Happenings.

So the trip to Joshua Tree was nothing short of spectacular. Beautiful scenery, fun hiking trails, cool boulders to climb, awesome wildlife to watch. We actually came across a rattlesnake during our day hike, and we spent a good hour just watching it do its thing. A rat did come around, so we hoped for some SNAKE ATTACK action. Nothing happened, which made me sad.


Here we are resting on some giant rocks and boulders enjoying the beautiful scenery that Joshua Tree National Park has to offer. 


These are the same rocks than in the picture, but it's a better shot to show the overall look of the formation. Pretty gradual slope that made it quite easy to conquer. 

The Z boys are cool fellows. It was fun hanging out with a bunch of guys doing a bunch of guy things. We were crazy.

Bought Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind yesterday like I said I would a while back. It was my first thing on my to do list that day. Heh. The movie is just how I remembered it, amazing and rewatchable. Awesome.

I'm out.

Desert Heat

To Joshua Tree! To Joshua Tree! This is where I will be spending most of my weekend with my boys. It'll be a fun time out. We'll spend a lot of time together doing the bonding thing, and I'm excited for that. It's also a good chance to spend some time in solitude, which you can't really get here in So Cal. Some good self-reflection time. Some good God time. Yeah, it'll be a blast.

No, really, I'm looking forward to the trip, and I can't wait to pay the old place a visit again. Though we hear it'll go up to 90+ degrees, we're ready to hack it. Except maybe Phil, who's a big baby and would rather spend the time under some shady trees. Boo!

The link to the title is awesome. Yeah, cousins! That's what I'm talkin' about!

Speaking of Joshua Tree, I heard U2's new single Vertigo on the radio last night. It's pretty good; I'm excited to see what other stuff they got on their new album coming out in November. Go here to read more about it.

Keep on rockin'.

Nerd for God

Dustin Guenter has joined the blog world! It is nice to know he finally gave in. His first post is nice and sweet, he's such a touching fellow.

Added at 1:31 am: Alright, it seems Dustin has gotten a little crazy on his blog. He's posted 5+ posts within the last couple hours. That's just insane. Down, boy. Down.

It grows in bunches!

"I got this feeling, so appealing, that we should all sing 'banana phone!'"

Me and my buddies totally boogied out to Banana Phone tonight. It was going crazy in the Manor. The movie is really dope too, so give it a visit if you can handle the language.

The lyrics are posted up on Phil's blog if you're curious. This song will be exhausted in the house within the next week, and then we'll never hear of it again. We go through phases like that. Remember when we used to rock out to Avril, guys? Oh, wait...no...that wasn't us.

Choices...choices...

After learning that Mean Girls is out on dvd, I was very tempted to add it to my movie collection; however, I thought waiting for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to come out on dvd in a week would ultimately be the better purchase. I've been waiting for this movie to come out on dvd since it hit theatres in March.

Nature takes its toll.

Eddie Adams, an icon photographer in this modern age, died today at 71. Rest in peace, Eddie.

Complete! (again)

Pictures are done on For Miles and Miles, so pay it one more visit. Heh.

Gun Face.

I could play this over and over again.

Hurt

Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around 

Hurt

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

Mad crazy posting.

As I write this, Phil and I are listening to Ween's 12 Golden Country Greats. Phil just said, "The best part about it is that there's only ten songs on here!" Ween is one funky band, but I appreciate them. They can create some great sounding music, but they have a good sense of non-seriousness to make you smile. It's nothing to take to heart, but it's fun music to listen to with friends. Mind you that it's explicit stuff, so watch which friends you listen with. Heh...

I drove down to The Manor soon after class to attend the meeting this evening. It was much better this time, and I felt a lot more connected with the guys. I think it was just initial business stuff that needed to get out of the way last time that wasn't neccessary to discuss this time. Tim Carroll has joined our group. Welcome, Tim.

