All these videos just blow my mind

Ambitions

Yesterday was awesome for me because I got to take a step towards achieving one of my life's goals: Being able to do every board sport I physically can. This may seem like a stupid goal to some people, and maybe it is. But I love everything I've ever done on a board so much that I don't see a reason not to do everything. I don't know what it is, but it is such a rush. The speed, the fluidity, the balance, precision, and tenacity required to do it well. I'm not very good at a whole lot of things, but I'm pretty good on a board and I pick things up quickly, so this is my goal.

Yesterday I got to move one board up the list: windsurfing. I discovered last week that my friend's mom has a windsurf and after some convincing, I got him to get it all together and take it out. I did my research before hand and I was ready. So after a long, wet afternoon, I was able to tack back and forth several times without falling. Success. It was much more difficult that I thought it would be, but it was well worth the effort. So, here is my updated list:

Boards completed:

1. Longboarding
2. Snowboarding

Boards I can do, but not well enough to cross off:

1. Skimboarding
2. Skateboarding
3. Wakeboarding
4. Windsurfing

Boards I have yet to do:

1. Sandboarding
2. Mountain boarding
3. Kite boarding
4. Kite surfing
5. Surfing
6. Wake skating
7. Skurfing
8. Kneeboarding
9. River boarding
10. Skysurfing
11. Hoverboarding (seriously, they have it)

Exploration

So in the last 2 months I've really decided to broaden my music tastes and I've been exploring new genres and artists. Many of them I have found from the best radio station ever, 90.3 KEXP. Many others have been things my roommates were listening to and I never took the time too. Many of them I am just going out and finding. So here is a small list of the things I have learned to appreciate in the last month or so...

1. Islands
2. Punch Brothers
3. Styx (from seeing them live)
   
4. Say Hi
5. Fleet Foxes
6. The Wombats
7. the new Beck cd
8. The Flaming Lips
9. Outkast
10. The Wombats
11. Albert Hammond Jr.
12. Bright Eyes
13. Tegan and Sarah
14. Rise Against
15. John Legend
16. Metro Station
17. The Unicorns

And finally, there is one artist that is just coming up in the world from around here that I think you should listen to. His name is Colin Isler and he's very good and you can find his music here. He also plays cello for a post-rock band called Post Harbor. You can find them in his top friends on his Myspace.

The now, the future

This summer I've been watching a lot of the West Wing, and I have to say that it is one of the best shows I've ever seen. I think it is the best drama I've ever seen.

The characters are real, and lovable, and hateable, and passionate.

The struggles are not unrealistic, and while being a show about politics, it shows the human consequences at least as much, if not more than the political.

The technical side is clean and precise and emotional and effective.

Aaron Sorkin is simply one of the best.

And beyond that, it has really inspired me. Along with conversations in my Bible study, conversations with friends, and personal reflection, it has helped show me that I do have a path for the next few years at least.

I'm going to law school. I don't know where. I don't know how. I don't know if I will take a year off or not (which is the biggest decision right now. It may be my only chance for the next 50 years to take a year off and do nothing, but if I do I will have to start paying student loans and I will feel like I am falling behind my friends).

But the point is, I have a direction now. Who knows where it will take me? Who knows what 'll accomplish? I certainly don't, but I'm excited.

A Post

Its been a long time. I know I said I wouldn't let myself wait so long to write, but I never get motivated to write. Well tonight I am. And I'm just gonna share what my summer has been so far.

Mostly, I've worked. I've learned a lot about our company, and a ton about dairy products, and even a little about CSS and HTML coding today, but mostly I'm bored. All of last week I would go to work for 7-8 hours and only have about 1.5-2 hours of work to do. That may sound awesome to some, but its not. Its very boring, and its hard to look like your not wasting everybody's time when you are. This week my web development is keeping me busy and interested, but that won't last long and it will be back to the mundane.

Socially I don't do much. There's only a few friends around I still hang out with and about all we do is play board games, though they are very interesting ones. It is finally and for the first time consistently nice out here so hopefully soon I can get to golfing, hiking, camping, and the such.

At church we just got a new pastor, and he just started a 20s group. This last Sunday was our first meeting and it went well. I got to run sound for a really good worship leader, and I watched my first Nooma video.

There's more I'd like to write about, but nobody reads long posts, and I need something else to write about later on. So I will end with this, my 21st birthday is two weeks from right now, and I'm pretty excited.

This looks pretty sweet....

