I got a name

This last week got me thinking... Every first day of school, the professor calls out everybody's name to take roll, and there always seems to be that one person in the class who after hearing his or her name called, says, "please, call me ___ (some sort of nickname)." And it sometimes seemingly has no connection to their original name. So it got me to thinking, what if I, in this room full of strangers, just decided to start going by a different name. I wondered if I could pull it off and remember to respond when called upon. Could be a fun thing to try, and then if I liked it, maybe carry it out into other social circles of my life.

The name I would probably choose would be Jack. I have always liked that name, and always kind of wished it was my name. I was told I was almost named that but Shaun was eventually chosen over it. Not that I have anything against Shaun, it does have a nice meaning and all. its just that growing up, I never once knew of a Jack within a decades age of me, but always had five other Shauns, Seans, or Shawns, just within my group of friends, which definitely got kind of annoying. The sad thing about Jack, is that I recently heard it is currently on the top ten list worldwide for newborn boy names. Kind of takes the fun out of the name, but I like to think I started the trend with naming my dog Jack 11 years ago. Plus it is a bit of a family name as it was my Grandpa's name. Plus C.S. Lewis, my favorite author, when he was only a toddler and hardly able to talk, pointed at himself and said, "Me is Jack," and was henceforth called that the rest of his life. I'd also like to be able to consider myself a Jack of all trades someday, and know a little bit about everything. Plus it is just a simple, cool, old fashion name. So there are many reasons for my liking the name, and so I think from here on out, I declare, me is Jack.

Nah, I'm only kidding.

Be True to Your School

Well Summer is over. It was a rather busy and fun one which unfortunately made it go by way too fast. I really wish I could have just one or two weeks more of nothing, but too late. Now I am back to the life of always feeling like I should be doing something that I'm not. Here I am entering what should be my last full year of school. I haven't stopped this school routine in the last 18 years of my life, and I have come to realize I have a very big love/hate relationship with school. The things I hate about it are obvious: the stress, the deadlines, the commute, and the always having something I should be doing or reading instead of doing what I want and reading what I want. The things I love about it are that it kind of makes you feel intellectual to be going to school, the class discussions, the couple funny professors, the occasional learning of interesting things that are usually quickly forgot, and the challenge of being forced to think about things you wouldn't think about otherwise. The other thing I like about school is that even though you have no idea what to do with your life, you at least feel like you are accomplishing something with your life while you are in it. I can feel perfectly fine not having a real career because, well, I am in school. Sadly, I only have 1 more year of that feeling. Then I have to be a real grown up. Maybe thats why I stretched this whole thing out into 6 years.

So in about a year from now, I should have myself a bachelors degree in Communication/English, and a minor in Philosophy. So I guess that is supposed to tell people that I can think well and communicate those thoughts well in the English language, and maybe even write them down. I don't really feel all that competent in any of those categories, but hopefully I can convince someone otherwise. Thats all

Camping Next to Water

Got back from Junior High camp friday night, and never really going to any camps growing up, it was nice to experience the fun that they are. Plus being part of the staff included such luxuries as not really having any rules to follow, $12 tab at the snack shack, stay up as late as we like, take naps during free time, not sleeping in tents but a rather luxurious lodge, getting to go first in the food lines, and being part of the band allowed us to not have to wake up for the staff meetings (which I kind of feel like we should have gone to anyways, but oh well), as well as the luxury/awkward feeling of junior highers thinking you are rock stars or something and wanting your autograph. Luckily the junior high girls seemed to pay much more attention to Scott and Caleb who interestingly are the 2 taken guys in the group. The last day Caleb had to hurry out of the chapel to avoid any more crazy junior highers wanting his autograph and to shake his hand. I mostly just had to answer the question, "what is that little guitar thingy you play?" a million times. Its a mandolin everyone. Scott and Kate had to leave a day early, so leading worship the final morning was up to Chad and I along with a few new recruits. There were a few disastrous moments of us looking at each other wondering what the heck is going wrong with the song, but we made it through ok. I am very thankful that we weren't counselors as well cause if there is one thing I am not good at in life, its talking to and dealing with junior high aged kids. Maybe I could have used the learning experience.

