Pay attention class

For those of you interested in photojournalism, listen up. Today I have the extreme honor of being able to present you with this amazing piece of storytelling using pictures. The pictures in this article are worth a thousand words, each. They don't help tell the story, they tell the story. Without them, this would just be another boring piece of work. So pay attention, you might just learn something.

I decided to cleaned my room on Sunday.

The two pictures above show how my room used to be. My bed was raised up pretty high on cinder blocks and a desk. My two chairs faced the TV over by my clothes and the sink. As you can tell, it was a little messy. I didn't feel like it was a productive environment, so I decided to switch things up.

First off, I moved everything from my bed-side of the room into the living room. And I moved my desk out completely.

Next I moved the TV over to the corner by the window where my desk used to be. With the TV out of the way, I could then start to move my bed over where the TV used to be.

This required that more stuff be moved into the living room.
Then I cleaned out the area under my bed. It was very scary. I found this humongous spider under there, but it ran off. So now it is roaming free in my bedroom, probably waiting for me to go to sleep so it can suck my guts out and eat me. But I digress...


Next, I finalized up the TV area and organized my movies. It's pretty spectacular, I know. Then I finished up the bed.


The bed is still on cinder blocks, but it is no longer as high up. Also, I put the two desks together in the shape of an L across from my bed so now I have my own little office. Yay me. I am already feeling a million times more productive and my room has stayed clean for three days now.

And that is how photojournalism is done. Take that! all you doubting Thomases out there. Anyway, today promises to be more exciting than yesterday. Wahoo. Look out world, here I come.

This is Bob Barker reminding you to...

Haha. I hope no one takes offense at this. But if you're like me, as soon as you saw this sign, immediately a couple of names popped into your head. Sheesh. You people. Anyway, it's Tuesday and Monday is finally out of the way. Wahoo. Have a great rest of the week.

No shave November

The guys at Grand Canyon had a contest for No-shave November. Basically, we all went for most of November without shaving and then got awards for our beards, or lack of them. Although I didn't win any awards, I was pretty proud of myself for being able to grow a pretty good looking beard. Below are my before and after pictures.

Ya, I know. Amazing isn't it. I'm sorry about taking last week off, I was sick and on vacation. Between the two, there was no way anything was going to get done. But I'm back now, so you can all get back to your normal routines. Don't worry, it will never happen again. Unless it does. Sorry.

Tuesday, the day after Monday

In no way do I condone getting drunk. But this was all I could do on short notice. I may be nearly dead, but it just wouldn't be Tuesday without a picture. Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Sick, but educational

I went home this weekend because I wasn't feeling well. While I was there, I left the power cord to my computer sitting on the living room floor. So, between now and sometime on Wednesday, when I will be going home for Thanksgiving, I only have whatever life is left on this battery. If I don't do much posting, I'm sure you will understand.

The doc says that he thinks I have bronchitis. Wahoo. I don't think I have ever had any cool forms of sickness before. It's usually just a cold, or the flu. As you can see above, I included a really nifty little picture to help visualize what I have. But bronchitis sounds pretty cool, right? Actually, it stinks. I can't breathe without pain, I have a nasty cough, my muscles are sore and my head is clogged up like the streets of Israel on Yom HaAtzmaut (look that one up on your own). Anyway, I feel down right awful. God is good to me as always though. I may not have to take one of the tests I was supposed to take this week. That would be awesome. Keep me in your prayers.

The best post ever

Well, yesterday I went to my first class this week. It was a lot of fun. Sometimes, I think school would be a lot better without the classes. I just wish this fantasy would come true. I'm really sorry that today's post pretty much blows. I have absolutely no inspiration. Maybe later on this afternoon I'll feel like writing. If I don't talk to ya'll again, have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday.

Trashy Wednesday

I'm in a funk. I'm not quite sure what that means exactly, but then again, I'm not quite sure how I am feeling. You see, I don't feel bad, as in sick or in pain. I don't feel tired or sleepy. But I just don't feel right. It's almost like something bad is about to happen, or maybe I'm forgetting to do something important. You know that feeling you get sometimes, like a sixth sense? Well I've had it all week. And I don't like it, but I have no idea how to get rid of it. So if anyone has a bottle of funk remover lying around, could ya loan me some?

On to today's topic, trash. We have a lot of it in our room currently. The plan was to pile it in the corner and then take it out once it got too big. But then it got too big and nobody wanted to take it out. So now it just keeps getting bigger.



That Dunkin' Donuts box there in the corner, I think it has been there for about a month if not longer.


