Waffle of the Ancients

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Long exposure + flash and sean under the trail of lights tree = sean’s monastery icon.
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Christmas was great this year. This is going to sound bad, but I always dread it b/c it means going home and being around my crazy soap opera family for an extended period of time, but this year for some reason was different, not that circumstances or situations where different, but it didn’t bother me. Being around my family despite the craziness was still calming and relaxing.

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The lights made this kinda cool I think
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I drove up to Wichita Falls and went through Temple on the way to stop and eat lunch and have Christmas with my sister. Its been a while since I’ve seen her and conversations with her are always great. We’re very different and hearing what she has to say about things, be it politics, family, religion, or friends is always fun and interesting. I also got to see where she works and meet her co-workers who are some of her best friends. It was cool to see that b/c I guess in my mind all of the fun day day friend ships end after you get out of college… not sure where that idea came from (maybe my parents), but it was good to see how her and her co-workers have a lot of fun.

On my way up I was listening to the new Death Cab CD and especially “What Sarah Said” (track 9). Its a sad song about sitting in a waiting room in the ICU waiting for bad news… I like the lyrics and the music is cool. So I had the lyrics of it stuck in my head when I got to Wichita Falls to my Aunt/Grandparents. My Grandparents haven’t been the best of shape this last year and this Christmas everyone came to their house for Christmas. It was great to see everyone, but there was an odd tone to it all to me. Underneath it all was this idea that this might be their last Christmas… it was very sad and gave the song a little more meaning i suppose.

Despite all of this it was awesome to get to see them and talk with them some. My grandfather while not being able to hear or speak very well is still very sharp and funny at times. Me and my brother also managed to get my Dad over the next day to take them out to eat for Christmas and I think that did a lot of good, at least I hope so.

On Christmas day I me and my mom went to visit a lady that took care of me and my sister a lot when we were little, she turned 90 this year and spent a little time in the hospital after a stroke, but she’s doing quite well now. When we got there the girl taking care of her turned out to be a girl i knew from high school and accidently hit her car after she had only had it a week… she wasn’t too happy. Anyways, she sat and read while me and my mom visited with Cleo and somehow my mom decided that it was an appropriate time to tell an incredibly funny, but racially offensive story about my sister from when I was born. The girl I knew from high school was black and so I kicked my mom, but she didn’t catch on… lots of apologies later it was all pretty funny. Thats the great thing about small towns… you know everybody.. the guy who is doing physical rehab with Cleo is actually my high school comp. sci. team partner’s dad.

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The new parents and child.
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So on we went to Allen texas to have Christmas with my cousins. My cousin had her first child on the 14th, so we got see him and I got to hold him for a while. I’ve never seen/held a new born before. They’re awesome, he makes all kinds of faces while he’s dreaming… its fun to watch. He’s so tiny though.. He was only 5 lbs at birth and has only gained a few ounces since, being the first time I held a baby that young I was incredibly paranoid… everytime he would twitch I would watch to see if he was still breathing, like i thought he was having a seizure or something (i’m gonna be the new parent that freaks out and calls the doctor constantly i think)… he just seemed so fragile.

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My cousin Michael who is now a proud uncle.

me and the newborn
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On the radio there were lots of people talking about how hunble the birth of Christ was b/c of being born in a manger and everything. Whats odd is that none of them really talked about the fact that The God of the universe, the creator of all things came to earth in the form of the most helpless creature I’ve ever seen, a human baby.

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Christopher Daniel Bowles
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Then I got to hangout with Spence at Double Daves and talk about his coming trip, reminis some and just hangout. It was good times. I’m excited about his trip and I’m looking forward to hearing about the amazing things God is going to use him to accomplish in Uganda.

While in Dallas I got to hangout with my friend Curt who I haven’t seen since last Christmas, or maybe this summer, I can’t remember… its been that long. Out of everyone I know (with the exception of some of my family), I’ve known Curt the longest. We’ve been buddies since sometime in daycare. He lived a block and a half from me til I came to austin, and while we’ve both obviously changed in some ways, theres always something familar there and so its always good to see him.

