worth the time to read

i've taken a pretty middle-of-the-road stance in politics in the last few years. i honestly don't trust either side of the aisle, and i believe that very few in washington have the best interests of the people entirely at heart. i didn't vote for obama, but when he won, as citizens should, i supported him and prayed for his ability to lead this country. i have tried as best as i could to try to see both sides of every argument, be it the financial crisis and bailouts, the war, and now healthcare. the healthcare debate has take so many ugly turns and has had so much wildly inaccurate information passed about it, it's been hard to see through the fog. i understand the need for reform, and i of course understand that there are those who need assistance. but in trying to be realistic about this task, there is very little i see in the democrats plan that seems to be very good.

this is an article by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods. in it he details his ideas on reform and what he's done with his employees (with great success). he has been lambasted by the democrats for this article, and there have been repeated attempts to boycott Whole Foods (which were unsuccessful). i've also read other articles which detail plans that seem better. the ideas were simple and direct, but no one seems to want to entertain any other ideas except what is being given us by our current government.

i ran across this article this morning, and i cannot ignore it. i would hate to think that this is being done on purpose, but i also cannot believe that our president would be this misinformed about his own healthcare plan.

my true hope is, in short, that the republican side would calm the hell down and make some rational arguments (if the truth is really on your side, there's no need to shout), and that the democrat side would realize that 'the right' is not dumb or ignorant (or racist), just passionate. and a little scared.

while i'm on my soap box, i will say one other thing. capitalism, in and of itself, is not evil. the greed behind it is. many people falsely claim that "money is the root of all evil," which is not right. in actuality, the truth is that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil, which is a different sentiment entirely. this is why Jesus said that "...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." this country became great and prosperous because of the very system that is now being villified by many, including michael moore. and while i agree there are many greedy people in powerful positions hurting people, the system is not to blame. and if that system is torn down, it will bring this country to a grinding halt.

also, i'm a big proponent of the fair tax, and if you aren't, you should consider it.

/rant

watch this show, everybody

this is my new favorite show. it joins, after only two episodes, the ranks of How I Met Your Mother, the Office, Big Bang Theory, Arrested Development (same producers), Scrubs, and 30Rock. it could get worse, but with joel mchale leading the cast, i don't see how. plus it has chevy chase. he can't afford not to be funny.

mira.

i honestly don't think i can help it

this is b-wack. he's the drummer for dc*b. he's hilarious. and an evil genius.

so maybe i caved.

maybe i decided to listen to david crowder band.

maybe i like them.

maybe i've been reading dave's blog.

maybe i'm hooked.

maybe this video is hilarious.



the end is a mockup of that video of that kid after the dentist from a while back. click here to see it! (ps - that video has over 30 million hits. unreal.)

What happens in Vegas

is pretty boring if you're not a heavy drinker and don't like porn and stuff.

You may remember me talking about the brothers that I reconnected with when my dad passed. Well, my brothers Robert and Jeff (42 and 44, respectively) both graduated from Oregon State, and therefore invited me to come with them to Vegas with them and my nephew Mitch to go to the Oregon State/UNLV game. I flew out there on Wednesday night (I watched I Love You Man on the flight out there. HILARIOUS.) We walked ALL over the strip on Thursday and Friday (I took a BUNCH of pictures.) We met up with a few of Robert's friends, ate a bunch of expensive food, and I spent a little bit of money at the Blackjack table. That game doesn't seem to be the same as when I was 10.

All in all, the city was really cool, but mostly really sad. There was porn everywhere, which bothered me more than a little bit. Not just for the obvious, but just because the people seemed so sad and hopeless. People LINED the streets handing out these pamphlets for hookers, and they literally littered the streets. The buildings were so big and beautiful, but they made me think of the white-washed tombs.

But, I still had a lot of fun, I didn't really drink that much, and I stayed at the Hilton for free. The only downside to the Hilton was that there was a 15-story picture of Barry Manilow on the outside of it. Don't believe me?


