I laugh every week

I just flew in to San Diego, and man my arms are tired.  Okay, bad joke.  It is so funny this life and how crazy it is.  God has blessed me so much with a crazy good job and such a funny life right now.  I flew in first class, picked up my Grand Marquis from Avis, and headed to the Hyatt to check-in.  They upgraded me to the corner suite which is pretty stinkin pimp.  Well, it would be a lot more pimp with a wife in it, but that's another story.  I never could have imagined that I would fly on a plane every week to go to work.  I have door open now and the Pacific breeze is just rolling in, man this is so cool.  

Life is so much about sharing with people.  "Things" are so much more fun when you share them.  Not many people actually enjoy going on vacation by themselves.  You want someone to see the sites with you and eat good food with, we were so programmed this way by our maker.  WE were made for fellowship.

Have you ever been in a place where you had a decision to make, you knew the safe thing to do, but something in you just wanted to do the very unsafe thing?  No, I haven't been reading "Wild at Heart" and personally didn't like the book.  But I think there is a big part in me that doesn't really always want to make predictable and safe choices.  Hmmm. 

I needed that

So I came home for the weekend, I actually got a 1:00PM flight from San Diego that connects in Houston and I'm back home at 11ishPM on Thursday night. Lately, Continental has been hooking up the first class upgrades, and it makes me feel special. It is a little guilty to eat your good food while 1 row back is the couple eating a piece of cracker with a cheese on it :) Just don't turn around, it makes you feel better, awful. :)

I went into the office on Friday because I really needed to get a few things done. It was so good to see my coworkers that I haven't seen in a long time, I really do work with some cool people. I do miss SC and it is so much home for me.

Friday night, some friends came over, got dressed up, and went to my friend Mary Onks' wedding. It was quite an interesting wedding, with bag pipes, and a few things against the norm. Mary has always against the norm and this wedding totally fit her. She was very pretty and white.

We came back home, ordered a papa j's pizza and hung out. It's so good to have friends that know you. It is cheesy but it makes me feel very at home to see my friends and not have to prove or explain myself to them. They know you. I had some really good conversations this weekend with a friend of mine. I've been struggling lately in my own walk with Jesus to be perfectly honest. I've settled with Mark Driscoll sermon videos on an airplane for my quiet times. Mark is awesome, but I should not substitute him for my own time with Jesus. I've blamed my own struggles with being busy and just out of sync. It really took a friend encouraging me this weekend to get me back to Jesus. There are people, that by their very nature, drive you to be more like Jesus. It's not like they have a magic formula or some special words, but it's just something about them that pushes you to dig a little deeper into your faith. These type of people aren't always the most comfortable people to be around, and it means that sometimes you will have awkward conversations that make you feel the pride inside you bubble up and seek to justify your own sin. I think about times in my life where someone has had the perfect word for me, that they could have only known what to say if God were guiding their conversation. Unless you have experienced this, this probably seems very foreign and almost strange, but it's true. I enjoy people that can speak into my life and encourage me, even when it doesn't really feel good. The person that comes out on the end is better because of it.

I don't want to waste this life and want to surround myself with a balance of people from all sorts of places and backgrounds. I also desire to be a person that speaks truth into peoples' lives at just the God appointed time and not so that I might be cool in their eyes, but that Jesus might steer them a little closer to what He is up to in them.

I just got a nice email from Continental that I can now check-in for my flight, it feels good to know that the Lord has prepared me for this week. I'm ready.

A better day

So after a crazy and not so fun yesterday, today was so much better. I take so many things for granted, including the fact that I'm 100% joyed and 99% happy all the time. God never promised us happiness, but a fruit of the spirit is joy. Today was a little less stressful and looking up. Avis did upgrade me to a mustang convertible :) My co-workers and I went to Japanese tonight and we had fun.

I have really good friends

Thank-you Lord for giving me some awesome friends, well, for the most part, jk. I believe between voicemails, texts, and emails, facebooks, banner in the sky, and messages, well there had to be about 50zillion of them. This made me feel so good and cared for. Thank-you.

I got out of the office about 8 o'clock and very frustrated. It seems that all of the years of not being stressed have now added up and are trying compound into a few weeks. This job is going to kill me. I know it will get better, but for now, I just work all the time, and it's still hard to stay on top of my game. I ended the day with a bad attitude and wanted to throw a printer out the building :)

It's 9 o'clock and I'm going to order a papa johns pizza, eat, and go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day.

