Organizing my pictures....

So last night I was showing someone my pictures from the last few years on my computer and it took forever!!!! This is due to that half of it was encoded by iphoto into it's file system. Well, it messed some parts of it up bigtime! So today I went through all of them and organized them. What a chore! I had like a million pictures from Italy and that took a long time to figure out. I had to break out my journal I kept whilst I was there to get all the places I went in order. I started this morning and am now almost all the way done. I have some random folder called PatPics that is a buffet of different pictures that I can't deal with now. It's krazor. Here are a few pics I like though out of the lot.

goin' free style at my assistmantship in 06

the time Chad and I took crazy pics on the only hill in Bowling Green in the fall of 2006

black hair, earrings in late fall of 06

cleaning off my windshield in summer 04

with (from left) Dr. Thompson, Dr. Lillios, John Chowning (the godfather of keyboard technology), Steven Kemper, me at Florida Electroacoustic Festival spring 06.

so many things

There are so many things in my life that are happening right now. It's crazy. Because of the public nature of this blog I won't share most of it. I am still exhausted from last weekend and I am still recovering from the lack of sleep, or maybe it's that I haven't had a good nights sleep as of yet. This morning should have been good but my roommate has an alarm problem which is really funny yet at the same time can drive me crazy.

I have had this reoccurring tooth ache for the last five years that no one can figure out. It came back yet again last month on a small scale and then decided to leave. It came back this week and last night woke me up at 2:20. So I am a little groggy this morning. I really don't know what I have these weird physical problems, like my stomach, tooth, etc. but I guess Paul had a thorn in his side which could be physical or mental and maybe this is my thorn, or should I say thorns.

I went to my first counseling session with this great christian counselor yesterday. I learned a great deal about myself in just one time so I am going to go back every two weeks to see where this goes. I really think that all people should go to a counselor, at least a counselor like this guy. He just listens and says back what you've been saying with little assessment. It's really great.

One of the metaphors I told him about how I was raised was my view of relationships. Many of my ideals were shaped by the media and culture when I was in high school. I watched a lot of TV and movies and listened to a lot of music. These things shape who you are whether you like them or not. Here's what culture taught me about relationships, they are like pants. You go and try some on and see what you like about them. You look at them in a 360 degree mirror and see how they fit, what you like about how they fit, how they look on you. So you try and try and try pants on all the time because of course none of them are really supposed to fit, you're just seeing how they fit. So after trying on many pairs of pants and sometimes you try on a pair for a long time and get second opinions and you really don't want to take them off, you still do because that's the way it works, you take them off at the end. Well, eventually you would like to actually like to take a pair home but you find that you can't because you've been trying for so long you actually don't know what defines the different pants. They all become the same thing, one pair of pants that really do not look good on you at all. So it becomes impossible to take a pair home because they are all the same and this whole time you've been waiting for "the" pair that won't ever come. So you don't. You just keep trying them on forever. Or you buy a pair and at some point you take them back and pay way more for them when you take them back. Then you may buy a few more pairs in your life.

I've found this is crazy! At least in my life. It has not worked for me. It's a lie, a great lie that we've created.

The truth is, I would have loved to have done it the christian way. Don't even get involved in trying on pants. Learn about pants. See them, but don't try them on until you're ready to buy them. Then when you are there you have a much better idea of the pants you want and you don't waste a lot of time with other pairs. Then when you find a pair you like, you buy them. You like them. You don't have to take them back. They are good pants.

Ah! God! Life!

this is a quote from On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I finished reading it last week and loved it. Ah! God! Life! is also the name of a new piece I am working on for woodwind quintet. I have to write it fast because it's being performed in Arizona later this summer.

This kind of leads to my last weekend. I went to Athens Georgia for my friend Keith's wedding. He married a southern gal named Michaela who met him in Jacksonville where they both live. I was a groomsman as well as six other guys. There were two ushers, making a total of 8 of us in the groomsman party. There are two words that can describe this weekend, golf and drinking. First off I don't golf, and second I rarely drink and when I do it's a few beers. A few beers here wouldn't cut it. I spent three days almost constantly with a drink in my hand, I say almost because the other guys did have a drink in their hands the entire time. I needed to drink water so I drank that at times while they were drinking miller lite.

