now bring me that horizon :: alex ogle

Proof.

2011-06-05T12:54:00.000-04:00

A Month

2010-07-27T01:38:00.002-04:00

Wow, where has a month gone?

So much has happened. The transition to life in Los Angeles hasn't been without it's share of adjustments and continuing struggles, but overall, things have been very smooth.

Although our apartment still has no furniture besides our beds, two tailgating chairs and a tv, I'm starting to feel settled. I think this will all feel pretty surreal for a while, but it feels good.

Last week, I realized that the place in the city that feels most like home is actually the Mayan Theater downtown. It sounds crazy, but the sticky floors and peeling walls of the ornate theater turned porno-house turned trendy LA night club have been my constant through all of my time in Southern California. Living situations and work locations have changed, but almost every Sunday night, I have traveled downtown to find community and purpose.

Going back every week really feels like going home, and seeing faces of both new and old friends there is quickly becoming a major blessing as I suddenly am finding prayers for connection and community being answered without me even realizing it!

Tonight, Josh and I watched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. My absolute favorite line comes from eccentric toymaker, Mr. Magorium, played by Dustin Hoffman, talking to his successor Mahoney, played by Natalie Portman.

He tells her, "Your life is an occasion...rise to it."

Speakers at Mosaic are constantly reminding us that we are created to do great things. We just need to step out into the light.

I don't know what I'm here for. Maybe it will take me a long time to figure it out. I do know, however, that I feel like the opportunity of being here is a great occasion, and I intend to rise to it...

It's time to step out and see what's in the light.

now vs. next

2010-06-29T22:02:00.006-04:00

Uh oh, I can feel it creeping in...

Yep, there it is. It's that need I have to think about what's next. And I'm not talking about the Los Angeles move. It's a given that I'm constantly thinking about Los Angeles. I have to think about that, I'm packing after all!

No, it's that thinking about what could be next.

It's wondering how Los Angeles will stack up against the lifestyle I loved in New York in the winter. It's the need to compare relationships, communities, and churches to what's been familiar. It's a beginning to romanticize about the idea of moving "back East" after a few years on the West coast. And I haven't even moved there yet!

Now don't get me wrong. I think it's awesome and even necessary to be dreaming big dreams for our futures, but not when those thoughts unhealthily disconnect us from the here and now.

I would assume this struggle is something everyone experiences in life, but I think it has been magnified for me by the last four years of being on co-op. No matter what I've been doing, that thought has always been tucked somewhere in my mind. "In three months I'll be back at school." "In just a few weeks I'll be in a new city." "After this, I can't wait for..."

But now, things are different. There won't be an end date on the calendar for me to be constantly watching, thinking about what's next. And in my brief moments of clarity, that's exactly the way I want it. I want to be challenged to completely be somewhere. To be indefinitely committed to one place.

It's not going to be easy, and it will definitely take some getting used to. But if I'm able to change my mindset, I'm confident the results will be great.

I'm dreaming big dreams. Not so much for the next, but for the now.

If only I could figure out how to get myself in the mindset of taking advantage of these last two days I have here at home...

but why california?

2010-06-28T08:47:00.004-04:00

In the last week, without anything I've really had to do, I have had some time to think and dwell a little. I don't think that it's any coincidence that I spent a significant part of the last week next to an enormous body of water (Lake Erie) and was also in Somerset, PA. Being so near water not only made me think of California, but also reminded me of the summer I spent as a counselor at Summer's Best Two Weeks, just minutes from Somerset.

Not only that, but I also was able to talk and catch up with my friend Lori, who was on my Namibia team last summer and as I type this is actually en route to Namibia as a leader of this year's team with my friend Sonja.

Memories of those two experiences at Summer's Best and in Namibia are powerful and continually inspiring to me, as they were times when I felt really focused on a goal and was powerfully motivated by being in such a tight community with other people who shared that goal. In the case of Summer's Best, it is actually a little depressing to think about, since this summer was the last summer I could've gone back as a counselor, something I wish I had been able to do.

But in the midst of thinking about these experiences and other similar ones, it hit me, this is why I'm going to California.

While in Los Angeles, I felt extremely focused, inspired, and driven. Although I was never able to get into a small group community, I still felt inspired by Mosaic and loved the vision they have for the city and for people, and I loved serving with them. I really felt like I had a lot of clarity, especially during the summer I spent there, and actually was actively trying to apply a lot of what I was learning and thinking about!

The last five years in Cincinnati have been absolutely awesome. I may never have a community as incredible as the group of friends I've found and they've helped me grow in huge ways. I'll be working hard to stay in touch with them. Navs and crossroads have helped shape, focus, and inspire me in big ways too. But it was easy for me to lose focus again and again with all of the distractions of being in school. Now, I think it's time for a new chapter of the story, with a new setting.

I know going out to Los Angeles won't be perfect, and I don't expect everything to fall in to place when I arrive. I do know, however, that in LA I felt like I was really consistently moving in a direction I wanted to be moving, a direction I want to be moving in the future.

This Friday I fly to California to start this next chapter. Who knows how long I'll be out there, but for now, I'm supposed to be in the City of Angels.

beautiful morning

2010-02-05T15:55:00.003-05:00

So there's this great lady that's a conductor on the downtown A train. She usually happily wishes everyone on the train a "beautiful morning" over the PA, and so we started exchanging smiles and pleasantries as Patrick and I get off in Brooklyn. It's such a nice way to start the morning that we've started to let other A trains pass through the station to wait for hers.

As we walked by on the platform today, she actually held the train so that she could say good morning to us and then asked us if we were rooting for the Saints on Sunday. We hesitated, and she repeated encouragingly, "Are you rooting for the Saints?" We laughingly answered "Oh yeah, of course!" and she wished us a good weekend. As she started to pull away I noticed the New Orleans beads and swag hanging from her neck and it brought a big smile to my face.

I don't know what's so different about New York this time compared to last year, but I am meeting some really nice people in random places, and am really enjoying conversing with would-be strangers.

So, yes, I will be rooting for the Saints on Sunday.

Crazy.

2009-10-29T09:28:00.004-04:00

Here it is. Another day.

After five years of college and plenty of time co-oping out in "the real world," it's easy to become disenchanted and find myself giving in to the idea of just settling into something safe and familiar when I graduate in 8 months.

Settling into a life where every day is pretty similar to the last.

But that's not what we're built for. We're meant for bigger things. We're built to get dirty, to make some noise, to go against the grain. Those moments are when we experience true exhilaration, when we experience life to the fullest.

Some days I need a reminder.

Today, let's be crazy.

Ahhh, Fanta

2009-08-26T17:44:00.007-04:00

So I've been back in the States for two weeks now. I've had plenty of time to readjust, and although the time home has flown by, I've had some time to recap as well.

This Sunday, Pastor Larry asked me to share for 10 or 15 minutes in Church. Writing a bit should help me figure out what I want to say.

Right now, sitting next to me is a piece of life in Africa, a two liter of Fanta. Unfortunately the grocery store didn't have my favorite flavor, Pineapple, but Orange is good for now.

(He writes for an hour or so, before realizing that the blog post is too long and he'd rather wait to post it until after this Sunday)

Okay well, instead of doing a major recap right now, I'll share some things from Namibia.

Months and months ago, I thought doing design work in Africa would be a big part of the trip. As we got closer, the scale got smaller and smaller until I didn't know if there would be any designing at all on the trip. Well, it turned out there was. The last few weeks in Namibia, Dan and I used our free time to design and build a website for our friend Martha's upcoming real estate business, Imani Properties.

While in Windhoek, Martha shared with me the vision she recieved for Imani, and her mission to serve the youth of the country and to show Jesus to them through her business ventures. She's been very smart about her business plans, waiting until God shows her when its the right time to take certain steps. Our hope is that the real estate business is something that can start bringing in some serious income which will then be applied to the other parts of Imani, an eventual Coffee Shop, Bookstore, and Radio Station.

Anyway, I did the design, and Dan absolutely rocked all the back-end coding, database stuff. He did an awesome job and we gave Martha a site where all she has to do is type in the info and upload the pictures and she's ready to go. Neither of us could've really made the site without the other person, so it was awesome that we were able to work together to make it happen.

What we made is far from perfect, but it is actually very nice and looks good. Here's a screenshot from the homepage.

If you follow this link you can take a look at the basic html version of the site. This is the work I did without all of the back end coding Dan put into building the site, so the page links will work, but the searches aren't active and the sparse properties included are not real. If Internet Explorer is unfortunately the browser you use, then not everything will look exactly right since IE is stupid, but you'll get the idea.

Martha was the best client of all time. She absolutely loved our work and said she couldn't thank us enough. It was very cool to help a cause we believed in with some of our know-how. We're hoping it will be live and completely working in two or three months.

Okay, that's enough for today. I think I have a debriefing form to fill out for Navs Headquarters. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the task of recapping my experience at the moment.

Many have watched this video already, but I'll post it here, too. This is the recap video I made of my team's time in Namibia. I think it turned out pretty well. We're hoping to show it in church on Sunday. Hopefully it works out.

Here's the link to the video on youtube.

Enjoy!

Down the Home Stretch

2009-08-09T10:05:00.003-04:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! Unfortunately I don't have a lot of internet to work with so this will probably be a short post, too.

On Tuesday I'll be flying back to the States. In the last few weeks we've had encouraging time at poly and UNam, done some manual labor, had a decent turnout at the first ever Namibia Navigators conference, and plenty some tearful goodbyes when half the team went home last Tuesday.

Dan and I have been tearing it up building the Imani website for Martha, and while there was a time in the last few months when I didn't think there would be any design work involved in this trip, it's been awesome to see that Dan and my skills are being put to use after all. Martha is thrilled with the results (which is amazing compared to the occasional difficult clients I'm dealt with on co-ops!) and it's actually been a lot of fun and will end up being a cool portfolio piece, too.

The last three days those of us that are left in town went out to Swakopmund on the coast. It's a very cool old German town that is now probably Namibia's most popular tourist destination. Right next to Swakop is the Namib Desert, which is a not-messing-around-hardcore desert. It's huge dunes of sand as far as you can see, just like in the movies. And the desert reaches right into the ocean. Amazing.

Friday morning, after getting recomendations from another American, we went on a quad tour through the desert. On my personal list of the most amazing things I've ever done, the quad ride is a contender for the top spot. It's the kind of thing that I know when I tell my brother about it and show him pictures he'll say, "Wow man! That's sweet!" We were tearing through the desert riding over and up and down huge dunes with nothing but sand as far as you can see. It was ridiculous. I'll have some pictures to show later.

Right now, Dan and I are finishing up website work and we're hanging out with some people and saying our goodbyes.

I'm really excited to come home. I could've stayed longer, but the fact that I know I'm leaving soon, I really looking forward to it.

This has been an amazing adventure, and I know Namibia has been forever tatooed on my heart. Who knows what plans God has for me and for this country, but I know that we'll be connected forever. I've learned so much in the last six weeks, and I know I'll be learning more in the coming months.

It's such a blessing that I've had this experience right before my senior year when I'll have some seriously huge decisions to be making. I'm really thankful for this time of serving and growing and I'm stoked to see what God has in store!

Right now, I can't wait to come home and see you, my family and friends, and share some of my experiences with you!

Much love. See you soon!

Africa for Beginners

2009-07-27T16:36:00.010-04:00

So I’ve realized I haven’t really shown any of my team yet on my blog. This time, as I write about the highlights of the last week, I’ve included some recent pictures of a lot of the members of my Navigators team here in Namibia. As I’m sure you’ll see, I’ve been ridiculously blessed to be able to spend so much time in community and fellowship with them! They are all amazing people. Tonight in our meeting, Lauren said that it was obvious that God wanted each and every member of our team to be here. How true. I’ve learned so much from them. It will be really hard when most of the team leaves next week, but I know we’ll always be connected having shared this amazing experience together.

I should mention that this picture and the other like it are from the single birthday party we had for all four members of the team that have birthdays during our trip. We all just went downstairs to see our leader Ed (bottom right) wearing some clothes backwards. One thing led to another and soon everybody was decked out in whatever crazy clothes we could find. We had a blast. That’s just the kind of people the team is.

On to the recap:

We spent this last week on the campus of Polytechnic of Namibia, right next to downtown Windhoek. It’s a really cool place, complete with its own sort of “steps” area to remind of home at UC. It was a seriously tough and challenging week, but one where God showed up with some huge blessings.

I know a lot of us have been learning some tough lessons, myself included, but it’s been paying off big time. Throughout the week, we had ups and downs of resistance and breakthroughs. Some relationships didn’t pan out the way I wanted them to, but other really cool ones were formed.

Dan, Living, Me and Chris at the Birthday Party

I won’t go into all the details here (I have to save something for when I get back) but the week all led up to a Braai (an Afrikaans word that essentially means Barbeque) that we had at our house on Friday afternoon. We ended up having about 25 of the people we met during the week come over to eat a lot of meat (a necessity for any Namibian gathering) and hang out. At the end of the night, a few people from our team got up and shared testimonies, then Dr. Fynn got up and explained what the Navs are all about. Dr. Fynn is the leader in the Namibia Navigators and has a very cool story himself, but that’s another tangent to save. Towards the end of his spiel, Dr. Fynn started to talk about what it really means to be a Christian and ended up asking if anyone was there that hadn’t committed their lives to Christ and asked them to come to the front of the room if they wanted to.

13 Polytech students came forward and prayed to accept Jesus in our dining room. It was very cool, and it was amazing to see what God was able to do in just a week on campus.

Allie, Erika and Kelsey

After the meeting finished up, many people had to leave but some stuck around. At first we were just hanging out, but before we knew it the night erupted into an unplanned all-out Navigators Dance Party, Namibian style. People brought in speakers and Nathan was DJing the party with plenty of “House,” an Africa-infused dance music. Kelsey even whipped out some glow sticks. It was awesome to be able to show our guests that if there’s one thing the Navigators know how to do, it’s have an awesome dance party!

Saturday morning was a time of fasting and time with God over on the campus at the University of Namibia. I had never done anything like that so it was a cool experience. God definitely told me some things that I needed to hear following the week at Poly. I’d definitely like to take time at the end of this trip to do something similar.

Alex, Simba (our coaster driver), and James

Today (Monday) we were originally planning on going over to the UNam to start talking to students there, but we were all feeling led to follow up with our Polytech contacts and really building into them. For me, that meant that I spent the whole morning with Chris and Botshélo aka BP hanging out and talking to them about life, Jesus, and the Navigators. They are really cool guys that I’ve definitely connected with and they’re really interested in getting involved in bible study with the Navigators. I definitely want to help them get some roots in the Navs before we Americans leave. Today I also ran into Usiel, a guy I met last week who actually came to the Braai and was one of the people to commit their lives to Christ. He told me he really wants to learn more about the bible, so hopefully we’ll be able to plan some solid time later in the week.

Last Wednesday night, Dr. Samuel John, the head of the Engineering Department at Polytech and a member of the Naivgators Board of Directors in Namibia came over to thank us all for coming. It was powerful when he talked about how much Namibia is in need of a moral base. He talked about how messed up the family structure is in Namibia thanks to a lack of real, responsible men, and how much separation and dissention there is between churches and believers in the country. He said he believes that the Navigators, being a strong interdenominational discipleship-focused ministry, have the opportunity to really change the country for the better.

Recently I’ve heard a lot of people joke about how Namibia is “Africa for Beginners,” meaning that it’s a relatively westernized country that isn’t too terribly shocking or difficult to get used to. Like I said in my last post, this doesn’t fit with my romanticized view of mission work in Africa. Still, as we experience the amazing need of this country and connect to the people in it, it’s impossible to deny the fact that Namibia is ripe to become a major stronghold for the Kingdom. We’re all seeing the signs that God has big plans for this small country in southern Africa.

Lori with Simba's Son

It’s such an amazing privilege that God is letting us take part in his work here. As I get over my stereotypes, it’s awesome to see that God has put me here for a reason. He’s always wanted me to come here.

Right now, this is exactly where I’m meant to be.

"There's far too much to take in here..."

2009-07-21T17:47:00.008-04:00

So, it’s been a week since my last update, and somehow, today already marks three whole weeks in Africa! Amazing. Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase! I have a lot to talk about and some pictures to share!

Last Wednesday the entire team was reunited up in Tsumeb. When we pulled in to park at the place we were spending the night, everyone’s faces lit up when we caught sight of the Coaster Deluxe and all the folks who had gone up to Rundu. There were big hugs, smiles, and laughing all around. We had been apart for a longer period of time than we had all spent together, but it was like meeting up with lifelong friends!

The next day we all drove up into Etosha National Park, and let me say, driving through there was definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Everywhere you looked, all you could see was pure Africa. We drove through wide open plains, through forests and past dry lakebeds. It was all I imagined and more!

I’ll say right off the bat: no, we didn’t catch sight of any lions this time, but we did see elephants, springbok, kudu, wildebeast, and plenty of giraffes and zebras. I guess I’ll have to save the lions for next time!

For the most part we stayed in our vehicles, as you’re required to do, but at one of the outpost areas you could get out and walk over to a water hole where we saw a huge group of zebras come over to drink.

While driving by a water hole later in the day, we came upon what must’ve been a hundred or more zebra, at multiple points the coaster was no more than five or ten yards from the animals.

Another highlight was later in the day when we drove past a huge giraffe walking through the road. He walked around and started to chew on the trees right next to the road, giving us a perfect view straight at his long neck and head rising above the leaves. We all just sat there in awe, marveling at the size of the animal and watching him grab and chew his food. He didn’t seem to mind, and I probably could’ve sat there and watched him all day.

As we were driving to the park exit during the sunset, we passed this massive open plain. Not far from the road was a wildebeast among some springbok and a bit further back was a giraffe. Way off in the distance were the silhouettes of probably ten giraffes. It was absolutely beautiful; a major Jurassic Park, in awe of creation-type moment.

I know none of the pictures I took can do justice to how amazing the day in Etosha was. It was the Africa I’ve dreamed about. The "Circle of Life" Africa.

After Etosha, we drove back down here to Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city. Africa here is definitely different from the Africa of Etosha. Windhoek is quite a modern, beautiful city. All twenty team members are now living in a great six bedroom house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Windhoek. In fact, the neighborhood feels very much like the hills of Los Angeles, save for the electric fences around every house. We’re here to evangelize to the students at Namibia Polytechnic Institute and the University of Namibia in the hopes of sharing the gospel and helping to really grow the Navigators Ministry here.

The last few days have been a bit of a struggle, as I’ve been trying to justify living in a beautiful, comfortable house and walking onto modern college campuses telling students about Jesus. It just doesn’t fit with my romanticized view of what it’s like to do mission work in Africa. However, I’m learning that mission work doesn’t necessarily need to be all about living in huts and getting dirty trekking out to villages where no one speaks English. God has blessed our team with a nice house where we’re able to relax when we need to and fellowship and study in a comfortable environment. It definitely helps us to charge up to go out into the city.

As for the college ministry, I’m realizing that the faces of the students I’m meeting are the faces of young men and women who have grown up facing the same struggles as the kids in classes back in Otjiwarongo. They’ve been taught many of the same lies and get caught up in the same snags. My heart broke for those young kids, and so it’s now pretty awesome to have the opportunity to minister to the next evolution of them.

Yesterday and today we were at Polytech, ministering to students, just starting up conversations with people, talking about God, sharing the bridge when possible. It’s incredibly difficult to just walk up to a stranger and start talking, but it’s gone pretty well. Some people aren’t interested in talking or say they have to get to class, and others are very happy to talk and learn. It’s challenging in that it’s extremely upfront in ways I’ve never been. It’s requiring a lot of faith in Jesus’ authority and the power of the gospel, but it’s resulting in some instant faith-growth for me. Some don’t know much about Jesus and God, but many claim to be Christians. That means different things to different people, and we’re really trying to find out what that actually does mean, trying to encourage and press students to get plugged in somewhere that is pouring into them and challenging them to grow. We’re telling them about the first Navigators Namibia One Day Conference on August 1st and many seem to be interested in coming.

We’re trying to build some real relationships here, and I’m really hoping and praying to have opportunities to follow up with some of the people I’ve met over the last two days. We’ll see. It’s been tough but very cool so far. Hopefully there is much more to come!

Okay, that’s it for tonight. I hope everybody is doing well, wherever this finds you! Here’s one last picture from my day at Etosha.

I know, it’s ridiculous, but how could a Pittsburgher like me go to Africa without a terrible towel? I was hoping I’d have the opportunity to wave the golden towel above the African landscape, and there I am, proudly repping the City of Champions.

"D’yinz guyz see dem zebras n’at?"

Love and miss you all!

The Herd is on the move

2009-07-14T05:57:00.007-04:00

Today ends our stay here in Otjiwarongo. Tonight we're headed up to Tsumeb where we're reuiniting with the rest of the team and spending tomorrow touring Etosha National Park (where the Lions, Elephants, Giraffes and Zebras are). It's crazy how fast our time here has flown by.

It went so fast, and yet I've definitely become connected to this place and especially all of the kids we've met here. They are all full of so much potential, and unfortunately there are major hurdles they have to overcome. Talking to the kids in classes this week, we've seen how painfully deep misconceptions about sex and manhood run. Unfaithfulness among respected adult men seems to be frighteningly common. These kids have the power to stop the progress of so many horrible things by standing up and refusing to accept them as "just the way it is."

I pray that our message didn't fall on deaf ears. It was amazing to see kids open up their eyes and connect to what we were telling them. If even just one of them will "Choose to wait" and avoid the pain, brokenness and health risks of sex before marriage here, this would all be worth it. That's a prayer we're praying hard.

Yesterday we said goodbye to Joy Center. Auntie Fisch is convinced it wasn't goodbye forever, and that whenever anyone walks through the front door, Joy Center becomes their home. And that's exactly how it feels. Hopefully that wasn't goodbye forever. There are amazing things God is doing, and the kids are extremely blessed to be able to stay there! We all want to stay as connected to it as we can.

Every day here was full of challenges, both external and internal, and it's been quite an adventure. I can't wait to reconnect with the team that was up in Rundu and find out what they've been doing!

Now I'll leave you with a shot from the Crocodile Ranch here in Otjiwarongo. And yes, it's a ranch for Crocs just like ranches in the U.S. raise cattle. They raise the Crocs and sell them. If the buyer wants, they'll even kill the crocs. Not quite what I'm used to hearing in our animal conservancy-minded country! And crikey, those were some huge crocs!

Maybe next time I post I'll have some sweet animal photos for you. I'm praying for everybody headed on their trip to Ghana now. I know it'll be awesome!

In three days or so I'll be in Windhoek for the next leg of our adventure. Hope everybody is great. Catch you on the flip side!

Rejecting Hakuna Matata

2009-07-09T10:23:00.004-04:00

Wow, it's about day 10 in Africa. I have more than a month left and I cannot believe how much it seems like we've done already!

My team got here to Otjiwambo early on Saturday, and although it took us a day or so to get our bearings and figure out what we were actually going to do here, it's exciting to feel like now we're taking the city by storm! I can't really go into all the details now and I have to save some stories to share over meals and coffee upon my return, but I'll give you an idea of all the stuff we're doing here.

One of our main projects is going into schools and teaching kids this "Choose to Wait" abstinence program that we learned back at camp. As I think I said in my earlier post, although I was initially skeptical, it's turned out to be an amazingly powerful Christ-centered teaching. The message that they are all equally loved and valued by God, and that he has a perfect plan for sex in marriage is something that they don't seem to be hearing at all. We've given some big assemblies, but it's mostly when we're able to get into the classroom and give more personal lessons that the kids really seem to respond.

Today we spent the whole morning teaching classes to some 8th and 10th graders. Their teacher is a christian guy who would normally be teaching Life Skills classes about accounting, but when we talked to him he was thrilled to let us come in and he even talked to another teacher and we taught her classes. At the end of our last class, the kids were asking some awesome questions about sex and Jesus and salvation. Although we've definitely seen how the stereotypes about sex in their culture run deep (and probably deeper than they do in the U.S.), many of them really seem to be getting it! They are so open to discussing Jesus here, it's crazy!

Another awesome way we're serving the city has been visiting an orphanage, Joy Orphanage. This amazing woman started this place five years ago and is doing great things providing kids a safe place to live and be loved. She teaches these mostly 9-22 year olds about the bible, and has even encouraged the older ones start up and run a bike shop all on their own! We've spent many afternoons there already, with the guys mostly kicking around soccer balls while the girls learn dances and braid eachothers hair. We've also showed them the Navs "Bridge" illustration and might even teach them some choose to wait stuff. Whatever the case, there are huge smiles on the faces of both us and the kids everytime we visit.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find cuter kids anywhere in the world. Joy is definitely a place I would love to stay connected to in the future.

