respawn87's Xanga

First post of the new decade!

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 03:52:21 GMT

Guess I'll just write a little here about the new year and all. I'm suffering from a sinus infection, which seems to be a common problem for me. I'm feeling a little out of it, so I'll keep it simple.

So another year has passed, and this marks my 3rd Xanga birthday. I started my site on Jan. 1st of 2007. Last year, 2009, was a pretty big year for me. I guess my biggest event was finally graduating college in May. I met with the real world and found out how hard it is to find a job in this economy. I read a life changing book called Rich Dad Poor Dad, which changed my views on the traditional ways of making a living and introduced me to the concepts of actually increasing my financial IQ so that I can make money in different ways, even in a down economy. I decided that I would try my hand at owning my own business, and I'm still in the process of starting one up. I took my first Alaskan cruise in 2009, and revisited the state I fell in love with when I went on a mission trip there several years ago. I also visited a new country, Canada, even though you would think that I would have visited already, but haven't. The Canada mission trip was a great trip, and I will definitely be going back soon. Yeah, 2009 has been a great year.

My only regret is that I didn't follow through on my resolution to read through the whole Bible in 2009. I started out strong, and made it through over half the Bible, but when the summer came and I got busy, I slowed down considerably, and pretty much stopped trying since August. I have, however, kept up my quiet time every morning since I started doing the same program as the youth in my church. As one of the youth leaders, I wanted to be able to follow along with the kids so that I can help them with their devotionals each week. I regret not being able to read the Bible all the way this year, but I am glad to still be keeping myself in God's word, and hopefully in 2010 I'll be able to finish up.

So what does 2010 have in store? Who knows?! Hopefully a lot of good things, maybe some difficult situations.I personally have a lot of goals for myself. Call them resolutions if you want, I'll just call them goals. I usually end up breaking resolutions. Goals are more achievable. In no particular order they are:

Read through the last part of my Bible.
Visit another country I've never been to.
Go on another mission trip.
Go down a black diamond mogul ski run called "Turkey Chute" when we go skiing this year. (I was going to last year but I chickened out.)
Lose 50lbs and get ripped by the summer. (Or at least have some muscles on my body and lose my fat.)
Read at least 15 books.
Finish up my novel and write another one in November for NaNoWrimo 2010.
Officially start up my business. (i.e. actually file papers to form my business as a legal entity, possibly take out business loans, and really dig into what I've been only toying around with since I graduated.
Make $50,000. (A good solid financial goal, although it will be hard to achieve while running a small business. But if it's not a challenge, it's not worth doing in my opinion.)
Pay off a good portion of my student loans.
Move out of my parent's house. (I love it here, but I need to have my own space.)
Enjoy more time with my friends and work more closely with the youth at church so that I can build relationships with them.
Get health insurance. (Haha!)

So here's looking forward to a great 2010. I don't know what it holds. Maybe I'll screw something up and end up messing up my life.... let's hope not. Maybe something great will happen and I'll be blessed with a great opportunity. Maybe I'll finally meet the woman God has planned for me.... or maybe she's right under my nose and God will show her to me.... who knows? In any case, I look forward to whatever 2010 has in store.

I hope God blesses all of you who are reading this, and that this new year will bring you new challenges and achievements. Thanks to my subscribers and friends who have been reading my blog through these 3 years. I enjoyed 2009 and reading about your adventures through life, and sharing my own experiences with you last year. Thanks, and God bless all of you in 2010!

Drew

Merry Christmas!

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:38:18 GMT

I'm going to go ahead and wish everyone a Merry Christmas now because I doubt I'll be on the computer at all tomorrow. I hope all of you have a great day with family or friends, wherever you are. If you are overseas serving your country at this time of year, I want to say "Thank you." So everyone have a good day, and enjoy your Christmas!

An open letter to customers from a cashier

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:08:14 GMT

My sister works at a grocery store in town. She's a cashier, and some of the stories she tells are hilarious and disturbing. Yesterday she wrote a Facebook note in which she outlined some of the biggest "do's and don'ts" that we as customers should try to follow. I never looked at these things in this way, but apparently some of them are really big pet peeves among the cashiers. I laughed pretty hard at some of them.

