I Shouldn't Be Allowed to Talk on Wednesdays...

Sometimes I like to name my enemies.

This, my friends, is Methylene Chloride.
And while I joke about how working with all these chemicals at our screen printing shop will give me cancer, it's another thing to work with a chemical that calls itself a carcinogen on it's label.
A chemical that is forced to ship ground through UPS because it's illegal to transport it any faster.
A chemical that is delivered in a special box twice it's size so that several pieces of cardboard can keep it from moving at all.


So if I die in my sleep tomorrow, you'll know who to blame. It doesn't matter the cause of death, my wife could smother me in my sleep for all I care, I still want you faithful blog readers to sue Caseway Industrial for all it's worth.


Also, I used my knife to open the lid since it was giving me trouble, and got some of the chemical on the blade. Let it be known potential thieves, I now carry a cancer-causing knife. It might be a long time coming, but one day, future mugger, you will die. And I will say it's because of my cancer knife.

Community

Sometimes I forget that, as people, we need each other:

I was actually reminded of that today.
I'm grateful I live in a community of people where everyone wants to help each other achieve their dreams.
I'm grateful for people who physically go out on a limb to make that happen.

God is so good.

Children's Story

Gotta love a good children's story.

Pulled from Buzzfeed

Oh, you Inklings...

Author Dorothy Sayers, a feminist, biker, and considered one of the Inklings at the University of Oxford along with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, in an essay about faith in Christ:

If this is dull, then what, in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting?

The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore—on the contrary, they thought him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him “meek and mild,” and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies

....

He was emphatically not a dull man in his human lifetime, and if he was God, there can be nothing dull about God either. But he had “a daily beauty in his life that made us ugly,” and officialdom felt that the established order of things would be more secure without him. So they did away with God in the name of peace and quietness.

“And the third day he rose again.” What are we to make of this? One thing is certain: if he were God and nothing else, his immortality means nothing to us; if he was man and no more, his death is no more important than yours or mine. But if he really was both God and man, then when the man Jesus died, God died too; and when the God Jesus rose from the dead, man rose too, because they were one and the same person

....

Now, nobody is compelled to believe a single word of this remarkable story. God (says the Church) has created us perfectly free to disbelieve in him as much as we choose. If we do disbelieve, then he and we must take the consequences in a world ruled by cause and effect. The Church says further that man did, in fact, disbelieve, and that God did, in fact, take the consequences. All the same, if we are going to disbelieve a thing, it seems on the whole to be desirable that we should first find out what, exactly, we are disbelieving. Very well, then: “The right Faith is, that we believe that Jesus Christ is God and man, Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Who although he be God and man yet is he not two, but one Christ.” There is the essential doctrine, of which the whole elaborate structure of Christian faith and morals is only the logical consequences.

Now, we may call that doctrine exhilarating, or we may call it devastating; we may call it revelation, or we may call it rubbish; but if we call it dull, then words have no meaning at all. That God should play the tyrant over man is a dismal story of unrelieved oppression; that man should play the tyrant over man is the usual dreary record of human futility; but that man should play the tyrant over God and find him a better man than himself is an astonishing drama indeed. Any journalist, hearing of it for the first time, would recognize it as news; those who did hear it for the first time actually called it news, and good news at that; though we are likely to forget that the word Gospel ever meant anything so sensational.

Perhaps the drama is played out now, and Jesus is safely dead and buried. Perhaps. It is ironical and entertaining to consider that at least once in the world’s history those words might have been spoken with complete conviction, and that was upon the eve of the Resurrection.

You Inklings can't help but blow my mind, can you?

Art at Disney!!

When I can, I take classes at a local university focus on Art and Video. 

Not because I consider myself an artist in any way, but because there's a lot to learn about video, and if I plan on making engaging videos that teach deep Christian truths, then I need to work on the "engaging" part. Since I came from a very limited artistic background, all this has been new ground for me, and these classes I've been taking, the friends I've been learning from, and everything I've been doing at the university has really opened my mind this past year. That is something for which I'm ridiculously grateful.

Because without it, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the day I had Sunday. Downtown Disney opened up their sidewalks for artists to display their work in what they called "Festival of the Masters", and while I found out about it at practically the last minute, I was still able to go on Sunday.

And It. Was. Awesome.
Here's a peek, which are just some pictures I snapped while walking past the works, since it was too busy for us to just stand and admire. Starting with some chalk artist who worked on the concrete there:

I mean seriously... that's chalk.