The other big thing is that we've teamed up with guys from Campus Crusade (Who would have thought, right? Navs and Cru!) who travel all around Namibia setting up a giant screen and showing a film about Jesus. Actually, the Namibians all pronounce it "fill-um" so that's usually how we Yanks refer to it!

Again with my American stereotypes, I was skeptical what the results of showing the film in public would be, but the first night we showed it there was a huge crowd and I ended up praying with a young guy named Jerome how said he was caught up in a lot of bad stuff and that he wanted to give his life to Christ.

Since then we've been showing the film about every night this week, and although it's been very cold at night, big crowds have come. Last night there were about 200 or so people standing and sitting in the dirt watching it, and at the end, probably 50 people or so crowded around the screen to commit their lives to Christ.

It's difficult doing these things to know what kind of an impact we'll have in the long run, especially being a group of Navigators who are all about mentoring and discipleship, but we're learning and trying to see how we can really connect people and make sure they are being filled up. A lot of it is definitely planting seeds and praying hard.

It's amazing that I haven't even been in this city for a week yet, but already I'm really connecting to it and starting to feel like I belong. We can walk almost everywhere, and when we do we're constantly running into kids we've taught or met in schools and seeing familiar faces at night when we're showing the Jesus fillum. I can't help but wonder what kind of an impact a person could have if they invested in this place in the long term.

This has been ridiculously amazing already, and we're justing getting started.

I think God's just getting started, too.

Greetings from Namibia!

2009-07-03T12:20:00.001-04:00

So I made it to Namibia, and it was quite a journey!

I didn’t get much sleep flying and ended up missing my flight in Joburg! It was kind of terrifying when the woman told me that I was too late to make the plane and that the next flight was full. It’s fairly scary being temporarily stuck alone in a foreign country. I had to walk outside through customs and go to the front gate where I waited in line for a while at the South African Airlines counter. I was very frustrated and my mind was racing, having no idea what I would do if I couldn’t get on another flight soon: who I’d call, how I’d contact anyone without a cell phone or how I could pay for a changed flight. Thankfully, I told the woman at the counter what happened, she typed into her computer for a minute or so and said, “Okay, you’re now on the 1:20 flight.” That was the same flight the other half of the group that spent the night in Joburg was taking, so I was very relieved. It was a huge relief then when I saw the faces of my teammates walking toward me in the airport. Then, on the plane, I got upgraded to Business Class and had one of the best meals of my life, some wine, and good conversation with the man next to me who works in the Namibian Government.

God definitely watched over me and got me to Namibia safely, just not at all the way I had planned! Already I’m learning major lessons.

We were greeted at the airport by many smiling faces of some of our Namibian teammates, Vanessa, Vicky, Living, and Emmanuel. They were very excited to see us, and we immediately shared hugs and warm hellos. Driving back through the countryside in our 30 person bus, “The Coaster Deluxe,” we took in the beautiful Namibian countryside, which in this area happens to look fairly similar to the southwest. Mostly flat, with large mountains jutting up almost out of nowhere.

Since then, we’ve been here at a camp in Okahandja spending time getting to know each other, meeting more of our team, learning about what we’ll be doing, praying, worshipping, and playing soccer and Frisbee. Tomorrow morning we’re splitting into two teams for 10 days. Like I said earlier, my team is headed to Otjiwarongo, where we’ll be spending time at an orphanage, visiting some high schools to talk about abstinence, helping out at a chapel, visiting a hospital, and doing a bit of painting.

That’s the plan, anyway. Who knows what will actually happen! That’s Africa!

We’re all really excited to get out into the country and start meeting a lot of the people. We’ve done a lot of waiting, now we get to start doing!

It’s amazing that I get to spend the next five weeks here. Every day is so beautiful! There’s never a cloud in the sky and the sun is always shining. It is chilly at night and in the morning, but it’s nothing a kid who spent the winter in the Big Apple can’t take.

God is already working in me in big ways. He’s starting to work his way into places I haven’t wanted to let him. It’s pretty freaking exciting. Scary, but awesome and exciting.

Okay, I can’t promise how often updates will come. Internet is not easy to come by here! Hopefully up in Otjiwarongo we’ll be able to go to an internet café often. We’ll see.

Either way, I hope everybody is great! I love and miss you all!

I believe I can fly...

2009-06-28T15:36:00.004-04:00

It's Sunday afternoon and orientation weekend has been great!

My ten American teammates are awesome people and I'm feeling extremely blessed to be able to serve alongside such a great and loving group. I'll probably talk more in detail about them later, but on my team is Kelsey, Lori, Alex M., Lauren, Allie, Jeremy, Erika, Dan, Sonja, and our leader, Ed. We've had a lot of fun hanging out together, preparing, praying and worshipping. I cannot wait to get to know these people better. They are all so passionate, encouraging, and easy to connect with. There has been a lot of talk and prayer about group unity, and it is forming very quickly! Now I'm really excited to meet the 8 Namibian folks that will be joining us!

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the group yet! I will make sure I take plenty.

So, half the team just took the shuttle to the airport, but the rest of us don't leave for a few more hours. Tonight at 11 I get on a plane. Tomorrow morning I'll be in London. Hopefully we can leave the airport and see experience a little British culture! I'd really like to have an opportunity to sing a few lines of "Chim-chim-cheree" or "Step in Time" in the city. Then tomorrow night I'm flying alone to Johannesburg, and Tuesday morning I'll meet back up with some of the team again for our last leg of the trip from South Africa up to Windhoek, Namibia.

Since I'm on a different middle flight than the other 4 folks going to London first, I've got a shorter layover in South Africa than they do and I might be cutting some things close. A quick prayer for that would be much appreciated!

Anyway, depending on when I'm near an internet cafe updates might not come too often. Once we get to Namibia, we'll be staying a few days getting oriented at a camp in Okahandja, and then we'll be splitting up into two teams for two weeks. My team will be in Otjiwarongo. I'm not totally sure what exactly we'll be doing, but it will be a whole lot of different things. Once we get to Namibia we'll have a much better idea of what kind of work we'll be doing.

Anyway, that's it for now. Hope everyone's doing well!

In two days I'll be in Africa! Ridiculous!

It's Time

2009-06-26T07:28:00.006-04:00

I really love this song.
I think it might be my personal theme for the trip.

It's time.

I'm off to D.C.!

T-minus 10...9...8...

2009-06-25T13:50:00.004-04:00

Well, I don't know if I ever really thought this day would come, but tomorrow my African adventure really begins.

Mom and I are driving to D.C. in the morning, where I'll be having a weekend of orientation before flying across the pond on Sunday night. It's pretty cool that the departure point in America is the Capital; I haven't been in probably seven or eight years.

I'm feeling pretty calm but very excited at the moment. I really have no idea what emotions I might feel over the next few days, but it will probably be a roller coaster of excitment, fear, joy and nervousness. At the moment, I'm especially excited to meet my team tomorrow, the ten other people from all over the states who I'll be doing almost everything with for the next month and a half.

It's very cool to look back at the last six months and see how while originally I became connected to this trip through design opportunities, that is now just going to be a small part of my time in Namibia. Doing design work is something that I know. It's safe, comfortable. That's why I was pulled in. But once I committed, the opportunities grew and evolved and now I'll be doing a whole lot that is uncomfortable. Talking to students at schools, visiting AIDS patients, ministering to students at the University are just some of those things. And the craziest part is that somehow I'm okay with that, and although I'm nervous, I see how God showed up to get me here and because of that I'm stoked!

I don't know how often I'll be able to blog while in Africa. Hopefully I'll be able to, and we'll see about posting pictures. Whatever the case, I got a sweet new notebook at Target this morning and will be writing in that often and taking pictures constantly.

You're all great. I can't wait to share this adventure with all of you!

Holy Crap

2009-06-08T23:26:00.002-04:00

...I'm going to Africa in three weeks.

Now that the quarter's ending, it's starting to hit me like a wall. I'm feeling very unprepared and unqualified.

But I am willing.

Thirst

2009-04-26T13:07:00.008-04:00

I feel pretty good right now.
Better than good, I feel pretty amazing.

My Africa fundraising has been extremely encouraging. Last week I realized I was counting on myself way too much to make this happen. Since then I've been trying to just trust God to provide, not me. Not that I can sit back and watch. I still have to work, too, but the weight has been lifted off of my shoulders and I've been awesomely blessed.

I have a lot of big stuff coming in the next year. I'll have a lot of huge, life-changing decisions to make.

That should and normally would be scary and intimidating for me, but it isn't. I'm thankful for the peace and solid foundation I'm feeling right now. I can't say how long this feeling will last, but while I'm working on building a rock-solid base, the decisions I'll be making and the paths my life could take are all exciting possibilities. The decisions aren't really mine to make anyway.

I want so much to be filled, but before I can be filled, I need to experience my thirst.

I want to be thirsty.
I want to be filled.

. . .

Friday morning I bought my plane ticket to Namibia.
All of a sudden, this is very real.

Here we go.

Over the Rooftops!

2009-03-17T22:17:00.006-04:00

This past weekend was my last in The City (for now), so I definitely wanted to make the most of it. Luckily, it was one of the best weekends yet.

Friday night I decided I really needed to see Slumdog Millionaire while it was still in theaters, so from work I went up to the AMC in Times Square (one of the few theaters still showing it). I grabbed some quick and delicious hot dogs on the sidewalk then went in to see if it deserves its spot on the pillars of the Kodak Theater.

As I was told I would, I definitely thought the movie was great. I loved the framing of the story around the interrogation. The acting was top-notch, too, especially from the young kids at the beginning. Of course any movie that ends with a dance sequence and awesomely designed closing credits is sweet in my book.

Wouldn't it be fun if the movie inspired abc to bring back Regis and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in primetime? I'd watch sometimes.

Saturday morning Joan and I went to Times Square to try and score lottery tickets to the new West Side Story revival. It wasn't to be, however, so we took the subway down to the financial district and checked out Trinity Church before making our way over to the South Street Seaport, an area I can see from work in Brooklyn and have wanted to go, mostly because of the sight of old ships.

As we walked through the area, I was amazed at how cool it was. Cobblestone streets, old brick buildings. This is the kind of historic city area that I love. Walking through here was like stepping back into the early 1800s, as long as you keep your distance from the Gap, Abercrombie and Sharper Image, that is.

Looks like it could actually be an old photograph, doesn't it? Nah, I took it myself on Saturday. Isn't it wonderful what a minute of photoshop can do?

Joan and I had lunch outside in the sun on the pier. It wasn't super warm, but it was warm enough for a lot of people to eat outside. It felt great, and gave me a little taste of how amazing it must be here in the Spring.

The rest of Saturday consisted of some hanging out in Prospect Park back in Brooklyn, a delicious dinner at Joan's apartment with Gabe and Dan, all of us playing a few hands of Bananagrams, and watching "Big." I was surprised I actually stayed up for the whole thing, but it is a great movie. Unfortunately though, this time while I was watching, I couldn't stop thinking of how messed up both of the main characters were going to be after living through the events of the movie. It would definitely take a lot of psychiatric help to resolve all their issues.

Sunday, Mom flew in for the day! She got in around 10:30, and we headed off to Chelsea Market, someplace I knew she'd love. We found out it used to be an old Nabisco factory, and the market has only existed for about 10 years, which was a surprise. It is so cool. Mom ate what she said was some of the best Lobster Bisque she's ever had, and I had a delicious cup of Chicken Pot Pie Soup. Mmmm.

From there, we took the subway up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, another place I was sure Mom would love. The museum is pretty ridiculous. It is all so well-kept with some incredible pieces. We took about half of a free museum highlights tour, then ducked out to join an Old Masters tour, which is some of my Mom's favorite work. Our tour guides in both cases were older New Yorker men with great accents. I actually learned a lot and was shown some great paintings on the Old Masters tour.

We also checked out a few other things, like some of the American Landscape paintings. Those are some of my favorites. There's just not much more artistically impressive to me than a beautiful mountain perfectly painted.

From the museum, Mom and I had a fun Italian dinner at Carmines on 44th and ended up with a huge amount of leftovers. From there, it was time for the Theater!

We walked over to the New Amsterdam Theatre, the theater Disney owns. Apparently the theater sat vacant, decaying and falling apart for something like 15 or 20 years before Disney bought the historic property in 1993 and began their renovation.

The renovation work is pretty amazing. You can see some before and after pictures here.

So how was Mary Poppins? Well, there's really only one word to describe it...

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. There you go, enjoy my cheesy-ness.

I love the self-awareness of Mary's comment at the beginning of that song, "Of course it's a word, and unless I'm very much mistaken I think it's going to prove a rather useful one."

Truly though, Mary Poppins is an amazing show. The music, the performances, the sets, are all awesome. Don't even get me started about the theatrics and effects of it all. I knew most of what was going to happen before I saw the show, and I was still very, very impressed. Even knowing as much as I did, I was still surprised by a lot and even got chills during a few scenes, including one involving Mr. Banks and the children near the end of the show. And the entire "Step in Time" scene above the rooftops of London has got to be the greatest dance sequence I've ever seen.

I won't go into any details about what magic stuff actually does happen in the show, because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, but it really is all great. Our Mary and Bert were absolutely fantastic. During the bows, Mom and I rose to our feet from our seats in the front row of the mezzanine when Bert ran out, while most of the rest of the audience stayed sitting. The lady behind us said "Down in Front!" but one second later, the whole audience was standing as Mary came out for her bow.

Normally, I try to avoid doing things that take away from other peoples experiences at shows and theme parks and whatnot, but look lady, your kid was kicking the back of my seat during the entire show. I'll give my standing ovation to whoever the hell I want to.

The actor playing Bert just seemed to be having the time of his life in the role, and rightfully so, considering all that Bert gets to do in the show. In fact, seeing Mary Poppins made me want to be Bert. Not really play Bert in a musical or anything, but to actually be him.

You know, I think good Digital Designers are actually a lot like Bert...but that's a conversation for another time. I do think I'll make a great Bert on some future Halloween, though.

After the show, Mom and I went down to the basement of the theater to see this beautiful room called "The New Amsterdam Room." I'd expect it's used for special events and parties, and anytime Bob Iger is in town. Here's a shot of the amazing ceiling in the room. As you can see, since the renovation it's pretty awesome. It's nice to know Disney is capable of doing some really classy, good things in the world.

Good work, Disney.

As you can see, my last weekend in New York was a great one, topped off with what was probably the best show I've seen during my time here, Mary Poppins. The first few days of this week have had significant events themselves, but I'll save that for later.

For now, have a great week, everyone! I look forward to seeing many of you soon back in the Nati!

A Stack of Playbills

2009-03-11T23:59:00.006-04:00

I have a week left in New York, and as I look back on the quarter I've spent here, I can't help but ask myself one question.

Has this quarter amounted to more than a stack of Playbills?

There are a lot of things I wanted to do this quarter that didn't happen, namely volunteering and connecting to both a community and the city itself. Those things happened fairly easily and naturally in Los Angeles, so I just expected the same here. Well, that just wasn't the case.

On the other hand, there were plenty of things I hadn't planned on. For one, I've been able to spend time building friendships with some great people I didn't know well before this quarter, like my fellow Cincy co-ops Joan and Drew, and Amber, my LA roommate Garrett's older sister (She made me dinner last night, it was very delicious and fun!). With the case of Joan and Drew, I'm looking forward to spending some time with them both next quarter when school starts, and I will definitely be staying in touch with Amber to keep her updated on my time in Africa.

Somehow, I've actually kept The Good Morning Experiment going every single day I've walked to work for the last three weeks. I've gotten the whole range of responses, from big smiles and a "Hey, how's it going?" to people completely ignoring me. So far I don't think I've actually seen anyone twice, but it has been great to walk to work with a goal in mind, so much more perceptive of the people around me. Even when I'm feeling worn out or empty myself, saying good morning to someone and getting a happy response gives me a jolt of energy. I hope for at least some people, my good mornings do the same for them.

Losing my wallet, I was forced to rely on other people and I got a taste of what it is truly like to have no money for a while. If I had forgotten to ask Dan to borrow some money for the subway, I don't know how I would've gotten to or from work. What do people do when they don't have anyone to help them out? Maybe I shouldn't be so resistant to give people money in this city. Sure, sometimes they'll just use it to get high, but sometimes they might actually need it.

In any case, something amazing happened. Prayers were answered. The person who found my lost wallet actually returned it. There really are unbelievably good people in New York City. Who would have thought?

Tonight after work it was something like 55 degrees outside and I didn't have anywhere I needed to rush to, so I decided to walk down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park at the end of the street. As I looked across the river at the lights of downtown, I actually thought to myself, hey, I really do like it here. I've survived winter in New York. The toughest time of the year to live here. I could do this.

The other night on the phone, Nate asked me if I thought I'd miss New York. It was a weird question to hear because it really wasn't something I'd thought about. I don't know when it'll hit me, or why, but I do think I will miss "The City," and it will be interesting for me to see when and why those feelings arise.

Who knows what the future holds. I definitely don't. But I can probably concede that this really is "The Greatest City in the World." Does that mean I'll live here again? I have no idea.

For now, all I know is that the quarter has been significant in many unexpected ways. Should I have put more effort into finding a community and volunteering? Definitely. And I know my love for the theater was a fairly selfish reason for me to try so hard to get a job here. Regardless, I can't regret anything now, as I have become connected to this place, and although I've loved seeing some great shows (and am extremely excited to see Mary Poppins with Mom on Sunday), they haven't been the most important part of the quarter. I've learned a lot and have hopefully even learned many things I haven't even realized yet. Although I haven't been sure what my answer would end up being, now I can confidently say it.

This quarter has been much, much more than a stack of Playbills.

Boys Becoming Men, Men Becoming Wolves

2009-03-03T23:07:00.003-05:00

So my 22nd birthday is about to come to a close. I can definitely say it's been a birthday to remember, both in good and bad.

I'm not going to go into the details of the bad very much, simply because I don't feel like it. Basically today at work, the dire state of the economy took it's toll in a way no one had expected it to. It was a definitely wake up call, after feeling like the design and advertising industry was fairly protected from economic woes for the past few months. Things really do suck, and they might not get better anytime soon.

My birthday wasn't all horrible news, though.

Today I got some cards, facebook posts, and phone calls from many people I love very much. Thanks to all of you who helped make my birthday great! The best thing I got today, however, came from somebody I don't know, and will never know. On the phone, my brother told me that a package came for me today, and that inside was my lost wallet. Everything was intact, minus the 22 or so dollars that were in it at the time. I couldn't believe it when he told me. How ridiculous. The person probably used some of the cash they found just to ship it back to me! And was it a coincidence that it arrived on my birthday?

These are questions I'll probably never get the answer to, but it's amazing that my social security card, license, insurance card, school id and more are all still there in the wallet. I won't have to go through any of the pain and stress of getting those things replaced.

Over the last week, I've had the idea of someone sending my wallet back to me in the back of my mind, but I didn't think it would happen and didn't want to get my hopes up. The people in this neighborhood really are great people. My good mornings will be especially sincere from now on.

Whoever you are, thank you so much for returning my wallet. You are amazing.

* * * *

Well, I'm going to have to go to bed soon. I just got back from dinner with some of my favorite people in this city: Dan, Kristen, Emily, Joan and Drew. Where did we go to celebrate? Why, the Life Café, of course! Where else would I celebrate?

At the Café, who should walk in but the curly haired guy with glasses from 30 Rock! His name, I've found out, is Judah Friedlander. We didn't bother him or anything, but Emily did take a stalker picture while her camera was sitting on the table. Man, 30 Rock is an amazing show. As we left the restaurant, I couldn't help but sing the themesong to Werewolf Bar Mitzfah, hence the title of this post.

After dinner, we grabbed some giant oreo cookies from this hip east village restaurant that was annoyed by all of us coming in for cookies, then headed home.

Thanks again to all of you. I have some more exciting news I'll be sharing in a few days. Until then, have a great week. I love and miss you all!

Blame Epcot

2009-03-01T22:26:00.005-05:00

It's been quite a while since I wrote a blog post. A lot has happened, both good and bad. Here's an abbreviated explanation of the last two weekends, interspersed with some photos of the trip I took this aftertnoon to Flushing Meadows, aka the site of the New York World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964.

Last Friday night night, Emily and I went to the Allen Room for Lincoln Center's "An Evening With Alan Menken." For anyone who doesn't know, Alan Menken wrote the music for almost every Disney animated movie in the last 20 years, and other cool things like Little Shop of Horrors. First of all, check out the ridiculous performance space here. It's gotta be the coolest space in the city.

As for Alan's performance, it was amazing. He played every song you could want him to, including some great and less popular stuff like "Out There" from Hunchback and a whole Newsies medley. He performed some songs with a backup band and 3 female backup singers he referred to as his "Menkenettes," and some were just the man and his piano.

In between songs, he told short stories about what was going on his life when a certain song was written. Some of the most interesting stories came when he mentioned that his late lyricist partner Howard Ashman had wanted to work on Newsies, but he was too sick in the late stages of AIDS that he simply wasn't able to. Another interesting insight was the story that when he was writing the beautiful song, "Will the Sun Ever Shine Again," (from Home on the Range) in the months after September 11th, that everyone at the studio connected with the song and really felt like it put into words what everyone was going through.

Basically, it was probably the best night of the quarter. Needless to say, I got chills when he performed one of my all time favorite songs, "Suddenly Seymour," and the night made it very clear, Alan Menken is Seymore Krelbourn.

You don't get to have nights like that one in many other cities. An intimate evening with one of today's greatest living songwriters. Good work, New York.

That Saturday consisted of some fun stuff, including Emily helping me take some pictures of myself in front of the giant Ashley Brown/Mary Poppins poster in the Marriott in Times Square. I also went up to check out Columbia University, and walked through a bit of Harlem on my way to the Museum of the City of New York. After dinner at the very tacky but fun Starlight Diner (The waiters and waitresses get microphones and belt out songs when they aren't serving tables), Emily and I saw Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham in the new revival of Guys and Dolls. It was great. They were both actually really good, and "Sit Down, You're rocking the Boat" brought the house down as it well should. Check out pictures from the weekend in this facebook album.

Then Sunday night, as most of you probably know, I lost my wallet. It was a bummer. I was stressed and never found it. Now it's just a pain having to get everything replaced. Oh, and it was especially bad since I had my social security card in there. Hopefully nobody steals my identity.

I've gotten by borrowing some money and writing Dan a check. Hopefully by tuesday my new atm card and passport will have arrived. Life will be a little easier then. It's weird to not have any identity. If I get hit by a bus, they might not even know who I am.

Let's see now, this weekend Dan's friends Alex and Julia came down from their co-ops in Boston for a visit, and yesterday we met Drew and went to the MOMA, which was quite cool, especially Broadway Boogie Woogie. Is it bad that's almost the only thing I remember from Art History? Just kidding. I do wish I could go here with Cindy Damschroder, though.

After the museum, we met up with Emily and went to Mars 2112 for dinner. Basically its this ridiculous restaurant themed to Mars. You even ride a motion simulator to get into the place. It was very fun in it's absurdity, but service was bad and the food was eh. If I'm going to pay that much for a themed dinner, I'd like to go somewhere I know the atmosphere and food will be good like my old friend, the Hard Rock.

After we wandered through Times Square a bit, we headed down to Soho but I guess technically ended up in Noho. We all got drinks at a cool little place called Think Coffee and played a mean game of scrabble before deciding it was time to head home and crash.

Today I got up and took three trains to get up to Flushing Meadows to check out the old World's Fair site. Most of the buildings and structures were unfortunately torn down after the fair ended, but a few are still around. Also, my pictures don't do justice to the size of any of these things. The Unisphere for instance, the giant steel globe, is 120 feet tall. It's huge!

The ruins of Philip Johnson's New York State Pavillion are pretty crazy too. All rusted and retro futuristic. It's pretty sweet.

What else do I need to explain? Ahh yes, inside the old New York City Pavillion, now the Queens Museum of Art, is the New York City Panorama. It's a 9,335 square foot model of the entire City of New York, outer boroughs and all, in a giant room. It's pretty insane. You could probably stare at it all day. I found my neighborhood and everything. Apparently during the fair, it was a ride and you got in these helicopter cars and "flew" over the model while an audio track explained what you were seeing. Now you walk on a walkway with a glass floor. It's still sweet and very impressive.

Well, after building a little structure out of pipe cleaners and straws to add to an art piece they wanted everybody to add to, I headed back to the train. It was cool to visit the park and see the remnants of something as sweet as the World's Fair. It'd be great to have another World's Fair soon. I guess the internet and Epcot kind of killed the World's Fair concept, though. Oh well. I do love Epcot. I'll probably add these and more pictures from the park to facebook at some point.

