Cody

This last month has been odd for me… Not to say that there haven’t been very good things about this month, but it has still been odd. First off it has been a little over a month now that I’ve been talking about going on this “bike trip.” The whole bike trip in itself is an odd deal… It all started with one day me feeling an overwhelming sense of “what in the heck am I doing in this world, or with my life?” Which then immediately lead to me asking that very question to God. Conventional wisdom from people like my dad has been pushing me towards “hey just get a job at McDonalds go to school for a while, learn a trade and make a good living” where as something inside me has been poking back with “hold strong, keep running your business and when the time comes that you need it, the money will be there.” Ok, so I’ve been holding strong, I’ve been building my business… or at least trying. I’ve spent countless hours, and small fortunes in establishing myself… and guess what I’ve got to show for it…. nothing… I can count the number of orders that have been placed on my website on a single hand, heck I don’t think I really even need half a hand to count all the orders. After a while conventional wisdom begins to creap in… these seeds sown by my father and some others about what I’m doing being irresponsible, lazy, and worthless start to flower. So that night in a rather depressed state I asked very directly for God to show me in a physical way which path I should take, and in fact I gave God almost 2 weeks to answer. Less than 6 hours later I had it… and it was exactly what I had asked for showing me to stay the course and continue doing things the way I am…

Where does the whole bike trip fit in though? That’s an odd one as well. When I asked God to show me some sort of sign as to what I needed to be doing with my life I lumped together staying at home and running my business with a minimum 500 mile bicycle trip across Missouri… why? uh… I don’t know. It’s actually been something that I’ve wanted to do for some time, but I wanted to do it on the Katy trail the whole way… I didn’t want to start from my house, ride to the Katy trail, ride the Katy trail, and come home the same way…. that’s insane! But for some reason that’s what I said for this one. The original plan was to leave the Sunday after the Leadership Summit, upon telling Jordan about the plans he said that he would love to come as well if I gave him a little more time…. What he needed was to get another paycheck from Reece and Nichols which required that he made a couple of websites. I offered to completely design and build the websites for him along with optimize them and do everything necessary for him to get paid… he agreed and it never went anywhere… All I needed was FTP access and the sites hosted, and it never happened. Tired of waiting I decided to just go alone again. One of the big reasons why I even agreed or wanted Jordan to go with me is because one of the themes at the Leadership Summit was that of not fighting this fight alone… being that Jordan has always been one of my closest companions I really think that we work well together… what I fail at he succeeds, and vis versa.  So it only made sense that this discovery journey I was taking before leaping out to follow God’s direction of sticking it out with my own little business would be taken with someone that I work so well with.  Never the less I couldn’t wait any longer for this so I was to set out alone again.  Within a matter of days I get a call from Jordan asking if I was still planning on going, and he said he could go… He had gotten fired from his job for putting family and this “church thing” above his job (he was working for our Uncle Guy and he’s a little crazy).  This was great news!  I wasn’t going to have to go alone, and we could have a great devotional time as we traveled across Missouri on bike.  Now Jordan has gone and signed up for a Quintiles study so once again I will be going alone.  The odd thing is that I was to leave last week… however God in his infinite wisdom plagued me with customers on my website (here’s a site that has been dormant for some time all of a sudden gets tons of customers right when I want to head out).

As I understand it from several events that have occurred what God wants to teach me is to trust him completely, and with no strings attached, and that it isn’t good to go alone.  The second part has been made even more clear with Jesse coming into my life.  I think one of the common topics that always comes up is how we’re both “willing to walk alone until God brings someone else, if he brings someone else to walk with us.”  maybe not word for word that, but it often comes up… ironically just about everything that we’ve talked about along those lines the other of us could be that person.  When it comes to trusting God he has been so amazing this last month with finances that there is no way I couldn’t trust him in that respect.  Every time I’ve looked at my checking account and said “woops… I forgot about that one” there is a random purchase on my website that fills in the gap just about to the dollar.  I’ve come to grips with the fact that I’m never going to have an over abundance of money in my life, and that’s fine.  I’m also slowly coming to grips with the fact that there probably won’t be a spare dollar until the very moment I need it… So the question is if I’ve already learned these lessons why am I still going?  Besides the fact that it is something that I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years now… I made a promise that if God gave me the sign to stick it out and run my business I would take some time off to unrestrictedly follow Him and spend time in his word… I think it’s more about the promise I made to God now than anything… Don’t get me wrong the idea of being out far away from all the distractions that keep me from reading His word as often as I should is great… but the idea of going without “proper supplies” and some sort of emergency food source scares the crap out of me.  God has been very generous to me lately so I’ve got spare money to stop and eat along the way… the problem is on some of the routes before I make it to the Katy Trail there are spurts of 50 - 60 miles between towns… That’s a long way to go before being able to stop for… well anything!  So maybe there is still a lot of room for me to grow in the trust area with God… The biggest thing I’m struggling with now is that the whole trip has just become my stubborn pride pushing me to still go when I really shouldn’t.  I’m afraid that if it is my pride that is taking me on the trip now that… well it’s going to sound silly… but I’m afraid that God won’t take care of me because it’s not what he wants… of course it is a ridiculous notion… I think I’m going to just have to grin my teeth, close my eyes, take a deep breath and leap out to watch what amazing things God does.

