America has made this dream, but not for me...

Let me start this off by apologizing to the 3 of you that read this for not updating since I moved. As I'm sure you can imagine, things have been hectic. But, a lot has happened! I have officially graduated from THE University of South Carolina, and have moved back to Florida. I am now working, and trying my hardest to be a real adult. I will do my best to fill you in on what you've missed.

Here are some pictures from graduation:

Me and some of the dudes.

Me and the (future) Wife.

Lunch with the family.

Horseshoe

What a fun time. I have since moved into the condo... alone. It has been interesting trying to get things in order for when Erin moves down, I think I have done a good job. I'd post pictures of the place, but nobody really cares to see that... I don't think.

Work is amazing. The people I work with are all awesome, and I'm learning so much every day. Everyday I wake up excited about what will develop. As far as the market is concerned, the whole country is going to hell in a hand basket, but at least our heads are above water. What a crazy time in the American Economy. Fortunately, Jesus is coming back, will reign supreme, and the US dollar will be worth "doo-doo" when we all have jewels in our crowns. Praise God.

I miss my friends a lot. I went up this past weekend for the Georgia game. What a rough game. I am working on holding back my feelings from College Football, because it causes people to act in a ridiculous manner, and because actually being upset about a game is a bit trivial. Anyways, we had a great time eating ( what else is new?) together. I love eating with friends. The fact that Jesus spent time eating with people is pretty awesome, and I love doing the same.

My Uncle is teaching an apologetics course at his church on Wednesday nights, and it is absolutely fascinating. He is brilliant. So far we have covered intelligent design, and it has taken us 3 weeks. I have learned so much, it is outrageous.

We have watched videos on the rotary system of bacteria flagella, which are essentially little motors. And another FASCINATING video on DNA transcription, (please click and watch that) and how amino acids get together to form proteins. At the very basic level of life, I see each part singing, "HOLY HOLY HOLY IS THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY". Little messenger RNA performing exactly what God has intended them to do, running around, directing amino acids, and pointing to the Glory of Jesus. Man that's powerful.

I really don't bring this up to spur argument. I understand that this is a topic of disagreement, and I in no way want to make other schools of thought out to be "inferior" or less educated. But lately, messenger RNA has me pumped up for the Kingdom.

For the first time in my life, I am getting paid salary. While the company isn't very busy (see: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Lehman Brothers, OOF), it is still awesome to be making money, and budgeting. As I look to the future (which is hopefully filled with some sort of financial success), I am learning some things, and changing my opnions.

Like most middle to upper class caucasian Americans, I grew up placing a pretty large value on possessions. I have always dreamt of owning $100K+ cars, and boats and multiple homes. I have seriously joked about partial jet ownership, and owning sports teams. As I am starting to earn/save money, this is changing. Now when I see a 20-something in a Bentley, I no longer wonder how his portfolio is performing, or what his job title is. All I can think now is, "Dude, joke's on you!" I mean, "Joke's on you for thinking that matters. Joke's on you for being held back by a car payment, or the desire to impress people around you." 

This is captured so well in a song by a good friend of mine, Shaefer Welch. The song is called "American Dream"

Is this all that I've got to tell my children?

That achieving more and money will save them?

Because, I believe this make-believe 

has got the best of you and me.

This American dream is not what it seems.

Song rules.

A couple thoughts to close the post out:

Acts chapter 4 is a BUTT-KICKER. Go read that junk.

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them.

WOW.

I miss you all in South Carolina, can't wait to see you all soon.

-Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

-1 Corinthians 9:19-21

My master told a parable once, that you should pray and not lose heart. When you face the corruption of life, He says "Come boldly and trust Me."

So today was my last full day living in Columbia... for now. I would say "ever", but who knows what God has in store for Erin and I? Well, He does obviously.... but you get the point. Either way, it was the last day living in South Carolina for at least 4-5 years. 

My dad is in town to help me move, and we grabbed some dinner tonight with some friends.