While riding the E home I missed the stop to transfer to the G, so I decided to just stay on the train all the way down to the L at 14th street. Instead of getting right on the L, though, I went up above ground in Chelsea and went into Chelsea Market which absolutely blew my mind in it's coolness. I think I'll be taking Mom back there when she comes out for her mini-visit.

I went back to Apostles for church tonight which was very good and it was great to see Amber there. She offered to make me dinner next week! Amazing, I can't wait.

Tonight we're supposed to get like 8 or 10 inches of snow in the biggest storm of the winter. We'll see. I hope not.

I know this post is obscenely long. I'm really just writing it for myself. I had a lot to chronicle. And I didn't even give details!

Oh well, I hope everybody has a great week. I'll try and have a midweek update of some sort, maybe where I can give some progress on the Good Morning Experiment.

Have a great week everybody! I know I plan to!

The Good Morning Experiment

2009-02-17T22:03:00.005-05:00

So between my last post and this one I've had two of the best weekends of the quarter: Key Laborers back in Cincinnati and Valentine's Day this past weekend with Dan, Mark and Caitlin in town for a visit. They were both fantastic. It was amazing going back to Cincinnati and seeing so many people I love so much. Some awesome things happened there. I left that weekend in the frame of mind I wish I had been in at the beginning of this quarter. I needed it a lot.

As for this past weekend, you should check out Caitlin and my facebook pictures, because I'm not going to write about either of those weekends right now. I'm going to write about what's going on right now.

I haven't been very fair to New York City since I've been here. I've allowed myself to blanket New Yorkers with the stereotype that they are all cold and unfriendly, but that really isn't the case at all. In just the last few days I've had some surprisingly wonderful interactions with strangers.

Friday night I walked and talked with a girl who needed directions to Humbolt, and I told her I wasn't sure but that I thought it was just a few blocks ahead. I told her I wasn't sure because I've only been here for a month and a half, and we chatted about my internship and it turned out she was an NYU grad and aspiring actor from Lexington, Kentucky. As we walked together, it turned out I was right and we did get to Humbolt! She was super nice and very thankful for the help.

Just yesterday I made a comment to a woman in the elevator and she actually told me to have a nice day as the doors opened on her floor.

These kind of things are minor, but they've shown me that when you can break that initial barrier, New Yorkers can actually be very friendly and pleasant. Walking to work every morning, I pass by plenty of people on the sidewalk in my neighborhood, and I have been frustrated that no one ever looks you in the eyes when you pass by them. I've really wanted to dole out a few Good mornings on my walk to work, especially on bright, beautiful mornings like so many we've had in the last week.

Well, today I decided to just start saying "Good morning" to strangers, regardless of whether they'll look me in the eye or not. In the first day of this experiment, I had some interesting results.

First, I said good morning to an old woman carrying bags and walking next to the corner grocery. Much to my surprise, as we walked toward eachother, she actually did look me in the eyes, allowing me to smoothly and happily say "morning" to her. She smiled a toothless crooked smile and gladly responded with a "morning" of her own. My first subject was a success! I was filled with instant joy; this could actually be fun.

Next up was a middle aged woman who refused to look up and make eye contact. As we passed I said "Good morning" and she responded with a high-pitched and very surprised "Good morning" of her own, but she didn't turn around at all or look at me. Her surprise made me laugh as I kept walking.

Finally, as I got closer to the subway, I walked toward an older man who did not look very pleasant or happy, and as we passed I quickly gave him a good morning. I noticed he turned around to look at me, so I turned around to find him looking at me with a huge smile and a seriously confused look on his face. He did not say a word and turned and kept walking. It was great.

So I'm not actually conducting any kind of crazy experiment where I'm really trying to mess with the minds of hardened New Yorkers, I'm just trying to look at the world with a different lens. Maybe somehow I can just have a tiny impact on this city.

Now, I know some mornings I won't feel like putting any effort into saying anything to anyone, but I do hope to keep this up as much as I can. Some people might give me weird looks. People might just ignore me completely. Regardless, It's fun to have a little mission while walking to work. The responses I got helped make my day fun and interesting, and if nothing else, I made a few people smile.

Who knows where this will take me in the next month. I hope to stay relatively motivated in this "experiment," and I'm stoked to see what kind of results come out of this.

Before I go, here is one picture from this past weekend. This is me sitting with a duck listening to Hans Christian Andersen tell us a story in Central Park on Saturday night. Good times.

I hope everyone is doing well! I miss you all.

Ogle Meets Ogre

2009-02-04T08:40:00.006-05:00

Last week was definitely a good one. After a few weeks feeling like it would be tough to feel connected to this city in the middle of Winter, I've started to. It was pretty great to just start to notice some of the charm of this place and to realize that there are wonderfully great people here.

Friday night, Kristen and Dan came and met me after work in Dumbo for dinner. While I waited for them, I discovered an amazing rare bookstore right down the street from my office. There is some amazing stuff there, especially in terms of design books. I might have to go back to buy the spanish copy of the information design book, "Open Here."

After we had dinner at Rice, we headed to Union Hall, a very cool bar in Park Slope. The upstairs is like a big den or library and has a full bocce court inside. (Ahh, that reminds me how wonderful Christie's will be in the Spring!) Anyway, we went downstairs to check out some bands playing for an Ethiopia fundraiser. We only got there in time to see one band's full set, Sarah Fullen & the Stanleys. I was definitely a fan. They had a whole lot of soul and a wicked good horn section backing them up.

Saturday morning I woke up early and went over to M&M's World to try and win a lottery ticket to Shrek the musical. I put my name in around 9:30 or so, went back at 10, and was the very first name called! How about that?

I paid $26.50 for a seat in the front row of the right side of the orchestra, but I'll get to that later. After buying my ticket, I headed up to Columbus Circle and walked over to Lincoln Center. Unfortunately it was almost all walled off for renovations, but I hope to head back either for the Evening with Alan Menken or a cheap partial view ticket to the Metropolitan Opera. I'd kill to get inside that opera house. It must be amazing.

After scoping out some books in Borders back in the Time Warner Center, I grabbed a gyro and headed into the park. This time, I was determined to get deep into it.

The two pictures above are two parts of the park I was very excited to reach, the fountain at the edge of the lake and the beautiful bridge at the end of the mall. Both of these feature pretty prominently in movies and commercials and whatnot and are just plain beautiful. I don't have a picture of the amazing ceiling underneath the bridge. Some things you should just experience for yourself.

As I headed into the Ramble it was pretty ridiculous to think about how removed this patch of land is from the hustle and bustle of The City. It was beautiful covered in snow and ice. The lake was also frozen over, with the tracks of animals who braved the ice to cross to the other side. Looking back toward the buildings, everything seemed so calm and peaceful.

I kept heading north, determined to get further into the park, and eventually made my way to Belverde Castle. I climbed to the top and looked out over the park, expecting to be near Harlem by now after walking for what seemed like so long. Of course I was wrong, and I was maybe a third of the way through the park. I made it to the resevoir before I decided it was time to head back for my matinee.

So I got back to Shrek and walked into the Broadway Theatre to find my seat. What I discovered was that on the side of the orchestra in the front row, the stage level is a good six inches or so above eye level, meaning that I couldn't see anything that happened below anyone's waist. Needless to say, as the performance was starting I was eye-balling seats further back where I could see the stage, knowing the show had plenty of gags I was missing, including most of Lord Farquaad's.

Although I stayed up front for the first act, during intermission I went about 3/4 of the way back in the orchestra to an open end seat next to a very nice lady from New Jersey who bought tickets to the show as a gift for her friend and sister. We chatted a bit about co-op and the show and she was very glad to hear how I am trying to make the most of my time here. She was great.

Now I know what you're thinking. A musical version of Shrek? That sounds pretty ridiculous. How good could it be? Well, let me tell you, I went into Shrek having heard good things, but I had no idea how good it would end up being. I've got to say, out of all of the shows I've seen this quarter, (five total) Shrek is definitely my favorite.

Sure, I enjoy the Shrek movies (the only Dreamworks animated movies that I do), but this musical (which has only been open since Decemeber) takes the story and adds so much heart, energy, depth and fun to it that it becomes something really special.

First off, the staging and sets are great. Everything that takes place in the forest is absolutely beautiful. And the creativity and comedy weaved into the staging is fantastic.

Without a doubt, though, the best part of Shrek the musical are the performances of its five leads. Brian D'Arcy James as Shrek, Sutton Foster as Fiona, Christopher Sieber as Farquaad, Daniel Breaker as Donkey and John Tartaglia as Pinocchio were all born to play their parts. All five of them have been nominated for tony's in the past and Sutton has won.

To give you a better idea of what the show is like, here's a video for you to check out. This is Brian D'Arcy James, out of make-up, singing Shrek's beautiful "I want" song, "Who I'd Be." This song definitely reflects the big layer of depth that the musical adds to Shrek's character. (1:39 is where the song starts if you want to skip to it)

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Pretty cool, eh? I love the piano in the bridge.

Don't worry though, this is a unique sensitive moment in the show for Shrek, he's also the Ogre we all know and love with plenty of farting, burping and off-color jokes.

Here's just one more video that shows some more of the humor mixed with the heart. This is Sutton Foster as Fiona. You might recognize Sutton as playing Bret's sign-holding girlfriend Coco in the first season of Flight of the Conchords.

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Sutton was definitely my favorite in the show. She has amazing comic timing and performing talent. She's the one I gave my standing O to. She plays Fiona the way she was meant to be played, strong and quirky without the occasional annoyance of Cameron Diaz.

I'm a big fan of that song. And actually if you can't wait for the cast album in March, this song can be downloaded on the website. Enjoy.

Daniel Breaker, as I said was great as Donkey, and apparently he still hasn't seen the movie. Christopher Sieber, who was also in Spamalot and played Mary-Kate and Ashley's Dad on Two of a Kind, was a great Farquaad, pulling off what has to be one of the most physically demanding roles on Broadway, and he also was responsible for one of my favorite moments in the show, a send up of another favorite musical of mine. John Tartaglia was an amazing Pinocchio, which in itself is funny, since John himself is a very talented puppetteer, having stared in the original cast of Avenue Q and playing the title character in Johnny and the Sprites on the Disney Channel. I had a huge smile on my face during the big fairy tale creatures' number in the second act. Then again, I think I had a big smile on my face the entire show.

There it is, my drawn out and unnecessary full review of Shrek. I loved it. I'd see it again in a second. If someone was coming to New York, I'd tell them to see Shrek. It was hilarious, heartwarming, and full of energy and joy. And there is certainly not a better cast on Broadway.

Awesome.

Alright, its Wednesday night. The week has had its ups and downs, but Friday I'm headed back to Cincinnati for the Navs Key Laborer's retreat. I am absolutely stoked to see people and take part in the weekend. It will be amazing.

You know, it's really fun to write this blog. I don't know who reads it, but I'm just glad to have everything written here, to help me store my memories.

New York, I'm actually enjoying living here. Let's see where this relationship goes, eh?

Getting to know The City

2009-01-31T19:27:00.009-05:00

I didn't get a chance to write a post about last weekend, and I don't have the patience to do it right now, so instead of a long drawn-out post about the weekend, I'm going to give you this instead. Here are a few pictures of some of the things I did and saw last week.

The view back toward Manhattan on the Staten Island ferry.

The tenement museum in the Lower East Side. (the one with the wooden front on the left) You take tours through the building and see what life was life for the immigrants after they got off the boat. From when it was built in 1863 to the time it was condemned in 1935, 7,000 different people called this five story building home.

The New Zealand Consulate on Flight of the Conchords. (In reality an old trashy medical office)

$14.50 "Can't say no Sundae" from Serendipty 3. I felt pretty sick after eating it...exactly how you'd hope to feel after eating a $14 sundae.

Docks near Battery Park. I love it, it's so "Hitch."

The Woolworth Building, aka where the ball and dragon fight at the end of Enchanted take place

For the ladies, the apartment from Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Body parts from the Muppet Whatnot Workshop in FAO Schwarz. It's basically Muppet build-a-bear, and it's Amazing. Unfortunately its $90. If I got a surprise bonus at work I'd be very tempted...

Last Tuesday night in the park right down the street from my house, filming a scene for the FOX show Fringe

Lady Liberty, as beautiful and impressive as ever.

Hope you enjoyed these shots. I'll write about this weekend soon. It's been very solid so far, and can only continue to be awesome with the Super Bowl tomorrow!

HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO!
Now for the other hand...

Imani

2009-01-25T22:14:00.011-05:00

Last weekend I finally got in touch with Martha, the woman I will be helping start her business in Namibia this summer! She told me a little bit about her plans for the business, "Imani," so I could get started thinking about design work.

She has registered the business as Imani Investments CC, made up of Imani Properties, Imani Books, Imani FM, and Imani Café. In Swahili, Imani means faith. Martha told me that her vision for the logo and identity of the business is to reflect the themes of faith and illumination. Her main target market is youth and young adults, and she wants everything to feel alive, vibrant, and perhaps even a little funky.

Needless to say, I was stoked to start coming up with some ideas for the logo. Without a whole lot of information about the business itself and with communication being kind of hindered by the thousands of miles between us, I decided the best thing to do would be to start coming up with ideas, see what Martha and people think of them, and proceed developing from there.

I started with a pen and a blank sheet of paper. (Go figure. I should really do this more often). I wrote down some of what Martha had told me and jotted down definitions of the words illuminate and faith.

Next, with some visual inspiration from Google image searches, I started to sketch out different ideas for how to visualize the things I wrote down. Nothing was stupid or wrong; any stroke or shape was a potential idea. Trying to reflect themes of light, faith and celebration, I sketched.

From there, I took an "i" and started playing with it a little. Thinking about what an "i" could represent. I was excited to see an i come to life on the page, and got to a point where the i became a kind of abstracted celebratory figure. From there I decided to start playing around in illustrator.

Taking my abstracted i, I created the raw, sketched figure and type you see above. As you'll notice in a lot of the designs, I was really drawn to more raw, less rigid styles. Here, the i becomes a figure full of joy, with its head turned up to the sky. The sketched arms also have a lighthouse kind of illumination to them. I know there is a disconnect between the thickness of the "i" and the "mani," but perhaps when taken in the context of Africa, it will not be difficult for people to make the connection. This is one of the directions I like the most.

On the bottom left, I took the i from the first direction and made it a little more corporate and streamlined. It's probably a little too much like a sports drink right now, but it might have some potential.

To the right of that is a fairly simple direction, where the font does most of the work. I like the roughness and life of it, though.

From there I got pretty excited as I started to take the rays of light and actually play with breaking apart the letter forms. This resulted in something that again felt very raw and vibrant. To me, this effect as used in the middle row definitely seems to have a lively African style to it, but I don't really claim to know anything about Africa right now. The last thing I want to do is to create a design that is just a reflection of American stereotypes of what is "African" (he says while listening to The Lion King soundtrack). That being said, I do really like these designs. I think they're definitely different, but seem to have a kind of energy and illumination to them.

My roommate and Graphic Design student extraordinaire, Dan, told me that he liked this direction the most, and recommended that I try a few different versions of it. In the last two designs above I tried using some arches and straight lines.

Next I started experimenting with the usage of a hand, raised in a kind of worship. I don't know how spiritual or secular the logo should be, but I thought I'd give this idea a go. I obviously love using white space, and after I liked how the arm inside the "n" turned out, I decided trying the same thing with the figure of a celebrating person.

Last night, Dan sent me links to a few logo-inspiration sites and I started to check them out. When I did, I realized I needed to do a little more work, and should consider a logo that has a stronger symbolic element, something that the actual type could accompany.

I thought that a kind of sunburst would be the best shape to experiment with, so in my free time today I played around with these forms. Some of them are similar, some are very different. The ones formed with i's in the top left are definitely more corporate than some of others that look a bit more tribal. I can't really decide which of these I prefer. I know too much flourish is not good, like the two in the center of the second row. Note that the word "imani" would still appear under or next to one of these shapes.

Anyway, it would be great to get some feedback about what people's thoughts are, what you like, what you don't like, or any other directions to experiment with.

Don't worry, color (and who knows, maybe gradients) will come later. Right now it's just about the style, emotion and message evoked by the designs. The next step will involve much closer precision and focus.

Any and all critiquing will be appreciated, even if what you say is wrong.

Thanks so much! I hope everybody had a wonderful weekend. I'll try and write a regular post sometime this week!

A New York Minute

2009-01-19T23:10:00.009-05:00

I've now been in New York for three weekends, and the time has kind of flown by. Finally, this weekend I feel like I was able to hit the city pretty hard but also have time to relax and get my bearings a bit.

Friday night I met up with Kristen and her fashion friends Milan and Andrea for dinner. We ended up heading down to Soho for some delicious food at a cool little place I think was called Soho Park. From there, the other girls headed home and Kristen and I went and grabbed some tea and chatted. I'm definitely thankful Kristen and I are both co-oping here, since we haven't had much quality hanging out and talking time since freshman year. It's been nice.

My usual theater-companions Dan and Emily were out of town Saturday, so in the morning I got up early and tried to get lottery tickets to both Shrek and In the Heights. Unfortunately, I wasn't successful with either, so I ended up getting a student rush ticket to the play Speed-the-Plow, starring William H. Macy, Raul Esparza and Elizabeth Moss.

While waiting in between the lotteries, buying my ticket, and the matinee time, I putzed around midtown some more, including checking out the ice rink at Bryant Park. I don't think I will ever get tired of seeing the beautiful Empire State Building pop up out of nowhere as a kind of north star telling you which direction is which in the city. The afternoon also included grabbing a warm gyro from a street vendor for lunch that hit the spot as I strolled through Central Park killing time before the show. It was delicious.

I ended up having a ticket to the show in the dead center of the front row (student rush is a beautiful thing) so it was pretty cool being just a few feet away from a big time actor like William H. Macy. I really didn't know what the play was about when I bought the ticket, so it was great when it turned out to be about Hollywood and a movie studio executive.

The play was short but very good. William H. Macy was never supposed to play the role he did, but he and Norbert Leo Butz stepped in after original cast member Jeremy Piven had to drop out due to mercury poisoning. This made Macy a little too old for his role. It would've been a little more convincing if someone who was more like 40 years old than 60 had played the part. I actually would've loved to have seen Norbert Leo Butz in the role. I think he would've had some more youth and energy in the role. (For the record, Norbert was the original Fiyero in Wicked and was in Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years opposite Sherie Rene Scott).

That being said, William H. Macy was quite good, and Elizabeth Moss (from Mad Men) was great, but Raul Esparza steals the show. I'm a fan of his from his role as Jonathan in Jonathan Larson's Tick, tick...BOOM, the recording of which I love. Raul goes a mile a minute and hits it hard. Yeah, it was good.

After the show, I walked over to Grand Central Station which I'd never been to, and absolutely loved. It's so weird to walk outside in the city and at times feel congested and surrounded by towering skyscrapers and then walk into a building like Grand Central or St. Patrick's Cathedral and feel so open. Very cool. From there, I took the subway down into the Village and grabbed some hot chocolate at Café Pick Me Up, before heading back home.

I had the apartment to myself, so I hung out and relaxed for the evening. I had picked up the book New Moon at Virgin in the morning, so I read a few chapters, made some dinner, poured a glass of wine and watched the classic New York flick, Breakfast at Tiffany's. Not the most masculine evening, to be sure, but we're all entitled to a sensitive moment now and then, right? I'd also like to think I made up for it Sunday night with beer, pizza and football.

Before football on Sunday, I just felt like I needed to take it easy, so I relaxed, listened to a Mosaic podcast, did some more reading and cleaning, and then headed down to Prospect Park to meet up with my Daap architect friends Joan and Drew. Joan is a big steelers fan, so we went back to their apartment and hung out, ate and watched the game. How unbelievably awesome, the Steelers are going back to the Super Bowl! I am absolutely stoked and cannot wait. I was actually surprised how much black and gold steelers garb I saw around the city this weekend. Good work, New York.

Today, Dan and I got up and went out to the American Museum of Natural History. It was pretty cool, especially the Dinosaur exhibit and the Cosmic Collisions Space Show in the planetarium. A definite highlight was meeting up with my future neighbors in the hall of African Animals. It was kind of an information overload, though, and it was packed with families for the holiday, so Dan and I didn't stay too long.

From there, we walked over to Jerry Seinfeld's actual one-time apartment on W. 81st, then took the Subway up to Tom's Restaurant at the top of the Upper West Side. Tom's is of course known to most of the world as the setting of Monk's on Seinfeld. Dan and I were starving, and the cash-only diner was super authentic. I went with an awesome breakfast special called "The Lumberjack," and Dan opted for a man-sized rueben special that came with a steak knife. I could definitely go back there.

On our way home the snowflakes were some of the biggest I've ever seen. It was amazing. I tell you what, if it wasn't for snow, winter in New York City would be pretty horrible. It would feel very cold and lonely all the time. This place is beautiful in the snow, though, and the brightness of everything at night as light reflects off the white ground is awesome. Every day on the way to and from the subway, I love walking by McGolrick Park, a.k.a. the park from the french song in Flight of the Conchords. It's especially beautiful at night covered in lamplight, but it's pretty great during the day, too.

Tonight I started doing design work for Africa, and I'm actually really excited by what I have so far. It's been a lot of fun. I'll post some designs here in the next few days probably.

I'm getting pretty seriously stoked for tomorrow. It should be an amazing day. I am always proud to be an American, but I'm feeling it much deeper than ever before right now.

With the Steeler game, the day off today, Inauguration tomorrow, LOST on wednesday, and the weekend coming back up soon, this should be a week for the ages.

I still have a lot to figure out here, but I think I'm slowly becoming more connected to the city.

I hope everybody had a great weekend, and I hope the next few days are wonderful.

Yes, America, yes.

Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand

2009-01-19T00:48:00.004-05:00

I saw this in Lindsey's blog and thought it sounded cool. Unfortunately, for the most part my list did not turn out anywhere near as interesting as her's did. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty from the very first song. Anyway, here it is:

Let's see what your music has to say about you.
Put your iTunes on shuffle, one song for each answer, press the next button. Write the song no matter how silly.

1. If someone says "is this ok" you say...
["Save A Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" —Big & Rich]
2. What best describes your personality?
["Straw into Gold" —Idina Menzel]
3. What do you like in a guy/girl?
["Under the Stars" —Hans Zimmer: The Lion King]
4. How do you feel today?
["A Part of That" —Sherie Rene Scott: The Last Five Years]
5. What is your life's purpose?
["Brown Sugar" —The Rolling Stones]
6. What is your motto?
["Silver" —James Newton Howard: Treasure Planet]
7. What do your friends think of you?
["I Will Love You Tomorrow" —KC and the Sunshine Band]
8. What do you think about often?
["Kids in America" —Kim Wilde]
9. What is 2+2?
["Pittsburgh’s Headed to the Super Bowl" —High Powered Home Boys]
10. What do you think of your best friend?
["Finale" —The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee]
11. What do you think of the person you like?
["Bless the Lord" —Godspell Soundtrack]
12. What's your life story?
["Fighter” —Christina Aguilera]
13. What do you want to be when you grow up?
["Time After Time (acoustic)" —Norah Jones]
14. What do you think when you see the person you like?
["Papa Loved Mama" —Garth Brooks]
15. What will you dance to at your wedding?
["Grace" —U2]
16. What will they play at your funeral?
["Tell Her" —13 Soundtrack]
17. What is your hobby/interest?
["End Duet/Transformation" —Beauty and the Beast Broadway Cast]
18. What is your biggest secret?
["Nessun Dorma" —Pavarotti]
19. What do you think of your friends?
["Sometimes" —Britney Spears]
20. What is the worst thing that could happen?
["Get Up Stand Up" —Bob Marley]
21. How will you die?
["In this Room" —Lauren Kennedy and Rozz Morehead]
22. What is the one thing you regret?
["Golden Moments" —James Taylor]
23. What makes you laugh?
["Wonderful Maker" —Jeremy Camp]
24. What makes you cry?
["Love You Out Loud" —Rascal Flatts]
25. Will you ever get married?
["Too Much Food" —Jason Mraz]
26. What scares you the most?
["Tonight’s the Night" —Crazy for You Soundtrack]
27. Does anyone like you?
["Laker Girls Cheer" —Spamalot]
28. If you could go back in time, what would you change?
["Where is Your Heart At?" —Jamie Cullum]
29. What hurts right now?
["Size 14 Feet" —Alan Menken: Lincoln Soundtrack]
30. What will you post this note as?
["Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand" —the Beatles]

I'm especially upset Britney snuck into my list. Some of them are ridiculous. Others aren't so bad. I was actually excited to see Christina pop up where she did.

And actually the 2+2 is relevant because
Pittsburgh is headed to the Super Bowl!

