Happy 8 Year Anniversary

Wow. Cynthia and I have been married for 8 years today! Cynthia has been so supportive of me and my ministry with Cornwall and Roosevelt Community Church. She has supported me in school and cheered me on the entire way. She was a very important part of Loa coming to this world. She has laughed at my jokes even when they weren’t funny. With her I’ve shared many laughs, many secrets, many joys, and many kisses. I love her!

Bikers Beware: An Open Letter to the Fairweather Bike Commuter

Dear Mr/Ms/Mrs I-commute-during-the-warm-season-only-bike-rider,

If you are going to ride on the road, please follow the rules of the road. I applaud your wanting to save money and the planet, but I am saddened by your lack of common sense. This includes your failure to stop at stop signals and instead blow through them, not being aware of the cars around you, and your failure to signal your turns. Also, if you are riding on the sidewalks, please know that the rules of pedestrians apply to you then. Don’t just be on the road and then off the road. Choose one and go with it! Oh, and also please wear a helmet, fool.

The Brown Kid

I Think I’m Getting Old…

I yell at kids who have no regard for other people. I hate people who don’t “follow the rules”. I laugh when I think about the good old days. I’ve been out of high school for 15 years. I have a mortgage payment, 2 cars, and a kid…and we talk about upgrading to a bigger house. I get mad on the Fourth of July when people throw their garbage from their fireworks in my dumpster. I wake up at 6:30 a.m. with ease. I take naps. I watch the news. My hair is turning gray. I don’t like a lot of the new music that comes out these days. I have a 401k (now a 200.5k). Two Words: crows feet. I refer to people as “My _____” (i.e. my lawyer, my real estate agent, my whatever-it-is-that-I-pay-them-to-do).  I hurt myself and don’t recover as quickly as I used to. If I stay up past midnight, I’m usually a wreck the next day. If I drink more than two glasses of wine, I feel sick. I drink wine. I miss all of the bad things I used to do, but I don’t do it because my body probably can’t handle it.

yeah. I’m getting old.

I’ve Come To A Realization…

Last night on American Idol, Adam Lambert killed it with this song:

This is the only song that my dad knows on guitar. Seriously, I remember going to parties with my parents, he would play guitar, and this was the only song he played. My realization that I’ve come to? This is the only “good” memory that I have of my dad. I have some daddy issues (wasn’t good enough, neglected, came from a single parent home, etc.). Cynthia pointed this out to me when I told her the story of this song and my dad. She was talking about how it was sad that I don’t really have good memories of my dad.

I wrote about it before, but man, I am glad that I learned to love and trust God as my father…

Please Hang Up and Order (An Open Letter to the Cell Phone Guy/Lady)

Dear Cell Phone Guy/Lady,

Seriously? What is so important that you have to talk on the phone at full volume while you are in line and then whisper your order to me, only to return to your conversation while looking at me like you are annoyed because I am asking you to pay?

HTD (here’s the deal). If you are on the phone, step aside and finish your conversation so that the person/people behind you can order. Or better yet, hang up. It’s simple really. Otherwise, your cell phone conversation looks like a big middle finger in my face.

So here’s what I’m going to do as this continues: While you are having your conversation after you order, I am going to call your order to the barista (as required of me) only I will do it at a slightly louder volume than usual. I will also tell you how much you owe me, only again I will do this at a slightly louder (but still courteous) volume. Yes, I realize that this will annoy you, but really, isn’t this what you are doing to me and others?

So Mr/Mrs/Ms Cell Phone user, I ask this of you. Please hang up and order, or let others after you order first.

thank you,

Your Barista – The Brown Kid

I Will Not Let You Grow Old (An Open Letter to My Friends)

This was inspired by a lady I saw at Starbucks one day. I wanted to share this letter that I wrote with everybody to let you know what kind of friend I can be. I care too much about all my friends to let this happen to them, as I hope you do also. If you know the kind of person being described here, please pass this on to them. enjoy!

