching their absolute passion. It's kind of like sitting in on a teacher meeting or something. It's very cool to see the behind-the-scenes of some of their discussions and such. Well today we're celebrating my B-day because my dad is in from out of town and so we're going out to dinner tonight. Hope everyone else's day goes well.

Naps are amazing

I came home from school today and fell asleep on the couch for about 5 hours. Naps are really really nice. America should totally steal the idea of siesta from Spain and just shut down everything in the middle of the day for everyone to go home and take a nap. We'd be much less uptight as a nation, and a lot of overly-tired people would have a chance to get rest they usually wouldn't. I have never met someone who doesn't like naps. Old people take naps all the time because in their years they've become wise and know that nap taking is the secret to enjoying life. I wish I had some large open portion in the middle of the day to do that, but My life doesn't allow time for niceties like naps. That's why I slipped in a nap today, and it rocked. I hope everyone reading this will at least attempt a nap one time or another this weekend. Oh, and on Sunday, GO BRONCOS. That's all I've got for you all today. P.S. I like how I say "You all" even though I've only had 9 visitors, and they only have come right after I update my blog with a new post. One of the hits was even from India, But thanks to all 9 that have dropped in.

No time like Snow Time

It's snowing outside and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not to me. I really hate that it's about 2.5 feet short of what it'd take to keep me out of school tomorrow, but it's just enough to make me have to get up 15 minutes early to get to school on time. But tonight, the snow is beautiful as it silently blankets everything. I got to enjoy a night at home tonight as my abstinence awareness group (Worth Waiting 4) presentation was rescheduled because of the snow. This weekend is going to be really stinking busy, and I hope I can somewhat enjoy it... In the meantime, my legs hurt like absolute crap and I have no idea why. Both of them are super stiff and hurt immensely to move. I have no clue as to what would have caused it as I've not really done anything strenuous recently. Until I can walk again, I'll have to keep resting as much as I can before I start-up my workout routine again next Wednesday after a 1 month break for Christmas. I'm working out with the eventual intention of meeting and passing all the physical requirements for the Naval Academy. 1.5 miles @ no more than a 7 minute/mile pace, 18 Cadence Pull-ups in 2 minutes without touching the ground, and the backs of your hands facing you, and even more tough requirements. It's especially hard for me since I totally used to be a computer nerd, so I'm not strong or in shape whatsoever. Thankfully, my dad's genes gave me an insane metabolism that causes me to be remain at 125 pounds no matter how much I eat. I'm about 50 pounds lighter than almost all of my friends, and I'm extremely glad for it. I hope tomorrow goes well, because after tomorrow, it's WEEKEND. Heck yeah. Well, until then...

One Dollar...

If I had a dollar for every time (This School Year) I came home late, had 2-3 hours of homework ahead of me, and started to fall asleep before I even get to the homework, and then proceeded to go to bed about an hour before I have to wake up and do it again the next day, I'd have at least 23 dollars. I'm so sick of having Homework and going to bed at like 4:30a.m once I'm done with it. I friggin' hate homework and I wish I could sleep like 20 hours a night every night. Until then, homework will commence and carry me into the wee hours of the morning. May God have mercy on my poor tired soul. It's really really hard to drive to school when you've had about 1 hour of sleep in the past 72 hours. I really hope I live to see tomorrow, and If I do, I'll probably post something about it in my blog. My Brother, Chris, got to fly for the first time. By "fly" I mean it was the first time he'd actually piloted a plane for the entire flight. He's training to be a Missionary Bush-Pilot in Indonesia or so, and he's on the fast track to becoming a full fledged Private Pilot, Commercial Pilot, and Engineer/Mechanic. I hope all goes well from him as he'll be flying a lot this semester. The Birthday fun is still carrying over from yesterday, and probably won't end until I turn 18. Maybe even longer... but in the meantime, may you all be blessed in whatever you do tomorrow, and I wish you all a wonderful good night.

17? You know it...

