there needs to be about 5 more hours in the day.............................so that i can plan my day out with the millions of things i need to do and then just sit here and waste time instead for 5 more hours.

coworker #1: the only way i'll ever move out of my house is if they build a development across the street and fill it with blacks.
coworker #2: why should you move? [forget] them...just kill all of [them].
laughter ensues
(expletives edited)

to be perfectly honest, i had no idea racism (and ignorance) was still this rampant. it's disgusting.

its thunderstorm season, which would be really exciting, but it would be a lot more exciting if it didnt mean i would always have to spend 8 hours straight raking bunkers the next day.

you will all do yourselves a favor by reading this man's blog rather than wasting your time here.
its a beautiful day today. erica and i went swimming for the first time this summer at a friends house and it was pleasant. im getting frustrated with so many wasted busy weekends and a wasted busy summer so im trying to plan the month of august out so i get the most accomplished and have the maximum amount of fun possible.
i dreamt last night that i only had 2 days left before i went to school and still had 2 geography packets left and i was a nervous wreck. lets hope it doesnt come to that...i dont think it will...but here i am typing on my blog instead of doing geography so who knows.
there is a coffee house at our church tonight. wesley and i never got anything written. we have so much music coming out of our heads but unfortunately we dont have the songwriting skills to put it together which is quite a frustrating thing. i wrote a bitter song about how stupid america is but im not very pleased with it. i was just playing guitar and harmonica and i think i came up with a worship song i'd like to play. we'll see. good times. maybe.
we got our pictures back from new york and they turned out quite nice. i am quite blessed with an enjoyable, fun, normal family and i need to remember to thank god often for that. not to mention we're all so incredibly good looking. hahahaha.
word on the street is i may be able to go to purple door for free???????? i didnt have much desire to go this year, and still dont even though it's free, but there are a few bands i would really enjoy seeing so if it's free i say why not. hopefully it will work out. (keep me posted jaminnnnnnnnnnnn)
my friend jared cheek is having a heck of a summer working at secretly canadian and it will only produce good things as far as the concert line-up at taylor goes this year and i am looking very forward to working with him. he even mentioned having the opportunity to hear some new unwed sailor material. (what you cant see is that drool is dripping from my lips into a large puddle on the floor.)
anyway. i must go, i have praise team practice, i am playing my bass in 3 services tomorrow. whew. im a busy man.
this was an unplanned blog post but now that im done with it i realize i am in a good mood today.
and i forgot to go to the tux shop this morning to get my measurements for nate su's wedding.
which reminds me i should call him.
but you dont need to hear all of this.
have a good saturday night.

my prediction about brandtson was wrong. at least thats not who the militia group just announced as the addition to their roster. dont i feel stupid. pride goeth before a stumble and a haughty spirit before a fall.

any suggestions on how to hide a zit the size of new mexico in the middle of one's cheek would be appreciated.
oh, and our mechanic friend picked the car up for my father. no worries.

so the parents are due home sometime today. i get home from work and the car they left here is not in the driveway. no big deal, they're probably home, right? well, the mail is still in the mailbox, newspaper is still in the door, and there is no notes or signs of them being home. then...where is the car? last time i checked, auto theft wasnt a very common thing in coopersburg (or crime in general), and last time i checked, an 80-something corsica wasnt exactly a desired car. should i be worried?

this night has gone absolutely nowhere near where i wanted it to go, but i must remind myself i have done some pretty important things instead.
wes and i are getting together now to write some music. here's hoping.

i dont mean to brag, but i can make a cheese quesadilla that could put any quesadilla restaurant out of business. in other words, im home alone again with no food in the house except some old tortilla shells and a few random hunks of cheese.

i remembered an important part of the dialogue over vacation...

(in the breakroom, an open golf digest on the table, with the headline of an article reading "does beer help?")
Carlos: the answer to that question is yes no matter what the context.
Boss John: do you drink, nate?
Nate: No.
Mike: He's strictly into intravenous drugs.
Nate: Yep, I'm a heroine man, myself.
Boss John: all your life you've never had a drink not even out at school?
Nate: that's right.
(a silence falls over the room, gasps are heard, jaws hitting the floor, etc)
Boss John: i'm proud of you, you're a better man than me.
Mike: is taylor a religious school?
Nate: yep.
Mike: (a slight roll of the eyes) oh.
Carlos: (as people begin to depart) i'll drink your share, nate.

click here (to remind you),
here (to know that i'm the man),
and here (to read a good interview).

i'll be in lake placid til sunday night. mid 70s during the day and mid 50s during the night. sounds good to me. just letting you know cuz i knew you'd be worried. have good weekends.

