Today is one of those days where if all of life could be summed up in two days, it was. Of all situations, it is the most unlikely to actually make a difference. I had Saturday (yesterday) all planned out. I rented "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" on several recommendations and paired it with "New York Minute" the next stupid Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen movie to laugh at. I was all set to wash laundry during the two movies and then doing homework, some light reading and then going to bed. About 5:15, I ended up changing my plans when Jake Russell burst into my room saying I should go to St. Louis. He and Natalie W. finally convinced me to go.

So next thing I know, I'm leaving clothes scattered across my bed and driving my car down I-70. We eat a lil ravioli and have a little hot cocoa and we're on our way to the City Museum. My idea of a museum was kinda blown away as I spent the next several hours crawling, climbing, and wandering through mazes of metal, wood, and rock. I got myself caught in a narrow passageway in a cave and without knowing, I kinda ripped my pants. Natalie, Charity, Alexis, and Jake all kinda waited a while to tell me that there was kind of a gaping hole in my pants right over my butt. A while later, Jake is hanging upside down in a rope lattice only to get a thorough talking-to from one of the security guys. In this place where everything is climbable and they claim in multiple places that they are not responsible for injuries, he gets 'in trouble'.
Well, we didn't stay long after that, and it was off to Natalie's house to find my car. I had several opportune moments to show off my underwear between the place where we were in the museum and the parking lot. I had to walk even further because instead of parking in the three dollar parking, we parked in a place that was 'three except without the "th" but with an f.'

I didn't get back to my dorm until well after 2 a.m. I got some good long sleep and then got around to watching the two movies. Eternal Sunshine was an incredible movie. Even though it didn't follow a linear storyline, it was easy to follow and I'd say even life-changing. It's a movie that instead of making you really think at one pivotal point in the movie, it is a movie solely comprised of those points. After the movie was over, I just kinda sat still for 5 minutes or so. My head just started flowing with ideas and thoughts. I decided that the theme for my Digital Media portfolio was going to be "Live Out Loud."

Then I watched the STUPID, stupid Olsen twin movie. The highlight quote of the movie went something like "We need that dog. That dog is my life. And when he poops...his poop is my life." Like I said, it was stupid. I loved it. I took the two movies back and came back to my dorm still flooded with thoughts and wrote out an introduction to my portfolio project. It contrasted ideas like "All the world's a stage" with "but not all are actors," and saying "There is no audience." The premise is basically that we need to express ourselves, but it is not for an audience so that we look good. It is for the expression itself and that that amplified life ripples effect to the far reaches of the world. It was interesting - yesterday was probably the most exciting day I've had in a long while and that came from just expressing myself through having fun. Today, I see a movie that in some way, for me, confirmed and blasted my mind. My creativity has hit a dry spell. In fact, I'd say that I've always been technically competent but wasn't very expressive or artistic. It was because I wasn't truly living and I didn't realize it until today.

This summer has been great so far here at Lamoine Christian Service Camp. I have been learning so much through the work I've been doing. I only have 2 1/2 weeks to go before the camp season is over. I still have a promo video, brochure, and an entire section of a web site to do still. Last week was Junior 2 (5th and 6th graders) with Dawn Farris. This was the week I'd been waiting for since last summer. I was able to put together a game just like Who Wants to be a Millionaire for the kids to play and I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while. That's all I have time for, but it's been so long since I've posted!

I am one of those guys who can receive several complements and still feel incompetent. I graduate in less than 6 months and I'm not ready for the real world. The chain reaction off of this is making me doubt God - even doubt His existence. I'm reading the Case for a Creator right now and it's a great book. It gives plenty of proof that there has to be an intelligent designer to the universe. Why do I doubt that? Only this - 'cause I don't feel like believing so. I think that's pretty much it. If it were so, then I would have to admit that I have special gifts and that God has a special purpose for my life. Now how can I do that and still have an inferiority complex? See the problem?

Last night I went with the staff @ LaMoine Christian Camp to a Casting Crowns concert. It was an awesome night. I'm spending the summer out there as a sort of internship to gain class credit for my experience and as much as everyone loves everything I do out there - I don't feel good enough. The only reason I can come up with is that I'm not the best. I feel worthless when I can't do better than a full staff at a full production studio when I myself have no budget nor experience. At the casting crowns concert, the lead singer Mark gave his story. He gave the story of how he went to college in florida thinking he was going to sing and doing very badly at the beginning. He spent 6 years at that 4-year school. He didn't expect to ever be singing for a career. Yet God kept those dreams in his heart and he never totally gave up. He felt so incapable. I can't remember much of the story now - shouldn't have waited till today to write. In the end, well, he's the lead singer for Casting Crowns, and though he only knew 4 chords when he started school there, he played and sang a beautiful song for us after his story.

He was telling the first half of my own story. I feel like a nobody. In reality, the only nobodyness I have is from giving up. After his story, my spirits lifted totally. I felt awesome, I was praising God loudly along with the rest of the music. I felt alive again. It was my own fault - I didn't want to face the God of "you can do it" when I didn't want to feel capable. It put too much of a risk of failure on me to have confidence. I feel better. I can admit the reality of God as well.

This morning, Satan confirmed the reality of God's healing last night. I went online and somehow ended up at the real estate web site that I had done a year ago. Months ago, their web site disappeared. When I made the site in the first place, I spent a lot of time designing the technical end. I didn't give enough attention to aesthetics. I charged as if I did. I felt shameful of not doing well enough. However, I gave them a guarantee that if there was anything they didn't like about the site, I would change it as long as they told me about it withing a few months. They never said anything - they never even said anything when they paid me. Today when I visited the site, it was up again - someone else's design. It had several pages on the site they never asked me for, though I offered to put in. It had a slightly better artistic design, but I could do better (though I didn't). The feeling crept in was that there was no way i could have done what the other person had done with the site. All month I've been closely updating a camp web site that I think is far better in both design and structure, but still the temptation to feel worthless crept in. I recognized what was going on, though. I wasn't about to feel bad. I was ready to thank God for showing it to me. I can't just ignore my past - I want to learn from it now. I watched a good film tonight. It was called "thirteen" and since it had won at the Sundance Film Festival - I thought I would try to learn from it. Excellent movie about understanding junior high times in the city. Very emotional...heavy overtones of the search for love. It was a beautiful movie. It's 2 now. I need some sleep. I need to post here more often.

In the '60's, the United States had lots and lots of ICBM's (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles) stockpiled to protect them during the cold war. Don't worry, they can't be launched by a terrorist unless they knew the 8-digit unlock code. How hard would it have been to guess? Believe it or not, that 8-digit code was set to '00000000.' The code was not changed until 1977!!! Read about it in this article.

And that's my stupidity notice of the day.

I can't believe this. I must be the next great mind. Every time I have what i think is a great idea, I never do anything with it and then it pops up in the rest of the world. Last night, I watched a movie and heard the phrase "word vomit." I coined that phrase myself just last year to describe the unintelligibles that come out when you start to go Porky Pig in the middle of a sentence. They used it differently, but with the same pair of words.

The reason I came to Blogdor this afternoon? My OTHER stolen idea. I wanted a toothpaste that wasn't mint flavored, so that I could brush my teeth whenever I want without having a flavor in my mouth that tastes bad with orange juice. Today - I see a commercial for orange citrus toothpaste! I'll be ok