So to round out this whole thing… I got the new David Crowder cd for Christmas and was listening to it a lot on the way back to austin. My new favorite song as a result is “Come Awake”. Oddly enough it pretty much picks up where the Death cab song leaves off with the sound of a heart monitor going “code blue”. I think this song is the most powerful musical representation of spritiual rebirth that I’ve ever heard. The lyrics are simple, but the song builds to this emotional high that makes me want to yell everytime. Its awesome and made a great counter point to everything I had been thinking about with my Grandparents and Cleo… the baby added to that as well.

All in all, it was an awesome Christmas and the combination of music, family, and friends taught me a lot about life and death and rebirth.

Time to start this post the same way all of mine start… i haven’t posted in a while… blah blah… picture…

I don’t think anyone really reads this and i have a journal so… the blogs been neglected a bit.

the last month has been very interesting… well, a bit crazy at least…

Just a warning… this is pretty much me writing as i’m thinking so its prolly not gonna make much sense or be very interesting…

Leading up to thanksgiving i think i was the most worried/broken i’ve been in the last 3 years… it was really wierd… just crazy finances, a wierd mood, and my crazy family all came together at once and some how at the end of it all, it was the best thanksgiving i’ve had… at least the best one i can remember.

What i realized afterwards is that i really need people… my family, my friends… everynow and then i keep everythign going on to my self and then it just builds to a moment where i’m forced to rely on other people… by then of course the situation is much worse than it would have been otherwise. pride + apathy = stupidity which sucks..

We had a meeting about the brazil trip last sunday and one of the things we did was go around the room and choose the things that were the character traits that were hardest for us and the ones we were good at… my best was patience and my worst was commitment… whats odd is that up until that moment i always thought i was very commited to things… the more i thought about it though, the more i realized how little i really am.

I’m very loyal but not very committed… let me explain. The things i’m committed to I’m also very loyal to, the problem is that I over commit my time and energy to too many things, and because I feel the need to stay loyal to all of them I never let them go. Add to that my tendency towards laziness and what you end up with is tons of unfinished tasks, goals either not set or not met and lots of other things.

As odd as this sounds(typing sounds normal to me and reading makes no noise)… I had honestly never thought about that at all. I generally don’t think when I divide out my time for things and its just all kinda happens… no plan, just happens. All of this actually relates back to my last post which was a month ago about having no consistency in anything day to day.

Its almost like I’m ADD… who knows maybe I am, or maybe I drink too much dr. pepper and hot chocolate for my own good.

Last weekend, my server harddrive died… which really sucks b/c a new one will be 140 bucks, but at the same time its really cool to see how when i do actually plan out something make it work the way it should, things work out ok. I repartitioned my server and desktop last spring and as a result, when the drive died (because of the way it died) I didn’t loose any data… none of my pictures, blog stuff, linux config stuff, code, email… nothing. Had I still had it setup the other way pretty much all of it would be gone.

More recently, my boss has given me light development tasks which have been scripting (light coding) and server transition stuff… the other day I was working on it and for the first time in a while got into a zone where i just coded and worked for 4 hours… no distractions, just coded and tested and did some awesome work… its been way too long since i’ve used my brain like that. I’m excited about school next semester… it will be a challenge again and so long as I apply my self, I’ll be fine and busy (the good kind where you dont’ feel lazy, not the bad kind where life sucks)…

…speaking of school I got my acceptance letter today… so now I have two… and a dismissal letter… I’m thinking about framing all three in order, adding a forth frame for my diploma with a giant ? in it and hanging them in my room… partly as motivation, and partly b/c i think it would be funny.

That is all, I’ll stop rambling now… I’m not a writer… more of a streamer of my conscious thoughts and punctuation, especially dots… i like them… alot.

Enjoy the random pictures… they’re from my random hikes, road trips, and the ones from the prom…

Also, what do you call “…” is there a real name for it?? because I’ve always just called it “dot dot dot”.