I take no credit for writing any of this, just editing some spelling and capitalization to make it a little easier to read. I also edited out the store name, for posterity. My sister wrote the whole thing, all credit to her. If you like it, recommend it so that we can get this out to other people..... for all the cashiers of the world.... haha.

Dear customers,

First off, you are the most important part to any grocery store, and any store in general. but in order to make your store employee's life a wee bit easier, I'm going to write you a little 'do's and dont's' list. It's just constructive criticism, so don't take offense if you find that you have ever, currently do, or are thinking about doing any of these things in the future. We have all been THAT customer at some point. Being a cashier has changed my customer ways. I never realized how much one customer could affect the cashier's day.

In no particular order...

1. If it is so important that you talk on the phone while checking out, please do not expect me to be respectful of your conversation. This is MY check out line. You are not the only customer I have to ring up. People are waiting on you. Also, when I ask you my required questions, don't be offended that I interrupted your conversation. GET OFF THE PHONE.

2. Do speak English. Please. Not spanglish, chinenglish, gerlish, etc. I do not want to ask five times what you said. and I don't want you to have to ask me five times what I said just because you do not speak English (the AMERICAN language). If you want 40 cucumbers instead of 14, feel free to speak any type of ---lish you want.

3. Let me remove the items from your cart so I can scan them at a speedy rate. But if you feel you must "help" me by getting the groceries out of the cart, do not hand them to me. Set them on the little platform next to my scanner so I can pick them up. It takes me five times longer when I am waiting on the next item to come my way. I sincerely appreciate your willingness to help, but sometimes it really is more of a hindrance.

4. Your two year old child is adorable, but please, keep him with you. I'm tired of fumbling over children. It's not fun.

5. When I say "hey, how are you doing today?" and you proceed to give me your (important customer) card telephone number, I want to punch you. It takes about 3 seconds to say, "I'm good/bad/sexy." I don't believe the first words to ever come out of my mouth are "do you have your (important customer) card today?" And yet 90% of the time, I get numbers thrown in my face. Well poo on you, I didn't want to know how you were doing ANYWAY.

6. If you need to be on welfare, fine. (I don't mind paying for your food, car, daycare needs.... -_- ) BUT when you complain that you cannot buy a particular item in the store, that you PROBABLY don't need anyway, it becomes a problem. Do.Not.Be.Picky.

7. Check writing: oh I love it so. ..... /joke. Please, PLEASE, do not watch me ring all of your groceries up, THEN decide to dig through your endless purse abyss to find your check book, and start writing a check. especially if I have three thousand people in my line behind you. They think I'm a slow cashier, when really it is you who decided it would be a good idea to wait until I was done with everything to realize you actually have to pay for your groceries. And if you are behind this person in line, please do not get mad at me for the order taking six billion years. It's... really not my fault.

8. At (store name removed), we are "glad" to bag your groceries. But really, please help us bag. Especially if your groceries are piling on top of each other. It KILLS me to see customers, especially parties with more than one person, come through and watch us bag, and not help one bit. Even though there is a bag rack on their side of the register. The line could be down isle 8 and they'll still watch me bag and not touch a grocery. Please, by all means, kick off your shoes, grab a bag of popcorn, and enjoy the show! Heck, crack open a bottle of wine and we'll call it a party!

9. When you have an expired/malfunctioning/'not subject to doubling' coupon, take it up with the manufacturer, not me. I don't make the coupons. I scan them.

10. When we're out of something in the store, I'm sorry. I forgot to mention I'm a cashier, not the stocking manager. I wasn't the one who forgot to order the latest brand of cashews. Please do not get upset that I have no control over what we do and don't have.

