So I was all excited about a trip to Pismo Beach this weekend with some friends. It was gonna be my tuck and 3 others going and it was gonna be a blasty blast! I forgot one minor detail. I am Pastor on call this weekend... So bummed! This was going to be my trucks first time out in the dunes and I was looking forward to having some fun and getting out of the heat while sleeping under the stars. Oh well, at least next weekend I will be in Central Camp where I will get to hit some trails (Billy's first trip with the newly rebuilt Whitie!!!) shoot some guns and go mountain biking. That is a great way to spend the 4th of July weekend.
(none of these are my truck ...its never seen the dunes)

Its a beautiful thing

Tonight when I get home my house will be a cool 75 degrees. Thank God for air conditioning that works. One good thing about this is that the tech informed my landlord that the ac unit is also a heating unit but its not hooked up for that right now... The reason this is a good thing is that this will be a whole lot more efficient than the wall heater that is what I use now. So it will work better and be cheaper to operate! Oh and the AC should run more efficiently too now that its been serviced. Which is a bummer because I am sure PG & E could use my money more than me.

jump ropes are evil

I just got done taking a shower (COLD) and i noticed this welts that were left from my attempts at jump roping today while working out. Jump rope = embarrassment for Jimmy = entertainment for all

whattheheck its HOT, but that why I have AC...

So today was a great day, a long day but a great day. I went to work (very quiet and productive) then attend the MMA class that Marshall leads at my church. So I got in a good workout, then I went to River's Edge (my old MMA gym) and trained some more. So at this point its been a great day, but a long day. So on my way home I make more more stop (more on that in a later post...) and finally I get home. Looking forward to rest and relaxation, go to turn on the AC because its 85 degrees in here. It doesn't turn on. No problem, I will just flip the breaker. The breaker isn't tripped. So I call my neighbor/landlord. No answer. SO now I am sitting in an 85 degree house, running all of the fans I have to pull in the 80 degree air from outside. If you know me at all and you have been to my house in the summer you know that I RUN my AC. I am not sure how I am going to sleep tonight. I gotta go take a cold shower. I'm done.

I'm Back

I just finished a shower at my own house that lasted at least 25 minutes! It was great!

In His arms

So I should be in bed right now. I have to be to church in a little over seven hours, and that will be the beginning of a long week at camp as I am sure you gathered from the lost post. I can't sleep, I am in one of those spots where you are relaxed but restless; if that makes any sense. I am excited to see what it is that God has in store, both in the lives of my students and my own life. It is as if I am on the top of the wave ready for it to crash underneath me just waiting for that break so that I can ride the wave. Its exciting to be in a spot of anticipation and nervousness because you can not tell what is up head, only that you can trust the One who holds all that is ahead. I know that God has a Sovereign will, and that it involves me, this is not to say that I have any worth or merit outside of that which He has given me, I am just resting in Him. It brings to mind a memory of my childhood. As you have probably read I enjoy riding motorcycles, well a lot of this came from growing up riding. My earliest memory (may merely be that I remember its retelling) is of my dad riding with me on his 3-wheeler, I remember that I loved it, he told me once that he felt so bad because I rode with him so much in one day that I got blisters all over my hands, but it didn't stop me (after that my parents got me riding gloves, which I still have) I remember long rides in the desert where the sand seemed to never end and the heat was ever present. I can still hear the calming lull of the motor as we would ride on longer rides. Its strange to me that something so exciting could be taking place and yet I would still manage to fall asleep as I began to tire. It brings to mind the amount of trust that I must have had in my Dad as a small boy. That no matter what he would protect me and get me back to camp, so much so that I could fall asleep without any worry or fear for my safety. I guess what I am trying to say is that I kinda feel like that now. I am excited and I love the path that God has me on, and I am trusting in Him. Its late, I'm tired and I don't claim that this is completely sound theologically but this are the ramblings in my head at the moment. I guess its somewhat fitting since it is a story about my Dad and its a minute until Father's Day.

Next Week, Hume Lake

Tomorrow I leave for Hume for our summer camp. Hume is amazing, everything they do is legit, hence the price tag we have to charge (although I was able to offer it $80 cheaper than other groups). Our week at Hume Lake Meadow Ranch (Jr. High Camp) while this is a very tiring week its all worth it as it helps us to kindle new relationships with our newly ingested 7th graders. Even more than this is the fact that it provides a solid week without the distractions that students face day in and day out like cell phones and ipods, and creates opportunities for them to connect with God. Last year we had some pretty awesome times where the students were real with their leaders, each other and more importantly with God. Please pray that this year is no different in that respect. I will be up there starting tomorrow and this will explain why there will be no new posting for at least a week.

Writing!?!