Freaking Genius

And the Mona Lisa for crying out loud!!

And while there were jewelers, craftsmen, and all types of mediums represented, what caught my attention was the photography:

The colors from my phone's camera don't do those justice. Though I did get a website or two from those who were at their booths. However, in my opinion, these guys paled in comparison to another artist. One who was a water color painter, a lady named Janet Mach Dutton:

Again, the pictures here don't do justice. One of my friends that I learn from says the works of art that really grab her are the Still Life images that look so incredibly real you feel like you could reach out and eat the fruit in the bowl, and this lady almost mastered that in her later work. I was completely blown away with what she was able to create, and the depth of color she created using watercolors. I stopped to talk to her for a good bit, where I learned that she was an unbelievably sweet older woman whose only been painting for 10 years. She has sections of her website dedicated to teaching others how to paint, giving them challenges and guiding them through how she learned what she knows. That was awesome.


So yea, I'm really starting to dig this art thing. A lot actually. :)

(Very) Short Story

Run. 
Turn.
Jump.
Car!
Alley.
Gate locked.
Fire escape.
In window.
Stranger screams.
Roof!
Leap.
Clothesline.
In another window.
Stair rail slide.
Outside.
Sirens.
Jacket Hood up.
Casual walk.
Buy gum.
Subway escape.

Woah...

Sometimes I forget how beautiful natural things are.
Or how creative God really is.
(Skip to 0:26 if you're short on time)

Mind = Blown.

There must be something wrong with me...

I love/hate this place.

I had an amazing time last night playing 7 games of trampoline basketball and countless games of trampoline dodgeball. 

But I almost died last night because I played 7 games of trampoline basketball and countless games of trampoline dodgeball. Which is what happens when my completely out-of-shape self tries to keep up with 2 guys currently in the military. 
By the end of the night (which was only a hour of play) I was laying on the trampoline, clutching my heart, telling my friends to leave me there to die.

But I would do it again tonight if I could.

There must be something wrong with me.

While the exercise and trampoline games was fun, I think what I loved so much about last night was seeing some old friends, catching up, and gaining some perspective. I was with one friend who's on leave from Afghanistan, where he just saw a girl die last week when mortars came over their base's fence, and we were laughing at pictures of him failing at planking. I was driving with another friend, who just finished Basic Training to come home to his wife having their first baby this Friday, sharing my new-found love for music (more on that later, blog-readers). We all got to share stories and peg each other with dodgeballs, what's better than that?

I realized driving home that we were all going down very different paths, and that our lives aren't as easy to figure out anymore. That we are quite a-ways away from when we used to play soccer or video games after school, and that we are dealing with things much tougher than deciding our college majors.

Life is hitting some of us pretty hard. And we are having to grow through it.

But I think some perspective hit when I realized that even during all of that, we can still come together and laugh when someone gets hit square in the face with a dodgeball. There's something good about life, and God, in that. 

I should have been a Boy Scout or something...

You might have thought I was joking before, but I'm not the only on whose preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse. Even Cracked.com put out a list of 5 actual ways a zombie apocalypse could happen, so it only makes sense that we start preparing. And what's more important in a Zombie Apocalypse than weapons? In comes Zombie Tools:

And by "accessories", they mean these puppies:

Fully sharpened and ready-to-use blades specifically designed for killing zombies. And you all thought I was crazy. I might be buying something from them soon though. Not just because saying the word "Apokatana" is fun, but because my current weapons roster could use some improvements:

Occupy Wall Street

Ahh... Occupy Wall Street. I was waiting to make up my mind on this, thinking that maybe, possibly, in some small, remote way I would be able to agree with part of what they aim for. Yes, there's alleged cases of rape going on at the protests that aren't being reported, nutjobs with ridiculous theories on how to fix the economy, and an inclination towards inciting violence, but I didn't want to judge this movement by the individuals participating; I wanted to hear from something that spoke for the group as a whole. And then I read their first organized demand:

Jobs for ALL – A Massive Public Works and Public Service Program
We demand a massive public works and public service program with direct government employment at prevailing (union) wages paid for by taxing the rich and corporations, by immediately ending all of America’s wars, and by ending all aid to authoritarian regimes to create 25 million new jobs to:

• Expand education: cut class sizes and provide free university for all;
• Expand healthcare and provide free healthcare for all (single payer system);
• Build housing, guarantee decent housing for all;
• Expand mass transit, provided for free;
• Rebuild the infrastructure—bridges, flood control, roads;
• Research and implement clean energy alternatives; and
• Clean up the environment.
• These jobs are to be open to all, regardless of documentation/immigration status or criminal record.