11. When you give me money for your groceries, hand it to me. Don't lay it on the counter and stare at it until I grab it. Especially change. It takes just as much energy to put it in my hand as it does the counter. And if you go to pay me in all change, don't give me a handful and expect me to count out the correct amount. 1) I'm tempted to overcharge you and keep the extra for myself, as a spite against you for doing that. 2) freaking a.

12. Speaking of change, please never, never, NEVER reach in your shirt and pull out change from underneath your boobs, exclaiming, "I gotta titty full a change!" Gag gag gag. I sanitized my arms four times that night. ..... gag.

13. Don't be rude. It doesn't take that much muscle to smile. It is so discouraging when a customer comes through and is rude. You don't have to be Mother-freaking-Theresa, but at least pretend to be nice.

14. Before you hand me every item, please do not ask/explain to me that it is buy one get one free. If it is, it will tell you on the screen. If it isn't, I don't know where you got that idea from. The labels are pretty darn clear. And please don't be offended when I have no idea. I don't make prices. Once again, I SCAN GROCERIES. Just putting that out there.

15. When I'm still dealing with a customer, please do not reach out your hand and try to give me your (important customer) card. I'm.... not done with this customer's order. Hence me still speaking with the customer. Also, please do not come up to the pay counter when someone else is still trying to pay. Like, really? I don't even know what to say to you. Ungodly things, I'm sure.

16. If you bag your own groceries, firstly, I applaud you. But when you get home and realize your bread is smooshed underneath your 6-pack of Bud Light, I'm sorry- I didn't bag your groceries. No sympathy there.

17. If you're old, avoid my line at all costs.

18. If you're old, ignore #17.

19. You don't need a cart for two items. I PROMISE. You can carry that bag of chips AND that jar of salsa the whole fifty feet to my register without the assistance of a cart.

© Christianna 2009

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:13:00 GMT

Thought I'd pop in and make a quick post. The last week was not too crazy, but still a lot of stuff happened.

We had a Christmas party last Wednesday for the youth group. The main event was the "Dirty Santa" game, where you bring a secret gift that is either serious or funny, and people draw numbers and pick the gifts. Well I decided to go the funny route this year. As I may or may not have mentioned, I participated in "No-Shave November," where you do not shave your beard for the whole month of November. I actually started on October 15th, when I was dared not to shave until after November. So by December 15th I had 2 months of beard growing on my face. I decided that for the Dirty Santa game, I would make a label for a "Create Your Own Beard" kit, and shave off my beard to make the real beard hair. So my gift was an old box with a cool label I made, and inside was 2 months worth of my beard hair and an old dried up glue stick! Needless to say, it was the funniest gift there, and the pastor's son got it.... Here are some pictures of what it looked like... I really am proud of the label I made, I didn't think I remembered that much about Adobe InDesign to use it for this.

This weekend we had the Christmas musical at church. I played one of the wise men, which was a really easy part... all I had to do was walk around and then do some kneeling and presenting my gift to Jesus. The musical was really impressive though. There were a ton of people involved, and it felt like it would end up being a train wreck at first, but everything went off with only minor issues.

In slightly more sad news... I finally managed to kill my keyboard. I've had this keyboard for 10 years now, since I built my first computer. It was salvaged off of an old HP desktop. Over the years, people have asked me why I haven't bothered to upgrade my keyboard. If they are gamers, I usually point out that I play better with my 10 year old keyboard than they do with their new expensive ones, and it shuts them up. I will admit that the keyboard was getting very nasty. I've done a lot with that keyboard though. Countless hours of Counterstrike and other PC games have been played with it, not to mention millions of words typed (50,000 just last month writing my novel). I've also managed to light it on fire while playing around with alcohol-based hand sanitizers several times. I follow the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. Unfortunately I have this nasty habit of eating my meals in front of my PC while I watch movies, so this often leads to spills or crumbs on the board. Saturday night, while watching Mad Max, I decided to reheat some cold pizza. I had one of those Papa John's Garlic Butter dipping sauces left over, so I opened it up for dipping my pizza in. Something happened at my desk, and my plate almost fell off. I went to stop it, and over-corrected, spilling the sauce all over my keyboard. I performed emergency cleaning, popping off all the keys and even using q-tips to get into the cracks. I thought I had it all cleaned off, but Sunday night I discovered that only half of my keyboard would work. So my 10 year old keyboard finally died a garlicky, greasy death.... R.I.P. old friend. (Right now I'm using another super-old keyboard off of another HP desktop that my uncle gave me a couple months ago. Maybe I'll get some money for Christmas and buy a new one.)

