KGBlog

one time long long ago....i think i was in my first or second year of college....i decided that when i got my first real job i would buy, with my first paycheck, a kayak. amusingly, i remembered this semi-pact with myself a few days ago and ironically i am in the midst of training for my job and waiting patiently for said first pay check. so now i have a dilemma. do i in fact go through with said decision made so many years ago? i'm debating but at this point i think it could be amusing. i mean i always thought they would be pretty pricey but in fact they really arent too bad. so anyway....i'll let you know how this story ends as soon as it comes to one. until then here are the options: a pyranha and a wavesport...clearly both very similar.

Posted in: on Sunday, October 29, 2006 at at 9:17 PM 1 comments  

i am happy. it's becoming one of my favorite seasons. i'll tell you how i know. even with winston's fluxuating weather patterns durring the months when summer goes winter and vice versa, there is one day when to me fall has arrived. the other day i arrived home and exited my car to the scent of fall. someone somewhere in this town has started a fire. the scent of a fire while driving along is one of life's subtle but great pleasures. and the first wiff on a brisk fall evening really gets me. it's a sign that jackets will start coming out of the closet, scarves are on the way, fuzzy little hats and all those wonderful wintery clothing accesories. now its not just the clothes that do it for me. this whole weather change means that people are about to start being festive. we americans may drop the ball on having legit holidays all year round like some countries but we really get going come this time of year. i mean the pumpkins are out, shortly followed by thanksgiving, which is quickly moved right on through in search of christmas, which is followed closely by new years to kind of start weaning us out of holiday mode, then valentine's day for those of us who didnt quite get the holidays out of our system with they other four. and finally easter to hold us over until the next time round. now there are a few others and there is the 4th as kind of a kind of a midway marker but these are the ones that create...well stress in some cases, but in others they create giving and lots of hanging out with friends and fam. and i am all for those. anyway, before i keep rambling off into lala land. i, clearly, was very happy at the scent of someone's little bonfire somewhere off in "the dash" the other night. it signaled the start of....sigh. plus i really freaking just enjoy that smell.

Posted in: on Sunday, October 22, 2006 at at 1:49 AM 2 comments  

monday i start training for my job. i get to live in charlotte for two weeks because thats where the headquarters are for the portrait studio. they're putting us up in a really sweet extended stay hotel that from the pictures looks a lot like my apartment. i'm kind of excited about that. i am also very excited about doing something. anything really. i have wasted the past week of my life sitting around here on the computer/watching movies, which sounds nice but after a while...you know that feeling in high school at the end of the summer when you're sitting there like "hmm, yep i've done everything i can think of to do...i really can't wait for school to start back so i can be on a schedule." that's where i am. it's been an amazing summer/beginning of fall but at this point i need to be on a schedule...oh yeah and making money because i don't have any (part of the reason i sit around the apt, because if i don't go out i won't have to pay for stuff). anyway, i am looking forward to some interesting times in the queen city.

let me just reiterate that the place we are staying is really awesome. not only does it look like my apt but we get lots of free meals, free internet(unheard of in todays hotels), free laundry, there's a freaking kitchen in the suites. i'm sure there's more, oh and don't have to pay for any of it. i'm so amused by the small things.

Posted in: on Friday, October 20, 2006 at at 3:54 PM 0 comments  

i guess maybe i'm tired of my colors and background and stuff...which is evident in the fact that i keep changing things up on the blog. so if it looks different every time you happen by don't worry. i'll stick with something soon. maybe.

ps:thanks for visiting!

Posted in: on Thursday, October 19, 2006 at at 2:30 AM 1 comments  

sorry if i jumped the gun with the candy corn background...maybe i'll wait till its actually halloween and then try it again. also: juengel's cd is on itunes

Posted in: on Thursday, October 12, 2006 at at 12:34 PM 0 comments  

lets not lie...that title makes this sound like the most directionless post ever...but its not. it really is a post about stuff. like things. like i was reading the Lewis blog and noticed a verse from the bible directing us not to store up treasure on earth where they can be destroyed and stolen. i'm wondering about the verse and what it is telling me. is it telling me not to have stuff. to live without things or nice things anyway. or is it saying that the things i do have are not to be my treasure. and if i dont treat them as treasure, if i assign to them a proper value is it ok to have them? if my treasure is things that will not pass away, friends, family, relationships that one would assume carry into the life we live after this? if my treasures are things of real value and not the nice stuff here?

my thoughts: i have always felt that i should not try to have a lot of nice stuff...that my money could be helping other people instead. is there a line though? should you give and give till you have nothing or should you "take care of number 1" as well?