So have I ever told you guys that I love making lists?  Because it’s true I do.  Well as a fun little “hey I’ve been forced to wait a while in taking my bike trip why not use the money I have now to actually get something for the trip” I’ve spent quite a bit of time this last week digging through survival sites, and the like finding necessary equipment for the trip.   I managed to get a killer list together including 30 day food supply, GPS, shelter, endless water supply, portable recharging station for my AA batteries used for GPS, lights on bike, digital camera, etc.  I had it all planned out to a T!  Seriously I had about $15k worth of supplies on a $700 budget simply because I planned everything to coincide and work together perfectly so that with a little creativity every item served at least 5 purposes and could be combined with other items to go even further… Everything was made for longevity, flexibility, and integration… it was an amazing list of supplies and truly could have supported me on this bike ride nearly indefinitely.

So where does the fail come in?  Well, as it turns out behind Zona Rosa they are doing some construction, building some new buildings and… well… they built me a playground in the process.

Sorry bout the poor picture quality stupid 2 megapixel camera phone.  I was ridding along and saw the big dirt mount… and well… couldn’t resist.  I’ve been ridding for a long time, and do a lot of extensive off-road ridding.   So I know how to ride in order that I take my fair share of any bumps or impacts but also allow the bike to absorb shock where it is designed to… Obviously ridding out here I am standing most of the time to keep weight off of the seat.  After going down one of the large hills I sat down kind of resting ridding up to the next… but something was different.  Somehow my seat got moved or something because it definitely did not feel right.  I decided play time was over and that I should head home.  After getting home I realized that I had broken my seat, one of the support posts was bent/twisted… Did I tell you earlier that I had planned my trip down to the dime?  And that everything I was going to be getting pretty much is only useful if all the other components are available because they all integrate with each other?  Well it’s true, I did, and even this little hickup of needing to fork out $50 for a new seat is enough to throw the entire plan out the window… well funny thing is I never quit ridding.  I’ve gone out a couple more times since I broke my seat… just rest less
Coming home from Downtown Parkville this last trip I was noticing that my chain keeps slipping more and more… never a good sign, but the chain is 5 years old so what the heck my budget has been thrown out the window anyways.  When I got home and looked everything over there was something interesting about the chain… it’s fine… As it turns out the slipping, and also loud clicking I’ve been hearing is because my Cassette is worn out.  (if you don’t know what the cassette on a bike is it’s the large set of gears on the back tire)  When you stand to ride your bike it puts a lot of pressure on your chain, and in turn your cassette, which also has the chain moving back and forth to different gear sets.  Well after 5 years my Cassette is starting to wear out (pretty common).  Just that the last couple of days me keeping a consistent 150 pounds of pressure on it even when changing gears has just about done it in.  Alright… fine… fun part is when pricing a new cassette I ran into all kinds of fun little things.  My bike is a 24 speed bike, which means the rear cassette has 8 sprockets on it… nobody makes 8 sprocket cassettes anymore.  They’ve all gone in favor of the closer spaced sprockets and less jump for the chain on 9 sprocket cassettes.  Funny thing is that in going from 8 to 9 sprockets I’ve got to change over my entire gearing system.  On oldschool bikes you had the little lever that you pushed or pulled and kind of listened or turned back and looked to change your gears.  Newer bikes, especially high end ones don’t do that anymore.  Everything is done by the push of a button, you push a button to go up in gears, you pull another go go back down… problem is this system must be made specifically for what you’ve got… in moving from 8 to 9 sprockets you not only must change out the cassette you have to change out the shifters as well…  In short in order to fix my bike properly (new tires, gears and mechanics, shocks rebuilt, and new seat) it’s going to run me in the range of $700 almost to the dollar…

In short God has said, “I thought I told you to go out on this trip with nothing… so why are you planning all these other things?”

