Spring....

This week is going to be rather short. So I've been back in classes doing "make-up" classes that I haven't done or have started and then stopped because of other things going on for the last two weeks. Some of the classes are interesting, some aren't so much. I should be done with them tomorrow for at least awhile. Good thing though is that I have been working for six months now. Yes, I have made it through six months now at a somewhat boring government job at times. Earlier this week we had the "golf" ball return to the harbor. 

It had come into Pearl Harbor just before President Obama visited the islands for his "vacation" (spending thousands of US tax payers dollars) and then left abruptly at the end of January I believe. Now you can't really tell how big this floating "golf" ball really is. I will just say that you can see a crane on the picture below and just the relative size of the ball to the crane. The ball and all of its support equipment rest on an old Russian Oil Platform. Some of you probably know how big those are so it can give you a relative size of the floating ball. Now you probably want to know what the "golf" ball is. It's the Sea-Based X-band Radar (SBX). It cost the military roughly $900 million, and is a 28-story-tall missile defense radar. The home base is in Alaska. Needless to say, I would like to go take a tour of the golf ball, but I don't think I will be able to. 

Some perks about being able to get on the military installations in Hawaii are that I get to get close to floating flotillas such as that golf ball and also see the USS UTAH memorial which is on Ford Island and not so easy to see if you are a civilian. If you come out and visit, we can go see the memorial. 

The USS UTAH like the more famous memorial of the USS ARIZONA is there to remember the shipmen that were lost during the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941. The memorial is on the opposite side of the island than that of the USS ARIZONA. 

The home fellowship that I was going to on Friday's finished the book of Ezekiel. The next thing that they are doing is the Truth Project at the church. Originally, it was going to be in a classroom with limited space, but after the promo video was showed this weekend at church, there was an overwhelming response and I believe now they will be having it in the main sanctuary. The only problem I can see with that is hopefully they break up into smaller groups to discuss the DVD otherwise I think a lot of people will miss out on the purpose of small groups for the Truth Project. 

Lastly, the children's ministry performed a musical this weekend for the Sunday evening service called "Solid Rock Cafe". It was a 50s theme with some southern slang thrown in there. It was pretty good, but I think I was spoiled from my elementary days and middle school days with those children's ministry plays. The musical still had a good message and gave a chance to have people to answer the altar call that the pastor gave after the musical was done. The kids did a really good job. I was impressed that the younger kids (4-5 yr olds) could stay on stage that long and pay attention through the entire thing. 

Spring Break

Well I don't really get spring break, but I do live in a place where people come for spring break, so there is a lot of different celebrations starting this weekend. I would actually have to say the partying started on Thursday, St. Patrick's Day. No, I didn't go out and party and join in the celebrations. Yes, I did know people that went (one being my roommate).


So Saturday, there was the first annual Floatopia Hawaii. The Facebook description is below:

Floatopia is coming to Hawaii! March 19th, the first Saturday of Spring break, there will be the biggest party you have ever seen at Ala Moana Beach. Starting in Santa Barbara, Floatopia has been an annual event for college students for over 5 years. Come join Hawaii's first FLOATOPIA! Bring your floats and your drinks and start you spring break off the right way! The event will be held in the blocked in cove at the end of magic island. There is plenty of parking on the streets in Ala Moana park and in the magic island parking lot. Look for signs directing you to the party. PLEASE remember to be safe and DO NOT drink and drive! SoHo will be holding the official after party for Floatopia! After your day of fun in the sun make sure to head down to China Town for a great party at club SoHo. They are planning on a night that continues the theme of floatopia. Come party at SoHo with 104.3 providing the music!

Basically, it is a huge drunken fest on the beach where spring-breakers can meet other people on spring break and just get drunk and have fun in the water.  I went and saw the festivities, but didn't actually take part in any of the festivities. I ran into a few coworkers though that seem to be having a good time. Their stories of the day were quite hilarious. The first few pictures when it first started.

I went to the other part of the beach at Ala Moana after running. It was much more peaceful over there and I ended up reading bit. I didn't fall asleep this time on the beach but came rather close. I also didn't get sunburned this weekend like I did last weekend which was really nice. I did have to put on some sunscreen after a bit, but this time, I had sunscreen to put on (last weekend, I didn't bring any with me which was quite stupid). The pictures below were after about three hours. The amount of people had increased dramatically.

