places I wanna go.

1.Ireland
2.Southern California
3.Britain
4.Everywhere else.

all these BIRDS O.o

We all know the song, the 12 days of Christmas. It's a classic. Well, you know how, in the song, 'me' lists /all/ the gifts /every/ day, then adds the new gift? Well, I figured that meant that, every time a new gift was given, it started a sort of 'tradition', and that same gift was given every day, along with all the others and a new one for each day. Basically, 'my true love' gave 'me' more than just 1 partridge, 2 turtle doves, 3 French hens, etc. So I made a calculation. I figured out just how many of each gift 'me' ends up with on the 12th day. The calculating was simple - since the day the gift was first given corresponds with the amount of the gift, I just multiplied the number of the day by the number of days left, including the current day. So for example, at day two, there were 11 days left, so multiply 11 by 2 to get 22 turtle doves. Make sense? Probably not lol. But here's what I got:

'Me' ends up with 12 partridges in pear trees, 22 turtle doves, 36 calling birds, 40 golden rings, 42 geese a-laying, 42 swans a-swimming, 40 maids a-milking, 36 ladies dancing, 30 lords a-leaping, 22 pipers piping, and 12 drummers drumming.

That's a lot of birds! haha

Merry Christmas!

what am I thankful for..?

simply everything :D But here are a few specifics:

My God: If all I ever did for my whole life was praise God, I could never give Him enough credit :) He is the epitome of amazingness, awesomeness, stellarness, radness, etc, etc! I can't thank Him enough for anything :D

My family: God has blessed me with a loving and caring and large family. Do you know how many people /don't/ have that? Me either, but I do know this - it's a lot. So it's only natural that I'm so darned grateful for them :)

My friends: You guys are at the top of my list of things I'm thankful for. Your support, encouragement, inspiration, and most of all, your love for God really helps me through life. I don't really know if I could live without you :) Thanks.

I have a roof over my head: Again, do you know how many people don't have a roof over their head? A lot. Way more than you'd want to know. So it's simply amazing to me that I was born into a family that has more than just a roof, we have a 3-story house. Is that cool or what? I do not deserve this...

So yeah. Those are just a few of the things I'm so very grateful for, and I can never thank God enough for them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

life is amazing, don't you think?

I love you guys. Every one of you (and yes by 'one' I mean one because I only expect like one person to read this ;)). My friends and my family are the biggest things in my life besides God and my faith. And that's because they help me through my faith. I have no idea where I would be if it was not for you, my friends, and my family. Oh, how I've been blessed :D Sometimes I can get so down, and depressed because of certain things, and you guys really help me pull through those times. Thanks.

So I've been looking for a car lately. Preferably a fixer-upper. I'm looking for a vintage VW Beetle or VW Karmann Ghia. A running engine is not a requirement lol. I'm not planning on spending very much on the car itself, but the restoration will probably cost around $1000. So yeah. If you find one, let me now :)

When I pray to God, I am often overwhelmed and at a loss of words. There is nothing more amazing than my God. I cannot begin to thank Him enough for everything he has given me - me, a sinner. Ah, I love Him more than anything :)

Well, my band is recording in studio every Wednesday this month. I'm so happy that we have this opportunity :) Please pray that we will do awesome and of course play to the glory of God :)

See you guys later, and thanks for reading :)
I'll try to get back in the routine of posting at least once a week ;)

Peace

oh dear.

So I cut up a tree this morning. Yeah. We're having an outdoor storage building put in Wednesday so we had to cut some massive limbs off of a tree to get them out of the way. It took all day Saturday to get it cut down and all morning today to cut it up and get it by the side of the road.

After that, there was huge news. We checked the AMP email and it turns out we're supposed to be interviewed for a radio podcast Wednesday! On top of that, we have a band meeting tomorrow, and other stuff going on later in the week. So yeah. I'm like out of it right now I guess. I really really need to get some sleep. Being really excited and really tired at the same time is not a good feeling.

