Indulgences of the Shire Folk

The Gunman

2008-09-18T17:56:00.000-07:00

A dream I had a few weeks ago while napping after class.

9/10/08 1:40-3:40 p.m. The Gunmen

The weather was like it was today, cloudy, rainy, dismal… As I am walking out of the school, I hear sudden screaming and see a gun men pull out a pistol and start firing shots. I am quick to take cover behind a concrete column, but my back side is exposed at first and a round skims across my back, there is a distinct stinging feeling. I count 15 shots, and then know that he is out of bullets. At that moment, I sprint into what turns into the Cochran’s Crossing Shopping Center’s Kroger parking lot, and take cover behind a car where someone else nearby is already taking cover.

“Oh no!”,the person taking cover near me warns, and sure enough I see this gun men sprinting over towards our side of the parking lot. The gun men is tall and lanky, he has long brown hair with a mustache and goatee. He runs over to me and takes a few shots but this time I am moving back and forth to try and give him a harder target to hit, and the bullets once again whiz bye, missing their marks but not without any consequences, for I feel the sting of grazed bullets on my legs.
Now the gunman is running around as a professional killer would, and he is pumping off rounds in a sawed off shotgun and reloading the over-under while on the run. The gunman then climbs into a car with a girl that I recognize from my psychology class. She is not a voluntary passenger, but a hostage. He has her snuggled up on his lap like a really protective shield.
At this moment I am trying to text my father a 911 emergency message, but it all turns out to be gibberish for my phone is wet because I had been laying in a deep puddle. My efforts had not gone unnoticed though, for the gunmen gives me an evil stare as I am holding up my phone. I drop it into the puddle to try and clear up any misconceptions he would form about me calling for help, but still decides to drive over with his hostage and step outside to have a word with me. He paces back and forth…

“So, did you ever like to play halo?” the gunman persists.

“Well yes, I used to be pretty good.” I reply to the gunmen in a nice tone to hopefully calm him down a little bit, as if I really wanted to have a conversation with him. But his reply was not was I was hoping for…

“Well, I didn’t!” he touches back in a disgusting, snidely way. He pulls out his pistol and aims it up to his face… he takes his time with careful aim as I squirm back and forth splashing water from the puddle I am laying in up into the air for the slightest hope of distracting his precise aim. BAM! I am struck directly in the chest, and I flop over as to appear dead. The girl beside me is left unharmed as the gunmen drives away to the opposite side of the parking lot. What would appear to be a mortal wound is not at all, and even though the bullet wound appears right over my heart, I am left alive.

“Im not dead, just don’t look over here”, I whisper to her. She lets someone else know beside her that I am ok. As I lay there the quarrel is ended, I am not sure how but I jump up at once to celebrate… I run over to a very attractive girl, looking to be around the age of 18, near the back of the parking lot and pick her up with joy and kiss her. We keep kissing for a while and run over to where some other students are sitting on a curb.

“How old are you?” I question the attractive girl.

“Fourteen,” she replys.

“What!?” I let out in shock and disappointment. “But I.. Im 17… no sorry, 19” I quickly say back to her. Her look is of pain too as I reassure her that I will be here for her in a few years once she is a little older, and she walks away with her mother. I start to look down at my bullet wounds and joke with the students on the curb about how beaten up I am. And then right at that instant, I am awoken to a clip of Radiohead’s “You and Who’s Army” playing on my cell phone’s alarm clock, to find my self safe and gunshot-wound free laying in my bed.

Dreams

2008-07-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

I tried a little thing back in June, when I would wake up from a dream, I would grab my MacBook Pro and quickly try to summarize all of my memories from that dream. I still want to write my dreams, but it is hard to actually roll over and grab the computer or journal to write when you wake up. I encourage everyone to try this though.

Here are the rough drafts... what I wrote down after waking up (please excuse spelling and grammar).