(in the breakroom, an open golf digest on the table, with the headline of an article reading "does beer help?")
Carlos: the answer to that question is yes no matter what the context.
Boss John: do you drink, nate?
Nate: No.
Boss John: all your life you've never had a drink not even out at school?
Nate: that's right.
(a silence falls over the room, gasps are heard, jaws hitting the floor, etc)
Boss John: i'm proud of you, you're a better man than me.
Mike: is taylor a religious school?
Nate: yep.
Mike: (a slight roll of the eyes) oh.
Carlos: (as people begin to depart) i'll drink your share, nate.

my swollen eyelids are telling me it's time for a new beginning.

it's been a while. apologies. several things to address here.

fireworks

happy independence day. mine was fairly boring (what was left of it after i slept in til 1:00. we went to dorney park fireworks at night. i dont know what it is, but fireworks seem to get more and more monotonous as i get older. granted, these fireworks were worse than usual, but fireworks in general are just kinda weird. big flashes in the sky. big woop. but i guess you can do that to pretty much anything if you think hard enough.

birthday

happy birthday to me. blah. whatever. it was a pretty lame birthday with the exception of time spent with erica. and for some reason i didnt really care. i dont know. whatever. im 20. thats old. but it doesnt seem like it. erica and i went to ikea to buy me a light fixture for my room, king of prussia to buy new sneakers (yes jamin, finally....they are nice...old skools that are gray, khaki, and red. ooooo), shopped around some more and got mad at all the things we couldnt buy and ate at the cheesecake factory. it was mostly nice. but shopping wears me out and basically just leaves me tired, cranky, and frustrated.

mall

i swear the devil works hardest in shopping malls. every store works at making you so discontent, materialistic, and envious of the upper-class lifestyle. i dont know how many times erica and i used the phrase "i wish"...most often in the context of having lots of money to blow at stores like urban outfitters and the like.

theology or too smart for your own good?

first, it is a given there are many (too many?) christians that are immature and content with mediocrity, too lazy to put forth an effort in growing more in their walk with god or use their minds to think a little bit. indeed, we are to love the lord with all our heart soul and MIND; even if the heart and soul part is complete, many neglect the mind.
second, it is understood that all christians are in different places in their walks. some soak things up quickly and become mature incredibly fast, while others move at a snails pace, all according to how the spirit reveals things to them.
that being said, i am growing increasingly frustrated with the theologian/big thinker/philospher/intellectual types who insist on figuring out things such as election, predestination, the end times, evolution, etc. they feel the need to learn all they can about such gray areas, choose one side of the fence, and hold firm dogmatic belief in this side simply to say "im on this side of the fence and you should be to." again, i am a firm believer that we need to intellectual in our walk with christ. but there are gray areas where i believe god intended mystery and to try and figure HIM out is a hopeless pursuit and one that leads to prideful dogmatic intellectualism. sometimes we need to be content with god's mysteries and wait for it all to be revealed in heaven. a childlike faith definitely does not mean an immature faith, and i think these types are missing out on their childhood. whatever that means.

music

music ive been much too late in discovering....
the gloria record - start here ....rock anthem after rock anthem holy moly this stuff is incredible
appleseed cast - low level owl ....both cds are intriguing...creative...beautiful...takes a little time to get used to, and not one of my favorites, but an enjoyable listen that makes me want to get creative.
koufax - i forget which album im listening too but man is it good...like a rocking version of the strokes with lots of fun keyboards.
death cab for cutie - we have the facts....amazing song writing.
i think thats all at this point.
goodbye.

oh, another quick story that i find humorous. it makes me laugh really hard anyway.
our boss, when he gets all of the guys in the same room and commences with his speech givings, likes to ask questions and get answers from everyone in the room. i dont know if his questions are ambiguous, if i am stupid, or what, but i can never come up with very good answers.
first, first thing this morning, he gives his safety-on-the-holiday-weekend speech. he asks what are thing we need to be careful of this weekend? naturally, there are only 3 answers, right? travel, fireworks, and drinking. well, there are 11 or 12 guys for those three answers, and, naturally, im the last guy to answer. the three have been mentioned, food poisoning has been taken, scary in-laws is mentioned by my brother, several BS answers combining drinking and driving come into play, and so on. i stammer and stutter, and finally say "sparklers." everyone looks at me weird. i shrug and say "wear your safety glasses, man." this makes everyone laugh which more/less excuses my stupidity.
THEN, (this is the funny part) my boss is wasting time in the afternoon before he lets us leave early. being the army vet that he is, he decides to go around the circle and have us say what independence day means to us. im the second guy in line and he starts on my side because "nate always complains that everyone takes his answer." now really, what does independence day mean to you, come on. there is only one answer, and that is freedom. whats the first guy say? freedom. it comes to me, i stutter and stammer and say "freedom kinda covers it all, doesnt it? doesnt he have to be more specific?" boss is still waiting for an answer. my brain says "nate, you've been learning about russia and china and north korea in geography, and your capitalist country is a heck of a lot better than their communism." so i say the first thing that comes to my mind. "capitalism!" this, of course, could not be further from the truth because i hate our capitalist country, not to mention it has nothing to do with independence day, but i think the word was too big for any of these maintenance men to figure out, so no one could really refute my answer and we went on. but i laughed really hard about it. i think what i meant to say was democracy. oh well. im an idiot. of course, when i thought there were no other answers besides freedom, brilliant things were said such as "the pursuit of happiness," "revolution," a good suck-up-to-the-army-vet answer like "a lot of guys died for what we have today," "do whatever the hell you want...well...kind of" was mentioned by burn-out-tommy (which, im smart enough to know, is just another way of saying freedom), and so on.