2/27/09

Dear Friend,

I won’t let you grow old with you believing that you are younger than you truly are. Talking and dressing like you are 40 going on 20. Eventually, it might become embarassing.

Low rise jeans with muffin tops or Abercrombie fashion on a JC Penny body. Faux hawks at 50 and puka shell chokers choking out the last bit of sense that you might have.

Front butts playing peekaboo out the bottom of camisols and beer guts in a wife beater are never sexy. Both seem to reveal denial and freshly inked tribal tattoos.

Fake tans and highlighted hair make for an interesting contrast. Not intersting like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but more like Michael Jackson and Priscilla Presley.

So it comes to this: I promise as your friend to inform you rather than embarrass you if this happens to you. I would rather inform you than allow you to become red in the face. I would hope that you do the same for me. Let us grow old and move forward rather than trying to deny the inevitable. Growing old is a rite of passage and it is for you and me.

Sincerely, Your Friend,

The Brown Kid

Fat Hawaiian Update

Do you watch the Biggest Loser? You should. It is inspirational and awesome. You will laugh and cry (from laughing) and be angry at Heba and Vicky. I just want to know why they are so mean! I feel like i am back in middle school. The show also makes you want work out as these people are trying to lose weight for life.

For six weeks, I was involved with Bob Anderson’s boot camp in Ferndale, WA to help me lose weight. It is a 10 week program, but I was able to hop in in the the middle of everything. I’ve been trying to lose weight before the baby gets here. Here is how it is going so far:

I weighed in on 9-27-08 at 227 pounds and could do 29 push ups and 28 sit ups.

Today I weighed in at 214 pounds and I did 45 push ups and 40 sit ups.

Improvement! I love it. I will do all of the measurements (chest, arms, legs and waist) and a final weigh in at the end of 10 weeks on Dec 6th.

This would have been mine

…if I was in the 11th grade.

My Job Description

As a staff at Roosevelt Community Church, we have been asked to write out our job description and what we do at RCC. Below is what I have so far.

“I am an artist who is in love with Jesus. I want to inspire others to see this love through my expressions and in themselves, and in turn allow them to find new and different ways to express this love through the arts.”

This is what I have so far for my job description, but it is also my personal mission statement for my life. Do you have a job or “mission” statement for what you do? It doesn’t have to be spiritual or anything, I just want to know, if somebody asked you what is your personal mission statement for life what would it be?

My After Election Hangover

I feel hungover. I can’t believe what happened last night – I keep wondering if it really did happen. A lot of people on my facebook status updates are angry – more are angry than happy. But overall, I am glad for what happened last night. I am excited for the future of America. I feel that for once my vote counted. But I still feel hungover.

I voted for Obama because I am a democrat at heart. I always tell this story about when my mom taught me about voting when I was a kid: “Remember when you vote”, she told me, “to mark everyone with a ‘D’ next to their name”. Now obviously I don’t vote this way, and all kidding aside, the reason I feel hungover is because I feel as if I did something awful last night. I feel as if people look down on me because of my choice. As if I am less of a Christian because of my vote and my political stance as a democrat?

A lot of my friends are angry and sad, and then they threaten to leave the country, and then they say that they are putting it in God’s hands. I wonder why we as Christians say things like, “we have to put it in God’s hands” when the situation is bad in our opinion, but if it turned out the way we planned, then it suddenly “God is good”. This is where the seperation of Church and State was a good thing.

Maybe then, we shouldn’t vote as christians, but instead as Americans. When religion creeps in then all hell breaks loose. Maybe the mistakes we make are when we mistake our faith with our morals. Hmmm. this is complicated to explain. Maybe what we think are Christian values that we vote on are really things that we do simply because we have believed that all along. Maybe they are things that we believe because we were told they are good or bad.

Either way, we witnessed history. I feel more proud of America than I ever have been in teh past. I am one of the millions who have witnessed what has happened, and truely believes more than ever that anything is possible.