That's right kiddies, I'm 17 as of today. 17 on the 17th. Now tell me that isn't nifty. Anywho, I enjoyed myself tonight. My Dad is out of town on business, and my Mom isn't feeling good because she's all sicky-like, and my Brother is of course in College in Texas. So Tonight was just my Mom and I. She cooked me up a big ol' steak, and a side of asparagus. We watched some Spongebob, and then "War of the Worlds" which was decently suspenseful and scary. Not too bad at all. I'm totally sitting here with an airsoft pistol with a pellet loaded in the chamber and the safety off. No, I'm not scared. I actually do that all the time, but I've never written about it before. Airsoft is pretty much one of the best things ever. Very enjoyable to inflict pain on your friends in the name of "Fun". In the mean time, Homework beckons and Tomorrow is the day I don't get to come home at all until about 11pm. It's going to rock...so until then, I leave you with this. If Aliens buried large robotic death-machines underneath us 1 million years ago and are waiting for the right moment to strike, we should totally nuke the Earth to pieces simultaneously killing all of us, all of them, and totally pissing them off because we'd destroy the planet they've been waiting 1 Million years to take over. I mean, they'd be pissed beyond all reason. Hahahaha...suckers.

Snow-action on MLK Day...

Well thanks to Martin Luther King, I'm not in school this morning, but not thanks to Martin Luther King, it's snowing lightly outside and we've got 2 inches or so. It's kinda cool looking, but it's nothing very exciting. Unfortunately I've got to do a whole lot of things to do today, so I really don't get to enjoy my Monday off like I thought I would. I'm not too thrilled about it. In the mean time I'm just going to go get something to eat for Breakfast and get started on all the stuff I have to do. I hope all of you have a good day.

Weekend Funapalooza

So far this weekend has been awesome. It has consisted of me waking up at noon, helping my mom move a bed to somewhere like 3 hours from my house, coming back home, watching the Bronco game, eating dinner, watching 12 episodes of Viva-la-Bam, writing a post for my Blog and going to bed at Midnight. Yeah for this weekend. I am having un-matched amounts of fun. Then again, it wasn't school, so it really was better than nothing. In the mean time, we're celebrating my birthday tomorrow, so We'll go out for a big special dinner and enjoy some chocolate cake back at home. It's going to rock, especially since I have Monday off from school. Otherwise it'd suck hardcore. Well, if I'm going to be able to get up in time to go to church in the morning, I better head off to bed. BTW- My visitor counter is still at 0, so no-one has even looked at this page yet. Then again, I'm the 20,861,876th blog that has been registered on Blogspot, so I fully understand how my blog could possibly remain undiscovered. Well, if anyone ever happens to drop in and be my first visitor, It'd rock if you'd comment with something like "I'm you first visitor, and there's nothing you can do about it." because that would be awesome. Until then...

"Christian"

I was surfing through Blogs and a stunning and obvious fact hit me dead between the eyes. "Christian" is probably the most general term for your beliefs that has probably ever existed besides the all famous "Religious". I'm still sitting here listening to beautiful piano music and enjoying the beginning of my 3-day weekend, so I figured I'd take this opportunity to fully explain my beliefs so that anyone who reads this will know what I mean in my bio by "Christian."

The core of my faith is this: Jesus Christ is the One and only Son of God. He was perfect from his birth of a virgin (Mary was his earthly mother, and NO MORE. She was not a divine saint, a god, or anything else. I believe that if she were to have known how she would be placed in the status of "Co-redeemer with Christ" by the Roman Catholic Church, it would have broken her heart.). Jesus came to Earth as a perfect blameless lamb and was killed on a Cross. Yes, he actually died, and he was placed in a tomb. No he was not unconscious or Knocked out...He was DEAD and was placed in the tomb...DEAD. 3 days later he rose from the dead, not woke-up, rose from the dead. Thus proving his power over death. By dying, Jesus took the sins of the world, past, present, and future, upon himself and made himself the sacrifice to pay for the wages of our sins. The wages of sin is DEATH, and he took this payment for us. Why? Love. Not the kind of Love you'll ever find here on Earth. God is Love...God=Love and he was willing to let Jesus suffer and DIE just so we could spend eternity with him. Salvation consists of the following:
-Acknowledgement that you are a sinner in need of a savior and acceptance of his free gift of Eternal Life
-A personal saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

