these jams is teajams!

i'm still alive!

holy air force, batman! so, i've been at officer training school for a little over three weeks now and it feels like i've been here for three years. i wake up at five every day and go go go until about ten thirty or eleven and do it again the next day. in a couple weeks my class should be receiving privileges that will afford me more time, but for now, i am still alive, so don't bail on me!

my first couple days were really hard, but i'm gettin' the hang of it and every day goes by quicker than the last. i got to qualify on an m-9 today! that was awesome even though i didn't do super well. we shot forty-five rounds and of those forty-five i hit the circle in the chest area twelve times, the smaller circle in the head area twice, twenty-eight hit other spots on the target and five didn't hit at all. Eh, whatchya gonna do, right? i did qualify (at least 35 hits on the target) but i didn't make expert. anywho, i'll hit y'all up later.

peace!

October 8, 2009
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fal de ral de ral do.

watch this video! this is a band (can you call them that? they sample most everything they do...) called lemonjelly and this song makes me really happy, so i hope this does the same thing for you.

i have a point with that (sort of)...so remember it.

the other day john and i went to a place nearby his apartment and jumped off a cliff (it was about a forty or fifty foot cliff) into some extremely deep water. we sat at the top of the cliff for about thirty minutes, watching the sun go down and acting like a couple scared, pre-pubescent girls.

about every five minutes we'd wonder aloud why we were punking out so easily. last year we took a road trip for about three weeks. one of the places we experienced was page, arizona, where we jumped off what was easily an eighty foot cliff. there was no reason why we should have been so scared, but we were.

did i mention that we threw our flip flops into the lake before we jumped? did i mention the sun was going down quickly? do you know how hard it is to see flip flops floating on the water when it's dark?

we had very little time (maybe another fifteen minutes) and we were still whimpering forty (or fifty) feet above the water. john got back up from the ledge and started cursing and throwing rocks into the lake, pissed that he wasn't able to jump from what should be easy to jump from. i tried to calm him down and tell him that anyone would be nervous about this jump, that we've done our time and we've got nothing to prove. willingly throwing yourself over an eighty foot cliff whilst four people standby in a boat to make sure you don't die is a pretty good story for which no one could call us whimps.

he calmed down and went to another ledge about ten feet away. i asked him how he felt about that one and he said, "a lot better, dude. come check this out." looking out over this ledge was like watching a scary movie instead of going to a haunted house- it's not as scary because there's no one to grab you or anything but you're still kinda nervous because you don't know when michael meyers is going to pop out and kill somebody. it must have been the way it hung neatly out over the rock face. there were no protrusions on the way down and we had more space to stand.

i stood on the edge of the new spot and looked over, imagining the moment when my feet would finally hit, the water would overtake my whole body and the adrenaline that had all but caused me to explode would turn to exhilaration. this was not as comforting as i'd hoped. i stood back from the ledge and john took his turn at trying to psych himself up. he couldn't do it either and asked me if i would go first. at this point we had about five minutes before the sun set and night woke up for her shift. we had to get this over with.

i stood back up on the ledge.

i don't know if you've ever jumped off a cliff before, but there's a moment (especially with the higher jumps) that occurs while you're getting ready to jump where suddenly your body and your will click like tumblers in a deadbolt. a door is opened and you jump.

that moment finally happened for me after thirty minutes of nervous contemplation. i could hear the air rushing past my ears as the water drew near. i tried to straighten out my body but managed only to bring my arms in- the opposite of my normal instinct to flap them about as if i could fly or at least slow myself down. with a short yell i hit the water, my knees slightly bent.

"ow! my balls!" i called up to john once my head surfaced. he laughed, took a look over the edge and once i swam out of the way he hurled himself over the side.

for a second i could see him trying to straighten out but he lost it and by the time he met the water it was too late for me to tell him to pencil. he hit the water in nearly a seated position. we think he got water up his butt.

satisfied that we hadn't punked out, we started swimming to find our flip flops whilst hurling expletives at the monstrous rock face that had almost got the best of us. as we swam we found one of my flip flops, both of john's, and a lot of algae. the algae was disgusting brown goo that tricked us a couple times and made us think we had found a flip flop.

we swam in one direction for about ten minutes but, brothers and sisters, i must admit that i am not a very good swimmer. i was starting to get tired and i don't tread water very well. since john's much more fishlike than i, i swam across the water to a point where i could stand on some rocks and (hopefully) see my other flip flop, the yin to my left foot's yang (or is it the yang to my left foot's yin?).

since it was starting to get dark i swam as fast as i could. the problem with that was when i stood up to see what i could see i got lightheaded. that swim was basically the second workout i'd had that day and my body was weary. for five more minutes we tried to spot my other flip flop but i finally gave up. john felt bad (it was his idea to throw our flip flops in before we jumped) but i assured him that i wasn't too concerned about a cheap flip flop. we swam along the shore to a spot where we could climb up the side. (ready for the reason i wanted you to watch that video? here it comes).

climbing up the side of crumbly rocks while you're really tired and hungry is pretty difficult, so to encourage myself and get all happy i sang, "all the ducks are swimming in the water" over and over to myself.

i like happy songs.

August 31, 2009
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dipping sauces!

the dipping sauces...and the creams...and the confectionary goodies.

john and i have been saying this a butt ton these last few days. i made it up while we were getting groceries and we think it's hilarious so john made this to a recording of me saying it.

August 30, 2009
2 Comments

golden birthday

today was my twenty-third birthday. it's also the twenty-third of august which means it's my golden birthday. i'm hangin' out with my best friend john in bowling green, kentucky and i've had a really good day. a whole lot of y'all said happy birthday to me on facebook so i just wanted to say thank you. it really meant a lot to me.

well, that's all i really have to say.

troofism.

August 23, 2009
1 Comment

ok, all right.

i read this religion magazine called "killing the buddha." it's sort of a non-religious religion magazine devoted to the idea that if we think we've got God figured out, we're fooling ourselves. peter berbergal recently wrote a really good article for ktb titled, "bedtime stumblings." it was very touching and i thought i'd share it with you guys.

but it also got me thinking. i'm getting ready to join the air force. i'll be leaving for basic officer training in little more than three weeks and i am going to be thrown into a world that's like nothing i've ever been a part of before. i'm going to have to say goodbye to my family (again), which isn't a huge deal because, 1: i'm ready to not live with my parents anymore, and b: i know i'll always be with them and they'll always be with me. but there is one person who's very important to me who i'm going to have a very hard time saying goodbye to because for some reason i feel like it's saying goodbye forever, like i'm dying.

i know that the stage of life i'm moving on to is better than what i've got going on right now in most ways. i'll be on my own, i'll have a job that actually challenges and fulfills me, i'm sure my training will give me a sense of confidence that i've not had before...but i have to give something- someone- up. it's like going to heaven but having to say goodbye to life on earth. God is helping to calm my worries. one of my absolute favorite verses is Matthew 6:34, where Jesus says, "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." i'm learning how to stop worrying (and love the bomb- haha. just kidding.) and just live one day- one moment- at a time. i will have to say goodbye to this person about whom i care so much. we will keep in touch and there may come a time when we don't keep in touch like we should. but that's nothing i should worry about now. it's as silly to worry about the future as it is to dwell in the past. there is only now, and everything is going to be ok.