The Future

I love technology
Not as much as you, you see
But still, I love technology


Technology has come a very long way in the last 10 to 15 years. It is weird, they were still trying to perfect the wheel from the beginning to the late 1800's, then all of the sudden, internet, space travel, smart phones, satellites, and wireless internet. This last one amazes me because if you think about it, there are millions of pages of information floating right in front of your face at all times in a WIFI zone. Just floating there waiting for you to access them. Fax machines also amaze me. A picture travels across wires all the way across the country in seconds recreates itself, then makes an identical copy for the recipient.

When Laura and I first got an apartment after we got married, well kinda after, Burkalator was her roommate until we were able to engage in the roughhousing without sin. But I used to have a little office inside of Laura's walk in closet in her bedroom. It was here I would work all day long, in a closet. No internet, until we discovered Netzero, when it was still free, but that took a million minutes to load pages and dialed 15 phone numbers to connect. I had a hundred reference books because information had to be accessed the hard way, by actually reading in context about a subject, instead of the easy way of cherry picking the internet for it.

Now it is different. I can write, or surf the web from anywhere with my phone, my laptop, or telepathy. What will the next 10 to 15 years bring us?



Please give me your predictions.









Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

My Weekend With Students Without Modest Bathing Suits

Got back last night from the water park trip with the students. The kids had a good time, but it was and always is stressful to deal with teenagers. It started kinda scary, such is the case with all of my youth group trips, we never start very well. We got to the hotel and they had botched the reservation, only being able to accommodate 12 of the 16 people we brought, and they said they were at capacity and no refunds would be given (We had paid in full in advance). So I asked to see a manager and to my joy, she was much more caring and gifted us a room just 2 doors down from our original rooms at no extra cost. Awesome, God is awesome!

Asked a couple of students to watch our kids for 2 seconds to get something and Laura came back 2 minutes later and they were making out and our kids were left alone. Awesome!

I love teenagers though. They make you feel both young and old at times, but are super fun to work with even if they will send me to my grave early. It is a thankless job at times as teens don't think about how much work you put into just getting them to youth group when none of them drive, but it is rewarding when you see one of your students reading their Bible on the way home. I love it. God is Awesome!

Anyway, I am tired, I worked 70 hours last week and don't have much time to play with this week either, but I figure one day, in Heaven it will all pay off.






I hope.




Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Modest Bathing Suits

Me: "Here is what you need for the water park trip on Saturday......A modest bathing suit...a towel....toothbrush...."

12 year old female student: "What is a modest bathing suit?"

Me: "One in which unnecessary flesh is not showing simply for cosmetic purposes."

12 year old female student: "Well, looks like I am going bathing suit shopping."




I am growing more and more afraid for when my daughters are teenagers. I have one who is 12 and the other is almost 3. What is this world going to be like when they are older. My oldest is almost there right now. She is a good girl and hope to not see any problems from her. But my youngest is a bit rebellious and I foresee more rebellion in the future. How exactly does one father a daughter in this society at all and keep his sanity?


Perhaps if they didn't sit so close to the TV.















Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Renaissance

This is my renaissance, this is my one response, this is the way I say, I love you...Matt Kearney

Missed the last train home. Birds pass by to tell me that I'm not alone...Rogue Wave

My sentiments exactly. I like it when a song can word something you feel or are going through in just the right way that you could have written it if you only had the literary prowess to do so eloquently. This is what I have been pushed into lately, a kind of renaissance in which my thinking and lifestyle has been challenged and proven to have gaping holes in it. But the cool thing about holes, is that through the holes, the light is exposed. We may have been beaten and dragged down, we may have seemingly missed the last train home, but those holes that are exposed allow us to see the mercy, love, and compassion of Jesus transforming our minds. We are not alone in our helplessness, or in our ability to mess things up. Our God is right here, sending the birds to remind us we are not alone in this.

Consider the illustrations of birds used in the Bible, some examples?

Matt. 13:32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

Luke 12:24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!

Gen. 8:11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.


Birds as an example of the thriving believer, living in the fullness of Christ, giving rest to others.

Birds as a reason to be assured that Jesus is taking care of you.

Birds as a means to an end of suffering.

Our God is good.






Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The Movie

On Wednesday, I went over E's, the director and editor to find out that the movie I had written and co-directed that I thought was dead in the water, is much further than I thought it was and should be finished this summer. We have some serious issues to work out, as a vital cast member passed away during the filming before her scenes were done, but we came up with some great ideas, and it should be better than the original plan. I have lots of rewrites to do, but I am excited that 4 years of my life are not wasted. I get so tired of hearing people ask, "When's the movie going to be done," and have no answer for them. At least now I have an idea, and hope for it's completion.
It took me 2 years to write the semi-autobiographical pathetic script which can be found on my other blog.
Took us 2 years for preliminary filming and casting.
Spent about 20 thousand for filming.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Sing.
Migrate.

I Am Asking Obama For A Bail-Out

Feeling a bit better after a few days of hellish sickness. I had a birthday, I got some cool things from my wife and mothers. Laura got me a Samsung Instinct smartphone which has really helped me stay organized and respond faster to emails. Also allows me to post from the road which is the fun part. My mothers both gave me money, which was used to by some noise canceling headphones because my earbuds are broken and have become an electrocution hazard. Anyone ever use noise canceling headphones? It may wreck your ears, not sure yet, but they make the whole world go by by which is nice when you have had enough of listening to Spongebob reruns, and screaming, and fighting for a few minutes to relax and recoup.
Over the last week, Laura and I have started watching Lost beginning with season 1. In the past I have been critical of this show because of some shenanigans I saw while checking out a random episode in season 3. But after watching the beginning, I get it. I now understand why people are crazy for this show, because it is really good. Laura and I are just waiting for one day that the kids are at the grandmas or something and we can take a whole day and watch all day long.
This morning I woke up in prayer, and I felt good after a month of darkness, all of the sudden the sun came up. So praise God for that. He is working in my life, showing me faith, showing me peace and joy.
Well enough random housekeeping, just wanted to pop in for some updates.








Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The Rest Is The Mess We Leave As We Pass Through

An addict works everyday in a soup kitchen by himself for two meals a day to keep busy to keep himself from thinking too much and inciting temptation to use. He shows up everyday, even when ill and begins making the food. He does things in a certain regimented order that he will not and can not deviate from. He does this joyfully 2 hours before each meal. People begin arriving and sitting down, cold from the Michigan weather and broken from the waves this world likes to throw at them. They form a line and come up and get their meals which all look different because there is not enough of one thing to feed everyone, eat, then leave and he goes about his business cleaning up the mess they left as they passed through. He closes up shop at the end of the day and goes straight to the movies to escape. Before, he used drugs to escape, not the theater, because we all need an escape route. His eyes dilate with wonder as he fully opens himself up to the parallel world flashing on a silver screen, for those 2 hours he puts himself someplace else, someone else, then back to NA meetings and meals for others. If you try to talk to him, he will tell you about every movie he has seen and everyone that is coming out.
His life is so simple. No gadgets, no added complications because he is just trying to focus on one thing...getting well, getting clean and staying clean. Every move he makes is calculated, from screwing on a coffee can lid to punching in numbers on a microwave, he is focused on every task. He stays busy. The first time we volunteered here, I was a bit off put because he did not want any help, he would do the things we were supposed to do and tell us to go talk to people. I left wondering why he didn't want out help, then it occurred to me that this is helping to keep him clean and sober. He needs this as much as he needs food himself. This is a God send to him, his true escape route.
I envy him.







Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Awake. Alone.

There is this moment between awake and lucid sleep where you aren't quite sure what reality is. It is in these moments that I get stuck sometimes for days. A good dream can make you happy, but usually make me sad when I realize, they aren't real. Bad dreams stick for a lesser amount of time, but set the day off in anger. I dread the really good dreams the most, so much that I lie awake in my bed for fear of a different reality, one I cannot bear. For some, the truth is the unbearable dream.

March 9th, I went to bed and dreamt about the ghosts of my youth, March 10th, I woke up an old man.

In 30 more years, I will be 61, in 30 more, I will be long gone and forgotten. What a chasing after the wind

Sorry for the dramatics and narcisism, it is very late, and I cannot sleep and have gotten lonely, which brings out many oddities

Sing.
Migrate.
Call me when you get there.

The Prospect Of Getting Old

It's my birthday today, so I will try and forget the tantrum I threw yesterday directed at Mr. Obama, whom I will not acknowledge as president until he stops killing people.

I slept in. Really bad. I woke up at 9, then drifted back off to sleep assuming I would wake up again soon with my own little internal snooze alarm, but I didn't and I slept clear until 2 PM.