<disclaimer> Warning, reading this entry may cause loss of attention, dyslexia, or other more serious syndromes commonly associated to rants by Kodie that have no moral, point, or concluding thought… in fact I’m not sure if this one even has a common theme.  You have been forewarned. </disclaimer>

Every man’s art

“A man can be an artist at anything. It just depends upon how good he is at it. Creasy’s art is death, and he’s about to paint his masterpiece, just stay out of his way.” I absolutely love that line…. It’s so true though isn’t it?  I could sit here and give you some word perfect definition of what an artist is, but what’s the point?  Who could really define an artist anyways?  If there ever was an artist I most certainly am one and most certainly could not define for you what one is.  Art is not solely based upon how good someone is at something, as Creasy’s friend put it in the movie Man on Fire (which by the way is an awesome movie).  No art goes much deeper than just some measurable value of how “good” someone is at something… of course that is a big factor, but art has a much deeper emotional, almost spiritual aspect to it.  Which is in part why it is so hard to define what an artist is.  There has to be an attitude about it as well.  Creasy most definitely was an artist… an artist of death at that too.  How would you like for that to be the way you are remembered?  That would be freaking awesome!  To be known as the guy who was so good at death, yes death that single handedly sent a shock wave through the community of criminals in Latin America.  When I die I don’t care how much money I’ve made throughout my life, or care what my accomplishments were… I just want the words on my gravestone “He made an impact” don’t even put my name just that line, but only if it is true.

A circle of job security

Most of you guys know that I’ve been working for  Viacom as of late… which at first I did something, and actually helped them to make a couple of websites not only more secure, but more fun for the participants.  In fact I deserved every penny that I earned if not more because they surely made it back in advertising cost.  However my job with them has simply become what my cousin described as a circle of job security.  My job any more is to give third party “expert” reports that give another guy a job to present these reports to a board of directors and eventually gives another guy a job to do programming on the websites… the programmers however are making sure to keep their jobs by purposely not taking all of my suggestions or ignoring them on later website projects so that I might review that website give the SAME kinds of report and begin the cycle all over again.  Things aren’t all bad with it since this circle has reached a major apex it looks like I’ll have some money to pursue some of my passions, which leads into my next section (since I do make more money than both my parents when I’m working full time).

Forging a passion

When I say that I’ve got a lot of money from this cycle of job security I really do mean it.  There is a lot on the list of what needs to be done with the money however… being that I might be moving out here shortly means we need monies for rent, food, etc.  There has been another option presented though, if my mom marries Scott which has been a serious discussion here lately then they’re looking at moving into Scott’s place and I’ll be taking over the house (including the house payment).  So I’ve got to keep a good reserve of cash for numerous reasons of those being that this cycle can’t last forever, someone is bound to either catch on, or the new sites will end eventually.  Although I need a cash backup there are a few things that are on the list of being purchased one major thing is some stainless steel rings for Xandra (yes Tiana Xandra will be finished but since I can no longer find the black I’m going to have to go with a purty stainless steel option instead, which isn’t too much of a heart wrench since the blackened mild steel is dirty, and it must be oiled to keep from rusting so wearing it is just bad.).  The other thing that crossed my mind with the expendable funds was to get a sword *insert ominous smile here* Now there’s a few things that go into me wanting a sword… first off it must be from a time period that I know a good deal about and has to be something that fits my fighting style.  For me the most obvious choice was a Katana they fast moving single/two handed slashing swords, which is a great fit for the way I like to fight with a sword.  The problem with Katana’s is that I don’t really want to cut into my cash reserve and spend over $800 on a sword… and in fact would like to spend less, but I know that with swords you don’t really get less than $800 and being an artist who does not compromise on the price of my jewelry I understand and would never be so rude as to ask them to go lower.  Mediocre Katana’s start at $1,200 and go up to $1,700 for one that you can actually go out and play with… which was another huge requirement for me, I need to be able to use whatever sword I get… I don’t do SLO’s (Sword Like Objects) a big reason why I don’t own any of the swords from the LOTR movies because they’re just not swords they’re 100% overpriced SLO’s and couldn’t be used for a sword if you wanted.  I then started looking for European swords, especially either Celtic, or Roman short swords (the Celts invented the sword style used by the Romans and the Romans improved upon it with brutal efficiency and made it the most feared weapon of it’s day).  In this search I found a company by the name of Generation 2 which is based in the Philippines and makes great functional swords of high quality steel.  They make swords in the sub $300 range that will hold up to a lot of punishment with a quality constructed hilt (often the hilt is the weakest point in any sword no matter how good it is made).  The problem with Gen2 is that they make UGLY swords.  No kidding, all of their swords come with a mirror finished blade, and often black VERY shinny accent pieces.  They’re also often times a little heavier than swords of the time period as well… which I’ve heard they’ve improved upon.  All of this kept bringing me back to a company that I’ve lusted for one of their swords for a long time Albion.  If you know anything about swords you know Albion, and in turn brings us back to art.  Albion has made sword making into an art, and they are unmatched in beauty, historical accuracy, and quality of construction.  There are two styles of sword that I would go with either a Roman short sword, or an Oakeshott XII I could go with an Oakeshott XV possibly… but XII is really where I like to stay because they still retain their slashing ability.  The further up the Oakeshott scale you go the closer to a rapier you get and to be honest yes, most the time when I go to kill you I’m going to stab you, but I want to be able to cut your heard off when the mood strikes… and lets be honest you’re not going to cut someones head off with a rapier, I mean you could if you sat and sawed on it for a while… but that’s getting into the realm of sadistic.  That’s why I like the Oakeshott XII it’s not like the Oakeshott X where it’s like the viking swords and really just a big metal club… type X’s are clumbsy and you really need to keep them in motion and just crush your enemy with the first couple of blows… which is fine for people like Chris who like to fight like that, but for me I want a nimble sword that I can also stab with.

