This past weekend, I did it. I graduated from my twenties and jumped, with both feet, into my thirties. Do I feel any different, who ever does on a birthday? But my head thinks I should feel differently. Some strange things have happened recently that makes me realize that I’ve entered a new decade…

…people call me old man now
…I forget words…like the ones you need when you’re in the
…I have an “over the hill” sign in my office
…the kids at work keep asking me the same question, “How does it feel to be thirty?” You think I’M getting old. They’re the ones asking me the same question over and over. Isn’t that a sign of

The weekend was a lot of fun. Definitely a memory that will last awhile; like forever. My wife’s parents and sister came in on Thursday. We picked Tara (sister) up and went to dinner at Universal’s Margaritaville. It was so fun to see her and get caught up. She’s an amazing girl walking through a tough stage of life. I’m proud of her persistence. — Anyway, the food was good but the lighting made everything look old and fuzzy. Kind of like the skin of a peach. Who cares. Kristy’s parents came in later that night. It was good to see them as well. I feel blessed to have them as family. You should be jealous! Okay…maybe I would be jealous if I didn’t have them as my inlaws.

The next day i had to go off to work while my wife and family feverishly worked on my surprise party. By the way, a little word of advice, DO NOT, EVER, ASK QUESTIONS AROUND YOUR BIRTHDAY. Yeah, I was an idiot and asked if there was a party being planned. So, do you ever have that regretful experience of saying something and suddenly wishing you could somehow stop it halfway between your mouth and her ears? I haven’t either. I was just curious.

The party was fun. A lot of fun. Thank you to those who came to celebrate. Your presence there was special and meant a lot to me. We celebrated with food, fun, friends, family, foccacia bread, feastly spreads, fun-drinks (thanks David) and a lot of food (how did you like all of those f-words?). The presents were nice. Here’s a quick run down of the gifts that were bestowed upon me: Acoustic guitar, coffee machine, iTunes gift cards, movie passes, Starbucks gift cards, money, watch, balloons, clothes, shoes, and an amazing scrapbook/photo album that my mom put together for me. It has all of my birthday’s from day one until i graduated from college. Pretty amazing that she had a lot of the birthday cards, pictures and other memorbilia still.

My parents arrived a little after the party started. It was so good to have them in our home. I don’t get that priviledge very often. Funny how family motivates you to make your house more of a home…especially when you want to show your parents that they did a good job teaching you how to be a man and a husband. Thanks mom and dad for coming. It meant the world to me!

The rest of the weekend flew by. Before we knew it, we were schedule trips to the airport. Oh well…it was a good weekend. One that I’ll remember for my entire life.

Tonight, I experienced a strange sort of events. While attending the “Collision Tour” with David Crowder, Shane & Shane and Robbie Seay, each band, at some point during their set, mentioned that they had lost a dear friend today. It was unexpected and quite frankly, took them all by surprise. Personally, this didn’t have much affect on me except that I was sorry for their loss and knew it must be tough for them to go on. But my own questions came: Who was this person? Did they really know him/her well or was this person just an acquaintance? The music kept going and so did my enjoyment. I lost my sensitivity of the death to the rhythmic chants of some the most amazing worship leaders of our time. I had forgotten about the tragedy of the day until I heard David Crowder say, “I guess this is just a small piece of Kyle’s legacy…” WHAT! Kyle. Surely not the Kyle that I know. Surely not the Kyle that I conversed with just last week. Surely not that Kyle.

Thoughts, concerns, more questions all shot through my head in a moment. Suddenly nothing about Amazing Grace could capture my attention. I was too concerned…too focused on my connection to this man…to this death. And now what? I didn’t know. I found myself agitated by the slightest insensitiveness from the people around me. I still didn’t know for sure, but it was a 99% chance that this man was our friend and Relevant Books author, Kyle Lake. Pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, TX. Home of the David Crowder Band.

And now you see the connection.

