Past Few Days

wow.

Holland Girl

How cute is Miss Mary Addison. I bought her a t-shirt in Holland and we thought it would be too small,but look at this lil princess.

Good Game

Writing makes me feel good. Writing in a journal does not make me feel good. It only reminds me of 2nd grade and how Ms. Coates gave me a "C" in handwriting. I want to go back to 2nd grade and plea my case. I want to explain to Ms. Coates, "see, Ms. Coates, I'm only a 2nd grader and I write with my left hand. Have you ever tried to write with your left hand? I bet not because you are right handed." I liked Ms. Coates, she was a cute woman, and one time I'm pretty sure she passed gas in class and I've remembered that ever since. I also remember Mark throwing up everyday.

There is something in each of us that desires encouragement. Before you make a big purchase, you want to read all the reviews of the product, you want to hear your friends say it is a good buy. We want our parents to really approve out mates. We want our friends to say our girlfriend is hot. I feel like lately I've had to make and are making decisions that I don't really get a big encouragement from. I'm not saying that I don't have good friends. I'm just saying that the answers really aren't as simple as buying a good car or a nice computer. I guess we want God to guide us in our decisions, we make the choices through His guidance, and then we want some encouragement from heaven that says, "good choice." Maybe during these times, God wants us to cling a little tighter and worry a little less.

Sometimes the choices we make aren't the most exciting, they aren't the most applauded. I feel like being the President of the United States would be always feeling this way. Constantly making decisions that affect/effect the WORLD and you aren't always going to have a team of people telling you, "Good job, you did the right thing."

I get older, the older I get, the more an idiot I feel. Tomorrow I will lay out my 3 year plan for my life, goals, finances, Courtney Blakely would be very proud of me.

Growing closer to the Lord only reveals to me that I am lost by myself.

Just Rest a little easier

I don't think I've ever really struggled through a big decision. The big things in my life, it seems as though the Lord has really just made those choices really clear and the path was layed out almost like an idiot would know which path to choose, maybe God knows me really well. I want to say I completely trust Him in everything, but I know that would be a stretch. In the process of making big decisions sometimes, it seems like I struggle, like most people, with this idea that ..."can I really mess up what God wants to do with me in this life?" ...it's just part of the way I think. I just don't want to get in the way of what He has for me and don't want to take any big decision lightly. I have this book, "A Year with C.S. Lewis" that I sometime read right before bed. This guy was a genius and most of his stuff is too hard for me to read. But, he's been in the grave for a long time and men/women still learn so much through his life and writings. His life really counted for something eternal and the fruit of his life is still going.

I think back on decisions I've made in the past year and can get in this crazy mode of thinking that I really screwed things up or maybe didn't do things right. I want to believe that God is supreme and His grace can cover any stupid decision I make and He can always make good on what I've made bad. I read tonight in the book that reality is never really what we thought it would be. He talked about the planets and how they all have different atmospheres, almost all have different number of moons etc. He loves Christianity because there is no way anyone could just come up with a story this good. An eternal God would create people, people would sin, an Eternal God would send an only Son into a crappy world to die a brutal death, and we selfish and self-serving lost people could find God again. I love this idea of we get to give God all of our sinful things and He gives us His son and eternity when we die. We can live in hope knowing that one day this world will pass away and we don't have to live for the day to day things of this world. It seems that when I start to think about eternity, these "big decisions" in life start to shrink a tad and don't matter as much. The day to day really only matters if it effects the day to day in eternity.

I didn't go to church much as a kid, but when we did go, they would alway do prayer request publicly in church. People would speak out things they needed prayer for. Some people would raise their hands for "unspoken" prayer requests. I'm going to write a book one day, I think I shall call it "Spare Prayers" and if you happen to have any of those, please share them for me. I need to make some big choices soon and want to know I'm walking in the right direction.

Was I sleeping?