So, it seems that the weekend was kind of a haze. It was a good time haze, but a haze nonetheless. The wedding was nice, all the people were nice and we had a really good time. I got to see some old friends, we got to share drunken thoughts and sentiments of love and home (the palouse) and good times of yesteryear. It was a good trip.

tagged!

So I guess that my sister tagged me which I guess means that I answer the same questions that she did. I guess I'll do it because she's my sister and I love her.


10 years ago...

I was just finishing my junior year of high school. I was going to work for Larry Brown and have a great summer of farming, goofing off, staying out late, and playing guitar. I was living in Oakesdale and just saw some real good friends graduate and get ready to move on. I was also excited about being a senior the next year.

5 years ago...

I just graduated from the University of Idaho. This is blowing my mind right now. I want to say that a few years got lost in there somewhere. I was right now about ready to drive to Montana to be in my friend Josh's wedding in Columbia Falls. I didn't have any kind of plan except to farm for the summer and take a year off from life. It seems so long ago.
This was when I really started to get serious about Jesus, and it's been a crazy ride ever since.

5 months ago...

I started teaching at BGSU and still teaching at Owens and BGCA. I had a lot of private students and was having a lot of fun teaching. This was one of the busiest times I've had since graduating from grad school. Lots of lesson planning and time spent teaching, I loved it.

5 things on my to-do list tomorrow...

1. Work at Panera
2. Teach a private lesson
3. Play my telecaster
4. Read The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
5. Read my bible and pray

5 things I would suddenly do if I were a billionaire...

1. Pay off all student loans and debt for us and our families.
2. Give to the church and charities.
3. Put a lot in savings and invest for our kids futures.
4. Buy a bunch of guitars and studio equipment to record bands
5. Plan a worldwide trip

5 bad habits...

1. Procratination
2. Just plain not doing tasks
3. Eating unhealthily
4. Spending money
5. Wasting time on internet (like now)

5 places I've lived...

1. Oakesdale, WA.
2. Moscow, ID.
3. Bowling Green, OH
4. Florence, Italy
5. Segorbe, Spain (only one week!)



5 things people don't know about me...

1. I'm obsessed with my fingernails (for classical guitar)
2. I love Van Halen
3. I really like morning star "meats"
4. Not a huge fan of cooking
5. Really miss the palouse

rain!!!!

I hate the rain in BG. It just comes and rains a lot real fast and you barely have time to get your scooter inside. Here's a few pics of today.

The rain outside my window

when I am in rain you better watch out

sometimes i look crazy at you

but then after I look suave to make you feel better

what am I doing?

I think we all get to points where we question what we are doing with our lives. Tonight this feeling engulfed me and I think it always happens when I hear bands play live. Luckily, I don't do this very much, so I am okay much of the time. The problem is that I am constantly in my life divided between things.

I don't mean to complain, but I kind of wish I was really good at something instead of being ok at a lot of things. I mean, I'm kind of a classical guitarist, I'm kind of a regular guitarist, I'm kind of a composer, I'm kind of an electronic musician, I'm kind of a teacher....

I guess this is the lot of all humanity, finding my niche in this world. I am a passionate person in the moment. The problem is that I am out of the moment a lot of the time. I am in the moment when I am in direct contact with music or teaching. When I am not, I am very far away from it, and thus feel passionless.

This feeling is coming off a really good time I've been having spiritually. I've been learning a lot of things, and really starting to bask in the grace that Jesus delivers. So I am not so much questioning what his plans are for me. I just want to have more music in my life and have it mean something. God gave me some really good talent in some aspects of music. The parts I lack I wish I had. I wish I was a good songwriter, lyricist, singer, but I am not. I feel not matter how much I try the songs are elementary, lame, and my voice sucks. Maybe I just need for forget about all that and do it anyways. I don't really know.

I know I could be in a good band if I was around the right people. I would need a good singer that is creative so that we could work together to write tunes. This is seemingly impossible to me at the moment. Anyways, what's the point. I'm 27, don't really know what to do, had little success in music thus far, and am scrap teaching to get by.

