Costa Rica: day 0

LOS ANGELES 9:37PM
-i started my trip on FLY AWAY where i met an old Mormon surfer who liked to say "shit" a lot. he was w/ his 11 year old son & they were flying to Puerta Vallarta for Thanksgiving.
-i've packed 2 T-shirts, 1 long-sleeved shirt, 1 pair of pants (whose legs come off to form shorts), & 1 set of board shorts... i have my bible, a map, and my journal. that's ALL i've got & it's all in 1 small backpack.

2day was nuts/went fast: i woke at 12:20PM, got to the bank b4 1PM to get $300 cash for my trip, hit up Subway for lunch & made calls to make sure sunAM at church goes well when i'm not there, went to target & longs for toiletries etc, hit up Urgent Care for a tetnis shot, Kohl's for underwear (my wash wasn't done!), then i packed my bags, printed off the Costa Rica (CR) bus schedule & my ticket itinerary, and made it to fly away by 8:15PM and was able to catch the 8:30 bus.
i'm at wolfgang pucks outside of my terminal @ LAX about to enjoy my Margharet pizza =]

Costa Rica: my travels

I am about to publish several posts of my trip to Costa Rica in November 2008... these posts are relatively unedited & straight out of my journal.



the RoadMap
day 0: saturday- Los Angeles
day 1: sunday- San Jose to Fortuna
day 2: monday- Fortuna to Monteverde; Monteverde to Manuel Antonio (via Limonal, Jaco, & Quepos)
day 3: tuesday-Manuel Antonio to Quepos; Quepos to Dominical
day 4: wednesday- Dominical
day 5: thursday- Dominical to San Jose (via San Isidro)
day 6: friday- San Jose to Guatemala (layover) to Los Angeles

...ojala que tienen un buen viaje conmigo!

top 10 albums

So, I've decided that a key component is missing from my blog page. Something so close to my heart that it woke me up from a near 2-year-no-blog slumber. Mainly, that I have yet to share from my vast musical expertise *tongue-in-cheek*

top 10 albums b/c bret says so...

Here's the necessary preface: It's an art to compose a good album... & I'm not just talking about good music (although that is an essential ingredient), but for a good album there's got to be a cohesion, a theme, and an integrity that is maintained throughout the entire experience. And that's the thing, it should be an experience that takes you somewhere- not that an individual song or two does this, but the album as a whole works together in giving you one unified message. With this in mind, Compilations/Live performances/and "Best of" albums do not count... only artist-engineered studio-albums will be considered.
...so, here goes (in no particular order):


DIARY
–Sunny Day Real Estate
“classic & ingenuitive.. tough to believe this was 1994/fathers of emo… i listened to this album for 3 weeks straight on a 53min loop”


SONGS FOR A BLUE GUITAR
–Red House Painters
“changed my life”


IN RAINBOWS
–Radiohead
“unbelievable... i've written more sermons to this album”


THE AUTUMNS
–the Autumns
“perfection... my favorite band from 1993-2003 (when i stopped having a "favorite" band)”


THE TEXAS JERUSALEM CROSSROADS
–Lift to Experience
“a taste of twisted texas rock- highs & lows: highly emotive.. genius.”


THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF REINHOLD MESSNER
–Ben Folds Five
“incredible album: me in so many places”


TRANSATLANTICISM
–Death Cab for Cutie
“cohesive & seattle strong”


DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
–Pink Floyd
“classic album: takes you someplace. 3rd lion's roar”


SEA CHANGE
–Beck
“good depressing rock: great break-up album”


SIAMESE DREAM
–the Smashing Pumpkins
"got me thru my formative years"

Blinding Snow

"Look how gorgeous that is!"
"Yeah."
"It makes me fall more in love with God."

Josh & I spoke as we began our snow jog.

After a full day of driving we arrived in Breckenridge, Colorado. The mountains were dark as we pulled into the cabin. We found our beds and fell fast asleep. When morning came we decided to go for a run up the mountain. I had asked Josh if he wanted to run uphill, to which he replied, "It's more like running up MOUNTAIN." Touche.

We ran on the roads & the packed snow crunched under our feet. It was a funny sensation. The sun shone brightly & the snow blinded our eyes. I squinted my eyes & looked off to the distance. It was actually painful to look at the snow! I had never experienced anything like this before. Beautiful snowbanks turned into piercing needles. In a puzzled wince I began to think... is this what it means to be white as snow?