I guess this is one of those times where I just have to sit back, stop trying to run my own life, and let God have the controls. Really I should always let him run my life but so many times I just forget that He's the one that hold my next breath in his hands, and he has a plan for me, and it's all gonna be ok. Times like these are so humbling. It makes me realize how small I am and that I'm God's creature, I was put here for a reason. It's really annoying to me that I can forget Him.
So anyway guys, pray for me, (and the band on Wednesday!), I'm not feeling all that great right now.
I guess I gotta go now. I've got to leave tomorrow at nine for a band meeting!

Thank you guys so much for reading...and for being my friends. I couldn't live without you guys :)

Til next time.

In case you're wondering...

about the new blog I just made...ignore it, lol. It's for a costume party. So yeah. I'm gonna delete it later.

I'll try to make an actual post soon...

water-skiing and stuff.

So yesterday I was out on Lake Norman all afternoon for a family reunion thing. They wanted Adam and I to try to water-ski. So Adam went first, he did great, had a lot of fun. Then I went. I could not get the hang of it. I tried 100 times. So yeah. There were even some 9 and 12 year old girls skiing quite well. lol. It was pretty funny actually.

Tomorrow 3/4's of the AMP band are going to play at the library. We're doing a really awesome-sounding acoustic version of This Final Breath. Come see us if you can.

I've been so post-dry recently, haha. idk why but I just can't think of much to post about.

Happy Birthday Emily!

Thanks for being a great friend :)
Have an amazing day!

the beach, my recent purchase, some random thoughts, some pictures, and a bit of good lyrics

So I've been at the beach. I was there for a week. Thus my lack of recent posts.
The beach was a lot of fun...I actually only got in the ocean about 3 times but I swam in the pool a lot lol. I also met some cool people and I'm keeping in touch with them through email and chat. I think long-distance friends are cool.

I bought a ride cymbal.

I like liver mush.

I had some random thought I was gonna post about but of course I forgot it.












^full view them pitchers


Hallelujah, All I have is Christ
Hallelujah, Jesus is my life

okay I apologize profusely....I have no idea why this post is so boring. It just is. bleh. goodnight

sad but true.

"Sometimes we are more zealous in prayer than in faith."

I was so tired Sunday that I could barely stay awake in church, but of the few things I picked up from the sermon, that quote is one of them.



So nobody tagged me but I'm gonna do this thing anyway:
[The Rules: Answer the following questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention and add one more question of your own.]

If you could live anywhere in any house, where and what would it be? Some 100 year old house in the country.

What are you wearing now? my pajamas

What is on your desk? My camera bags and some pencils

What would you like to learn to do? drive a jet ski

Name a song you are currently obsessing over: none but I have a lot of them going through my head

What was the last thing you bought? a camera bag

What one item are you currently wanting? a lot...particularly some cymbals and stands

What languages can you speak? English

What is the last book you have read? idk...I started reading Multiple Choice but never finished it

What do you want to be when you grow up? a human

What are your favorite websites? facebook, gmail...blogger...hulu

If you were to pick up a pen right now, what would be the first thing you'd write? "i don't know"

If you you could be anywhere in the world at any point in time, where would you be? IRELAND IN THE SUMMER

If you could be an animal, what would you be? a bird duh they freaking soar

What are you looking forward to in the near future? beach trip!

If you could open up your own store or business, what would it be? idk

Like Christianne, I didn't really dislike any of these so I didn't change them.

ugh.

I woke up at 3 this morning with a seriously painful stomach. idk where I got it from, I guess it was a virus or something, my sister had the same problem a week or so ago. It was really bad and I couldn't sleep...but thankfully I'm feeling better now. I haven't eaten breakfast and I might not...but we'll see. Hopefully I'm completely better by tonight.

oh and I got my 4 gig memory card woo!

so...