The cops decided to show up about four afters the event started. I think the lifeguards finally got sick of all the drunk people and called the police. I do feel sorry for the lifeguards that were on duty in the cove that day. They probably wanted to kill themselves. On the other hand, they got a very interesting day and certainly not boring. I saw them pull people back into the cove at least twice (drunk spring break college students were floating out to sea through the opening in the breaker wall). The cops look like they don't know what to do when they first arrived. I don't know if they checked every one's ID or if they just broke up the party. I left before they broke up the party to go see Battle: Los Angeles. 

Battle: Los Angeles, was an alright movie. I wouldn't say it was the best movie I have seen recently. If you like military and a pretty constant line of fighting then the movie is pretty good. There was a nice message of trust and teamwork though that ran through the movie and was realized at the end. 

I also took my computer in to get fixed on Saturday. They told me it would be about five days till I would get it back. I was all sent to live without it for the five days, but yesterday they called me and told me it was ready. Shocked me indeed. I figured the Apple Care plan actually paid off this time. Considering I would have had to pay about $571 for the work that was done on my computer. They had to replace the glass track pad, a logic board (one of the USB ports wasn't working anymore), and the labor. It would have been a pricey fix, but since it was free and all covered by the extended warranty, I decided to get it fixed. A good investment in the end. 

Lastly, a Japanese submarine pulled into Pearl Harbor this weekend and had assess for the first time to the world news. This also brought about that they just found out about the tragedy that happened in Japan. The full story can be read HERE. The Japanese submarines also look weird from the US, but I guess I only notice since I'm around the US submarines all the time. 

I think that is enough for now. Spring break festivities continue this week and probably next week as well as different spring breaks overlap this month. I should also talk about the home fellowship I'm going to on Friday Nights again. Probably next week. 

The Power of Water

I think everything big and interesting likes to happen Thursday night Friday morning. Last week (well two weeks ago), it was the crazy thunderstorm and losing power and this week it was the 8.9 earthquake in Japan that sent a tsunami wave throughout the Pacific Ocean. Also of note, the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72) pulled into Pearl Harbor Thursday for some Liberty and to get some supplies before heading off today for her home port.

So what everyone wants to hear about....the tsunami warning/tsunami in Hawaii. First off, I ended up watching the tsunami that hit Japan live Thursday night before I went to bed. It was pretty unreal. Granted most everyone on the Mainland wouldn't hear about the earthquake and tsunami until Friday morning when the video that I saw live would be replaying on every news station and over YouTube and the Internet. It was pretty amazing how powerful water is. You watch it from the helicopter perspective and you're like "that's not moving pretty fast" but then you think again, that is moving buildings, cars, boats, all at a significant pace, wait that is moving pretty fast and it's still going, not slowing down at all. When a wave can carry burning buildings without putting them out, yeah that's some fast moving water, and a lot of it. I was also impressed that I did remember a lot about tsunamis from Earth and Environmental Systems (the class in which most people sleep through). Needless to say, the media (and some unfortunate people on the Mainland and boat owners here in Hawaii), learned the hard way and was amazed that tsunamis are actually more than one wave. Yes, you heard right, more than one wave. The wave that did the most destruction in Japan was actually the 10th wave that hit them. Granted, they were in fast succession since the epicenter was close to the islands of Japan.

Hawaii was ready for the tsunami waves that were predicted to hit the islands around 0300 Friday morning. The Pacific Tsunami center sent out the warning and advisories pretty much immediately after the earthquake hit Japan. It was amazing that they kept upgrading the earthquake as well. First it started off as a 7.9 magnitude, the upgraded to a 8.8 magnitude and finally to a 8.9 magnitude earthquake. Now 8.8 to a 8.9 magnitude earthquake may not seem like a lot, but you have to remember that the scale is on a log scale. If my memory serves me correctly the waves reached the Hawaiian islands about 0330 first on the island of Kauai. A few minutes later, it hit the islands of Oahu and Maui and then finally the island of Hawaii. The highest surges I believe were seen to be about 7 ft surges. On Oahu, the north shore saw about 6-7 ft surges and the boats harbor up there I think saw some damage. In Waikiki, there was only about 2.3 ft surge. Waikiki is protected by lots of reefs that help break up the wave surges. The East side in Kailua saw about 0.1 ft surges (yeah big numbers) and in Pearl Harbor, a half meter surge was seen (don't ask me why it was reported in meters when the others were reported in feet).