May 28, 2008: First a court scene, where I am testifying that I never stole someone else’s work to write a story that I had written for a high school english class named “New Cats”. I am sentenced to 13.5 years, not much detail during my jail time. I am out of jail finally, there are signs everywhere for churches and random things about how bad I am in my front yard. I walk inside, when two cop cars (one is CISD police) park outside my house. My vision pans to two girls looking out a window, one of them screams “NOOOOO!” in anguish because she does not want me to go away to jail again. The two police men taunt me as I continue to claim my innocence. They tell me to turn the hate signs around in my yard (I had turned them so they faced the house and no one could read them.) I refused to turn them around stating that it was my property and I didnt have to, the smarty police men sneered back that “He thinks I should turn them around.” I start talking to other police men about my story, he asks me “Was New Cats about…”, “About what!?”, I questioned back. “About sex?” he finally asks me. I immediately replied back with anger, “NO!”. I tell him to come read the story to see if he sees anything wrong with it. I pick up my MacBook Pro, and search New Cats in order to find my story. In doing so, I accidentally click on a website that I used for a picture of the New Cats, but quickly click out of it before the police men accuses me of any more copyright infringement. I cannot find it, and realize its on the desktop PC in the living room, I tell the officer, but then realize again that the screen is broken, and I cannot think of a way to get it…. END.

June 2, 2008: We drive back into the woods and ramp the car up into a tree and get it stuck there. While Josh and two other guys get out to walk around in the trees I stay in but lean the wrong way and the car starts to fall out of the trees, it is a big fall but I put my seat belt on because of my friends yelling to do so. The car ends up falling on its tires and the cops show up just as I land on the ground, they check on me to see if im ok then I drive around and park the car. The cops are now searching in the bushes and stuff for weed. They tell us we dont look like pot heads (and then jokingly state, except for this one, while pointing at me). One of the head cops tells us he is going to pull us over tomorrow if he catches us going 66 miles per hour, and give us drug tests for 4 years. The scene switches to a party, I am walking around having a good time when I walk over to a corner because I was hiding from I think cops. I am in a corner and a voice says, now clay is going to kill you for revenge on the many times you have tried to kill him. He was doing like a spider walk thing from ninja warrior above me with a syringe in his hand. I run away and he backs me into a bathroom corner, I plead with him, when have I tried to kill you? He says something then tries to hit me with two syringes, they both fall to the floor as I dodge. I pick the syringes up, “Now your dead b***h” I run around and now him and brad are in a room, and brad throws a syringe and hits me in the hand. I think I am poisoned and my throat feels like its going to close up, I find a syringe and throw it back at brad, nailing him in the same spot. (the poison in the syringe is a blue neon liquid). I then start to beat him senseless, smashing his head into tables and repeatedly punching him in the face, when he turns to me and sarcasticly says “yea, just tear me up, rip me to shreds”. Then I look at him and say, yeah, it is pointless. I end up walking outside and find a convieniently located ambulance driver, tell him ive been poisoned, he rushes me to the hospital. I get there with my dad and sister. When I get there I walk in and see brittany whigtman filling out paper work (she asks me who im seeing, I shrug and make a dumb face, my dad says, “Dr. Green”), and I also see joseph wiesbach as a girl and chelsea harris working there. I go back to doc green and my dad lets him know whats up, he shakes his head and pulls out a binder full of information… END.

June 9 2008: Panther Creek shopping center… some kid who just looks like your average punk runs by and steals josh mowl’s wallet and cell phone. Josh looks at him and says, “aww man!” and looks really angry, but doesnt chase after him. I look at him running off, and decide to chase him. I chase him once by myself, but canot get him. Then he comes back around and it is me and 3 other guys chasing him. He finally gives up on running and turns around and charges at me like he wants to fight. When he gets to me I get him in a head lock and bring him to the ground, I repeatedly punch him in the face while keeping him in the head lock. END.

The Pale Blue Dot

2008-07-14T23:23:00.000-07:00

Well, first post of 2008. In July. I am so good at keeping this thing updated.