Here we go! I have the day off tomorrow, so I will give a weekend post sometime in the next day or so. Other people should do the itunes list too. I want to do it again but that'd be cheating. I might just do it one more time to see what happens.

The Grand Tour

2009-01-14T23:43:00.007-05:00

So here it is, the apartment tour. I've meant write posts like this on my last two co-ops, but I never did, so here you go now!

Let's see, we'll start in Dan's nice red room. Our rooms didn't have any furniture in them, so we're both rocking air mattresses. It's nice to see how little furniture you can actually get by with.

Here's my room. It's actually bigger than I thought it would be. The double aerobed is key, and some milk crates are nice, too. Right now I'm standing in the doorway to Dan's bedroom and the door to the living room is on the right. Dan has to walk through my room to get to his. I'm not charging a toll...yet.

Here is the view in the living room looking back to the open doorway of my room. You can see I actually do have a nice chair in the corner of my room that I sat in as I finished the last few chapters of The Last Lecture tonight. You can see the nice futon and some of Liz's pillows and decorating.

Looking to the opposite corner, here you can see Dan happily sitting at the table and giving a solid thumbs up. There's the tv (it's nice to live without cable once in a while) and original Nintendo. You can see more of Liz's decorating here, which makes the whole place fun and homey. The pink is the kitchen.

Here's our kitchen, no dishwasher, no microwave, plenty of pink. It gets the job done great though, and feels kind of 1950s. The open door is to the bathroom.

I stood in the shower to take this picture of the bathroom. Again, nice pastel colors. It's tight, but wonderfully New York.

The place has worked out really well for all of us and is in a nice location. Dan and I are both very happy.

In other news, this morning when I got off the subway at High Street, I'm pretty postive I walked by an actor named Fisher Stevens. I couldn't tell you his name at the time, but I did remember him as being on the show "Early Edition" about the guy who got tomorrow's paper today and tried to stop the bad things written in it from happening. When I checked out imdb, I remembered he had a part on LOST last season as Minkowski, the crazy sick guy inside the ship!

I forgot to mention I also saw Mario Lopez before the Little Mermaid, didn't I? That was funny.

Finally, I have to say after hearing friends talk about their co-ops here in New York I've been feeling very lucky. I have been blessed to work with people that are super nice, appreciative and compliment me on my work. I know that not everyone is working in an environment like that. Sure, once in a while at work somebody asks me for help moving heavy things, putting together a shelf, or running down the block to the hardware store to pick up something in a picture-hanging emergency, but for these people it's not a pain. I'm happy to help however I can.

I don't know if anybody at work realizes how much a "thanks," a smile, a handshake, or an invite to play a game of foosball means to me, but it all really means a lot. These are awesome people, and I'm thrilled to get to spend the next ten weeks with them.

It Sure Ain't L.A.

2009-01-12T22:12:00.012-05:00

(But that's not a bad thing)

I'm going to really do my best to keep the length of this post under control. Let's see how I do.

So this weekend was a good one. Friday night I left work and headed into the village to meet Dan, Kristen and Rachael at the Life Café for dinner. I was excited, with the Life Café featuring prominently in Rent and all. We sat next to the Jonathan Larson wall and everything. I resisted and did not sing any of La Vie Boheme because I'm sure people do it all the time and it probably gets annoying.

After dinner, we all grabbed some hot chocolate in a cool little coffee shop on Avenue A. On the way back to the subway, Dan and I stopped to watch some filming going on. The woman who plays the police officer Ramirez in the Dark Knight walked by Dan and I, and I definitely made eye contact with her. Apparently they were filming a scene from an upcoming abc show, the Unusuals, and I think the woman in the car we saw was Amber Tamblyn. She's cool.

Saturday morning, Emily, Dan and I got up early and went into Times Square to try and score some student tickets for Spring Awakening since it closes next weekend. We got in line a little after 10 probably, but they ran out of tickets after a while. It was okay for me, because I've already seen it, but I did want Dan and Emily to get to check it out. We decided to head over to the tkts booth to see if we could score any sweet deals.

Emily and I ended up getting 50% off seats to the matinee of Phantom of the Opera, which Emily has seen many times but neither of us had seen along the great white way. I was pretty excited. The ticket agent told us the seats were in the back and off to the side, which we were fine with. When Emily and I went into the Majestic, we found that our seats actually were the very last two seats on the side of the very last row at the top of the balcony. It was a bit of a bummer, but it was also pretty funny, and the seats weren't terrible.

Luckily, the Phantom seems to be holding up great. It's been on Broadway since I was a year old, but you wouldn't know from seeing it, and you certainly wouldn't know from the performances. Every actor, especially our Phantom, performed like it was opening night. I was very impressed. And the sets and effects. Wow. I don't want to give anything away for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I was pretty blown away by the scope and complexity of the whole thing. It was awesome, and now I have experienced the longest running show in Broadway's history.

Needless to say, leaving the theater I couldn't get the song Masquerade out of my head, and had fun belting the line "You will curse the day you did not do...all that the Phantom asked of you!" loud enough to get funny looks from people around us.

When we walked back out onto 44th street, we found the city covered in snow. It had been snowing a bit walking around midtown around lunchtime and when we went into the show, but afterward everything was covered. It was exactly what I hoped winter in New York would be like and I was indeed glad to be wearing my new wool coat in it.

Saturday night, Emily, Dan and I headed down to Court Street on the other side of Brooklyn and grabbed some Burritos before meeting Gabe and seeing Doubt at a really cool little Esquire-like movie theater, Cobble Hill Cinemas. I liked the movie a lot, probably partially because I like everything, but everybody in the movie was amazing. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman were awesome, and Amy Adams was great, too. Meryl Streep was especially crazy since the last thing I saw her in was Mamma Mia. It blew my mind to see her going from "The winner takes it all" to this. Awesome.

Sunday, Dan and Emily got up early to head back to midtown to try and get tickets to shows. Emily wanted a ticket to All My Sons, the Katie Holmes/Patrick Wilson/John Lithgow/Diane Wiest play that was having it's last performance Sunday, and Dan really wanted to see Spring Awakening. They both wanted me to go with them, but I decided to take a break from the theater. I don't want to overdo it. I still have 10 weeks. Happily, both of them were able to get tickets to their respective shows.

Instead, I walked over to the North Brooklyn Vineyard to meet Kristen and Rachael for church. It was a pretty good service with maybe 30 people in the congregation. The worship leader's voice was a little off pitch at times, which I didn't want to be distracting, but it sort of was. The pastor's message was really good though, and the church also meets on Sunday nights at 6 in a bar in the neighborhood. You have to be 21 to get in since the bar stays open, and apparently it's the same message with a more rock-based music. It's definitely something I'd like to check out.

It's definitely frustrating that I haven't found a church I feel like I really connect with yet, after my connection to Mosaic in LA was so easy and fast. I don't know how many new churches to try, since I don't want to waste too many Sundays and miss out on connecting with a community. I know something will work out, though. We'll see. I really want to try and do some sort of service and volunteering soon, so I might go back to Apostles to make that happen.

(44th Street: I love the classic lit-up letters on these marquees!)

Sunday evening, I went back to midtown and took a nice little nighttime stroll through some of the beautifully snow-covered Central Park and wanted to find the ice rink, but it looked like it was far away, so I ended up walking back down to Madison Square Garden where I guessed I could find some kind of sports bar with tv's to watch the rest of the Steelers game. I ended up in the Blarney Stone when I saw a guy in a Jack Lambert jersey inside. From there I watched the last quarter of the game and ate some Buffalo chicken strips. Excellent.

Next weekend, Joan (from UC) and I are going to have to find a Steelers bar to watch the game. I really can't miss a game against the Ravens for the conference championship! I don't know, I think I can smell it...

Well, I think that's it for now. Sorry the post's still super long, isn't it? Bummer. Oh well.

Oh, one last thing! Tonight I bought plane tickets for Kristen and I to fly back to the 'nati for Key Laborers! I'm really excited to be able to see everybody and especially my small group. It will be awesome!

Okay, if you haven't checked out prettyloaded.com yet you need to read the post below and do it. I'll post an apartment tour soon. I hope everybody has a great week. I miss you all!

much love

Preloading Preloaders

2009-01-12T12:56:00.004-05:00

Hey everybody, we just launched the project I mentioned in my last post! It's prettyloaded.com, a site that showcases a much hated and dying art form: the website preloader. One preloader loads into another preloader, and another, and another...

My team here put this thing together in about four days so there might be some kinks. I did some type explorations for the logo but in the end we didn't go with my design. No big, I basically prepped and tweaked a bunch of our preloaders so they'd be ready for the site. It was a good way for me to check out the history of Big Spaceship's work. A lot of them are actually really sweet, and the other design firms that sent us some of theirs have some awesome ones, too.

Make sure you read the "about" section at the top of the page. It does a good job of reflecting the mood and humor of Big Spaceship.

Sit back and let it play and hypnotize you. Filter the dates if you like. Enjoy. Show your friends.

I'll probably write a full blog post about the weekend tonight.

Girl...it's cold!

2009-01-09T15:15:00.004-05:00

I've made it to Friday which means I've been living in New York City for a whole week! Today it is freezing out thanks to the wind, but it is an absolutely beautiful day, so when I got to work I decided to walk the block past my building to the park at the end of the street. Who would have thought, it's called Brooklyn Bridge park, and I walked in to find this view.

What a day! B-E-A-Utiful!

So I've definitely decided that New York is ridiculous, but in a mostly good way. Everything and everybody seems to move pretty quickly. It's nice to spend the workday in Brooklyn where things are a little quieter. I found out that the area my office is in is called DUMBO, Brooklyn, which is actually an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Can you believe that? After I was told that the other day I didn't really believe it, but I looked it up on Wikipedia so it's true.

Work has been very good. Big Spaceship is pretty similar in mood and environment to how things were in Hollywood, with foosball, ping pong, guitar hero, some free food, music playing all day and occassional drinking. The cool thing about the office here is that there are no cubicle walls, it's just one huge open room lined with long desks with computers on them.

Everybody here is split up into teams of about 7 or 8 people who work on one project for a few weeks. My team seems pretty awesome, with a bunch of cool people. My team leader, Tyson, hails from Napoleon, Ohio and is definitely one of the nicest (and tallest) guys I've ever met. Really all the people here seem to be really nice, fun people and I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know them.

At first I wasn't sure what I thought about the project our team will be working on for the next few months, but the more I thought and learned about it, the cooler it sounds, and I think working on it will make me a better designer. Also, in addition to the one big project, there seem to be a fair amount of internal projects that float around. Like the owner kind of walks over to someone's desk and says, "Hey you guys, you know what? It'd be really sweet if we could do this...!" My team has been working on one of those projects for the last few days and it'll launch on Monday. It's a pretty funny and quirky project, so I'll post a link here next week.

Tuesday night I was fed up with UPS for trying to deliver my air mattress and bedding (which I shipped from the Wex last week) when no one was home, so I took a car service to the package center in Queens to pick it up. I thought it would only take a few minutes to run in and get the package and leave, but I ended up waiting for more than 45 minutes in line. After 20 minutes or so I told the driver of the car to leave and that I would call when I was done, but he was being really nice and insisted on waiting. I was pretty frustrated with UPS while standing in line but I was tired of sleeping on the couch in the living room and really wanted my bed. I was ready to pay the car service driver whatever he wanted, but he told me that it wasn't my fault and that I didn't know it would be so crowded, so he only charged me 40 bucks. I felt really bad for taking up so much of his time, but he insisted and even gave me a hand shake when he dropped he off. I was very thankful. And New Yorkers are supposed to be mean...

So now I have my double high aerobed set up in my room. I'll try and post a photo tour of our apartment in the next week or so. My other rooommate, Dan's friend Liz, is super cool. I knew we'd get along when I walked in and saw vhs copies of Newsies and a few obscure weird Disney movies from the 80s sitting on a shelf. She's a vegan, so before I met her I was feeling bad about having a whole gallon of milk taking up space in the fridge, but it turns out she's uber-laid back. We're going to get along for sure.

Last night after work I went over to my new friend Amber's apartment to watch the football championship. Amber is the older sister of my friend Garrett who I lived with in LA. She's a lot of fun and I went over and hung out with her and some of her fellow NYU grad student friends while we watched the game. They were all really nice and cool, and it's fun to make new friends. Unfortunately the Sooners lost, luckily I didn't care that much. I was just glad to hang out.

Tonight, I'm planning on hanging out with my friend Kristen and whoever else is around and free. Tomorrow Emily and I will be attempting to score some more cheap theater tickets. Maybe All My Sons, Shrek, or Spring Awakening, but really anything. Aside from that, I'll maybe do a museum visit or some general sightseeing and exploring. Just another weekend in the greatest city in the world.

Right now I'm reading "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. Today on the subway I was hit by the section about complaining. Randy (who was living out his last few months with pancreatic cancer at the time) writes,

Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier.

Very cool. While I'm out here, I definitely want to do my best to not complain, because complaining wastes precious time. I only have three months here right now, and I don't want to waste it, even when it's cold, or I have a lot of work, or whatever.

Even back at home and in the Nati, I'm going to graduate in a year and a half and that's awesome but it's also a bummer. I don't want to waste any of it.

Sure it's easy to type this in a blog post, not so easy in the heat of the moment. But I'm really going to try.

Alright, it's time to finish this post and get my weekend started. I hope everybody had a great start to the quarter! I owe a bunch of people phone calls. I need to get on top of that.

I'll leave you with another picture from the park this morning. It's the other huge bridge, the Manhattan Bridge. Not quite as historic as Roebling's beauty, but impressive and huge nonetheless.

I really need to try and write shorter posts. Oh well.

much love

Just Getting Started

2009-01-04T22:18:00.010-05:00

"One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years."
-Thomas Wolfe

So it's Sunday night after my first weekend living in New York City. Work starts tomorrow and I'm feeling pretty darn good. I wanted to get my time here started with a bang, and I'd say I have.

Saturday, Dan and my studio-mate Emily headed to Times Square for some more exploring. We went to the 13 box office but unfortunately they were sold out of student rush tickets. After some lunch at the Celtic Pub, we decided to walk over to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre to see if there were student rush tickets left for the Little Mermaid. There were, and although we were considering going back for Standing Room Only at 13, the ticket agent convinced us to snag the Mermaid seats.

From there, Dan, Emily and I had a bunch of time, so we worked our way north, checking out the tree and rink in Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, The World of Disney, the Apple Store and the Plaza Hotel. We went over to Columbus Circle to get an NFT for Emily in Border's, and I was captivated by the light show in the Time Warner Center lobby when these giant crystal lights were synchronized to Christmas music.

Heading back down Broadway to the Theater District, we kept our eyes open for dinner and ended up at Pasta Lovers, which I actually may have been to before. I don't really know. It was tasty though, and soon it was time for the quarter's first night of Theatre!

Once inside the theater we found we had great seats toward the front of the left side of the orchestra, and we found out both Prince Eric and Ariel would be played by the understudies. I wasn't too upset, though, because all that was important was that we got to see Sherie Rene Scott as Ursula. I didn't have huge expectations for the show, but I was actually very impressed. I knew the music would be great, as I have the soundtrack and think Alan Menken hit it out of the park with the additional songs. The Ariel we saw was great and I was struck by how cute she was when she really started having fun at the beginning of the second act. Eric had a good voice, but not a whole lot of power.

Luckily, my girl Sherie did not let me down. She just lays it all out and has a blast hamming up the sea witch. She makes everything look so easy. And Flounder, man oh man, could that kid sing. He owned his part. Really, there were a lot of great characters and performances in the show, especially the Eels, Scuttle, Sebastian and Grimsby.

With those great performances, music, cool sets and special effects it was a great first night on Broadway. The show was made complete by the couple times I looked over at a little 3 or so year-old girl sitting with her parents watching the show with a huge smile on her face the whole time.

Today...well I'll just cut to the chase and say that I ended up getting a student rush ticket to Closing performance of 13. I had to wait in line for an hour and half, but I made a friend talking to the girl in line next to me who worked in costuming. It's nice to be around people who know more about theatre than I do. Anyway, I was pretty much stoked to have a ticket to the final performance of any show, let alone something as highly recommended as 13.

After I got my ticket at noon I strolled through Central Park and grabbed some lunch at a small little cafe/diner on the Upper West Side. Then it was back to the Jacobs Theatre for the show.

I was thrilled to find I had a great seat up in the Mezzanine, and have to admit the theater was mostly made up of teenage girls. For anyone who doesn't know, 13 is a musical about kids turning 13 and dealing with drama and life, and the entire cast and band is made up of actual teenagers. There was a lot of cheering during character entrances and impressive notes, and the energy in the packed theater was contagious. It was definitely a great time. The guy playing Evan was great, as was Archie, and Patrice was amazing. I'm afraid I might be in love with her.

During the song "If That's What It Is," Archie started to lose it, and I was struck by the relevance of the lyrics about putting one foot in front of the other. By the time "A Little More Homework" ended, just about the entire cast was in tears.

After some major dancing in the curtain call, the show's creator and composer, Jason Robert Brown joined the cast on stage. I've heard he's a bit of a jerk, but regardless he's one the best musical theatre composers writing today (...Songs for a New World, Last 5 Years, Parade...) and he started to cry as he said some nice words about hard work and realizing your dreams.

Those were definitely some of the most talented kids I've ever seen and I'm really glad I got to see the show before it closed.

I was already listening to the soundtrack a lot before I saw the show, so that will definitely continue. The songs "Tell Her," "If That's What it Is," and "A Little More Homework" are probably my favorites. I love the line in the latter about looking in the back of the book for the answers. It's easy to feel like we want to know where we're going and what's going to happen in our lives, but at the same time I'm glad we can't. It's that mystery that makes life so exciting.

Tonight, I checked out a church called Apostles which meets Sunday nights in St. George's Episcopal Church. It's cool because the building is a huge cathedral, quite a change from the Crossroads Auditorium. The worship was great, and the message was pretty solid and challenging. Some of the language and service was a little more traditional than I'd prefer, but the community really seems to be engaging and serving the city, which I definitely want to do. I might check out a different church next Sunday morning, but I think I could get a lot out of Apostles.

Alright, now I'm going to bed. Tomorrow work starts, which will hopefully be fun. Maybe I'll have some slow time to be able to play ping-pong or guitar hero there.

This is all still pretty surreal, especially the starting work part. I'm already beginning to fall in love with the little charms of this crazy city. I've only been here for two days. What's going on?

Welcome to New York

2009-01-03T09:35:00.005-05:00

So I don't know when it will hit me. It might take a few days or weeks, or maybe it never will, but I am now living in New York City. Yesterday on my 45 minute flight I thought a little bit about how bright eyed and bushy tailed my blog post was and about the fact that I'll probably be hit by a wall of cynicism soon.

Actually, after starting to explore the city, it's hard not to get a kick out of the fact that few to no people say sorry or excuse me or thanks, and it's funny when people give you weird looks when you do say those words. It's not like New York is going to be able to turn me into a jerk. Fuggettaboutit.

So what did I do yesterday? Well, I got into the apartment around 1:30 or so and my roommate and fellow daaper Dan let me in. After unpacking a bit, he and I headed out to explore. We went down to find my office at the end of the Brooklyn Bridge. We took the G to the A and eventually we found it in this really sweet little area. Some of the streets are cobblestone and there are old rail tracks laid into the pavement. The buildings are ornate beautiful old offices and warehouses. It's very Newsies.

Here's the view from right in front of where I work. On the right is the building I'll work in, and at the end of the street you can see the Manhattan Bridge rising above the river. Sweetness. The whole place seems a little quieter, a little more peaceful.

After we found the office, we decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. We're right here, why not? Even though it's Winter, there were still a lot of people on the bridge. I was stopped to take a picture for a foreign couple. The bridge is pretty massive and cool. Good work, John A. Roebling.

When we got to the other end of the bridge, we decided to head Northeast-ish into Chinatown. Inside Chinatown, there were a lot of great smells and a lot of women walking amond the crowds carrying non-descript bags saying "DVD's, DVD's." I enjoyed that, but didn't really need to take a chance on a copy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that may or may not work when I put it in my DVD player at home.

From there, Dan and I actually kept walking North...and walked....and walked. We grabbed some roasted nuts from a street vendor for some warmth and sustenance and then kept walking. Eventually we found ourselves in Madison Square Park, back at Dan's Pentagram Office. From there, we trekked over to Penn Station and Madison Square Garden for a quick bathroom break where I was stoked to find a PNC Bank! Good work Pittsburgh National Credit.

Soon, it was time to meet Kristen and Dan Dake for dinner at the Thai restaurant, so we walked back south a few blocks along 7th. All in all, we ended up walking nearly non-stop from my office to the Restaurant for four hours. When we got to the place, we started to feel the burn, so needless to say, we sat in the restaurant for probably two hours or so.

After a wonderful dinner and the joy of seeing Dan Dake for the first time in six months, Dan B. and I took the 1 to the beautiful L train back into Brooklyn. Once home, we played a little classic Nintendo and tried to watch National Treasure 2, but pretty soon we crashed.

It was a solid day.

Today, I'm hoping to explore more and snag tickets to a show. 13 would be great of course, but I'd really see anything. It's time to start my day.

In the immortal words of Annie Warbucks, "I think I'm gonna like it here."

Start Spreading the News...

2009-01-02T07:57:00.003-05:00

I'm leaving today!

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Really I am leaving today. In a few short hours I'll be flying to the Big Apple, thus beginning my Adventure in New York City and the craziest year of my life.

What are my plans and hopes for my quarter there? I don't have too many specifics. I just want to experience the city. I think there's purpose for me somewhere, and hopefully I'll find it as I search for the heart of New York.

Sure I want to see shows, like 13 (which stupidly closes this Sunday), Billy Elliot, Shrek and Mary Poppins, but none of them will make or break my time there. I'm looking forward to meeting new people, watching strangers on the subway, strolling through snow in central park and slowing down to sit in sweet coffee shops to open a book and sip chai.

I'm hoping to take risks and feel uncomfortable. To stare at my NFT guide one minute, and keep it closed the next.

Most of my friends know I have dreamed of living in New York for a long time. I've never written down my life list, but if I did, "Live in New York City" would be on it. This really is a dream come true and I am so thankful for the opportunity. I cannot wait to see what happens.

It's time to take this city by storm.

Look out New York, here I come.

Well, actually...

2008-12-30T08:52:00.001-05:00

You know the stuff I said about getting along with my brother?

Yeah, not so much...

A New York City Christmas

2008-12-27T11:03:00.004-05:00

Somehow Christmas has already come and gone. I really don't know where time goes, but here's some of what's been going on in the last few days.

(Brace yourself, I have a lot to write about.)

It's been very good to be home. Spending time with my family and friends has been pretty great. I've been especially trying to take advantage of my time with my family, and although we all get on eachother's nerves sometimes, it's been really good. I've even actually enjoyed Matt's company more than ever before, and spent a little time with he and his girlfriend last week when they invited me to watch Rent with them. (Two weeks before New York, how could I pass up an opportunity to watch Rent?)

It wasn't until I was sitting in Church on Christmas Eve that I actually started to think about what Christmas means. During the pastor's message, I realized how rarely I take time to dwell on the fact that God loved us enough to humble himself completely and come down to our level. It's really pretty ridiculously amazing. As I really thought about this, I was overcome with all sorts of different emotions.

This break has been full of emotional highs and lows. Last Thursday, Jessi Hagen, Rachel Mason, and Rachel's sister Phoebe came to visit Kevin and I for a day of fun in the Burgh. We did lots of cool stuff; we went to Heinz Chapel, found our way to the top of the Cathedral of Learning, ate Primanti's and went Ice Skating downtown in PPG Place. It was really great.

Then when I got home, I found all the news about the Crossroads accident. How horrible. I felt and feel so much pain for Keri, her family, and the community that has meant so much to me over the last two years. It kills me that I am disconnected from Crossroads while they are going through something so hard. The incredible strength and faith of her family has definitely helped me find some peace in all of this.

I had a few selfish moments last week when I was feeling bummed out that regardless of how winter quarter goes I won't be spending the summer in New York City. I'd love to be able to be there during the heat of summer to experience the side of the big apple I'll miss out on in winter. Luckily, those feelings didn't last for long, as it's impossible for me to be upset knowing that God has huge plans for me in Namibia. I am so excited for all of the risks, challenges, and hardships that I know I'll be facing. I cannot wait to be ripped out of my comfort zone. I'm terrified, but absolutely stoked. Plus, three and possibly six months of New York in winter is an absolute dream come true and I am thrilled to have whatever time I can there.

I got a chance to go out to lunch with my old youth director Chad and told him about Africa. He is really excited and cautioned me to be ready for the potential to have my life completely changed.

Wow. I'm glad I've got time to get ready. Although I'm sure the next 6 months will fly by, too.