Life come and life goes. The hard part is trying to figure out when you’re time’s up. Some people get the honor and pleasure of living a full life. They know when their time is up because they’re awake to take their final breath. Some lives are cut short with no warning. It catches us all off guard. The strange part is, somehow we all feel a little invincible from His timing. Yeah, His timing.

Although the life and legacy that Kyle Lake brought to this world will never be forgotten, you can’t help but ask the question, why him? Why a pastor of growing church with a wife and three young children? It’s seems unfair…even a mistake. I wouldn’t think that God would choose someone like him now—but He did. I don’t get it, but He did.

For those who have gone through these trials, I applaud you for coming out stronger on the other side. For those who are going through this now, embrace the process and feel the pain of your loss. For me, I’ll go through my process…somewhat pensive, contemplative and asking questions. But the one question I can’t seem to get off my mind is this:

What would I do today if I knew that it would all end tomorrow?

CINDY SHEHAN IS OUT OF THE NEWS!

heck yeah sweet!

Some random news…

> Hurricane Wilma passed us just to the south of Orlando but a bunch of people got the day off. I started with a day off but got called in at 2. That was kind of disappointing…not so much that I had to go in…it was a logical decision but that I had wrapped the day up in my mind as something completely different and did not include work.

> Last week was full of sickness and antibiotics. When it comes down to it, I got strep. I don’t have strep now.

> I’m turning 30 in less than two weeks. that means three things: 1. my family (both sets of parents and Tara) are coming to celebrate. 2. I’m turning 30. 3. I’m saying goodbye to my 20’s. I actually surprise myself how excited I am about saying goodbye to my 20’s. They were good, but I think the 30’s are going to be better. — remember that one prayer I had when I was 15…all I wanted was God to give me some time so I could drive by myself and a wife so I could experience sex. Hmm…that was 15 years ago. And THAT’S when I start to think I might be getting old.

> What I appreciated about today: Me and God had a good time today–oh and my friend, Rob Sperti, brought me a huge diet coke and Milk duds at work today. that was cool. Acts of Service!

> kristy and I discovered that we are in the “summer” season of marriage right now.

> I’m still thinking about Darfur. New website > www.savedarfur.org

> A LOT of transition at work right now. Hiring a lot of people. Not exactly sure how it will all play out. I just know that I’ve been sick 5 times this year and that’s got to be due to too many late nights and stress. One thing I do know, when approaching 30, you begin to reassess how much of your life you give towards something that in the end, is still a job. God, Family, friends, hobbies…these are the things that provide a healthy balance to a demanding career. The question is, am I at a healthy balance?

> Been thinking a lot about legacy today. What is my legacy? what impact am I personally having on culture, friends, family, and the world around me?

> Going to Tampa tomorrow. Looking forward to some alone time in the truck. time to think, pray and get caught up on some bible “reading.”

> I want to be a dad.

good night.

If you haven’t seen the movie, Sometimes in April, why not? After watching Hotel Rowanda earlier this year, I was moderately appalled that I was almost completely unaware of any genocide happening anywhere in the world, much less that nearly one million people lost their lives. How does that happen and I stay unaware? This is the same feeling I got after watching Black Hawk Down. It wasn’t that the events can compare, but once again, I found myself questioning my awareness of anything else beside my own world.

Did you know that in the Darfur region of Sudan that 300,000 people have been killed since February 2003? Most of those by starvation and disease. What about the over two million Sudanese that have been displaced? Yeah. Neither did I.

Did you know that all across the country, students at universities fasted for this effort? It was called “Break-the-Fast” and it happened on October 6. Neither did I.

Did you know that the “rebels” that are causing a lot of this genocide are Arabs? Neither did I.

Do you know who the “Janjaweed” are? Neither did I.

But I should.

This ignorance begs a question. How? How could I be so ignorant? How could we live life without knowing more about this?

