8 days ago, I started my new job at Concur Technologies in Redmond. I am exceedingly thankful to my family and friends for the outpouring of support they have given me to get me where I am today. But in actuality, it is through them that God made it happen. I finally have a job that is using my talents in graphic design and it is exciting! But it’s not all easy, as I’m constantly facing new challenges daily, but I am eager to learn and really harness what I’ve learned from high school to today. Thank you for being on that journey with me.

I am currently in a short term contract working in Concur’s Marketing department. The staff are very warm, friendly, and helpful. I love it, and I’m not just saying that to kiss up (in case the powers that be are reading). I mean it! I hope to work hard and we’ll see where it goes from there.

[This is part 3 of a trilogy of posts originally intended to have been posted on June 6, 2008.]

QFC/Starbucks of Harmon Rd. - 11:00am-ish
As I wrote the outlines of this small trilogy of blogs, an old man limped past the window to the Starbucks I sat at. He had a cane. I began dwelling on what this man’s life was like. Here was a guy who could barely walk without use of a simple wooden stick. He is reliant upon it for support everywhere he goes, everything he does. I then imagined myself as this man. How often do I carry a cane? Everyday! I treat God as this cane. Simply and too often I treat Him as nothing more than a walking stick to get what I want in life. That is a sad and pathetic way of life. God leads our lives, He doesn’t just support what we want. He can snap us like a twig if He wanted. How dare we treat Him as anything less. He is sovereign and I am forever grateful for it. Not much of a deep thought, but it was profound at the time I wrote it.

I just finished writing a Psalm. Yeah, the kind David wrote at His weakest. As soon as I finished writing it, what began playing in this very Starbucks but the opening sax notes of I Don’t Wanna Waste Your Time by Over the Rhine. Again, if you don’t listen to them, you are missing out, friend. As for the Psalm itself, heck no do you get to read it. Its for me and God. Take care today.

[This was part 2 of a trilogy of posts originally intended for posting on June 6, 2008.]

On June 5th, 2008 @ approx. 2:30am my sisters Rachel and Rebecca drove me to Louisville airport. Bless them for being troopers. I hope to never do that to anyone again by scheduling my departure time a bit better. Not only was it out of the way for departing, but my arrival was a bit bumpy, not only in rough skies and turbulence, but none of my three roommates were able to pick me up. Thus I trusted in Metro, which was quite reliable despite my carrying two suit cases on board. I eventually made it in the pouring rain to my new house in Broadview neighborhood. This house is beautiful and its very close to the Puget Sound itself. I plan to go walking and exploring the neighborhood more after this blog entry is finished.

The house itself has four bedrooms, two on the main floor and two in the basement. It has a spacious living room and dining room complete with a fire place. In the basement lies a den with another fireplace, as well as an area for a washer and dryer and door to the garage. There are wood floors all on the main floor with carpet in the basement. It’s bizarre how the two floors almost seem like two different homes. It’s very clean and I can’t wait to see how it shapes up once we all get settled and the moving boxes disappear. My bedroom, one of the main floor rooms, I plan to steampunk out as best I can. No surprise, eh? Remind me to post pictures of the house once we get it all situated.

Last night while on the phone with mom, I walked out onto our backyard deck to observe the view and take in the brisk air. Mistake. I inadvertently locked myself out of the house, not knowing of a special unlocking mechanism. The temperature dropped about ten degrees while I was out there, but thankfully I was able to call Scott and Brant to bail me out of the silliness. I was afraid I would of had to freeze out there by myself for a few hours, as I only had a short sleeve shirt with nothing to cover my arms. It was at this point that I began to have some home sickness. I was not expecting it at all, but I apparently did not prepare myself as I was leaving the previous night. It definitely felt weird to leave the home of my youth this time around, having a taste of the free comforts of home to go back into the ‘real world’ and make it on my own here in Seattle. It was a gut wrenching feeling, like I wanted to vomit but couldn’t. Thankfully I was cured after plugging in my record player and playing U2’s War album. This was the first time I have heard this album all the way through. What an amazing collection of songs! I am stoked to own such a fine album and I very much recommend it.

I sit here writing the outline of this blog on my Treo, to which I will sync to my computer, write out completely, then sync back to my phone for publishing on the web! I must do this due to Comcast not being able to come out to our house until next Wednesday.