I also got a chance to talk to the pastor at my old church and he was very excited to hear about Africa as well and offered whatever help he could. The support of he and Chad, on top of my family's support is amazing.

Christmas Day was wonderful. Gammy came in from Somerset and took part in most of our present opening. A highlight of the morning for me was giving Mom her gift. I had taken a bunch of pictures of Matt and Jaimie and I and took the three best and framed them for her. There aren't all that many pictures of us kids around, especially lately, so I knew she would love it and it would be much more heartfelt than some random cd or movie or something. As she opened it, she started to cry. The gift was a success.

You can actually take a look at all the pictures I took for her present right here.

I was given some great gifts and some definite necessities for my upcoming life in Brooklyn. One of the highlights was a new phone. My four year old phone died after 20 minutes of use, so I needed a new one badly. I got an enV2. I don't know much about what's hip in cell phone technology, but it seems pretty sweet. Now I can actually talk to people on my phone.

Another highlight was my Not For Tourists Guide to New York City 2009. I definitely needed it, and after owning the Los Angeles version that is pretty much the size and weight of a cinderblock, I'm amazed at how compact and convenient the pocket sized NFT New York is. It should fit perfectly into the pocket of my pea coat.

I also got a double air mattress, which I'll be sleeping on for 3 months this winter. It will probably take up almost my entire room. Don't worry, I post pictures once I get there.

Let's see, other good gifts were $50 to Old Navy (as everyone knows my current favorite store) with which I got a bunch of stylish new warm winter threads. The day after christmas 50% and 60% off deals were clutch. I also got Wall-E on dvd, which the family is going to watch in the next few days.

In the afternoon, we all went to see Marley & Me. Gammy had read the book and was really excited to go see it. It was actually a great movie, thanks to some surprisingly amazing performances by Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. A warning though, if you go see this movie you will cry. I've never felt like that way watching any movie ever. It's a weird feeling knowing and seeing that every single person around you is crying. I had a huge throbbing lump in my throat for like 20 minutes as I tried to hold back the tears, but I couldn't help it, and soon the tears started to fall down my cheeks. Jaimie asked Dad if he cried and he told her, "Of course I did! If you're human, that will make you cry." He was right. You should go see it. I want to own a lab now.

I could talk more and more about the day and the day after Christmas, but maybe I'll wait to do that. The Ogles are headed up to Lake Erie to spend a few days up there together, with some skiing likely on Monday. It should be an excellent time.

If you actually read this whole post, I commend you. I'm sorry it's so long. If you just skimmed, I don't blame you. I haven't written in a while.

I hope everyone's Christmas was excellent. I plan on calling a bunch of people on my new phone soon.

peace out

That's better...

2008-12-18T09:47:00.003-05:00

So I was thinking about it, and I've definitely already met Manhattan. This time around, I plan to take Manhattan (and the other boroughs, of course).

Home for the holidays

2008-12-16T17:01:00.005-05:00

Well, here it is. The old blog has been spruced up in anticipation of the big New York co-op. I've been trying to figure out what I wanted to call it, and this is what I've decided on for now. I also considered Mr. Ogle Goes to Broadway, The King of New York, No Day But Today, and Carrying the Banner. I'm pretty sure the blog will stay Alex Meets Manhattan, but there's a chance it could become more a muppet inspired Alex Takes Manhattan or Mr. Ogle Takes Manhattan. We'll see.

I stayed in Cincinnati until yesterday morning, and it ended up being the perfect amount of time. Amazingly, I was able to spend time with just about everyone I wanted to. Sunday afternoon was especially great. I went over to Artie's house and spent the afternoon hanging out and talking with him and his young son, Jackson. Artie and I had tried to hang out more since the one time we were able to earlier in the quarter, but we couldn't until now. We caught up, and eventually Artie's wife Lisa came back from the store with their 8-month-old Lincoln. Lincoln is extremely cute, and I had a lot of fun playing with him and helping him walk around the house. They invited me to stay for dinner which I couldn't pass up, and Artie wanted me to tell Lisa my Africa story after he had gotten the updated version earlier in the afternoon. I'd say the afternoon and evening made up for our lost time this quarter.

Coming home, I figured I would wear my lip ring from my Halloween costume to see what my parents would think. Well, at first Dad didn't notice, but Mom did. She didn't think it was real until Jaimie (who had seen pictures of me at Halloween) joined in and said "It was really hard to keep it a secret when you told me two weeks ago!" I hadn't even told her I was going to do it. What a great sister, eh? At that point I just let the chaos continue. Dad was silent, with a very upset look on his face. Mom started to say things like, "Why didn't you get an earring? I'd be okay with an earring, that'd be good! Or a tattoo!" When Mom started saying that Dad told her to be quiet. Once it seemed like they were really convinced, I went outside with Matt to get my stuff out of the car so that Mom and Dad could have a moment of terror to let it sink in. When I came back in, Mom gave me a thoroughly convinced "You will HAVE to take that out while you are here." And I walked up and put my face really close to hers and as she looked at the ring disgusted I pulled it out of my lip. It was really fun and it went on much longer than I planned, but when Jaimie joined in I had to keep it going. Mom is still talking about it today. It was pretty great.

Anyway, now I'm home here, actually excited to spend time with my family. I'm looking forward to time with my friends too. I'm just hoping for the next few weeks to be a major time of focus and foundation-building before the awesome chaos of 2009 begins. Who knows, I might even get some reading done. This afternoon I finished up Erwin McManus's The Barbarian Way. It's an awesome book about breaking out of the idea that following Jesus is something that is safe and comfortable. It's crazy how relevant the book is to my upcoming trips to New York and Africa, considering I bought the book earlier in the quarter before I had any idea Africa would be happening, and that I just started reading the book a few days ago.

Anyway, that's enough for now. I think I'm headed to Matt's hockey game tonight, then I've got Jury Duty tomorrow. I don't expect to update this baby all that many times before I head to New York, but who knows. When I have things to write about and time to write, I'll do my best.

I hope everybody is having a great break! Stay in touch.

much love

What am I going to do without all of you?

2008-12-04T19:28:00.002-05:00

I cannot believe another quarter is coming to an end already, let alone the fact that I am somehow in the middle of my fourth year of college.

This quarter has just about blown me away. There have been ups and downs, but in the end it has been amazing. In the very same day, I found out I will be spending winter quarter in New York City (a big hope of mine for a while) and firmly made the decision to spend my summer in Africa.

I definitely want to write about Africa and the crazy story of how I wound up realizing I need to go to Namibia this summer, but I won't do that right now. I'd be sitting here for two hours typing.

Today I just started to feel a little weird, maybe a little empty as the quarter comes to a close. I don't know how to describe it, but it's amazing how time with key people can come exactly when I need it. I can't count the number of times this quarter people have shown up right when I've needed them, and most of those people didn't even realize it.

I am so thankful for the people in my life. I have been extremely blessed.

I am so disappointed that I have to leave again so soon. Luckily, as much as I may have doubted it could happen, God showed up in a major way in Los Angeles, and I can't wait to find out what New York has in store for me.

For the first time in my life, I'm beginning to realizing what it really means to live for something bigger than myself.

I can't wait to see what's in store for all of us.

Only the beginning of the Adventure

2008-09-17T09:18:00.006-04:00

So I'm back home in Pittsburgh, doing all the things I wanted and needed to try and do before school starts, realizing I don't have enough time here.

I don't have a full blog post today, but what I do have is a new facebook photo gallery, which if you read each description, winds up being like a blog post in itself. The gallery chronicles my last 3 days in Los Angeles, hanging out on campus, going to the beach, and going to the observatory. The roommates took me to a kind of unofficial "Goodbye Alex" dinner on Wednesday night before I left, unfortunately I totally forgot my camera. Bummer.

If I was graduating right now, I think I would most likely be headed back out to Los Angeles. I have definitely become attached to that city and people in it. With a whole two years of school left, its hard to know what to do with those thoughts. Luckily and very thankfully, I am blessed with so many wonderful reasons to live in the moment while at school. Words can't really describe how excited I am to spend time with so many amazing people, and how much I am looking forward to what is sure to be a quarter filled with wonderful experiences shared with many people.

Here's the gallery. Check it out.

Rock on. See you soon!

Much love,

Alex

Leaving Narnia

2008-09-09T02:01:00.009-04:00

On Thursday I fly out of Los Angeles with no idea when I'll be coming back.

I'm thrilled to spend some time at home and then head back to school for what is sure to be an awesome quarter, but I can't believe how connected I've become to this place. There is a lot to hate about it, but at the heart of the city is an amazing opportunity to take part in a revolution of positive change.

A few months ago, I thought the lyrics to the song "The Call" at the end of Prince Caspian were cool, but now after an amazing summer they have real meaning.

. . .

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word
And then that word grew louder and louder
Till it was a battle cry
I'll come back when you call me
No need to say goodbye

Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before
All you can do is try to know who your friends are
As you head off to war
Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light
You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye
You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it, too
Doesn't means that you have to forget
Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
Till they're before your eyes
You'll come back when they call you
No need to say goodbye
You'll come back when they call you

No need to say goodbye

Ode to Dave Devine

2008-09-05T10:32:00.003-04:00

Well, folks, today is my last day of work after six months at Crew Creative, so I thought it would be fitting to write a post dedicated to my most loyal blog-reader, my coworker, Dave Devine:

Dave Devine tries to make you think he's some really mean tough guy, with his motorcycles, black shirts, shaved head, goatee and tattoos, but that really couldn't be further from the truth.

Back in Winter Quarter, I sat between Dave Devine and Ben Black (also a great guy) in our "pod," and Dave was definitely the first person to really make me feel welcome at work. He was the first to really talk to me, the first to find out about my unique interests in things like Disney and musical theater, and first to make fun of me because of those interests.

Although Dave was almost always the first to make fun of me about something at work, he was also always the first to help me out. If I had a question, I knew I could ask and almost always get an answer.

And regardless of how much I was made fun of by him or by anyone else at work, it was never out of spite or hate, I guess it was just some weird way of showing they liked me, and that was cool to know.

Dave Devine has my blog set as his homepage, which is actually pretty creepy. This isn't really part of the tribute, I just thought everyone should know about it.

Try as he might, Dave Devine is not some hardened, heartless biker.

Dave Devine is actually one of the best guys I've met at work. He took me under his wing during my time at Crew and definitely taught and showed me a lot, while making me feel welcome and cared about at work.

I know he'll miss me when I'm gone, and I guess I'll miss him, too.

*there's your post, Dave

Feeling the Tug

2008-08-26T20:35:00.008-04:00

I hope some of you guys were as surprised to read the Olympic Creed as I was. Both the creed and the news story were brought up in Sarah's message about Resilience this past Sunday at Mosaic, but I'll probably get to that later.

Plenty of stuff has gone down in the past week or so, so I probably won't be going into too much detail. Let's see...ahh yes. Last Friday night was Idina Menzel at the Wiltern! Unfortunately no photography was allowed inside the theater. You weren't even allowed to bring a camera in. I put mine in my pocket and snuck it in though. Anyway, this is the only picture you'll get.

My coworker Mike and I grabbed a quick but excellent dinner at Luna Park Restaurant before heading over to the theater. Once there, we hung out in the lobby of the amazing art-deco building and had a drink. It was probably a mistake for me to drink, however, as some of you may know that I have the stomach and bladder size of an 8 year old, and alcohol only makes things worse. In the hour and 15 minutes or so between when we got to the theater and when Idina went on after the opening act, I think I went to the bathroom at least four times. Luckily, though, I didn't have to go once she was onstage.

Before the show started, we saw and stood next to Bruce Vilanch, and yes, he looks like that in real life, too. Before Idina went onstage, her husband Taye Diggs walked through the audience looking for his seat, and walked down the aisle right next to our seats. It was pretty cool. Girls were going pretty crazy and stuff.

Anyway, of course Idina was great. Although the theater was huge, she played it like a small intimate theater, telling stories and interacting with the audience. She just seemed to be having a great time, very confident and comfortable in her own (unique) skin. One of my favorite parts of the show was when she kicked off her shoes and started headbanging to a cover of "Heartbreaker." And then, when the song ended, she still had energy, and had the band do the end of the song again. Even her band seemed to be having a great time, smiling and laughing along with the audience.

Other highlights were of course her musical theater songs, like "No Day but Today" from Rent and an a cappella solo version of "For Good" from Wicked towards the end of the performance. A lot of the stuff from her albums was great, too, including "Brave" and "Where do I Begin" which are some of my favorites.

Of course, Idina finished her encore with the song everyone was waiting for, "Defying Gravity." She performed the whole song while sitting on the end of the stage. The intimacy and emotion of the moment was amazing. Idina is great.

Saturday was a Digital Designer trip to Universal. Amy, Emily, Ian and I spent a fun day at the theme park. Here's a shot looking down into the Valley onto the Universal backlot at everything the fire cleared out. It's pretty crazy. Luckily you can see that the Courthouse building from Back to the Future was spared. And of course beyond the backlot you can see the Warner Bros. studio (wow, the Dark Knight seems so long ago!) and past that you can make out the top of the abc building and the rest of the Disney studio.

Here's a shot of the same basic area in the winter. You can't see as much of the backlot, but you can get a gauge of how big the fire was. You can also get a gauge of how much clearer the air can be in the winter, ha.

Anyway, at the end of our day, we had a fun dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood in Universal Citywalk. Once we got back to Westwood, we decided to head to the Westwood Brewing Company for a drink and to see if we could catch any of Michael Phelps' race. Luckily we could. How about that guy, huh? What a great story.

Sunday was a pretty regular Sunday, with some running, phone calls on campus, and an afternoon and evening downtown at Mosaic. Jason Jaggard delivered a message on discipline which was very cool, but then the coolest thing was when Erwin came out and introduced John Naber, a member of the Mosaic community and USA Olympic Swimmer at the 1976 summer games in Montreal. At the games, John set four world records and won five medals, four gold and one silver.

Erwin and John spoke about Michael Phelps, Dara Torres, and John's own Olympic experience. They talked about the training and discipline involved in all of their Olympic successes. It was pretty amazing to be able to gain such insight into the world of the Olympics as they were happening. As always, check out the podcast.

This past weekend, the highlight was definitely a day at the beach Saturday with the roommates. Garrett, Chris, David and I went to Dockweiler Beach, where Goodwin's Church was having a beach day. Dockweiler was pretty cool because it's right at the end of the runways at LAX, so planes are constantly flying overhead. They usually aren't too loud, but every once in a while one of those huge double decker planes headed to Asia or Europe fly over and then you can't hear anything. It was fun though, because when that would happen you could just yell obnoxiously. Anyway, we played some hardcore beach volleyball, swam, relaxed and ate burgers on the beach. It was awesome.

Saturday night I met Tegan and Ian at Amy's where we hung out, had some wine and ate Sprinkles cupcakes. They were delicious. We ended up watching the movie Crash, which I had never seen, and in a weird way, I found the movie pulling my heart to the city of Los Angeles, where it takes place. The movie was very powerful and amazing, not to mention the opening scene with Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser taking place right on Broxton, a street in Westwood I walk down every single day. I don't know what it was exactly, but it was definitely one of the first times I really felt a pull from Los Angeles. Weird.

Sunday was a classic Sunday, with a run at UCLA, a few phone calls and a trip downtown to Mosaic. Again, walking to the Mayan Theatre and during my evening at Mosaic, I just could really feel the tug of the city on me.

I don't really know how to describe it. I mean, I love the city, but there are plenty of reasons why I don't like it, too. I don't think the pull is for selfish reasons, since coming back to LA in the future would involve me giving up so much of what and who I know and love. At the same time, part of my noticing the tug came with my realization on Sunday though that the utopia of love and friendship that I feel at school in Cincinnati will not always exist, and when we start to graduate, people moving all over the country is pretty inevitable.

At Mosaic on Sunday night I was reintroduced to Mayan all-star Jason Jaggard, and I mentioned to he and Adrian that I has been feeling a tug toward the city, and he told me "Just give in, man! Let it pull! Let it pull!" He said this place needs good people. Although I am definitely far from being "good people," the idea of living and working for healing in a place with so much need and brokenness right under the surface of so many is an amazing thought.

It's really weird having these thoughts with so much time left before I graduate. How much of a different man will I be in 2010? That's crazy.

For now, my plan is to try to go to New York on co-op in the winter, to not pass up the opportunity to live that life for three months. I've got to say, the City of Angels has taken up a space in my heart that will not easily be forced out, and if nothing works out in the big apple, I'll definitely keep an eye on Southern California.

I am definitely going to try as much as possible to give up all of these decisions, both those in the coming months and those in the next few years. When the time comes, these decisions are not mine, but God's, and I don't want to get in the way.

A few weeks ago at Mosaic, Erwin McManus said that when you truly love God, what you want and what he wants becomes the same thing, and that is when life becomes the most fun. That is what I want. I'm not together, but I'm getting there.

If anybody wants to get a small glimpse into a little of the city of Los Angeles that I have come to know and love over the almost six months I've spent here, check out this album on facebook, where the shots from church and the marquee are from. They're not brilliant, but I think they do a good job showing a side or two of LA that you don't see in movies.

Well kids, two weeks from tomorrow I fly back to Pittsburgh, having no idea when I'll be back. I have to say, though, I am confident that I will be. Man, I have a lot to think and pray about.

Rock on, everybody.

Resilience

2008-08-25T01:13:00.004-04:00

THE OLYMPIC CREED

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

A Champion

A Weekend with Sis

2008-08-15T02:05:00.009-04:00

This past weekend my sister Jaimie came to visit, and we were able to do a good amount of stuff and have a lot of fun. Here's the report.

I borrowed Garrett's car to drive to LAX to pick up Jaimie on thursday night. While we were waiting for her luggage, we saw a celebrity, but neither of us knew what he was from. He did, however, get in a limo so it was legit. He looked like he could've played a vampire on tv or in a movie, or I thought he looked like he could've been on Laguna Beach or something. Well, he wasn't. I think probably I'll be watching tv in a few weeks and I'll see him and it'll click.

Anyway, Friday afternoon, Jaimie and I went up to Hollywood for our trip to the Hollywood Bowl to see the star-studded Les Miserables in Concert. Our concert wasn't until 8:30, but we went to Hollywood to walk around so Jaimie could check out the place. She actually was very impressed by the stores in Hollywood and Highland. This Ed Hardy or whoever stuff is apparently pretty popular, so the kids tell me. Who knows.

Anyway, here we are up on the overlook above Hollywood Blvd. with downtown in the background. Good times!

Jaimie and I had a nice dinner at a Crepes place (where we both had paninis), and after some more exploring we walked over to the shuttle bus stop to take the bus up to the Hollywood Bowl.

Everybody had been telling me how awesome the Hollywood Bowl was, so I knew we were in for a treat. As we got off of the bus, we looked around and everybody had picnics baskets full of dinners and wine and whatnot. Jaimie and I were obviously newbies eating before we got there. Ohh well, there's always next time.

Jaimie and I found our seats about an hour and a half before the show and sat down in them. I was absolutely amazed how cool the bowl was. I didn't actually expect to be able to see the Hollywood sign from inside the place, but we actually could!

Aparently the Hollywood Bowl is the largest outdoor amphitheater in the United States or something, holding almost 17,000 people. Can you believe that? 17,000 people on the side of a hill? That's about the capacity of Mellon Arena. Crazy.

So Jaimie and I sat and chatted, skimmed the $1 program, and watched an episode of the Office (Gay Witch Hunt - what a classic!) and the sun began to set as the Hollywood sign faded into darkness in the distance and Hollywood magic filled the air.

So how was Les Miserables in Concert at the Hollywood Bowl? I'm not sure words can describe it. First of all, I had just been expecting the cast to be wearing costumes and standing at microphones or something, and maybe they'd act out a few action scenes or something. But no! Although they slimmed the show down a bit, it was fully acted and performed! The cast acted out every scene out in front of the orchestra. They even used some set pieces, tables and chairs, a gate outside the mansion, and piles of junk on the barricade. The atmosphere and talent more than made up for the lack of a turntable (as much as I love that in the full production).

The performers were absolutely top notch. J. Mark McVey, a Les Miz alum, was an absolutely fabulous Jean Valjean, sounding very much like Colm Wilkinson at times. He poured plenty of emotion into the performance, nailing Valjean's high notes, one of my favorite parts of the music.

Brian Stokes Mitchell, one of Broadway's top leading men, did a great job playing the villainous Javert. I've listened to plenty of Brian Stokes Mitchell on the Ragtime soundtrack, where he played Coalhouse Walker Jr, but you might be able to remember him as having played Hillary's boyfriend Trevor on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Remember the bungy-jumping? Yeah, ouch. I didn't quite love him as much as I enjoy Terrence Mann's Javert on the original soundtrack, but that might just be because I love hearing Terrence Mann's Beast sing "If I Can't Love Her" from Beauty and the Beast.

Wow, this post is definitely shining more light than I'd like on my love for musical theater.

Anyway, Melora Hardin, aka Jan from the Office was actually pretty good as the tragic Fantine. Although she definitely had the weakest voice of anyone in the cast, she worked hard to sell the performance, and did a great job.

Finally, the last major standout in the show was the one and only Lea Michele as Eponine, probably the best character. I saw Lea last summer in New York in the original cast of Spring Awakening, and she was definitely great in it, but her character didn't really have any opportunities to really let out and sing. However, when Eponine sang her first lines, I got chills and knew we were in for something special.

At the end of the first act, all I could think about was how amazing "On My Own" was going to be in Act II, and it did not let me down. Lea Michele was absolutely amazing. She walked out into the audience on the wall between the orchestra pit and the main seating area, and with a single spotlight totally owned what is easily one of my favorite songs ever, period. She held out the last big note much longer than would ever be possible in the real show, but in concert at the Hollywood Bowl, it was completely natural. As she belted out the note, the entire crowd burst into applause. The orchestra paused for a moment, then continued as Lea finished the song to 16,000 people worth of applause.

Oh look, here's a bootleg video of her performance. How did we live before youtube? This may or may not have been the night we went. Either way, it's awesome. Lea Michele, you rock.

It's funny how much going to Hollywood Bowl actually feels like the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater, where you watch Fantasmic at Disney World. Unfortunately there was no historic wave like many of us in the North Allegheny Tiger Marching Band took part in back on that amazing night of January 1st, 2002 (I think that was the date) but it was still impressive how much the Imagineers got the feel and atmosphere of their amphitheater right. Nobody but me would probably ever think or recognize that. In keeping with what I've experienced at Fantasmic, when Les Miz ended, we joined into a huge mass of slow-moving people as we all made our way between the trees to the exit.

Saturday, Jaimie and I went to the Santa Monica to spend the day at the beach. It was beautiful, and we spent the afternoon getting tans, reading and relaxing. At last, my farmer's tan is disappearing, probably right when I leave LA it will be gone. Jaimie and I had a nice dinner outside at an English Restaurant at the beach, then came home, ate some ice cream sandwiches from Diddy Riese, and enjoyed the Olympics.

Sunday, sis and I took a explored UCLA's campus a bit. In the sculpture garden was a lot of art Jaimie didn't understand, and I didn't really understand it either. It's a cool campus, for sure, but I really do miss my home base in Clifton.

After our mini-tour, we went back to the apartment and met Garrett to head up to the Getty Center. After sitting in plenty of traffic, we had a great time exploring the museum grounds and the art inside. There was a super cool exhibit on Bernini sculpture. That work must've taken so much patience.

After visiting the museum for a few hours, we all headed home, and Jaimie and I went downtown to the Mayan for Church. I was really excited to take her there, and it was an awesome service. The dancers performed an AMAZING dance, there was a sweet video about my friend Ben, also the subject of the basketball story in Erwin McManus's book Soul Cravings. Erwin's message was about determination, and making decisions about what kind of a person you want to be. I definitely recommend checking out the podcast.

Leaving Mosaic is going to be one of the hardest parts about leaving Los Angeles. It has just been so awesome and helped me to focus on what's important out here. Luckily I'll have Erwin's books and Mosaic podcasts back in the 'Nati, and who knows, maybe I'll be back here someday, whether its soon or not so soon.

Jaimie really liked church and was surprised to find out how cool the people there were. We drove back home and watched some more Olympics, including the U.S. swimming relay that absolutely rocked.

Phil and I took Jaimie back to LAX on monday morning as the weekend of my visit with sister ended. It was definitely great for Jaimie and I to have some time just the two of us, which we definitely hadn't had very much of. She and I are definitely very different, but we have a lot in common, too. I'm looking forward to how much fun it will be when my sister and I (and hopefully my brother) have families and kids and we all hang out together. I think it will be a lot of fun.