I was safe for it all. I live outside the evacuation zone. Some of my friends that live in town and in Waikiki evacuated to people's places that were outside of the evacuation zone. The USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN stayed in Pearl Harbor, the Navy obviously thought it would be safe and the wave height that was predicted wouldn't affect the carrier at all. I got woken up by the tsunami alarms at 0130 and went down to watch the TV to see what was happening. I guess I slept through the 1000, 1100, and the 0000 alarms that had gone off earlier that night. The news just kept replaying the tsunami wave footage from Japan which started to get depressing and how to prepare for the tsunami wave here in Hawaii. The news also had a camera crew up on Diamond Head where there is a spotlight from a private resident (I believe) that gave a view of the ocean so they could watch the wave come in. I ended up sleeping down in the living room with the TV on in case anything happened. Most interesting thing was that I ended up going to work at my normal time in the evacuation zone even though the "all clear" hadn't been given. The reason being was that the emergency phone number in case of emergencies like this still said to report to work at normal times, the radio station(s) that give information about the shipyard didn't have anything different and the one TV station that gives out information (which I was watching) also said nothing about anything different. Only after I showed up for work did I learn that we weren't suppose to come to work until the "all clear" was given (which was about 1000). The guards at the gate still let me in as well. Needless to say, I have experienced my first tsunami warning this past weekend.

As I stated earlier the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN came into port on Thursday. Air craft carries are a whole lot larger than a submarine. Granted, you think that is common sense but when you work on submarines it kinda just gets filtered out. I tried going to the USS ARIZONA Memorial on Saturday to get a water close up picture of the carrier, but the earliest tour time was 1200 which was a bit late (it was 0830 when I got there). I did not want to wait that long and I had something else at 1100. So, I went for the next best option. I went onto Ford Island and got some pictures from the bridge and the island. I also went to the pier on base and got some pictures from there. I didn't get a chance to tour the aircraft carrier :-( maybe the next one that is in port. The number is also lit up very patriotic at night. I did get some great pictures from the USS ARIZONA Memorial sight since the carrier was docked basically right next to the memorial.

Saturday lunch/early afternoon was my church's water baptism/potluck on the north shore at Haleiwa Ali'i beach park. We had 18 members of our church get baptized on Saturday which was pretty amazing. A whole family, some couples, teenagers, and a few young kids got baptized. Truly was a blessing to encourage them during this time. I again ended up taking food home after the potluck was done. Not that I'm complaining or anything, it's nice taking food home. Kinda like college....free food....but instead of catered food here and there, it's home made food and most of the times not American style food. Awesome free food compared to college free food. Free food is free food though. I also brought a Ultimate disc to the potluck and threw the disc around. Granted I have to admit to shame that the disc is a Wam-O disc....yes poor quality....I dont' want to hear about it. It still was good and in a sense better since  the people I threw around with weren't the greatest. a Wam-O disc is alright getting knife-bladed into the ground. I don't feel as bad.

Sunday I went to church and then to the beach with some friends down near Kailua. The beach was a great time, relaxing and just having fun. Went snorkeling for a bit then just hung out on the beach for a greater part of three hours. Bad thing was that I got a pretty nice sunburn during those three hours. Sunlight reflecting off of water just give such an intense dose of radiation, something like that. Needless to say, I have some color after going to the beach. Not lobster red, but still a slight red color. I wonder how my haole friends turned out after that time at the beach.

That is the greater part of last week. I did give blood and the lady that drew my blood, yeah she ended giving me a bruise. Not quite as big as the one I got from Dr. Neeves, but still a decent size bruise. I guess the Blood Bank of Hawaii want's me to start donating platelets next time. They are much more on top of asking me to do that than Bonfils was. I also found out that my logic board for one of the USB drives is dead, so it will have to be replaced. The store had to order the part so I get my computer for a few more days before I have to turn it over to get fixed. The extended warrantee is actually paying off for once. I will have to ask them how much it would cost if I didn't have the warrantee when I drop it off. P. S. Ashley, you seem to keep moving your day of your postings. Also, you should wear Orange on Thursday, although it would probably clash with your red hair.