A grand time to be sure. Oh, and and I watched Star Trek on the flight home. That's five. Awesome

Conor

I'm backdating this post a couple of weeks. I just wanted to say something about my friend, Conor. He passed away on September 7th. He was 29. I don't want to talk about his life or his death, or our friendship or our history. I just want to say that I miss him, and I wish I could have done more for him, and I wish I could have been there for the service.

I love you, my friend. See you when I get there.

906

This post will be weird to some, funny to others, and hopefully interesting to all. Today is September 6. This day means absolutely nothing to me.

In the last seven years or so, since college, this weird thing has happened. I would, oh every 6 months or so, look at the clock and it would say 9:06. (Background: In college, I was a part of Campus Outreach for three years. CO is a Presbyterian (kinda) college ministry, and...well, I'll just leave it at that. The only thing related to this story is that every week, there was a campus wide meeting called "906." If I remember correctly, it was related to some verse in the Bible. I honestly don't remember (Jamie? Jo?)) I always thought it funny I saw that on the clock. And I always remembered it.

Then, starting about four or five months ago, it started happening all the time. ALL. the. time. Two or three times a week. And I wasn't looking for it. It would always catch me off guard. At one point, I was so caught off guard that I actually stopped mid-sentence and stared at my watch. The person I was talking to thought I was crazy. I was so weirded out that I called Rodger to see if he thought I was crazy. "Maybe God is trying to tell me something," I railed. I would not have been surprised.

I looked up Sept. 6 on Wikipedia. Three posts jumped out at me.
~1492 – Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic for the first time.
~1620 – The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America.
~1847 – Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.

Three major stories of someone or some group setting off on a journey.

Now, I looked that up a couple of weeks ago. I don't really think God was necessarily using that to tell me to go. But it was interesting. And encouraging. It's funny, because I see Chicago-related things EVERYWHERE nowadays. TV, magazines, books, etc. Yesterday, during Dragon Con, my friend Monty and I went to Hard Rock to watch the game. We were given coasters for our drinks, on which were random cities or countries that had Hard Rock restaurants. Monty had Bali (which is funny because I just watched With Honors, and there's a joke in there about Bali...). Me? You guessed it. Chicago. I stole it. It's in my car.

And this morning, I woke up and I was reading The Voice of the Martyrs. It's a book filled with stories of people who died for the Gospel. People who refused to deny God in the face of death, and were killed because of it. And all-of-the-sudden, I felt at peace about leaving. I've tossed and turned for, I don't know, two years now really. And now I feel at peace. On September 6th. Also today, I watched this thing my mom taped from TBN (I don't watch TBN, so I never would have seen this). A guy was interviewing Jim Caviezel about The Passion of the Christ, and he said a lot of things about acting and about being a Christian in Hollywood that I have always thought, and I really needed to hear. I always had the idea in the back of my mind that, in becoming an actor I would be able to do some cool faith-related projects. That perhaps God could use me in this capacity. And Caviezel was talking about that very thing. And I was kinda just sitting there dumbfounded. And I remembered it was September 6th.

It may seem hokey or nutjobbish to some of you, but I've been looking for this for a while. Something to let me know that either it's okay to go, or I need to stay, or I need to go somewhere else. While I don't think God is going to use a burning bush with me, I do believe He speaks and leads, though I'm not always in tune enough to hear it.

On Wednesday, my mom has an appointment with the doctor. Unless he says that my mom only has a couple of months (which ain't happening), I am quite certain that I am out of here.

Here's to the open road.

this is no ordinary love

no ordinary lo-ove...

sade is hot. the end.

i LOVE this weather. it's early september and for once it actually FEELS like autumn. very cool mornings, highs in the mid-upper 80's.

i took this photo out of my sunroof on the way to work this morning, after meeting mAndrew at Starbucks.



i know it looks fake, but that's actually the sky. wonderful.