Strangely, I've been really really busy lately. If you've known me long enough you probably know that I'm not usually up to much. But, for the past week or so there's been a lot going on. Saturday (I don't even remember if it was this past Saturday or the one before lol) my mom told me to take everything out of my room, cuz we were gonna paint. So we just finished getting most of that stuff put back in there yesterday. It was all a huge mess in the next room for a while. It looks so good in both rooms now that everything is back where it goes haha.
Here are some before and after pictures. I don't have any good 'before's with the stuff in the room, and I took all the good 'after's after we put the stuff back in. But you can still tell the difference of course...haha











Full view all those if you want to see them in better quality. A lot of them are kinda blurry because the lighting wasn't all that great..
You'll notice that the guitars are all lying around in corners...we haven't gotten anything up on the walls yet, including the guitar hangers, so yeah.


I started writing my first song the other day. All I have is the music and the title, but I'm going to get together with Nathan sometime and he's going to help me with lyrics. He's saying that we might do it with AMP and put it on a record, which would be really cool.

Oh also, I finally got around to painting my old bike again...I found it in a creek last summer, and fixed it up til it was rideable. I started painting it earlier this year but stopped for a while. My grandma encouraged me to finish it so I could take it to the beach in a couple of weeks.
I have a picture of it before it was painted but when I went to take an after picture, my camera lens kept fogging over...I guess cuz it was so humid or something. I'll post pictures of it later though.

So I need to get a camera bag and a big memory card...we're going to the beach on the 27th and we're staying through July 4th and I really don't wanna bring my camera with no bag and room for only 47 pictures.

So that's the yearly update. Until next time! jk

HAVE A HAPPY DAY :D

this week.

Well this week has been interesting...
Monday afternoon Adam and I drove into Charlotte to my uncle's house to house-sit for him. We brought tons of junk food and movies and had a lot of fun lol.
Tuesday and Wednesday we hung out with Nathan and Torie, which was a lot of fun, but we invited a ton of other people but they all either couldn't come or couldn't answer their phones or something. We were supposed to go to frisbee today but it was raining so we didn't. We went to the Sweigart's and put together the amazing studio computer.

So a random thought I had...some people need a lot of encouragement to get through life, others don't. So what I was thinking was, if you don't need a lot of encouragement, is that a good thing? And what if you do? Is that bad?
What do you think?

some pictures...

I took these for Nathan in downtown Gastonia. Also some of these are edited as you can probably tell...
We found a couple of really great places, like alleys with torn up plaster and stuff haha. I wish I had had a bigger memory card though because I could only take like 55 pictures with my lame little 32 meg card.






















full view these, they look a lot better that way.

sorry...

but this is the 'last week of school' and it's really busy, as was last week, so I haven't had a lot of time to post.

Anyway, Friday I got a lens and then went to a play (I didn't get to bring my camera but they didn't allow photography anyway). It was a really great play (despite a few parts...). I enjoyed it. Unfortunately my parents know how easy it is to get lost in uptown Charlotte, so they didn't let us go to Rita's lol.

So my camera is like really hard to use in manual mode...but I'm learning haha. Here are some pictures from it:











the hardest part about manual mode is getting the ISO speed right...that's why some of these are so noisy.

I got an SLR!

and it's not April 1st! w00t!

I got the Rebel XT. Still not sure as to which lens I want yet though. I hope to buy a lens before the camera gets here.

I'm doing this because I'm bored.

Most of these pictures really don't work lol



Questions:
1. What is your name? Matthew
2. What is your favorite food? Steak
3. What is your hometown? Gastonia
4. What is your favorite color? Orange
5. What is your favorite movie? The Lord of the Rings
6. What is your favorite drink? Root beer
7. What is your dream vacation? Ireland
8. What is your favorite dessert? Bread Pudding
9. What is one word to describe yourself? Human
10. How are you feeling right now? Bored
11. What do you love most in the world? Friends
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? I'm not sure
13. Favorite Hobby? Photography
14. What kind of books do you like? Good ones
15. What’s your favorite sport? Biking
16.Where do you work? Yard

wavorly.