Here is my future wife telling me to not take pictures of her. Look how good Degar is at posing and pretending he doesn't know I'm taking his picture.

I returned from an awesome dinner at my favorite Columbia restaurant, Miyo's, to continue packing up my apartment. OOF.

I feel like I should attempt to reflect on my time in South Carolina. I have learned and grown a lot.

I grew up in Miami, arguably the most culturally diverse city in America. I was raised participating in other cultures traditions, and learning to speak another language just to order a burger. But from living in South Carolina, I never imagined Miami would be a source of such "Cultured Ignorance". A large portion of the people in Miami travel the globe, eat exotic foods, speak different languages, and go out to fancy restaurants in obscure designer clothes. All this without having a FREAKING CLUE as to what goes on in the rest of the country. You have a large population of people who regularly  travel to South America, but have never gone north of Florida.

I could go on and on about the differences between Miami and living in South Carolina, but I won't. But I will say that I no longer have to answer the question, "So you live on a farm / in the country?", when I tell someone in Miami that I reside in South Carolina. Good God people.

I will miss having REAL BBQ with mustard bbq sauce.  I will miss seeing palmetto trees on every car, shirt, and frat dude's shoulder (OK, maybe not the last one as much.) I will miss having more local country stations than alternative rock and hip-hop COMBINED. I will miss this state, and it's been an honor living in it for 4 years.

Here's a health Carolina, forever to thee.

Hanging out is what we do best!

So I have continued the trend of hanging out as much as possible, and doing almost nothing this last week before I move. I have spent a large amount of time with BJ, Andy and Chris. Obviously. I figured I would fill you in on some of what has been going down. This will undoubtedly end up being another photo-laden post, but click 'em all, wuss! 

Friday has been our designated "Guys Night" for at least the last year or so. This friday was no different. But, it was technically the "last" Guys Night. In reality, this is a stupid statement, because whenever we visit each other, Guys Night will almost certainly ensue. Until someone has kids, and then Guys Night is going to be shot to hell. Keep that in mind BJ. Anyways, we began the night like many Guys Nights, in the parking lot of Body Rites, in 5 points. We sat around for awhile, and discussed what to do. We tried to find a 24-hour driving range, but apparently those don't exist in Columbia. Bummer. Here's a video of the guys trying to get me to poop in the parking lot. Please note a few hilarious things:

-BJ's hand motions during the "chant"

-Chris's dance, and his "poop in that" remark after the dance

-BJ's facial expression at the end of the video.

Poop Video

Anyways, the night was awesome. A waitress at Sonic told Andy her cousin would "jump his bone" because of all his tattoos. Yes, bone. SINGULAR. God. Of course we gave her Andy's number, and had her leave a message on her cousin's voicemail. I pray to God that girl calls Andy. 

Sunday we decided to have a sleepover party at my house. Check us out!

Me
BJ in his undies (Megan don't be mad)

Andy's sleeve if it were yellow, and not red.

If you recall, BJ got me a huge bucket of sunflower seeds. Andy felt the need to dump them all over himself. Pretty funny. 

This morning, BJ and I went to breakfast together, and Andy went home and barfed alone. Apparently his choice of tater tots with monterrey jack pepper cheese and a fried ice cream milkshake was a bad one. OOF.  BJ and I proceeded to eat an offensive amount of chocolate chip pancakes, among other things. Afterwards, I seriously was as full as I've ever been. We walked around The Fresh Market for awhile to make ourselves feel even more sick. Check it out:

flowers

BJ shopping

I came home and the most hysterical video chat with Josiah and Phil. I know that sounds like the most pretentious, retarded thing ever... but it ruled. Phil's camera is borderline broken. Here are some pictures of it all.

Josiah and I playing twister with the Polka-dot background effect.

Jo riding the roller coaster

I dont even know

*Phil was in an internet cafe, so Josiah kept yelling "This is a gay chat room!" until Phil had headphones on. Then...

I also recorded this video. It goes out to BJ, Chris and Andy. I'm not sure if anyone else will find this funny or not.