Prologue
On July 23, 2007 I changed my life. I moved from Evansville, Indiana, my hometown of 25 years to live in a place I had not even visited before: Seattle, Washington. It was a bold move, with merely the money I had saved in my account and merely friends and people I had only spoken with on the phone or online. I moved in with four guys who all had two common threads: they loved Jesus and were geeks in some way shape or form. Thusly, I felt right at home and within a month I landed a job as a product tester at Nintendo of America, from which I worked until February of 2008.

On April 1st, April Fools Day, I became a member of Mars Hill Church of Seattle. At this church I have served as a designer and learned from others in the field. I have also participated in a community group of loving and faithful men and women my age. I can’t imagine life without them. I also just recently began helping serve communion each Sunday. It has humbled me in a way I cannot fully explain and I am grateful for such a small, but important part in the greater body of Christ.

Between May 21st and June 5th, I went on vacation in Daytona Beach & Orlando with my family of seven, as well as went back home for a short week to not only visit with friends, but see my friends Matt and Michelle Bower become one. During this time, my roommates moved my belongings to our new home.

This now closes the first ‘book’ of my Seattle life, and opens anew Book II. I won’t necessarily keep with a book pattern in these writings, but it seems to bookend how I began this series of blogs nearly one year ago. Thank you for reading.

Edit: I will be posted the next two blogs next week, due to a technical complication out of my control.

I contemplated it. For the first 30 seconds or so as I heard the whining and howling at 6:30 this morning, I for sure contemplated making it happen. It was relentless, but I abstained in good conscious. It’s a cute pup, but it’s so loud, so vocal! No matter, I’m now sipping my second cup of coffee while writing this, pondering my small To Do List for the day. It has truly been a blessing to take this vacation and see family and friends. An interweb toast to my great friends Matt and Michelle Bower for getting hitched this weekend. It was quite a moment in history for me. Three more full days here in Evansville left until I return to a brand new house with my three roommates and an unforeseen future in the job market. It’s exciting and scary, but God held my hand this far. It would be folly to let go now. I wrote this blog on an old family Pentium with Win98 installed on it. It’s literally about 9 years old and slower than molasses. No really, molasses would totally win in the foot race: 10 times over.

Any further development on Slipstream will now have to wait until I return from my trip. I now must spend the next three days packing, help facilitate community group Tuesday night, and take care of other living details, like signing the lease to the new house. My new address is

316 NW Puget Drive
Seattle, Washington 98177.4843

Also, I finally sold out and started using Twitter. I resolved the fact that I’m utilizing it to engage that part of culture, as it is a very major driving force on net right now, so I’ve gotta pay attention to it at least for a bit. Don’t worry though, I’m not posting/receiving via SMS with it. That would just get out of hand too fast. Pownce is still my first message love, well second to Skype of course.

With the recent fear of giving out personal information over the web and simple ignorance of those who willingly give their information, it baffles me of people’s thought processes with a certain trend I am seeing on Facebook.

Often times than not, I have witnessed on the Newsfeed, or as I like to call it, the Gossip Wall, creation of certain events relating to loss of cellphone. This trend is running rampant like a plague.  The scenario is explained in the following. Those with enough friends on Facebook have probably seen this before or even participated, not knowing what you were doing.

Susie, through random happenstance, or for you Calvinists out there, was predestined to dropped her phone on the pavement… shattering its will to function and or chances of sentient life or future important SMS messages. (like omg!!!)

Susie, is disheartened. Her Chocolate/iPhone/Sidekick/RAZOR is gone forever! Data erased. All her phone numbers of friends and loved ones, gone forever in the aether. What is a girl to do?

Susie, through memory of what her friends have done in the recent past, recalls a quick fix. Facebook! Rather than go through all 2,342 of her friends pages and inserting cell phone numbers, dorm room numbers, former ex boyfriends’ numbers (so to not pick up when they call her, of course)… she creates an Event!