The one thing that gives me hope is that I find Jesus in music and every time I play it's for him. Every note whispers the divine love and grace that Jesus delivers, and I just soak it up.

words

I was having dinner with my friends Abby who teaches english at BGSU and is a poet by nature. I was talking about my desire to start a band and that my strengths are more instrumental than vocal. I can write good riffs, chord changes, rhythms, and music, but am not so good at singing and writing lyrics and melodies.

Her advice was to jump in and write about things not relating to me. I am very self-conscious about my singing and especially the lyrics I write. They are not good and they are too personal. So maybe by extracting me out of the equation I can write more freely. This is true of all art. If you want to learn how to do any type of art, check yourself at the door and jump in. If you are self-conscious about your art it will suffer. That's why art is so humbling and difficult and why most people are turned off to it in the first place. Art is never perfect the first time you do it. It takes time to learn the craft of your own process. This is what I am digging into with my songwriting. I wrote a song last summer and ended up making it too complicated and thus never really finished it. I am writing the words separate from the song to see how that works. I wrote my first poem/lyrics about Steptoe Butte, my favorite place in the whole world. I like the first draft of it, I just went for it in the first stanza and replicated the same word structure in later stanzas and wrote a chorus. I have a song in mind for it that I will explore tomorrow morning.

Josh (Kalichman, my best friend and violin player) and Jeff (Peplinski, a fellow composer and bass player) are coming over tomorrow to jam with me. Maybe by the time they get here I'll have a good idea of this song they can further develop with me. Above all else I want to just play freely with some other Christians to praise Jesus and make our art for His glory.

Summer Reading List

So this summer I thought that I'd read a bunch of books that I should have read in high school. People who go to Oakesdale are totally capable of getting out of high school without really reading any books. I was especially good at not reading books. I would pretty much cheat on almost every book report I did. One time I even made up a book and got a pretty good grade. I was not a great student back in those days.

I took someone's report on Fahrenheit 451 and changed it and added my own opinions via Cliffs Notes. I read the book late in college and loved it. Why didn't I just read when I was in high school? I think it's because when we had to read in English it was like Romeo and Juliet or works by Homer. These are great pieces of literature, but unfortunately for me I was not good at reading the language of either. So, I thought all books were just hard to read, confusing, boring, and above all else time consuming. I now know much different and love to dive into a good novel. I wish I had done this much earlier and taken some literature classes because I think I would have really enjoyed them.

I digress, so here's the list so far and prospectives for the future:

Read:
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch
The Ragamuffin Gospel - Brendan Manning (not a novel, but really good)
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Everything that Rises Must Converge - Flannery O'Connor (short stories)
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Future?:
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair


If you have any more ideas feel free to email me or comment on my blog.
lata

church today

Today was "Rock this Sunday" at my church. It was led by the leaders from our youth group (7-12 grades) named "Rock this Life". So you can see where the title of this service came from. It was fitting for the day. Two of our youth leaders made our sanctuary look great. They removed the first few rows of chairs so people could come up and stand shoulder to shoulder to worship Jesus. The lights were out except the stage lights and a projector projecting cool screen-saver-esque things on a wall and ceiling.

It was not our normal service. We usually do like 30 minutes of music, communion and offering, then the sermon and a final song. Today was more like a youth meeting and it was really cool. It started with a video of the conversion of Brian Welch the former Korn guitarist. Then we played some tunes, then a video that made me cry and basically if you know Jesus you will cry as well.




Then we played some more tunes and Greg and Terence gave their testimonies, took communion, offering, and then one more tune before Pastor Malanga gave the benediction. It was such a great service.

It was cool to have some the the Rock band play too. Kyle played guitar and I've been teaching him guitar lessons all school year, it was really fun to play alongside him. Daniel also played bass and he's been in my BGCA band for the last few months and he did wonderful as well. Then Greg on acoustic and singing, Mike Edwards on drums, and me on telecaster. It was a great bunch of musicians. The spirit was really there, people were crying and praising and singing passionately the whole time. I wish worship was like that all the time. I guess it could be but we'd have to have a revamp of our worship ideals for that to happen.

It was so good today. I came home and played my guitar all day and am now committing some serious time to improving my electric guitar playing. It's time I did something, I've been at the same plateau for years and it's time I improved. So you know what that means, break out the metronome and hit it hard. That's what I plan on doing.