Through a series of emails I have had with a staff member at Youth Specialties, I have been asked to write an article for youthspecialties.com! How cool is that? I will be writing on the topic of Campus Ministry, an area that is very important to me and it is a huge part of my ministry. I am excited and nervous since this is kinda a big deal; this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest companies in the area of youth ministry resources, and they put on amazing conferences each year. If you know me you probably know that I am not the greatest writer, so throughout the process of writing this I am gonna make sure to surround myself with as many other people to help tear apart my writing so I can build it up and have them tear it apart again, and re work it again; so that when I turn it in I have a refined article that the people down at Youth Specialties will hopefully love. Hopefully it will be a resource that others will be able to learn from and be able to more effectively work to build God's Kingdom through campus ministry. Please keep this in prayer if you remember it.

Great Sandwich, Even Better Atmosphere

Growing up in So Cal you become accustomed with s certain laid-back type of living. Since moving to Fresno this is something that I experience less and less and today I had a small reminder of SD and it was like a mini vacation. Let me preface this by saying that my Saturday was booked up with taking a food safety certification class that was from 8am (yeah on a Saturday) until 4:30pm. Anyways, this mini vacation... So during my lunch break I went to a sub shop called PCH Subs on the corner of Herndon and Fowler in Clovis. I had the Morro Rock Sandwich which consisted of turkey, bacon avocado and I requested pepper jack cheese plus all of the other fixins' on wheat. Along with my sandwich I had a bottle of Henry Weinhards Cream Soda, and a bag of Jalapeño chips, all of which were delicious. Getting back to the reminder of my early years in SD, the atmosphere was laid back with surf boards all over, surf, snowboarding, and other various magazines for your reading enjoyment AND Surf videos playing on tv's located throughout! It was chill, relaxing, and a breath of fresh air on a day that was not. If you are looking for a good sandwich in the Fresno/Clovis area hit up PCH Subs.

New Home...

So I helped some friends move today; God blessed them with a nice new home! They have been trying to get me to buy a house by them for a while and I would love to. Their neighbors are his brother, his other brother and his family and their sister. I guess you can pick your neighbors... Anyways I looked at a house a few down from theirs and its a great home with nice additions unfortunately I am not quite ready to purchase a house right now, hopefully when that time comes there I will be blessed with such great neighbors too.

Why I'm single?

My friends wife told me that she saw my blog and realized why I am still single... She said when you have a post title "First Love" and have that post about a motorcycle. So, should I A. Make my blog more female friendly (pictures of puppies or something) B. Remain single. C. Settle. OR D. Trust God to bring an awesome young lady into my life that love motorcycles.



What should I do?

One of Those Days...

Today was supposed to be a laid back day for several reasons, 1 because I have to attend a class and take a test from 8am to 4pm on Saturday for work 2 because from Sunday to Saturday I will not be able to get away from Jr Highers at all, in fact I will be at Hume Lake Meadow Ranch which will be infested with the "drunken midgets" as my friend Daniel would say. Trust me I am not complaining, in truth I am looking forward to it. But this is a long week and without a full weekend before hand (Helping Loren and Carrie move tomorrow) I wanted at least one easy day which would've consisted of laundry, packing and if I were really ambitious house cleaning. Instead I got a call at 8:30am from church asking me if I were on campus and when we could meet. So I got ready and prepped for this meeting, got everything squared away, then proceeded to get involved with other tasks. At lunch I was leaving around the same time as another co-worker and as we approached a stop light I heard the sound of metal grinding coming from her car. I called her and asked her if that was her car, and she replied "you can hear that too." I explained that it was her brakes and that they needed to be replaced, especially considering that she was about to go on a long road trip. So I offered to fix them, afterall it would only take about 45 minutes. So I called a friend to see if he would want to do it at his house just because it would be cool to see him and he and I usually have a lot of fun hanging out working on car or motorcycles. So we get there and start the project off by snapping one of the studs off because we later found out that the guys at Big-O went a little trigger happy with the air guns. DON"T GO TO BIG-O!!! Ok, well I can fix that (for the record I have on other cars...) Next we find out that our friends at Big-O didn't just torque the heck out of the lugs but they did it on the calipers too! So we had to replace one of those as well. OK so I get to the other side and I change out the pads and go to push the piston back in so that the new pads will seat; as I am doing so fluid begins to leak from the caliper. So a 45 minute brake job turned into replacing a caliper, rebuilding a caliper piston changing the brakes and attempting to replace a broken stud. Yes, attempting, we couldn't break the single nut loose in order to remove the plate that held the studs in place. In the picture that is when my friend Wes and I tried to heat the nut in order to loosen it, don't laugh this actually is an effective method of breaking things loose, the problem was that we didn't have all of the necessary tools available. So a 45 minute job turned into about 8 hours of frustration. So much for a low key day at home. At one point I thought to myself, should have just told her, "you really need to take care of that" oh well such is life. So, if you need any brake work done, don't go to Big-O...
...or me. (just kidding if you need help and I can, I will.)