After weeks of invested time into “where should I get a sword from” and “is it really worth it to pay double the money for an Albion when I could get a sturdy sword for less?” another solution came to mind.  One that is not new either and that is “Buildeth me an army worthy of Mordor.”  oh wait… NO!  that’s not the thought that came to mind… jeez, what’s wrong with you, get out of my head, you are hence forth banned from taking over my body to type your random movie quotes.  Begone demon!  The thought that actually crossed my mind was to build my own forge and make my own swords :-D  Problem here is that it’s a good 3 years down the road before I start pulling out quality stuff and probably 4 before I can really make swords… I can do blacksmithing here pretty easily, but need more equipment for full fledged swords.  What I was going to do was get a cast iron anvil from this tool company that I buy a lot of cheap crap from, build my own forge, and build a small concrete covered patio section in my back yard since I’ll be taking over responsibility of the house here pretty soon anyways.  Problem is that everyone I’ve talked to online or read articles about beginning blacksmithing says absolutely do not get a cast iron anvil… which is fine, a quality Peddinghaus (<– the best) anvil will only cost me $600 shipped.  Problem with that is after paying that then I don’t have the money to build a shelter area… which kind of ruins the whole forge idea… so unless the cycle of job security continues then I think I’m just going to get an Albion… which may make me sad in the long run that I can’t make my own… but if I got a Peddinghaus and had nowhere to work at then I’d be just as sad…

Moral

Moral of the story is “Don’t be like me. Don’t you be like me!” *shakes dog* for those of you who have seen As Good as it Gets and could relate to the movie as much as me
Oh, and I really wanted to put a bit in at the top about how even in Creasy’s sin God still used him as an instrument of his wrath.  In the Bible God say’s “Judgment and vengeance is mine”   But sometimes God uses men to play out his vengeance.  Much like Samson who pulled down a temple to pagan gods onto himself destroying many evil people in the process Creasy pulled down a temple of corrupt money driven men onto himself destroying the hostage machine in Mexico City, and sent fear though all those in Latin America doing the same things.  Just like Samson it was Creasy’s sin that got him in the situation he was, but once there God used him as a mighty weapon to pour out judgment upon an evil peoples.

My pastor likes to say all the time that we need to watch what we do for the sake of everyone around us.  Especially if we claim Christ openly because we are an image of Christ whether we like it or not as Christians.  Sometimes you may be the only image of Christ that someone ever sees… that’s a tough one to swallow… there have been so many times where people know that I claim Christ and know that I pretend to be a Christian and are around for my… well not finest hours lets put it that way.