Last thing I want to write.... I saw Avatar in 3D last night! All I can say is "WOW." James Cameron has been working on this movie since 1994, and had to wait until technology could catch up to his vision before creating it. It was the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen. The computer animation was intense, and the 3D was incredible. Cameron created this whole new world called Pandora, complete with an indigenous people called the Na'vi. The movie combines a story like that of Pocahontas with Space Marine elements. As a whole, the story was slightly predictable, some dialogue was a little weak, and the movie was 2 hours and 40 minutes long, but it was definitely worth seeing. The 3D is what is so spectacular about the film. It is the first fully 3D movie. Usually movies have specific parts in which there are 3D scenes. In Avatar, every scene is 3D. It was like nothing I've ever experienced. I felt like I could have reached out and touched the characters, or grabbed a weapon and been involved with the fight scenes.... it was that real. Of course, the 300 million dollar production budget seriously helped that. I hope it sets a benchmark for the standard of movies in the future. I would definitely recommend seeing Avatar if you get time during or after this Christmas season, and definitely see the 3D version.... otherwise the special effects will not really do you much good, they will look pretty standard. The 3D version gets a 9 out of 10 from me.

Holiday fun!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:22:42 GMT

Well the holiday Christmas season is upon us, so of course this time of year is busier than normal for me. I haven't been running through stores shopping for presents or anything like that.... I actually did all my shopping online this year.... and my mom is trying to do the same.... with slightly more amusing results. She shops online like she shops in real life... browsing through all of the choices and taking her time. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, you have to understand that my mom takes an ungodly amount of time to shop in real life. Even going to the grocery store to get 4 or 5 simple things takes her upwards of 30 minutes just because she spends so much time looking at stuff she doesn't intend to buy. So she is trying to shop online, but of course gets sidetracked by other stuff, and eventually ends up on the computer for the same ungodly amount of time that she would have spent in the real store, which somewhat defeats the purpose (at least in my mind) of shopping online. The online experience is supposed to be a little more concise, with easy access to items rather than having to shop through racks to find the type of thing you're looking for. What is amusing about the whole thing is that she gets on the Internet and tells us, "I'm doing some Christmas shopping, but I don't have much time, so I want to get done fast." 3 hours later, she's still online trying to figure out what to get, and then she complains about having spent too much time there. It's just proving that she has some sort of slow-shopping disorder.... haha.

Anyway, for me online shopping is easy. Of course, I've been doing it for years, as I'm sure most of us who grew up with Internet access have. I had an eBay account when I was 13. I know just what I want to get, so I go to comparison sites and find the best prices, then order the items, and I'm done in 15 minutes or less. That's just the guy in me though.

Before I get into my last few days of Christmas festivities, I want to congratulate two awesome people. My friends Seth and Christine both graduated this week. Seth has been one of my best friends for most of my life, and we grew up together in town and graduated high school together. He graduated on Thursday. Christine has been one of my favorite online friends for a good while now.... I can't even remember how long. She's been an encouragement to me in my faith, and I've enjoyed her posts and comments ever since I subscribed. She graduated on Saturday. I just wanted to say a big CONGRATULATIONS (a little late) to both of them!

Ok, so I mentioned that things have been busy for me. Aside from shopping and such, there are the usual types of things people do around Christmas time that are fun but time consuming, leaving you to feel like there aren't enough hours in the day. Friday night I helped out at church with a dinner party for a teen home (it's like an orphanage, but for older kids, some of whom may have just come from bad families or been abandoned). We fixed the kids a big meal and played games with them and gave them presents. They really enjoyed just being with us and hanging out. It was a great way for us to show Christ to them in this season. They got to eat a good home cooked meal, hang out with positive influences, and hear the message of God's love through the Christmas story. We had a good time with them.

