My Weekend

My weekend was crazy. It felt like I never stopped moving. Normally my Saturday’s are spent just hanging out around the house doing nothing too exciting, and Sunday’s typically look fairly similar. This weekend though, I traveled to Waco to shoot a 7-on-7 tournament, photographed my first wedding, helped landscape around a friend’s pool, mowed my lawn, and taught a Sunday school class. I’d say I was pretty successful. Here are some of my shots from the weekend:

Killeen QB and 2010 Aggie commit Jameill Showers

Arlington QB and 2010 Aggie Committ Matt Joeckel

These two guys were playing against each other on Saturday morning, so it was a lot of fun to watch the future of Aggie football face-off while they’re still in high school.

And here are some shots from the wedding:

Bride and Bridesmaids from the Johnson Wedding May 2009

Leaving the reception, my favorite shot of the entire night!

finding my niche

I want to know that I’m included. Likely though, and more importantly, I want to know that if I’m not there that I’ll be missed.

As infants our mothers stare us in the face to give us a sense of connection to the world. Mothers and children form deep bonds in these times of ‘long-looking,’ as one author described it. This is often one of the hardest things for people who have been stranded on deserted islands to come to grips with, that they won’t ever be gazed upon again. It is a desire rooted deep within our need to be part of a group, a niche.

Seth Godin groups marketing efforts into three themes: factory, TV, and tribal. Factory marketing means that the faster we can produce something, the cheaper it is to get the product out the door, the more people will buy our product. You simply outproduce your competitors. Henry Ford did this the best. Television marketing says that the company which tells the most people about their product will eventually sell the most. Tribal marketing shows us that if you empower your consumer to tell the tale of your product, they’ll do the pitch for you, and you don’t have to make the most, or spend millions on ads. Tom’s, a shoe company which donates a pair of shoes for every pair purchased, does a wonderful job of this.

I think this is how my history of friendships has gone as well, and probably more of my life. In kindergarten we were encouraged to play with all of the kids, make friends with everyone. This meant that the smelly kid got just as much face time with the teacher’s pet as he did with the bully. Kids know a simple truth that many of us forget at some point down the road: everyone has something to offer, and you can probably have fun with just about anyone if you just give it a try. Factory friends: as many as you can get, because quantity is better than quality.

Entering Jr. High brings a new idol into our lives: status. Symbols, and respect become the ruling class of… well, the class. Looks, ability, and charm become the currency that early pubescent humans use to barter relationships, social standing, and self-image. (Yes, I’m suggesting here that at some point we purchase our self-image based on what we were given at birth. Think about it, the pretty girl had WAY more friends than the awkward looking band geek.) Television works the same way, they tell you what’s good, and you buy it. You might think, “I’m better than that, I can think for myself.” Really? You really made all of your purchasing decisions based on which product was empirically the best? If so, good for you. But we all know the truth, you’re just as much of a lemming for marketing companies as the rest of us. TV friends: bigger, faster, prettier.

Growing up you start to encounter more and more people who think like you do. College is often times the catalyst that leads us into this type of friend finding. We group ourselves into tribes based on common interest and goals in life. You’ll notice it walking around pretty much any university. The comicon dorks, the Christian bubble crowd, the student government over-achievers. These though begin to allow us to really flesh out who it is we are, and why we do what we do. I find a group I like and will often times try to recruit new members. Whether that means I assimilate into a like group of people or I bring new people into my inner-circle, I gravitate towards certain types of thinkers. Tribal friends: your niche.

I was at a close friend’s wedding last night and it reminded me of many of these same thoughts. I looked around the dance floor and saw people who my life has been connected with for years on end. I realized that this was my niche. This was a wonderful thing to realize. The groomsmen took a polaroid picture together (one I hope to get a scanned copy of soon) and it turned out marvelously. Brad looked at it and said, “That’s gonna age well.” My heart felt both warm and broken all at the same time, because I knew he was right. I knew that even as I spend more of my life adding and modifying my niche of friends, for right now, I’ve found it, and it’s perfectly encapsulated on that wonderful piece of insta-developing-film. One day, years from now, I think we’ll all be able to gaze back upon that picture and know that if one of us wasn’t there that they’d be missed, and that’s how I know I’m included. Thanks niche.