There was one time that to my everlasting shame I took the image of Christ and drug it through the mud and hung it up for so many to see.  This isn’t a story that I tell often… and most definitely don’t tell it in it’s entirety when I do… I’m about to do both.  Four and a half years ago I had a girlfriend… I know, hard to believe, but it’s true.  Once upon a time I did have a girlfriend… with whom I made the foolish decision to lose my virginity to… but that’s not what the story is about, that’s only where the story begins.   The girl I was dating is a professed Atheist which uh… makes things awkward anyways… but I gladly smeared the image of Christ for a moment of pleasure.  Although, this still is not what the story is about, it’s only the beginning.  The good thing is that this person is still a very close friend of mine, and I’ve been able to hold up to every promise I’ve ever made her, and in that I’ve been able to redeem much of what was lost.   Instead this story is about what happened nearly a year later over winter break.  I hadn’t really dated anyone since what happened… and still haven’t for lack of trust in myself.  But there have been a good deal of people that I’ve liked over that time, one of which being a girl named Tatum.  She was a couple years younger than me, but rode the same bus as me from school, and was so cute.  She was friends with some of the same people as me like Phil whom I love dearly.  I could tell that she came from a home that was filled with strife, which was so much more of a problem for me because I have a weakness for hurting people… The protector in me rises up to get close to hurting people in any way possible to single handedly save them.  I knew I couldn’t really date Tatum, not only from the illegal aspect, but because we had separate sets of morals… but I still enjoyed talking and flirting with her doing what I could to understand and in any way possible help her.  One day 3 1/2 years ago over winter break she called me and asked me to come over to her house… I knew what she wanted, but I didn’t really care.  When I got there we sat around and talked for a few hours before her younger brother went over to a friends house.   Knowing last year I came to school in a skirt and blouse for my birthday and knowing my birthday was coming up she suggested that I do it again, and she had a dress that would be hilarious if I wore it.  Shortly after she coerced me into trying it on (ok, so it didn’t take any real coercion).  When I was taking it off again she approached me and put her arms around my neck to kiss me.  Without getting into too much detail we ended up having sex before I went home.  The next week we went back to school, the time in between I wasn’t able to get in contact with her.  After finding out from Phil that a few days after I had visited Tatum at her house she started dating another guy.  The news emptied my spirit for the knowledge that I’d never be able to regain any kind of good image was all too present.  In a single act of foolishness I managed to burn the image of Christ in front of a broken and hurting girl, as well as a lost young man my good friend Phil, as well as completely reinforced a wretched idea to her younger brother.  You see later that week on Sunday I went to youth group which I hadn’t been to in a matter of months because of some stubborn and selfish differences I had with Otis.  When I walked into the church I saw a familiar face… Tatum’s younger brother was there to see my hypocrisies in all its glory.  Of all the days I choose to come back, of all the churches in the area, him and his friends come to a tiny little church of less than 300 people off out of the way of everything in the area hidden back in an inconspicuous residential neighborhood… I’ve never been so disgraced and ashamed of a decision.  I would still give whatever it takes to protect Tatum, and many other people, unfortunately because of my folly that’s not an option.

Ok Cody thanks for the trip down shadowed memory lane… where is this coming from?  Well I was on Myspace today as I tend to do from time to time.  And I got a friend invite from a gorgeous model… I know, I was thinking the same thing.  But I always check profiles just in case so that I’m not making people as spam who are real people, because that’s just rude.  As it turns out it was a real person… but obviously way out of my league so I was going to mark as deny anyways… until I spotted a verse from Proverbs on the page.  I was so excited to see a Christian model that I accepted the invitation… only to be disappointed by the portfolio of said model.  I think as Christians we need to be more aware of the image we are portraying in everything we do… even if we’re just trying to pay the bills, sometimes you’ve got to draw a line.   I’m pretty good at putting up a show in the public forum about how Godly I am… but definitely need to check myself more often how authentic that bull crap facade really is.