Then tonight, Chris kept the video chat theme alive. Andy and I joined in the window to watch Chris argue with an 18-year old friend of ours about the experiences of being older. IF YOU LOOK AT ONE THING IN THIS WHOLE BLOG, PLEASE WATCH THESE, HOLY CRAP.

-Argument 1-

-Argument 2-

I pray to God you watched those. That's Emily by the way. You can read her blog here.

Andy, Chris and I ended the night with a late run for BK, which we ate outside.

I move in 3 days.

-I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.-

You won't even know I'm gone

The last few days have been pretty interesting. I'm coming down on my last 7 days of living in Columbia, and I've been trying to spend as much time with my friends as possible. This may very well may be one huge picture update, with not much insight. Sorry.

On monday I went to lunch with Chris at Groucho's, and I figured I would take a video, "Chris Style". [If you don't understand why this is indicative of Chris, go read his blog.] Here it is:

Once I met up with Chris, I learned that he had a new pair of sunglasses. Pretty awesome.

We laid out at the pool for the rest of the afternoon, and then went home to play Pandemic II together. Pandemic II is this crazy game where you have to evolve a disease  (virus, bacteria, or parasite) by tweaking it's symptoms and resistances in hopes to wipe out all the Earth's population. It's actually really hard, because freaking Madagascar closes its ports before our diseases "Rap-Metal" or  "Aurielle", could ever reach them. We finally got it done with our disease, "Chris and Chase". Figures.

Tuesday  was also a great day. I got an Email from the guys at Stay Gold. If you remember, they have sponsored my band, and given us all sorts of free clothing and other stuff. Chris and I ran some errands, and then met up with Andy. We tried to go see Batman, but freakin Carmike had false times posted on the internet. Unbelievable. We ended up hanging out in Chris's bed, no homo.

Here's a picture of me trying a pair of Vans with a tux, to get an idea for the wedding. Chris apparently added a new piece of equipment to his assortment of weapons. Andy called it a "Shotgun Coozi". I tried to take a picture of the 3 of us hanging out, and my thumb accidentally covered the flash. Check it out. After a while of watching Ali G, Chris and Andy began jumping on the bed. This picture is awesome. Chris kicked us out after that, because it was getting late, and I think he wanted to wack it.

Yesterday, I went to lunch with Andy to Groucho's (love it). Andy had never eaten there ?! Here's another intro video a la Chris:

Here are some pretty good looking photos documenting my friends at Groucho's. 

Chris

Lukemire

Part of Andy

Zack Spurlock was in town yesterday. He's the dude that tattoos me and all my friends. Here's a rare picture of Zack outside the tattoo shop, making fun of Chris. After several of us ate big burritos, we went to Manifest and I bought Hopesfall - "No wings to speak of" 7' EP, as well as the Patton Oswalt CD/DVD and a Suffocation album. Chris, BJ and I ended the night with a trip to Krispy Kreme. If you have given up clicking on pictures at this point, I encourage you to at least view these last few. At Krispy Kreme, BJ knocked over his milk on himself. It was all over him, even in his shoes. Of course, instead of helping, Chris filmed and I took pictures. BJ's sentiments. Chris has this thing where he parts his hair, and it always makes BJ laugh. As we were leaving, BJ left his his straw in his Mr. Pibb, and Chris knocked it out of his hand, covering BJ's other shoe in Mr.Pibb. Rough night for BJ.

Lastly, BJ gave me a going away present. It is amazing.

Tonight is my last triva night at Hudson's, follwed by a private screening of Stepbrothers.

WOOOOOOOOO!

I've covered this country far and wide, but I'll always be a son of the south

I got back from my trip to Florida with Erin tonight. We flew down to Tampa to find a place for us to live once we get married. It took nearly 3 days, but we found a place! We're both totally stoked.

The first few days of August, I will be relocating to Dunedin, Florida. We will be living downtown, which is really awesome. The downtown area has some really cool shops and restaurants. There actually aren't any large billboards or chain restaurants or clothing stores downtown, which makes it that much nicer. Obviously we are close to all those wonderful chain establishments if we need them. Dunedin is also home to the Single A Dunedin Blue Jays, which will also be awesome.