so that wasnt thoughts it was more questions. i do feel however that god created all of this for us to live joy filled lives. i know that this entails love and friendship and stuff like that, but recently i've been wondering if it doesnt include stuff as well. i mean what about modern conveniences...we can poop in a toilet and flush where-as they used to just dump it in the streets. we can take care of ourselves medically and with clean foods that wont give us random sicknesses. we can drive to see people daily instead of making the long trek to commune with friends only occasionally on our feet. whatever, you get the point. i think we all deserve this stuff. it definitely improves the quality of life, and probably helps us to interact more readily with things that we do treasure. what about not just useful stuff though. we can hear music on a pod or watch movies. well they make art, people's ideas, more readily accesible to us. thats good right? what about this computer? and the internet its connected to? is it good that you can read my thoughts? we can live in comfort more easily with stuff. granted it can get in the way and it can distract us from our true treasure but if we keep it in perspective are we ok? can i include having lots of nice things that make life easier into the list of possible good things god wants for us? will they aid us in having joy? maybe if we use them...not just have them and hoard them like treasure...but use them for what good they can be used for. it they help us understand those things which are our treasure more, help us get to know those things which are treasure more? maybe. maybe not. whatev.

Posted in: on Monday, October 09, 2006 at at 10:57 PM 1 comments  

hmm...well here's a little story for you all and lets not lie i've told it several times already today: i awoke this morning to a typical day. out of bed and to the shower. then as i started the journey downstairs for breakfast my hand burst into figurative flames with the most absurd itching craziness i've ever experienced. now...let me take you back...you need a bit of background. the story begins with me having poison ivy on my hand...and in various other spots (just kind of dots here and there). this has been around for about a week (since i ridded the parents yard of vines and weeds and such last week). the particular bit of PI (poison ivy) that resides on the back of my hand was the first outbreak. not that i have much, but it started there and therefore it is the place where the itching had subsided. having lost its itch a few days back that particular patch of skin seemed to be returning to normal non-PI affectedness. you know how PI moves on to torment newer areas and leaves behind a portion of dry skin that will return to normal over the next week or so. so, clearly i was surprised to find this particular area of skin on the back of my hand once again agitated. so i turn my hand to see if there is a new outbreak or something to cause such a ruckus. what do i find? oh yeah a freaking mosquito bit me in the freaking middle of my freaking PI. are you freaking kidding me? since when were there FMO's(freaking mosquito's) in my freaking house and when did they begin targeting raised reddish patches of skin on the back of hands instead of legs and necks? needless to say the result was one of the most horrendous displays of itchery ever concocted. if you get the chance sometime in life NEVEr mix FMO's with FPI...all you get is a couple hours of PI itch times MO itch which somehow in the calculation is raised to the 5th or so...give or take two degrees of itchiness.

oh yeah the pic....not too exciting and a little blurred but it gives you the general location on the hand...its the lower bump...not the bit of PI above that.

Posted in: on Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at at 7:30 PM 0 comments  

sorry i've been so slow on the posting. my brain has not been on thought mode. does that make sense? i guess when i have stuff to get done, ie get a job or figure out where rent is coming from, my mind is not quite at ease enough to think of any profound comments to make. this is a sad state to be in because i love thinking about life and stuff and it means i havent had my eyes open to much of anything. for that i'm sorry because not only does it mean i've dropped the ball but it also means that i have nothing to share with you... other than the fact that i struggle. its funny. we say that we believe certain things. like i would say that i believe god provides. and yet i am to worried about rent to even think about the world he has put at my fingertips. i find it interesting how many of the things that we "believe", when push comes to shove.....well you know....we dont. what if. what if we believed what we said we did. can you imagine? what if i really believed through and through that my god would provide, that my god had my greatest joy in mind when he allowed trials to enter into life, that only a life of love would give the full life he wants us to live, and so on...you get the picture. what if we really believed? i'll be working on it, let me know if you figure it out.

ps if i could see one thing...it would be to see what the church becomes when we really do believe these things with all of our being. it would be amazing. i get giddy and excited just thinking about how powerfull that belief would be. how liberating, freeing, energizing, etc, etc, etc. wow. i cant even imagine.

Posted in: on at at 2:20 AM 0 comments  

So i have a job now. I will be working at a photo studio doing basically everything involved. The name is Portrait Innovations, it's a portrait place thats all over the country and is opening up a store in winston. I'll let you know how its going when i get started which wont be for a couple of weeks yet.