I didn't get a chance to do the any of the fun camp things like the zip line, lake, floating down the river, or archery, but I did play lots of cards, and made a few new friends which is always nice. I was rather tired through most of the trip probably due to getting hardly any sleep the first night due to the heavy snorer in the room, but luckily I seemed to sleep ok the rest of the week. I even heard the suggestion of myself moving to Portland. Pastor Jim, the speaker of the week who is a Pastor in Portland, put it this way, "when did you say you were moving to Portland again?" All I could do was laugh and say, "you never know, maybe someday." It would be nice knowing I already have a small group of friends in the area as well as a really amazing church that does amazing things in its community, but I don't really see that as too big of a possibility in the very near future. Caleb told me its not really an option anyways, so all I can really say is, maybe someday. The message of the week was quite a challenging one that is probably deserving of a blog of its own.

It was weird but also kind of nice to not have cell phone reception for the week. Whenever I wondered where someone was, I couldn't just call them to find out, but had to go searching over the large camp. Haven't experienced that since I lived in England.

Now for a few small stories from the week:
It was fun to relive the old dormlike life and share a room with friends and sleep in bunk beds. Caleb and Chad however shared a big bed which is how this dialog came to be:
Chad- Caleb, I woke up last night and our knees were touching and intertwined
Caleb- so did you leave it or move?

That response just really got to me. Maybe you just had to be there.

Other notable one liners:

Scott- she stooled on my stool.

That has a story of its own to go with it, but you probably don't want to hear it.

And the story of the week was probably this:

First night there we have a big staff meeting to learn about everything and meet the other staff people.
As an introduction, we were to give our name, what our part is for the week, what church we are from, and as an ice breaker, the camp director Rich tells everyone to tell a story of your worst personal injury or worst injury personally witnessed. Scott immediately jokes to Caled and I and says we should make up stories of seeing our grandmas die to just really bum everyone out. So after going through a few people telling standard stories of broken legs and such, we get to this one special middle aged character. He starts off by saying, gosh, I've seen so many I don't really know which one to tell, but the one that really stands out, that still gives me nightmares to this day is... He then proceeds to tell this story. I probably don't use the same wording, but its something close to this.

My wife and I are in our car which is like a first aid kit on wheels, and we see this young kid (bout the same age as our campers) jumping off a ramp on his skateboard into the street. As he jumps, with his friend and girlfriend watching, this car comes out of nowhere and hits the kid. My wife and I jump out and call the paramedics. I go see how the kid is doing, and my wife goes to the friends to comfort them. So I try to help the kid, and as we are waiting for the paramedics, the kid dies in my arms. The end

The room is then silent and awed by this story until someone says, jeeze, nice question Rich. It was an awful story, but also almost hard not to laugh at the fact that guy would actually tell such a story to a room full of strangers.

So that was my last week. A rather fun time indeed.

One year to the day

This Day in History
On August 3

1492	Christopher Columbus left Spain with three ships. The voyage would lead him to what is now known as the Americas.
1914	Germany declared war on France. The next day, World War I began when Britain declared war on Germany.
1923	Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the U.S. after the sudden death of President Harding.
1933	The Mickey Mouse Watch was introduced for the price of $2.75.
1936	Jesse Owens won the first of his four Olympic gold medals.
1943	Gen. George S. Patton verbally abused and slapped a private. Later, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered him to apologize for the incident.
1949	The National Basketball Association was formed. The league was formed by the merger between the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League.
1956	Bedloe's Island had its name changed to Liberty Island.
1966	Lenny Bruce overdosed on morphine at the age of 40.
1984	Mary Lou Retton won a gold medal at the Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
1992	The U.S. Senate voted to restrict, and eventually end the testing of nuclear weapons.
1995	Eyad Ismoil was flown from Jordan to the U.S. to face charges that he had driven the van that blew up in New York's World Trade Center. 2007- Shaun moved to Idaho Yep, been here a full year to the day now. Still is weird to me to think that I actually live in Idaho. Who could have ever guessed it. People still look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them I moved here from Huntington Beach California, but its been a pretty good year. And now we start the 2nd.