KGBlog

the best idea i've seen in a while:

Posted in: on Sunday, September 14, 2008 at at 11:48 PM 0 comments  

"...we keep company in this world with a hoard of abstractions and reflections and counterfeits of ourselves -- the sensual man, the economic man, the man of reason, the beast, the machine and the sleep-walker, and heaven knows what besides, all in our own image, indistinguishable from ourselves to the outward eye.  We get borne along, out of sight in the press, unresisting, till we get the chance to drop behind unnoticed, or to dodge down a side street, pause, breathe freely and take our bearings, or to push ahead, outdistance our shadows, lead them a dance, so that when at length they catch up with us, they look at one another askance, knowing we have a secret we shall never share.

Posted in: on at at 12:10 AM 5 comments  

“ Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty.

Posted in: on Thursday, September 11, 2008 at at 11:36 AM 0 comments  

"i used to think that faith, faith was sort of  like a building block and you'd put all these blocks together...and you'd build a house sort of like the little pig built that the wolf could not blow down, and now i get older and i feel that faith is a matter of surrender. its a matter of just giving up and leaving that house and just walking out and experiencing the cold and the rain and doubt and confusion and trying to keep up your hope and some sense of gratitude. if you just keep up hope and gratitude maybe thats, maybe thats all you need...

-garrison keillor

Posted in: on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 at at 12:00 PM 0 comments  

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"Belief and confusion are not mutually exclusive; 

Posted in: on Thursday, September 04, 2008 at at 9:30 PM 0 comments  

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Posted in: on Sunday, August 31, 2008 at at 11:46 PM 0 comments  

“Life is deep and simple, and what our society gives us is shallow and complicated.”

Posted in: on Thursday, August 28, 2008 at at 8:28 PM 5 comments  

the folks over at mixa have outdone themselves with the mix-tape usb...brilliant. while not the first to have the idea, they do let you design your own sleeve with your own pics and some pre-designed graphics.

Posted in: on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at at 11:02 PM 0 comments  

"We are the daughters of feminists who said 'You can be anything' and we heard 'You have to be everything.' "

Posted in: on Monday, August 25, 2008 at at 11:10 PM 0 comments  

Posted in: on Saturday, August 23, 2008 at at 5:53 PM 0 comments  

"if he looked back on what his life had been lately, he had perhaps managed two or three days when he had woken up, looked at the sun -or the rain- and felt glad to see the morning, just happy, without wanting anything, planning anything or asking anything in exchange. apart from those few days, the rest of his existence had been wasted on dreams, both frustrated and realized -a desire to go beyond himself, to go beyond his limitations; he had spent his life trying to prove something, but he didn't know what or to whom."

Posted in: on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at at 12:40 AM 0 comments  

Mike Rowe (dirty jobs...etc.) sang professionally with the Baltimore Opera. Go figure.

Posted in: on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at at 1:09 AM 0 comments  

why did i just get up at 8 to watch our idiot soccer team? literally seconds from winning their second game against the netherlands they turn into 6 years old boys and get scored on. 6 year olds? yep, 6 year olds...the hero of game one, Holden (the guy that got the goal), fouls a guy just outside of the 18. for those of you that don't know soccer this means that the other team gets a shot from about 20 yards away from our goal...not a good thing. 6 years old. they line up to shoot and what do we do? the entire end of the wall JUMPS OVER THE SHOT...are you kidding me? you dont jump off of the ground when youre in a wall...maybe you bounce a little to get some height, but you dont bounce enough for a ball to go under you...you learn that at least by the time your 7.

Posted in: on Sunday, August 10, 2008 at at 9:57 AM 0 comments  

setting: sitting inside of swirll yogurt shop...and moving into the parking lot.

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Posted in: on Thursday, August 07, 2008 at at 1:47 PM 0 comments  

i had been under the impression that the olympics started after the opening ceremonies on friday night...i was misinformed.

the us women's soccer team has already lost its first game to norway 2-0 and both goals came in the first 4 minutes of play. not a great start for the americans...incidentally, the men's team won their first game 1-0 against japan...but we all know that the women are the ones who actually have a chance of going somewhere with the whole soccer thing.

in other soccer news the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled on wednesday that players could be stopped from playing on olympic teams by their club teams. 72 year old FIFA president Sepp Blatter had this to say:

"If all the national squads will lose players, if clubs force them to return home, we simply will not have an Olympic football tournament here in Beijing, he said. "We could do beach soccer or a five-a-side tournament."

he was obviously very happy about the decision.

Posted in: on at at 12:56 PM 1 comments  

Sands 2 from Kevin on Vimeo.

Posted in: on Tuesday, August 05, 2008 at at 7:53 PM 0 comments  

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"We all live in our own world. But if you look up at the starry sky, you will see that all the different worlds up there combine to form constellations, solar systems, galaxies."      