I took a couple pictures of the Condo we found. Check it out!

Front of our building.

Our unit is the 3rd floor balcony.

Back of the building.

Pool area.

Probably the best part about the Condo is that it backs up to the ocean! It's not on the water, but it's super close. Check out the road from the back of the Condo to the water. There's also a really nice Marina around the corner.

Across the Bay from our Condo is Caladesi Island, which is regularly voted as one of the top beaches in America. It won 1st for 2008!

The majority of the trip was spent finding a place as awesome as this, but I did get to spend most all of the time with my Dad, who is probably the best human being currently alive.

That's about all I've got. I should be pretty busy these next few weeks getting things together to move out. What a crazy thought.

- Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Blame it on the Holy Rollers

Since I've been back from tour, I took a little trip with Chris, Andy and BJ to warped tour in Jacksonville. We got a hotel that night, and hung out in Savannah the next day. The trip was awesome. The 4 of us staying in a Hilton was entirely ridiculous. 

I bought a new pair of Vans and Nikes from the outlet mall in Florida.

Today I started figuring out what I'm doing for the wedding tuxedo-wise. Yikes. Also, I finally purchased a new camera! Took me long enough! I decided to abandon the Sony idea, and settled on a Canon SD 870 IS. I guess style-wise it isn't the "sleekest" camera, but it does have a pretty big screen. I'm really happy with it so far. It was probably the best reviewed camera online.

In other news, SB98 played  what could possibly be our last show ever tonight to about 35 people. I had fun though.  Here are a few pictures from the show.

Chris 

Michael 

Me

After the show, some of us went to eat at Yesterdays. Their southern fried chicken is on point. Here's a pretty cool picture I took of Andy at Yesterdays. Next door to Yesterdays is some other bar I don't know the name of, and there was a band playing there. This band had their BUS parked outside the bar. I should probably mention this was not a band I was interested in hearing. Anyways, check out the graphics on their tour bus.

Tomorrow Erin and I are headed to Hilton Head to taste cake and meet with the Pastor. Friday we are flying to Tampa for the weekend to go house-hunting. Crazy! We'll be back in Columbia late Sunday night.

Here are the rest of the pictures I took today with my new camera. Check them out, I think they're pretty awesome.

BJ's Cardinal

Me Loungin'

Andy and Lil B

BJ and Andy

I put the sticker on my computer that the dude from Stay Gold gave me. Check out his store when it opens up. He sponsored my band, and has awesome designs!

Listen to Impending Doom

Tour is over...

So bummed.

It was such an awesome time though. I would say of all the tours The Red Baron has done, this was the best one. I think for once all of our hearts were in the right place, and we had awesome attitudes about everything. We literally did not get in one argument the entire time. Praise God!

After Cornerstone, we played a really tiny show in the middle of nowhere, and stayed with a really nice girl named Blossom, in Carbondale, IL. She let us use her kiddie pool. Check out jake loungin'. After that we celebrated me passing my last college course, meaning I can officially graduate in a few weeks!

Over the next week, we drove alot, played shows, played an AMAZING show in Louisville to a bunch of friends and some awesome people from Puerto Rico! (check out Clear Convictions. So good.) Attended Warped Tour in Atlanta, was so much fun.

Here are some pictures since the last update.

Phil sleeping under a hoodie, and being rap-metal.

Driving to Warped Tour on our day off.

We ended the tour with an awesome show in Columbia, with my best friends (and other band) Spring Break '98. Check out some pictures of my dudes wearing some of the SB98 visors that BJ made.

PHIL

BLACK JOHN

Last picture from tour, is the least important one, but probably one of the more humorous ones. Tour payout time.

In closing, tonight I spent time fishing, eating, and swimming with my 3 best friends in the whole world. I am eternally thankful that I am so close to such human beings, and that we are all so alike. It blows my mind. Life is good, Praise Jesus!