Tuesday night I went with Garrett and Amy to a bar in Hollywood to see Garrett's friend from Oklahoma, Samantha Crain, perform. It was great and we stayed for a while watching the other performers, including this very cool girl Jackie Tohn. That wasn't really the exciting part, though, the highlight was that at the bar we saw Dominic Monaghan, aka a hobbit and Charlie on Lost! He was just hanging out. Then, when Jackie Tohn performed at the end of the night, Seth Green showed up! Both of them were much shorter than I imagined, but Seth Green was tiny!

They were my first non-movie premiere celebrity sightings of the quarter, and they were fairly solid. Garrett and I wanted to walk up to Dominic and talk to him about the ways that he really didn't need to die at the end of the third season, but we didn't.

Well, it's now friday afternoon and tonight I'm going to see Idina Menzel in concert with one of my co-workers. I'm super excited. After all, she's Idina Menzel. Then Saturday is a return to Universal Studios. Should be quite a weekend.

I hope everybody has a great weekend, too!

I miss you and love you all.

Rock on.

Movies, Mountains and the Mouse

2008-08-07T16:03:00.008-04:00

Hey Everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I updated the blog. Here's a photo update showing you the highlights of the last week or so.

I think it was Last Wednesday night that the Pineapple Express premiere was held in my neighborhood, so as always, I stopped by to check it out, since it is impossible to avoid while walking from the bus stop to my apartment.

In terms of sheer number and caliber of celebrities, this was probably the biggest premiere yet. The first person I saw was the one and only Huey Lewis, looking as 80s as ever. Then of course, Judd was there also, who I saw at the Step Brothers premiere, too. Then I spotted some more of the Apatow regulars, and bam, there was the one and only James Franco. (I actually was very happy with Harry's character arc in Spider-man 3)

I saw more people like, Seth Rogen, the girl who plays Seth's girlfriend, and then the big guns arrived. Jack Black stepped out a limo down the street, which was very cool. Then by far my most famous celebrity sighting yet came when one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Jim Carrey, decided to show up with Jenny McCarthy. It was pretty hard to get a good picture of them, but if you look in the single photo I did get, you can see Jim Carrey is the bald head with sunglasses. Oh, and check out Ed Begley, Jr. on the left there. He's a good guy.

Finally, here's a shot of the one and only Jon Voigt. Star of movies like Mission: Impossible and the National Treasures. I still haven't seen the sequel yet. I should. I do like America a lot.

Let's see, there were a few other celebrities I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention, and there were a few that were at the premiere that I didn't see. One more person I did see was Stanley the Manley from the Office. I'll tell you, these Office folk are all over this city. I'll have a future example when I write about this weekend.

Last Saturday the connections team at Mosaic (people I volunteer with) organized a hiking trip up in a canyon in Pasadena. Needless to say, I was stoked to go, especially finally feeling connected to people there and feeling like I belong. So a bunch of us went hiking up between the mountains and it was super cool.

Our destination was this waterfall, a very nice little spot tucked into these tall mountains. I should've worn my suit so I could go swimming in it when we got there, but I was worried about chafing and stuff on the hike back out of the canyon.

My roommate Garrett joined the group, too, and I was thrilled to have him come along and get to know some of my friends at Mosaic. Here's the group, walking back from the waterfall.

After hiking, we all drove back to Cara's house in Pasadena where we ate a delicious lunch of sandwiches, watermelon and other summer foods on her front porch.

On the freeway driving to Pasadena, Garrett and I passed by the Disney Studio in Burbank. When I saw the water tower with Mickey on it, I sort of started to yell and Garrett got mad. Regardless, he was happy to take a quick pit-stop at the studio on our way back home to Westwood.

We drove to the studio and wonderfully, the gate to the famous animation building was wide open, allowing me to get this beautiful money shot of the Walt Disney Animation Studios building, formerly Walt Disney Feature Animation, designed by renowned architect Robert A. M. Stern.

The gate was probably open because the animators are hard at work animating the Princess and the Frog. In case anyone didn't see it, you can check out the teaser trailer for Disney's triumphant return to classic hand-drawn animation here. Keep up the good work John Lasseter.

Unfortunately the main studio gate was locked on this Saturday afternoon. Still, I took a moment to bask under the glory of the Walt Disney Co. archway.

Peeking through the fence, we saw University of Cincinnati alum Michael Graves' beautiful Team Disney - The Michael D. Eisner Building and the Disney Legends Plaza sprawling in front of it. I love that it is classic Michael Graves, only instead of pillars, the seven dwarfs are holding the building up. Some may disagree, but I wouldn't say its too over the top.

Here's the wonderful water tower. Oh, the magic of the Hollywood that never was!

Here's a close-up stalker shot of more Michael Graves and seven dwarf goodness. The coolness of this building almost makes up for the way his Swan and Dolphin Hotels mess up your view inside Epcot. Almost.

Walking around more of the studio, I found this other nice little classy studio gate. That's the late Aldo Rossi's big ABC Television Studios building in the background.

This week for some reason the sky and smog decided to clear up a bit, giving us some beautiful views from our office at work. This is looking north up to the mountains. The white speck in between the two towers is Griffith Observatory, a highlight from winter quarter, and the Hollywood sign is hidden by these buildings.

Here is what it looks like through our windows to the East, looking back at downtown. It's only about 6 miles to the city, but some days you can barely see the silhouette of buildings through the smog. This was a beautifully clear day. It looks a lot grosser through the camera than it did in real life. Still, from what I've seen of the Olympics, it doesn't look like Los Angeles has anything on Beijing.

LA has a pretty cool downtown. Oh and check out the giant Kung Fu Panda billboard on the side of a building a few miles away off to the left.

That's it for today. Hopefully soon I'll post about this weekend. My sister and I are having a great time!

Take it easy. Miss you all!

I Feel the Earth Move Under my Feet

2008-07-29T23:18:00.002-04:00

So, the ground isn't really supposed to move....or so I thought.

Maybe you haven't heard but today in Los Angeles was an EARTHQUAKE!

The quake was apparently a 5.4 and happened at 11:42 this morning, and here's what I experienced:

Everybody in the city seems to be describing the starting moments in the same way, that it seemed like someone was walking around on the floor above us or that someone was wheeling something very heavy nearby. That's how it started and then the entire building began to sway and rock. Within seconds, it clicked that an Earthquake was happening. After a few more short seconds, I followed some people's lead and stood in a doorframe.

Apparently our building was built sometime in the 80s, so its not very old and apparently there are these giant wheels at the foundation deep under the building to absorb the shock. That is probably why we didn't feel much shaking or rattling. Still, being on the Fifth floor of a solid steel, marble covered building, and rocking what felt like a few feet back and forth was crazy. Not necessarily scary, but crazy. Once it seemed like it wasn't going to be too bad, it was even sort of fun.

Also because of the wheels, our building kept rolling for what felt like a long time after the quake ended. When it ended, everybody quickly went down the stairs and went outside. People in other buildings were coming out, too, and a few fire trucks drove by, sirens blaring. Initial cell phone calls didn't get through, apparently the city's system was overloaded.

Everybody said an aftershock could come at any moment, and could even be just as bad as the initial quake, maybe worse, and I guess it can happen anytime from a few minutes to a few days later. I haven't felt anything, even though I noticed the normal everyday vibrations in the floor once in a while. We all went back inside, and pretty soon the day was continuing like normal.

Like I said, the quake was sort of fun, and it wasn't quite as bad as I had thought my first earthquake would be. That being said, the news is reporting that this quake was just a reminder that "The Big One" could come anytime. This one was probably the biggest quake in about 10 years or so, but apparently there is a 99% chance that the big one will come sometime in the next 30 years. Sure, 30 years is a long time, but in terms of the Earth's life span, that's nothing. Hopefully it doesn't happen too soon.

Anyway, I'm excited to have experienced my first ever earthquake, and now I really have "lived in Los Angeles."

Oh, Los Angeles.

Good times.

Live High, Live Mighty (with a few photos)

2008-07-28T01:57:00.013-04:00

Wow. I am so disgustingly blessed. There is so much I want to write about right now, so this could be a long post.

Let's see, I haven't even blogged about last weekend yet.

Here is the abridged version:

Friday night was going to a classy but hip wine bar down near USC's campus with my roommates which was a lot of fun, then IMAX the Dark Knight on Saturday morning which was absolutely mind-blowingly awesome, even the Watchmen trailer was freaking sweet (crew just finished the teaser website for the watchmen movie, and it's sweet, check it out). Let's see, then Saturday night was the GLOW festival celebrating the Grunion Run at Santa Monica. I'll tell you more about it if you ask, here's a picture of one of the cool art installations. This was a giant fan of water being sprayed like 5 stories high with colorful animations projected onto it.

Monday night Amy and I went to the Arclight in Hollywood to see Mamma Mia. The movie was ridiculous, but of course I loved it. Meryl Streep was awesome and looked like she was having a blast. Amanda Seyfried might just make the list of "My Girls," alongside Idina, Amy Adams, Ashley Brown, Lindsay Lohan (pre-fall), Shoshana Bean and Rachel McAdams. (If anyone remembers any other women I have mentioned as being my girl, please remind me. I think I've remembered them all though.) Amanda Seyfried has the best voice of anyone in the movie, and her acoustic version of "Thank You for the Music" she sings over the final credits is absolutely amazing.

Pierce Brosnan's singing voice isn't perfect, but its very interesting and I don't mind hearing it. He is, however, not all that comfortable looking singing on screen, and when he broke out in song in the movie almost everyone in the theater started to laugh. Still, the movie was definitely a lot of fun, and doesn't take itself too seriously, but is serious when it needs to be. Ian downloaded the soundtrack and gave it to me. It's been pretty awesome.

The arclight was an amazing place to see a movie, and bills itself as the theater for movie lovers. The theater is all assigned seating, the seats are extra wide, the arm rests are double-wide, and there is no late seating. Pretty sweet. There also weren't really any bad seats in the theater. Outside of the theater was the real Bat-pod, on display and it was pretty cool. Inside the lobby was an actual Batman costume from the Dark Knight, 5 clown masks from the bank robbery scene, and a joker costume, as well. Now that stuff was awesome. They also had some of the costumes from Mamma Mia on display, too, which had lots of sequins on them.

Let's see, the rest of the week was fairly low-key. I did, however, come up with a design for my new portfolio website. I've spent a lot of my free time this week and weekend working on the site, and I'm super excited about it. I really do think that it's shaping up to not only be a solid reflection of my work, but a great reflection of my personality and who I am in general, as well. The site is definitely not done yet, and you can't actually view any of my projects besides their preview boxes. I'll be working on the full project views soon.

Even so, feel free to check out what I have up at randlev.com. Check it out and let me know what you think. I'd love to get some feedback and criticism. Good or bad.

Anyway, this weekend has been very awesome. Friday night was a nice relaxing evening, after some In-N-Out, Garrett and I watched the movie Walk Hard. It was very funny and John C. Reilly was pretty outstanding in it. He's got a lot of talent. I wonder why he really hasn't done anything serious since his oscar nomination for Chicago?

Anyway, Saturday afternoon, Ian and Tegan and I went cruising up highway 1 into Malibu. We stopped and ate lunch by the lagoon and then walked along the beach and watched all the surfers catching waves near the pier. Our day was absolutely made when we saw a dog in a wetsuit surfing with his owner. The dog was really good and looked like he was having a lot of fun. Awesome.

We walked back to the car and kept driving north on the Pacific Coast Highway out of the Malibu city limits past Pepperdine University right above the ocean. It was pretty awesome driving along the ocean with the windows down, the sunroof open, and the new Jason Mraz album blasting on the stereo. We were living pretty large. Soon we started passing these huge houses with ornate gates at the driveways right on the ocean. There has to be seriously famous and seriously rich people owning those places, they were crazy.

We eventually decided to stop at this beach that looked cool called Leo Carillo beach, I think, and it turned out to be amazing. There were these huge rock formations along the ocean creating these different little coves and private beaches. There were huge mountains across the highway behind us, and the rocky beach made it feel like we were somewhere like Hawaii or Greece. Since I had recently seen the movie, I did some Mamma Mia "The Winner Takes it All" posing on the rocks, and I think Tegan got a few good pictures. Don't worry, I'll post more pictures from all of this stuff on facebook so you guys can see how cool it was. My facebook break ends tomorrow morning, so maybe tomorrow night I'll load some pics up. (My facebook break has been awesome, and I think from now on I'll only check it when A. I need to to find information of someone's, or B. When I receive an email notification.)

After taking pictures we all got in the car and headed back down the PCH through Malibu back to Westwood, while we may or may not have been listening to the Mamma Mia soundtrack. Last night I had a lot of fun going to the Bigfoot Lodge, a log cabin-themed bar up in Los Feliz (pronounced Loas Fee-liss) to celebrate my coworker, Dave Felton's birthday. It was a lot of fun, even my supervisor, Anette came. Dave Devine, however, was a no show. On friday at work I found out he has a pool at his house and something called an aquathrone. If he was social, maybe he'd invite people over. It's weird to think of Dave as a real grown-up, but I guess if he has his own pool then he must be.

Anyway, we were at the bar just a few minutes too late to catch the subway back to Wilshire and hop on the bus back to Westwood, so Ian and I sort of got stuck in Hollywood and just ended up having to split a $30 taxi. It was stupid and expensive, but whatever.

This morning I pushed myself in an intense run through campus and at the track. It was great, and I'm definitely loving running so often out here. I really am starting to feel like I'm in better shape and able to run further often.

My afternoon and evening was an absolutely amazing cap to my weekend. I took the bus downtown with my D50 camera, and snapped a few shots of Broadway as I walked down to the Mayan. Broadway on Sunday afternoon is definitely a trip and a side of Los Angeles you don't really ever get to see or imagine, with the lobbies of all of these old movie palaces sort of depressingly turned into jewelry stores and plenty of storefronts of people selling all kinds of knick-knacks, clothes, toys, and whatnot. Still, its really interesting and I love walking down it every Sunday on my way to church.

At church, it was definitely my best overall Mosaic experience yet. I was there early enough to help with plenty of set-up, and had a lot of fun just hanging out with everybody else on the connections team and getting to know some new people. I think I finally am starting to find where I fit there. Again I was on sample duty and handed out dixie cups of Raspberry Mocha to people who looked alone and struck up conversation with them. One guy, Eugene, was interested in finding out how he could get involved and meet people, so I told him about the connections team and stuff and pointed him toward people who could give him more information. Another guy, John, had an amazing amount of energy, and I had a lot of fun talking to he and his even more energetic girlfriend, Nicole. The people at Mosaic really are awesome, and getting to know more and more of them all the time is really showing me how blessed and lucky I am to be a part of that community.

It was almost scary how much the message met me with exactly what I'm dealing with right now and where my heart is and what I'm trying to work on. It was absolutely crazy to be spoken to so personally and I was just struck by how awesome God is. And Erwin McManus didn't even deliver this message.

It turns out this girl named Jess lives in Westwood, too, and she said she was happy to give me a ride home, so I opted to stick around to volunteer and usher for both services, which is something I've never done before but have always wanted to do, especially for the added time of interacting with other people and other volunteers. After the 8 o'clock gathering started, Eddie and Liz and I went across the street to the new Jamaican Restaurant that Mosaic is trying to help out across the street and it was delicious. My jerk chicken had major kick to it, but it was delicious. The service and food was great, and our waiter absolutely could not have been nicer. I'll think we'll be going back every Sunday night now, too, which I could get used to.

After tearing down everything in the Mayan and packing up, Jess and I went out to her car, and I was surprised to see a Pitt sticker on the rear windshield. It turns out she went to Pitt on a softball scholarship. Small world, eh? Well, things got even crazier when she mentioned she used to work at Disney in advertising. She told me it was a blast working there, and that she loved the people she worked with. Although she recently switched jobs, she told me she knows a lot of great people there, and that I should give her my resume and she'll let me know of any internship opportunities. She and I will definitely be talking more in the coming weeks (and hopefully I can get a few more rides home) and I might just have to see what connections I can work.

I don't know, would I come back to LA soon if it meant working at Disney and spending another quarter surrounded by everything and everyone I love at Mosaic? Maybe...just maybe.

Am I beginning to be bitten by the LA bug that I never thought I'd be bitten by. After doubting it for so long, could I really be "an LA guy?" Maybe...just maybe.

Who knows. Ideally it would be awesome to work for Disney in New York, especially to work at Yellow Shoes Creative Group, the branch of Disney Parks and Resorts that does all the advertising for the theme parks and cruise line, which I think has an office in New York.

We'll see. I don't know what the future holds for me. All I know is right now I am feeling very much in love with Los Angeles, and am feeling so disgustingly blessed by God. Like I said, I definitely don't deserve this. He is awesome.

I really do miss everyone, and I am very much looking forward to Fall quarter. It will be amazing. Until then, its looking like summer quarter has not and will not let me down in terms of growth, challenges, and overall awesomeness.

I hope everyone has an amazing week.

Wow, this post was like a novel.

Much love.

Why So Serious?

2008-07-18T10:43:00.005-04:00

Ahh, at last Friday is here, and last night the biggest movie of the summer and the year, The Dark Knight, was finally released, and finally, I can take the bat out of the bag.

Yes, of course, the movie I got to see on the Warner Bros. lot on Monday morning was indeed The Dark Knight, and it was freaking awesome. Here's my mini spoiler free review.

Like I said, the movie is just so awesome. It's incredibly intense, especially like the first hour and a half. It's not especially gory, but I'd say most people would agree with me when I say that it could definitely be rated R. Kids should not see this movie. In the days since I saw it, I keep remembering parts of the movie that I had forgotten and thinking, "ohh man, yeah, that part was amazing!" The one cryptic thing I've been telling people is there is A LOT to this movie. A big part of me wants to tag another sentence onto that statement, but I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, so I won't.

As for the performances, Heath Ledger is definitely mind-blowing in his role as the Joker. Really, it is true, he rocked this and can you believe there's legitimate talk of him winning an Oscar? I mean, this is a comic book superhero movie...and someone might win an oscar for it for something besides Special Effects and Sound Mixing!

Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman are all great, as well, and my mind continues to have no idea how they got so many huge respected actors to come together to make a Batman movie in the first place with Batman Begins. But then again, I've seen that movie, and it is crazy good, so I guess it makes sense.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is amazing, too, and she just pulls you in and whether you liked Katie Holmes in the first one or not, you will not be disappointed. In fact, seeing the character of Rachel in The Dark Knight, I really don't think Katie Holmes could've pulled off what Maggie had to pull off. Maggie Gyllenhaal, you are awesome.

Of course Aaron Eckhart is great, too, with his wonderfully believable tragedy, but I'd have to say my favorite character in the movie this time around is without a doubt Jim Gordon, as played by Gary Oldman. He does a an awesome job, and I would say he is really the heart of the movie and the glue that holds everything else together.

Basically, everything good you've heard about this movie is true. Its on such a different level than any other superhero comic movie before it. Go see it. Go see it now.

I'm going to the IMAX to see the movie again tomorrow morning at 9am. I know it's crazy, but that was the only time we could get okay seats to the IMAX theater. It will be awesome. The IMAX experience sounds amazing.

Why did I get to see Batman so early? Well, at work I've been doing a bunch of random things for the Dark Knight pretty much nonstop for the last month. In fact, they're not a big deal, but if you go to movietickets.com you can see the wallpaper and "Get movie tickets and Showtimes" header I put together for the site. Over at yahoo.com/movies you can see the wallpaper I put together for that site, too.

The coolest thing I did for the Dark Knight was for the official site. Last week on Thursday night the entire official site for the Joker (which crew made) was "Jokerized" by the joker with drops of blood and one-liners written in red scribbled all over everything. It looked pretty sweet. Well, I got to tag and jokerize all of the pictures in the photo gallery and tag all the wallpapers and movie posters in the downloads section. It was a lot of fun, and I guess that means I am partly the Joker. Cool, huh? Unfortunately the site switched back over to its clean, normal version on Monday night, but you can actually see some of the posters I jokerized over on the Dark Knight gallery at rottentomatoes.com.

Anyway, time to get dressed and head off to work. I just wanted to finally write about how awesome this stuff has been, because its been super sweet.

I predict the movie to be the biggest movie of all time. Well, maybe not, but it will definitely be in the top 5!

. . .

I am secure enough in my masculinity to admit that I do want to see Mamma Mia, as well. What can I say? I love the musical and the movie looks like a lot of fun.

Anyway, I hope everybody has an awesome weekend.

I love you all. Rock on.

Hooray for...Westwood!

2008-07-16T00:35:00.009-04:00

So tonight Ian and I rushed home from work to try and see famous people at the Step Brothers premiere. Here is a photo tour of the premiere.

It officially started at 6:30, and we didn't get there until around ten after seven. As we got closer to the Village Theatre, we looked over towards the red carpet and spotted the one and only David Hasselhoff. Unfortunately, he moved quickly and I didn't get a good picture.

Ian and I crossed the street where we met Garrett to try and get a better view of the celebrities.

Here's the first guy I was able to snap a picture of, recently retired New York Giants player Michael Strahan.

After Strahan, Judd Apatow arrived. Judd Apatow directed the 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up and produced many big movies, including Superbad and this movie, Step Brothers.

Mega-star Tom Arnold was the next to grace the red carpet. Anyone else remember the movie The Stupids?

Here's a great shot of my roommate and future Hollywood star Garrett Baker. That may not be an exaggeration, either. I'll know for sure how famous he'll be as soon as he finishes his screenplay, if he lets me read it.

It's crazy the people that come to these premieres. I think it was around now that the son from Married With Children showed up. Then came the one and only Barry Williams, aka Greg Brady. I'd like to have done something popular in my teenage years that I could ride for 40 plus years, too.

Soon after Barry came the person I was probably most surprised and excited to see, the stunning Sonya Walger (thank you imdb) who plays Penny Widmore on LOST.

She looked great and I just wanted so badly to run over and give her a hug and say "I'm so happy for you and Desmond!" Alas, television is not real, and the man she was with was definitely not Desmond Hume. Was that not like the best part of the season finale though? I mean for real. Man I love Lost.

Here's another fun picture of Penny having a good time.

Just then, my new main man Ed Helms showed up in the middle of the street. He wasn't wearing a classy suit this time or anything, so no one recognized him. After I took this picture, he walked right down the sidewalk behind a bunch of oblivious stargazers.

Here's Romany Malco, from the 40 Year Old Virgin, Weeds, and the Love Guru.

Here's Jane Lynch, again from the 40 Year Old Virgin.

As the premiere wound down, I was disappointed that I didn't get there soon enough to see Will Farrell and John C. Reilly. But as I looked back down the red carpet, I spotted the big guys themselves. I did see John C. Reilly's face, but didn't get a good picture of it. The curly haired guy is John C. Reilly, and the guy with glasses on the left is Adam McKay, the director of the movie and co-creator of the site Funny or Die with Will Farrell. You can see him at the beginning of "The Landlord" video. Anyway, here the stars are. Awesome!

Garrett got much better pictures of Will and John C. Reilly, and one of the back of Corey Feldman. I also saw Ted Danson in the distance and saw Jon Heder aka Napoleon Dynamite walk down the street, too. It was pretty much like ten times the number of famous people I had seen until now, and it was very sweet.

All of this happened just like two blocks from my house. How crazy is that? I definitely love Westwood.

All the Stars and Boulevards

2008-07-15T00:26:00.005-04:00

So I know its been a long time since my last post. I'm sorry. I guess I just don't have as much motivation to write this quarter. Probably if I lived alone I'd be more likely to write more often. Regardless, here's an update. Enjoy!

Coming home from work last Wednesday night Ian and I walked by the premiere of Meet Dave. We stopped, hoping to look across the street and see someone famous. I looked across the street, and in a classy suit I saw the one and only Ed Helms, aka Andy on the Office. He was talking and posing with Gabrielle Union, star of Meet Dave. It was pretty exciting, and I immediately called Andrew Jarrell to let him know I was looking at Andy. There were guys there handing out tickets to the public to come in and watch the movie. I didn't want a ticket, but it was still cool. I found out the next day that Eddie Murphy didn't even go to the premiere. I guess he had more important things to do.

Here's the pic. Sorry its so blurry, you can still definitely tell its them though. Maybe I need a better stalker lens for a camera.

Tomorrow night the premiere of Step Brothers is happening in the neighborhood. I think Ian and I might try to duck out of work a little early to try and make it back at 6:30 and maybe see Will Farrell or John C. Reilly. Step Brothers looks like it could be very funny.

Saturday a bunch of us DAAP Digital Design kids went to Disneyland for the day. There were five of us, and it was definitely a lot of fun, in fact more fun than I thought it would be. Everybody had a great time, and we hit the park hard. I just knew I had to go on Indy, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, and we did them all. The park was not too crowded, we had to wait an hour or so to ride Finding Nemo, but everything else was just like a half hour wait at the most.