My 9000th!

Today marks the 9000th day I’ve been alive. Pretty historic day if you ask me. Here’s to another wonderful 9000!

Now where’s my cake?

SnoCones and GoodFriends

Entering the late spring around a college town means change is in the air. Not only is the weather warming up, but people are moving away and the town is clearing up a bit. This means good and bad because shorts are now a mandatory part of the wardrobe, and good friends are moving on with their lives.

College Station, TX is small enough that when 40,000 new residents suddenly flow in during mid-August you notice them, every last one of them. During the summer months though traffic flows more easily, movies aren’t difficult to get into, and aisles at the HEB on Texas Ave. seem deserted. In the past I’ve loved these months for those exact reasons.

The other side of the coin is that sometimes good friends will move away for the summer. Adventures in strange new places, and jobs back home often call people for June, July and August, and then fall comes back around and everyone returns things back to normal. This year though feels different.

As I’ve grown up in this town more and more friends have moved away permanently, as in the: I-don’t-plan-on-moving-back-here-ever, kind of move. These moves suck. I don’t like them. Not because I’m mad at the person for leaving me, but because it’s the end of a chapter, thankfully not the end of a friendship. Keeping a friend in another city is much more difficult than keeping someone informed who lives down the street, let alone down the hall.

This spring has seen four of my closest friends decide to move. For them, I’m happy. Their moves all signify new adventures, new chances to do something great, new ways of seeing Jesus and the world. I pray for these friends that the Lord will bless their decision to go. That he will give them strength, and peace, and friends that want to live out community with Jesus. That they will adjust quickly to their new surroundings, and that their memories of this place will be pleasant.

For me, I’m sad. Sad that there are four less people to call on any given day to see what’s going on, to drink a beer with on my porch, to watch a ridiculous youtube videos. Right now I’m chalking this up to another one of those things you learn as you grow older: Sometimes people move. Got it.

Even though this year feels strange and different, I’m confident that good things are in the future. Afterall, we’re starting the summer months now, and what could be better than a 3 month period where the best option on a day-to-day basis is kicking back by a pool, and eating a snocone? Man, I want a blue coconut snocone real bad… like now.

mmm... snokones!

Why do I do church?

I came across this article as I was going through my usual Sunday morning internet routine (Email, TexAgs, Digg, NYTimes, Post Secret, ESPN, etc.). The author makes the argument that people choose to become a part of a church not because of their upbringing and ‘indoctrination’ into the faith, but rather because it fulfills something inside of them that the non-religious movement isn’t able to fulfill.

Quick history of my experience with church: I went to a Catholic church for the first 14 years or so of my life, but attending church was a once in a while sort of thing that really only happened on Christmas/Easter; early in college I attended a small church known as Liberty International Worship Center where I discovered the mystical side of Christendom; and now I find myself at a rather postmodern-community-driven place known as ComChurch. This to say I’m not likely the person Mr. Blow was writing about, but he has gotten me thinking about what it is I look for in a faith community, and what the reason is that I still attend.

Blow states that, “Most said that they first joined a religion because their spiritual needs were not being met.” I’m not convinced that people think in terms of ’spiritual needs.’ Who goes around day to day thinking about their ’spiritual needs?’ I don’t. I just know when things are right between me and God, and when things seem strained. Not any fault of his, but rather an expression of my brokenness and inability to come back to him when I’ve screwed up. I don’t believe this is why people go to church.

Blow then makes the argument that the non-religious movement has become too cold and hard for the normal person to tolerate any longer. I suppose he is characterizing those of ‘faith’ as being more cute and cuddly than their agnostic or atheistic counterparts. I would tend to agree, but this feeling of warm fuzzies seems to also sell short the reason for being a follower of Jesus.

The author then comes back with likely his most intriguing line of logic, “We are more than cells, synapses and sex drives. We are amazing, mysterious creatures forever in search of something greater than ourselves.” This is in my mind the most telling portion of his article. Saying that humans are simply a collection of cells functioning to complete a task from day to day not only sells short the human experience, but also is unable to account for those ’spiritual needs,’ and ‘warm fuzzies’ he mentioned earlier in the article.