I woke up and had the saddest thought yesterday. I got in from Connecticut about 3:30AM on Thursday morning after my plane from Detroit was canceled. I have never seen SC road that bad. Anyway. I slept in until about 11:00AM and the first thing I thought as I sprang up from my sleep, "crap, what time is check-out." This is how you know, you have been on the road traveling quite a lot. Sad.

We went out tonight for T-brock's Birthday. After our fun outting, I decided to drive up and stay at Ed and Julie's. Ed and I are going skiing tomorrow so this would be easier, and I like to hear Julie tell me about the girls I should be and should not be dating, it's gotten so fun over the years. I can always count on her to provide me good honest solid truth. As I rounded in front of Ed's house, I just looked at it, and thought, this is a really nice house. It made me think of pulling up to his parents house in high school. Not that the houses looked similar, but that it was just going to Ed's house. It dawned on me that we are straight up adults. Let me think of the things that I did today that are extremely adult.

1. Typed in a security code to get into my house
2. Talked stocks with a guy I work with.
3. Logged into my 401k and saw that it has lost about 2gs in the past month.
4. Got excited about the dropping interest rates and how good it would be to refinance.
5. Looked at the boxes of baby stuff in Ed's spare bedroom and can actually look forward to having kids. Well, I need a wife first. Well, I guess I need a girlfriend before that. I'll work on these things.

Anyway, I just get hammered every year in my mind that this life is going to quickly and I feel like I'm not capturing everything I need to capture. There are so many opportunities all over the place lately and I just don't know which ones to say 'yes' to and which ones to say 'no.'

I cannot waste anything. I am the guy that will beat the ketchup against the wall to make sure every single bit comes out. I eat all of the food on my plate, which is starting to show.

This life is full of things to do, I just want to make sure that I do the most fruitful things. I guess everyone wants that. I'd like to make a few kids too. Okay, so maybe I have mentioned that twice now in my writings, one thing at a time, one thing at a time.

Dear Nice Samsung Employee

Well I must be the first to admit. Something, could possibly be wrong with me. Let me explain. I have been working in the Northeast for going on two weeks. I was originally scheduled for a few days, but ended up staying to make sure everything was completed. Well about day 2 or 3, my Samsung A727 decided to restart, then, well, it never started back up. I am a cell phone guy. I use my cell phone sometimes more than you could possibly imagine. For work, I talk on it all day. For personal, I talk on it a lot. When you travel, it's really the only way to stay in touch with friends and feel like you are home. The bad thing about my cell phone dying was that 1/2 my numbers are now gone. Only 1/2 because Att&t uses SIM CARDS, praise Jesus. Verizon does not do this, so if you drop your cell phone in the toilet, for the most part, you are done. With Att&t, you can pull the SIM out and use it in another phone. Well my good news is, I have so many friends in the phone that the SIM would not hold all of them, so 1/2 were on the phone. I also had all my pictures from Europe,texts, and videos from so many places. So here is what I did.

I called Samsung and they tell me the phone is still under warranty. They send me a shipping label and ask for me to send the phone in for repair. This is the part I am somewhat amused and ashamed at myself. Well, I REALLY REALLY want the data out of that phone, well. So, um, I bought a card, and wrote the Samsung repair person in Plano, TX a nice note. The card had a nice array of wildflowers on it. This is what it sounded like.

Dear Nice Samsung Employee,

I really really hope you can get the phone number and files out of my phone. It contains a lot of special things and I am hoping you can do it. Thanks so much for doing it or at least trying.

John 1:1.
thanks,
Justin Tanner

I also inserted some $$$$$ into it. I hear that helps move things along in this world. I will let you know how this works for me in 7-14 days.

On another note, I did take some spare time during the weekend to visit my movie star friend Jonathan Dickson in New York City. I hit the train from Stamford, CT to New York, then the subway straight to Times Square. We toured around, saw the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, China Town, Little Italy, and random other sites. We hit up the movies, "The Orphanage", then went to eat some bbq and sing-a-long at Brother Jimmy's. I was quite surprised how good it was.