Posted in: on Monday, August 04, 2008 at at 1:21 AM 0 comments  

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today i hopped into the car, a bit hurried as i was running late for the car pool, and turned on the radio. i know, i know, dont ask...the pod was fatefully uncharged over the night and therefore: radio. as  i skipped from station to station seeking out the morning npr news i became distracted and absently left a typical awful morning radio show playing in the background. (it was like when you lose remote privileges because you got distracted and absent-mindedly left it on a channel playing commercials for 3 minutes.) moving along, i tuned in a couple of minutes later to a story being told about the hosts trip to the grocery on the previous evening...i know the grocery always makes for great morning radio right...the story wasn't about berating the slow bagger, or the guy who picked up every ripe kiwi after just wiping the nose of his 13 month, or the vagabond "showering" in the almost imperceptible mist intended to freshen the vegetables, though. no, it was none of these. she actually wanted to comment on the people who were making such berating comments in line. she insisted that each person, the slow moving grandmother with dentures causing a traffic jam on the toothpaste aisle, the irritable employee building a triscuit box pyramid in front of the aquafina sculpture he had to put up last week, all of them had a reason behind their mood. a grumpy grandfather who still had one tooth hanging in there, a manager whose artistic brilliance was in design but whose shaky hands couldnt carry out the task...or otherwise. the talk show host commented to her morning show pals that we should always recognize that each of the people around us are living in their own little worlds. each is focused on their own life. each has a bubble in which all that exists is them and the stress and troubles, sucesses and joys, etc. of their own lives.

in the remaining 2 minutes of my drive to carpool pick up my mind wandered from the show, which then immediately turned typical, and quite a bit less profound, and into the idea just presented. it took me immediately to a louie giglio speech at passion a few years back in which he talked of our ability to be either a star in our own story, or take a small role in gods story. i saw the people in our imaginary grocery store walking encased in their own personal bubbles, each living oblivious to the factors affecting one anothers lives. i then saw god outside of this and wanted  somehow to break free from my bubble and be in his. now his bubble was quite a bit larger than mine but contained all of these other bubbles and afforded glimpses into each of them. to always recognize that others are not in fact perpetually grumpy, or always as mad as they were when they were stuck on the toothpaste aisle, but that they are regular people going through a life much like ours and searching for the same things we are...joy, peace, comfort, security, love, teeth to eat the kiwi that they've rinsed in the vegetable sprayer...or otherwise.

the scope of gods story seems to suggest that his bubble is much more exciting than mine. and maybe when we leave our bubbles and join him we might find the things weve all been searching for.

Posted in: on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at at 12:52 AM 0 comments  

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paulo coelho, author of the alchemist, along with many other fantastic books, has been rocking my face off again. i can't even begin to convey the insights into life/love/humanity/god that he provides in his writing, but i can say, "go and get one of his books...any of them...and your life will more than likely get flipped upside down".

Posted in: on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at at 9:41 PM 0 comments  

that happened.

Posted in: on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 at at 9:10 AM 1 comments  

brooke waggoner, the damnwells, paper route, wild sweet orange

Posted in: on Saturday, March 08, 2008 at at 10:41 AM 0 comments  

sunday i got to check "run a marathon" off of the short list of things i want to do before i die. given that the times i get to check things off that list are few and far between, it was an exciting day.  i'll spare you the play by play and give you just a couple of the highlights:

have you heard about the guy who does triathlons and other events with his quadriplegic son...well he was there. his son was strapped into some sort of cart that he pushes along as he runs. it's one of the more amazing stories if you haven't heard of them. he actually pushed/carried his son for an entire iron man triathlon a while back. here's a video from it that would make a grown onion cry. (if you watch it with the idea of the dad pushing his helpless son being like god carrying us along...you'll cry...a lot...just so you know)

speaking of crying, my personal highlight was a little past mile 25: so, i've always heard that marathon's are very emotional things toward the end. i never really gave it much thought until yesterday, but at this point in the race the thought came into play. now we all know that i do not cry (due to my self diagnosed "under-active tear ducts") but i got as close to it as you can get without tears actually leaving your eyeballs. why, you ask? well, part of the story involves a high school band. the other part is some bible imagery. there's that whole image of running a race correlating to the christian life. running the race and having the encouragement of those who have gone before us to push us on. this imagery pops into my head as i round one of the final curves in the road and hear people cheering us on, and see us running, limping, jogging, walking, toward the end with whatever we have left in us. given the weariness of my body i may have had some sort of emotional response at this point anyway but the little band i mentioned earlier now comes into play because what are they playing/singing: "when the saints come marching in". having that song as the background to my thoughts added so much to the weight of the imagery that the tear ducts almost couldn't handle it. that moment alone was definitely worth not being able to walk for the past two days.

Posted in: on Monday, February 25, 2008 at at 7:14 PM 0 comments  

greg laswell, rosie thomas, jeremy casella, obadiah parker

Posted in: on Tuesday, February 05, 2008 at at 8:08 PM 0 comments  

your new favorite site...and not just because it's my new favorite site:

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a couple of new songs on the myspace page...which is, by the by, now much easier on the eyes.

Posted in: on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at at 10:53 PM 0 comments  

the national, joshua james, the weepies, ben lee

Posted in: on Thursday, January 03, 2008 at at 6:49 PM 0 comments  

Posted in: on Monday, December 31, 2007 at at 11:58 AM 0 comments  

so we were sitting around at dinner last night and this was the conversation that occured:

dad: did you know that when you were in first or second grade the class had to say who their heroes were...and you wrote down pele and george burns.

me: awesome

mom: the other guys put things like "my dad". i think he felt left out.

me: i'm sticking by my choices...i think they were fantastic...did the teacher know who george burns was?

dad: that's what i'm still wondering

Posted in: on Monday, December 24, 2007 at at 9:55 PM 0 comments  

i found this a rather enjoyable read. though i haven't even seen the movie beyond the trailer, i think we can all enjoy the witty banter in this paste review of the movie entitled:

Posted in: on Saturday, December 08, 2007 at at 4:03 PM 0 comments  

paolo nutini, missy higgins, the avett brothers, the robbie seay band

Posted in: on Tuesday, December 04, 2007 at at 2:07 PM 0 comments  

if you like good music...and you like things that are a good time...then go to the paste magazine website and get yourself a year subscription....and pay whatever you feel like paying...mmhmm....you get to name your price. all year for $1 or $1000....whatever you feel like. and if you dont know about paste...its amazing. along with the obviously great music stuff in the magazine itself you get a sampler cd of seriously awesome music each month. do it...if for no other reason than me begging you to. do it.