These ideas too, fall short of explaining the reason for becoming part of a church that follows Jesus. And by church that follows Jesus, I intend to say a group of people who really try to live this thing out by baring one anothers burdens, and encouraging each of the saints to follow more closely to the eternal God. I’m talking about being a part of community with other believers. I’m talking about trying to live out this new testament idea of an Acts like church. I think that’s what this spirituality thing really boils down to, and this is the point that Blow eventually reaches, that “Being regularly surrounded by a community that shares your convictions and reinforces them through literature, art and ritual is incredibly powerful, and yes, spiritual.” He still makes it seem cold and hard by putting it into those terms, but I don’t think he’s that far off in the end.

Flight of the Bumble Bee

For whatever strange reason, last night at man’s dinner, Ross and Danny started talking about accordion music. I don’t play an instrument, so for the most part I was tuned out watching basketball on the TV behind the bar. The conversation stuck in my head enough though that just a few minutes ago I started looking up “accordion” on youtube, and this is what I found:

Really quite amazing that any human’s hands can move this quickly. I’m not totally sure I believe it.

What does a time capsule do anyway?

Where is my life headed? There are a few things that have been rattling around my brain for some time now, and since no one thing has taken the forefront for a new blog post, I decided I’d give you three or four things about my life at the moment. A time capsule, if you will, of where my life is and where it is headed in April 2009.

My grandmother has been sick for some time.
As a young person I don’t often think of getting sick. I’ll get sick maybe once every two years or so, and in those times I act like a total baby. When you get old though, it seems like the blessing (and the curse) that is modern medicine keep you alive much longer, and with varying degrees of quality. I don’t know what to think about all of that. My grandmother, to whom I have been extremely close my entire life, took care of my grandfather when he was dying of congestive heart failure (after 2 triple-bypass surgeries it’s kind of expected), and ever since has been on a slow decline. She did great for a while, staying in her old home where I have many fond memories, but eventually having to move in with my parents, then into assisted living, and now into a full time care facility/hospital ICU. I love that woman, and I don’t want to see her in pain. So above all in this situation I feel conflicted. Torn between my desire to keep ‘Mama’ around until my eventual wedding day, my first born son (which would likely be her first great-grandchild), or even just her 80′th birthday.

I’m riding my bike a lot more these days.
The weather in CS has been phenomenal this past month. The highs have been in the upper 70’s and low 80’s, and the nights have been breezy with temps in the 50’s-60’s. Ian helped me fix up my road bike with some new handle bars (straight ones with a 2″ rise in them along with cork grips), a new chain, and a freshly straightened rear wheel. I’ve had a lot of fun riding, and in those rides to work, and comgroup have experienced things on the road that I wouldn’t have seen from a car. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the author says that riding in a car is like watching scenery on television. You aren’t a part of the action. But on a motorcycle (in my case a road bike), you are part of the story. You aren’t just watching it all go by, rather you are going through it, experiencing every crack and downward slope along the way.

I’m kicking around an idea for a company.
I’ve wanted to run something on my own for a while now, and I think that I might just have a good enough idea to justify giving it a shot. I’m still looking into some things, and will report back when I have some more details ironed out. This could be interesting to someone else, or it could die very soon. Who knows.

I have been wanting a summer time adventure.
Summers have always meant a time to relax and get away. Do something that you wouldn’t normally do during the school year, and come back and brag to all of your friends about it. Last year a bunch of us went backpacking along the Buffalo National River. That trip was sweet. This year I think I want to go to a beach for a few days. Maybe just take a long weekend, get in the car, and go to Florida and have an adventure. See some new places, eat some different food, and just get away. The more I think about this, the more I feel like it needs to happen.

That’s really all I have for you right now. There are a few other things rattling around in my head and my heart, but those are for another day.

Boom Goes the Neighborhood (podcast)

I’ve talked for quite some time now about putting together a podcast. It took me longer than I would have liked to get something ready to share with you all, but the good news is that it’s finally happened.

I sat down with Josh Taylor of Clairmont, and talked about what inspiration and creativity are like in his life. I think it was a pretty great conversation. Take a listen, and please let me know what you think. The link below takes you to an MP3 file, so you can either stream it from your computer, or right click the link and ’save file as.’

