Give Me Your Eyes music video

I first heard this song at work.  One of my bosses, Jeff, had this song on a compilation CD he makes frequently.  I loved it almost right away and asked him who it was by.  He said it was Brandon Heath, after mistakenly telling me Carolina Liar (hehe, sorry Jeff)!  But anyways here's the video for the song, which is also really cool.  And apparently, I'm still supposed to check out the band Carolina Liar...

Brandon Heath - Give Me Your Eyes from Brandon Heath on Vimeo.

my friend Mary

So I was facebook stalking one day and saw that my college friend, Mary, was going to be in the Chicago area last week.  I contacted her to have lunch with her one day while she was in town.  Turns out she had this big wedding to plan for Mindy, who also went to Cornell.  Originally, Mary was going to come to the city to eat at El Cid, a nice Mexican place in my old neighborhood.  But since the actual work for the wedding got put off I had to go meet her in Wheaton.  First, I decided to help out by going there before lunch time.  That led to me being invited to the wedding.

I ended up attending the wedding and it was pretty awesome.  I only knew 4 people there but everyone was cool and talked to me.  That doesn't always happen when I'm in a group of strangers but it ended up working very well this time.  You can go to Mary's blog(s) on facebook to find out about the actual wedding.  Maybe I'll post a blog about it later.  Look up my flickr page for pics.

The next day, Mary came with me to Ben and Amber's to hang out with more Cornell people.  I just hoped to have lunch or dinner with her one day.  I love it when you take a chance (i.e. going to a wedding with a lot of people you don't know) and it ends up paying off beautifully.  I hadn't talked to Mary in person or on the phone for years before this past week.  And look how much better friends we are now because of what transpired.  Love it.

that's right, i do have a blog...

My bad for not posting anything in so long.  Things have been happening and not happening at the same time.  I know that doesn't make sense.  I like my job at Sony but I've been struggling with $$.  4th of July weekend was fun even though I had to work all of it.  But I did get the chance to hang out in Pilsen for the 4th of July extravaganza.  You seriously have to go to see how ridiculous the fireworks are.  Everyone on their block buys like a $1000 worth of fireworks and sets them off all night.  It's pretty insane.

Recently I ran into a deaf/mute woman on the way home from work on the bus.  She was trying to get to a bar she works at.  At first it was kind of hard to communicate but then we got the hang of talking to each other.  Lots of hand motions and writing down on paper.  So anyways, it turns out she wouldn't be able to get to her work the way she was going so I offered to drive her there.  It was interesting and it's been awhile since I've had a random interaction with a stranger like that.

Life goes on and hopefully, so will this blog...

blessings

Some of the funniest things you just can't plan

On Saturday night I'm hanging out with Jenn eating Korean BBQ. Just in case you haven't read her facebook note yet, here's the basic plot:

She brings up ex-boyfriends. First, she brings up #6 to be specific, and the story of how she broke up with #5 a little later on. Shortly after that she thinks she recognizes the people sitting at the other end of the long table we are eating at. One guy there gets up to go, and the rest of the 4-person group follow. We are done a few minutes after them and leave.

Then in the car (while still in the parking lot)...
"F---! That was ex #5 sitting at the same table!!!"
(a lot of laughing ensues)
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Hmmmm.....I'm sure he didn't hear you retell the story of how you broke up with him."
"Just drive, Chris..."

"How did you not recognize him?"
"It's been 4 years. Am I supposed to remember who everyone I meet looks like?"
"How about the ones you've had a relationship with."

And then we go on to talk about various relationships one should remember physical appearances, and banter back and forth about the same crap. Man, when Jenn separates herself from people, she severs that connection! Note to self: If you want Jenn to remember who you are, be sure to talk to her and see her every now and then. Too funny...

leadership conference in St. Louis

I just got back this past Sunday night from a conference and it was pretty exciting to be there. There were several highlights from the weekend, but one of the biggest ones for me was the opportunity to hear Dr. Robert Rohm speak, which was a first time for me. Dr. Rohm is an expert on personality styles and speaks all over the world. His book Positive Personality Profiles is incredibly helpful in learning how to relate to others better at work, in your home, etc.

If you don't know about these personality profiles, you basically start with two questions. Most of the time (you can change your mind later on), are you:
1) more outgoing or more reserved?
2) more task-oriented or people-oriented?
You then have 4 different personality profiles D-I-S-C, based on how you answered those two questions. Keep in mind that people are a combination of all 4 of these, but most people are predominantly one or two of these.
D= outgoing and task-oriented
I= outgoing and people-oriented
S= reserved and people-oriented
C= reserved and task-oriented

Dr. Robert Rohm is also a world-class speaker. One of the best speakers that I have seen in terms of delivery, amount that I learned, and examples used to illustrate points. It's pretty neat and interesting that Rohm's 4 daughters are dominantly each of the 4 different personality profiles.

