"can you hear me now?"

if anyone still checks up on this periodically, i have a Facebook account and that has been the latest fad in the communication generation. I havent decided yet how i want to keep in contact with people while I am at seminary and my military training. Let me know if anyone reads this. It will help me decide if i should start it up again or not.

Grants Pass, funny food, and the wobbly wheel

Hey everyone!!!
Sorry I haven’t written for a while; let me catch you up to speed!

Sounds of Shasta drove up to Grants Pass, Oregon to sing at Mary Cunningham’s church. Jonathan and I had the best hosts I think. As we drove up the driveway with this couple in their 70’s we saw evidence of their many years together. There were used tires lining their driveway, an old tractor or two, old worn-out classics that they and their children drove in the past years, a few farm animals, and to top it off they had a large amount of fire wood at the end next to the house. Everything had a rustic look and a homey feel. Our hosts were very nice and shared many stories with us. That night they made some coco for us and added some coffee and molasses to it (I don’t like coffee hardly at all, but I got it down). I would probably try it again with molasses, because I hear molasses is good for you. That next morning I ate bear for the first time. I didn’t care for it very much as sausage, he really spiced it up and the texture was weird. Everything else was wonderful!

I really enjoyed the whole trip; it was par for the course :D To make it short, our trailer with all our sound equipment lost its wheel bearings to one of its wheels, and as we pulled into the church parking lot, it wobbled and just about fell off. It was so loose I could move it from side to side several inches; needless to say, God provided us with a trailer large enough to put the broken one in and space for the sound equipment! It all worked out :)

My Uncle Lyndel and Aunt Barbra came to see me sing! :D

*.WMA & *.MP3

Other than paying for the car and insurance, I made my first purchases for my car. Can you guess what it was? Yeah...GAS :( last weekend gas was $2.29 per gal. and this weekend gas is about $2.55. I got it at the beginning of the week, so I only had to pay $2.37. OUCH! The sad thing is when I started mowing yards about 10 years ago, gas was only $0.89 or so. Well...That's Life.

I graduated from my first violin book yesterday! I also have a CD with all my songs from my next book on it. I had to get a CD player for my car if I wanted to listen to them on the way too and from school. I didn't know very much about the car CD players when I started; but after getting familiar with their capabilities and features I decided on what features I wanted. I wanted it to play CD-R's, CD-RW's, WMA's, and MP3's. So that's what I got. Best Buy had this free installation offer for the week, and since I don't know much about car electronics, I took them up on their offer. Little did I know I would have to sit out in the parking lot for seven hours waiting my turn. The wait wasn't too bad though. I listened to a family counselor on the radio, then some music, and I also read some of Pride and Prejudice for my English class.

There is my update...I'm going to go do my homework :)

Lights Out

This weekend was another adventure as we (Sounds of Shasta) went to South Lake Tahoe. I am writing this after about an hour of driving home. I hope the excitement is over. Well...I guess I should start from the beginning. We left the school Saturday morning in our three-van caravan with expectations of needing chains. So we stopped in some city, which I can't remember the name of, to be sure we had the right chains for all the vans. The guys went into Kragen and off went the girls to Safeway. I won't comment on that, but not much happened until we got to about 5000 feet. Charissa--she lives were there's lots of snow, so she knows how to put on chains--and the guys had to chain-up the three vans in the snow; but that wasn't too bad, though it took us about 20 minutes. Then we were off to conquer the snow and enjoy the very bumpy ride, which in turn opened our trailer door with all our new sound equipment while we were driving up the road. Nothing fell out though. :) On the way up to Tahoe we saw at least three different accidents, or were a car lost control and hit the side. That was the last of the excitement on the way up to Tahoe.

We arrived at the church and set up as quick as we could because we were delayed a couple hours and dinner had been ready for a while. After dinner, we went to our hosts’ home, got our room set up, and I played some songs out of my new music book. I was practicing three new keys--the key of F, B flat, and E flat. The key of F was pretty good, but E flat needs a lot of work; as David confirmed with his earplugs. :)

The next morning the town lost power; so it made for interesting service. Before church started, I told a couple friends I had prayed that God would show us, as a group again, that He is in control. They told me that they had prayed similar prayers. So it was kinda ironic that we lost power and couldn't use our music tracks or microphones. Pastor Chris played the songs on the piano, and we sang our hearts out for Jesus. Everyone could hear us; even the ones in the very back I could see singing along with us. We had hoped that by the second service we would have power back, but we didn't. It didn't matter much; because several people came up to us and told us how they were blessed by it. So regardless on having power or not, the Lord was still honored, which is our one and only goal.

We ate a wonderful lunch at one of the ladies homes and then started our trip home. Oh...I almost forgot; it snowed about a foot of nice powder that night; so after we sang most of us had a snowball fight in our nice clothes. It must have been a sight to see for those watching and for those driving by the church; but it was worth it. :) Ok... so now we are on our way home and we only saw one accident this time; we can only hope and pray that no one got hurt. But a couple of them looked bad, so I pray that they were prepared to meet their creator by putting their trust in Jesus Christ and not themselves.


