Adventure.

I am going to drive all over the united states sometime in the next few years. I will set aside two or so weeks and do it. Every continental state in the US. Who’s with me?

A Wonderful Day In All Aspects

Today, simply put, was a wonderful day from beginning to end. I decided some things I’ve been pushing away, I spent time with some of my favorite people (though not all of my favorite people! haha.)

Instead of going to the church picnic and outside service this morning (gasp!), my family went to Denny’s together for breakfast like we used to do when AJ and I were in elementary school and went to the Saturday night service at HNW. It felt like old times, which is odd to say, but it really did. Let me take a moment to just say how much I love my family. We fit together so well, and it is wonderful. Of course we aren’t perfect, but I love us. Being at Denny’s on Sunday morning reminded me of when I was still a “kid” (and of course I’m still pretty much a kid, but you know what I mean hopefully). It reminded me of when my knowledge of the world was on a local scale. My mind only really saw the Earth on the plane of my neighborhood, church, and school. It was before I thought much about anything outside my ‘sphere of influence,’ if you will. Of course there’s a time in life when that’s no longer a good thing (and I’m pretty sure I’m almost if not definitely in it now), but it was just a nice start to my day. Especially when it’s the day I decided that I’m going to be in Austin by the Art Institute of Austin’s fourth Quarter. Yep, there you have it.

Shortly after getting back from Denny’s, AJ and I left to go to the church picnic to see if anyone wanted to go with us to see the Narnia exhibit at the Museum of Natural Science in Sugarland. I convinced Mitanjeli to join us and we had a freaking blast. The HMNS in Sugarland is in the middle of this really scenic and fancy neighborhood/subdivision. It had manmade lakes and bridges and trees that perfectly leaned out over the roads and names like “Lakewind” and “Homeward Way” and other pretentious and precocious and precious names like that (and probably every other pre—-ious words, too). But anyway, the actual museum was really small, and looked like an early 1900s boarding school house, but it fit a relatively large amount of stuff. The Narnia exhibit was on the second floor and was pretty legit. They had like every costume and piece of set from both movies. I was excited. And also everything in the gift shop was like 97 cents. I was also excited about that. I bought what I thought was an appropriate magnet for my life that quotes Aslan from the second movie (psshh, movies. Books are better!) saying, “All that you know is about to change.”

Afterwards we had some extra time, so we typed Dairy Queen into AJ’s phone and took the directions deep into the heart of the aforementioned, scarily-perfect neighborhood. But it said there was a Dairy Queen halfway down one of the streets where there were only houses. It was odd. We figured it must be a franchise that doesn’t have a sign for tax-evading reasons. So we knocked on the door and headed on into the people’s house for ice cream-y goodness.

Just kidding about that last part, we had to find one that was not a house, so we drove like 20 minutes to find it. We got ice cream and it was wonderful except when the manager gave us the wrong one and when we pointed it out he stared at it like “How DARE you tell me you got the wrong pie-based blizzard when I have to put up with all these IMBECILE workers every day!!” or maybe it was more like, “Curse you meddling kids!” Idk. Anyway…

We got home after that and I went to Shindig. It was very productive I felt like. There wasn’t ministry night after so we got to talk a lot afterwards which was cool. I got to say some things I’ve been wanting to for a while and we decided finally on the Food for the Hungry thing. Which reminds me: I need to go get that made official! Also, Mrs. Weise made pancakes that were delgit, which is a word I just made up that is a combination of delicious and legit, because they were. Also, I love the Weise family. Well, I don’t really know Jeremy and Daniel all that well, but I’m sure that through the transitive property or by osmosis or transduction or D) all of the above, they are also awesome and I’d probably love them, too.

Good day. Thanks all that participated. I needed a day like this.

Sorry, We’re Pancakes.

So, I went to Austin this weekend to visit a friend of the family (subsequently, my family went, too.) and had a wonderful time! I took a load of pictures of the cool houses there for an assignment in my photo class, and we explored the town some. We found a ‘city-wide garage sale’ that turned out to be less of a garage sale and more of a room full of antique dealers, which was slightly disappointing, but interesting nonetheless. We played mini golf at this funny course and saw a few groups of college kids toting cases of beer, which was odd. haha. I read a little of a new Shane Claiborne book that I got where he talks about prayer (it’s good so far) and we ate at some exciting restaurants. One (called Freddie’s) where you can bring your dog and it’s on a large deck outside under some huge trees. I had a sandwich called a ‘heart attack’ that was 15 strips of bacon and some queso on texas toast. It was delicious. And I got a small amount of satisfaction asking for a heart attack when ordering. haha. We also went to Magnolia Cafe for breakfast today (remember it, Taylor?) and it, too, was delicious.

Hey all you seniors, how was camping?

Oklahoma Trip #2 Was A Great Success.

What a great trip! This weekend has found me more content and worry-free than I’ve been in a long while.

I drove up to Norman, OK with Taylor’s mom on Friday. We got in around 8 and had dinner, then watched the opening ceremonies of the olympics which were interesting, but odd. That whole thing with the boy flying around the stadium making wheat appear everywhere was really cool. And by ‘cool’ I mean ‘I wish I could fly around on a harness like that all the time.’