Speech Impediments, that should not stop you...

I had an interesting Thursday night/Friday night, in which the powere went out at about 0330. I believe it was because of lightning hitting the power line or something like that, overloading the grid. Someone with more electrical background can probably explain it better than I. So needless to say, it made getting ready for work an hour later a bit interesting, doing everything in the dark....I did have hot water though, which was amazing. I thought I was going to have to take a military cold shower and all, but no, hot water was amazing. I ended up taking a nap when I got home (and I had power again). Yes, naps, you may think you have out grown them, but in college you definitely start seeing naps coming back. I had to take a nap since I was planning on going to the Bible study about prophesy that night and the last time I went to that, I stayed there till midnight without a nap. That was an adventure. 

Instead though, I ended up going to a friends house for dinner. He and his wife hosted me and we ended up talking and just hanging out for a couple of hours. They had had power all day and even better for him, he called in "sick" so he didn't have to go to work. Works in the long run, I think it was mainly because the couple he normally carpools with was taking the day off because family was in town. I think the next time I go over there, the will have some more board games. My friend was looking into getting Carcassonne the game. Now, as he was explaining it, I was thinking to myself, "This game sounds really familiar." After thinking about it, I have played this game, it was over the summer I think with Kalen. For some reason, I should have known that Kalen had this game. He has so many of these games. My friend also showed me this awesome documentary about the most popular web based game, Minecraft, http://www.minecraft.net/ Interesting thing about this game is that it goes back to the olden day....as in like 16 bit/32 bit type look, blocks, no curves, etc. Brings back memories of the old days.

Saturday I went and to Barnes and Noble in town. Now, I do have to say, that I do not like BN as much as Borders, probably because the feel of their stores and the level of customer service that I normally get. BN didn't disappoint again, the Customer Service person that I talked to wasn't the most friendly, and BN "Religion" section was just one bookshelf. I was trying to find CS Lewis books and of course he is in like three sections. I couldn't find his books in Religion so I ended up giving up. I got some other books instead. Now, I went there to use the gift certificates that I had to BN. I had a sweet groupon coupon for $20 that I paid $10 for, and also I figured since Hawaii is pretty late dated in everything, I could get rid of the really old paper BN gift certificates that I had found while I was moving. Yes, you heard that correctly, paper gift certificates. Well they did still have check readers (yes people over here use checks all the time it seems like) so I was in luck! I should have taken a picture of those gift certificates, but I forgot to do that. Sorry all, you cannot share in the keeping of old outdated paper gift certificates. The three books I ended up getting were, Ted Dekker's The Heaven Trilogy and Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World, and the third, Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice.

While I was down at Ala Moana shopping center, the Cherry Blossom Festival was coming to an end. The festival is pretty much a culmination of Japanese culture fashion and person pageant (I think). Not only do they have a fashion part, I think the main focus is on history, outreach, and community service. It just has to be focused on Japanese decent. The main interesting thing though was in the area above the stage there was Wonder Woman.

The interesting part of the festival (the part I ended up staying for) was the Japanese Taiko Drums. Now, if you haven't heard them, they normally play at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) Lunar Festival celebration put on by the Professional Asian Society of Engineers and Scientists (PASES). This drum group though were not all females as with the one that plays at CSM. This one was a co-ed group. The first song was set up as below. A video of the first performance can be found here (youtube link). I wish I knew that they were going to just play two songs, then I would have recorded both songs. Oh well. 

I also saw SNOW!!!!!! Well, it wasn't really snow, but the "thought" of snow. The Special Olympics of Hawaii was actual doing a polar bear dip fundraiser. Now where is Nathan Valentin when you need him? Anyways, it was jus interesting to see how they brought snow here to Hawaii. Basically, just a lot of ice. I didn't actually jump in, since I saw it when they were packing up. Maybe next time though. I think Clear Creek is pretty cold after the spring snow melt so.....it would be hard to beat that. 