Posted in: on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at at 6:59 PM 0 comments  

the other day a group of up jumped in a van drove and hour to baton rouge to see hillsong united. (for anyone who doesnt know the awesomeness out of australia that is hillsong united:
they have been probably the most influential band in my life the past half a year or so because of the amazing worship music they put out there and the fact that the churches i have been involved with have all been a fan of using their stuff.) so, hillsong i love and the way that they do worship and it's amazing music, amazing everything in general, etc.



well the van rolled up a mere 15 before they were to hit the stage and the rather large church at which they were playing was already packed and the fire marshall was making them close the doors. well needless to say we were a bit dissapointed as we were pointed in the direction of the outdoor screen from which we could watch the events inside. here is where i decide to do my own thing. as the rest of the group found a place outside i decided that i would go scout a way to the promise land of the sanctuary. so i struck out on my lonesome and wandered back around the church. i found myself at a side door through which some of the staff was going back and forth and in the midst of a few others dedicated to the idea of getting in. we soon realized that there were in fact a few seats left in the glorious promise land and that one of the staff was counting them out by going in and tracking them down and then returning to this side door to let in groups in the amounts which seats were being found. so we formed a....less of a line...more of a ....oh yes....mob and waited. he would come back and forth and grab those he thought had been waiting longest and let people in. well, in one of the groups that got in i found myself whooshed and in i was. so were you excited? you ask...i'll tell you. i was. kind of. as i was swooped inside the doors i caught sight of one girl who had been waiting longer than i had, who had already seen her friends go in and was still waiting and as i looked back through the glass of the doors i felt like crap. so...i tried to go in but couldnt and came back to ask the door security if i could go switch with her because she had been wating longer....to which his answer was dont worry about it just go in....and i was mildly shocked at this response here at a church but listened and went in. one song later (which i had decided was as far as i could go without feeling like the most selfish person ever) i returned to the door to once again loby for the girls entry. the guy at the door this time was willing to let us switch but as i looked out at the few still waiting i saw not the familiar little hat of the girl. she had made it i hoped...and when i said she was not there he said that he had walked across the room for a minute and the door had somehow been opened allowing a group of 15 or so to rush in...to which i replied "good...i mean not good for the fire code marshal thing....but good that she got in....but not good..." to which he replied with a "yes...not good about the fire code." and i returned to watch the rest of the excitement with a much less guilty conscious and it was freaking amazing.



so in conclusion i am glad that i decided to try to get in since hillsong is only in the states a couple weeks of the year and why oh why they were in baton rouge only an hour away i have no idea...but it was fantastic and though i found myself to be waffling on being incredibly selfish i think in the end things turned out ok. so if you get the chance to go see them...show up a little early.

Posted in: on Sunday, November 18, 2007 at at 7:41 PM 0 comments  

Some new pics from around town over at the flickr...

Posted in: on Monday, November 05, 2007 at at 2:06 AM 0 comments  

i was on the bbc news online today and came across some interesting things:

a. the bbc has changed their look. they now have a british home page and an international one which, i hear, may soon have advertizements.

b. the delhi deputy mayor was killed by a pack of monkeys who attacked him in his home and knocked him off of his balcony. that, while an interesting story, was not what caught my eye. it was, in fact, the part of the article where they adresses some of the proposed solutions to the problem of the monkey infestation the city faces. in particular the option of training larger more ferocious monkeys to chase the smaller less ferocious ones (the ones that did this) out of town. pause. something seems a bit off with that idea. anyone?

c. dumbledore way gay. oh yeah, he was in love with gellert grindelwald. j.k. told me.

Posted in: on Sunday, October 21, 2007 at at 6:57 PM 0 comments  

sorry not to have posted in the past month or so but it has been a bit chaotic recently. not that i havent had a chance to post but i have been traveling quite a bit and therefore exploring new places instead of being online. so....when last i blogged i was at camp. running the camp store for a couple of weeks was a great experience but one that happened, to my mind, ages ago. since then i have been to fayetteville for a couple of weddings while spending a week with my parents, to visit lee and kyle in wilmington and get my one day of nc beach in for the summer (way not enough nc beach), through raleigh/chapel hill and to the dash for a few days before traveling to chattanooga to visit deeds on my way to the woodlands, tx, which is 45minutes or so north of houston. i also like run-on sentences. i stayed in the woodlands for a month taking care of a house for a family that moved to kazakhstan and meeting some great folks as well as finding one of the most amazing churches i have ever encountered or could ever even make up. after a month there filled with relaxing, playing my guitar, and hanging out with awesome folks i packed up again and drove east to NOLA, the big easy, good ole' new orleans where i will be for the next year. my new job is being a human grant. for real. i work for americorps and ngo's applied to get us to work for them to aid in the rebuilding process. so that's me. a living grant, applied for and recieved. i get to do what i did earlier this summer over in slidell, ie be an onsite leader of volunteer groups coming down to help rebuild homes in the area, learning and then imediately teaching construction techniques and making sure the teams have tools and whatever they need and that things run smoothly, etc. it's been a bumpy start so far but a good one too. more on that later though. for now that i think is all. i am nervous/excited about the year and ready for all the training and orienting that is going on now to be over so that my group and i can get down to doing what we all came for, helping people for whom, two years out, little has changed.