Saturday night I helped out with a youth event that has become a tradition since last year. The youth at church wanted to have a formal dinner night. When I say formal, I mean that a suit and tie were minimum requirements for guys, and dresses for ladies. Some guys wore tuxes, and some (like me) wore nice suits. The ladies all pretty much dressed in beautiful dresses. We took them to Olive Garden for dinner, where of course we got some funny looks and lots of compliments on how good we all looked. After dinner we took a tour of the beautiful Carolina Hotel, one of those older hotels from the 1900's. The hotel is located on the Pinehurst No. 2 golf course, where the 1999 and 2005 U.S. Open golf tournaments were held. It was a very formal thing, everyone there was dressed like we were, so at least we weren't under-dressed for the occasion. It was beautiful, all lit up and decorated for Christmas. I got some good pictures of us.

My picture with the guys. I wore the most awesome Fedora, I looked like a mobster.

My picture with everyone.

Some of the kids at Olive Garden.

The kids down one of the long halls in the Carolina Hotel.

Jessie (the youth pastor's daughter) and me in the Carolina Hotel lobby.

Sunday I did the usual church thing in the morning after Saturday night's awesomeness. In the afternoon I went with the youth pastor's family and a few other people to see the play version of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" performed by a theater company here in town. They did a very good job. The director played Scrooge, and his acting was great. Sunday evening after the play, our church hosted a telecast of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christmas. Strobel wrote the popular The Case for Christ, in which he explains his journey from being an atheist who wanted to search for evidence against Christ, to becoming a Christian after viewing the overwhelming evidence for Christ and not against him. The Case for Christmas is an adaptation of that book in application to the Christmas story. He explained in detail why the story of Christ's birth cannot be a hoax based on hard historical evidence and facts, as well as logical conclusions that are to be drawn from historical records. It was a great lesson, and a very powerful tool for proving Christ's existence as the Son of God.

Ok, this has gone on too long now.... I have stuff that needs to be done. Hopefully I'll get time to do more writing and finish up the first part of my novel by the end of this month. I am also in the process of setting up an online retail business for gifts and general items, as well as custom PC's for my computer business. I'm going to miss the Christmas season for selling, but hopefully by the end of the year I will be all set up to take advantage of 2010 and the rise of ecommerce that is predicted to happen. More to come on that later though.

Money

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:49:09 GMT

I thought I would post about this because it's the most maddening of topics for me right now. (I realize now that I used the word "maddening " in two posts in a row....) This post may end up sounding like the most shallow thing I've ever written, but it's on my mind, and this is the Internet, so why not right? Haha.. here goes.

I know I'm supposed to depend on God to take care of all my needs, but I've also come to realize lately that God also expects me to take some initiative to be able to provide those needs. You are probably thinking "Duh Drew," but hear me out. For a lot of people money does not matter, they are content to live with next to nothing to their name, and just live day by day. Well that's all fine and good, but I have dreams and aspirations that I want to follow through on, and those dreams and aspirations are not going to pay for themselves. This is not about being greedy and trying to show off money or "status," it's about wanting to be able to be comfortable and provide for a family and give my future wife and kids what they deserve, a good stable home.

That is for the future though. In the present, there are so many things that I would love to do that every time I think about them, I know I can't do them because of money limitations. I want to go to Liberty University to get a Masters degree in Theology, not really because I want to be any sort of pastor or teacher, but because I want to go deeper with my studies of God and the church and stuff that I find interesting, like apologetics. I can't just up and say, "I think I'll go to Liberty next year," because the money involved with that is a lot, and I'm already paying off $17,000 in student loans now. I also want to go on more mission trips, like back to Brazil and Canada and Germany, and to more places I haven't been. Those take money though, and time, and time = money in today's world, so if I take time off from working, I can't make money to be able to afford this stuff. Really anything I do is either hindered or enabled by money.