That's it. Nothing more. Many Many Many religions out there will try to sell Salvation with the tag-on's of needing more than that. The Catholic church offers Salvation as Belief in God, Participation in the Sacraments, Baptism, etc, etc, etc. and even then you're not even assured of your salvation! You might or might not get to Heaven, because when you die you go to a place called Purgatory to let your sins go through a wash cycle or two, which may take unknown amounts of time before you even get to go to Heaven! I tell you now, can a sadder religion exist? Atheists at least believe that they'll just go to sleep and never wake up, but time in purgatory with no assurance of salvation? My heart weeps for those who are deceived by this line of thinking. My friends, I tell you that I have 100% assurance that If I were to die at this very moment, I would immediately be in the presence of my Lord and Savior. What can be more of a comfort than that? While I seriously have awesome plans for my Life, I don't fear death whatsoever. In fact I would be excited to know that my eternity with my Lord would begin. Now, I do love life and know that God has me here for a purpose, so don't worry about me trying to make the whole "Death" thing come anytime soon. :) I go to a church that preaches and teaches the Bible, and the Bible alone. What do I believe about the Bible? I believe that the Bible is God-Breathed (Written by the Holy Spirit, using men 2000 years ago as the writing utensil) and is absolutely infallible. Were one thing in the Bible to be wrong, then my faith would be based on a falsity and wouldn't hold up. I've come across people who believe that the Bible has wrong things in it here and there, but the Core part of it is right. To say so is to deny the fact that the Bible is "God's Word"! If you hand me a meal of large proportions and tell me that a tiny bit of deadly poison was placed in one part of the meal somewhere, I'M NOT GOING TO EAT ANY OF IT! Thus I believe that the Bible is God's Word to us and basically it's Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. God has done amazing things in my life, and has completely taken my miserable failure of a self and made what he wants out of it. Instead of referring to myself as Christian, I'll from now on use the term "Jesus Freak" ala DCTalk's amazing song. If you haven't heard it I recommend it highly.

A huge misconception about Jesus Freaks, is that they're perfect, or don't get to have any fun, or that being a Jesus Freak will make life flat out easier. Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong. I am a perfect example of all three of these. I tell you that I am in no means perfect. In fact I'm far from it. The beauty in my being imperfect is that f I were perfect I'd have no need for a savior! But I do need a savior because I fail God's standards every single day. But I serve a loving and forgiving God who's always willing to forgive and renew. Psalm 119:9-11 says "How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your Word. I seek you with all of my heart, do not let me stray from your commands. For I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you." I am imperfect, but God will never give up on me, so I seek him with all my heart and I place his word in my heart that I might not sin against him. Next, Who says being a Jesus Freak isn't fun? Well my guess is that they have a different definition of "Fun". If by fun you mean going out on weekends and getting drunk off your butt with your friends and waking up the next day somewhere with someone else's clothes on, then you're right: Being a Jesus Freak means having no fun. I can speak from experience on this one. I personally have done stupid things including getting wasted beyond reason. 14 ounces of Absolut Vodka later I threw up in my sleep and it took me until 2 or 3 in the afternoon the day after to even get back to Hangover status. I felt like crap the entire time and seriously don't see the term "Fun" being a word I'd use to describe the experience. That aside, My friends and I have amazing amounts of fun. We go to concerts, we prank each other at 1a.m, we go see movies, we hang out at Youth Group, we play in bands, we go Paintballing and beat the trash out of each other in wrestling matches. To top it off, I know that I can count on every one of my friends 100% and am encouraged by them every day. I also know they can count on the same from me. Why? They all know the same Savior and their lives show it as we all live for different reasons then most people. Lastly, being a Jesus Freak is ANYTHING but easy. From the moment of I accepted Christ, my life has been one big series of trials, tribulations, difficulties and hardships. However, through them, God has completely changed who I am and what I will be. He has made me appreciate things, and has showed me what to ignore. My focuses are different than they were, and not one trial or hardship hasn't resolved in some way that has made me a better person for it, and has made me walk closer in my relationship with Christ. He has done amazing things through difficulties and I am thankful for each and every one of them. It's called the road-less-traveled for a reason. It's not a beaten down 5 lane highway. It's a rocky Mountain path that sometimes seems impossible to traverse. And honestly it is impossible to do on your own. On your own, you can't do anything. You are going to die from sin and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. That my friends is why I need God in every step of my life. He's the one that makes the path traversable, and death overcomeable. He's the reason for which I live. I exist only to bring Glory and Honor to the name of God.

If you've actually read this far, then I truly thank you for being open-minded while I share all aspects of my beliefs. I know it was kind-of out of order and it's hard to follow, but it really was written from beginning to end while just sitting here at this table with no outline or plan in my head. If you already know the Lord and Savior of whom I speak, then I wish you the absolute best in your walk with Him, and If I don't meet you in real life, then I'll see you in Eternity. Please feel free to drop in a comment. If you disagree with anything whatsoever in the above post, or you just want to talk about any of it, PLEASE comment on it. I would be more than happy to discuss it with you and would love to see your views on it. I am a busy 17 year old in High School so I may not be available 24/7, but I'll do my absolute best to get back to you. For everyone, once again I really do thank you for reading all of this and I hope to talk to you in the comment area or beyond.