Sunday I stayed late at church when talking with some friends and we ended up sitting through the Junior High and High School service. Now, I know the guy that is doing their classes and he is a pretty intense guy and really has a passion for evangelism. So, question for you, do you witness enough and at every opportunity that you have? I know I don't. I don't share the gospel with everyone I talk with. I guess that should change, but in small steps. At work, it's pretty hard to talk about things like that without  getting into too much of a debate or heated conversation. I do like his method of remembering how to share the gospel, but granted there are also many other ways to do share. Love Jesus Christ RatFace. So weird thing right? Well L is to share the Law, and how we fall short of the Law. J because we break the law, we have to face the judgement of our sins. Of course you have to explain what sin is. C confess the sin that we have done. Now you have to also explain who Jesus Christ is, not just a man, but the Son of God who was holy. R repentance, you have to repent from your sins that you have confessed. F faith, have faith in Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. Now there is that little saying, but you have to remember to fill in the gaps with the necessary details. 

I think the highlight of my week was watching The King's Speech. The movie was very surprising and really well made. I would highly suggest watching it if you haven't seen it yet. Now I'm waiting for the movie to finish uploading so that I can post this. I'm also watching (and enjoying) the torrential rain that is happening currently. See below for a friend that I found this past week, enjoy. 

Chocolate Overload

I'm having some trouble remembering what I did this past week. Must mean I'm getting old or something, or that I just have to start writing everything down so that I can remember at least some of the things I have done. Oh well. I do remember earlier in the week my one roommate that is currently in the house (the other 2 are off island), we had a fun killing spree of flies. Yes, you heard me correctly flies. I think we killed at least 50 flies in the house. We think it was due to standing water in the back yard that was the tarp coving the chairs and the table. Who really knows, it was an exciting time smacking flies all over the walls and the floor. Some of the flies got really smart and started playing dead. It only worked until we started vacuuming the floor. They could not stand the vacuum. Hahahaha.

Friday night I went out with friends from work to Ryan's bar and restaurant down in the Ward Center to celebrate a coworkers birthday. It's actually a pretty nice place and their happy hour is decently priced and all. Sweet potato fries are definitely becoming the rage. Whenever I order a Blue Moon out here, I also have to specify to have an orange slice in the beer. One place I went, they didn't put an orange slice in the beer. For some reason the bar didn't have orange slices and I even think the waitress that we had didn't know you put orange slices in a Blue Moon. The other interesting thing about Blue Moon was that on another menu (I forget where), I saw Blue Moon as in Import beer.

Saturday, at first, I didn't have any major plans. Again, my plans to have a movie night with friends got spoiled by them because they were "moving" although she moved like on Wednesday. I also found out that when they asked me if I wanted to go surfing, they were planning on going surfing in an hour or two from that point, not actually clarifying the time or the plan. Needless to say, I decided to go humpback whale watching on the Windward (west) coast. I got distracted though when I went to Costco to get some lunch (just because it is cheap). I was possibly thinking of going to the Hawaiian Chocolate Festival, which I found out Friday night from a friend, but wasn't 100% sure on it. I decided to go to the festival while I was eating lunch at Costco. What could it hurt, it was right across the street.

Now, I didn't know that Hawaii grew cacao on the islands. I did learn though that Hawaii is the "north pole" for growing cacao, since the tree likes humid, hot, little to zero wind, and it needs lots of water to grow. Basically, the best zone for cacao to grow is +20 degrees and -20 degrees latitude. Now you are probably asking what cacao is, or at least the pod/seed what is grown. It comes in many different colors and can be seen below. The seeds are in the white protective film seen in the yellow open pod and then the roasted final seeds are in the basket at the top. This is the first ingredient and step in making chocolate. 

The Hawaii Chocolate Festival is actually a really big deal as I found out on Saturday, in that the event even got its own special events Hawaii proclamation from the governor. The proclamation reminds me too much about ASCSM and the wonderful legal jargon that goes with writing something that could just be said much easier, as in, "I, Gov. Abercrombie, proclaim February as Hawaiian Grown Cacao Month." Instead, you try to read the seven "whereas" statements that lead up to the grand saying at the bottom.