All in all, it was a great weekend, with over 20,000 attendants hunger to learn. More on the conference later.

blessings

an idea whose time has come

I recently purchased Glory Road on DVD. It's in the middle of a line of inspirational, based-on-a-real-story movies put out by Disney, that seems to be a trend now. That's fine because I like them quite a bit. This particular one is about how a coach named Don Haskins took a little known school called Texas Western (now UTEP) to win the NCAA championship and legitimized black basketball players in the NCAA, who up until that point had been discriminated against in this area.

Because of this discrimination, Coach Haskins plays only his black players in the championship game against Coach Rupp's University of Kentucky. This game was one of the greatest upsets in NCAA history and one of the most important games in the history of basketball. An interview with Pat Riley (one of the Kentucky players) showed how the true importance of that game wasn't seen until later on when history started talking about it. Of course blacks were/are competent enough physically and mentally to play in the NCAA.

All of this to introduce the topic. You cannot stop an idea whose time has come. "God chose an interesting venue to take care of this problem," said Pat Riley in the same interview. It wasn't until later that they realized the game was about more than just a college championship. You can say the same thing about several things in America's history. One is the automobile roughly 100 years ago. And now there is the internet, and how much that has become and will be a part of our lives.

Are you a visionary? Can you see the trends? Can you see what is right (as in the case of blacks playing in the NCAA)? Or are you like one of those people 100 years ago who said, "An automobile?! Nobody is going to want that!" Let's all learn and grow together.

to God be the glory

This post is dedicated to Zach Blickens, a friend of mine who is a youth pastor and worship pastor at River of Life in Cedar Rapids, IA. You can find more info about him and his wife's ministry here.

Last Thursday, I heard a message on Daniel 2. Daniel is a great example of a young leader. Many people of faith can benefit by taking his example of leadership. In this chapter, King Nebuchadnezzar can't sleep due to repeated dreams that keep him awake. He demanded his magicians, scorcerors, and "dream experts" to not only interpret the dream, but first tell him what the dream was. If they can't, they will be put to death. Well this was impossible and they said no man can do this. Daniel and his three close friends- Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah- got wrapped up in this, too. They came together and fervently prayed to God for wisdom. God granted them the mystery of the king's dream and Daniel ended up telling the king his dream in great detail.

I encourage you to read about the dream and the whole chapter. There are many points to be made, but the one I want to bring up is how Daniel gave the glory to God. First, when he received the mystery of the king's dream, he praised God. Then, standing before the king, he gave God full credit for being able to relay the king's dream and its interpretation. In addition to that, he gave credit to his friends twice in the chapter for their accountability to him. After all, they prayed fervently to God with Daniel and ate the vegetables and water diet with him in the previous chapter.

Now why do I dedicate this blog to Zach? Because he always praises God for gifts that he and others have, good things that happen in his life and those around him, and probably even the bad things sometimes too. He doesn't take credit at all when he receives compliments because he knows that everything good comes from God. So when I try to be more like that, I think of Daniel's character in these few chapters, and Zach too.

Ode to Mink part 2

One of my best friends, Stephanie, just got married after Thanksgiving. Lots of good feelings come to mind seeing her married. If you missed my first Ode to Mink blog, you can view that here.

Stephanie has been wanted to get married for a long time. If you've ever read Wild At Heart or Captivating, a lot of that stuff resonates true with her. She's very romantic and does want to be swept off her feet. She's also very adventurous.

Stephanie has wanted to get married for a long time- probably since childhood. The first time she met Peter was even during childhood. I got to talk with her on the phone a little bit after she got back from her honeymoon. She told me a couple things. One, that little things excited her in the house, such as folding his laundry. I told her that it wasn't surprising, given what I knew about her about wanting to get married for a long time. Yet her response was different than I thought. She said that being married is quite different than what she had been thinking about all this years. I would agree. Obviously someone can't picture exactly what their marriage is going to be like. However, I think that wanting to be married for so long would lead to being excited about simple chores. Things such as folding laundry for her husband, atleast in Stephanie's case.

And Peter is so good for Stephanie, as well as Stephanie for Peter. He's a strong Christian with great integrity. He's a hard worker, but also just a very likeable guy with a good sense of humor.

You have to roll with the times. My friendship with Steph has changed a lot since high school. Back in the day we would hang out whenever. I would work in the daytime at Albert H. Wohler's Insurance, then a few hours at night at Jewel-Osco. Then we would actually hang out for an hour or two when I got off of work at Jewel around 11 or 12. We both would be exhausted the next day, but sometimes do that again anyway. Obviously, friendships change when one of the friends gets married, especially good friendships. But ours has been changing since college.

It's mostly been less hanging out time. But no matter how brief or infrequent, I have also appreciated time spent together. Whether it was just a conversation over the phone in college, a brief stop at her parents' house, or catching a meal now with her, Peter, and other friends. Stephanie is one of those friends that I know I can pick up where we left off no matter how much time has elapsed in between talking. However, while we are all still in Chicago, I am excited to spend any time I can with Mr. and Mrs. Gorham.