isnt it my bedtime?

its 11:30 and i have to work tomorrow morning at 5:30. it is way past my bedtime. im getting crazy. or maybe just desperate for something a little more exciting than a 9:30 bedtime.
i skipped out on geography once again tonight and instead went to the sullivan's house for a goodbye party for their foreign exchange student, rose. i had a mostly good time. it is sad how out-of-place i have been feeling as of late, though. i just dont know anyone anymore, they have moved on without me and i have moved on without them. this causes me to feel really out of place, which makes me go into my uncomfortable not talking mode, which makes everyone think that i am a cocky jerk who went off to college and considers himself too good for everyone now. i must remind myself that i am probably a little more intimidating than i realize, simply by being older and the college-type (not to mention being incredibly good looking) and therefore must make a conscious effort to go out of my way and talk to people, no matter how uncomfortable.
anyway, nate was there which helped my uncomfort, and we played a couple good rounds of bocce which was enjoyable. bocce makes me feel like an old italian man, and i enjoy the feeling.
on a different note, ester drang makes me jealous.

Coworker Tom: it's my birthday on saturday.
Nate: oh yeah? it's mine on sunday.
Coworker Tom: really? how old?
Nate: 20.
Coworker Tom: (excitedly) one more year til it's legal!!! heh heh heh
Nate: yep.
Coworker Tom: (jokingly) and im sure youve never even tasted a drop of beer, right?
Nate: (leaving it open for interpretation) that's right.

my father has a trap set up to catch chipmunks and squirrels and other destructive vermin. it is a have-a-heart trap, so it doesnt kill them - just catches them and releases them in someone elses backyard instead.
last night as i was desperately trying to fall asleep i heard something banging around in it. this afternoon i found a young rabbit. he was dead. he beat himself to death on the sides of the cage. for some reason it kinda struck me...the desperate animal instinct to be free...so desperate that it would kill himself trying to burst through the metal bars.
which, in my warped sense of thinking, led me to think of how so many christians, myself included, are trapped in the cage of legalistic-works-salvation, doing their best to please god and look good, etc, when we are meant to be free and we dont even realize it, and we wear ourselves out so much banging ourselves against this harsh cage.
"when christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery." galatians five one
"Christ's call on your lives is a call to liberty. Freedom is the cornerstone of Christianity. Would Paul be as apoplectic today at the goings-on in the American church? Would those still imprisoned in old guilts, crippled by fear, exhausted by scrupulosity, threatened by legalists and anxious over their salvation merit the same rebuke: 'I am astonished by the promptness with which you have turned away from the one who called you and have decided to follow a different version of the Good News' (Gal. 1:6)? ...We have undoubtedly heard that freedom is not license for lust. Maybe that's all we've heard - what it isn't." -brennan manning
"Such an approach [speaking of what freedom is not], whatever its limited truth, is defensive and afraid. Those using it wish above all to warn us of the dangers of thinking about freedom, of yearning for freedom. Such an approach generally ends up by showing us, or at least attempting to show us, that freedom actually consists in following the law or in submitting to authority or in walking a well-trod path. Again, there may be some truth in these conclusions but there is lacking a sense of the dark side of law, and of authority, and of the well-trod path. Each may be and has been turned into an instrument of tyranny and human suffering." -Donald Gray
i could go on and on and on. but quit beating yourself up in the cage and find your desired freedom and liberty in christ.
now i have to figure out what to do with a dead rabbit. do i do something with it (what?) or do i wait and let my dad deal with it on friday when it is halfway decomposed?
ok bye.

i just had week-old leftovers of a dish that i dont think would have been any better if i had eaten it the first time it was served. something about the world kielbasa makes me queasy from the get-go.