I know some of you have heard of them, but if not, CHECK THEM OUT. They're like Muse+Nevertheless+The Afters+Underoath+Becoming the Archetype. Basically pure awesomeness. If you have time, listen to their whole album all the way through. It's much better that way.

*sigh*...I can't make a decision.

so yeah...now I'm liking the Rebels again. The Rebel XT especially. I like the cameras with two screens, one for review and one for settings status, but the only Rebel that has that (besides the original which I don't want), is the XT. The EOS 30D also has that but I really like the compactness of the Rebels...it's just really frustrating sometimes because I have such a hard time making decisions. I just hope and pray I do the right thing.
Of course, no matter what, it's God's will which is more than comforting to me. So yeah. I guess I'll be happy no matter what. I'm still frustrated though.

however I just figured out that I can just use the URL to follow instead...

okay...I've figured it out now...lol. It's still annoying though.


aaaaaaaaand now I follow Chelsea's blog with my google friend connect account AND my blogger account. I just made the problem worse.


...Oh well

Mwahahah I fixed it.
The google friend connect thing is basically useless...

ugh.

I wish Google wasn't buying out everything and making changes. Now I have to sign in to Blogger with my yahoo account (because I signed up with yahoo and now that I have a gmail, it won't let me switch, unless I just make a whole new account and that wouldn't work), and if I want to follow somebody's blog, I have to sign in with my Google account. So now some of the blogs I follow with google don't show up in my little reading list. It's annoying.

I've decided to post more pictures. I'm a photographer yet I barely ever post pictures. That's just wrong :D

Well I went outside yesterday and started taking pictures of myself with the sky as a backdrop. Here's the best one. It's my profile picture.




More later. Hopefully I'll have some up every week.

live life to the fullest.

Live life to the fullest. Ever heard that before? I’m surprised if you haven’t. Anyway, I’ve been thinking , I haven’t been doing that lately. Part of being a Christian is putting off the rags of the old man and putting on the new man. But I haven’t done that yet. I feel guilty whenever I watch a movie or show with bad language or something in it, when I use inappropriate language myself (even if I’m just saying something ‘sucks’ – it doesn’t have to be a ‘cuss word’. Anything unacceptable should be avoided), or anything like that. I think living life to the fullest is living life as pleasing to God as possible. Which means casting off anything unrighteous, whatever it may be. I’ve broken (almost) every commandment, and I’m forgiven for that. But forgiven doesn’t mean just keep on doing it. It means stop it. When I ‘became’ a Christian, I was happy. By repeating the words of the prayer the pastor said during the invitation, I thought I was born again. I was a Christian. I could participate in the Lord’s supper. I didn’t realize until a while after that that being a Christian is a lot more than saying a prayer. It means you change. You can never put off all the things of the old man, but you can do your best. I haven’t done my best. That’s my goal though. I’m sickened by how un-Christian I can be sometimes. I want to do everything I can to please God, and in everything I do, I hope God will be pleased. Also I think it would be more pleasing to other people. And I think it would make life easier. Nothing should make a person happier than pleasing God.


I hope you could follow all that…it seems a little scattered to me.

I have to quote you on this, Emily :)

"Good things are worth waiting for."

W00T.

I sold my minibike yesterday :)

I now have enough money to buy one of the cheaper SLRs and it's quite tempting. However I'm still going to wait a while and get a better one. I've talked to my grandpa about it a bit, because he's into photography and has always had a nice camera, and he's trying to get me to buy Nikon...which I knew he would cuz that's what he likes. And they're cheaper so that would be easier...

But anyway, I'm boring you with all this camera stuff, I'm sure lol.
I've been meaning to post something 'deep', or at least something other than 'I did this and this today', cuz I haven't done that in a while, but I can't think of anything right now...whenever I do think of something I can't get to a computer, and then I forget whatever it was I was going to write about. I suppose I could write it down on paper to save it for later...