So now we have the dilemma of whether to go for a new record and pile up the trash until Christmas break, or should we make Jon take it out? It's going to be a tough decision. Maybe if we (and by we, I mean Jon) get rid of it, my funk will go too. Out with the trash and the funk, sounds like a good motto to me.

A web log

I can definitely remember this happening to my brother and I when we were little. We both swore it wasn't us. To this day, I still don't know which of us pooped. Happy Tuesday.

Today's special is to die for

On Sunday, we had our monthly SALT Bible study leader gathering. Each month we do a potluck dinner and then talk about stuff for about an hour. This month, the guys volunteered to cook the meal. At the last minute, most of our guys either decided not to come or told us they would be late or even right on time. But someone still had to prepare the meal. This left Scott and I to figure out how to fix dinner for 25 people. So we did what we had to do. We got domestic.

We made a chicken and vegetable pasta with alfredo sauce and buttered French bread on the side with pie for dessert. We had all four burners going at once, a pie in the oven and two loaves of bread toasting in the oven. We started off by boiling the dickens out of the pasta. Then we sautéed the veggies, which took forever because we overloaded the pan and didn't defrost the vegetables first. When the pasta finished boiling, we ripped up the chicken into little pieces and tossed them into the pasta before adding the veggies. Right before we were about to leave, we threw on the super hot alfredo sauce to keep everything warm. And let me tell you, that was some of the best pasta ever. I can't wait until I get my own place and can start cooking all the time...

Anyway, we only called our moms once while cooking, so we felt all grown up. Yay us. Chalk up another title on my list of roles. I am now a domestic male, fully capable of cooking a meal that won't kill you as soon as you eat it.

Hibernation station change of destination

Normally I don't post on the weekend, but I have been thinking a lot about getting married lately and I needed to get one of my concerns off of my chest and into cyber space. Growing up, family life got a little crazy at times, and when it did, I would just escape. I would find a nice spot (often the roof) away from all the craziness that was my family, grab a book and some snacks and be by myself until things settled down. When things get crazy here at school, with being an RA, a Bible study leader and all the other stuff I do, sometimes I just check out. I'll just go into my room, lock the door, turn up the music and read a good book, drop down on my knees and pray for a while or play a game on the computer; pretty much anything to help me relax and forget about the crazy world on the outside. When I'm overwhelmed, I shut myself away with lots of food and relax until things settle down. I'm a hibernater.

Well, I was talking with Chris Potts on Friday, and he was talking about one of the hardest things for him at the beginning of his marriage was that there was nowhere to run. He couldn't just check out for a little bit and then return to his wife. That scares me a little bit. I don't know how that will affect me. Will I go crazy? Will I find a different way to relax? I honestly have no idea. It's not that I'm worried about Jamie being my "ball and chain", I'm so excited to spend the rest of my life with her. But I do know that I won't be able to hibernate any more. I'm confident that God will help me, but at the same time it does pose an interesting problem. Well, here's to the next 26 weeks. Hopefully I'll get all of my hibernating out of the way by then.

If you had wrote this, you would have come up with a better title

I know, I know, I didn't post yesterday. It's hard to force inspiration. I want you all to know that I really did try. I started about three different posts and gave up after much hair pulling and banging my head against the table repeatedly. I'm sorry, I just didn't have the writing fever.

On to the important business of today, I feel like I have shared a lot on this blog. But to truly understand me, let me share my favorite word with you. pandemonium. Isn't that a great word? I mean, when you think of pandemonium, what comes to mind? For me, it's definitely a bunch of little panda bears out in the woods beating on each other with bamboo sticks. Haha. It makes me laugh just to think about. There are very few words in the English language that make me laugh. But pandemonium definitely makes my day better every time I hear it.

One GRAND (get it?) celebration

I just want to say a humongous thank you to everyone who has made this latest mile stone possible. 1000 visitors have officially jumped on this site since May. So thanks everybody. To celebrate, I will be canceling my planned two week session on "The problems with the current classification system of hurricanes and a proposal for a new system that attempts to properly classify hurricanes according to wind speed, effective radius and destructive potential". In addition, (because I'm such a great guy) I will be announcing in the next couple of days a new weekend feature that will be sure to knock your socks off. (And yet another shameless ploy to attract more readers.) To conclude, I have a test today in Chemistry. The end.

Hang on to your dentures

I'm working on trying to think of a closing phrase or identifying phrase that I can use at the end of my blogs like "Stay classy San Diego" or "And that's the way the cookie crumbles". If you have any suggestions, send 'em in. Anyway, here's today's picture.


