So I thought I wasn’t going to get to make a new layout this year “in time,” but it turns out I was wrong. =) Some inspiration and a good day’s work and well… here you have it.

I think I’ve gotten sucked into Flickr, I will probably go Pro soon…

INFINITE CRISIS IS HERE

… almost

Someone please pick me up JLA#119, will reimburse if arrives in mint condition, haha.

Re: Christian.

…

Despite having an incredibly strong urge to let it out, I had been waiting until Van made it public until I posted something about it, but now that it’s out, here goes. =) (here is Sam’s post and mine after Van talked with us). I don’t think I am as gifted with words as Van or Brook or even Andrew or Chad or… well, all my other roommates (except for Sam because he can barely speak English , so bear with me. =)

I’ve been a Christian for much of my life and it’s been littered with a few “spiritual highs” which mostly revolved around when I got baptized or during retreats. In fact, most of the landmarks in my walk with Christ have been selfish and rather… well, lame as far as making a difference goes. Recently, I’ve felt as if I’d plateaued and was falling into “middle-class American Christian who goes to church on Sundays and leads a ‘good’ life” mode.

Van talked about praying for direction, something that I also was looking for (aren’t we all? =). I think God not only answered Van’s prayers, but mine as well. The past few weeks have been incredibly awesome starting with more frequent talks about God/Christianity/prayer with Van, Tony Campolo’s sermon, and then eventually Van sitting down with both Sam and I and telling us that he had “made the step.”

When I pray, really pray, I cry. I think that’s something I inherit from my mom =). As of late, my prayer life has been rather crappy like I was just going through the motions, filling a quota. I wasn’t crying. After Tony Campolo’s talk, I cried. I was amazed at how insanely applicable his talk about prayer was to Van’s questions we had been talking about days previously. When Van told Sam and I about the days leading to his acceptance of Christ, I was on the verge of tears. I’ve always grown up knowing God answered prayers, but I don’t know if I truely believed that until this. Similarly, I think my faith has been mostly an intellectual one, rather than one of trust and love. I knew the “right” answers, the things you learned in Sunday school. I knew things, but did I really believe them?

It was absolutely amazing to listen to Van explain how his prayer was answered. There were so many things that just clicked into place for him. Talks with many people about prayer, the from-the-heart response rather than a template answer from his Elements leader, Tony Campolo’s sermon, my mom’s words of love and wisdom, and heck, one of his roommate’s is the Liquid Prayer Lounge leader! I have never before felt God so real in my whole life as when Van was professing all this to us. To see Him acting before my very eyes in one of my best friends’ lives was awesome.

I feel very alive now. I feel that God is very alive now. I’ve been crying when I pray alone, and I think that’s awesome. I cry tears of joy, tears of excitment as I feel my faith grow and God’s love pouring down on me. I knew that God loves. I knew he was love. Now, I feel that love. How awesome is that?!

Van thanked me for being his friend since high school keyboarding as we hugged each other that night. Van, thank you for not letting all the crap in this world stop you from finding God and allowing me to witness it first hand. Thank you for allowing me to witness the power of prayer and the love of God. God, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

I’m not the best writer, like I said earlier, I think my writing skills are rather weak compared to many of my roommates (especially when it comes to expressing emotions), so I’m going to end with Dandelions because it’s a prayer, it describes a lot of the amazingness of God I’m feeling at the moment (especially the latter part), and I think God has given Reese Roper a gift with words I could only dream of. =)

In a field of yellow flowers,
underneath the sun,
bluest eyes that spark with lightning,
boy with shoes undone.
He is young, so full of hope,
reveling in tiny dreams,
filling up, his arms with flowers,
right for giving any queen.

Lord, search my heart,
create in me something clean.
Dandelions
you see flowers in these weeds.

Edit: After reading all this again, I think World Without End is perhaps more “fit” but I don’t want to quote it again since I already did. =) So just… um… go read it again and praise God. =)

Today, Olivia, Sam, Van and I went to volunteer at the Freescale donation center. We piled up lots of bedding onto crates and shrink wrapped them. Woo woo.

Here are some non-related pics:

Nancy making me dance with her:

My opinion on the matter:

hehe, j/k =) Very flattering picture of Kathy eating some dog poo:

Kathy, not too happy with me:

Sam, very content with himself:

Sam’s butt:

Finally, burrito Josh:

That’s all, folks! =)

I hate drama. Let the “fun” begin…

So I was looking at all the video blogs at Blue Tights and now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside and tears of joy want to come streaming out of my face.

Thank you, Bryan Singer, thank you.

… is good. Man, that last story arc at the end was awesome. Thanks Nathan!

And now I must sleep and hope to not entirely screw up my sleeping schedule (yeah, right).

Haha! Very funny, Dr. Jones, very funny!

Went to Main Event Monday night, that was pretty fun. Van probably has pictures of the event (which he should post, *nudge nudge*). Nancy dumped her purse on me for a while and made all my coworkers think she was my girlfriend. Silly Nancy.

We’ve been playing quite a bit of pool recently, and I’m starting to like it a lot. I think pool would be something cool to get really good at, so I’m gonna try to do that more often. I’m telling you, when I get a house, I’ll probably buy a pool table and foosball table before a big screen TV. Shuffle board might be tricky…

I want to get a macro lens and a flash for my camera… speaking of which, Canon Digital Rebel XT comes! Oh yeah, I want a hot girlfriend with a perpetual baby panda too. lol

We’re all growing up. =( Andrew is leaving to Florida on Wednesday early in the morning, so today we spent time hanging out at Main Event (got pics I’ll upload later that a bunch of people took using my camera). It’s been a lot of fun these past few years, Andrew. Good luck in grad school! Here’s to you:

I think I’m pretty tired of seeing Mighty Mouse news/reviews now. The thing is way overrated. It’s something Apple should have had years ago. Here’s what I think: it is overpriced, and offers no features another mice couldn’t do just as good. With MAYBE the exception of the “360 degrees scrolling,” but that was iffy when I used it. Even then, there are Microsoft/Logitech/whatever mice that can do that too, though, I could see the argument that maybe, just maybe not quite as good, but it’d probably come down to personal preference at that point. Of course, the only time I could see this coming in handy is in maybe… Photoshop when you’re zoomed in.

It can’t even do “advanced mouse maneuvers” like holding down the right/left button, and then (while still holding), press (and then maybe hold) the other button. If you’ve ever used a 3D editor, this technique is very handy. And (though this occurs more rarely and probably isn’t that big of a deal), you can’t click, then pick up the mouse while holding your click.

I swear, Apple’s marketing department is so good it drives me crazy when they get people to buy these things…

And people complain about Microsoft copying Apple…

Oh wait, it has aural feedback?!?!?!! WELL HOLY CRAP, BATMAN. I’m going to the Apple Store now. *sigh*