Some of the snowbanks along the side of the road were whiter than I had ever seen white before. Couple that with the blazing morning sun reflecting off of this pure white canvas. It was brilliant, yet I could not gaze at it directly.

In what sense are a sinner's sins made white as snow? The fact is, sin is ugly. In and of themselves, they would certainly not be considered "white as snow." How can this term apply to sin?

I looked for an answer as I stared at the snow. It wasn't the snow so much that hurt my eyes... it was the reflection of the sun's light. That's when my mind switched. The focus was the sun & the impact the sun had when reflecting off of the snow.

In the same way, a sinner's sins are made white as snow in light of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

In fact, the term "white as snow" is applied to Jesus Christ in several places (Daniel 7:9; Matthew 28:3; Revelation 1:14). This term underlies Jesus' glory, absolute purity, and perfection.

"White as snow" is applied to our sins as they are seen through the glory of Christ and his work on the cross. We are seen as perfectly blameless when the perfection & glory of Christ reflects and burns brilliant on us. We are white as snow in light of the Son of God.

In this way, God reconciles a rebellious child unto himself.

For further study, read:
Isaiah 1; 1 Peter 2; and, Romans 5

Groomsman Accountability

I have never owned a sword before. There are not many occasions I can think of that call for a sword. Even still, deep inside I think every man wants a sword- and now I have one! In fact, it was given to me this weekend as a groomsman gift.

Billy walked down the church aisle with a large, black duffle bag over his shoulder. He layed the bag down and unzipped it. Where I thought a skateboard would be lay 14 unique swords resting side by side. Instead of taking off doing a nose wheelie by the bride's grandmother, Billy distributed the swords one-by-one to his groomsmen. When he got to me, he looked me in the eyes and said, "If ever the countenance of my wife should fall- you come talk to me."

Now that's accountability!

Billy giving me a sword as his wedding gift was symbolic of the type of access that he has granted me in his life and the type of relationship we have.

Billy has intentionally allowed certain men into his life to call him and hold him to a standard. If ever he was to mess up, he's got these guys coming to him in love & looking to call him back to his senses. Whenever a guy gets on his own and out of accountability is when he's looking to sin & allows himself to slip from that standard (Proverbs 18:1).

My relationship with Billy is reciprocal. In the same way Billy expects me to call and hold him to a standard, he does the same for me. Most of the time in our relationship Billy gets to tell me what an idiot I'm being. Through rooming with Billy and brushing shoulders with him over the years, God has used him to shape me and grow me (often painfully so!) into the man he wants me to be (Proverbs 27:17).

Whether groomsman or not, the type of men a guy has in his life is a good measure of that man...
What kind of people do you have in your life?
Do they call you to a standard?

Tapping into the CHEROKEE in Me

I'm only part Cherokee indian (about 1.75lbs worth)- but I tap into every bit I can.
Here's an old Cherokee story my father passed along to me...

"One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed.""

A Second Chance

It wasn't until 3 days after my TBN sighting of Michael W. Smith that the tunes from my formative Christian years finally stopped playing in my head. It was a blessing and a curse all at the same time.

For those of you that aren't clued in, Michael W. Smith recently made his lead role debut in a movie that wasn't half bad.

I was recently visiting one of my best friends in Vegas when he said to me one, "Have you seen Michael W. Smith's movie?"
I laughed with an "Are you serious?!" type look on my face.
"You've got to watch it."
I looked in disbelief as Jeremy actually thumbed through his DVD collection & pulled a copy of a movie I had never heard of- "The Second Chance."

Was he serious? Did Michael W. Smith really star in a movie? Did Jeremy really have this movie? And were we seriously going to watch this movie right now?
The answer was: Yes; yes; yes; and, yes.

Over the next 2 hours I was once again sucked in to another Michael W. Smith project in which I couldn't avert my attention. I was impressed. The Second Chance is an honest and real story of American Christianity & some of her struggles.

If you get an opportunity, definitely give Smitty a second chance & see his movie. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Check out information on The Second Chance movie.

oh & fyi- Smitty turns 51 on October 7th... that's staying power