Saturday we went to look at what will be Taylor’s apartment complex next year so she could take a tour and sign a lease, which was interesting, and did some other stuff before the Jenny & Tyler concert. We had dinner at The Hideaway (pizza place, really good) and then walked over to Cafe Plaid to see the concert. When we walked in John Calvin and Dave Leach were playing (more on them later) and we walked over to talk to Tyler and Jenny in the back. They were glad to see us and surprised because Taylor didn’t tell them I was coming up for the concert again, which was funny, because they said they were wondering if I was coming again, and I was like “Yeah, you were probably like, ‘I wonder if that freaky kid from Houston is going to drive wayy too far to see us again?…’” but of course they denied it. haha.

Anyway, so the concert was set up so John Calvin and J&T alternated between playing two 30 minute sets. When we walked in John Calvin was playing guitar and his friend (I think his name was Dave Leach) was playing the acoustic upright bass. It was extremely legit. I’m fairly certain that they were both improvising about half of what they were playing. John had this rig of pedals set up where he would play a beat or basic melody or something on his guitar then loop it and play something else on top of it. He also ran it through something that would change the guitar’s timber sometimes to something flute sounding. It was really awesome. He was very good.

Then J&T got up there and played beautifully like always. They started with American Dream, which was great because I don’t think they played it last time and it’s one of my favorites. I had to rush in at this point because I was in the back getting some (amazing) coffee. I think I zoned out for like a good 20 or 30 minutes in there because of the combination of such great music, coffee, and the cool setup of the cafe. It was a really wonderful concert. It made me really want to move to a college town where there are musicians playing at random places most nights. ahhh… anyway. J&T ended with Love’s Gonna Last and got the whole room singing part of the chorus which was cool. Also, I recorded most of the concert on my iPhone, but I think that the quality is really bad. I’ll try to wade through it and see if there’s anything worth salvaging or if I can edit it into something worth listening to. Anyway, all in all, it was wonderful.

After that Jon took us all to see the National Weather Center, which was interesting, haha. In the morning it was snowing! We went and had breakfast at La Baguette, which was good, then went home.

In other news, I think this is the most apathetic I’ve ever felt towards a Valentines Day. It really didn’t even matter to me this year, which I think I liked.

Roadtrip, Homework, and General Business

I’m going to Oklahoma tomorrow! (and getting back Sunday night, I’ll probably miss Shindig, which I’m not happy about, but anyway.) Taylor’s mom was going also and kindly offered to take me along since I was planning on going too. Unfortunately I have quite a few things to do this weekend for school and the church. I’ll hopefully get to do them on the way up and back. Anyway. Jenny and Tyler concert! I’m excited. Again. Also, I checked out a Nikon d60 again for the weekend. I love going to an art school where I can check out cameras often and it’s not a big deal.

I found out today that I will be singing in big church on the 21st! I’m so glad for the opportunity.

The post on Stuff Christians Like about worrying about talent is amazing. I highly recommend it. “Honesty is more important than talent.”

Also, this made me laugh very loudly: Googling With Kittens!

I’m still reading Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity, and it’s still amazing. I’m also still reading The Chronicles of Narnia, which is also still amazing. I’m also still reading a lot of other things. But I’m running out of time (and interest, in some cases) to finish everything!

I finally finished the cyborg project:

(Thanks for the comment on the unfinished one, Liz! I appreciate it! ) I got it printed at 15″ x 30″! It’s very exciting to see printed and completed.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has ever let me take random pictures of them for projects. THANK YOU! You make my pictures so much more interesting. I was getting the cyborg picture and some other, older ones printed today and the girl who was working the printer told me, “You have some really cool friends.” And my first thought was, “Not everyone has friends who let them take pictures of them for projects?” I guess that’s probably true and I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m very thankful for all of you.

In other news; Does anyone who reads this that doesn’t live in Houston want a letter? I want to write some letters.

Also, I categorized the crap out of this post.

Like Butter Spread Over Too Much Toast…

So I am with committing my time to things!

I’ve probably spent entirely too much time over the last few days getting this blog set up! There are just so many options and so much potential! I’m enjoying WordPress.

Okay, some notes about the new blog, then I’ll update. First off, I’ve put up some other pages over on the left sidebar. Two of them are more informative pages where I have stuff I like and things about myself. And the other one (Advocating Love) is kind of like a mission statement/conglomeration of quotes and ideas about love that I’ve had that I’ll be writing soon (hopefully). I’m excited about it. Again, if you have a blog I like to on the left side, I wrote a mouse over blurb about you that you should probably read Aaaaaannnd, I added a little sketch of a bird to go with the theme. I didn’t like the lack of pictures so I added one.

Anyway, I’m working on a lot of design jobs right now! The next church concert is coming up (band: 33miles) and I’m doing the graphic stuff, also I’m working on the graphics for Pastor Mark’s next sermon series. They’re going well, but I’m also working on the cyborg project (where I’m turning Trey and Mel into cyborgs digitally for my photoshop class), I just finished three posters for this quote poster project for design fundamentals II (I used an LOTR quote, the one about the star Sam sees). I was elected VP of the Graphic Design club at Ai (holla), which is turning out to be fun so far (we’ve been preparing for tomorrow’s club fair where all the clubs decorate a table).