Posted in: on Monday, September 10, 2007 at at 2:13 AM 0 comments  

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today i was talking with a friend over an old question. how can you tell what god wants you to do with your life? how can you know what path he wants you to take? something along those lines anyway, however you want to phrase it. the question you ask when you have no idea what god wants you to do or what path he wants you to take, and it seems like he has given you way to many options or none at all. i've been stuck on that question at various times in my life, but it was my friend who happened to be stuck there today. having not really spent any time recently gathering my thoughts on the question i was interested to see what my brain would spit out in response. out spilled a sum up of, i guess, my most recent take on the christian life and i will try to sum up my sum up.

i guess we arent really talking about what god wants us to do on little stuff here, this is mostly like "what does god want my prefession to be" sort of stuff. but i will sum up on the little stuff first. i've noticed things recently such as the fact that god and the writers of the bible pretty much assume that the christian will be serving others, meeting needs, giving of what they have(financial, time, etc.), especially to the needy(orphan, widow, homeless, etc.). they speak to this stuff in terms of when you do it, not saying that you should, its just a given. so thats something. in the small, day to day, its a given that we are to give, love, share, build up, be the samaritan to the person everyone else is walking past.

so in christianese we are saying that our life is a ministry regardless of what our prefession is. in non-christianese(which i like) we are saying that we will experience life as it was meant to be lived when we love those we come into contact with and give willingly of what we have been blessed with, etc(continue on with anything that lifestyle might produce) without any regard to who those benefiting are(whether they are in with the christians or not). theres a lot there and stuff that i would love to adress (like how we as christians give all of our words bad connotations, ie ministry sounds like a job not like the lifestyle i described in the non-christianese section just now) but i'll save that for another time and we can move on.

as far as the big stuff i have moved past trying to figure out the whole what is the exact one thing that god is calling me to. i've got this idea that he wants me to be myself. the me he created me to be. i think the me he created is passionate about life and people and him and that he wants me to seek out the life that fuels that passion within me. if i am pursuing the things that i am passionate about and allowing myself to be the me that he created then i think i am in his will and am where he has called me to be.

Posted in: on at at 9:03 PM 0 comments  

well i'm back again with another update. nothing exciting except another location change. after a week in indiana, spent at my aunt and uncle's house in the woods, i returned to the 'ville for a couple days and then after a brief swing thought the dash i made my way down to slidell, la. Having been here for a couple weeks i'm now headed back up to nc, etc.

observations on each of my locations:
batesville, indiana: has a lot of farmland and narrow hilly unlined roads. there are also very few bugs.

fayetteville: doesnt change

winst: the mellow is wonderful...and a magnet for all that is emo.

slidell: has a lot of snow cone stands...they are all good.

Posted in: on Tuesday, June 19, 2007 at at 5:44 PM 2 comments  

i'm about to leave for indiana with my parents to see my grandpa, aunt, and uncle. we'll be there for a week and i'm looking forward to resting and relaxing by a pond outside of batesville indiana. we've got books, fishing poles, and golf clubs ready to go as well as the camera, which having spent a year at my side has grown roots into me...ie i'll be shooting portraits of the fam all week for old times sake...and maybe stalking down a few animals for close ups.

ps: an update. we are now at a courtyard marriott about halfway to indiana because my parents are the wimpiest travelers ever and couldnt even sit in the car past 9:45 while i drove. jeeze. peaceful pond i'm coming...soon-ish.

Posted in: on Sunday, June 03, 2007 at at 2:09 PM 2 comments  

ps i'm moving...

june:
3-10 visiting aunt, uncle, g-pa in indiana whom i havent seen in a few years.
11-16/17 visiting friends as i make my way to slidel, la.
rest of the month relief work in la.

july/aug. ?
at some point making my way to the woodlands, tx. (just outside of houston)
finding a job, etc.

...more info as i figure it out.

Posted in: on Sunday, May 20, 2007 at at 1:22 AM 1 comments  

so here's another blast from the past...not mario, i'll get to that, but another picture/story (though slightly shorter i hope):



When i was a kid, like age 2 all the way through high school, one of my best friends, Roddy, lived just down the road from me. There was a brief few years where we didn't live by each other but in the end both of our families ended up back in the same neighborhood as each other albeit all the way across town from the original neighborhood. I tell you this to preface a story, which is the story i plan on prefacing the post with. that may make sense in a minute.

I'm using paragraphs here per the request of Justin Lewis. So, as children we were always making up stories. Roddy mostly of how he was related to nearly every person of any importance regardless of race or nationality or era of human history. As a matter of rule we would refer to all people, that he could not attach himself to through his wandering bloodlines, as former college roomates. every story about anyone began, "back in 65 when pele and i were roomates at ucla" or something of that nature. i tell this story because i want to begin my story about this picture with, "back in college..." and i want you to know that the ficticious stories of my childhood are gone and i have in fact been to college and finished have had several roomates though not quite as many in my 4 and a half years at wake as i did in 65 alone.