Proverbs 3:5-6

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.
NIV

Grand Prix

I took another inevitable step today in the walk of life. I have been looking for a car off and on for the past year and a half, but only very seriously the past few days. It all started when I went to visit Mr. Cox (a member at my church) at his small car lot in Anderson. I only went with the intention to take him up on his invitation to stop in to visit for a while before school started up again. I had no intention to buy anything; but it is always fun to dream. One car caught my eye. A clean looking, '95 VW Jetta, with 108K miles, manual transmission (which I thoroughly enjoyed), a moon roof (which didn't work), and red paint on the outside of course, --red does not fancy me the same as it does most people my age; I would prefer a metallic silver, or something close to it, so I would not stand out to much--none the less, it looked nice and I wasn't apposed to its color. Latter that day I showed Mom, and she was pleased except for the number of miles it had; I would have her consent if it were something I wanted and was willing to pay for. So the remainder of that day was spent number crunching. I Got insurance quotes and considered registration (which would have to be paid in a few months). Then I added all my money I could find together and determined the size of loan I would have to take out, also if I could have it paid off with interest along with my insurance, and having enough money set aside to pay for my insurance through my slow (unemployed) winter months. I made it work but it was very tight and I might not have had enough money left over for gas. :S I showed Dad that night when he got home and told him how it could work. He did not tell me no upfront (which I was pleasantly surprised). He told me he thought it was a nice car and then he gave me his concerns with it. First of all, He wanted to be sure I fully understood that if I took this step I would be accepting all financial obligations involved with owning a car (which he has said many time prior to this) and then he stressed upon me that he would rather me not take a loan on a car while I am in school, and he said he thought it had to many miles already to get me through seven years of school. So I prayed about it.

The next morning Mom called Christy at Taylor Motors to see if she had anything comparable. She just got a car in a few days ago from an 84-year-old lady and it was still up on the racks getting the oil changed, and getting checked out. So Mom and I went that morning to check it out after I did some research on the Internet about it. This was a '94 Pontiac Grand Prix, which also just happened to be dark red (darker than the one in the picture below). My first impression was negative partly because it still needed to be detailed, waxed, and buffed, and the other part was because it had an older body style with the same buttons as the newer Pontiacs. For some reason it just didn't seem to go together. But on the flip side, it only had 62.5K miles on an 11-12 year old car which is outstanding, very little wear in the upholstery, and it was kept in a garage out of the sun most of the time. It was obvious that it still had a good life ahead of it. It had a similar engine as the '89 Oldsmobile my family has been driving for the past many years. Our '89 Olds has at least 225K miles and is just starting to show symptoms of serious problems (ie. rough shifting in the automatic transmission). No one knows for sure, but I would like to think the Grand Prix would go at least that far as well. They said it would be ready for a test drive in a few hours, so Mom and I got some lunch at Del Taco, and hustled as quickly as possible to my grandma’s rental in Cottonwood where we got a call about a broken water line in the yard. After all that was taken care of and daycare left, Mom and I went back to test-drive it. It road very nice, quiet, smooth shifting, had the expected acceleration for a V6 3.1Liter engine, the brakes worked well, responsive steering, and low road noise for a coupe; I was very impressed. To add to it, this car was almost $1000 less, the registration was just paid, and insurance was $5 cheaper per month. It was just enough cheaper so that I didn't need a loan; I paid cash for the car, and my first and last months of insurance. I guess it is obvious which car I bought and that I am very critical in my analysis of the cars and my finances; I don't think that is a bad thing. That night I showed Dad and he didn't have much to say about it good or bad; he had already given his concerns the night before and I took care of them all. Friday morning I called Christy and told her I wanted it. I went in that afternoon to fill out the paperwork, told her I was having my funds mailed overnight to me from a fanatical institution in Sacramento, and so I would be able to pick up the car just as soon as the check arrived. I didn't get to drive it much more then ten minute that day because I had to be at the school by about noon that day to go sing in Eureka. That was kinda disappointing. :( But when I got back Sunday night a friend of Christy was going to have my car waxed and buffed for me as part of the deal, so it was okay. It looked really nice inside and out after being detailed and waxed; and after driving it for a few days, I really like how it looks and handles on the road. I am glad it came with a full tank of gas 'cause I am broke for the week. :)

VROOM…VROOM…VROOM

Here is a picture to give you a gerneral idea of what it looks like.

Misc.

Sara had a great time in Boston. It was very cold there, and it snowed--that kinda surprised me beings how close it is to the ocean (the Atlantic at that). She roomed with a nice girl from Texas who had only seen snow one other time. Sara said it was funny watching those girls who don't see it much. She learned a lot and had a fun time. And a side note, the Bostonians say their R's funny; actually, they don't say them much at all.

I had gone to school with Brandon C and he has been my friend since 6th grade; but this past year and a half, we haven't seen each other much. So it has been nice to get caught up on things with him the past few days. He will be moving to Utah at the end of this month to go to school and help his grandparents. We will stay in touch thanks to MSN Messenger! :)

Oh...last week I had my midterms. I was finally introduced to speed writing in my English class. :( I had to write two 5-paragraph essay answers, and then four 1-paragraph answers, all in 2 hours. I did not enjoy it, and nor did I do very well. But it is behind me now!!!

I haven't done much this week because it has been my spring break. Well actually, I guess I have. I have relaxed, slept-in, done some reading, chatted online, worked out side, played my violin a lot, and broke one of my stings this morning :s But I had bought an extra set around Christmas time incase that happened at one of the churches out of town. So it was no big deal.

Well...I am going to go get some dinner! Good night:) (or day, or morning, or afternoon, or evening, or whatever it is when you read this :D) Chao!

Sara's and Boston

Today will be my third time down to Sacramento in 10 days. But this time I am not going down there for Sounds. Sara will be catching a flight at 12:30AM tonight to go to the "National Youth Leadership Forum on Nursing" in Boston. :D She has been working hard to earn enough money to go, and has done a fabulous job. She will be roughing it there, for a week, in the Hyatt Regency--a four star hotel. I pray she has a safe trip and has fun! :)

Happy Birthday Mom!!!