Spider with egg sack, eew!
Kyle caught himself a 15 1/2"golden sucker fish.
Close-up.
Tiny frog.
Here's my wife with her floppy fishing hat and a brand new fishing license. She caught herself a 72" black stick.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Fishing Below Pine Flat Dam
Spider with egg sack, eew!
Kyle caught himself a 15 1/2"golden sucker fish.
Close-up.
Tiny frog.
Here's my wife with her floppy fishing hat and a brand new fishing license. She caught herself a 72" black stick.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Ideas
"V is for Vendetta" is about a revolutionary named V. At a crescendo in the movie V is about to finish off Creedy when in frustration Creedy asks him, “Why won’t you die?” This is V’s response:
“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.” - V
Man, I love that part. Not just because Creedy gets taken out but because of V’s commitment to his idea of freedom from tyranny. I came across a fellow blogger who blogged that “Ideas are not only bulletproof, they're the most dangerous thing in the world. All change, all growth, all destruction, everything beautiful and grotesque in this world began with a single idea. Ideas are seeds.”
What sort of ideas or ideals do we have? How are we planting them and cultivating them? Are they good or bad? How did we come to hold them?
“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.” - V
Man, I love that part. Not just because Creedy gets taken out but because of V’s commitment to his idea of freedom from tyranny. I came across a fellow blogger who blogged that “Ideas are not only bulletproof, they're the most dangerous thing in the world. All change, all growth, all destruction, everything beautiful and grotesque in this world began with a single idea. Ideas are seeds.”
What sort of ideas or ideals do we have? How are we planting them and cultivating them? Are they good or bad? How did we come to hold them?
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Hardships
S: "You therefore must endure hardships as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." 2 Tim. 2:3
O: The Bible doesn't say that if you become a Christian you will be healthy, wealthy, and wise.
A: Some days I just want life to be easy. I'm surprised by challenges and left discouraged when things don't go as I planned. God never said life would be easy when you follow Him, in fact it says the opposite. Yet, God can use hardship to mold us to be more like Him. "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28
In Genesis God used enslavement by brothers (Gen. 37:12-36), lies of a hateful and covetous woman (Gen. 39), and false imprisonment (Gen. 39 and 40) to prepare Joseph for being second in command of all Egypt (Gen. 41). In this position God was able to save Jacob and his family, more than sixty-six people, from starvation do to a seven year drought (Gen. 46:26). Joseph's brothers feared him since they had been so evil.
Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Gen. 50:19-21
P: Lord, help me to glorify you despite the hardships in life.
O: The Bible doesn't say that if you become a Christian you will be healthy, wealthy, and wise.
A: Some days I just want life to be easy. I'm surprised by challenges and left discouraged when things don't go as I planned. God never said life would be easy when you follow Him, in fact it says the opposite. Yet, God can use hardship to mold us to be more like Him. "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28
In Genesis God used enslavement by brothers (Gen. 37:12-36), lies of a hateful and covetous woman (Gen. 39), and false imprisonment (Gen. 39 and 40) to prepare Joseph for being second in command of all Egypt (Gen. 41). In this position God was able to save Jacob and his family, more than sixty-six people, from starvation do to a seven year drought (Gen. 46:26). Joseph's brothers feared him since they had been so evil.
Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Gen. 50:19-21
P: Lord, help me to glorify you despite the hardships in life.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Turns, Forks, and Hazards on the Road of Life
Romans 14:10-12
You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Why is it that when my friends made bad decisions, did I follow them in some but not in others? Why did we together get so far off the straight path and only a few of us found our way back?
Some people can learn from other people’s mistakes. Some people must learn from making their own mistakes. And still others make mistakes and seem never to be able to learn that there’s something better.
I have had to cut the cord with a few friends over the years. It was either that or be taken down with them. This was not ever an easy thing to do. I felt like I was betraying them. I felt like I should at least stick it out and try to pull them back in. But had I not cut cords then perhaps I also would have fallen over the ledge.
Matthew 18:15-17
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
Cutting cords is painful. A friend’s mom asked me why I never hung out with her son anymore. I said because he doesn’t want to change and I knew that if I linked back up with him, then I’d go back into that same rut. She was hurt by this. She said that I was in the same place with him and questioned what made me better than he. I tried to explain that it wasn’t that I was better but that I made the choice to get right and he still needed to.
2 Peter 2:22
Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
A guy that was in my youth group was playing with the line – one step in the world and the other with God. When confronted he’d say that he would choose to get right with God later but right now he was choosing the world. He even had the idea that by doing it that way it would make his testimony more miraculous. Oh, how good we are at justifying our sin in one way or another.
Revelations 3:15-16
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
I know that in and of myself there is no clean thing. In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, “I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.” I wish I was that original but I like using other people's quotes. However, I do echo his heart.
Ephesians 2:8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Glory be to God for His unmerited grace and mercy! Glory be to Christ Jesus who died upon the cross and rose from the dead to defeat sin and justify us before a rightous and holy God!
You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Why is it that when my friends made bad decisions, did I follow them in some but not in others? Why did we together get so far off the straight path and only a few of us found our way back?
Some people can learn from other people’s mistakes. Some people must learn from making their own mistakes. And still others make mistakes and seem never to be able to learn that there’s something better.