Posted in: on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at at 11:28 AM 3 comments  

stress = me. apparently, despite my best efforts, my dad has been able to convince something within me subconsciously to stress out. i hate it. the scenario is that i have to find a job and a place to live, and quickly would be nice. the thing is that i have about a month to figure it out but somehow my dad has convinced me that its just not going to happen. not that i agree at all. i will tell you verbally and knowingly that he is wrong. i will find a job, i will find an appartment, and it will be ok. but somewhere inside something believed him and sent a stress out signal to the rest of my body. here's exactly what that random place within me bought into:
my dad believes, i think genuinely, that the world is hard. we do not get handouts. hard work and struggle is the only thing that gets us anywhere and even that doesn't get us far. you will not be given a second chance. people look out for themselves and could really care less about your well being. something like that i think with all the et cetera's that go along. and the sooner you learn it the better.
example: a teacher of mine in college assigned a paper when i was not in class and then when everyone else turned it in and i had nothing, since i had known nothing about it, he gave me a 0. no grace, no second chance, no late paper docked a letter grade, just a 0. (the class was my class on catholocism by the way... and i still find irony in the fact that to brother__ the idea of grace seemed foreign.) anyway, upon relating the story to my father he did not join in my irate cry for justice but instead said something to the effect of "thats life" and i couldnt help but feel that he was whole heartedly on the side of my professor.
i on the other hand could not disagree more strongly than i do. certainly there are those in life who act like my prof did that day but they are by no means the majority, nor right in acting so. i recently read a book entitled velvet elvis, written by rob bell, which i have already recommended to you in a previous blog. in it he speaks of heaven on earth. this sunday at church bo brookby spoke in a similar manner when he refered back to the garden of eden. each claimed that god desires this earth to be free of sin, of evil, of death, like heaven on earth, or a return to the state of the garden. this i buy. bell claims that as christians we are called to be a part of the change. we are to bring heaven to earth and every time we love, every time we extend grace, every time we exibit the characteristics of christ, when we live according to the laws of heaven we make this earth a bit more like it was meant to be...like it is meant to be...like it will become...like it is becoming.
example: i happened to be taking another class at the same time as the aforementioned one on the catholic tradition on faith and imagination. the same week as the paper that was due in that other class i had a major paper due in this class as well. having been overwhelmed with other work i had really not prepared a paper worth anything at all for the class and passed the professor the day the paper was due. i told him that i really had nothing for him that was worth his time and asked to be granted a day more to improve upon it. he gave me a week. i want to go back and say that again. he gave me a week. can you feel it. i can. the same rush of relief, the same gratitude, the same grateful happy loved encouraged every good exciting feeling i can think of joy came over me. it felt right. this is how we were meant to live. his response did not shelter me from the real world. it was the real world. the good part of it anyway. the part that i think has always been there.
anyway i believe that we are to exhibit this. grace, love, encouragement, that which is good in the world. i dont expect the bad because i know what side will win in the end and what side is breaking through all over the place. and i dont care if i run into the graceless because i know somewhere right around the corner is the other side. when my prof decided to give me a grade that he know would virtually make it impossible to pass his class i wanted to cry... but not for me. i wanted to cry for him. he thought he was teaching me a lesson about life. never mess up. but i know that we cannot avoid it. in this broken world we fall. we cannot be taught not to fall anymore than your computer can be taught never to freeze, the parts of your car to never break, the earth to stop spinning round the sun. i wanted to cry for him because i knew something that he become blind to. this world was like heaven. it exibited god. it was heaven. perfect. not because it was taught to be but because it was made to be...as god is making it, as god is making us to be perfect. god does not teach us our way to heaven...he changes us, makes us new and will keep at it till we get there.

you may say that the fight is close or that the "too bad life sucks" side is winning, but i will disagree. always. most of me anyway. till i can get rid of that little hidden part that bought the lie.

Posted in: on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 at at 12:15 AM 2 comments  

apparently the cease fire has held so far, though both sides seem a bit untrusting. here's the most recent news. article

Posted in: on Thursday, August 31, 2006 at at 11:42 AM 1 comments  

for those of you who know about the "invisible children" hopefully you've seen the news from uganda by now. if you dont know about them then check out the link (up and to the right). for nearly 20 years the Lords Resistance Army has been kidnapping children in northern uganda and brutally forcing them into their service (check out invisiblechildren.com or wikapedia it for a more thorough run down on their methods). After an agreement between LRA and government leaders the rebels have been given 3 weeks to gather at safe areas in southern sudan. i will be following the outcome of this closely but for the sake of the kids and everyone else involved please pray that this is truly the conclusion of a horrific war. article

Posted in: on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 at at 12:29 PM 0 comments  

once upon a time, a few years back, there were two roomates. they were inseprable. we combined there names into one. lerin, or erilie if you'd like. they lived in the kitchen dormitory of wake forest university and late one night in their room an idea formed between them and friends. it was mad genius, and filled with the spirit of friendship. it came to be known as the stabilla, or 'billa. it was the vehicle for the spread of friendship. it would carry on through the ages...etc.,etc.,etc. if you want the rest of the story let me know. if not merely witness the first 'billa beach weekend of hopefully many 'billa events to come:


seriously one of the most amazing weekends ever. surfing, music, stars, kayaks, bocce ball, 2.5 tons of cookies, a majority of the world's most amazing people(not exaggerating), and pawley's island(who's motto is arrogantly shabby in case you were wondering). in a nutshell: pure friendship. words really can't describe it. stabilla.