Susie is on a roll. She’s brilliant, she thinks to herself. Why, she’ll create an event called LOST CELLPHONE! And in the description she explains the predicament, possibly in all caps as well, after all CapsLock is CRUISE-CONTROL FOR AWESOME! In this she pleads for all her friends to post their phone numbers proudly and clear to see on the events page. Soon, the friends gladly/ignorantly help. They have minutes to spare. They were just Facebook stalking anyways.

Susie unfortunately, is clueless about the possible harm and repercussions this is causing on her fellow man. Let’s for a moment list a chain of people that this is affecting.

Susie’s immediate friends and family are now posting numbers, thus appearing on their Newsfeed.

One of Susie’s friends, Anna, has now posted her number on the Event page. Anna also has a large amount of friends, two people of which happen to be Carl and You. This event appears on a select amount of Newsfeeds on Anna’s friends list, depending on varying slider settings of those friends and influx of feeds draining onto their Newsfeed at any certain time. Guess what? Both Carl and You are two of those people.

Susie does not know Carl. You do not know Carl. Anna knows Carl, though only in passing. He was this shady guy she might have said hi to in Algebra back in high school. She really doesn’t remember him all that well. “But hey, he went to Generic Public High School with me, I’ll add him. No harm done right?” Wrong. Carl, for this story, is in fact, a danger to this internet community, triggered all by Susie’s thoughtless act of omission. Carl (not to mention You) can now see in full view this event and every public response to said event, i.e. their precious digits. Some of these people, while they thought only allowed a certain number of people access to their private phone number on their profiles, now have it exposed for the Carl’s of the world to see. The implications, awkwardness, and any other problem this causes is scary. Thankfully, because of reading this blog entry, You know better and won’t publicly post your number. Because if You do, Carl has your number now. Way to be Susie, way to be.

Just something to think about the day your cell phone falls in the toilet.

One of my younger twin sisters have now graduated from college. I can tell from all my siblings and conversations with the parental unit that our upcoming vacation to Daytona Beach is something we are all really looking forward to. We all need that escape from the chaos and frustrations of normal life. I am really hoping for our adventure to be very low key, refreshing, and most importantly, stress free. My mother announced her retirement, to happen in about a month (Mom, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning that). I am proud of her for doing so, I feel like my career as an artist, designer, design consultant (whatever I end up being for this time in my life) is something worthwhile and worth meaning, to not only myself, but my family, friends, and the Kingdom.

Progress on the new version of Slipstream is coming along. I’ve updated the teaser page to reflect the logo which will be used in the next theme.  While excited, there is still much I have yet to learn (at least learning how to make it work!). So, if everything goes to plan, it will be a moderately content heavy site. It’s more than just a portfolio or blog this time.

As for the extra content, I would like to make this post an open invitation. If you consider yourself in one of the following categories: writers, copy editors, journalists, photojournalists, bloggers, trend setters, philosophers, theologians, web surfers, designers, web media moguls or have interest in posting links about technology, arts & entertainment, gaming (all types), faith & theology… contact me via email and let me know what you like doing or currently doing in your life. This can be both an extracurricular activity  or something that takes very little of your time, and I’m talking very little. In your email, please include a link to your blog, articles you’ve written, Flickr gallery or attach works you are proud of. This invitation for collaborators is open at least to the end of the year, so if you aren’t free now, you’ve got time to consider it. Lord knows you actually do have the time, but you just don’t want to admit it. Everyone can at least find ten minutes of Facebook stalking to cut out of their week. Heck yes, I went there!

As described in this post, I am leaving Seattle for a few weeks for family vacation, a sister’s graduation, and participating in a wedding. I am now leaving on May 21st instead of the originally mentioned May 24th. This may result in hurting future job leads until I return, but I hope it will not cause major problems. I will be returning to Seattle no later than Thursday, June 5th.

Interestingly enough, when I return, I will also be returning to a new home, as my roommates and I are selecting a new house to live in. This also means the weekend prior to vacation, I will be packing up my room considerably into boxes and ready for the roommates to transport them. Its all kinds of excitement this summer.

This passage this morning really spoke to me as it is something that has needed to be on my heart more and more. Its good for all to be reminded of it.

Psalm 34, verses 11-22.

1 Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 What man is there who desires life
and loves many days, that he may see good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
and his ears toward their cry.
16 The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
20 He keeps all his bones;
not one of them is broken.
21 Affliction will slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.