Anyways, my thoughts have of late have been crowded with our obscurity and miniscule existent in this huge vast cosmos that the Earth and Milky Way galaxy are a part of. Much of this thinking has been fueled by Carl Sagan's (my favorite astronomer) thoughts he wrote inspired by a picture named "The Pale Blue Dot". "The Pale Blue Dot" is a photograph taken by Voyager I when it went off course to take a picture of the earth from a record 4 billion + miles away.
Anyways, if you would like to hear him reading from a portion of that book, you can find it here, on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

What role should the personal faith of a President play in his/her decision-making?

2007-12-22T21:48:00.000-08:00

This recent debate just sort of set me off. The people of America are becoming so ignorant. What role should the personal faith of a President play in his/her decision-making? That question is absolutely ridiculous!! Asking that is just like asking what role should personal moral have in decision-making? Yes, the stupid people who have no idea what they are talking about will quote the "separation of church and state" that is written in The Constitution, and yes The Constitution does call for an "iron curtain" between the Church and The State, that merely means that the government should have nothing to do with establishing a religion for this country!! The way kids are raised is through their parents opinions on how they should raise their children. These opinions are rooted in moral, moral is formed from a belief in the right thing to do. Im pretty sure that comes from religion or lack of. What else tells us the right and wrong thing to do? Well maybe some say the thousands of years we have existed and our experiences we have learned from all that yada yada, but for thousands of years people have had some sort of religion, and it has revolutionized into the religions of today's world. As a christian we are called to only do something that Jesus would do, and I am pretty sure that other religions preach around the same deal.

Thinking that the personal faith of a president ever will have nothing to do with his or her decision making is like thinking the president will one day blind fold him or herself and play "pin the tail on the decision"

A Liberal View of a Conservative Town

2007-12-04T10:37:00.000-08:00

Ah, College Station, the location of Texas A&M University, the home of the Fightin Texas Aggies, and one of the most frustrating places to live as a person with liberal political views and ideas. The people here are mostly Bush loving conservatives who don't give a crap about anyone but themselves, and what they call America. But they are definitely not referring to America as a whole nation, they refer to just the miniscule population of rich consumerists who buy their way into a safe, sheltered environment so that they can be oblivious to the fact that thousands of people are dying daily because of starvation, disease, genocide, religion, and poor or lack of access to healthcare. Most of these things could be changed if these conservative christian people started acting like what they call themselves. In being a christian we are called to try and love like Jesus loved, which is whole hearted, forgiving, everlasting love. No matter what people do, how they spend their money, or what they think about others, we are called to love them. This includes trying our best to provide them with healthcare, helping them put a meal on the table for their family, providing treatment for disease, and trying to stop or at least praying for terrible acts of genocide like the crisis in Darfur. An argument with a couple of Aggie girls last weekend sort of set me off. I had asked one of them who she was voting for, and the reply I got was exactly what I expected, Hilary... because she is a women! After an exchanged laugh I asked if she knew any of her policies or opinion on major issues, the answer was no. This alone disappointed me, because it just proves that more and more teenagers are growing ignorant and apathetic to foreign affairs and politics. I used to think that it did not concern us at such a young age, but in our earlier years it concerns us teens more than ever because we are indirectly putting legislation and ideas through our government that absolutely will affect our future life as adults and as we raise our family's, and then as our children go on to raise family's. But anyways, these girls had no idea about really any of the candidates and what they stand for. They had no idea what Universal Healthcare was, and after I explained it to them they told me that they did not want to sacrifice their perfect insurance plans and expensive U.S. healthcare plans for someone who "spends all their money on drugs". They said that those people did not deserve the healthcare. This part about our debate troubled me the most. What about Jesus? What about love? Would He not sacrifice a few extra dollars for these people? Of course He would, He sacrificed his stinkin life for these people. Anyways lately I have been really trying to love like Jesus, and its very discouraging to see Christians who are so greedy and unloving... Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal, us Christians must try and love like Jesus loved.