Well the weather has been amazing these past weeks. I'm really enjoying it, it's really my favorite kind of weather, all sunny and warm...haha

btw..

if you wanna see all those pictures full size, just click on them :)

pictures.

First off, the infamous pig photo. We took this on the way home from the movie meeting Saturday. The people who own the mailbox that the pig is on sell BBQ sauce or something. I don't think they were home because nobody came out and started shooting us when we took the picture haha. jk, but I think they would have at least come out to see what was going on if they were home.



Now some jib pictures:








And lastly, I went out for a walk on Sunday afternoon cuz I couldn't resist the awesome weather haha. I brought my camera along and took some pictures. Here are some of them.

My favorite:



A path:



A landscape:



I found a lot of these out there :)



Another of my favorites:

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Some cool trees by the creek:



Creek:



And lastly...this rather humorous photo...lol




Well that's it guys. Enjoy!

so...

I owe you guys a really long post...so I'm going to make two. One text and one pictures.

So I've been really busy lately with school and AMP and whatnot. That's why I haven't posted in a while. Also I kinda like long posts every once in a while better than short posts every day haha.
So how do you guys like the new layout? I went with white for the text, because I just like it better.

I'm still working toward getting an SLR. I've decided that it's best to actually move a level up from the Canon Rebels and get an older semi-professional SLR. I'm thinking of the Cnaon EOS 30D:



It's really a better camera than the Rebels, and it'll last longer cuz it's really durable. There's a lot of other factors that led me to go for this camera, but I won't go into the details...lol
Also in my quest to find the right first SLR, I found out about this Pentax:



It's quite a beauty to look at, but it lacks a lot of features, and it's just really not what I'm looking for. There are more cons but, once again, I won't go into the details, haha.

Well I finally paid off my double bass pedal. Ah the relief of paying off debt.

I also got a steady job washing my neighbor's car every week, which I'm depending on making up a pretty substantial portion of the money I'll use to buy an SLR.
Also I've got someone interested in my minibike finally...they're coming over tomorrow to see it.

Oh! We had our second movie meeting of the year last Saturday! It was very productive(ful) and fun. We used our jib crane for the first time, which was awesome. The shots we used it for are like ten times more professional-looking than they would have been if we used a tripod or something. I'll have pictures of that in my next post.

Well I think that's about it. I'm really happy right now. This has been a great day.

it fits!!

w00t!!
if you ever need to change your blog header and need it to fit in the border, make it 648 pixels wide.

:D

new title.

I really liked that picture so I was trying to come up with a blog name that went with it, and simply "the road" was the best I came up with. Also, I've been told that my blog seems like a journal, and journals are about people's lives. Thus the subtitle.

I'm working on getting the picture to fit the border around it...it should fit but it won't for some reason...I used to just ditch the borders but I think they look good with the orange background so I'm going to try to keep them this time.

btw, sorry I haven't made a post in so long...I've been really busy. I'll post again soon though.

the post-every-day thing really isn't working out...

so wow guys, i haven't posted in like 2 weeks or something...that's really sad. I guess it's probably because I usually post on weekends and my weekends have been really busy these past few weeks.
So I'll start with the arts festival weekend.
That friday, I went over to CrossWay for a short practice and to setup the keyboard. then the actual festival on Saturday was amazing. There was a lot of great talent there (I'm still Captivated by Abby Bell's performance :)), and the bands did great. Unfortunately I missed Emily's skit, which I was really anticipating since she wouldn't tell me anything about it haha.
After that there was a basically eventless week. We had spring break...sorta. We still had to a do a little bit of stuff but thank goodness we didn't have to do any Tapestry of Grace stuff. That friday we had another productive band practice at Wesley's.
This week we're cramming a lot of school into one week. We're doing two weeks worth of Tapestry, and so far it isn't working out too well, haha.
Also today Adam and I picked up a friend of ours and we tacked up signs around town cuz we're gonna have a protest on tax day tomorrow. I probably won't attend, since I have school to do, but I'm hoping it'll have an effect...
Oh and yesterday Nathan came over to work on the AMP MySpace, which was a lot of fun, and this Saturday we're going to have yet another band practice, here at my house.