I’ve spent the last three days waking up painfully early to attend what could easily be described as the most inspirational event I’ve ever attended.  The Leadership Summit hosted by Chicago’s Willow Creek Association, was simply amazing… but there was one thing that from the time I walked into the building to the moment I left for the last time on Saturday bothered me intensely.  Here I am sitting with the leaders of our church and many other churches listening to some of the strongest leaders of our time and I look around to see less than 10% of the room filled with young minds.  Here we’ve been given the privilege to hear from Jimmy Carter, Collin Powell, Marcus Buckingham, Bill Hybels and a plethora of other strong and influential leaders… and you’re telling me that the youth of America doesn’t want the opportunity to learn from these men?  I have a problem with this picture… the room was filled with older people, both those in their 40’s and in the prime of their leadership, and those on their way out you might say… but why so few to represent the generations to come?  One word comes to mind to consider this and that is frightening…

Ok, so I have to be honest with you guys. St. Louis wasn’t, and isn’t my ideal stop… now a few years ago it might of been, but for right now I think I want to go further. The idea is currently Chicago, a light 560 mile jog across Missouri then Illinois… afterwards say maybe New York… or Montana? haha I don’t know, I’d kind of like to make it to Chicago just to attend a service at Willow Creek… that’d be cool. What would be even more cool is if they let me get up and speak when I arrive at Willow Creek as my daydreams have been pushing towards…. uh… or maybe that’s just the 72 hour mark pushing up fast.

Let me explain that one too. One of many scenarios taking place in order to prepare myself for this leap of faith is that I am spending the week fasting. I considered doing something similar to what J.R. and Craig did and fasting on my trip… but being that I will be on bike the whole time it didn’t seem like so much of a legitimate idea, I really wonder how long I would last with that one. The point is that every time I feel hungry, or just want to eat out of boredom I take that time and spend it with God in prayer, His Word, one of my Nooma video’s, a Bible study… something, anything that draws me closer to God. Coming from someone who generally eats 8 meals a day just because I like cooking, and it relieves boredom… I spend a lot more time with God, and I never really knew how much time I’ve wasted hiding from God’s word and doing anything else to quench my eternal boredom… and just how dissatisfying those things that I’ve run to for so long really are.

I will be waiting for a lot longer than I really want before heading out… maybe. Thing is I just recently got a five day job from MTV which will give me every penny I need to make this trip… but I don’t want to wait the four, five, six, however long they feel like waiting to pay me that they usually do… not to mention Winter is coming up fast (Yes, I do plan on spending a good 3 months out on my bike I will just head south when Winter approaches, unfortunately all my trips that I feel compelled to make right now are all very much so North). So dependent upon how bold I feel this Sunday I might take off right after church… Under normal circumstances I would wait a week to catch back up on some of the calories I’ve lost with fasting… but dude I’ve waited long enough, I need to go and I need to go soon. Not to mention if I leave before I get the check not only will I leave weakened further from my current weak human form… but I won’t have any money so I will be leaving without a tent, or well… anything other than my backpack and whatever clothes I can stuff in. I’m sure that Scott would take me shopping for whatever I need to go, but I feel bad having him pay for it… though… I’ve almost come to grips with the fact that God has no problem with leaving me dirt poor and me just blindly leaping out every time He says jump and there always is someone to catch me… so maybe on my trip I will run across many friendly faces that allow me to stay at their homes and eat their food. I’ve always believed very strongly in the saying go hardcore or go home, so leap, or wait for for bodily flesh to be ready? Leaning towards leaping right now. The check from MTV will arrive sometime while I’m gone, at which point I can have my mom deposit it into my bank account and I’ll just use my debit card while out.

I am still requesting prayer, both now and throughout the trip, I don’t know where I am going, I don’t know why I’m going…. but God said go, so I shall go and discover his path growing ever brighter to the full light of day as the dawn reveals every morning.

Oh, and I finally have had time to sit down with my mom on several occasions as to why I am taking the trip, the dreams, and everything leading up to the idea… and I must say it’s good to have a mother that is so supportive and loving.  My mommy is the best…

Ok, so I most definitely can’t leave before the leadership summit… Mostly because I’ve got a court date the day before for the car accident so to avoid going to jail when I come home I think I’ll stick around for that. Secondly because for the last 2 years I’ve been wanting to go to the Leadership Summit just never quite got to go. Then we’ve got Angie’s kids coming home for a little while that I might be babysitting… don’t know for sure and hopefully they only stay for a week or two since school will be starting at some point in time. I mean don’t get me wrong I love Zach and Chance can be pretty cool even though he can annoy the crap out of me since he doesn’t listen to ANYTHING! So I have to beat chance up from time to time…. If Angie doesn’t get back to me I’m leaving the Sunday after the leadership summit, if she does, I’ll head out when they go back to California…

The idea is to ride to St. Louis and back. 500 miles round trip. 120 miles to the Katy trail which I suspect will take me two days to get to, then the ride on the Katy trail is a lot longer, but it is 100% flat so I can probably do it in two days also I’ll probably have to take one day to just sit around at a camp site and rest… if I can bring myself to resting, not very good at that. Total planned round trip time 6 days accounting for stops, slowdowns, and the unexpected. I still need to get to the Katy trail ASAP since I don’t really know where I will be sleeping until then. Plenty of camp sites scattered along the trail, but unless I find some random peoples house to invade it will be tough till I get there.

