We are still in Beta.

Today we had a guest artist, actually a VSAA alumni. He was pretty cool. We did some theatre exercises with him and then he talked about how the point of it was basically to show that we have to move on in life and not let things affect us. I agree and disagree. Recently A LOT has been going on in my friends lives. I would go into detail but there is really too much to talk about. Basically it has all been bad, and it’s abnormal. My personal opinion is that it is from the Devil. The Devil does attack us. One of the biggest mistakes of Christians is to NOT acknowledge the fact that we are being attacked by the Devil. Basically when you don’t acknowledge the fact, you can’t fight it. If you don’t accept the fact that you are at war, how can you defend yourself? You can’t.

Ephesians 6:11-12

“Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

So accept the fact of the Devils attacks, and then fight back. Defend yourself… with what? Prayer, the Word of God, and living for God.  I think this section says it better than I can

Ephesians 6:14-18

“Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

So spiritual warfare is real and it’s powerful. Look at this section…. Read it like it is; a fight, a war, a battle. Change your perspective when you read it, and it could change your mind and life.

Now as for me not agreeing about just “getting over” things, I think you don’t always need to just “get over” it. See forgive and forget…. That isn’t the motto. We need to acknowledge the problem, face it, and conquer it… or solve it. Make it a part of you. Not sweep it under the rug.  This is never the best idea. It will come out later if you sweep it under the rug. What happens when the rug is moved? You have to face all the problems at once, rather than just one at a time.

If you read Matthew 18:15-17 it will talk about when someone does something hurtful to you and how to deal with it. So what happens if you just sweep it under the rug by ignoring it, or by just saying “yeah whatever, you’re forgiven”? It could end up being worse later because they could bring it up again, or you could because you haven’t dealt with it. It isn’t really gone, you still hold hurt feelings. The best approach would be going and talking with them one on one, and if that doesn’t work bring in another person. That is what Matthew 18:15-17 talks about.

So I agree that you need to get over things, but in the right way. Use it to make yourself a better person. As for not letting it affect you, well let it affect you, but in a good way. That is what I am really getting at.

So my cousin Aubrianne recently started a blog. It really is pretty good, though mine is definitely better. . . . . ok maybe I’m just jealous because she can write deep, meaningful cool and humorous posts, and I can’t. Mine are usually lame, or just deep and insightful, but boring. Plus I don’t have a spell checker! Anyway. It’s interesting reading her blog because my friends say that it is just like mine, and that she is just like me only female. This makes me laugh because we have been told before that we look like siblings but I never would have guessed we think alike. It’s also interesting because my mom always says I’m like her dad, my uncle Ken. Something to do with God, Jesus, Philosophy, Bibles, and Churches. I really don’t know. So now that Aubrianne has a blog, I guess there is pressure to keep mine updated, and good. The Aublog also makes me happy because when I read her posts theycan give me insight on what to write and just make me laugh. Oh and it boosts my site rating. The more links that head to my site, the higher the rating! BOY-YAH! So go check hers out, and comment, it makes us bloggers feel loved!
http://www.aubrianne.blogspot.com

Recently I have been hearing a lot of quotes that really apply to life well. I think they are very true and the way they are said are amazing. So here they are, I will explain why I like below.
From “The Glass Menagerie”

“Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse.”
Tom speaking to Amanda, his mother

“You are the only young man I know of who ignores the fact that the future
becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don’t plan for it!”
Amanda speaking to Tom, her son.

“All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.”
Amanda speaking to Laura, her daughter.

From a website with jokes

“The Patricia Principal: The more you’ve been trying to attract the attention of a particular man, the more likely it is that you’ll run into him when you’re sweaty, short of sleep, without makeup, wearing house-painting clothes, with your hair in a bandana.”

From our science text book

“By Analogy, consider yourself. You are who you are, but your behavior changes depending upon whom you are with.”

I get multiple things from these, mainly that they are true and hit hard. Such as the first. It is so true about men. In today’s society a man is not allowed to be a man. He is forced to go work in an office, or warehouse, and his heart yearns to do more. He wants to be a man, he wants to climb mountains, fight dragons, save princesses, but he can’t. Men are also told to stuff their feelings, no crying, no whining, and in general be nice. Don’t show anything. Women want men to be “nice guys” but they want to be real men, adventurous, dangerous, and exciting.

The second quote is true also. Don’t procrastinate. Plan for you future, or it will plan for you. You can’t let life pass you by, you need a vision.

The 3rd one is a part of life that I wish wasn’t so true. Not every single pretty girl is a trap, but most of them are. Almost all of them wear clothes, act and talk like they are just there to lure a man in. It is quite sad really. The media has a lot to do with it, woman dress like objects, and want to be treated like them, or so it seems because of the way they act.

The 4th quote is not necessarily true, but it might feel like it. The problem is that this is really you. When you aren’t dressed up and nice looking, that is the real you. When a person can love you at 7am and your sleepy, with messy hair, pajamas and bad breath, that is real love.

The last quote, I was surprised to read in my science textbook. It is the perfect analogy for acids and bases. It is very true with humans. I am who I am, but if I’m hanging with my parents compared to my friends I will act different.

So last night while reading my devotions I had a moment of inspiration. Or at least kind of. Basically I had these three great ideas about posts on obedience and following God. Or something like that. I promptly wrote them down, but since I’m going to Manzanita this week I decided I could set up the site to give you a post every 2 days from this pre-written series. The first post will be Saturday.