Posted in: on Sunday, August 27, 2006 at at 10:29 PM 0 comments  

pluto's not a planet anymore? check out the story on cnn. apparntly everyone on the former planet cried when it was demoted to dwarf planet status, along with school science teachers who already had lesson plans set to go with the regular 9 planet scenario.

Posted in: on Friday, August 25, 2006 at at 10:17 AM 1 comments  

i've yet to see the movie itself but snakesonaplane.com is amazing. samuel l. himself will make a phone call for you. give the site a friends number and you can personalize a message that a recorded sam will deliver. it's phenomenal. and hilarious. samuel l. i know you're reading this and i just want to let you know that you are a big timer. twice.

Posted in: on Thursday, August 24, 2006 at at 4:17 PM 0 comments  

so i have finally made it home to the 'ville and am spending a few days with my parents and my grandfather, who is flying in today. last night i sat down with the parents to watch the BBC version of jane austin's persuasion. it was interesting. i love jane austin, and i enjoy persuasion, but for some reason i wasnt too excited about whatching the movie. then i realized that it was because it wasnt pretty. now i say this as an overall blanket statement with regards to the camera work, the sets, and the cast. not that they were poor, but just not top quality. i think the part that threw me off the most was the cast. lets be honest, and i will quote andrea here, i dont want to watch ugly people on tv. we're so used to pretty people on television. and i guess it makes sense. we all have a little bit of ADD in us and so our attentions will be captured by whatever its the most pretty attractive thing around. and when that is the cast of the movie we are going to be watching the movie, and if, like i did last night, you realize that when you read the book you had pictured much different and prettier characters then you may have to stop watching the movie and go back to a book because it has a stronger draw. yes its sad, but i tried to stay interested and in the end my parents and i decided we would have to wade through the rest of the movie another night. so, you can say that i'm a terrible person or you can just agree with me that you're probably the same way and that we're all just a bit desensitized by tv and are a little more shallow because of it.

Posted in: on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 at at 11:13 AM 0 comments  

so i just realized the other day as i was on my way from hamilton, just north of boston, to a little airport just over into new hampshire that this summer has been, as far as i can remember, the most travel filled of my life. really thats all i want to say in this post. that and to drop a fun number out there. 28. twenty eight. as we were driving to that airport i pulled out an atlas and began counting. 28. thats a few over half of 50. so based on that i have been in over half of the states of our country this summer. yep, 28 states. for some reason i really enjoy that. (i promise a less silly post soon.)

kg

Posted in: on Friday, August 18, 2006 at at 2:35 AM 1 comments  

READ VELVET ELVIS!!!1


It's kind of phenominal

Posted in: on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 at at 2:36 AM 2 comments  

i had a couple of songs that i started. one is a typical "i like god" song and the other is a "its really hard to follow him sometimes" song. i liked them both and recorded them at the same time...and didnt ever get the chance to finish them yet. maybe i'll have a random stroke of creativity and finish at some point. till then they are recorded together on the myspace music site. probably a couple more new ones on the way too as soon as i get the chance to record them.

peace,
kg

Posted in: on at at 2:08 AM 0 comments  

i am sorry. i know that there are hundreds of you out there thinking "why did kevin stop posting?" i will now end your suspense. i have been at camp for the past month or so and away from the convenience of internet use. as it has been a month i cannot begin to catch you up in one posting on the happenings here and the ways that god has been moving at camp oak hill. god is a big timer though and i like him a lot. i just looked back on my blog from before my western road trip and read where i wrote that i wanted to be reawakened to the joy's of life. i think this summer may have done it. the trip having been amazing and me still trying to capture it in one journaled summary, here at camp hanging out with an amazing staff and kids, looking forward to a trip to boston next week, a visit with my grandfather, a wonderful group of friends at the beach, and maybe a job in boulder colorado next year, and yet even with all of this i am enjoying each day more and more; living life more in the moment that in a long while and not trying to escape it. god is good, and as paul tells titus god does not lie. i dont know if that really means anything...other than that he just doesnt. its random and you should read it. its in his greeting to titus...and its a little out of place...hes just writing along saying hi and then throws in god doesnt lie. i love it. its just "oh by the way, god doesnt lie". try it sometime...just throw it out there...random facts about god to whoever you happen to be talking to.

thats all for now, peace,
kg

Posted in: on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at at 12:28 PM 1 comments