On Splash Mountain (probably my Favorite ride at the Magic Kingdom in Florida, but not quite as good for some reason I can't yet explain out here) we made the mistake of putting Ian and I in the front two seats of the log. With the heaviest people in the front of the boat, every single hill we went down caused a huge splash and lots of water to pour over the sides of the boat onto us. Ian was in the front row and got very wet, and behind him I definitely got the wettest I ever have on Splash Mountain.

Surprisingly, I might say that the best part of the day this time wasn't any specific ride, but it was rather when we went to meet the princesses. In fantasyland at the Princess Fantasy Faire you waited in line to meet 3 princesses. You didn't find out who the princesses were until you walked around the wall to walk over to them. I'm not usually one who takes a lot of time to meet characters at the park, but everybody else with me wanted to, so I was happy to go along.

As we were waiting, I found myself getting excited and nervous. I'm fine meeting the characters in full costume with heads covering their faces and all, but the face characters can sometimes make me nervous, because they can look right at you and talk to you and everything. I was intimidated by the thought of it, especially since they're princesses.

Anyway, we walked around the corner to find Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, the classics. Ian and I were the only two guys in the group, and we told the girls that we had to go up to the princesses first to get our picture taking with each princess, then the girls could come over for a group picture. So that's what we did. The first pictures with Cinderella kind of felt like my first School Dance pictures when you didn't know where to put your hands and how close to stand and all, but they were still really fun. All of the princesses were very nice and fun, but Snow White was by far the greatest. She made Ian and I stand like Princes, and then held our arms. It was pretty magical, and that meeting may have resulted in Snow White overtaking Belle as my favorite Disney woman. I don't know though, Belle still has the complete package.

Expect a bunch of amazing pictures to show up on Facebook very soon. I know Emily's Camera has a bunch of them. I'll post a link as soon as I can.

Here's something big and exciting. This morning, I went to the lot of a certain huge Hollywood movie studio where I was treated to a screening of a certain huge Summer movie, coming out in a little while.

It's super fun to go to the studio lots. Its awesome to have to show your driver's license to the security people and get your name crossed off a list. After we went through the metal detector, my supervisor Anette and I sat on the back of a golf cart and got a ride through the lot over to the screening room. It was classic Hollywood. A few of the soundstage doors were open, but I couldn't really see anything inside. I considered just running into some of the trailers to try and see who might be inside them.

I'm not going to go into any details about the movie right here and now, but let me just say that it was absolutely awesome. I really wish I could talk about it with everyone, but alas, I have to wait. The experience of seeing a movie like this before the general public is pretty surreal and crazy. Although I got to see a smaller movie on the lot back in the winter, this was even more amazing and is definitely an aspect of life and the business out here I could definitely get used to. Awesome.

. . .

So, I'm still working to figure out where I fit here and what my purpose is. There are, however, some things I've been feeling really good about. I've done a much better job than any quarter before at keeping in touch with people. I've made plenty of phone dates with friends and had awesome conversations. It's been amazing to see and know that the relationships that were so awesome and positive for me in Spring quarter don't need to die even though we're thousands of miles apart. Its encouraging and awesome to know that when a strong connection is made through God not even distance can get in the way of that. The love and support that so many of us have given to eachother can and will continue. It's just pretty mind-blowing and awesome.

There have been plenty of struggles and challenges this quarter and I know many more are on the way. I miss Cincinnati and everything and everyone that has made it home over the last three years, but I am getting to know some amazing people and having some amazing experiences out here.

I know the more I force myself to take chances and challenge myself, the more I'll grow. Who knows if I'll ever come back to LA? I don't, but I do know the city still has a lot to teach me. And I definitely want to keep learning.

You're all amazing and I love you.

Rock on.

R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.

2008-07-06T15:28:00.008-04:00

The week before the holiday absolutely flew by. There's a lot I'd like to write about, but that would make for an obscenely long post. I'll do what I can. Call me for details.

First of all, I don't know if I can post here the fact that the movie website I mostly designed at the end of winter quarter last time I was out here on co-op has finally gone live. Over the last few months, the folks at crew took my static design comps and animated them and built out the full website, which actually turned out pretty slick and cool, with some nontraditionally interesting and I think mostly successful navigation. Like I said, I don't know if I can post details about it here on the internet, so if you want the link, just ask me for it and i'll give it to you in a more private way that the man can't see and track as easily. I'm sure its not a big deal, I just don't want to risk being thrown out of town.

Wednesday Night after work I tried to head up to Universal Citywalk to catch night one of "Wicked Wednesdays" a competition that is running every wednesday night until the end of august. Basically it's like American Idol themed to Wicked. Okay, I know I'm a dork. Anyway, using the buses and subway it took about an hour to get there from work, and I only arrived with enough time to see the last two performers. Luckily they were good. It was cheesy but fun. Three of the ten performers got to move on to the final in August, where the winner gets a chance to have a walk-on role in Wicked. Wicked is produced by Universal Pictures, which is where the Universal Studios connection comes in. Anyway, I might go back some week, we'll see.

After the competition ended, I walked down the hill to the subway to come back to Westwood. It again took about an hour and 15 minutes on the subway and bus to make it back, which isn't actually all that terrible. I got home, and Tran (roommate) and Ian (fellow intern) and I went to the Bruin to see Get Smart at 10:30. It was good, but I definitely wasn't in the right mood and atmosphere to watch that movie. I needed to be in a "thursday night watching the office after hanging out and laughing with a big group of people" kind of mood. So it was entertaining, especially the Concert Hall part, but not as great as I had hoped. Maybe I'll re-watch it in a better atmosphere than a fairly empty movie theater at 10:30 at the end of a long Wednesday. Not that the company wasn't wonderful, because it certainly was.

To celebrate the fourth on Friday, a few of us decided to head down to Disneyland and camp outside the gates of the park and mooch off of the fireworks inside Disneyland. Garrett (roommate) and Amy (fellow UC Digital Co-op) went down and picked up Tegan then headed over to Downtown Disney where we had reservations at a classy italian restaurant.

Here's Tegan and Amy at the restaurant making Mouse Ears. Nobody really does that, but I just let them have fun.

After dinner we went over to the Esplanade and parked ourselves right in front of the giant letters at the California Adventure Gate facing back towards Disneyland. Here's Garrett and I excited for the fireworks. I think we was saying "Roooomies" when this picture was taken. Anyway, you can see the main street train station and the monorail beam in the background. Good times.

The fireworks were great, unfortunately they stopped right in the middle of the show. The lights on the train station came back up, and nobody really knew what had happened. We stood around for a while, hoping and waiting, but eventually we decided the fireworks weren't coming and it was time to head home. I later found out it was due to "winds at high elevations." Bummer, eh? I guess its tough to launch a huge fireworks show in the middle of the city of Anaheim. Like I said though, what we saw was great and it made for a wonderful night.

On the drive home up the freeways, it was pretty surreal driving up the highway being able to see fireworks shows going off all around us. Very cool and a nice cap to the day. We got home, and Garrett and I started to watch Batman Begins but only lasted about a half hour before being too tired to watch and having to go to bed.

Yesterday, Garrett and I went down to Long Beach to do some Kayaking in the cove. Garrett and I did a lot of hanging out this weekend, because we were pretty much the only two guys at our apartment all weekend. Phil was there too, but he's super busy and stuff.

Anyway, here's Long Beach. It was pretty cool. It was really windy, so there were a lot of people kite-surfing so that was cool. It was also interesting, there was a huge port up to the north of the beach, and out to the south was a giant oil rig. Here's a picture of the beach with an American flag, fitting for the weekend.

Kayaking was a lot of fun, and so were the Moon Jellies. Kayaking into the cove was pretty easy, with the wind at our backs, but kayaking back was much harder, coming back into the wind. I'm still feeling the burn a little today.

If you want to see more sweet pictures from summer so far, including Disneyland and Long Beach, check out this album on facebook. Also try and check out Garrett's pictures. He took some good ones.

So basically, I'm seeing so far that I'm definitely going to be making some crazy awesome friendships this time out. It was really cool to hang out with Garrett this weekend. He and I have a lot in common and had a lot of fun. Really, all of my roommates are very cool, and I'm just still feeling very blessed by my living situation. I don't have very much room for my stuff, but its a small price to pay.

I'm definitely being challenged to be taking advantage of my time here as much as possible. I know that I'm not supposed to burn myself out on anything, so I'm going to be working to balance all the things I need and want to be doing out here, whether its hanging out with people, volunteering, staying in touch with people, relaxing, having God time, whatever. I want to find that balance.

It's kind of weird, we passed a lot of huge yachts in the cove kayaking and Garrett and I got to talking a bit about dreams. Thinking about my dreams for my life, they are definitely not where they were even just a few years ago, when my greatest dreams were probably to work at Disney and live in New York and other stuff like that. Now, those are still things I might want to do and have interest in, but I think my deep dreams definitely now are moving away from physical things like that. I'd say now my greatest dream is simply to live life and love people. I want to take advantage of everything each day has to offer, and really connect with and love people in the process. I want the quality of my life and my relationships to be my focus.

That's what I want this summer (and my life) to be all about.

Wow, the post got a little deep, eh?

Well, I've talked the talk, now it's time to walk the walk...and maybe write shorter blog posts.

Time to make lunch then head off to mosaic for the evening.

I love you and miss you all.

Rock on.

Like a sound you hear, that lingers in your ear...

2008-06-29T01:54:00.002-04:00

...but you can't forget from sundown to sunset
It's all in the air, you hear it everywhere
No matter what you do, it's gonna grab hold on you

California Soul

Well, week one of my California Adventure seems to be shaping up to be the rare kind of sequel that is even better than the original, and here is the hotly anticipated blog update. I have a lot I'd like to write about, but I'll probably get tired or bored before I can get to everything. The reason I haven't written in a while is I guess because I've been doing a bunch of stuff, and since I'm living with a bunch of guys, there are usually fun people to hang out with. I just haven't really felt like writing I guess.

I'll start there, with my living situation. Sure eight people will be living here soon, but its not actually as bad as I thought it could be. The apartment's pretty big, and the common areas are really nice and big. We have two full leather couches and a coffee table down in the living room, and a nice tall 6-seat breakfast table in the kitchen. In the bedrooms, there's not a whole lot of storage space in our bedrooms though. It hasn't been too bad for me, but this new guy, Phil, who's a graduate set design student at UCLA just moved his stuff in today and there is no room for a lot of it. He's going to have to put it in storage, I think. In my bedroom there are two bunk beds. It's like being in Daniels again or at camp, both of which bring back fun memories.

As for the guys themselves, they are pretty amazing. They instantly made me feel so welcome and loved in the apartment. It's crazy. I've been feeling challenged by this, knowing that if I had someone new moving into my house, there's a chance I'd probably be pretty selfish and unwelcoming. I'm trying to find the motivation to be as instantly helpful and welcoming to the other new interns at crew who haven't been there before. It's not easy, but I will be working on it. Anyway, so my roommates are great, and have taught me a lot already. I'm definitely feeling extremely lucky and blessed by this living situation, and I'm really excited to be able to spend the summer with them and get to know them better.

Going into work on Monday was absolutely great. I was so happy to see so many people that I know and love. It's crazy how great everybody there is. I know Dave will probably read this post and make fun of me for it, but I don't care. The people at Crew seem to make it a very special place. I'm feeling very lucky to be able to spend my summer with all of them, too. It's amazing to already know all of them. Just being able to walk to just about anyone's desk and strike up conversation is just really cool. They're all extremely friendly and welcoming....totally not how I expected Californians to be.

So let's see, what fun stuff went down this week? Well, Tuesday night I met up with some Mosaic folks and went to this place called Da Poetry Lounge. It's apparently like the hottest spoken word venue on the West Coast and it seriously was cool. There were so many people in this small theater that we sat on the stage. Some people were definitely a lot better than others, but the people that were good were really good. The founders of the Lounge were probably the best. There were three of those guys there. One of them, Brother Poetri, was the best, and he's been in movies and tv shows and stuff, including having a line in Blades of Glory. The fourth founder wasn't there, but it turns out he's Brother Dante, and he's actually the guy who played Rufio in Hook! We might have to go back to see if we might be able to see him. Anyway, it was really fun.

I tried to buy flip-flops in Beverly Hills on Thursday after work, but it turns out that stores close in Beverly Hills at like 7 every day. Is that how super classy places work? I just wanted to go to Gap, and even that closed at 7. Crazy. I don't know if that counts as "shopping in Beverly Hills."

Today I met Tegan at Santa Monica again. It was a lot of fun. I got off the bus here in Westwood and was walking to my apartment when I got to an entire street that was blocked off for the premiere of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Apparently they have lots of premieres at the sweet single-screen theaters that are all like just 2 or 3 blocks from my house. I have some pictures, maybe I'll post them tomorrow.

Right now, I have to go to bed. Its 1:15 and I'm wiped out. I hope everybody's having a great weekend. I'm going to see Wall-E tomorrow night and I'm stoked. Take it easy!

much love,
Alex

In for One tough summer...

2008-06-22T14:10:00.004-04:00

After being worn out by a day of flying across the country, yesterday was a day to relax, and so relax I did.

I still had situating, unpacking and shopping to do yesterday, but Los Angeles is in the middle of a major heat wave so it was pretty much impossible to do anything but go to the beach. I hopped on the Metro Rapid bus and in 15 short minutes I met Tegan in Santa Monica. The sun was hot but the water was wonderfully cold. I don't know the last time I was actually swimming in the ocean, but it was amazing. I did my best to get rid of my farmer's tan, but there were only some minor color changes.

I could potentially do this every weekend all summer?

I could get used to this.

My apartment is pretty sweet. The building is called "Club California" and is apparently the place everybody wants to live in Westwood. The whole place is really new and recently remodeled. There's a pool, a gym, and a half basketball court in the complex. Yesterday I almost got lost just trying to find my way outside.

The funny thing about our unit is that no bedroom is completely private. There are two stories in our place, and there are just single big windows in every room that let light into both stories, so there is an opening by the wall in every bedroom between the two stories. In my bedroom, the master bedroom, it's especially a pain, since my room is right above the living room. It hasn't been a big deal so far though, and I can sleep through anything, so I'm sure I'll be okay.

My bedroom has two bunks in it, so its kind of like being back in a dorm, but the room is pretty big. Right now it's just José and I living in the room, but I think more guys are moving in over the next few weeks. As long as I can get José to try to keep all his stuff organized, we'll be good.

There's five of us living here so far, and my roommates are all very cool. They're all Campus Crusade guys, so I'm going to be sure to stir up some major Navs trouble. I'm totally looking forward to getting to know them and hanging out with them.

Last night, my roommate Nick and some of his friends let me in on their grilling dinner, which was awesome. I did some more shopping and unpacking, too, and I'm just about good to go.

This afternoon I'm taking the bus downtown to go back to Mosaic, which I'm extremely excited about. It's one of the things I've missed most about California, and listening to podcasts just isn't as amazing as actually being a part of the place. I'm definitely hoping to do some hanging out with some of those people, too.

I'm just stoked that I'll pretty much be hitting the ground running, while last quarter it took a month or so before I actually started getting involved. I'll definitely be looking into some kind of a small group, too.

Anyway, that's enough for now, I'm going to go take a shower and get ready for the day. I hope everybody's summer is starting out great, and good luck to everybody with their first day of work tomorrow. I know I can't wait for mine!

much love

Alex

California Dreaming

2008-06-19T23:33:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow morning, I'm flying thousands of miles across the country to Los Angeles. That is crazy. I've had a week of good and not so good here at home, but today and tonight I am just feeling extremely blessed. For the first time since being home, today I was finally able to focus and see cool things happening here and in my life. I was actually able to read, too, which I had thought maybe my body had forgotten how to do.

So I don't have a long laundry list of things I'm hoping to do in LA this time around. I did all of that stuff in the winter. Not to say that I won't do some cool things, and go back to sweet places like the Concert Hall and the Getty, but I have much different goals this time.

Here they are:

Exercising. I want to work to get in shape out there. I could care less about my weight or how much I can bench, I just want to feel healthy and feel good about myself. I know that if I commit to running and maybe working out a few times a week, I'll be feeling like a million bucks in no time. The better I feel physically, the better I'll feel emotionally and spiritually, too, so exercising is a must.

Another thing I definitely want to be doing is being intentional about building relationships, and working to make strong friendships with the people I meet. I sort of started to do that last time, but now I definitely want to do it. I met so many awesome people during the Winter, I want to take advantage of those relationships more this quarter. I figure my odds of making friends are pretty good considering my living situation.

Finally and most importantly, this quarter my main goal is just to completely open myself to what God wants to do with me. I want to find myself in situations that are uncomfortable and challenging. I know that this summer has the potential to be amazing, and I definitely don't want to miss out on it. I don't know what this is going to look like, maybe it will be connected to my friendship hopes, maybe not, we'll see. I just don't want to give myself any excuses. This is where I am supposed to be this summer. I'm confident it won't be long before I find out why.

Definitely the other goal I'm forgetting is my goal to not suck at staying in touch with all the people who have meant so much to me this quarter. That's important, and I'm going to do it. If I do happen to suck at it, do me a favor and call me!

The next time I write here I'll be three hours in the past. Awesome.

I love you all. You're amazing. Make this quarter count. Incredible things are going to go down for all of us.

Summer's first lessons

2008-06-18T00:39:00.003-04:00

I've only been away from Cincinnati for a few days, and already I'm learning some tough things.

Now I'm realizing one of the reasons I needed to have some time away from school this summer and it's not easy to swallow. For most of my life, but especially over the last two months, I've most clearly seen and experienced God in the people in my life. It has been through the support and love of the people I have been building relationships and living life with that God has taught me the most and most clearly shown me his love. This has been absolutely amazing and indescribably awesome, and will continue to happen out in California and forever, but at the same time, I know God is pushing and challenging me to seek him out in other places as well.

I've talked to a few people recently about making sure that we are "worshipping the root, not the fruit." I think at times over the past few months I have been guilty of worshipping the fruit, not giving credit where credit is due. It's really hard to not be around all of the people who have meant so much to me recently, and its even harder knowing I won't even see anyone for another three months, but I think that this needs to happen so that I can work to make sure I am seeking and experiencing God in other places. Definitely its fine and even healthy to have some way a person is being spiritually fed more than other ways, but I know I need to make sure my experiences and growth are not too dramatically out of balance.

Hopefully over the next few days I can focus and concentrate to work on all of this. So far, I haven't had very much luck. My undiagnosed case of relatively small but still definitely there-ADD has stopped me from being able to sit and focus on reading a book for any length of time. And I don't really know where the hours seem to disappear to here at home.

Will things get better or worse this weekend when I'm living in an apartment in LA with seven other guys?

It's not extremely fun to be learning tough lessons, but I do need to learn them, and it is exciting to already be feeling God working in me. Hopefully this is just the start of what the summer will bring.

Anyway, I'm off to Kennywood tomorrow with Ben and Patrick. It should be awesome. As long as I get a ride on the Phantom, I'll be set.

gooooodnight

In Awe

2008-06-15T00:18:00.004-04:00

This was the last week of the quarter, and I knew I wanted to hit it hard. I wanted to be able to spend time with as many people as possible, and just take advantage of how amazing my community in Cincinnati is before heading out West. Luckily, even with a little more work in the middle of the week than I was planning, I was able to spend time with many people that I love.

It is really incredible to be surrounded by so many amazing people. I just can't get over it. I was taught a lot this week and blessed in some huge ways. Everyone is awesome.

Today just about blew my mind. I have learned so much about how powerful it can be to actually be going through life with people, learning and growing alongside someone, and witnessing on a regular basis the crazy things God is capable of. I've made and solidified some amazing friendships this quarter, friendships that I know need to last a lifetime. Today was just an awesome example of that.

On my drive home here to Pittsburgh, I did something I don't think I've ever done before. I purposely turned off the car radio and just thought and listened for somewhere between a half hour and an hour. At first as I was in silence I was feeling very frustrated by things, but as my time continued, I just started to feel God reaching in and releasing me from a lot of the selfishness that was causing major struggles in me. It seemed to be replaced by the promise of amazing things in the future.

Driving home, I'm not sure Eastern Ohio ever looked so beautiful, I'm not sure what it was, but it was beautiful. My windows were down the whole time. Wind blew through the car. It was awesome.

I have five full days now to be refueling, gearing up, and getting ready to head out to California. This time at home is going to be great.

At the moment, I'm just feeling like I would have to be a major idiot to mess up all of the awesome plans God has for me and my life in both the near and distant future. Unfortunately, I definitely am an idiot, but with such great support around me, amazing things are going to go down. I am extremely excited for life.

Well, its getting late, and I'm having trouble forming coherent thoughts. I'll reread this post in the morning and see if I can't clean it up.

I hope everybody is doing great, preparing for whatever your next step may be.

Rock on.

love,
Alex

The Call

2008-06-09T23:22:00.009-04:00

Well, I don't really know where to begin this post. There is so much stuff going through my head right now, many different thoughts, and I'm trying to work through all of it. We'll see.

This Saturday I'm headed back home, then I'm flying out to LA on the 20th. Man am I excited. I cannot wait to hit the ground running out there and see where I'm taken. Until then, I'm trying to take advantage of this last week here in the nati. Unfortunately I still have some work I'm having to do thats due tomorrow and thursday, but it's not too bad. I've had some solid hanging out time already, and will be continuing that all week for sure.

So one of the things thats been on my mind and heart has been my hope that in LA I'll be able to start up some really solid friendships besides those at work. Well, I've been praying about it, and a week or two ago I found out that I will be living with a bunch of UCLA students in Westwood. Actually I found out I will be living in a three bedroom apartment with seven or so other guys. Luckily, I really do want to foster relationships with as many people as I can, so I'm excited for it. Sure, it'll pretty much be like Daniels Hall: the sequel, but I can live without some space if I'm getting to know cool guys. Plus I hear UCLA's campus is beautiful, so I'm sure I'll be going there for some quiet time and relaxation once in a while.

I'm learning a lot about love and relationships lately. Today I had lunch with a friend of mine who explained to me how he sees love. His beliefs and the stuff going on in his life just about blew my mind. It was so counter to everything the world teaches us about love and dating and relationships. I'm in the process of developing a lot of my ideas about love and relationships and working out what I believe, and I have definitely been forced to redefine what it means to truly and completely love another person. It's been really crazy how much I've learned about relationships and connecting with and supporting another person from the non-romantic relationships I've been developing and growing. It is awesome.

I saw Prince Caspian on Saturday night, which I had pretty much figured I would have to just wait and see on dvd, but I was really glad I went, it was great. Once of my favorite lines in the movie came towards the end When Aslan is talking to everybody. I don't know the exact quote from the movie, but here's the line's equivalent right from the pen of C.S. Lewis:

"Welcome, Prince," said Aslan. "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?"
"I-I don't think I do, Sir," said Caspian. "I'm only a kid."
"Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not."

Although in the movie Caspian isn't nearly as young as he is in the book, that line really stood out to me. It has a lot to say about humility and pride (the subject of the new series at crossroads, which I'm very bummed I'll be missing), and the fact that without our realizing it, God strengthens us and prepares us in ways we can't and probably are better off not knowing. We are capable of so little, if anything, on our own without God.

I have a lot that is going to be difficult and challenging coming at me now and even more in the coming weeks and months, and it is encouraging to know that I am not alone in any of this. I have been given what I need to not just get through stuff, but prosper and grow in it.

It seems to be that the idea of being satisfied and content is on the minds and heart of a lot of people lately, and I am definitely one of them. I thought I was feeling pretty content with God last week, but the weekend showed me that I am not as satisfied as I'd like to be. That being said, I have had huge moments of peace and contentment over the past week. I don't know where I'm going next, but I am working to be truly satisfied with God.

I'm all of a sudden really tired. I'm going to leave you all with the lyrics to the song at the end of Prince Caspian, called "The Call," by Regina Spektor. I bought the soundtrack last night and the song is just so beautiful musically and lyrically. I'm not totally sure how much of the song I am applying to where I'm at right now. Maybe a lot of it relates to me right now. Whatever the case, it's powerful stuff. Check it out.

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
'Til it was a battle cry
I'll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye

Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before
All you can do is try to know who your friends are
As you head off to the war

Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light
You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
'Til they're before your eyes
You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye

You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye

So I guess I don't really have a lot figured out at the moment. That's okay, I know what's really important. The rest will come in time.

Hey, I love you all. Thanks for being there for me.

Alex

Point it home

2008-06-07T03:06:00.005-04:00

Do you know what it feels like to think you've got things pretty well together and all of a sudden find out you totally don't? Yeah...