That’s about it with the plan…. I really don’t have much of a plan, I was all happy and celebrating that the order was enough to get a little tent with… uh… that is until I got charged too much for the bracelet because the FedEx guy at the store sent it second day and not two day, and I got my yearly SSL charge my site… so…. here I am again with no money and leaving for a week long trip where I’ll have no shelter, no food, and who knows how I’m truly going to make it.  I really can’t see any reason why my mom is apposed to the whole trip

Ok, so… I’ve got to go. uh… maybe I should explain myself a little bit. I’ve been having this weird series of dreams lately, and I’m not sure what they mean. In fact the worst part about them all is that they’re not dreams at all… You see night one I have one of those dreams that you’re not sure if you’re asleep or awake and it’s even so bad that you don’t even know when the line was crossed from the dream world to the real world. As the dream starts out I was sitting up in my bed (not something I do often being I sleep on the top bunk of a bunk bed and the ceiling fan is right above me) staring at my closet for what seemed hours when all of a sudden this black… almost cloud or liquid begins moving from one end of the closet to the other infecting everything it touched as it crept slowly and ominously into my room. Armed with nothing else I picked up my pillow and chucked it at the black cloud scattering hangers everywhere and cutting the vial creature like darkness in half. Separated from its source the cloud began to wither with a moan. What seemed to be a few minutes later I then went to the rest room, got in bed and laid down without thinking when my head landed with a thud on a barren surface. I looked around everywhere for my pillow clearly remembering the dream, but so sure that it was a dream that I didn’t bother looking in the closet… but when I did I found my pillow and hangars scattered about.

On night two the dream was rather unpronounced and in fact I don’t remember much about it until I was conscious… or… well halfway conscious anyways. What I do remember however is waking up in a cold sweat, and instead of just pushing my blankets to the side I very meticulously rolled them up into this perfect ball, carried them out of my room and placed them in the hall. Then came back in and went to sleep…. an odd situation since I never sleep without a blanket even if it is 105° F outside, and really can’t stand being without something to hold onto.  I woke up a while later cold and rather confused… after looking around for my blankets for a little while I remembered the events of the night before and not wanting to venture out into the hall this early yet I just grabbed one of my spare blankets from beside my bed and pulled it around me… I soon came to my senses and decided that others would think it odd if they woke up and saw my blankets in this perfect pile in the hallway so I got up and gathered them.

Night three I went to bed with several questions for myself and life.  I’ve never been one to live the “stable” life so much.  Never had a girlfriend for more than 3 months, never had a job for more than 5 months, and I jump around from task to task all day long at home.  I posed myself with this question after going out to eat with Scott, mommy, and Brittney.  The restaurant we were at was somewhere I knew several people worked during high school I was rather shocked to find them still there… obviously a fun and just good place in general to work… or was it just me?  You see it’s not like I’ve not had good jobs, I was talking with a bunch of my friends the other day who all work 40+ hours a week and live on their own.  They were all talking about how they were looking forward to some good promotions and stuff so that they would be making a little more than the $300 a week they currently are making.  In all honesty I was floored by what they were making… Jobs where I just kind of sort of reluctantly took the job because I have bills to pay and needed something to do for a little while I was making in upwards of $500 a week, and I left those jobs either out of boredom or because I wasn’t getting paid enough to be doing what I was doing… and here these people are happy to be making what I would of laughed at someone who said I’d be making that even at 16.  Kind of funny even when working at Lifetouch everybody was kind of talking about how they were all getting paid different amounts and nobody really knew why Zack asks me what I’m making and I not knowing what they were making just simply said $10.90/hr he looks at me kind of funny and says something like “Dude I’m not talking to you anymore.” not really knowing what was going on I asked the other guy who said that I was making about $1.50 more per hour than both of them.  It’s not like I have some great track record with businesses or anything, I’m a horrible employee and I’ll admit it… I pack up and leave whenever I darn well feel like it without much or any warning at all.  So that night I went over how school never really was my “thing” nor was working for “the man” and I definitely cannot stay stationary for very long.  I was thinking about this thing Scott had said about how when he was a kid him and some friends went on a bike ride across Missouri to Arkansas for a fishing trip, so I was thinking that I should totally just get on my bike and head out… no real destination, no money, and not a clue what I’m supposed to do, it just sounded fun.  I’m at that point right now where the money is gone…. like seriously GONE gone and I have to get a job or something to survive… but nothing seems right and I’ve kind of been feeling God tugging at my heart saying “go” so somewhat joking around I thinking “yeah, I should go, pack up all my jewelry stuff and just ride… somewhere, setting up shop at all the Starbucks I come across to make stuff and sales will come magically so I can afford to continue on” Anyways that night I had another dream, that I woke up to.  What I remember about the dream is that I was standing on an old dirt road that didn’t make sense, staring at a bridge that was destroyed that also did not make sense seeing as there was nothing but prairie land and only a small stream, with no road connecting the bridge.  The bridge was broken, tattered, and flaming, but managed to mend itself with the coblestones below that had fallen into the stream during its destruction… only thing is that the bridge was still burning with flames high enough to keep it’s occupants from their destination… at this point I woke up.  Knowing that I need to make a move soon I asked God to give me some sort of sign that I should be heading out.  What did I ask for?  Either a random sale of jewelry that couldn’t really be explained, or a mended bridge… sales meaning I’m heading out on my bike to… uh… well who knows but I’m going.  Bridge meaning that I need to stay and just work a job quit running based on feeling and just buckle down for a while.  Guess what I woke up to this morning, I’ll give you one guess.