Books...

are awesome! I spent all day Sunday and Monday just sitting in the sun on my back deck reading. I finished my first book of the summer-- The Amber Spyglass, last book of the His Dark Materials trilogy, out of which came the Golden Compass. I know what you are thinking, its a kid's series, but its really, really not. It's very dark and very interesting to see where the author gets his prejudices against the church and what he believes is the answer. A good series of books, terrible movie.

I then immediately order The Road by Cormac McCarthy on the suggestion of Reed and Dr. Shaw. Unfortunately that will take a few days to arrive, so while I wait I found the Space trilogy by CS Lewis and am going to read the first 1 or 2 books of that, as they are very short. I have heard good things about it from friends.

When I am not reading or working, however, I am watching The West Wing, an amazing show that I am fully engrossed in.

And now, I leave you with the greatest gift I can on this fair Tuesday.

I have great difficulty....

...rating things. When I have to actually decide how I feel about a specific movie or book based on 5 stars, I break down. I start second-guessing each decision I make and end up going back and changing half of my ratings.

I just got on Netflix again and have been spending all night trying to rate a ton of movies so that I can get better recommendations. But its driving me nuts.

I'm back...

Sorry it's been so long, my time just got away from me. I can't believe its been a month since I last posted.

Now I am back home and in the middle of my internship. I'm working for a commodity trading company downtown Seattle doing a bunch of different projects, including a marketing research project now and potentially some domestic invoicing. Pretty boring so far but it should get better.

The thing I'm most excited for is working downtown. My office is right in the middle of Pioneer Square in a historic building across from the Smith Tower, one of the most famous buildings in Seattle. I am 4 blocks from the ferry piers and 4 blocks from my favorite pub in Seattle.

And the best part is I ride the bus to and from work. I feel like part of the rat race, like part of the urban work force. I feel bad for anybody that has never had the chance to ride a metro bus. Public transit is great.

Well I'm being distracted by a movie right now, but I will not let another month pass. This post was kind of lame, I know, but I have to get used to posting again.

Sunburns

are easy to forget about before they happen. Meaning that I never think about the fact that I will get sunburned unless its over 90 degrees. So of course, when I went golfing yesterday for 5 1/2 hours I got really sunburned. I had to sleep with a lighter blanket with the window open last night, and now I have to be careful when I pretty much do anything that involves contact with my neck. And I especially should remember sunburns seeing as how I am a pale red head who has been getting bad sunburns all my life. So a cautionary note to all: Just because it's April doesn't mean you won't get burned.

It was time for a change..

My blog title was lame. I can admit that. When I came up with my blog I was just trying to make it sound cool, because my blog had no meaning to me. It was another fad that I was gonna get in on before it was too late, and nothing more. But as I write more and more, it has begun to take a certain form in my mind, and has begun to mean something to me, so I wanted to find a title that means something to me. Plus the layout was ugly and it needed to be changed as well.

I chose the title from the end of one of my favorite books, The Great Gatsby. I just re-read this book a week ago and it has really stuck with me as not only an important piece of literature, but as something that I can really relate to in certain aspects. I think to understand this quote better you need some context. It comes at the end of the second to last paragraph, with the subtitle being the last:

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eludes us then, but that's no matter---to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning---"

The future is a picture we paint while looking at the past, and the more we stare at the past the better a picture we paint, and this is the very thing that Fitzgerald is trying to warn us of, but I think there's more to it than that. I think that one fine morning we finally look away from the past and see what the present and future really hold, but remembering always what the past held. I want my blog to be that morning for me. I want to reflect on what has happened, but to use it as no more than the frame of the future, and to be able to look forward with unrelenting persistence of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.

What is the obsession...

...with DIY? I just don't get it. Okay, I understand doing it yourself. People want to be self-reliant, or more often they want to save money. I'm not gonna pretend that everybody has the same inclinations and drive as Thoreau to be self-reliant. But why is DIY the cool thing now? and mostly I'm talking about the phrase itself.
People have been "DIY-ing" for thousands of years, but all of the sudden its a big deal to do things yourself, and everybody has to know about it. and all of the sudden we have DIY kits and books and all sorts of crazy stuff. It's ridiculous. And it all started with those "____________ for Idiots" books.

There's nothing new or fresh about DIY, I think people are just desperate to look independent, but in this very act they are showing that they are dependent on the approval and admiration of others for their "self-reliance". I just think its stupid.

And reading my own post I realize that I sound very cynical and almost angry, and I don't think I am like that very much anymore, but sometimes things just drive me nuts. So if you're gonna do something yourself, great! do it!, but don't feel like you need to tell everybody, and don't call it DIY so that you can fit into some kind of cool cultural niche.