My natural reaction is to blame. Blame the media for being so focued on Iraq and other middle-eastern wars that they’ve forgotten that while some tens of thousands of people have been killed in the “war on terror”, there’s some 300,000 people killed in Sudan in the same amount of time. Wouldn’t you think that the US population would be a slight bit curious about this?

Maybe it’s easier for us to be ignorant. Maybe its easier for us to be educated by the silver screen than by our own interests. Yeah, the movies provide a place to tell a great story, but I struggle with it being something that educates rather than entertains. Now I know why people are activated by social justice issues. You sit here shocked and in disbelief that these things could be true but then I sit on my couch, watching my 50 inch TV, full stomach and quite comfortable. Ignorance is the number one cause of all injustice in the world. Think about it. If we all knew what was out there and what we could do, half of the problems wouldn’t be problems. Maybe not.

So what now? Now that I know, where do I go from here? I’m not sure either but in my journey, I found these links. I hope you find them useful.

What you can do about Darfur
Human Rights Watch :: Darfur Region
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

I think I’ve lost my steam for the “live journal.”

One last post tonight…

I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately….here’s what’s on my mind.

• tired of things that don’t move forward
• tired of not learning enough personally
• tired of prayer being such an effort
• tired of people who complain with very little effort to find the solution
• sick of being sick (4x this year)
• still not pregnant
• cautious about being overcommitted
• feeling overcommitted
• tired of being out of shape — seriously!
• ready to be debt-free!
• I want to GO and help Katrina victims

that’s it. it’s me. it’s raw.

It’s been 18 days since my last “real” post. My, how time flies. So many things have happened. So many things to journal about that I got overwhelmed and thus decided not to post. But it’s time…

For the past 10 days, my eyes have been glued to the TV because of Hurricane Katrina. Can you believe it? I can’t. It seems unbelievable…almost impossible. I’ve been through a hurricane. I’ve seen downed trees and damaged houses, but I haven’t seen anything like that. It makes me realize how invincible I believe that I am. Even now, Tropical Storm Ophelia is sitting off of the Florida coast waiting to smack us. Yeah…it may only be a 1 or 2 on the hurricane scale eventually, or it may completely miss us, but regardless, it’s a threat and I’m too distracted to be worried about it. Maybe I should stock up on some water, gas and get my generator up and running just in case. who knows!

There’s a lot of talk about the governments response to this storm. isn’t it just like a bunch of people to complain with 20/20 hindsight. Like we would have done better ourselves. Remember, the government means money and people don’t want to give it to them unless they have to. It’s sad that people are suffering and yes, i believe that there have been some incidences of racial prejudice, but by in large, I believe that the government has and is doing everything it can. Honestly, if I had to point the blame, I’d say that the governor of New Orleans waited too long for the evacuation. I said it before the hurricane hit and I’ll say it now. A mandatory evacuation 24 hours before that thing hit would have done wonders. Instead he waited until the wind was already blowing. Of course this isn’t the only finger to point, but I do believe that a lot more could have been done before the storm ever hit. Again, 20/20.

LA/BNA
A couple weekends ago I had the priveledge of heading out to LA to see one of my groomsmen get married. It was in beautiful San Juan Capistrano, CA. It was an outside wedding with PERFECT weather. Congrats Shawn. You and your bride were beautiful. It was an honorto attend.

Also while I was out there, I visited my grandfather. I haven’t seen him in years and he hadn’t seen any family in two. I was the first familiar face he’d seen in two years. He seemed grateful to see me. My time with him was good. The real story is simply too personal to get into here–funny that I can’t even talk freely about this on my own blog. I’m grateful that my family has been awakened to the reality of the situation and are motivated to take action. Enough said.

A lot more has happened, but I’m done for now. Good night.

And what’s a trip to LA without a stop at In & Out Burger.

Here is what LA looks like from the plane. If you'll look towards the middle-top of the picture, you'll see downtown. HUGE CITY!