Just two short weeks from now I will be back in Los Angeles. I can't believe the quarter flew by so quickly. I don't know what's going to happen in LA, but I know if I open myself up, incredible things will be taking place and I cannot wait.

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You've made it now

Finding my rock

2008-06-03T07:54:00.013-04:00

Ohh, so much to write about, unfortunately I don't have time right now. I read the following this morning, and it seems to be meeting me where I am.

Psalm 71:

20 Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.

1-4 In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge, let me never be put to shame. Rescue me and deliver me in your righteousness; turn your ear to me and save me. Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go; give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, O my God, from the hands of the wicked, from the grasp of evil and cruel men.

8 My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long.

14 But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.

I'm not sure why I find myself needing the most healing in the morning. I think its probably because in the morning I haven't yet interacted with the people that I find healing and support in everyday. Luckily, before I am able to see those people, the Word heals.

I have a rock.

Now let's make it an amazing day. I've been given so much. There is a lot of praising to be done today.

...and the Penguins won!

Pull me closer

2008-05-26T00:25:00.009-04:00

After a few days of ups and downs, this morning was an awesome service at crossroads about the power of prayer. It was totally inspiring and empowering.

Today was probably about one of the most beautiful days ever. On the way home from crossroads, I was sitting in the back seat of Kevin's car, and with the window rolled all the way down I laid back and just relaxed and felt the wind blowing onto my face. In the midst of a weekend with all kinds of crap running through my head, I don't know how to describe the feeling, but I just felt completely at peace. It was powerful and incredibly calming at the same time.

No matter how much I mess up, not matter how stupid I am, I am shown grace, and everything is going to turn out right.

We have the power to overcome anything that stands in our way.

Amazing things are coming.
It's up to me to make sure I'm a part of it.

I want to run
I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I want to reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

I want to feel sunlight on face
I see the dust cloud disappear
Without a trace
I want to take shelter
From the poison rain
Where the streets have no name

Where the streets have no name

Rising Up

2008-05-21T00:19:00.007-04:00

So I haven't written in about a week and I should probably do a little more work before bed, so I won't write too much. Let's see.

I'm coming off of an excellent couple of days. The weekend and the few days before it were absolutely amazing. I was able to spend time with some awesome people, who totally inspired and helped fill me up.

I met with Artie for the first time in probably about 5 months or so and it was great. He's excited for me and the stuff thats going on right now, but challenged me to keep up my momentum. That idea is definitely at the forefront of my mind right now, and I'll be working to figure out how exactly I will keep up my momentum.

Of course now following this weekend, this school week started with some discouragement. Like I was realizing last week, there are forces trying to really mess with me, and I've got to watch out for them. I don't know how to explain it exactly, I think I just found myself over-thinking some stuff and letting it upset me when it totally didn't need to. The worst part is that I let it get to me so much that I was actually not able to be myself in class today. I was just upset, not even at anything in particular, and it was totally stupid of me.

Anyway, I can't help but be reminded of one of my all-time favorite passages, and one of the few I've had memorized for a long time, Joshua 1:9

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

Love it. If it wasn't for that passage, I might not have ended up going to Summer's Best 2 Weeks after freshman year. I didn't think I'd be able to handle being a counselor and a leader there. But I was inspired by this passage and SB2W was amazing,. Hopefully I'll still be able to go back for one more summer after I graduate.

Anyway, I'm through with letting stuff get in the way and discourage me (at least for now, anyway). I rediscovered the wisdom of my man Erwin McManus and listened to a podcast of his today. It was pretty awesome, and I am just so excited to go back to LA and back to Mosaic. Hopefully Erwin won't be on some kind of summer leave the whole time I'm there. Whatever the case it will be awesome.

Speaking of LA, right now I'm getting close to finding a place to live. It will hopefully be with some UCLA students who are friends with someone Nate is friends with. Aren't connections an amazing thing? So the prospect of living with some solid guys in Westwood has me very excited. Hopefully things work out with that in the next few days.

So I know if there's two things I always say in this blog, it's that I'm constantly up and down and that I have been so hugely inspired and supported by all of you. Well, I am still constantly up and down, but the causes of the painful times are changing in a good way.

As for being so thankful for the relationships I have with awesome people in my life, that hasn't changed, if anything it just keeps getting better. Now what I'm about to post will definitely be seriously nerdy. I'm going to give you a link to a song from the guy who's just about one of my favorite composers, Jason Robert Brown. The song is from a musical called "13," which is (surprise) about a bunch of 13 year old kids. The song is called "What it Means to Be a Friend," and although I am not a 13 year old girl like the girl who sings this song, and I can't relate directly to most of what she sings about, I can definitely relate to the basic message of the song: being thankful for amazing friends that support and love you.

You can find the song here. Just scroll down to listen to the clip, you can download it and put it on your itunes for free too. Good deal, eh? Maybe at least one of you will like it, like Andrew Jarrell, you'll probably like it. I didn't hear if anybody listened to the other song link I posted, so maybe nobody will listen to this one. Well, whether you do or not, I'm a fan of it.

The Penguins won on Sunday, which is amazing. We're going to the Stanley Cup! Can you believe it? I'm stoked. Hopefully we take down Detroit, this is the year of the Penguins' triumphant return! Let's Go Pens!

Ohh one last thing, I just watched Stepmom tonight in my room, since Zac and Justine were downstairs watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Can you believe I've never seen Stepmom? Well Linds let me borrow it so I had to watch it. Needless to say it was wonderful, and I may or may not have shed a few tears during the last 15 or 20 minutes.

Hey, I hope everybody's doing great. I love you all, even the ones who don't read, know, or care about this blog. I'll go into details about cool stuff happening in a post soon. I hope you all have a great rest of the week!

Alex

In the Valleys

2008-05-14T00:30:00.012-04:00

So I know I probably sound like a broken record, but I really am riding a roller coaster of emotion. I do think things have been getting better over the past few weeks, but when I get hit with pain, I get hit hard. Last night was definitely one of those times.

Most of the time its my fault; I know by now what hurts, but sometimes its hard to fight. Last night I just felt like absolute crap and was dealing with a lot of pain. At the same time, it was so frustrating that even after what can seem like a significant amount of time, I can still feel this bad.

It didn't take long for me to open up to a few people about things, and I continue to just be so thankful for the support and love I have. Just being able to talk is such an amazing thing, putting thoughts into words for another person. And the wisdom and help I was given was very cool and helpful. I'm going to be okay. There's a plan for me.

Ephesians 6:10-12 is inspiring in these moments:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His might power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the Devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Of course with so much good stuff going on in my life and in my faith I am going to be attacked. I know I've been making the Devil angry. He's going to do whatever he can to break me, and there are definitely parts of me that are susceptible right now.

Tonight I've been helped by Romans 5:2-5

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

I have more empty holes than I think I realized. I'm realizing now that I don't need to be filling the holes with anything, I just need to be turning them over to God as I learn to surrender all of myself. I don't know if that makes sense, but I still have so much that I am stubbornly holding back. I need to work to find those holes, and make sure I am giving up my selfishness and turning myself over to God, as I work to become the man I'm meant to be.

Through all of this crap, I'm learning so much and having opportunities to grow closer to the amazing people in my life. It's awesome.

I'm still just starting on the journey, and I have a very long way to go, but I am looking forward to it. It has been and will continue to be amazing.

Hey, here's a recommendation . Put off whatever you were going to do for the next 7 minutes and listen to this. It's a song called "Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)" created by Baz Luhrmann, the director of Moulin Rouge. Apparently it came out in 1998, but I don't remember ever hearing it back then 10 years ago. Crazy isn't it, that 1998 was 10 years ago?

Anyway, scroll down a bit to listen to the song and download it if you want to. Make sure you can actually hear everything the speaker says. I just love so much of what it says. Listening to the song is a great way to start your day.

. . .

I was sure by now
God You would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again, I say "Amen", and it's still raining

As the thunder rolls
I barely hear Your whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away

And I'll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I've cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn

I will praise You in this storm

. . .

Thanks to everyone. I love you all, for real.

Alex

Feels like today

2008-05-12T00:21:00.010-04:00

Hey everybody, so this was a pretty wonderful weekend. There was a lot of fun stuff that went down. Let's see, where to start?

Well, Friday night was of course the Cincinnati Pops' Magic of Disney show starring Ashley Brown, and it was spectacular. Definitely the coolest thing the Pops have done, well, actually, the Pops have done a lot of cool stuff, so I don't know about that, but this was awesome. It was amazing, there must've been like 30 Musical Theatre majors from ccm there, and they performed for probably like half the songs, singing along and performing huge dance numbers.

Ashley Brown certainly did not let me down, even considering I'd been looking forward to the show for over a year since it was announced. She looked great and performed some of the best numbers of the evening, including an absolutely amazing version of "He lives in You" from the Lion King musical. It was great during the Mary Poppins section, when Ashley Brown turned on her Mary Poppins accent (since she is currently playing the role on Broadway, and was nominated for a Tony in it). She's great.

I was in Disney heaven, and I had a huge smile on my face for just about the whole show. It was wonderful to be there with the awesome people I went with, too: Matt, Laura, Lindsey and Briana. We all had a blast.

Saturday after a great lunch with Jon Nitz, I got in the car and headed down to Louisville (pronounced "Looavul") to celebrate Patrick's 21st birthday with he and his friends. The drive down yesterday was breathtaking, for all the crap Kentucky takes for being Kentucky, that is a beautiful state. It was green everywhere. I loved it. Louisville itself was cool, too, especially the area of town Patrick lives in. A Ludlow-like street called Bartstown Road or something was really cool and within walking distance.

Patrick's friends were a lot of fun, too, and we hung out and ate at the house before going out bowling last night. I was just excited to be able to hang out away from campus and stuff. I'm really excited that Patrick is working in Pittsburgh this summer. I'll be home the week he moves in, so I'm looking forward to showing him around a little before I head out to LA.

I came back from the south this afternoon and hung out for a little bit before dinner at Red Pepper and getting dressed up for Lindsey's 21st birthday celebration. Ohh wait, actually, when I got home I went to work on a Birthday card for Linds. On the way to Patrick's yesterday, I was trying to think of good card ideas for her. I was pretty excited with what I came up with. It's not a bad pun. If you want to find out what it was, ask Lindsey, I don't think it will be all that funny if I just type it out here.

So anyway after dinner I got dressed up and we all went over to the Hatchet House where we hung out with cool people for a while celebrating Lindsey's birthday. She loved my card, which I was very excited about. Unfortunately after a while we had to leave since some of us had homework and stuff. I didn't really. I haven't done any work all weekend, but you know what, we're entitled to have a few weekends of no homework now and then.

I came home to find out the Pens won, which is awesome, meaning we lead the series 2-0. Unfortunately we don't get Versus (stupid Time Warner) so we either have to try and find the game feeds on the internet or go to Martino's or B-dubs if we want to watch them. I definitely hate the Flyers, not people from Philadelphia, but definitely the Flyers. They suck. Beating them is awesome.

If anyone hasn't discovered the awesomeness of the video blog "YINZ LUV DA 'GUINS," you need to check it out. Here's a link to the most recent episode, which recaps last Friday's game. Tonight's recap should be up in the next day or so. Be careful, the opening titles are addictive, and if you're anything like Kevin and I, you'll find yourself saying "Yinz luv......Troy Loney" all the time.

It's an amazing time to be a Pens fan. My parents tell me the burgh is going crazy. Why do I have to be out of town when our sports teams make serious runs for Championships? If you're there I'm jealous.

Well, in general life updates, I continue to ride this fun emotional roller coaster, but things are definitely getting easier. God is answering prayer and showing up in awesome ways. I continue to be so thankful for all of the amazing people in my life that have loved me and supported me in all kinds of ways.

You all rock. I love you guys.

So I know this post is much too long already, but in the car today I happened to listen to a little Rascal Flatts (I know...I'm a dork) but the lyrics of this song really struck me, and I'm a big fan of cool song lyrics. Enjoy:

I woke up this morning
With this feeling inside me that I can't explain
Like a weight that I've carried
Been carried away, away

But I know something is coming
I don't know what it is
But I know it's amazing, can save me
My time is coming
I'll find my way out of this longest drought

It feels like today I know
It feels like today I'm sure
It's the one thing that's missing
The one thing I'm wishing
The last sacred blessing and hey
It feels like today
Feels like today

You treat life like a picture
But it's not a moment that's frozen in time
It's not gonna wait
Til you make up your mind, at all

So while this storm is breaking
While there's light at the end of the tunnel
Keep running towards it
Releasing the pressure, that's my heartache
Soon this dam will break

It feels like today I know
It feels like today I'm sure
It's the one thing that's missing
The one thing you're wishing
The last sacred blessing and hey
It feels like today
Feels like today

Feels like, feels like your life changes
Feels like, feels like your life changes

It's the one thing that's missing
The one thing you're wishing
The last sacred blessing and hey
It feels like today

Feels like, feels like your life changes
Feels like, feels like your life changes

hey, make it a week for the ages. No sense wasting it any other way.

Alex

A Change in Me

2008-05-08T23:43:00.006-04:00

Wow, there's a lot going on right now. I don't have a whole lot of time to go into crazy detail, but I'll do what I can.

Firstly, the past few nights have not been a whole lot of fun work-wise. I haven't done very much work so far this quarter, for various reasons, but finally we had some big stuff due this week, and I definitely was dreading getting smacked in the face.

Well, somehow, the smack in the face that I was so sure I would get never really came. Sure, last night I worked pretty solidly from about 7:30 to 2 in the morning, not too bad, but still plenty of work on a single project. It was crazy though, yesterday was my night to lead small group. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but personally for me something felt different than all the other times I've planned for small groups. I was reading through the section we were going to talk about, and it was actually having an impact on me, and as I began to look at cross-references and such, I was actually getting excited about all of the ways different parts of the bible were connecting to each other. I know, it sounds crazy, actually being excited about what the bible had to say for our bible study, but it was happening. I don't know what's going on.

Anyway, I hope the study meant something to the rest of the guys, but I just left it feeling like God had been speaking through it to me in very cool ways. I was just very thankful for all of those guys and the different things each one of them brings to the table. They're awesome.

It's crazy to be starting to see some real purpose and plan for me the past few weeks. I have been able to spend time with so many awesome people and have been so disgustingly blessed by all the different kinds of relationships of mine that have grown in the past few weeks. It's crazy to actually be feeling like God is using me. It's especially crazy when in those same situations God is using the other person to help and grow me in huge ways, too. It's pretty incredible, and I'm learning more every day about what its truly like to support another person.

I've figured something out in the past few days. Through the purpose I've seen, I'm really understanding deep in my soul that this was right and is exactly the way things were meant to be. Truly figuring that out and understanding it has been huge in the fact that it has erased a lot of questions in me that have driven me crazy recently, questions about me wondering if this was a mistake and my mistake and if I messed up something truly good. Knowing that deep in my heart at my core has brought me a whole lot of peace. Unfortunately, knowing this was meant to be doesn't really help with some of the day-to-day emotional pain of things, but it is getting better.

I'm hoping to really be able to stay focused for this second half of the quarter, and continue all of the amazing ways God's been working in my life. I hope that I can work to give everything over to him and learn to really listen for his guidance. I know there are still going to plenty of moments when things suck as they have, but I know that the process of going through hard times will only make us stronger if we choose to learn and grow from it. Granted, my current suffering is somewhat different from the suffering of early Christians, but I think God knew what he was doing.

1 Peter 5:10

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Awesome.

So tomorrow night a few of us are going to the "Magic of Disney" show the Cincinnati Pops are doing with ccm alum Ashley Brown. Needless to say, I'm incredibly excited. I love it when true Disney magic shows up outside of the theme parks (the Disney Fountain Show at Station Square back home is a great example of Disney magic done right). So anyway, because of that, I'm in a magical mood and am feeling inspired to give you some relevant Disney lyrics, too.

Enjoy these, my friends:

I have often dreamed
Of a far off place
Where a hero's welcome
Would be waiting for me
Where the crowds will cheer
When they see my face
And a voice keeps saying
This is where I'm meant to be

I'll be there someday
I can go the distance
I will find my way
If I can be strong
I know every mile
Will be worth my while
When I go the distance
I'll be right where I belong

Down an unknown road
To embrace my fate
Though that road may wander
It will lead me to you
And a thousand years
Would be worth the wait
It might take a lifetime
But somehow I'll see it through

And I won't look back
I can go the distance
And I'll stay on track
No, I won't accept defeat
It's an uphill slope
But I won't lose hope
'Till I go the distance
And my journey is complete

But to look beyond the glory is the hardest part
For a hero's strength is measured by his heart

Like a shooting star
I will go the distance
I will search the world
I will face it's harms
I don't care how far
I can go the distance
'Till I find my hero's welcome
Waiting in your arms

I will search the world
I will face it's harms
'Till I find my hero's welcome
Waiting in your arms

I am just feeling very stoked about life.

There is so much awesome stuff in store for every one of us. Will you fight for it or let it pass you by?

Hey, thanks for humoring me, and more importantly for loving me.
I love you all so much.

Alex

No more excuses

2008-05-05T21:21:00.000-04:00

I'm tired of living half-heartedly. I need passion.
Now, I've found it.

Yesterday morning at Crossroads I was baptized, and it was awesome.

Friday and Saturday, there were times when I wasn't too sure about my decision. I was getting frustrated with homework and was hurting and I just wasn't sure if my heart was in it. Saturday night before bed I did some reading and spent time praying and dwelling on what baptism and specifically the decision to be baptized as an adult meant. It was Romans 6:1-4 that struck me the most, specifically verse 4:

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life.

When I was a baby and baptized I just had some water sprinkled on my head. Now that was still good and significant to me, but this passage really showed me why I needed to make the decision as an adult and be baptized immersion style. Going completely underwater, just as Jesus was completely dead and buried, then coming out of of the water as Jesus was raised, struck me as a powerful declaration of my faith to God, myself, and the world. Something that I had never done, literally or figuratively. It was time.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling alive and filled with energy. It felt fantastic. At Crossroads, the service began with the beautiful sounds of enormous rain sticks and continued with a choir singing alongside the band. The moment the choir started to sing, I got chills, it was amazing.

The baptism itself was awesome. Surprisingly, walking onto stage and stepping into the pool, there were no thoughts of anyone else in the building. It just felt very intimate, just me and God, and the guy baptizing me, of course. I can't believe I don't remember his name, but I'm very thankful for him.

It was so cool to be able to be Baptized at Crossroads, where I have experienced God in so many very powerful ways over the past two years. And to have so many people there supporting me who I love so much and who have meant so much to me was absolutely awesome. I just can't find words to express my love for the people in my life. I am disgustingly blessed and am so thankful for all of you.

Brian Tome said something pretty interesting yesterday. He said, "I'll tell you who shouldn't come up here to be baptized. Don't come up here if you were just baptized two years ago and you're not sure if it took. Guess what...it took!" I know that life from now on isn't going to be all peachy and easy. There are going to be very hard and confusing times. That's still definitely been evident to me this weekend, as I've continued to feel plenty of pain throughout it, and plenty of pain today, too.

But I don't want a life that's all easy and nice. I want life abundantly, a new life filled with real experiences and real things to deal with, real situations to grow. I now see my need for God. I don't know how I would be able to get through all of this without him.

I am not making excuses any more, it's time to completely give myself over to God and his plans for me. I am done with my old self. I'm ready to live a new life of purpose. Now I need to open up my eyes to see what he has planned. I absolutely cannot wait.

Hallelujah, grace like rain
falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains
are washed away

This is just the beginning.

-Alex

One Week

2008-05-03T01:36:00.000-04:00

It's amazing how a single week can in some ways be just about the worst week of my life and the best week of my life all at the same time.

I'm continuing to ride an emotional roller coaster, where some moments I'm fine and other moments are filled with incredible pain. It definitely sucks, but every day seems to be easier than the day before.

Luckily, I haven't been blinded by the hard stuff. I have seen so much purpose in all of this. I definitely needed this more than I ever could have thought, and I needed things to happen exactly as they did. The growth I've experienced over the past week has been absolutely awesome.

I don't know where I would be without everyone who's been around me, supporting me in big ways whether they knew it or not. The opportunities I've had this week to make connections and build relationships with close friends, people I've known for a while but haven't really ever known, and with new friends I've never known has been such an amazing blessing. Whether it's been talking about the serious stuff going on in my life, or just simply getting to know someone new, I've definitely seen God showing me his love in everyone around me.

Seeing God in people and relationships has never been all that difficult for me, though. The major things I've learned this week have been in terms of prayer and the word, and as stupid as this might sound, a lot of how I've grown can be traced back to my small Moleskine sketchbook. I bought it on co-op to sketch ideas but never really used it all that much. Now, however, it's become a kind of prayer journal to me and has become my most prized possession.

In my quiet times each morning, I've been able to read actively like I never could before. Now, I read to really find what God is trying to tell me, so I can write it down. Then, since the sketchbook is small enough to fit in my pocket, I can take it out and reread the passages from the morning and be thinking about them throughout the day. It's awesome.

Also in my moleskine, I've tried to be extremely conscientious about writing down my prayers. This way I can easily remember what I need and want to pray about, and can also look back and see how prayers have been answered. It's also helpful for me in the fact that now when I tell people I'm praying for them, I'm able to keep praying for them and really devote time and energy to other people's prayers as well.

All of this stuff might seem pretty obvious and simple, but the way this little black book has grown me spiritually has been amazing. I've always heard people say how great it is to write things down, and now I see how true that really is.

Sorry, there's so much to this post, but I guess there a lot I'm excited to write about.

On wednesday night, a few of us went to Last Wednesday, this new worship night at crossroads and it was absolutely awesome. While we were there, we saw they had the big pool set up for baptisms this weekend. Well, I took one look and the pool and pretty immediately realized that I am going to be baptized this weekend.

Now, I was baptized as a baby, and have always used that as a kind of excuse. Anytime I heard someone talk about how important it is to make the decision to be baptized, I've always been like "eh, I was baptized as a baby...maybe I'll do it later." Well, after being totally emotionally emptied and refilled as I have been in the past week, I know I have no excuses this time. The past few days have been laying the foundation for a major rebirth and I want to solidify that on Sunday.

Needless to say, I'm extremely excited about it. It will be crazy and I cannot wait!

Well that's about it for now. It's getting late. Before I go, here are some things that have helped me this week:

This is the verse that I've been comforted by the most and have reread over and over in my moleskine. It's not too obscure, it's Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"

Awesome. I've also found myself listening to a fair amount of musical theatre, (obviously) specifically the uplifting music of David Friedman and Jason Robert Brown.

Here's a little bit of the song "Trust the Wind," from the opening of David Friedman's show "Listen to My Heart." They performed the show freshman year at ccm and the music and emotion of the show have stuck with me since I saw it. Enjoy:

There are voices
softly whispering inside my head
telling me I'm gonna be alright
They keep saying
"Let yourself be led where you are led
Don't hold back. Don't put up a fight"

They tell me
"Trust the wind
Breathe the air
There's a place you're meant to be
And you're already there
Open up your heart
And let life in
You know that you can always trust the wind"

When the world starts doing things
that I don't understand
And I search my soul to find a reason why
In the dark of night I feel somebody take my hand
And tell me "You don't even have to try
For you can trust the wind

Breathe the air
And know that there are helping hands
Around you everywhere
Open up your heart
And let life in
You know that you can always trust the wind"

Dreams have wings
Thoughts take flight
All good things
Are streaming toward us every day
They hear our prayers
They know the way

I'm gonna trust the wind
Breathe the air
Let it take me on its wings
And carry me somewhere
I'll open up my heart
And let life in
I know wherever breezes blow
Wherever winding rivers flow
I'm going where I need to go
I can trust the wind

I'm definitely learning to trust God and to see my need to trust. It's been amazing. So now I'll be working to make every week from now on as great as this one was.

Hey thanks for being there for me. There are so many amazing people I'm thankful for right now.

Thanks.
I love you all.

Alex

p.s. If you don't go to UC and haven't seen me lately, I got a buzz and have grown out my beard. It's been fun and apparently I look older.

Welcome!

2008-05-01T18:30:00.000-04:00

Hey everybody!

Welcome to my new blog here at randlev.blogspot.com. This one will be taking over for Mr. Ogle goes to Hollywood. When I go back to LA, I won't be working in Hollywood anymore, but in another sweet area of town where I might actually see famous people. We'll see. So this blog will be more of a permanent and general blog.

As you can see, it's pretty serious-looking at the moment, but I've been going through some pretty serious stuff lately. I'd like to make a nice banner for this one too. We'll see. I'm not sure what I want it to be called, but right now I'm using my very favorite Jack Sparrow quote.

Anyway, I don't have a whole heck of a lot of time right now to write a long blog post, so unfortunately you'll have to wait.

I'll write one soon.

I love you all!

Alex