31 years old and I can't remember any time actually passing by. I am not old at all, but I smell the prospect of getting old. Turning 31 reminds me that one day, I will turn 41, then 51. Sorry to anyone out there that is older than me, or either of those two numbers I just wrote. I do not mean to remind you of your impending doom, I only wish to convey my displeasure for aging.

Last year I told everyone that from now on I was going to go backwards in age, this year making me 29, because I feel like a 29 year old, or a 25 year old rather. With the exception of several rogue hairs I constantly have to pluck out of my eyebrows that seem to want to be white like God's hair for some reason, I don't think I am looking older.

Anyway, this post is all over the map, I need to focus or stop writing for today, I think I will choose the latter.



By the by, I am officially endorsing the word "NOBAMA" that can be used to in every day reference instead of the P- WORD which I have eliminated from my vocab.



Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

I'm Done With Being Civil

Another day, another slap in the face to American citizens. I am trying to keep my cool and give as much grace as I can to President Obama. However, today marked the latest of his offenses toward unborn babies and I will not keep silent. Mr. Obama has decided to sign an executive decision to allocate my taxes, our taxes to fund embryonic stem cell research. Now babies can be made to be destroyed and used for testing. How much killing must be done before revolt, I wonder? If these were 10 year old kids and being killed, how long until the government was forcefully overthrown?

I am no longer listening to anyone who tells me they are pro-choice. This term is ignorant and should not be allowed to be used when talking about the murder of innocent children by the millions. Do I have a choice where my tax dollars go in regard to funding "embryonic stem cell research" (Another term I will no longer allow). Apparently I do not have a choice because Mr. Obama has crapped on my civil rights. Not even to mention again, the civil rights of all now dead unborn babies. But he says "That's above his pay grade." Now they are talking about forcing all hospitals, namely Catholic ones to perform abortions. I wonder what legacy this guy will leave when the economy crashes even more after all the Catholic hospitals close their doors.

This is an angry blog I know. But how much sitting an twiddling of the thumbs can we do before we let this guy know, that he is legislating, funding, and giving his approval to murder.



WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!







Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Growing The Thorns

So it's like we are living in this matrix that is controlled by some other power other than God. I don't think I will ever understand the reason that I or anyone else falls into these traps and believes some of the things that are being systematically fed to us since infancy. We are a culture that is run almost completely by the elite, both in politics and in media. And the worst part is that the vast majority do not even know it, they are going about their lives basing their concepts of reality, morals, and politics on some hierarchy whom they have never met or studied. We call this political correctness, we call it Republican and Democrat, we call this pro-life and pro-choice as if a stance on the future of a particular infant can be categorized and dehumanized by giving it a neat little name that isn't horrific on the ears so we can debate in a civilized way over the genocide of a generation, or lack thereof. There simply is no civilized way to debate whether life is valuable. For instance, High On The Hog posted a blog about the bill that is ready to get reintroduced to Congress after having failed during the Bush term. It is a bill that will make it every woman's right to have an at will abortion, which is nothing new, but it will require that Catholic hospitals and Gyno's perform the abortions against their beliefs and wills. The Catholic Church says it will do one of two things if it passes. It will disregard the law and act out in civil disobedience (I prefer this stance). Or it will shut down all of it's Catholic hospitals which comprise a large amount of jobs and lack of proper health care for the sick. I am proud that they are refusing to comply, however what kind of country waves the flag of freedom, then strips it's people of the right to believe that murder is murder.

Today my pastor held up a bottle of water. He told a story of house Figi water, which is a high end gourmet water, cannot even be found in Figi, being that more than half of Figi has no clean water to drink at all. But we American's love to think we are gourmet. So we pay for it, and it came from the tap, or from re-used sewer water. There has never been any studies showing a difference between tap water and bottled water, because there is no difference, except in some cases the tap water was cleaner.

Everyone loves Ikea. Great looking furniture at affordable prices. Which should make you stop and think, how are they making the prices so cheap? I wonder? Despite their talk about fair trade and good business practices, they are brutal in their outsourcing to child labor and prison labor. But at least our furniture matches our curtains.

Most people are not able to eliminate labels in their lives. They choose a side, such as Republican or Democrat and buy in to all of their practices and assume that their guys are the good guys and the others are the bad ones. Here is the truth...they are all the bad guys. Our political system is so corrupted with the lust for money and power that a great bill to cure world hunger could pass along and it would be failed by one of the two parties. By the by, if America wanted to, it could cure world hunger. It could provide clean water to ALL people. Why doesn't it if we are the good guys?