I want to eventually get married (that is the subject of a whole other post though.... haha), but I don't want to make my bride face money problems. I don't even have enough in savings to buy her a proper engagement ring, much less start a whole life with her. I want to be a provider for my family, like my father is for my family now. I never had everything I wanted, of course, but I lived comfortably and never had to complain about a roof over my head, even when my dad was unemployed for a year. Like I said before, I don't want to have a huge house, or a big boat, or BMWs in the driveway, I just want to live a comfortable life with my family.

I also want to be able to be one of those people who can afford to donate a lot of money to charity and missions at my church. I want to be the guy who doesn't think twice when they announce that they are looking for donations to the food pantry for the homeless, but just writes out a check or goes out and buys a ton of food to help out. I want to be able to pay someone's way for an international mission trip. I want to honor God with the money He will give me.

Back to my original point. I understand trusting God for my needs, but lately I've really been feeling that it's something I have to be able to work with and do. God has a plan for me and my money situation, and surely there is a reason for why I don't have an official job per say, aside from my small PC business. I just need to get it all figured out because so far God hasn't just plopped anything in my lap, so I assume He wants me to figure out on my own how to make it all work (with His guidance, of course). I'm really trying to figure out all this Internet commerce stuff, because I feel like that is the future of sales and such, and I want so badly to be able to design and sell custom PCs online, and possibly open up another store to sell Airsoft products with, because that is a hobby and passion of mine as well. There is also network marketing to consider, which I've researched and found there is a good bit of money to be made in the residual income that those types of things provide, but I don't know if I would be good at that sort of thing, and I would just be wasting my money to buy into a network marketing company. (My mom is involved with one that was started by a Christian, and is the best I've seen so far, but I don't want to waste my $300 to get started if I'm not going to make it very far.)

I'm praying fervently about this issue. Every time I'm alone with my thoughts, they come back to money. I've been like this ever since I was a teen. I was always tight with money, knowing that someday I would need to be saving it. I'm reminded of the line from Brand New's song Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't, where he says, "I think in decimals and dollars." It's true. I hate to say it, but I do think like that. I need to stop and reassess some things.

I've lost track of my thoughts here.... this post is already too long. I just thought I would get that out in the open. Anyone have any thoughts on money?

Winning NaNoWriMo

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:53:59 GMT

Last night you may have noticed that the little widget thing changed to "Winner" status. I was really busy editing papers for the girl that I tutor, so I didn't get much time to do anything last night. So now I'll say a little bit about the fact that I did reach 50,000 words.

I can't believe I did it really. I'm happy to have won, but it's bittersweet because I'm still not through with the novel. I really wanted to have it nicely wrapped up by the end of November, but the more I wrote, the more I realized that the way I was writing, it was going to be a while before I finished. There are just so many ideas in my head for what I want to do with the book, and I don't want to make it sound really stupid by hurrying through the last half. The first half will be well written and planned out, but the second half will be sloppy and hurried. I want it all to be uniform and well thought out. I'm toying with the idea of leaving this novel with a small cliffhanger ending, and starting a whole new novel once I get done editing this one. Once I get this one done, I can just pick up where I left off for a sequel that finishes off the story. I don't know yet though, I'm still writing and seeing where I could go with this.

Anyway, I really did enjoy this whole month of writing. It was exciting and maddening all at once. Trying to write so many words a day, while working and doing all the other holiday stuff, was the hardest part. Creating storyline and plot was not all that bad. I didn't really have any writers block, or none that lasted too long. It was mostly hard to just find time to write. I ended up mostly writing at night after all of the day's activities were done. Times when my family was watching TV, I was on my laptop writing. After everyone had gone to bed, I was usually up until sometime in the morning hammering away at the keys. I meant to take at least one day and go sit somewhere like a coffee shop so that I could dedicate some daylight hours to just writing, but I never found time to do that. When the holidays came around, I had even less time. This year I got lucky and the circumstances were different, and I was able to write in the car while traveling on Thanksgiving, so it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I also never had any time to really write anything meaningful here on Xanga because the last thing I really wanted to do was spend time working on a Xanga post when I could have been writing more parts to my novel. Now that I'm not so pressured I will be able to write more here.