What a blessing

I never really thank God for allowing me to be born into this country. What a blessing we have, to live in a country like the United States that is free and open.

Today is Good Friday, thank-you Jesus for dying on a jagged and rugged cross to pave a way for our sins to be forgiven. Thank-you for forgiving us.

Lately, I have learned that when you get away from your day-to-day, you do start to see things differently. I see my friends differently. I miss them. I miss my family, I think about my lil sister and all the games I've missed because I live on the other side of the state. People are a blessing to us, we should treat them as so.

I want my life to be counted as a blessing to people. I want to give more than just money away, I want to give my time and attention as well.

A man that was sitting beside me on the plane today was a blessing to me, I hope I was to him. We slept for the first 30 minutes, then woke up, and had an interesting conversation that spanned from Obama, Clinton, and spun back around to Jesus. It was a blessing to spend my time on a plane talking to a man that was 75 years old. I initially wanted to sleep, but I'm glad I woke up and spent the time. God has many blessings for us, they aren't always in the form of a $check$.

Tandem bike, sushi, zoo, San Diego

San Diego Weekend

So my friend Sam drove down from LA for the weekend. This was the first time I have really got a chance to enjoy the beautiful city I am about to be living. I had a fun plan for Saturday but had a few hiccups. The original plan was for a few hours of kayaking on the bay, then hit up the zoo, the finishes off with some sushi, pool, chillin out. Sam's alternator died on her drive down so we spent some time getting a new one purchased and replaced, and all was well. We ended up spending the day renting a tandem bike, which was ABSOLUTELY hilarious. If you have never done this, you must do it. You totally have to trust the person in front because they are steering, you are only doing the leg work in the back. What a great way to relate to our relationship with God. We are basically on the same team, He is ultimately steering our lives in His sovereignty, but we are still doing legwork in the process by following the commands He has given us through the Bible. Well back to the tandem bike, I chose to be the driver because we all know girls can't drive :) It was so fun, we peddled for about 1.5 hours and then Sam wanted to steer. So we went back to the shop, adjusted the seat to shawty status and off we went. It was SO tough to try and remain calm and not steer. She ended up getting the hang and was a decent driver. Okay, an okay driver. We turned the bikes in, thanked JP for his help, and hit up a restaurant on the ocean and had a fruity drink.

We finished off the day with a relaxing time at the pool to relax and then hit up some Sushi at RA in downtown San Diego's Gas Lamp District.

Today, we set-off for the San Diego Zoo, and it was SO SO SO SO awesome. The pictures can confirm.

I will finish off by saying that friends are so important and my friend Lee wrote a post about being lonely and the value of friends. He was so right. We need people to be around and converse with, laugh with, okay occasionally make fun of :)

Friends are a blessing.

Random 08 Pictures

The office

So instead of flying back this weekend to SC, I decided to stay and get a lot of work done. The flight is VERY long back to SC and by the time I get back, it's time to leave again. Either way, this is the view outside my hotel room and below. Pretty awesome.

You realize how important friends are when you move out your "zone," that's for sure. A friend is coming in tomorrow to visit and I'm taking a break from work and going to the zoo! I have heard for YEARS about the San Diego Zoo but have never actually gone. These animals better be doing some crazy tricks for the prices they charge :)

I'm Sorry Ed

So working in San Diego has been...intense. I have been working 10-12 hour days and it has been non-stop. One thing I can say is, it is NOT boring. I will confess that I'm a little stretched and it's not the easy life, that's for sure. I think it will be worth it and I'm up for a challenge. :)

The reason for the nice at&t image is that well, let me tell you a story about my friend Ed Edwards. He gives me crap every time we talk on the phone because I burn up his minutes. He is on the other network, and I am on at&t. I recently got another network, verizon, phone from my company, but sent it back. I am going to keep my at&t phone and they just released an unlimited plan, yes, I signed up :) Forgive me Ed.

My Friends

So my friends threw Rhett and I a going away party tonight.  Rhett is moving to Charlotte and I am headed out to San Diego.  Pretty much, my friends are awesome.  It's pretty neat that at least one time per day, at least one of my friends pushes me to be a closer follower of Jesus.  I have learned that I often take this for granted, and wonder what I would do if I did not always have encouraging words into my life.  Friends are so important in this life, what are your friends pushing you to do?