from the ground up - a jack of all trades

Question: What do you get when you cross two parts insomnia, one part thirst for knowledge of CSS/HTML, a dash of experimentation with Adobe Photoshop Elements, and basted in boredom?

Answer: You get the newly designed (from the ground up) blog.

No more blogger templates for me. No sir. Thanks to some sleepless nights, the fact that I have no girlfriend, my friend Ben Stewart, and my insatiable thirst to be better at something than I already am, I've made a variation on a theme, the basic layout and the information is all still here, it's all just formatted differently.

This is actually the first step in creating a whole website. Phase one - initiate new design into blog! I'm still working on the actual website, and you'll hear it here, first when it's launched!

Anyway, kick back, grab a cold one (whatever that may be) and let your eyes feast on some candy.

I say "Thank Gawd" for the SPIKE network and all those japanese contestants on Takashi's Castle (or whatever it's actually called in Japan) for giving us the glorious gift of mXc - Most eXtreme elemination Challenge. I have seen some of those episodes at least five times, and I cannot help but laugh at the pain and suffering of those people as they attempt some really crazy obstacle course like games and contests. It always seems to brighten my Thursday night.

So once again, I say Thank Gawd!

Inspired Quote

We've all heard the saying "What doesn't kill us, only makes us stronger", right? Well, if you haven't... you have now. The others of you, perhaps you use it as a daily reminder that nothing too tough can happen. Or maybe you've heard it, but just think it's a big joke.

This is one of my favorite sayings. I just received an e-mail from a friend of mine, and I came up with another use for this quote - in friendships. I'm pretty sure that most of us at one time or another has been involved in a friendship that you thought was really great, but sometimes you had really bad fights or arguments... but you came out of those arguments even better friends than before, because you learned something from those arguments. Or perhaps you've just lost touch with a friend over time or distance and got the chance to reconnect with them.

Well, that's my new use for that phrase - "what doesn't kill a friendship can only make it stronger". Sometimes it just seems that no matter what you do, a friendship is destined to be. Sometimes friendships take some work, on both sides, but if it's meant to be - you will always be able to work through whatever problem(s) or issue(s) you have. Or you will always find a way to reconnect to that "long lost friend". And I'd say that nine times out of ten, that long lost person and you will have a stronger friendship for it down the road.

Challenge: Call someone you haven't talked to in a while. Someone you may have lost touch with. Or just call a friend and let them know that you haven't forgotten them. Or call a current friend and remind them that you care.

A Life More Contented

After doing some thinking about my life and when I've been happy and when I've been sad or depressed... I realize that there are three things in my life that whenever at least one of them is around, I am truly happy. Number One - God. And when I say God, I mean Him and the church and everyone I've met through there, everyone tries to help build each and every person up and help them to realize the greatness that, with your help, they can do. Number Two - my best friend, Stephanie. She is the most amazing person I've ever met. She is funny, warm, intellegent, kind, and has one of the biggest hearts one person would ever hope to have. Number Three - the theatre. I always feel at home in a theatre.

Thank you theatre. For giving me a creative outlet and letting me get paid for something I actually enjoy! Thanks for shoving me down into the deepest dark pit of my soul so I realized I couldn't live without God. And thanks for introducing me to the greatest friend I've ever known.

Thank you Stephanie. For all your encouragement - in our friendship; in my faith and journey; and in that crazy theatre world.

Thank You God for those three things. It's thanks to You that I'm alive. Thank You that through You my friendship with Stephanie grows stronger everyday, and thank You for my creative gifts and for allowing me the ability to share them with You and the world.


[Disclaimer - this is the second time I've written this out. The first time - blogger messed up on me and it didn't post and I lost the whole thing. Sorry if this doesn't sound very eloquent or flow very well, I tried to reconstruct it the best I could. All the sentiments are there, I just hope all the heart is still there, too.]

