Here I Stand…..
On the outside looking in. It’s weird now…not being part of the group of friends that I was last year….We’re not enemies..more like accomplishes now…and here I stand wishing things were the way they were last year…
‘Heartbeat’ - The Fray (Tim Halperin Cover - One Man Band)
My new cover video where I cover The Fray’s new single ‘Heartbeat’. I got to open for The Fray at TCU this month, and I loved the new single. I just got a new recording setup at home, so I thought I’d be a one man band for this one. I only use my keyboard, vocal noise and my mattress (for the bass drum).
I had a ton of fun making this video, and I only left my house to get food over the course of two days when I filmed it. I felt like I had gone into hiding!
So I hope my time in hiding was worth it. If you like the video, please reblog it or pass it on! Cheers!
If life were as complex as cholesterol…
The above picture is an isomer of cholesterol. It has 8 chiral carbons, which means it has 256 isomers(different configurations. It’s a pretty complex molecule. I don’t even want to begin to imagine the amount of time it would take to draw out all 256 isomers of cholesterol….which leads me to segwaying into….people often try to make life too complex. When really, life is simple. Follow God’s plan. Listen. If you get lost, read the map (the Bible) and the complexity of life will diminish. I once heard that if you worry about something, that you feel you are more capable of handling it than God is….food for thought.
Full speed ahead…
Well….this summer has gone by extremely fast. I loved working at Sky Ranch with 20 fantastic Christians who became family. This summer definitely had it’s ups and downs….but definitely more ups. God has definitely worked on my heart this summer and I’m interested to see what’s to come. In the mean time, I’ve been working on packing up to move back to TCU and it’s taking quite a bit of time.
I love my job.
“Fear is only as deep as the mind allows”
I borrowed a Japanese proverb for the title of this post as it pertains to my day. This evening, I got to help conquer fears. I worked the top of the zip-line today and it was awesome to see people conquer their fear of heights. Let me premise this by saying that the top of the zip line is the tallest part of camp…it’s on top of a hill and then you have to climb 5 stories to get to the top. So, it’s pretty high, and pretty nerve racking to look down from. Adults and kids alike tonight all were scared of being at the top and I had the privilege to helping them slay their fears. One lady, as soon as she got to the top closed her eyes and refused to open them so I had to guide her by the hand over to one of the two lines and then I talked to her at the bottom, and she loved it.
Two weeks ago…
Two weeks ago today I moved in to my place of residence for the summer here at Sky Ranch. The past two weeks have been filled with a whirlwind of staff training as well as preparing for the groups that will be coming here this summer. The entire staff has gone from being strangers to a family in a matter of days…granted we spend almost ever waking and sleeping moment together. The girls live in a double wide trailer home aptly nicknamed the “Tornado Palace” and the guys live in a shed/shop building that has been converted into a house.
A week ago today, an EF-5 tornado destroyed almost half of the city of Joplin. The hospital that the tornado destroyed is a sister hospital of the one my mom works at, and three hours before the tornado hit the hospital, the entire Sky Ranch staff was at the YMCA across the street finishing up lifeguard training…kind of a surreal thought thinking about what if it had happened 3 hours earlier….
Anyway, enough with the depressing thoughts, and on to the positive thoughts…had the first group of campers arrive yesterday. I’m working the zipline for the next week and had 60+ kids go down yesterday…Since I’m outside about 90% of the day, I’ve got a nice tan going on, as well as some nice tan lines….
I found this quote today, and I really like it… “If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.” - T. Alan Armstrong
I miss this.
RID Factor…
You may be wondering why the title of this post is “RID Factor” and why there’s a lifeguard photo on this as well. Well, today I completed lifeguard training and certification…I think it would be safe to say that I didn’t like the past four days where I spent countless hours in a pool learning proper techniques on rescuing drowning victims. Any way, the RID factor is a vital part of lifeguarding. As a lifeguard, we do our best not to let the RID factor happen to us. It’s an acronym for the failure to Recognize Intrusions and allowing Distractions to affect our job performance….however I feel like the RID factor can be applied to life and the failure to recognize the intrusions and distractions that occur in our daily lives. If we allow these intrusions and distractions to influence our lives in the wrong manner, well then we’re all bassackward…..
Summer Blog
It seems like just yesterday I was moving out of my dorm and then a week later moving into where I would be working for the next 3 months….oh wait…I moved in Sunday. It has been a whirlwind past couple days as we started staff training, as well as started getting to know the 24 other staff members that are living and working together until August 15th. Sunday was move in and get settled down day. Monday, we hit the ground running as we covered camp policies and rules and discussed what all we would be doing for the summer, in the morning, and then in the afternoon, we started zip-line training and certification and finished that up today. This afternoon was the vehicle training and safety session, and for me, I already knew about the vehicles here at camp and how to operate them because we have the same ones at the family farm. However, there are some members of the staff who had no clue how to operate these vehicles, so I enjoyed getting to watch them learn. Tomorrow is paintball training and I forget what else….Friday and Saturday we are going into town (Joplin, MO) to do lifeguard training as well as buy things we might need that we forgot. Either Sunday or Monday, we have the day off, so I’ll be headed back to the farm to see Granny, as well as do some work there.