So I opened up my email this morning, still half asleep as the spam messages pile in I see this one email that just says #4 in the subject line, but it wasn’t caught by my spam filter… slightly aggravated at the performance of the spam filter lately I go to mark it as spam so that I can go through all the legit emails when I realized that the email was from myself… I went ahead and opened it to find out that it was order number four on my site (I had done two test orders on the site to make sure everything was working good, then Brenna’s parents ordered her a bracelet).  So needless to say this was an unexpected and unexplainable order that I had been looking for.  Oh, and I had said that it would need to be within the next two weeks since I wasn’t going to head out before the Leadership Summit and God gets back to me within 24hrs

My mom has been seeing this guy for two weeks now… or so maybe three, but anyways she asks me how I like him.  Obviously having three kids it is just as important that we like him as it is that she does… or well that I like him as she does since Brittney isn’t going to like anyone who takes attention away from her, and Brook is never home so it doesn’t really matter.  To be honest I really do like the guy a lot.  He has a good job and makes great money, but remains very down to earth and isn’t one of those strict neat freaks that you see with most people with the same job positions.

Anyways… on to the point of the story.  You might remember that I had an article on here a while ago about wanting a ridding partner, then went on to explain more what I was really asking for with that.  Well I never did ride the Katy trail, would be fun and I’d love to do it sometime, but getting out on my own is majorly no fun, and trying to convince someone else that ridding bikes for 4 days on a 300 mile trip would be awesome is difficult to say the least.   Funny thing is Scott (My mom’s boyfriend that isn’t really her boyfriend because we’re definitely not in 6th grade anymore and there is no such thing as a good adult boyfriend… every time any of my friends referred to their parents boyfriend/girlfriend it was not in a pleasant tone.)  rides his bike all the time and was talking about this area by him where they are doing construction and the land is all torn up, how much fun it would be to go out there when it is raining and have fun getting a little muddy.

yeah… so there wasn’t really a point to this one… I was just sharing

Only the weak shall survive the race.

I was thinking about Lord of the Rings the other day and kind of reflecting about how it all ends.  Had it not been for the frailty of those in the cave the ring would never have been destroyed.   In the end we find that even though between Frodo and Sam the strength was found to get the ring all the way to get to Mount Doom none had the strength to actually cast the ring into the fires and destroy it.  It is only when we realize that we do not have the strength that we can step out of the way long enough to allow the work God has planned for us to be accomplished.  Even though most of us will never be standing in a volcanic mountain with the choice before us to destroy the worlds evil once and for all or hold onto what has become precious to us, we are all daily faced with struggles that would destroy anything less than the strength of our God.  Unfortunately if you’re anything like me you like to look back and reflect upon such events and take the credit for being so strong.

I don’t really have any “point” to this story… I was just saying.  I’ve got in my drafts a blog entry that could have been spun off of this in the middle that actually does have a point, but I’ll just post it later.