I really enjoy being with the Awake Music Project. Music is one of the biggest things in my life and I'm glad to be producing it to the glory of God. I know that a lot of times, bands started by teenagers like us don't last long, and never make it big, maybe only play one local show. But I really hope and pray that this project will be successful. Largely successful. It would be totally amazing if it was.

Well I guess that's all for now. Thanks for reading, guys.

...

I don't know why the end of my last post isn't showing up...it's supposed to say:

'These are both about living a non-ordinary life and living life to the fullest for God and being known for it. Which is simply awesome :)'

I got an SLR!

And it's April 1st!

anyway...I've decided, like most everyone else, to follow Emily's advice and post every day possible.
Well today nothing happened. I did school. That's it.

but I do have some cool songs to post! my first time doing this. These two songs both have the same sort of idea.

Casualties
Addison Road

He sees his life just pass by
Just another number in a suit and tie
No purpose here nothing to give
Is this what it means to really live?
His feet never touch the ground
His days fly by, he can't slow down

Casualties of the American dream
Have we lost our vision
Drifting off and living
Half asleep with a faint heartbeat
Just dying to be revived
I want to be revived

She's screaming out,"I've lost control"
Caught in another undertow
She's only barely hanging on
Been holding her breath for so long
Her feet never touch the ground
She's not sure which way is up or down

Casualties of the American dream
Have we lost our vision
Drifting off and living
Half asleep with a faint heartbeat
Just dying to be revived

I want to be revived
I want to feel alive
And in a world so numb
Don't let me become another
Casualty living in a dream

Casualties of the American dream
Have we lost our vision
Drifting off and living
Half asleep with a faint heartbeat
Just dying to be revived
I want to be revived

I want to be revived

Legacy
Sanctus Real

What will they say when I'm Gone, in words
That are written in stone?
Under my name, what will they claim
About me?

Oh, I want to leave a legacy to be remembered
More than just a memory that fades away
Because we only, we only get one life

Free me, my hands are tied
I'm so tired of wasting time
These endless inventions steal my
Attention from real life
And when it's done, when it's over...

And will the world see Christ when they
Look at my life?
Oh, will they world see?

MMM, come on, give me, give me, give me real life
And no more, no more, no more wasting time
Because we only, we only get one life


These are both about living a non-ordinary life and living life to the fullest for God and being known for it. Which is simply awesome :)

wow.

I haven't posted in what a week??
Well anyway, last Friday I had a lot of fun at game night, played plenty of games and socialized and whatnot..the only downside was that Christianne took my lemonade lol jk
Then after that I went to the Elliott's and slept over, then we had the first real movie meeting of the year! and got a lot done.

This saturday is the arts festival.........wow I'm not ready. also this saturday I'm taking the ACT for the second time. Fun fun.

I'm selling my minibike...with the money I plan to by an slr. I'm leaning towards the Canon Rebel XTi (aka 400D).

oh and I'm finally playing some Rachmaninoff. It's a really great and impressive-sounding song haha. I'm really enjoying it.

I need to slooooooooooow down.

yeah I've got like tons of different things that I want to buy and one day I want one thing and one day I want another...I need to just slow down and get organized about it...

anyway...my sister was in the regional spelling bee today and she didn't win...:( then she threw up in the car, so I'm sure she didn't have the best day of her life.

on a lighter note..my paw-paw has informed us that he's gonna give us his violin that he never plays anymore. Which is great cuz it's much better quality than that piece of junk that I destroyed...

lalalalalalala.

well not much to say here I guess...I had an amazing time doing the lights for wes and nate and everybody. Then we had the best pizza in the world...though hard to eat. If you're one of the people who went in the kitchen to eat some of the leftovers, then you know what I mean haha. Unfortunately my dad didn't want us to stay for youth so we had to leave. but I think we might come to game night on the 27th(?)Oh and of course the performance arts...thingy..whatever it's called. Arts festival? well you know what I mean.