Your welcome Justin. Back in college...(the story begins) i attended a college ministry at first presbyterian church and to this day remain connected with the ministry. As with all minitries there were yearly service trips to various locations in and out of the states and on more than one occasion i found myself in an orphanage in guatemala as well as in our nations capitol. i'll let you guess which location the pic up top is from.

the trip to d.c. falls after the finals of fall semester and before one makes their way home for christmas. i wish it was less obvious why that fact is important for the picture but in fact it is quite obvious and therefore i will say that the temperature in which we apear to be swimming laps in was quite not warm.

durring the d.c. trip one is exposed to quite possibly the earliest mornings a college student will ever face. up before dawn to serve breakfast to the homeless at a breakfast/worship service with rev. green and pastor brown, one of which became a pastor only after having spent most of his early life as a pimp. makes for a great testimony and at the same time no one can ever try the "i'm so bad that jesus can't love me" excuse with him because he has always done more crazy stuff than they have by far. so, anyway thats the morning. singing and listening and eating and it's great. after that you head off to deliver food, or prepare food at some kitchen, or hang out with kids in anacostia (which by the way is the scaries place ever...wiki it). needless to say that all the work and long hours can wear one out and therefore they schedule in a day to rest. for one afternoon we get to go up to the mall and talk to people about homelesness in the city/do a bit of being a tourist and check out some of the monuments and museums. that is the day in the picture. brooks smith, on the right, and myself decided that for some reason we would add the swimming shot to the long list of our antics for the week. we froze, pedestrians looked at us as if were were the dumbest people ever, but we loved it. in fact apart from the pic of the "giant joint" this one is i think my favorite of the ones we took that week.

ok to sum up, i'll clarify the "giant joint", other antics, and mario kart. one night we were dropped in the international district with money to eat wherever we chose. for the unlucky of us we happened upon and ethiopian restraunt with the worst food ever. i was nearly convinced that the hunger situation over there is not a result of not having food but of the sheer inedibility of it. this story deserves a bit more than it will get but in the end we rolled the green mush that we were served up in the round sheet of spongy bread on which it came and had what looked to be a 2 foot joint. we found other ways to amuse ourselves though apart from playing with our food. brooks and i played make out chicken with our leaders and left them with quite possibly the most shocked expresions i have ever seen. amy's jaw dropped in sheer horror and stayed for nearly 2 minutes as we all rolled around laughing on the sidewalk. along with sidewalks we rolled elsewhere. ever time brooks or i crossed an intersection with enough cars to warrant action we would fall and spill as many of our belongings as we could about. it's so funny to watch people try not to laugh at you for falling in an intersection. and, last but not least, if you ever find yourself lying on your back at the base of the washington monument, think rainbow road. once again sorry for not proofreading.

Posted in: on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 at at 9:45 PM 1 comments  

i'm thinking about starting to put some pictures into posts just to give them some color. along with that i'm thinking that a story about the pictures could be fun. so here's the first one:


this picture was taken on a trip to costa rica shortly after graduating from Wake. Taylor Detchon and myself decided a couple months before graduating that a trip was in order. He did all the research and proposed the idea of going to Costa Rica and learning to surf. I said sure. We then waited to see if the thing would come to fruition. One afternoon while i was working at 6th and Vine, a local restaurant, i got a call from Taylor and he relayed to me from his computer screen a remarkably low price on tickets to Costa Rica the day after graduation. My response was of course, "I'm in." So we got the tickets and we were on our way. Now earlier when i said that Tayor did all the research those people who know the two of us got an idea of where the story goes from here. The rest of you can figure it out on the way. We arrived in San Jose with the basic knowledge that we were going toward Mal Pais and that there should be some form of cheap bus/taxi/ferry system to get us there. We had no reservations, no contacts, nothing other that the knowledge that we should be able to get there. We grabbed a taxi from the airport(almost the priciest mistake of the trip, but only $50 or so between the two of us) which took up from San Jose to Puntarenas and dropped us at the ferry station. We made it in time for the last one across to Paquera that night and relaxed while we waited to get on. Once aboard we found some other travelers and struck up conversation about locations and conditions (aparently there was "bone break flu" going around near Montezuma and it was best to avoid it for a week or so...but our friends were ignoring the warning and going for it anyway. i mean who cares if you bones feel like they're breaking. the rumor being that this flu strain literally made you feel like your bones were breaking inside you. we on the other hand were not headed into bone break territory till the end of the trip and by then we would be in the clear.) the ride itself was surreal and we were fairly exhilirated at the thought that merely a day prior we had been receiving our diplomas back in North Carolina and now we were crossing the golfo de nicoya on a ferry with no real destination on the other side other than a beach of some sort out on the peninsula. We chatted with some other passengers about the area into which were were headed and found that there was in fact a small pizeria in mal pais they claimed was one of the best they had ever tried. we made mental note to try and find it at some point and got rough directions to its location. now my story is getting long so you will be glad to know that here is where the abridging comes in. the full story describes the random bits of chance luck that made this entire trip work perfectly and allowed us to have one of the best trips ever without having planed nary a whit of it but we will move on the the end. so, the very last evening as we prepared for our return to Puntarenas from Mal Pais, from whence we would travel on to San Jose the next day and then back to the States, we went in search of the pizeria as our last treat in paradise. I will set the scene of the area for you before we are actually seated. Mal Pais was in fact not the place where we ended up staying, but in a similar town a mile up the coast called Santa Theresa. Both are a part of this isolated surfing supported comunity on the coast of Costa Rica's peninsula accessed only by one dirt road that had been washed out and impasible only weeks before we had arrived and which spat a rented suv off of its muddy surface and into a ditch moments before we ourselves made our way out. (somehow there is a bus that actually travels on the road regularly.) Once your into the area there is one road that runs up the coastline lined with hostels, surf shops, restaurants, and...thats it. there is one market for groceries and the houses of the locals which are well off of the road and then the hotels, shops, and restaurants repeated one after another for at least two miles, then nothing. Oh, and each of the restaurants is either showing surfing videos which make you feel high even when you are not or jean claude van dam movies on repeat which tends to have to same effect. so that is the scene and its the most wonderful setup ever. where the main road come in and T's with the coastal road there is a small tail that extends across to make it a full on intersection though there are only a couple of stores on the other side and it soon runs itself out on the beach. there we find the pizeria. last building on the right. a roof and a kitchen and an eating area with no walls and a floor that is weathered wood raised a few inches off of... the beach. we order a hawaiian pizza (i dont care if you like them, i didnt, but here you like them.) while we waited for it to come we walked out on to the beach to watch the sunset and the result is the above picture. upon returning from our ten foot walk down the beach we sat and recieved one of the best pizzas i have ever tasted along with two squirts to drink and the company of the largest english sheepdog ever to exist at our side. the scene will probably go down forever as the most movie-esq moment of my life. now if you'll excuse me i have to run without proofreading this to deliver oreo's with my roomate to exam ridden college students. hopefully some of them will have an exciting adventure of their own when they finish up.