If you have chocolate, you are soon come across a chocolate fountain of some sort. I believe I saw only three fountains, but this one was the best decorated and displayed. Although, this one was just for show, the other fountains, you could actually use. So, you probably are wondering what chocolates I tried. I can't honestly remember them all, but I did have a "chocolate passport" telling me what companies I tried chocolate from. I know it is hard to read the list, so I will list them. 

• Choco le'a
• Hawaiian Vanilla Fudge Sauce
• Hilo Sharks Chocolate (only one that did not add cocoa butter)
• Macadamia Nut Hawaiian Fudge Sauce
• Madre Chocolate
• Manoa Chocolate
• Ono Pops
• Original Hawaiian Fudge Sauce
• Padovani Chocolate
• Premium Hawaiian Fudge Sauce
• Private Reserve Hawaiian Fudge Sauce
• Ricard Chocolat
• Sweet Paradise Chocolatier Co. 
• Tiki's Grill and Bar
• Waialua Estate 
• 360 Vodka
• 100% Kona Coffee Hawaiian Fudge Sauce
• 9th Aunnual Emanuel Episcopal Chocolate Extravaganza

Along with these, I tried 14 different chocolates in three flats (like a wine tasting) in one of the seminars that was hosted by Madre Chocolate. I also learned that UH Manoa and their agricultural degree is educating most growers in cacao and that professors are experimenting with different species and varieties of cacao here in Hawaii. It is not known yet, which variety gives the greatest yield. Now you might be able to understand my chocolate overload this weekend. The festival had two "official" mascots. One is pictured below. 

I did end up making it later in the day to whale watch. I saw some humpback whales jumping and spouting, but I couldn't get any good pictures (yet) of them. They were off the coast past the range of the zoom on my camera. On the way back, I decided to take a hike and watch the sunset from the Windward side of the island. I hiked up Hanauma Bay park (the rise above the bay) which I got some pretty spectacular vies of Koko Head and the bay before the sun started setting. 

There was a storm that was coming in from the north which cooled off the air before it made it extremely humid. It also gave some nice pictures and the color contrasts. I think it also gives some color definition to the area and you just don't see a "blue" sky all the time. I do also have to note that everything is much greener since the last time I was over on the Windward side of the island. It is the rainy season and that side definitely gets more rain that the other parts of the island. Early in the week, that side of the island had flash flood warnings. The entire island also had an amazing lightning show. The next morning, I heard on the radio as I was going to work, that we had 21,000+ lightning strikes the day before. That's just amazing!

Hanauma Bay is a fantastic snorkeling (and also very crowded later in the day) spot. Tourists come everyday that it is open (closed on Tuesdays) and crowd the beach. The coral life is in pretty good shape despite the high traffic volume and the people that can't read (or listen) by standing on the "rocks". If you ever go to a reef, never stand on the coral, you are killing the coral by doing so. I was personally wishing that a whale (or whales) would come into the bay to just swim around when I was there, but it didn't happen. Oh well, it still made for a nice hike with a great view. I did end up seen the sunset like I planned on. I even had company while I was up there. I think the bird in the foreground took a break as well to watch the sun set. 

Where is all the Money going?

This was taken from this a website. It's just copied and pasted excerpts of some interesting details.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

How Rich are the Superrich?

A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244.

Your Loss, Their Gain

How much income have you given up for the top 1 percent?
 

Out of Balance 

A Harvard business prof and a behavioral economist recently asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the United States. Most thought that it’s more balanced than it actually is. Asked to choose their ideal distribution of wealth, 92% picked one that was even more equitable. 

Free Fall into Something New

Last week, I guess actually a lot happened last week. First of, covering of Single Awareness day. Yes, it was nice not doing anything or spending lots of money or worrying about getting a reservation at a restaurant. I just spent it at home with my housemate that is here and watched TV. Quite spectacular in the end if I do say. I think I would celebrate Valentine's day not actually on valentines day, just so that it is easier to get a reservation, roses are cheaper, and yeah everything pink, red, and white is on sale. Best time to buy candy, right after a holiday. But that is besides the point.