Stress

2007-11-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

Its been too long since I have posted. I know my readers dont mind because well, there probably are not any. College has been a really new experience, and with it has come a lot of unwanted stress. I recently got to take a weekend trip to Lake Travis and I cannot begin to tell how much that helped. But the amount of homework and studying that goes into passing classes is on an entirely new level than highschool. I never had to study in highschool because I was smart enough to get by with B's and the occasional A without doing more than 30 minutes of studying a night. But these college classes take so much of my time.

I have really been pondering over the last week what it would be like to be in Iceland or New Zealand right now, or any place with mountains, rivers, or lakes. The lack of emotion and motivation in the landscape here in College Station really does a tole on a person like I who longs for landscape and beauty to photograph. I am so jealous of the people who look out their front window to see green pastures and trees, high mountains with snow-capped peaks, and crystal rivers and streams that are perfect for sitting and laying next to all day.

I have no idea what to do with my life.

An Unexpected Party

2007-07-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

This is a poem I wrote about my favorite book The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Without a minutes notice,
The great wizard arrived,
But alone? No!
Two dwarves knock on the door,
"Can't be all of them" the hobbit surmised.

Ten more eventually come,
And the hobbit's guess true,
Plans for the adventure from some,
Questions to the wizard, a few.

What none of them know,
Is the hobbit's great importance,
Of it, some he shall soon show,
Until then, great distrust and suspence.

...

A Goblin King dead,
An Elven King tricked,
Bard with Smaug's Head,
The new King Under The Mountain, picked.

But to the hobbit, these events are in the past,
For he is rich, and back in Bag End, atlast.

vanishing

2007-07-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

It's about time for another post.

As this incredibly dull summer starts coming to an end I cannot help but to think back on my life, and realize the great amount of change that will be occuring in the next month. I think about my life so far, and only knowing the routine of school, summer, school, summer and can't help to be a little intimidated on the fact that I will not have a pattern to lay back on for the rest of my life, especially the next 10 years. I mean I cannot wait to leave home and get this whole shindig started but also cannot stop thinking about how much different my life will be from now on.

Until I decide to write again, farewell fellow bloggers.

beauty's reservoir

2007-05-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

until last week i thought it impossible to find such great beauty and tranquility in The Woodlands. A hollow, pointed peace of heavy duty plastic made to glide across water, a double sided oar, and a nalgene bottle full of water made my placid life full of patterns possible to be truely lived again. its nice having an escape. to escape away from fake people. on the lake, total strangers converse like best freinds within a few minutes of "hello, thats a nice looking kayak you got there". watching a family of around 6 or 7 deer graze for a good 15 minutes while sitting no further than 30 feet from the grass they were eating should be a treatment for cancer patients.

I've got my fix, i need more. Any readers own kayaks and live in the spring area let me know.

lynn

2007-05-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

a lady of the north

how it happened, inconceivable

into my arms... but forth!

will she stay?

The Broken American Dream

2007-03-25T20:43:00.000-07:00

The American Dream, Wikipedia defines it as a subjective term usually implying a successful and satisfying life.

But what really is a successful and satisfying life these days? Is it truely what people would like to say it is, marrying the love of your life, and raising a family with him/her, and going through all those struggles and hardships but still in the end having an amazing family to come home to at night who will truely and undoubtebly love you to the ends of the earth no matter what you have done or will do?

I dont think our society defines it as that anymore.

Our society portrays the American dream and a good life as riches, fame, pleasure, and cheap highs.

What happened to being satisfied from a home-made feast after a hard days work hunting or harvesting the long toiled after crops? I would trade all the crap I take advantage of to be satisfied by that and to live that kind of humble life.

Why do we as American's pursuing a dream pursue money, sex, and possesions? What has brought us to this? These three things are temporary, they will not love you or care for you, they will not listen to you when you need someone to talk to. They will not keep you company while you smoke a pipe and just think. These things are NOT WORTH ANYTHING.

I think the dream we should be pursuing are amazing relationships. Relationships with friends, family, and our Lord. These are the things you can count on at night when you cannot sleep, these are the things that truely will last a lifetime, and these are the things that really can make you happy.