Later tonight four of us went to Denny's. Phil decided that talking to his fiance on the phone was much better than hanging out with the guys. Blasted Alisha...I still won't forgive her for stealing Phil away. I shake my fist. My fist!!!

Anyhow, the trip to Denny's was great. Here are some pictures to tell the highlights of our late night dining.


These are the three dorkiest people I have come to know in my 21 years of living.



Jon appreciating the Denny's menu in unusual ways.



Dustin got adventurous and asked for a lemonade with a shot of vanila added to the drink. We all thought it was a wonderful idea...but then again, we were not the ones who would be drinking it. Even the waitress decided to stick around and witness the first taste. The picture is after the initial sip. I don't think Dustin knows quite how to react to the beverage yet...



When we were paying for our meals at the counter, Joe thought that taking a picture while the camera was slung over my shoulder would be funny. I guess he thought it more funny to put his beautiful face in the frame as well. Hmmmm.

The pictures contain no color for the simple reason of me feeling like converting it to grayscale. I thought B&W was a nice change from all the colored stuff I've been doing.

No need for context.

"Right now we're a linear equation; let's go quadratic, baby!" -Phil

Complete!

Hi, kids! I sat down tonight and just wrote all the blasted entries for my other blog for about five hours. I just needed to get it done. So if you're curious and don't mind a lot of reading, go through that. The two weeks written down there have been very impactful in my life, so it's fun to see what has happened in the large gap when I wasn't posting. All I plan to do now is add the pictures according to the entry, but that won't take that long. All the text is there, so don't expect much to be added as far as that's concerned. Btw, if you want to start from the beginning, you'll need to scroll all the way down to the bottom to get the first entry. I couldn't figure out how to list tne entry from oldest to newest rather than the other way around. Oh, well.

Peace out!

Kill Star Trek?

What do you guys think? Should Star Trek die or take a long break, or should they keep going?

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/547/547429p1.html

I'm no preacher, but...

Yesterday night I went to a Bible study with Chrissy. This is probably the wrong way of approaching a Bible study, but my main intentions were to meet new people around my age group who are in love with Christ like myself. Finding that common ground among people is priceless, as I've come to know going to a secular school. It has become true in my life, but perhaps that is only true because I didn't work hard enough in finding them.

Anyway, that's a tangent that I don't want to elaborate on right now. The Bible study focused on the "two Trees" found in the beginning of Genesis and the end of Revelation. We watched a short dvd on some dude (Rob something, I believe) who talked about how God created the Tree of Life at the beginning of creation and will create another Tree of Life sometime in the future and how we live in between these two trees...so to speak. Personally, I found the message intriguing in its own sense, for it is a perspective I've never seen before. It wasn't enough to captivate me, though. It seemed rather stale.

The message does go more in depth than just living between these two trees. He continued to explain how we should live our lives for God. What does that entail? For some reason, that part dodged me. What really struck me is how he said that life as a Christian is more than spreading the Gospel. If our purpose in life as a Christian was that, then we'd ultimately be a bunch of people "hanging out" waiting for Christ to return.

I had a little trouble agreeing with this. I believe spreading the Gospel is a very important factor in our lives as Christians. Through missions, Christians find a strong sense of who they are as Godly people. Preaching the Word to people who never heard of God, witnessing to people on the street or in your home, and discussing Christianity with people is very much who we are. It goes farther into how our beliefs and faith in God reflect into how we live our everyday lives among those who do not share our faith, and this puts a lasting impression on people and how they see us. It could ultimately bring a person to salvation. It's not that Christians "hang out" waiting for Christ's return and trying to get others to become Christians to hang out with us, we tell people about Christ and invite them to share in the goodness of God by living life according to His Word.

Missions and witnessing goes a longer way than just telling people about God, for it brings everything in ourselves to successfully show how God dwells in His people. The very soul of who we are radiates the Spirit of God if we are His children, and that gives us a lot more credit than being a bunch of followers of Jesus chilling on Earth waiting for His second coming.