That was the maddening part, now I'll explain the exciting part. Seeing something I have wanted to do for a while now come to life was great. I knew I wanted to write a novel, but I had never had the time or motivation to start. Once I did, it was fun to really use my imagination and create something new that I could call my own. I am writing the book as if I were reading it for the first time. The fun part about that is that you get to make up your own ending. There are so many times when I've been reading a book and will think, "Oh I hope it ends this way," or "Man wouldn't it be great if this character acted this way here?" Well when you're writing the book, any of those thoughts that pop into your head, you can take action on, and then the book does turn out the way you want it to. Haha.

So if you've ever thought about writing a novel, I would definitely encourage you to take the challenge next November. I can't wait to do it again. Maybe one day I'll be able to show that I'm reading my own book on the "Currently Reading" section here on Xanga!

NaNoWriMo Winner!

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:52:40 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:18:45 GMT

It's the obligatory Happy Thanksgiving post.... haha. Really though, I hope everyone has a great day. My Thanksgiving has turned out slightly different than usual. My grandmother got sick with a stomach virus, and was told that she should not be around anyone because it is so contagious. We were supposed to go to their house with the family, but if we went there we probably would have gotten sick too, so we canceled it. One of my sisters has to work today and tomorrow, so she could not come to any of the festivities. We decided that since we were not going to my grandparent's house, we would go up to UNC Greensboro to visit her at school and go out to eat. It's going to be a couple hour trip each way..... so at least I'll have time to write at least 2,000 words for my novel in the car.

Anyway, have a great Thanksgiving, and get off Xanga and go hang out with family and friends!

Why I miss being a skater

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:25:34 GMT

I don't know if this piece of my life has ever come out here on Xanga before. I used to be a skater. Not a very good skater, but a skater nonetheless. I'll be honest, I mainly started because my best friends were doing it, but once I started, I found that I liked it a lot. I couldn't do much more than ollie, pop shove it, 50-50 grind low rails and ledges, and boardstall and kickturn on vert ramps like quarter-pipes. (Yes I just used skater language, look it all up if you really want to know how little I could do back then.) I was a big guy, and it was hard for me to do much else because I had bad balance and could never really get the board much further than a foot off the ground. I would watch a lot of my friends skate and do impressive tricks, and try them, usually failing epically. Despite the fact that I sucked, I consider those the best years of my life so far.

"But why?" you might ask. I'm glad you did. I liked the culture. Today we have a sort of warped view of skaters as a whole. Shows like Viva La Bam depict skaters like the overgrown brat Bam Margera going around doing whatever they want and generally putting a negative connotation on the whole scene. I can tell you right now that skateboarding and the related culture is generally not the way those guys have it depicted. It almost offends me to see them do that sort of thing.... ok... it does offend me because it offends my sensibility.

Anyway, I liked skating for the culture. What I mean by that is the fact that I like the way skaters bond as a community. For us back in the day, it didn't matter where we were, we were skating with friends, and that was what we liked about it. It didn't matter how good you were, we all understood that people were in the process of learning, and practicing was the best way to become better. You watched the good guys pull off a trick, then you dropped in on a ramp and tried it yourself. You talked with others, listened to music, stayed up late at night, and were just able to be yourself as a skater. Wherever we were, we were thinking about places that would make sweet new skate spots, or what sort of things could be done on a stair set or railing. When we hung out at friend's houses, there were skate videos on the TV, and we would pause in conversation to watch some pro pull off something new and awesome.

I think for true skaters that is what it's really about. It's about having a community of friends that support freedom of expression and acceptance. At its heart, skating is not about trashing buildings or getting in trouble with the law. Why would skaters want to do that? If they got in trouble or trashed places, they got kicked out, and then what fun was that anymore? The point was to just get out and skate.