The American Dream is broken folks, it is time we start thinking about more worthy things to spend our time on.

a cheer to The Woodlands

2007-02-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

The context of this blog is in no way meant to offend and be directed at the youth staff of TWUMC, its just something I have been needing to get out, and writing it down seemed to be the right approach.

Materialism, Hypocrisy, Idolism. Three of the many problems of the city of Houston and its suburbs.

Over the past year I have come to feel from being one of the most active people and a great leader in my youth group to just another on looker waiting to see the grand show. The past five years of my youth group experience had been devoted to becoming one family of Christian brothers and sisters who come together each sunday and sometimes during the week to worship our Lord and talk about good music, our problems, theology, literature, more music, and whatever the heck we wanted to talk about. This past year the youth group changed from being my family who I can trust in, to THE BIG ATTRACTION! WOW! A brand new place with brand new video games and brand new everythings! And yes, building the new place has suceeded in probably atleast tripling the attendance each week. And I am yet to know more than 25-30 peoples names. (most of these the original people I have grown up with). I could have tried to get to know all these new people, but it is just worthless. The Woodlands is just a bunch of fake people, with stuff, everyone here has a whole lot of stuff, stuff that doesnt matter. The people who like to come to church now dont give a freakin crap who the heck our youth minister is, what our ministry is doing, or what the crap the person on stage is attempting to talk about. What they care about is who is texting them on their cell phone, what they are going to buy next, and beating guitar hero on expert.. (which i must admit is quite a feat). My youth group has turned from being personable to, who is that person? We have reached a point to where all of our stuff is just TOO MUCH. Its idolism really. Its hypocritical to our missions. I do agree that God has blessed us with all the money we have, but that money would have gone to so much more necessary places, such as our missions. Such as tamina, to the AIDS epidimic in Africa, to orphans in Uganda, to orphans in America, to homeless people under a bridge. TO ANYTHING BETTER THAN VIDEO GAMES. A church is a place that represents where God lives. A place free of sin (materialism, idolism, hypocracy). And i know, a place free from sin is impossible, but in all ways we could have tried a little harder.

We are TWUMC, The Woodlands United Methodist Church, not The Woodlands United Methodist Corporation.

This town is already run by a corporation, the church doesnt need to become one... has it already?

And i know that pressure received on our youth groups attendace every sunday was probably one of the main reasons to build the loft, and I understand that it wasnt any of our choice, simply the board of directors who make decesions for our church. Kind of like the Woodlands corporation. People sit around and make decesions for the community, speaking for all of us. But the decesions are based on what will help them make more money, so they can build a bigger mansion, buy a faster car, and use up more of our earth's resources.

A great quote by Donald Miller in his book Through Painted Deserts states something like, "When you have no rivers, mountains, or stars, you get materialism. Thats what happened to the city of Houston and its suburbs."

I cannot wait to find a real town with real people whom i can settle down among and build real freindships. Ya know, have REAL next door neighboors who really care about how I am and how my kids are doing in school and if my house burns down or if a robber breaks in.

A place free from the american dream.

an ode to actually doing things

2007-02-18T14:44:00.000-08:00

recently it has been brought to me that, i really am just a man of words. i like to talk about doing great things, going great places, meeting great people, and serving my Lord, but i never do what i talk about. my small group bible study, better known as BYOB (Bring Your Own Beef)...(we grill steaks before meeting), has talked about amazing and radical ideas that we would love to bring out to our church and community but as our leader pointed out we have yet to put into action. Its really frustrating figuring out ideas and beliefs that i love talking about really is not what im playing out during my every day life. hopefully soon i will start putting some things into action that i would really love to see come about.

but until then... LOTR 4 L1F3!

competition

2007-01-14T12:55:00.000-08:00

We as fallen, human beings, are bred for competition. It is amazing what a little meaningless contest can do to a room of tired and bored first and second graders. I work with the children's ministry at The Woodlands United Methodist Church, and every Sunday I along with another intern and my boss baby sit a room full of elementary kids. We sing songs from this DVD and the kids are always semi into it, but whenever a contest between boys or girls or 1st and 2nd graders is mentioned, the room goes wild. It's great to hear them all singing and laughing and having a good time, but behind it, I also think about why they are singing so loud, and it is because they want to win. These kids are the same as all of us, we all want to win, and I'm just dang sick of it. We want a bigger church with more members than anyone else, we want to be the best. I want to just move away with a colony of losers to the south island of New Zealand and start a colony.