 
Yep, that right there would be a deal breaker for me. Allow me to explain why.

I'm not a fan of a ton of government jobs in general, but my problem with a plan like this is the numbers. They want 25 million jobs. 25 million jobs paid for by the government at union wages. If you take the median of union salary wages, which is $47,760 a year, and multiply that by 25 million, you get the approximate cost of these government jobs per year: 1.194 trillion. The problem with that is our government only takes in 2.163 trillion total every year. Meaning those jobs alone would cost us more than half of our total income as a country. This is currently how much we spend every year:

(Yes, if you haven't seen these numbers before, we spend 3.456 trillion a year but only take in 2.163 trillion. That would be the start of our debt problem everyone was up in arms about last year, and quite honestly, another gripe of mine entirely.)

So, now that we know how much those jobs will cost, lets see how they want to pay for those jobs:

"... paid for by taxing the rich and corporations, Immediately ending all of America's wars, and by ending aid to all authoritarian regimes".

Using those 3 things:
1st, we could end all our current wars, cutting $171 billion.
2nd, we could end all foreign aid to anyone (since I don't want to bother with the who's "authoritarian" and who's not), cutting another $49 billion.
And that leaves... a hefty $972 billion. That just leaves taxing the rich and corporations on their list. So here's some options:

a) Raising the top income tax bracket from 35% to 114%
b) Raising the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 148%
c) Raising both the personal income tax rate and the corporate income tax rates from 35% to 82%

So, yes, while options A and B are actually impossible, there's still option C. So Yay!! With option C, we did it!! Now everyone has jobs. Not sure what work they would be doing, but 25 million people now have jobs.

But... we still haven't met their other demands. There's no free universities, no free healthcare, no guaranteed housing, etc. You might say those new jobs could be people building the houses or fixing the infrastructure, but that doesn't count the cost of materials to do those things either. So basically, I'm still not seeing how this is could possibly be paid for and us still be a Capitalist nation. (Numbers and info from this example above come from here and here.)

What's frustrating for me is that I think I hear part of what the protestors are saying, and I'm tired of the way this government is running too. There's too much money in politics and too many professional politicians. But that's about where the similarities end. This is where I'm seeing a difference with the protestors:

Click to expand. Original here.

Yes, the bailouts were wrong. Yes, assembling together and bringing attention to these issues is a good idea. But I'm for fixing this system, not trying to create a new one. The government bailing us out the same way it did the banks is not the solution. We need less government intervention, not more. We need to let the banks fail, and let ourselves fail. We need to get back to the idea of being responsible for ourselves, instead of expecting the government to fix everything for us.

In the end, this sounds like yet another political group I don't agree with. Maybe I can still hold out hope that someone someday will stand up with a head on their shoulders and not argue points simply for argument's sake. Or maybe Mtv's True Life can just get me emotionally connected enough not to care; both ways of thinking seem about as effective at this point.

Good Times

This is me.

Enjoying what is undoubtably the best way to spend an afternoon after work: taking a nap on a warm couch with headphones set to Future of Forestry. There's also one little addition who made this ten times better.

She came over when I lied down, draped herself over my hand, used her paw to pull my fingers back, then rested her head on them. What kind of awesome cat does that? Only the Gypsy Ninja kind, that's who.

"But Curtis", someone from the overwhelming multitude of followers of this blog says, "Didn't just last post you talk about how much you like to wander, which requires movement? And now you're talking about how much you like to be lazy and lie still? Isn't there a contradiction there?", which he's forced to rapidly spit out since he's being crushed by the pressing throng of people.
"What can I say, my friend?", I reply. "I'm a man of contradictions..." I say whistfully, as I lie back down for another nap.

Wandering

I haven't been wandering in a while.

Click image to enlarge. Or click here for this site.

Besides the strange kink, that's me right there.
I'm someone who really enjoys wandering, but I have such a terrible sense of direction that it's a wonder I ever stop wandering.
To top it off though, my aimless wandering usually ends well. Either by meeting new people, tasting new food, or finding new things.
And I really like new things.

I'm definitely overdue for some good wandering.