Movie goings.

I watched Collateral on Saturday and Garden State tonight. I saw Collateral for the second time, but I love the movie. It has great action and is somewhat insightful. I wouldn't say it's an intellectual movie, but Tom Cruise's character says a lot of true stuff about our society today that I have to agree with...despite the fact that's a sick insight. Tom Cruise's character is very cynical about life and indifferent to people around him, but he lacks the idea of hope, which was a crucial flaw. Anyway, go see the movie for the action if nothing else. Tom Cruise is a very convincing villain; anyone who doesn't like him as an actor can just kiss my muscular butt.

Garden State is also worth the movie ticket. A movie ticket from the dollar theatre if not from the "real" theatre. In fact, you can probably wait for it because there is nothing in the movie that demands amazing sound or picture, but the content of the movie is amazing. The movie has a very clear message of living life to the fullest, but does it with very dark humor...so it's right up my alley. The whole "sieze the moment" and "make the most out of everything" seemed to be continually pounded in every single scene in the movie, and it was a little annoying; however, it wasn't enough of a drawback to bring the movie down. I loved it. Plus Zach Braff and Natalie Portman made an awesome performance; they click very well together. And I love Natalie. She will be my future wife.

May it never be.

I just realized a couple minutes ago that it is September 11, 2004. So here is my entry to remember the tragedy that happened three years ago to this day, and may we always remember everyone who was unnecesarily lost in this event.

We just get quirckier by the year.

Mac was brilliant in posting this of, as Kuya put it, "my cousins summed up in a picture."

The cousins are cool, and perhaps the most consistent people in my life. Family should always be treasured; I've come to learn this value through my own life. Throughout all the years we've lived in our same Filipino community, we still hang out and enjoy our company like no other. Rock on, family!

Okay, seriously...

There's way too many freakin' ants in Z's house. Guys, fix it!!!

Out of the loop.

Built-in alarms in my cellphone went off at 5:30 am this morning. No worries; it was intentional. I woke up finding myself one the couch at Z's house. By 6 am, I was able to merge onto the 5 to head back to Ventura for my 8:30 am class.

After my first class of the session, a two hour nap, and a couple b-ball games with Gwyn, I was merging onto the 101 to head back to Z's house. There aren't many scenes in my day today: Z's house, Brooks, the park, and my apartment. It's a shame that Z's house was where most of my day was spent because it's the only scene that is 80 miles away from the rest.

Z is a group of peers that I've come to know and love for the past three years...one (of five) for the past nine years. When I was at Biola, I would meet with them every week, but ever since I came to Brooks, that is not so. My absense wears at me, so this is why I try to make the effort this session to see these guys; for they create a sense of accountability in my life - something that I failed to do at Brooks for the past year.

Listening to these men talk about life and issues they face today was quite refreshing; however, the events their lives have experienced I have not been able to experience with them. I feel a little out of place sitting in the living room listening to their problems. Not being able to make any effective input made me feel...unnecessary in the group. Admittingly, I felt somewhat uninterested in their discussions. Nothing is wrong in their topic of conversation; I just couldn't connect with them.

It's the second meeting of the semester, so maybe it was just this week that it felt this way. I'll see what happens in the next weeks ahead.

My spin-off.

Hey, kids. I decided to write a journal type blog for the past two weeks I've been gone. You can view the entries there as they slowly come up, but I'll try to be consistent in completing it along with posting about regular day life in this blog. Sorry again for the lack of posting, but it's hard when you're not at home and only have dial-up connection (I'm at my parent's place in Escondido).

Blog address: http://819049304.blogspot.com

Out of state.

I apologize for the long gap between this post and the previous ones. I have been traveling around California, Ohio, and Minnesota the past couple of weeks. I plan to write up something for those days once I get back from the trips. All in all, it has been a fun and dandy time. I will return to Ventura by or around the end of this next weekend.