Anyone with me?

A Sonnet For 1302

2007-01-11T19:43:00.000-08:00

Our teacher assigned us to write a Shakespearean Sonnet because of the poetry were discussing in class. We had to write exactly 14 lines, with 10 syllables on each line. In the first twelve lines, we needed to describe a problem, introduce an issue, or pose a question. In the last two lines, we were instructed to resolve the proglem, make general comments or conclusions, or answer the question. A strict pattern for stressed and unstressed syllables and another pattern for end rhymes was issued. Here is my work:

Three men rise from the backseat of the van,

A sly, evil chuckle emits from each.

A crowbar, a knife, and gloves on each hand,

They are coming for me, I cannot screech.

These terrible men, seen more than one time,

Their deathly stare paralyzes my feet.

But my friend, always with more luck than mine,

Runs to safety, while I'm left in the seat

Still motionless, these figures creep closer,

Their ghastly, mobster image grows clearer.

One man directs like a composer,

Directs them to come, nearer and nearer.

Then really, nothing is what it has seemed,

The terror is but a dream, only a dream.

Wow Mom! A d50!

2006-12-25T15:44:00.000-08:00

yes, the big man has done it, Santa brought me a Nikon D50 digital SLR camera with a compass in the stock (it really doesnt have a compass, nor a stock, but I have been watching too much christmas story). It was a total surprise, so much that I started trembling when I caught sight of the Nikon Logo on the box for my lense. Anyway, im super excited about getting to know and use this camera.

I took a few pictures today, just playing around with some of the manual settings.
this is the box:
my dad when we were playing cards:

and my mom drinking some tea:

I hope everyone had such an exciting christmas like I did.

aye, it be nearin christmas day

2006-12-23T23:39:00.000-08:00

I was having a conversation with my parents when I realized how un-excited I was about christmas this year. I couldnt figure out why until my mother reminded me to tell her what I wanted to get from her, and thats when the answer came to me... Im not excited because Im not looking forward to getting some sort of amazing gift, because I couldnt think of anything to ask for. Its terrible to think about but, ive basically forgotten what I should be celebrating right now. I hope that maybe next year I will be exstatic right now, on the dawn of Christmas Eve, to celebrate the Messiah's Birthday.

Merry Christmas, ye fellow bloggers.

a little bit about anger

2006-12-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

A little incident that occured tonight reminded me of really how silly we can be when we are angry. How can a freindly board game turn into yelling at each other and leaving? It's hard to think of how we can ever acheive world peace if we get angry at each other over a stupid game. I have decided the main problem is our competitive human nature, because in all honesty, i really enjoy making people mad and winning on board games and any other thing. I don't know if it is because I know its just a game, or what, but for some reason I think its hilarious when things get heated up over a few points in a pop cranium game that doesn't matter five minutes later. Hopefully peace will come to the world soon, but before that can happen, I think we all need to learn that winning really isn't everything.

the nurturing ceases

2006-12-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

its strange to think about where i will be a year from now.

a good freind will be doing what i have not the courage to do, taking a journey into a sort of "middle earth heaven" and living for a year working in the absolute beauty and tranquility of Reykjavik, Iceland. For some time now i have wanted to just leave all of this behind and start a life somewhere on the south island of New Zealand. I havnt made any plans to do this because God has not shown me any sign that He wants me their, but im actually not sure if He has shown me a sign to be anywhere. my life in highschool and of care from my parents is ending in the next few months and i really cant wait to get out, but I just do not know where to go. my heart pulls me in both directions. it pulls me to a life in college and then a good job and family from there, but also to New Zealand and a life of simplicity and bliss.

I hope He will show me what to do soon.