So last week my mom got a ton of old tennis balls for something and adam and I made up a game using them. It's called T H E G A M E and it's quite fun.

How to play it: T H E G A M E has not yet been named, but IT IS AWESOME and every single suggestion is welcome. I'll ignore it, but welcome. It's similar to WALL BALL but better.

To play T H E G A M E, you need at least two people, at least one TENEES ball, and at least one wall.

To begin, one player throws the ball at the ground, bouncing it up to the wall. As it bounces off the wall, the other player must catch it and immediately bounce it back onto the wall. The ball has to hit the ground only once on every throw. If it hits the ground on the way back before the other player catches it, it's a dead ball and the first player gets a point. A player also gets a point if the thrower catches their own ball.

Boundaries depend on the size of the wall. Each side of the wall is as far as the ball can go before being out of bounds. If a ball goes out, it's the other player's ball.

TEAMS: Teams are fine and you can do them in whatever crazy combinations you want. For instance, four people in two-person teams or three people in a FREE-FOR-ALL-EVERY-MAN-FOR-HIMSELF-MELEE. Whatever you want.

It's a plus if you make lots of weird sounds and laugh a lot. That's the main point of T H E G A M E. That and speed. Never slow down. Make up weird crazy stupid moves and scream "SWEET MOVE!" If you get into a real back-and-forth situation, scream "INTENSE!" So that's T H E G A M E. Go play RIGHT NOW.


oh and btw...a TENEES ball is the same as a tennis ball....................

bye now.

God sure moves in mysterious ways...:)

There's a guy that lives down the street from me that plays the drums, and I went over to his house to ask him for drumsticks cuz I left mine at the Brown's. So not only did he find a pair of sticks for me, he also showed me his kit, and was talking to me about his brand new double bass pedal....and all the while my eye was set on his old double pedal sitting in the floor...
So then I was like "so you're selling the old ones?"
And he's like "yeah, why don't take it home with you and try it out."
So I was like SCORE!! hahaha
so yeah, he's giving me a real good deal on it and I even get a free trial, and he doesn't care how long I take to pay him....

PICTURE YAY:


that's all for now folks :)
hope to see ya tomorrow.

thank you guys.

thank you guys all so much for being my friends :) I was talking to Emily the other day, and we were just talking about this and that, then she suddenly said something about me being closer to God and being more happy recently (I know that sounds lame but I don't want to make an exact quote haha). Then I realized that that's because of you guys. You guys are a real encouragement to me. Thanks.

Well this weekend was amazing. Friday afternoon I went over to the Brown's for an AMP practice with Nathan, Wesley, Eric, Mark, Adam, and Zach, which was really cool, then afterwards Adam and Wes and I went over to Nathan's and played guitar and stuff and sang a little bit, then went and ate at Subway and talked about our driver's ed experiences. It was the best time I've had in a long time, haha.

oh yeah and also I did some more yard work for that lady I raked for last fall...she said that I might be able to get a job with her during the summer cutting grass, which is pretty cool.....


sorry this post seems a little rushed, I gotta go to bed haha.

wow....

I totally forgot how fun snow is haha. I was out there for like an hour...I walked around the 'hood and had a snowball fight with some random people....fun times :)

i so cannot wait til summer.

It's so hectic with school going on haha! I just want a break...

Well I did good with the piano thing. I got the best ratings possible. That's not saying much, though. It's like really easy haha. Cuz I messed up really bad but I still got that rating...so yeah. but I feel bad for having done so because my siblings all got at least one not-so-good rating I think...:(

oh yeah and I bought a new cymbal stand...can't wait for it to come. However, my drum throne randomly broke so I have to get a new one...I've got connections though and I'm pretty sure I can get one for really cheap.
So that's that. I'm really hoping I can hang out with Nate and everybody else tomorrow. We'll see.