We tell the world they can't have nukes, they are just to dangerous. Well who is the only country to use one on another country. A bit hypocritical for a country that believes they are leading the world in morality and are the greatest in the world. Then we ask, why do other countries hate us. How about this. I am going to go around and tell everyone I meet that I am the best at everything and I will kick your AS$ if you disagree with me. I will wear clothing plastered with my face on it and walk right by those that are hungry and disenfranchised. I'll look out for number one and step on anyone I have to along the way, all the while claiming the high ground on moral issues. I wonder what other people would think of me?

I have fallen into so many of these traps and still am amazed every time my eyes are opened and I realize that I have been sucked into another lie and I believed what my itching ears wanted to believe, but not the truth. I beg God for the transforming of my mind. For Him to open my eyes and the eyes of the church, and our country. Because the church can be the worst culprit of the perpetuation of lies. When we focus on buildings and air conditioning and new equipment, we lose sight of the hungry. These are the people God said to care for, He said if you claim to love God and do not care for your brother, you lie to yourself about loving God. Church, this is why people hate us. Maybe we aren't just taking persecution for the cause of Christ. Maybe people are reacting to our hypocrisy and questioning whether God exists in organized religion. The answer is...Yes. God exists and rules in organized religion, but the thorns are smothering the wheat and killing some crops. We must open our eyes to the fact that we are growing the thorns.









Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Change

Finally, we have a genuinely nice day. It is warm and not raining! I want to go out before Michigan throws more snow on me and covers us with the Tundra of Alaska. Seriously, I have felt like an Ice Road Trucker this year which I like only for a few weeks, then change.

Change. What kinds of things can be done with change.

You can give some to someone who is poor, or at least poor at the moment, which is something that I have been studying about for the last year or so.

You can obviously become President with change.

You can finally change your clothes, such as a certain orange fleece High On The Hog touts.

You can change your plans to live for yourself and live for God even if it seems uncomfortable.

You can change your mind about something you suspect you are wrong about.

You can change a diaper, then put the dirty one in a friends mailbox.


Anyway, you want to do it, I think we all need some change.









Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The Clink

I have been to jail 5 times. No small accomplishment I might add. I wish I could have gone to jail for more BA things like barroom brawls, or a stabbing, but I went for the dumb things.
1st Time- Shop lifting. We stole some cd's and some Neosporin for our new tattoos. In high school, we stole as a hobby, the little things. Things like our place settings at restaurants or the value meal sign at McDonalds. Got caught once the same day and escaped, only to get caught again later and arrested.
2nd- Driving on a suspended license.
3rd- Busted on a warrant for an unpaid fine. (See second arrest)
4th- Driving on a suspended license.
5th- Driving on a suspended license.

Not sexy, but time served all the same.

I want to know if you have spent any hard time and for what.









Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Cars Go By

Where is everyone going so fast, me included? Everyone seems to have a place to go and they are all running late. For me, I just hate waiting in lines. I just would rather not do it, it is a waste of time, so I race for the door as soon as I get out of the car to beat the family of 12 that will set me back at least 15 minutes. What are we so eager to get to? I say. Are we eager to get older faster having missed so many good things in our vigorous attempt to race against time to get really only to the next day, the next race?

Take your time. Leave earlier if you need to and enjoy your life.

Sing.
Migrate.

His Yoke Makes Scramby Eggs!

"Take up your cross and follow me."

"My yoke is easy, and my burden is light."


It has been difficult for me to reconcile these two teachings and learn to live in both realities. Taking up your cross, signifies suffering and death. My yoke is easy, signifies a rewarding and happy life. I think too many people like to take the latter and leave the former to Jesus. Christ was never saying that it is easy to follow Him, He says the contrary, but he does promise happiness and joy. If a person, especially a Christian appears to have it all figured out, than it only appears that way. Our faith should be a fight, a race that takes real physical, and spiritual punishment to finish and no one finishes first, or everyone does. Depends on your outlook on life. It sometimes is so taxing to live in a pagan world trying to follow the Divine in all aspects of your life. I guess that is why Jesus said "Blessed are those who have not seen me, but still believe." Because He knew just how hard it was to follow Him, but knew how rewarding it would be for us when we do. God does not put the burden of sin on us, He lifts it, the trick is to learn not to put the burden back on us in our own minds.







Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

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