I also turned the big 25 this past week. It was on a work day, so I didn't do anything till the weekend, but I did go to the beach and meet some friends there. This weekend though (Saturday), I went skydiving with some friends and then out to dinner on Friday. So skydiving, this was my second time going skydiving and I would have to say that it was much better than my first time skydiving. We jumped out at 14,000 ft which was about 4,000 ft more than what I jumped out at last time. This gives approximately 60+ sec of free fall time. Now if you want to calculate the terminal velocity, you can do that if you want, but I prefer not to at the moment. You have to go tandem until you get certified to jump. The guy I went with was pretty awesome. His name was Greg and he was pretty laid back and chill. I also think that all the jumpers were getting tired since there were so many groups on Saturday (we were group 17 to go). We ended up doing somersaults out of the plane. Now normally, you would just fall out or do one flip out of the plane and then just go to the free fall position with your arms out and all. Instead, we went for 6 flips in a row and then went to the free fall position. It was also cool at our parachute altitude, there were clouds, so we ended up pulling the chute in the clouds after falling about half way though them. It was pretty sweet. Greg ended up letting me take control of the parachute for a while while we were floating down to the landing area. Only downside to the skydiving was being there at 1130 and not jumping till 1630. Dinner afterwards was at Paesano Ristorante Italiano. The food was alright, not as good as Uncle Bos for sure, but not too horrible. The only thing was that the service was not so good, or what you expected from the "fancy" look of the restaurant. I still enjoyed the food and the company of friends.

Now going backwards, Friday night, I went to a small group from church that pretty much covers prophecy, end times stuff, and current events and how they fit in with prophecy. I do have to make an observation note that a lot of the people that went to this study are somewhat crazy it seems, and quite possibly could see conspiracy in everything that happens in the world. I don't want to say that prophecy is a bad thing to study and get into, granted the Bible is what over half prophecy, so it is an important thing to study and take head to. It's just that some of the things said at the study were viewed I would say from one vantage point so giving a natural bias. The website of the leader of the group is www.creationrevelation.org if you want to look more into it. The host (Robert) and his wife (Mary) are very knowledgable in current world events and prophecy. I do have to disagree with some of the things that Robert thinks though, in that one being that the King James version is the best version because it comes from the greek text that isn't limited. Now using just the KJV is in today's world "antiquated" to a degree and hard to understand. I don't know for certain if it can justly be the "correct" version to use because of the greek wording it comes from. Now about other versions that he talks about in one of his new articles ("Why I choose the King James Version"), some of the new versions definitely change the meaning of verses from say the KJV or the NKJV (New King James Version) and would give a different picture on things. That could go into a bigger debate and all. I ended up staying till about midnight there talking afterwards and have received many DVDs to watch in the mean time. I will get to them, but in short, I think one of them shows that 9/11 was a setup and the airplanes actually didn't take down the buildings, but instead it was an internal demolition of the building because of how fast it fell (approx the speed of gravity) as it pancaked down. I do have to honestly say that I do not remember how the buildings fell since it was so long ago. I will have to watch these DVDs and then think about what they show.

Lastly, there seems to have been a theme that I have been reading in devotions and in a book that I was reading and then ultimately concluded with the Sunday message this past weekend. So one of the devotions covered mostly topics of Love because the week of valentines, with the topic titles of "Love Brings Obedience", "Sin is Lawlessness", "Love assumes the Best", "Restless Love", "Learning to Love", " Forgive to be Forgiven", " Deny Yourself", and " Take up Your Cross". Now why did I bring this up? Well I think the reason comes down to one guy at work that I have been having problems getting a long with. It was just pressed upon me that I need to forgive him for what he has done and change my attitude towards him to love. One of the verses with the topics was John 14:21 " He who keeps my commandments, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him". Wow, right? What was Jesus' answer to the greatest command and the second greatest commandment? "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul" and "Love your neighbor as yourself". Now I would say a lot of us say we do the first one and with ease, it would be the second commandment that is the more difficult. Needless to say, I killed the pride and talked with him and it seem so far that things are going better. I think he was really surprised at what I did and hopefully that will be a good thing and we can continue to change the attitude towards each other 180 degrees. Sunday's message tied in since the pastor talked about James 1:19-20 "So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God." How often do we just say something with out actually listening or thinking of what we are saying. I know I have to change that attitude and learn to hold my tongue more and listen to everything before opening my mouth to speak.

Ashley, I hope you get better so you will have a voice when you have to talk at IVCF in a couple of weeks and that was a lot less of "woohoo"