prayer

Hey I found out today that a good friend of mine may have lymphoma, none of the people that read this know him (at least I don't think you do) but please pray for my friend, that the doctors will return with good news.

laying it down

I started a project in my house a while ago, I was bummed that I hadn't finished it, but it turned out to be a blessing that I hadn't. I was putting pergo in my entry way and hallway, but with all of the happenings of the last month or so I hadn't been able to finish it. That turned out a good thing because my water heater (that was older than me) decided it was time to die, and in the process dumped about 40 gallons of water out into the hallway and entry way!!! AWESOME! Thankfully I was able to pull it all up since it wasn't finished, while it didn't ruin the flooring (I think... its drying out in the backyard) I am back at step one. I took pictures before I started the floor so I could blog the before and after but now I am not as motivated to lay flooring, so who knows when you will get to see those pics. Tomorrow I will be out of town for another week straight, who knows maybe I can find some motivation once I get back, if you find any maybe you could give it to me.

first love

So I love just about anything with wheels, and that love grows just a little deeper for the two wheeled type. I have been itching to get a bike ever since I sold my first street bike. Most people don't understand it but I really don't care what type of bike I get as long as I get to ride. My first bike was a 1981 Suzuki gs650 and it was a thing of beauty. I love all types of bikes, and especially with the price of gas I can't wait until I am riding again. That bike was a sight to behold. For its time it was THE 650 to own, it out performed every other bike in its class and even out performed the gs850, because it was so powerful light and nimble. Th shaft drive was smooth and flawless, the engine pulled and the ride was comfortable.

Bad week for youth workers

So on Wednesday I got a call from a friend that has been using my Saturn and in return he has been helping me try to sell it. Anyways, so a guy followed him to his house and asked about the car, so my friend called me to see if the guy could test drive; I gave approval and told him to call me if he needed anything. I received a call a few minutes later... Apparently the guy doesn't know how to drive because he ran into my other friends car that was parked across the street, then shortly thereafter decided that he no longer had the available time to stick around to talk to me about the accident, interesting you have time to test drive, but not to stick around to handle your responsibility... convenient. He left his first name and number and that is all, he took off despite the fact that my friend tried to get him to stay until I got there. So my friend got the guys license plate number, just in case. The guy promptly returned my first call, things are looking up! He said he would take care of the damages, and he said he was still interested in my car (this could work out just fine). I called him back with a quote on the cost of the damages on the car he hit (not including the cost of the damages on my car) and he went off on me saying that was too much and that he wasn't going to fix it because it was an older car blah blah blah. He ended up hanging up on me. So I have left him several messages since and Monday morning I will leave him one more. After that it will get very complicated, so hopefully for all involved this guy will decide to do the responsible thing and call me back or answer the call. So quick recap 1 youth pastor, 2 youth workers involved (the guy using my car is a volunteer and so is the owner of the car that was hit). Later that evening after Church one of my volunteers comes and gets me to take a look at her truck. The lock had been punched in but she didn't notice anything missing, later that night though she found out that her credit cards were missing and by the time she got in touch with the card companies they had already purchases a few hundred dollars in gas. Oh, and that Monday night another one of our High School leaders got his truck broke into at church, and the week prior my boss and his wives cars were both broken into while we were at Boomer's for a youth event last Thursday. So in the past week we had seven people that are victims of idiots. In response to the recent events we are forming a new team of volunteers that will now be patrolling the parking lot of the church, they may or may not be armed...

(picture taken before the accident)

So You Think You Can Dance

I just thought this picture was worth sharing... Besides I haven't blogged much and I need to catch up. This was taken while at an event with our up coming class of 7th graders at Boomer's.

Maybe I should try out for the show...

the life of a Jr Higher

While I am glad I no longer attend jr high i will say that I am going to miss the times that I spend on the local Jr High Campuses. We have some great students in our ministry and I love to spend time with them; one way I do that is to go spend there school lunch period hanging out with them. Now summer is fast approaching (this is their last week of school) and today and Thursday should be the last time for a few months that I will step foot on a Jr High campus. I am excited for the summer and for the unique connection that takes place during our camps, bible studies and other events but when I heard that bell ring signaling the end of the lunch period I must admit that I was a little bummed.

An old flame reignited

I have always been a wanna be motor-head. I love driving, riding, whatever. I used to be big into nascar, thanks to the movie days of thunder. I spent my childhood days building jumps and crashing off of them on my Dyno. I had my own 4 wheeler for a while. I even raced remote control trucks. well a friend of mine who flies RC planes got back into RC trucks. He invited me out, and I was hooked. So know I got one of my own off of ebay, which will soon replace wal-mart. Anyways, I have gotten back into it and am loving it, i just have to be careful to control the obsession. ...yeah, I'm kindof a nerd.