I'm trying to make this week better than last week. Last week I spent way too much time doing nothing...and I took all day to do school almost every day.
So far I'm doing pretty well this week. I had a math test monday, got a 60...a friend of my mom's who was a math major in college came over and helped me out, then I redid the test and got a 95. Which, needless to say, I'm very happy about :D

Nothing much is happening other than that....oh yeah I have to play some songs for judges this friday. Something I do every year and it's a big part of my piano lessons/experience. Pray for me please!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM!

he probably won't read this...but yeah, I have a 17-year-old brother tomorrow. :)

this week...

was horrible. I started off on the wrong foot this week apparently. I spent way too much time procrastinating and thus didn't get my school done until really late pretty much every day up until today. Today was much better. My family left me all here alone so I had peace and quiet for a while. So I got my stuff done today. I finally got to play the drums again (I haven't played them all week) and since I was getting all the week's stress out, I ended up breaking a drumstick, haha. Then I discovered that I had a new almost never used pair of sticks in my drumstick bag. So yeah...they'll last me for a while before they break :D
Anyway, though...my week has taken a sharp turn and now I'm happy again :D

Recently I tend to find myself very thankful...I'm constantly thanking God for stuff. Like for everything.

I think I'm gonna call a lady about a summer job tomorrow...wish me luck :)

oh yeah and my little sister won the spelling bee today! I'm happy for her. I never won it myself, haha.

It's been a while...

yeah...I've just been kinda extra busy with school and trying to get that song put together. but I'm still alive :)
Have you noticed? Lately I've been using smilies, like a LOT recently, haha. I guess that's just because I was deprived of them for so long :)
Well recently I kinda decided that I want to learn to drive manual. I don't know why but I do. I want a manual 60's or 70's Beetle. It would rock my socks.

My dad is having back problems again, but I don't really know why...plus he's got a really bad cold and there are a lot of employees where he works that he basically has to fire, and he really doesn't feel good about that. He would appreciate your prayers.

Prayer is very comforting through hectic chaotic weeks like this one....I have prayed a lot this week. I'm hoping that the week will get better through the remaining days. So far it looks like today isn't too bad. Yesterday was probably the worst day of this week so far. I woke up late, was doing bad in school, and I had a lot of interruptions, so I ended up having to quit. But while I was doing my math, in the video lesson (which is taught by a Christian guy) the teacher said something that inspired me the rest of that day and today. He was talking about how as Christians our main goal in life is to glorify God and use every opportunity we could (in school, particularly) to learn and develop our God-given brains (he words things a bit odd sometimes...). And then I realized that I haven't been doing that at all. I skip stuff just because it gets late and I don't want to do it anymore. Well I decided to start working harder. Today and for the rest of the week, and ultimately the rest of my high school years, it's my goal to be done at a reasonable time, and if I'm not, then I need to keep going until everything, EVERYTHING, that I'm supposed to have done is done.

Playing for Others Songwriting Competition Entry

Thanks to Emily for writing the lyrics :)

Concert.

The concert was freakin awesome. I honestly wouldn't have enjoyed it without my friends there enjoying it as well.
I have a ton of great pics, but I'm gonna try to post just a few here, haha. Click on the pics to see them full-size.

The singer from Mile 7:


the annoying guitarist/keys guy from mile 7:


Kimber Rising. good voices but not my cup of tea:


The guy that played guitar for Kimber Rising that looks like Andy Serkis:


Michael from Above the Golden State. He was awesome. Even though it was just him, he was pretty much the best there:




Jason from B429 with the bassist making a funny face in the background:


Jason (at the piano), the drummer, and the bassist playing "Always":


I got some pretty cool pics of Jesse from B429 because I was really close to him:




A bit of the crowd:


I have some videos, but none of them are full songs or anything and they would take forever to load so...that's all for now folks.