I have had to cut the cord with a few friends over the years. It was either that or be taken down with them. This was not ever an easy thing to do. I felt like I was betraying them. I felt like I should at least stick it out and try to pull them back in. But had I not cut cords then perhaps I also would have fallen over the ledge.
Matthew 18:15-17
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
Cutting cords is painful. A friend’s mom asked me why I never hung out with her son anymore. I said because he doesn’t want to change and I knew that if I linked back up with him, then I’d go back into that same rut. She was hurt by this. She said that I was in the same place with him and questioned what made me better than he. I tried to explain that it wasn’t that I was better but that I made the choice to get right and he still needed to.
2 Peter 2:22
Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
A guy that was in my youth group was playing with the line – one step in the world and the other with God. When confronted he’d say that he would choose to get right with God later but right now he was choosing the world. He even had the idea that by doing it that way it would make his testimony more miraculous. Oh, how good we are at justifying our sin in one way or another.
Revelations 3:15-16
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
I know that in and of myself there is no clean thing. In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, “I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.” I wish I was that original but I like using other people's quotes. However, I do echo his heart.
Ephesians 2:8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Glory be to God for His unmerited grace and mercy! Glory be to Christ Jesus who died upon the cross and rose from the dead to defeat sin and justify us before a rightous and holy God!
Friday, May 16, 2008
Flies
Supposedly Brook Trout at Nelson Lake love the coachman and mosquito flies. A sales rep at Herb Bauer also said when he was there a year ago they also hit on the prince nymph. Of course he said like three others too but I only chose one extra pattern more than Travis said to get. These things are miniature works of art. Thought I'd share them due to my own fascination with them. I've never used flies before so I'll let you know how they work out for me.
Prince Nymph (nymph)
Royal Coachman (dry emerger)
Mosquito (dry emerger)
Pictures from Fly Fishing Connection.
Prince Nymph (nymph)
Royal Coachman (dry emerger)
Mosquito (dry emerger)
Pictures from Fly Fishing Connection.
World Views
short list
- Agnostic: belief that god(s) is/are unknowable
- Atheist: belief that god(s) is/are nonexistent
- Theist: belief in one or more god(s)
- Deism: belief that there is a god but that god does not interfere with creation
- Monotheism: belief in one god or the oneness of that god
- Pantheism: belief that everything is a manifestation of god(s); or a multiplicity of gods
- Henotheism: Max Müller stated that henotheism means "monotheism in principle and polytheism in fact”
- Panentheism: belief that god exists and penetrates every part of nature, and is outside of time
I am currently looking into world views (refers to the frame work of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts in it). I will provide a small glimse into a world view that has stemmed out of Atheism which is called Secular Humanism. That glimse to follow within the next week...
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Hiking
Next Friday I am joining 12 guys and we’re all going on a 3 day/2 night backpacking trip up around Nelson Lake in the Mariposa Area. Gearing up can be heck’a expensive. One of the guys had the luxury of getting all his gear at once, brand new, for about a grand. There’s some really great products out there from knives, chairs, tents, bags, boots, packs… you name it. I began by getting a membership to REI. Then I chose an ultralite pack. It is the REI Ridgeline 65. It is top and bottom loading, 65 liter capacity, lots of adjustments, and water resistant. It is designed for a comfortable 3 day but if I pack well, the pack expert at the store said, I could go for over a week with it.
Today I chose to walk to work which is 3.6 miles from home. Once I got to work, I found a site called Walking Guide and it has a routing map which once you fill it in tells you your distance, pace, and calories burned. By the time the trip rolls around I should be in better condition. 
Today I chose to walk to work which is 3.6 miles from home. Once I got to work, I found a site called Walking Guide and it has a routing map which once you fill it in tells you your distance, pace, and calories burned. By the time the trip rolls around I should be in better condition.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Mother's Day Flowers
Tasha took these outside of Brad and Colleen's in Bakersfield.
Yellow Lillie
Red Rose
Purple ?
Pink Rose 1
Pink Rose 2
Yellow Lillie
Red Rose
Purple ?
Pink Rose 1
Pink Rose 2
Fresno Baseball - 4/4/08
Facing North East inside Grizzlies Stadium
The orange bear is Parker and it was his third birthday. The other teams let their mascots come out to play with Parker on this special occasion.
Grizzlie base runner leading off as Portland's pitcher lets one rip.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
School
My spring semester at FPU ended last Thursday. I finished with a 3.392 for UG Spring 08. I've been free of reading assignments, studying, homework, and academic deadlines. However, now that I am out of school ProU is enjoying a full time me by passing along more work. Although work has its deadlines and pressures, it is so less stressful than the end of this semester was.
School as never been my forte. I got in trouble during high school because I found out that all I needed to be eligible for sports was a 2.0 gpa. However, I slacked too much and got on academic probation. When I found the happy medium it was fine but with little foresight and a non listening ear I got to college and paid for my laziness. Now I am older and a little wiser and realized that my parents and teachers knew what they were talking about. Amazing!
School as never been my forte. I got in trouble during high school because I found out that all I needed to be eligible for sports was a 2.0 gpa. However, I slacked too much and got on academic probation. When I found the happy medium it was fine but with little foresight and a non listening ear I got to college and paid for my laziness. Now I am older and a little wiser and realized that my parents and teachers knew what they were talking about. Amazing!
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