Complicated Lives

Life can be really complicated sometimes. One day everything is going great - the next, you feel like you've been crapped on. And on those wonderful occassions, you get both those wonderful feelings wrapped up into the great package of one day. Those are the days when you don't know if you'll make it out alive. Y'know the days I'm talking about - they're the ones where you wake up feeling great, you look outside and it's an absolutely beautiful day outside. Then you get a phone call, or an e-mail, or a letter (or you DON'T get that phone call, or that email, or that letter)... and your heart sinks. Then maybe later, you hear your favorite song on the radio, or you get a phone call from a close friend, or an e-mail from someone you haven't spoken with in a while. Then later that day, something again, may cause the sun to not look-so-shiney, the sky to look not-so-blue, and the day to look not-so-great. Life is full of disappointments, of sorrows... but it's also full of joys, excitements, and wonder. I think sometimes it's all who we look to for support... when we look inward or to the wrong people, we stumble, fall, and fail. When we look up to the heavens and embrace the One, the Almighty, the Creator, the Father... we realize that nothing matters but how we treat people around us, and that we live our lives to the fullest, without regret, without anger, without bitterness... with compassion, kindness, caring, friendship, and love.

... it's amazing how the word of God will change everything in a heart-beat.

I've realize that I have slightly more interesting posts if I don't try to post just for posting's sake. Then I don't post: "I scratched my big toe today, because it itched." I know you will all be saddened by not being able to keep up on every single detail of my little life... but you'll get over it. :)

:::: Warning: This post is about disappointment, so some of you out there might find it depressing or a "downer". Sorry, if you don't like it, don't read it. At least it's something meaningful. ::::


On the way home from a botched attempt at celebrating St. Patrick's Day, I did some thinking.

I've decided that my energy doesn't work well with planning things, or work well on it's own. My excitement needs to feed off of someone else's in order for it to be effective. I can be excited about something on my own, but eventually I run out of juice if no one else is excited with me. Such was tonight. Plus the fact that the plans slowly were falling apart around me. The original plan was to go with about 7 or 8 people, and one-by-one they petered out or changed their mind at the last minute or had made other plans or had conflicts. It's kind of a shot to the old self esteem. I keep telling myself, "this one's going to work out!" and then it doesn't. I would just love to plan something and it be fun, and everyone have a great time (or at the very least - show up).

I think that's another reason why my friend Stephanie is so important to me... we can feed off of each other's excitement (and sometimes she can jump-start mine when there isn't much there to begin with).

Oh well - such is life. Just a string of disappointments until you get lucky and something works out for you.

I can't wait for it to finally work out for me.

PS - I'll get over it, don't worry about me. I'd just like something like this to go well for me for once.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

"Well, it's all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog...
It's all for me beer and tobacco...
For I spent all o' me tin, with the ladies drinkin' gin...
and across the western ocean I must wander."

That song is off a Traditional Irish group's CD called MOLLY'S REVENGE. I bought that CD two years ago on Saint Patrick's day out in California while visiting Stephanie on my spring break. Since then we've kept up the tradition by going to an Irish Pub on St. Patty's day. Sadly, this year may be different as she may not get to go.

One a lighter note - I got to see a really awesome Irish Band out of Canada called Slainte Mhath (pronounced Slawncha Va) yesterday on campus. Check out the photoblog on the sidebar to see 'em. They blend traditional Irish music with modern beats and songs. The actually played, "That's the way I like it" yesterday... it was too cool. And of course, there's a girl in the band, and she was HOT. She plays the fiddle and this traditional Irish-type drum - it kind of looks like an oversized tamborine without the little cymbals all around it.

I think I'm destined to be with someone who - on the lowest level - really enjoys music a lot, or - to the hightest level - plays an instrument, sings like an angel, or totally gets wrapped up in the emotion of a song and sees the things in music that I do. Instruments and voices for girls just really turns me on, I guess.

Past Weeks :: Part 3 - A New View of the World - (pt II)

So, I was diagnosed with an eye infection and given some antibiotic drops to put in my eye four times a day for the next week. What a pain in the butt. This was also the day I decided to get my eye glass prescription updated. I went down to eye glass world... BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!!!

Awesome!

The only thing is that I've never bought new frames without having someone there to help me and look and tell me if they looked good/bad on me or not. Well, I didn't have that this time. I was left to the mercy of one of the sales associates, I tried on about 15 different pairs of frames, but I couldn't really tell how I looked in them because I didn't have contacts in, and the frames just had clear glass in them. I was totally at his mercy. He helped me pick out two sets of frames, and I decided to make one of them a pair of sunglasses. They'd be ready for pickup the next day. (fortunately and unfortunately - I would be in Nashville the next two days).

As the time to pick up my glasses drew nearer, I became very nervous about how they would actually look on me. One friend said I was being silly. Which I probably sounded like... but it was a lot of money gone down the drain if I didn't like them... and since I hadn't ACTUALLY seen what they looked like on me, it was a big worry.