Shindig is going camping this weekend! I’m amped because the low is allegedly 28 on Friday and 31 on Saturday. Legit! That will def call for a large fire (which I’m always up for). It will be nice to be away from stuff, it’s been a while. Unfortunately that means no time for hw this weekend (dang!). Until Sunday that is. Anyway.

I’m fairly certain I’m going to OK again for the weekend of the 13th and 14th to and hang with Jon and Taylor (and I’ll have to visit Marie too for lunch or something!) and to see Jenny and Tyler play. Zat vill be veddy fun.

Sidenote: I’ve been saying things lately like “Yo,” “Homeboy,” and “Layta haytas.”

I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s not a flaw, it’s a feature. Or maybe I’m subconsciously paying homage to my birth decade? idk, I think I’m scaring people though.

Layta Haytas! Peace Out!

Bye!

Year In Review: Places

Places I’ve Traveled to (in order chronologically, I think):

Martin Dies Jr. State Park. Barcelona, Spain. Paris, France. Disneyworld. Escape (Camp Tejas). Camp Buckner (Burnet, TX). Port Aransas. Austin. Belton. Dallas. Norman, OK. Shawnee, OK. Austin. San Antonio. Galveston.

This Weekend…

…was wonderful!

Saturday I went up to Belton to visit Molly! It was a lot of fun. On the way there I listened to some indie bands: Grizzly Bear, The Decemberists, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It was tight. I seem to have become an indie fan…haha. I’ve still got a whole bunch more to listen to…

Anyway, Belton was great! I got to meet Molly’s lifegroup leader and her family, they were really nice! Sarah seems awesome for Molly, they’re so alike! We watched the end of the OU/UT game and then Molly gave me a tour of Belton and UMHB which was great! There was a market going on in town and we got ice cream at this random place and went to a tiny free museum. It was cute, haha. Also, we went to we this lake and Belton Dam, which was cool. Then Molly gave me a (much shorter) tour of the UMHB campus. It’s really nice. The weather was awesome! It was really quiet because it’s their fall break.

THEN we went to the concert! After Edmund was really weird. They told us that they were from the future…which was odd. Also, they had one guy whose entire job was to sing into this vocoder. I must admit, that was cool. Also, they came out with glowing shirts, haha.

Tedashii was next, and I must admit that I was impressed. Though Jimmy Needham wasn’t as impressive I thought.

Le Crae was really great. Though I don’t really care for rap, Le Crae was so into the gospel! I mean, he spent more time preaching than rapping. It was tight. Oh! And Jessie Cook was there!

Then I drove home! haha.

After church today I saw Pippin! It was really good! It was a play about a group of actors performing a play. But yeah, Cy Creek always puts on great plays.

Then I hung out with Becca, Liam, and Renee at iHop, which was great.

Great weekend!

what’s happening lately

So, since my last post I have become 19! I’ve started my second quarter at AiHN, and I’ve had my first day where I had to go into work three days in a row.

Here’s my new quarter’s schedule:

Monday 8am – Noon = Perspective Drawing

6pm – 10pm = Concept Design

Tuesday 6pm – 10pm = Graphic Symbolism

Thursday 1pm – 5pm = History of Design

6pm – 10pm = Digital Imaging (which is Photoshop class)

It’s going great so far. These classes are much more graphic design oriented, which is cool, because it means most of the people are graphic design majors. All the people I’ve met are really interesting! There are more people there who have been in other jobs or colleges before the art institute than just graduated highschoolers. Also, I was nominated Graphic Design student of the quarter! haha. It’s pretty exciting.

Austin

We saw this cool fountain, but it was off.

So, yesterday morning, Marissa, Liz, and I woke up really early and drove to Austin at 6:30 am. It was a freaking blast! The weather was really nice and we enjoyed it with the windows down like 45 minutes on the way there and like 20 on the way back. It was really foggy in the morning though.

So, we get to Austin and decide to eat at Kerbey Lane Cafe (which was great, I discovered Chocolate Coffee and had really delicious franch toast.) and Kyle Clarkson joined us after some confusion as to where exactly the Kerbey Lane Cafe was that we were at. Kyle ended up leading us around town for the day and we had a great time. We visited Lindsay Landry and had a (fairly awkward) visit with Megan Hanlon (awkward because Lindsay and I were the only ones who knew her, haha). The we walked down The Drag (which is apparently a shopping street in Austin, haha.) so that Marissa and Liz could look through the vintage-y clothing stores, which was pretty interesting. We went into the Co-op (big mistake) and drowned in the sea of burnt orange, only to go outside and be chased down the road by a mob of UT people rallying for the game yesterday.

Anyway, we had a LOT of fun and I hope we get to visit some other places on random weekends soon! haha.

BTW, I’m 19 on Thursday! There will be a party at my house Friday. Taylor, Molly, and Erin will be in town then!

peace.