Hartford to Jersey to New York to Stamford

So the path has been fun this week.  I flew up to Connecticut and have been working.  My mom finally flew in from Amsterdam and I surprised her last night in Newark, as her plane was canceled and had to get a hotel for the night.  Too bad that when I got there, she was already coming back from dinner.  She was happy to be home and didn't hurl on the plane, so she was in good shape.  I saw her off this morning from Jersey at the butt crack of dawn and then drove up to Stamford for the day.  I am on call with work, meaning that if something bad happens, I work, so far so good. 

I am now in the 4th hotel of the week, this one is pretty cool.  I had no idea Stamford was such a pretty city.  I have sea gulls and all sorts of other animals flying outside my window.  The room has a nice balcony overlooking a small river.  The violent man in me is watching the birds play just above a waterfall as they try to pluck fish about to go over the falls.  I am so hoping one of them slips and goes into the water.  Ahh c'mon, they have wings, they can fly. 

Today I will meet Billy Rogers, Nicole Cariri, and Billy's boo Meg for some ice-skating I hope.  I did notice a PF Changs and Kona Grill right near my hotel, this very much excites me. 

I was driving today and paying a crazily high amount of money to drive on the fine roads of NY and NJ and just started to think of how good God is.  It is so cliche to say, but I realized just now that I should always think of God's goodness in a new way.  I have never needed anything that He hasn't provided.  No matter what was supposed to happen and didn't, well God always made those paths straight.  I am healthy, happy, and He's given me a cool job to see a lot of the world, friends that are for the most part, cool.  A family that is very strange like myself :)  But they are great and I love them.

Today is Ed Edwards birthday and his little girl is getting dedicated today at church :)  Say a little prayer for them :) 

Connecticut

So, I've been working in Connecticut this week.  Every now and then, I like to confess something on my blog.  The thing I must confess this week is...well I forgot to pack socks.  I have worn the same pair of socks since Monday, it is now Thursday night.  I think this is the most disgusting thing I have done in 2008, possibly 2007, or maybe ever.  No, not ever.  

I did go buy some socks tonight, so I'm going to be fresh and clean tomorrow. 

The good news is, I did pack enough boxers. 

Bad news is...my phone broke tonight and will not turn on. 

Good news is, I might go visit New York City tomorrow.  :)  With Clean Socks.  I'm going to name my next dog that, "CleanSocks". 

State-Side in 2008

Well I am officially back in the US. I got back just in time to go to Rachel and Brandon Loftus' wedding! It was a small and fun wedding to be at. She is one of the coolest girls I know and she hooked up with a pretty smooth fella, always good to see.


My mom and I successfully made it through Paris for one day and I recovered from some of the frustration the night before being lost for 2 hours. We ended up paying a taxi to lead us to the Hilton, well worth the 8 Euros. We woke up, went to the Eiffel tower, took a few pictures, walked around, and said we were done with France for possibly, forever :)

I got back to Amsterdam, packed up, and left my mom who still has not come back. She has had me change her plane ticket two times now, I think she likes it over there :)

It was fun hanging out with my mom and just relaxing. She is very easy going and anywhere we went, she was happy. I like that quality in people. We had a good time everywhere we went, well minus Paris :) Although, the Paris Hilton was very nice :)

Our trip was very fun, it has definitely opened my eyes to travel even more. I travel domestically every week, but now I want to travel a little more internationally. The whole work thing kinda cramps that style a little bit. The Europeans we met, were some of the nicest people, and very open to meeting new people.

We also had our annual New Year's Eve party. The numbers were down this year, mainly because of the Peach Bowl, but we still had about 40 people and had the most successful dance party yet, which consists of about 5 people consistently dancing, and as many as 10 at one time, sad.

2008, I am hoping is going to be a year of being a little more on the ball. I am going to try to put a little more structure about my own hectic life. This mainly means, tracking every penny I spend, becoming a cheapskate, developing new friendships outside my usual group, and building up some recording equipment to continue to pursue voice-overs. I might even buy a mac once I save the pennies.

Happy New Year!