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It’s all set up and boy am I excited! These posts turned out better than I expected I can’t wait for you to see them!

So I’m currently at the beach. My dad is having his class reunion so we came with him to Warrenton (right next to Astoria). Last night I slept on the couch in the living room with this huge window. Actually there are big windows on both sides of the room. Anyway I woke up this morning really well and realized it was because of the windows. Up in my room at home I don’t have any windows that let light in, or they barely do. It’s funny how much more peaceful it is when I wake up to the light rather than with an alarm clock or someone yelling at me. I guess it’s cause thats how God intented it. Now I wish my room had big windows. (I also wish there was a point to this post) We then had a huge breakfast, or I did and then went to the beach. Oh man that made me feel like a kid again. I splashed through the ocean and got sand everywhere and built trenches and walls. I even skipped rocks and threw sticks. It was very fun. I can’t wait till next week when I go to Manzanita. Now I’m sitting here on the computer, and watching TV….. wow what a contrast. If only I had a way to wrap up this post. . . . I know “Creative End”

I got my own URL!!!!!! Ok you might think that’s really geeky but it’s cool. It’s like owning your own piece of land. You have to pay for a registration by the year and it’s pretty cheap. I’m not gonna tell you the URL until I get the site in better working order but just had to say it rocks! This is the first site that isn’t my part of my dad’s or on Google or Myspace or Livejournal or Xanga etc. etc. It’s my own domain! Wow. Haha. Ok enough geekness for now.

So recently I have been listening to a lot of praise music, and just wanted to say I love it. It is so uplifting and cool. I like David Crowder Band, Jeremy Camp, My Church’s band, Revolve, Aaron Shust and others. Music does such amazing things to you and I don’t know how people can listen to people sing about Sex, Drugs, Violence and other things like that. Why would you want to? Compared to this which is just so great. It feels like walking into a clean room compared to walking into a dirty one. Ok that wasn’t a very good example but oh well. You get it. I love Praise Music and I love my Creator. I love that I was created in his image not just some worthless being that appeared out of nowhere. Praise God!

So I found this video on the Lego site. I decided to renew my subscription to the Lego mag (I know I’m 15, but hey it’s Lego) So I was on the site and found this. If you like Star Wars you will think it’s great. It’s very original.

http://www.lego.com/starwars/anakin.asp?x=x

So we went to Lincoln School on Sunday night. We played sardines and just hung out. It was really fun, and the most amazing thing happened. At one point after playing a round of sardines we were swinging and I decided to just leave and go sit in the field and watch the stars. I started timing to see how long it would be for my friends to follow and then just watched the stars…..oh and started praying. In under 30 seconds I saw a shooting star. Now you might think I’m crazy, but I think that it wasn’t just a coincidence. Then again do you think anything is really a coincidence? Like the earth. Our world? Our universe?

An Oxford physicist Roger Penrose once was talking about a parameter of our universe called the “original phase-space volume” just this one parameter he said would require fine-tuning to an accuracy of one part in 10 billion times itself one hundred and twenty three times. Penrose said later that it would be impossible to write down that number in full. Because it would have more zeroes than the number of elementary particles in the whole universe. Now that’s just ONE parameter, and there are more. So can you really say that it’s just a coincidence that the universe came together? In the book I’m currently reading puts it like this.

Let’s say we were to go to another planet, say Mars and find a enclosed biosphere. Now this biosphere has multiple dials, buttons and switches. So you find this and all the dials are set randomly, but to contain life the have to be set just right, every single one of them. Let’s say that you leave without touching them and a year later you come back, but this time you look at the dials and you see they have all been changed. Not just changed but changed so that every single one of them is at just the right setting. What would you think? Would you think that they had just coincidently been set to that, or would you think that an Alien life form had come and set it. Or something/someone had set it. Coincidence? I think not. Now apply this to the real universe with way more settings, dials, parameters, etc. Can you say it’s a coincidence, that it just sprung up out of no-where? Evolution? The big bang? I doubt it. In fact I know it’s not true.

There is in Intelligent Designer and his name is Jesus Christ. He died for everyones sins, and then his disciples died for this belief. They believed him and most of them died for it. Would you die for something you didn’t believe? They did and they believed the Bible including Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth” Coincidence? I think not.

So I was reading the other day…. actually I’ve been reading for a while about the web 2.0. I’ve heard good things and bad things. We’ll I’ve decided to mention some things about the web, maybe 2.0 maybe not. Or is it the web 2.0 that we didn’t think about? Anyway supposedly the web 2.0 was supposed to be better than 1.0. I really don’t know what this means, more security and faster or something. The reality is that instead they* are going to most likely start changing the Internet in a bad way. They are going to soon start charging sites extra to have their site load fast. They will charge extra for the extra bandwidth. Now this is a reality to some extent already, for example If I host my site with the top hosting site compared with some dinky little of name company sure it’s going to affect it. But this is to a lot bigger extent. So say I don’t (or actually my dad doesn’t) fork over extra cash to give his sites more speed. This would mean that my web page is going to load a lot slower than say Google or someone who can fork over tons of cash to give their site a lot of speed.

*they being the money sucking over-charging internet service providers and possibly the Governementtext