Cheesy Nibblets

Well, the much awaited 3-day weekend is finally here and I could just about poop my pants I'm so excited. After quite possibly the longest first week of school ever, I feel like sitting down and not getting up until Tuesday. I might do just that too. Unfortunately I'm still sick, but pills from the doctor will see to it that I head off to sleepyland and stay there for sometime.

I'm still clocking out at 100% A+'s in all my classes, and that's even with several assignments and or quizzes in each. I really really really need to pull up my GPA if I want to get accepted into the Naval Academy's "Summer Session". It's a week long college visit with no parents and you basically live as a midshipman for a week. You Workout with them, you train with them, you go to classes with them, you eat with them etc. If you get accepted, you're pretty much set on the track to full acceptance into the Academy, so I definitely want to get into the Summer Session. If anyone has any extra GPA points that they'd like to give me, just ask for my Address, and I'd much appreciate it. To help with the GPA situation, I'm taking around 5-6 AP courses Senior year. It's going to suck hardcore, but I'll deal with it. If I ace most of them, my GPA will fly up like none other, so that's incentive to do good. I hope all goes well and that I get in.

Tuesday is my birthday. In fact it's my golden birthday. I'll be turning 17 on the 17th and I'm pretty excited. Finally I can stop sneaking into R rated movies. Not that I do that very often already, but It'll be one less thing to worry about. It's really odd when I think about the fact that it's 2006 and I was born in 1989. I mean, It's the 80's. Sure it's way late 80's, but it's still the 80's. I was born in the 80's. Dang that's cool. Well for now I hope the weekend goes well and that anyone reading this has a merry Martin Luther King Day!

It's More Fantastical...

Well today brought about some hardships. I didn't get to sleep last night like I had planned on doing due to a horrendous cough/sickness that's really starting to tick me off. I wish It'd just go away, and thankfully with some new drugs from the doctor, it might do just that. Until then, I'll just battle it out on 30 minutes of sleep. I read an odd factoid today that Honey can kill the bacteria in Acne, and can cause the redness and visibility to reduce significantly. Me being the avid try-er of interesting things, now have a band-aid on my face with honey under it. It's very odd I'll admit, but if this works, then My face will be the sweetest thing on the block and my dog probably won't stop licking my face either. In the meantime, I'm headed out to Church Worship Team Practice. Since my bio doesn't clarify, I think I will do that now. I play Bass Guitar in the Worship Team for my Church, Castle Pines Community Church, in Castle Pines, Colorado. It's really a sweet experience to be in a worship team. Leading people in worship is a gratifying and humbling experience that I'd recommend to anyone. Since I can't sing...very well, I love that I can worship God through my Bass Guitar Skills. I'll probably be out late, but tomorrow is FRIDAY and after that it's a 3-day weekend, and nothing is going to stop me from enjoying it to the fullest. Oh and If you're offered anything today, whether it be 3 hamburgers, or 20 dollars, you should ask for 1 more. When asked why, simply smile and reply "Because it's more fantastical..."

First Post, Last Post?

Well, I've had a Blogspot account before, but I find it odd that after only a mere year, my blog and account are gone. Oh well. I really didn't do anything with it anyway. I just figure that I was required to have a blog account for my American Literature class, so I might as well make a blog of some sort. I mean who has a blog account and doesn't have a blog. That's a waste of perfectly free webspace and bandwidth allotted to your accound. Think of the poor people in the world who can't even afford 3KB of webspace, and you're given this big ol' free account to upload as you see fit. If only you could put the unused bandwidth into a box and mail it to poor children in Africa. Oh well, I'll leave that line of thought for another day. At the time of this posting (12:48am) I'm not sure if I'll ever post here again. I may, I may not. I depends entirely on the response I get from my viewers. Yes, that's right, I'm self-centered and figure that people will actually read all the way to this far into my first post and that my life really is so interesting that other people will want to tune in to see what happens next. If my life bores me, I seriously doubt anyone else would find it interesting. But for those of you that read all the way through the above trash and rant, then let me be the first to thank you for stopping by and indulging my need for public attention. Thank you.