There is a certain aspect of disrespect in the community for law enforcement, but usually it was fueled by the fact that cops or security guards viewed all skaters as punks who were there to vandalize property or disrupt the peace. It's a vicious circle that leads the law to hate skaters, and skaters to hate the law. Most skaters, however, just want to be able to hang out and skate with their friends, so they will usually take it somewhere else if told to leave.

Back to my own experience. Sure some of the people I knew did some things they shouldn't have, but as a whole, I enjoyed the community of skaters that I hung out with. We skated anywhere we could. The youth leader at church turned a warehouse in the back of the youth building into a small skate park where we could skate indoors. We had a couple of quarter pipes, some kicker ramps, and a few rails set up in there. It was the only indoor place to skate at in Laurinburg. It was also a safe place to come because it was at a church, and it was a good way to bring in people to hear about Christ. I have so many memories of that place. I saw a lot of good tricks, fell a lot, and once watched a guy fly off a ramp and put his whole leg through a wall. They eventually shut the place down because of several factors like insurance, and the fact that some of the bad skaters got high and broke into the building to skate at 4:00 in the morning. I'll always have memories of that place though. After they shut it down, I sort of stopped skating, aside from going to friend's houses or skating downtown.

What I hated about the culture was the way big companies tried to break in and tell skaters that they weren't cool unless they were wearing their certain brand of hoodies or jeans, or skated on their types of boards. The posers would walk around in expensive skate clothes, like $50 jeans from Pac Sun, and ride $200 board setups. The real skaters realized that if you wore $50 jeans and a $30 t-shirt, you were eventually going to have an $80 outfit with holes all in it, because skaters do a lot more falling than landing. They also realized that if you rode a board that cost you $60, that was $60 down the drain because you were probably going to break the board in less than a month. The real skaters were the ones in the ratty clothing riding no-name boards that cost $10. It's not the clothing or board brand that makes the skater, contrary to what the labels will try to tell you. It's the heart and attitude of the skater. (I will admit, I did ride one of those expensive board setups, but I was so bad at skating that I never broke it. I also wore a lot of the skater clothing, but only the clearance stuff that I could afford, and not wen I was skating. The brands I wore back in the day were cheap, but now if you go into a place like Pac Sun, you're going to pay an arm and a leg to get the same stuff.)

I eventually dropped skateboarding in favor of video gaming. I became sort of a computer geek and gamer as I hit my mid-teens. (I'd been working with computers since I was 11 or so, but I skated a lot more than I played with PCs.) I was no longer interested in building boards, I was interested in building my own gaming PC to take over to friend's houses to game all night. In a way, I found a new community in gamers, but it doesn't quite fit with the skater community. Today, I can see myself moving on from that gaming community to the airsoft community, but I still cling to my love of computers and gaming, just like I cling to my love of skating.

That's what I miss. I miss the community. I miss the way we all just hung out, without a care, and just skated. It shaped me for sure. I still wear skater shoes and clothes, and I love watching skate videos. I still look at some places on a sidewalk or a set of stairs and think of what types of tricks could be done there. No matter how much my parents or professors or bosses may try to change me from that culture, I don't think I ever will. I think this is one of the main reasons that I despise the culture of the working world. I detest the thought of having to go to work every day, sitting at a desk, and dealing with a boss, all to make someone else money. I want to do my own thing, be free to be myself and make my own way. I guess that's all I have to say about it.... I'll end my long rant here.

P.S. Actually I have one more thing to say. I want to say that I think I had the sweetest board ever. It was made by Zero, and was designed by Christian skater Jamie Thomas (He was my favorite skater back then.). It was the Jamie Thomas Cross deck. It had a huge cross on the bottom, with the words to John 3:16 written in the black background. I'm trying my best to find a picture of what it looked like before I scratched it all up, but it's so old that you can't really find it online. I did find someone selling one here. It was his best selling design at the time, and I think God used him as a witness to other skaters through his faith. Here is a picture of what my board looks like now. (It's really beat up)