When I got back in town, I went and picked up my glasses. I put the sunglass pair on first... BAM! I could see amazingly well... I looked in the small mirror on the counter and was amazed at how great the frames looked on me! I set that pair down and went for the regular ones, BAM! once again I could see perfectly! I looked in the mirror and thought WOW! I look AWESOME! Now, anyone that knows me, knows that I'm pretty modest when it comes to my looks, and my own self image isn't always the best either, so when I say that I look TOO sexy in these glasses, you'd know what a big deal that is. With these glasses added to my cool hair cut (thanks again, Stephanie), I'm one step closer to being a babe magnet.

I've always been told that I'd make a great boyfriend and that I have an awesome personality, I just need to hook someone with the "look factor" so they have the chance to see the charming, chivilrous, loyal, I'd do anything for you, senstive, loving, with a hard-candy shell - me. That and I need advertising! Help guys!

Past Weeks :: Part 3 - A New View of the World - (pt I)

Sunday Night (March 7, 2004), I was hanging out at my friend Steph's house... the usual - watching TV, talking, writing angry e-mails, y'know... what we do every time we're hanging out (well, everything but that last bit). She has a two cats and I normally play with and pet them. I used to be severely allergic to cats, just being around them would make my eyes water and begin to swell, and my nose would run like a faucet. As I grew up, I grew out of it to an extent... I could pet them, just as long as I didn't rub my eyes with my hands afterwards, and I had no problem being around them... but sometimes I get absent minded and do something stupid. SO while I was writing an e-mail, my eyes began to water and itch a little bit. I figured it was probably my allergies and just suffered through it. When I got home I looked in the mirror and realized that it may be more than allergies when my entire right eye was blood red. Taking my contact out was a bit scary as the fear of a detached retina came screaming through my head. I went to sleep that night and woke up with my eye glued shut from eye-boogers (or eye crispies). My eye watered a bit when I woke up and they disolved enough for me to open my eye and clear off the rest from my lashes. I went to the eye doctor (after donning my old glasses) to see what was up.

(to be continued)

Well, life must be back to normal for me - I can't sleep.

Check out some of the graphics I've created for the page. Tell me what you think about them.

(por ejemplo: the title banner and the post it note) - more will be coming soon. I just don't want to add graphics just to add graphics.. i want them to blend in and compliment the blog.

Past Weeks :: Part 2 - Road Trip to Nashville

Well, as you may have read, my Spring Break didn't start off too well. It just so happened that I chatted with friend of mine the next day and we both decided I should go down and hang out with him in Nashville for a couple days. So my Spring Break wasn't going to be a total lack of some sort of adventure, after all. Anyway, he moved to Nashville several months ago and began working with a traveling youth ministry called Inlightened Ministries. I know he runs sound for them and that he handles a lot of their web site and graphics and technical aspect of their ministry, I'm sure he helps out in other ways, too - he's a pretty handy guy - but I haven't learned what else that is, yet.

Anyway, I jaunted down to Nash-Vegas (as Ben calls it... oh by the way, his name is Ben Stewart - he's far right in the photo above), which is a solid four hour drive. I listened to Butterfly Boucher (whose CD I had bought at the Barenaked Ladies Concert) twice going both ways plus some other CDs of mine. Anyway, I get down there and we hang out and do some sight-seeing. Unfortunately if you're not too into Country music, there's not a whole lot of sight-seeing to do. We ate at a couple of cool places, hung out at a Starbucks for a while, drove around downtown, and just chewed the fat and enjoyed each others company. Oh, and thanks to him and my best friend Stephanie, I'm totally craving Sushi about 3 or 4 days of the week.

While I was down there we ate at two kind of unconventional buffet restaurants. The first was a sushi buffet. We stuffed ourselves SO much. The buffet only cost us $10, and we had two full plates of sushi each, some clear onion soup, a salad, drinks, and some hibachi chicken. WHAT A DEAL! So sushi buffet? Okay, yeah, I can see that... not much different that a Chinese buffet, right? Okay. So the second buffet, I was a little leary about... it's REALLY not the kind of thing you would really think about going through a buffet line for... MEXICAN. Like burritos and chimichangas and quesadillas. It was some of the best Mexican food I've ever eaten.

And like I said, we drove around downtown a little bit, and I grabbed a bite to eat and a T-shirt (and one for a friend) from the Hard Rock Cafe there.