Does anyone else love Tuesday as much as me? Enjoy the short week.

The Quickening

We have a hall event at GCU every two weeks that Matt and I call "the Quickening". At first it was a veiled attempt to get points for our hall in the school-wide competition. But now it has become something more. Somehow God was able to take it from just another thing we do, to something we look forward to and something that brings us together. It has helped to unite our guys and make us a hall of brothers. Quickening means to enliven or give life. I think that is what is beginning to happen with the hall. So the name seems to fit.

We do the Quickening every other Friday night. The first time we did pizza, a movie, and watched the GCU soccer games. It was fun, but nothing extraordinary. But afterwards was when it all began. I was just getting ready to go to bed when one of the guys came running down to my room. "Ben, Ben you gotta see this!" He prodded me out the door and took off running. I chased after him in just my jeans. When we came to the corner room he threw open the door, and ushered me in. I could hear the faint pulse of techno music in the other room. Two of the other guys from the hall were also in there, just standing there looking at me.

"Watch this." He said and then flipped off the lights. The music got louder and all three guys pulled out glow sticks. "We're having a rave!!!" They shouted. They threw me a pair of glow sticks and we just started to dance. It was amazing. Four very heterosexual guys dancing in the dark with glow sticks for 3 hours straight. I would never have believed it.

And the rest is history. We have started having a rave every other Friday night in one of the open rooms in the hall. Matt and I bought two black lights and a fog machine. We have a DJ and very loud speakers. And we dance 'till campus security makes us turn the music off. A new era is beginning at GCU.

The saga continues

Did anyone else read my post from yesterday? If you were at all offended by it, I'm terrible sorry. Sometimes I just have opinions on things that I have to get out. Anyway, that post was removed due to the overwhelming amount of complaints I received. Sheesh. You people.

Sometime this week, I was supposed to post the rest of the proposal. This seems like a good time to do so. To read the beginning of the story, click HERE . I left off just as Jamie and I were climbing the ladder to the roof of the school where I first asked her to be my girlfriend.


...There are three levels on the roof of the gym. We emerged from the darkness below onto the first level. There isn't much to see there, so we climbed up to the middle level. Once we got up there, I led Jamie over to the edge, with the pretense of looking at the amazing view. When we got to the edge, Jamie looked down and saw my brother below with his camera taking pictures of us. Because it was nearly dark, she clutched at me, scared of the "strange man" down below. I reassured her that it was just my brother and that he was doing a "class project".

"So it's okay." I told her. "You can just stand right over here." I said as I ushered her closer to the edge so Matty could get a better shot. "And then I will get down on one knee..." And I proceeded to kneel down. At this point, Jamie was just a little confused.

I pulled one of those little prize eggs out of my pocket (You know, the ones at the front of stores where you put in 25 cents and out comes some little prize in a plastic egg). I had put the ring in there so I wouldn't lose it as easily. I know, I'm brilliant. When Jamie saw it, I think she got a little mad. "What is this? Is this a joke? Is that fake?!!" She demanded as I pulled the ring out. I assured her that it was indeed a very real ring. Not a good idea. Because she proceeded to freak out. This didn't help me out at all. I said something like, "Jamie I love you. Will you marry me?" When I finally got the ring on the right finger, she still hadn't said anything but "AHHHH" and "O-my-gosh" and "AHHHHH". (She wasn't very verbal at this point.) So I stood up, wrapped my arms around her and gave her a kiss. Then I asked her if that was a yes.

As soon as she assured me that yes she would marry me. At that very moment, we heard music drifting softly our way on the night breeze. Jamie turned to me with a quizzical look in her eyes. "What's that?" she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Let's go find out." So we made our way up to the top level of the roof where the music seemed to be coming from. When we came up, Jamie first noticed the candle lit pathway that led to our candle lit dinner up there on the roof under the night sky. And then she saw the violinist that I had asked to come and serenade us. He was dressed in a tuxedo just to add some flare. (Thanks a ton Mr. Wilkison!!!) Anyway, we ate dinner by candle light while being serenaded, had dessert and that was that. We are now engaged and happily planning our wedding. THE END.

There's a site for this?

Wow. Today is picture Tuesday and have I got some pics for you. When I first saw these, I laughed out loud for five minutes straight. Enjoy.



This is from a site called beedogs.com. For those of you who would like to laugh some more, click this link and scroll down a little for the really funny ones. And then for the icing on the cake, check out this page.

Welcome to November and have a great Tuesday.