it's that time again to mix things up. so i've moved from concord, ca and i'm now living with my cousins in the livermore hills right next to las positas community college. i have an interview at another cousins place of employment in the morning and i'll hopefully be enrolled in las positas for the spring semester. i guess it's finally time to really decide what i want to do with myself career wise. i have a couple ideas but i'm still not 100% on any one thing just yet.

it's nice to be in livermore which is so much closer to my church and family. living with people (especially people i know and like) is a major blessing too. both my cousins, daniel and kimberly, work all day so i will only see them in the evenings and weekends but that in and of itself can be good too...that way i won't get on their nerves too quickly!

that's about it in my world as far as change goes. oh, i have a christmas sing-a-long at the san ramon library that myself and mr. rob liszt are gearing up for. we have solicited the assistance of another young lady from the church and after another two or three practices we should be all set for the event on december 3rd. it's usually a smaller event with anywhere from 15-40 kids and parents. we've already done two summer rock shows there and this will be our second christmas show. it's fun. that's about it.

i wish people used pleonast as much as they did 6 or 7 years ago!

so my buddy jon convinced me to join a bowling league with him this summer and it's been one of the greatest surprises. i never thought i would enjoy it as much as i do.

first off, it's completely different than any of the bowling i'd ever done before. if a group of friends wanted to go bowling then all i would expect was to hopefully find a ball that fit my pudgy fingers and then i'd throw it as straight as possible down the lane. i never knew there was such a thing as a 'finger tipped' ball. evidently it's the only way to go if you want to take it serious and be good. it's where they put these rubber finger tips that are measured specifically for you in the finger holes and it provides for a much greater release of the ball. it's actually kind of difficult to try and describe it here, but it's been pretty crazy.

second of all, there is so much camaraderie between all the league bowlers. in our league it's teams of 4 and each night you face off another team. ours is a pretty social league too. there are some teams who are dead serious about their bowling, but for the most part, everyone is there to have fun and enjoy each others company. i've really gotten a lot out of that aspect!

third, it's just been great being able to start with an average of 114 and work my way up to an average of 145 or higher. also, prior to learning the 'true' way of bowling i probably had a high game of 120. since picking it up i've rolled a 192 and expect to be in the 200's by the end of our league.

basically it's been a great way to spend my thursday evenings and i'm looking forward bowling in leagues for many years to come. if any of you out there have friends who bowl in a league, don't knock it right away! it's not too expensive to pick up a beginners package that comes with a ball, bag and shoes and you may just get 'hooked' like me!

you can start making fun of me now.

it's been many years since i were last at camp. about ten to be exact. i had always wanted to go back to oregon and be a counselor and then the northern california camp opened and i had intentions of doing the same there, however because of work it just never happened. i had the chance to go up to the talent show at the northern california camp this past friday night and it definitely stirred up some of those old feelings that an event like camp tends to bring about. it also left me with this feeling like i've missed out on something really special, which i obviously did based on the attitudes and emotions of everyone who went. i think i'm really going to make an effort to be involved next year. i remember as a camper how much you can grow and become inspired over the course of one week, but i know it's got the same effect on the counselors too. i want to experience that. i don't want to miss out again. it was great to see so many people sharing in such a wonderful time and opportunity. Lord willing i'll be apart of it next year.

within the last year i've been blessed enough to rekindle my friendship with my best friend from high school. we had lost contact after graduation and when we finally met up again about 5 or 6 years ago, i'd found that his mother had passed away. we happened to drift apart again and within the last year we've actually become closer than we've ever been. it's been pretty amazing.

since our reestablished friendship, it's been very apparent that he's been 'searching'. he developed a prayer relationship with God during his mothers illness and has continued it since her passing. he has also expressed interest in learning more about the Lord's will and has been reading the bible and talking with me often about being a christian. i've been doing my best to encourage him and help guide him towards finding out with the way is about and how it can and would be such an amazing blessing in his life. the biggest problem is that my friend sort of developed a moderate case of anxiety during the time we were out of contact. he has a really difficult time putting himself in situations that are currently out of his comfort zone, like being in a church building surrounded by people he doesn't know and being approached and talked to by numerous people.

he has made a few slight steps in the right direction by coming to my cousin's house with me to pick some things up and attending a small get together hosted by one of our young adults but neither situation really allowed him to get to know anyone or them to get to know him because of time restraints. and the hard part for me is that he's flat out said he wants to attend and will eventually, but it seems that every time the opportunity presents itself, he decides to go with "maybe next time" or "i promise i will but i'm just not ready". i make sure never to be too forceful or pestering but at the same time i know how much it would enhance not only his spiritual life but also his social life.

i do have faith that he will come around but it's taking more patience than i expected to need and hopefully i continue to be an encouragement. i've thought about having a few people that he knows i'm close to and has met himself try to 'friend' him on facebook and just add a little extra encouragement. i actually told him i was thinking about doing that so he would see how great everyone was (since we are both very open) and his response was, "sounds like an intervention". the good thing is that our relationship is 90% based on humor and joking around so i obviously know he wasn't upset by it but i'm really hoping for a breakthrough sometime in the near future.

God is patient, not wishing that any should parish. i need to remember that. if he decides to come it won't be because of me or anything i've done. i'm not in control...which is a very good thing!

Isn't it awesome how headlines to articles on the web try to suck you in with astounding claims!?

I saw an article on Yahoo's home page that read "Secret to birds' first flights". Upon clicking on the article, the actual heading reads "The secret to ancient birds' first flights". Ahhhhh, so they added a word that throws the whole thing off. Not only are they NOT referring to a bird leaving the nest, but they're referring to birds that we have NO WAY of actually researching while alive!!! Even FURTHER, upon reading the first few lines we see that "Scientists believe they've uncovered a link to why some creatures were able to take to the air." OH MY GOODNESS!!! So now we are suppose to get excited because a couple scientists are providing us with their 'bests guesses'!!!???!!!


I really hope our tax dollars aren't funding this crap.