Later the next afternoon, after hanging out and just talking for a while, I hit the road to come home, where I had a meeting to get to and then a bed to attend to.

Hey everybody! (Hi Doctor Nick!)

Okay, now that we're done with that, I just wanted to say I did a couple of quick edits to the page so that it will look basically the same no matter who views it. The proportions will all be the same for anybody. People with higher screen resolutions will just see more blue to the right side of the sidebar than others. Hope you enjoy reading every now and then, keep coming back, you make it all worthwhile.

I'll get more Past Weeks events posted soon.

Past Weeks :: Part 1 - Barenaked Ladies

On March 5, 2004 - five (plus two makes seven) people journeyed to the far reaches of Lexington, KY, to Rupp Arena. There they saw an amazing, live, upbeat performance by some of the greatest musicians around... Barenaked Ladies!

This concert was incredible. It started off with this girl (Butterfly Boucher) playing guitar and singing... she was awesome, and she had an accent. Talking with one of my friends, I said that the fact that she's holding a guitar, and has an accent makes her 50 times more attractive than most girls.

Up next was Howie Day... he was pretty good too. I remember liking his music, but I can't - for the life of me - remember any of the songs he played or what kind of sound he had... I guess I was still thinking about Butterfly Boucher, or maybe I was distracted by other goings-on... who knows.

And then the creme de la creme, the band we were waiting for arrived onstage. Those guys are so energetic, lively, and quick-wits abound. A couple of my favorite moments from the concert were (moment 1:) when they did an adlib song about Lexington, KY, and Steve talked about how KFC was changing it's name to Kitchen Fresh Chicken (which is dumb)... and that apparently we now lived in Lexington, Kitchen. And then to begin his adlib, Ed busted out "You lost the chicken, but you still got the bourbon." Moment 2: They have a song called Shopping, which talks about... gasp.... shopping. They did some shopping-cart-ography for this song and the screens switched to an overhead camera view and the guys were doing faux synchronized swimming... it was awesome! Moment 3: The guys did an acoustic set which included the hit song One Week, and a song called Roadrunner (which IS about THE famous roadrunner and coyote).

And I wouldn't be a very good person if I didn't mention that the LIGHTING for the concert was incredible! Everything fit with the songs, and it really added to the experience.

Not one disappointing moment for me from this concert... well, I can think of one, but it wasn't about the bands.

But one of the best parts of the whole event is who I got to share it with. And I'll never trade these memories for anything.

A lot of stuff has happened over the past week, and I've been WAY too busy to jot it down as I went... and I'm crashing now, so look for updates coming up this week.

Another late night up, and another let down.

What I wouldn't do to take away her burden.

Copy cat? - Yeah, maybe, but who cares... it's cool.

Check out the new stuff on my sidebar - I figured out how to send photos to the internet and display them on my blog... cool, huh?

Conversation revisited...

[03-27-03]
Oh Happy Day!!!!
(Oh Happy Daaayy!!)
When Jesus washed...
(When Jesus washed...)
He washed my sins away...
Oh Happy Day!!

I hope you had a good day at class.
I don't like you always having rehearsal every night.
I liked hanging out with you all the time

Sing with me now....
Oh Happy Day...

starting off right

Had my last classes before Spring Break today. Came home, chatted to a couple people, made a couple phone calls, went to work for about an hour, came home and have done jack-squat since. Kinda depressing way to start of my Spring Break.

A friendly smile

I get a tip-of-the-day kind of thing in my e-mail. Here's what I got today:

"In a recent study, people who had at least one close friend appeared to have as much as a 30 percent lower risk of periodontitis, a dental disorder that can lead to tooth loss. Researchers speculate that the connection may be due to the stress-reduction benefits that friends offer; stress is associated with poor oral hygiene."

Thanks friend, for doing things neither of us realized. :)

Response to comment on last post:

No real details. Just through my life, that's the way it's been. Even if I've asked a girl out, it's been the same story, just a different line. But somehow girls that I don't have ANY desire to get to know any better are the ones that seem to "throw themselves" at me. Maybe it's a matter of the amount of energy you put into someone. But I look at other relationships, and that seems to work on some girls but not on others. I've tried different things. And not to get down on myself, but the only thing I see differently between me and the guys that girls seem to go for is the looks. I guess I just don't have "it"... whatever the heck "it" is.