tumblr.

I have decided to switch over to a new blogging service, which I like a lot more, called tumblr. You can find my tumblr page at amomentinthelife.tumblr.com. I plan on it being more photo-based, because pictures say a thousand words :)
Also don't worry, I'll still be reading through your guys's blogs, whoever still posts here...:)
Later gaterzz

this deserves it's own post.

Ok. I admit it. I'm a little over-excited about this wheel. But it just looks so amazing! I painted it a color close to the color of the car's body. I'm going to do the same to the rest of the wheels. These wheels show how much character VW's have. It makes me happy :)

Not actually the 100th post/Urban Exploration

Ok, so it turns out that 9 of the alleged 100 posts are actually just drafts. So I still have a ways to go lol.

Anyway.
Urban exploration. Urban exploration is a hobby that includes exploring and sometimes photographing abandoned and otherwise derelict and neglected locations. Popular sites are hospitals, insane asylums, factories, houses, and drains. It is not limited to that though. Any place abandoned or off-limits counts. Anyway, I find urban exploration to be very awesome, and would like to do some of it myself. Surprisingly, many urban explorers are very legal about their activities. Visits to defunct properties many times require permission, and a lot of explorers respect that. They also have a motto: 'Take only photos and leave only footprints'. They don't vandalize. The whole thing is based on the photo ops and just how interesting it all is. Awesomely enough, many explorers have their own websites where you can spend hours enjoying entertaining and often creepy photos. The best ones are the ones that actually care about the photos they take. A lot of them just take the pictures to document the trip (although they are interesting nonetheless) and are pretty all-around not-so-great pictures haha. Others are actual photographers and take really good pictures. This is the best website I've found so far: http://www.opacity.us/
And some more:

--http://www.forgottenoh.com/abandoned.html (Forgotten Ohio. I know the photo at the bottom is weird, but none of the other photos are like that so don't worry about it. He does tend to swear occasionally though so don't read the captions out loud lol)

--http://illicitohio.illicitohio.com/ (Illicit Ohio, one of the first I found, but not my favorite. He does have a lot of photos but he doesn't have a lot of locations, and he doesn't update very much.)

--http://sbno.illicitohio.com/ (SBNO, run by the Illicit Ohio guy. Strictly amusement parks. Very cool and creepy.)

--http://anc.funkybuu.net/ (AbandonedNC. Cool cause it's all around here)

--http://www.abandoned-places.com/ (Abandoned Places. Some really good photos here but the site is rather tricky to navigate.)


Have fun with those sites. I've spent hours on them. Just don't spend too much time at once, or you'll see it all in one day. It's interesting enough that you need to savor it. So limit yourself to just a few locations a day or whatever. It's kinda addicting though. Just be careful lol

These sites have really sparked up the photographer in me. I've found myself pulling out my camera more and more often. And I already use it all the time anyway.
So here are a couple of pictures of mine for ya, just cause. Enjoy :)








And one more photo, not one I took. It's a favorite of mine from the AbandonedNC website. The caption says "I'll leave this one to your imagination."

lalalala.

So, I decided to take this week off of Facebook. I don't really need the constant contact with friends. Plus I just don't like having all this stuff to keep up with on the internet anyway. I think I'm gonna try to stay off everything but email actually. It's nice to take a break every once in a while.
I think I'll use the extra time it'll give me to save money. The next part of the Bug project is gonna cost about $200 O.O

I found some old car in the woods (last picture), and apparently it has a lot of valuable parts in it. I am going to ask the people that own the property it's on if I can take some parts from it. It could buy me, oh I dunno, an engine and wiring for my car :D So hopefully that works out.





Oh and random disclaimer: please don't get the impression that cars are 'my thing' or something. I'm doing this because I like vintage things, and I like making old things look better. Not much past that. k? :) Alllllllrighty well that's it for now folks. See ya next time on my 100th post...haha

:P

^I love that face :D

So, Bug update. I got everything ready to take the body off of the chassis, and started to pull it off, and then of course ran into a problem. I had to quit for the day, but then I figured out what the problem was, so I was ready to try again. The problem was the steering. Well, I thought it would be an easy task to disconnect the steering, but it turned out I was wrong. Me, Adam, and Josiah worked on it for like 2 hours last night and we couldn't get it disconnected. So that's sorta disappointing. I hope to figure it out soon enough cause I really want to get that body off!

alrighty, that's it for now. ;)

post numberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 97.

Well I'm almost to 100 posts, after like 2 years or something haha.
Anyway. I did my second photoshoot today (the first was for Nathan):D Exciting since I might be going into photography for a career. I took some senior pics for Josiah and Marissa Graf. This Saturday I am taking some pictures for my friend Will who is starting a solo music project (check him out: http://www.myspace.com/behindtheperceptions). So yeah, fun, awesome stuff :)
Also, I recorded a song! And I actually like it. It is a 2-minute acoustic thing called Open Windows. It was inspired by the beautiful sunny day God gave us yesterday :D You can check it out here: http://www.purevolume.com/MattD
Let me know what you think! ;)

And here are my favorites of the seniors I took:





Oh and if you want to see them good quality, you'll have to full-view them by clicking on them. Then download them to your computer. If you just full-view them without downloading, they will be like twice the size of your monitor xD

Cheers and peace homedawgs. haha

I got my dream car :D

So, most of you prolly already know about this by now, but I figured I'd post about it anyway, since I haven't posted in forever. So yeah, I did get a VW Beetle at the beginning of the year. It needs a lot, but I wanted one to work on anyway ;) It's a 1974, Sahara Beige in color (although someone spray painted over it, I'm removing the spray paint and the original paint is easy to get to). I've been working on it constantly, so I may post updates here every once in a while. Pictures:

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?