Boom Goes the Neighborhood: An Experiment in Audio Mediocrity

Have a suggestion for a future show? Think this sucked and you want me to quit? *tear* Tell me in the comment field below.

About Being a Guy

Another Awkward Sex Talk: Respect and Violence

This is an article I came across this morning on the NYT website. It got me to thinking, mainly because of the following quote:

Dr. Sanders thinks that a double standard is legitimate here — “maybe because I have two girls and no boys of my own.”

“Girls need to be treated with more respect,” he said. “We need to focus more on empowering girls in relationships, particularly relationships with the opposite sex. I think of myself very much as a feminist.”

What does that mean for our boys? How are we meant to treat them? Do we treat them with less respect than we do our girls? Do we show them, whether that be intentional or not that they are some how less valued in society, let alone the kingdom?

Don’t read this as me saying that our girls are treated too well, and that boys are brought up crappily. I don’t think that’s the case at all. I don’t want us, especially the church, to swing too far to one side or the other. Some girls are better at doing some things than boys are, and on the other side of the coin, some boys are better at doing some things better than girls are. That isn’t universal in all cases, but we can’t ignore the fact and say that we are all equal at everything.

I can lift heavy things. Some girls I know can’t lift things that are as heavy. Helping them allows me to use a trait that makes me part of who I am, and in using that trait it makes me feel good about who I was created to be. Let’s not diminish who we’ve been made to be by turning the things that we are into anything less extraordinary.

In light of this article, I have been thinking all day long: are we teaching our sons any special lessons? I don’t know, but we should. Because of this I’ve decided to start a list of things that I think every boy should be able to do. It’d be great if girls could do all of these things as well, but I think at the very least guys need the following skills (feel free to include any of your own as mine will be forever changing as I think of more necessities of Mandom)
Top-10 things boys should know (in parenthesis after the advice, the person who taught me the important lesson):

1. You should always open the door for a lady. This is really not negotiable. Sometimes you’ll do a better job at remembering to open the doors, and sometimes you’ll look more smooth in doing so, but you should always make the effort. I learned this in third grade when my mom made me open the door everyday on the way to school for her and all of her teacher friends. I still open the door whenever possible, and I’ll always give up my seat for a lady. (Try this one on too, stand up anytime a girl walks in the room, sometimes they don’t even realize it, but they like it a lot. Or at least I hope they do on some level.)(MOM)

2. How to start a fire. If you’re ever out camping, either by choice or post-apocalyptic necessity, starting a fire is a great skill to have. Learn how to start one quickly, and everyone will want to hang out with you. (DAD and boyscout leaders)

3. How to apologize. This isn’t always the easiest thing to do, and often times it comes with no sense of satisfaction from the other person. But when you know you’re in the wrong, and the only way to get over the problem is to go to that person and straighten things out, be the bigger man and start the conversation. You’ll be amazed at how many people wont do this themselves. Make sure you at least have the conversation; you’ll feel way better about yourself after you’re done. (MOM, DAD, and every roommate I’ve ever had.)

4. How to change a tire. You don’t want to be stuck on some epic road trip on the side of the road, or get a call from a cute girl with a flat and not know how to remedy the situation. Ask your dad to show you, it’s an easy enough process, and very satisfying. (DAD)

5. Your clothing size. This might seem like an odd choice for this list but trust me. Nothing looks worse than clothes that don’t really fit on a guy. Take the time and figure out what size really fits you, waist, inseem length, coat size (chest/sleeve length/cut), pant cut, neck size. These are all things that will come in handy at some point. (BETH)

6. Hunting/fishing techniques. Go hunting at least once, be it deer or some type of bird. Shoot something. This might seem barbaric, but there is something to shooting something in the wild, and then cleaning and eating it that brings home this hunter gatherer nature we all have inside. Fishing too brings this home, though on another level all together. Plus girls love to go fishing. (And they will out-fish you every single time. Don’t ask why, God just likes it that way.) (DAD)

7. Football. Be able to talk at least one sport. Football is probably the easiest in America, because it is likely the most popular. (ESPN)

8. How to drive a stick shift. Imagine this: some guy you know gets a new car for his birthday, and it just happens to be something like a Porsche. Imagine not knowing how to shift through a 6 speed manual transmission with a racing clutch. It would suck not getting to drive that thing, trust me. Learn how to drive stick, it will come in handy at some point I’m convinced. (DAD)

9. How to back down. Though it isn’t always easy know how to step back from a fight. You’ll be pissed at the time, but later on you’ll feel much better about yourself. (MOM. I still don’t really like this one.)