Posted in: on Thursday, May 03, 2007 at at 9:15 PM 2 comments  

unknowingly i posted my 100th post last time without making any comment on the milestone. having reached the century mark i feel like much more of a legit blogger. i also feel that it solidifies the rumors that i am bilogically linked to my computer. you may now classify me as a full fledged computer-a-holic. that being said this is post 101.

i went to cookout last night on the way home from work to grab a burger and perhaps a shake. i ordered the food part of the meal and then looked down the list of shake options planning to knock off one more on my way to trying each flavor. there was nothing. not one shake on that list i hadn't had. that is except for the elusive watermelon available only in the summer, i think maybe even just july and august. so there it is. i will check that off my list of thing to do before i die as soon as cookout gets that first shipment of ripe watermelon-y goodness.

Posted in: on Sunday, April 29, 2007 at at 9:42 PM 2 comments  

i'm sure many of you web savy folks out there have already done this but for those a bit behind, like me, who haven't seen this yet make your way over to google maps. if you happen to miss your flight to europe and need an alternate route they've got a good one for you. try oh new york to london and enjoy part 23 of your journey. or really anywhere from the states to anywhere over there for that matter. should make for an interesting trip.

Posted in: on Monday, April 16, 2007 at at 3:18 PM 0 comments  

newish song on the myspace page. oh how i love recording on my little broken mic.

Posted in: on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at at 12:34 AM 0 comments  

it's time for a "100 things i want to do before i die" update:

my most recent project has been to polish off my attempt to taste every flavor of cookout milkshake. its going well and i'm now down to my last few even though they've gone from the original 36 to somewhere near 50 flavor combinations. the most expensive part of this experience? definitely the running shoes i got to run off the 500 pounds i'm sure to gain.

Posted in: on Thursday, April 05, 2007 at at 11:23 PM 2 comments  

i dont think that ive intentionally had a grudge against anyone in quite a while but i caught myself struggling with something like that past few days. theres this girl at work who tends to do anything that is in her best interest and pretty much rest of us be damnded. it drives me crazy but i dont really know what do do about it. so the other night i was thinking about stuff she had just pulled and really had made up my mind to be not on good terms with her at work, perhaps not even on speaking terms. having this plan in head i went on about my evening which consisted of god saying "hey you realize thats not at all the way i do things" and me saying "oh hey yeah youre right i didnt even think about that". but i still really wanted to hold it against her. i mean logically thinking its going to affect my mood much more than hers if i happen to be mad at her. so what was the proper course? i mean i know im probably supposed to forgive a lack of character on her part and treat her same as i would if she wasnt so obnoxious but at the same time her choices affect more than just myself. they affect all of us willing to pick up the slack. thus we all become more tired, touch, run-down, and worn out than we should be. oh to have some legit teamwork in that place. one rotten apple i guess. do i speak my frustration on behalf of others who feel it too or do i suck it up as inevitable? guess we'll see.

Posted in: on at at 11:03 PM 0 comments  

i'm trying to compile a list. a really big list. it's the "things i need to do before i die" kind of thing. ie: skydive, visit Machu Picchu, hike the AT, spend a month with my grandpa compiling the epic tales of great grandpa Reinking, live in Africa, scuba dive, take a trip just me and my dad, learn to sail, run a marathon, become fluent in at least one more language, heli-ski, be in times square for a new years, learn to fly fish, etc. Now obviously those have a lot to do with travel and i can't have an entire list comprised of places i want to go and big time consuming events so i'm in need of small stuff as well. thats where i'm stuck. so i'm going to the online lists of must dos, looking at books, and polling anyone who wants to respond to this little blog post of mine with recomendations. any suggestions are welcome!

thanks,
-kg

ps: 100 seems like a good number so that's what i'm shooting for but i really only need 80 or so given that i have probably already done at least 20 things by now in my life that i can put in as the others. stay tuned for a posting of the final list. it may take a little while.

Posted in: on Thursday, March 15, 2007 at at 11:16 PM 3 comments  

it's been one of those nights. it's funny how they come out of nowhere. things are going along fine and then all of a sudden youre struck with a longing for something more. james is gone for the week on a spring break trip to louisiana to help with continued katrina relief efforts. i am therefore here alone. i dont know what happens when you grow up but something about it has left me frightened of being left alone, just me and my thoughts. i remember back when i was a kid i loved silence. i would lay in the back yard for hours staring up into the clouds and soaking up the beauty. now silence scares me. if i'm alone i keep music going constantly. anything to aviod facing my conscious, my god, the hurts, the junk that has filled up my head in the time between that backyard and now. if i could have one thing tonight it would be peace with a past i may never understand and with a future that i cannot see, peace with a god who has already handed it to me, and a release from the things i grasp there in the corners of my mind. i would wave goodbye to doubt and fear and lay back with nothing weighing on my mind to the sweet sound of silence and think only of the beauty of my god. in the meantime i'll fall asleep once more with a song..."and we watch and wait and do nothing but sigh and hope everything is gonna turn out right"

Posted in: on at at 1:09 AM 0 comments  

has anyone ever noticed that for every year of life there is a song that has you covered? i mean in high school when i was a freshman...the verve pipe song freshman came out. when i was 17 and 18 there were country songs from tim and i think maybe kenny that came out referencing my age. even now that i'm in my 20's its still going on. 23 kenday payne, 24 switchfoot, and now that i'm 25 i've got snow patrol's chocolate for company. opening lines, "this could be there very minute i'm aware i'm alive, all these places feel like home. with a name i've never chosen i can make my first steps as a child of 25..."

not sure what 26 holds for me songwise but i'm sure its out there. for this year though i'll enjoy the one i've got.

Posted in: on Saturday, March 10, 2007 at at 10:18 AM 0 comments  

i went to see 300 tonight with a few guys. it being opening night was pretty cool and it was pretty freaking packed. but all of my excitement was not disapointed, the movie was great and i've now got the urge to go fight someone...but not really i dont want to get hurt. i am though left with this overwhelming respect and admiration, as i am after any movie where people fight for something they believe, for the spartains. there is something so amazing about people with such a strong sense of honor and courage and duty and all that good stuff that they would never compromise what they believe. i am so jealous of it sometimes. i look at my own life and the things i believe. ie everything about christ and god and i wish that i was so uncompromising. i mean its not that there are large glaring failures in my relationship with god but the fact is that i fail all the time in little ways, and going against my god on little stuff when i want my own way is just as bad as doing something big. so there's a new prayer for myself. i want to be as uncompromising and as passionate about remaining true to my god as those guys on the big screen are about staying true to each other and their way of life. thanks sparta.

Posted in: on at at 12:07 AM 0 comments  

obviously given the topic of my last post love has been on my mind recently. oddly enough it has not been the type in the last post. more of the type referenced in the preceeding three posts.

i have this growing feeling that i might really want to love my god and that he might really want to love me. now i dont understand him and why he would let me get lost for two hours in charlotte while my friend waited patiently for me to meet her for dinner but i for some reason dont know that i have to know why. let me go back to that one. i mean i was mad last night, really mad. i was certain that there was no one benefiting from the fact that every set of directions i recieved for those two hours was way off. and i was furious at god, not because i was tired of driving around, but because my friend was having to suffer from my plight. but now i seem to think that i dont have to know why everything happens, and as much as i didnt think god was very helpfull last night i guess im still going to hold onto the idea that i am a part of his bride and that hes in love with me. so why do i have this feeling? i think that its due to all the stuff about worship i've been writing. i have experienced worship consistently for the past couple of months within the most genuine group i have found in a long time. i barely know any of the people there but regardless of our lives away from that place for the time that we are there we are all in the presence of our love. he is there with us and we are pouring out our hearts in song and prayer to him. what happens in that place is real. i'll come back to the thing i love most. by the end of the worship we have all nearly lost our voices and are belting out in cracking off pitchedness (including those leading the singing) the final repeted shouts of our praise to our god. there is something in the intensity of the worship and the passion of it that i love. it's like pastor alans sermons. theres nothing much to take away from them that is tangible. not a big lesson or a long list of to-dos, but just the feeling of having just been in gods presence and experienced him. to know a passionate love such as our gods can only inspire it within you. and that for me is the only thing that can inspire it. i am always told to be overwhelmed by the love christ demonstrated way back when on the cross. it has never done so. not once. i for some reason have always lived in the present. oh im grateful and happy that he did it but its past. show me a god that loves me here and now and youll get me going. show me a god who holds me in his grasp who whispers to me every hour of every day how much he loves me and you have my attention. it is the god that im beginning to believe still loves me, that i might just really want to love.

ps: this is in no way a shot at the upcoming easter holiday. im sure there are some people who are greatly impacted by the past and im all for that. its just not me at this point. also this "starting to believe thing" is a bit of a throwback to a back in the day blog about how awesome it would be if we as christians really believed what we said was true. ie: me really believing that god loves me, not just "knowing", would be pretty sweet.