10. How to love Jesus. Not this far down the list for any particular reason, just didn’t get around to it until now. (COMCHURCH)

Working for the Weekend

They call my generation the millennials. This is because we were born from 1980 until like 1996, and most of our time was spent around the millennium. We grew up attached at the hip to some sort of computing device. Our parents, the tail end of the baby boomer generation, saw the largest increase in wealth in human history, and because of that not only did we see lots of technology but we were able to afford almost all of it. The act of acquiring information as a world community went from a linear scale, to an exponential one (meaning that information no longer works on a straight line curve, but rather it is shooting upwards at a speed unparalleled in all of human history). The bad part about being in this generation though is that as we start hitting the workforce, it is becoming clearer that most of us don’t want to work very hard. We grew up being told how great we were at everything, and we expect the same treatment in the workplace. I don’t want this at all. I try my best to do a good job at whatever it is I’m doing. I do sometimes get finished early which means I can do more fun things like blog, but that doesn’t mean I’m neglecting any of my work requirements.

I work for the man. Well not really the man, more like a man. I don’t always want to make money working for someone else though. I’d like a chance to start something up myself and see where I can take it. The problem is that I don’t know what that would be, or if I could even do what I’d need to do to run a company.

I’m pretty sure this stems from the fact that most of the Godly men in my life not only run some sort of business operation on their own, but in many cases that is their main source of income. They, along with their wives, have decided that it is more worth it for them to pursue a career in their living room, or small rented office space, than to work for a major corporation. In fact I know very few men at my church that work at large companies. Sure there are a few that do, and most really enjoy their jobs, but it seems like more often than not the guys I trust (and often times follow) call their own shots.

Take the office I work in for instance. Brandon and Josh both run a company full time, and are always looking at new ideas and ventures to pursue. Some days in our office are spent neglecting the companies at hand, and discussing future ideas. We spend a lot of time dreaming about what if’s, and even more time fleshing out specifics of what could be done at some point in time.

I love those moments when someone comes up to me and says something to the effect of, “I have an idea. Let me know what you think.” This is the time that not only am I being taken into another person’s thought process, but I’m being given a chance to experience the creation of something new along with them. Some of the time I’ll have a good idea to contribute, some of the time I’ll be able to speak into their idea in such a way that the idea takes on a little more life of its own, or maybe I don’t have anything at all to contribute. Amanda and Travis have these moments all of the time. Amanda always has some business idea that she wants to try out, and a lot of the time she comes to me to find out what I think. I like that about her. While I think of things and then often times hide them away, she puts them out there for the world to see. I need more of that.

Ross told me at some point recently that it’s not wrong to make money doing something you think is easy. I thought about it for a second and then questioned him in his logic. I wasn’t sure what he meant. Then he explained that it isn’t super difficult for him to write a song, but he does a good job at it when he does sit down to write. He told me that I could make money doing the things that I enjoy doing and the things that come easily to me.

1. I like to play around with words. I think I could come up with some great tag lines for different products.

2. I’m great at bouncing ideas off of. I did this a lot as a child, and if you get me started thinking about an idea, I’ll still be thinking about it 3 hours later… most of the time I’ll end up calling you with another idea that just hit me. Because of this I can usually tell you if an idea is good or bad. We’ll call this my crap-spotting ability.

3. I play with photoshop a lot. This doesn’t mean that I’m good enough with photoshop to put it on a real resume, but I can make something look funny, or put two or three pictures together in a fun way. That’s gotta be worth at least a dollar to someone at some point.

4. Manual labor. I can lift things. Heavy things, light things, small things, large things, high things, or short things. I’m fairly certain I was bred to squash bugs, get things off of shelves, and mow the lawn. You can ask my mom, she’ll likely confirm the notion.

Who knows what I’ll be doing in 10 years. I’d like to know, but that would take a lot of the fun out of the equation. I just hope that whatever I’m doing is something I enjoy. I realize that doing work you enjoy isn’t guaranteed, but it would be nice.