Posted in: on Tuesday, March 06, 2007 at at 10:14 PM 0 comments  

unnecessary information that i figured out today...

i havent dated anyone in like 6 years. that means since i was in my teens. i dont know what the record is but i think im doing pretty well.

in a related story my roomate once told a girl i was asexual...which is in fact not the case although from the track record above i can see where one might get that idea.

id like to say im working on the situation but i dont know if i see any highened efforts into the dating scene on the horizon.

Posted in: on Sunday, March 04, 2007 at at 1:44 AM 2 comments  

QOTW:
"Obsession is a young man's game."
-old guy in The Prestige

other thoughts:
this guy allen, a pastor, is pretty awesome. he speaks at this worship thing i go to on saturdays and never fail he brings to each talk a severe passion for god. it's so awesome. his messages are not very typical and last week he mentioned that his wife pointed out to him that they are in fact not even always that practical. there is something about this whole worship thing that is fairly impractical and i think there may be something to that. i know it's been said before that we are not necessarily supposed to get anything from a worship service, in fact the name would suggest that we are there not for ourselves but to worship our creator. i find though that most pastors give us something to work on, get better at, a way to improve our christian life, love better, pray better, not sin better, but save till the end a few brief words directed at the love of christ which is the solution to whatever problem or task they have spoken to. why not skip all the other stuff and go straight to love. if its the solution for all of the other stuff then why not just always talk about it. talk about experiencing it and stuff so that when we do experience it we wont wonder what it is. this is sort of what allen does. he talks about gods love for us. and he speaks from his experience. pulling out of his own life experiences of gods faithful love. there is something in that as well. the more a pastor teaches about scripture the more it becomes a classroom. the more he makes it a part of his life the more life changing and overwhelming the gospel becomes. as i see it now a worship service ought to flow from worship to worship to worship in different forms. singing or listening, proclaiming the love of god for us and reminding us why we have gathered in his presence, basking in his love and he in return basking in our love for him. for though we come to worship it is not a thing that starts with us. we rarely come already overwhelmed with him to the point of worship, no he is there loving us already but we have forgetten that he is. in remembering it once again we then can begin to worship.

thats what we have been thinking about for a few weeks. this god that we come to loves us so much. he loves us always and this will not change ever for anything. no matter what day it is, no matter our attitude, god is not swayed. his love for us is not affected by us. it is just love. he desires to pour it out upon us and for us to live intoxicated by it. there is something so amazing about the times when we dont need practicality in our life, in our church. worship, or love for that matter, is best when there is no regard for common sense. mary pouring a jar of perfume on jesus' feet that cost way to much to waste. god and his bride casting aside all that anyone else would find of value to be together, to bring a smile to the face of the other. that is love and what happens in real worship.

Posted in: on Monday, February 26, 2007 at at 6:51 PM 0 comments  

i have recently become re-obsessed with a song from the first ten shekel shirt cd. unashamed love. lyrically it's r.m.f.o.

"You're calling me to lay aside the worries of my day, to quiet down my busy mind and find a hiding place..."

fairly perfect start to a worship song...and probably the most accurate description of what god's doing to me at the moment. as i am obsessed with it i've been playing it a lot on the guitar and james agreed to accompany me tonight on the djembe. post-song we decided to have a worship song per night. well i wanted to and he has agreed to apease me. i'm excited about it.

Posted in: on Thursday, February 15, 2007 at at 11:01 PM 1 comments  

a couple of thoughts:

a. i recently remembered my love for costa rican culture and the fact that i somehow recieved the attitude and lifestyle of that society though i was born and raised in NC. need proof? here's a brief passage from wikipedia that should be convincing enough.

"Ticos are normally very friendly, helpful, laid-back, unhurried, educated, hygienic, non-violent and environmentally aware people. They worry little about deadlines and arrive late to many appointments. For Ticos, spending quality time with family and friends is paramount and most people prefer jobs that allow them free time."

need more? here, read on.

b. i've really been craving community. in the church kind of sense. i have had very little in the way of church, corporate worship, and/or discussion of god and that sort of stuff recently given that i work on sunday most of the time and that my schedule in general is fairly chaotic. so, first off, i decided to listen to some charlie hall this morning on the way to work. marvelous light is one of my favorite songs. this was the first time i'd listened to it in like half a year probably and so i had it stuck in my head and really wanted to pull out the guitar when i got home and play it. well, before i could i actually went to a worship sort of service called verge over at reynolda pres that they have on saturday nights. i walk in and what do you think was the first song gene had picked out for the evening? oh yeah, marvelous light. i love the "coincidence" of it. god is good.
god then proceded to provide me with the worship that i had so longed for. it was great. singing with a group of people to our god. and it was real and genuine. we all belted it out so long and hard that by the last song we had all nearly lost our voices and could only weakly offer up the last few lines with cracking straining voices. i loved it. god is good.

Posted in: on Sunday, February 11, 2007 at at 12:59 AM 0 comments  

A- i learned to do a hand roll at my kayak roll class sunday. basically that means i can roll my kayak without using my paddle and i'm really excited about that.

B- i took this week off from my fiji water. instead of fiji i picked up a case of aquafina at the grocery on monday. why? just to remind my self why i drink fiji. it's so much better than everything else.

Posted in: on Monday, February 05, 2007 at at 2:27 AM 0 comments