nothing left to do but run, run, run

in the past month i have moved downtown asheville and Leigh has moved back home to greensboro, i have almost died about 20 times, i've met like 200 new awesome people, and i have joined the prestigious ranks of those who transport themselves upon two wheels, among such greats as Timothy Cannone, Aaron Mattix, and Lance Armstrong. let me tell you briefly about the last two weeks:

Friday, Nov 6th: Joyful met me at a park for an hour, just to catch up.

Saturday, Nov 7th: Leigh surprise-visited me one hour before work at 9 PM. she dropped me off at work, where i spent the next 12 hours.

Sunday 8th: Woke Leigh up and went to visit my family for a few hours before she dropped me off at the Greyhound station for Knoxville, where i arrived at 7 PM, gave money to a 6 ft. tall crackhead, drank 2 Guinness Extra Stouts, and went to Tina and Kaiah's house, where i finally got to sleep around 1230 am. i had been awake for 30 hours.

Monday 9th: Tina had an appointment in Maryville, TN, which is an infinitely more interesting town than Jefferson City, so i borrowed Tina's bike, pumped up the tires, adjusted the brakes, and rode my happy butt all over for hours. ran into another cyclist, named Charles, age 19, volunteer EMT, who showed me the bike roads, the library computer station, the rednecks, and told me about being a paramedic, which i think might be my next career choice. Tina and i went shopping for Kaiah's birthday at the hippy stores in K'ville, then picked her up from school, went home and made a dinner of Buffalo steaks, avacado, sauteed portabellas, and 1554 new belgium ale. yummy!

Tuesday 10th: Kaiah's 9th birthday! we surprised her at lunch by showing up to her school cafeteria and chillin' with the cool 3rd graders. Jordan couldn't cut her "steak" (probably because it was made of ground sudanese christians and quickrete cement) so i helped, and mediated several death threats. 3rd grade isn't what it used to be... later that night some old friends showed up, and i made the bad decision to get in the car with Jason for a quick run to the store. turned out to be a really quick run, cause Jason just got a 95 Lexus, and was showing me how awesome 6 cylinders were by taking rural roads marked "35 MPH" at 75-90 MPH. i stayed very calm.

Wednesday 11th: knoxville greyhound by 6 am, walked home from the station by 10, biked and bused to work for an hour-long meeting, biked 5 miles on big, fast roads in the rain to get home, got a few hours sleep before work at 3 AM

Thursday..... hmmm. sure it was a blast, just can't remember. biked and bused and biked to work at 10 30PM

Friday 13th- woke up at 6 PM. keep that number in mind. biked and bused and biked to work by 1030, worked 11 hours

saturday 14th: got home kinda late, feeling wide awake, rode around town awhile. then just as i was gonna go to bed, Leigh walks up the driveway. surprise again! eventually i got 4 hours of sleep, then woke up for a party at my house, and Leigh drove me to work by 9 again. worked 12 hours

Sunday 15th: woke Leigh up again, went shopping for the potluck at my house i'm throwing, cooked for like 3 hours, had lots of people over all afternoon (you wish you were there!) and after they left, we loaded up Leigh's car and headed for Coleman Bound'ry, some 30 miles into the mountains. the stars were beautiful. by the time we fell asleep at 10:30, i had only slept 4 hours since friday evening, and i was hallucinating hardcore.

Monday: hiked around all day, drove to asheville, shot some pool, said goodbye, passed OUT!

Tuesday: i hate tuesdays. biked to the Plasma Bank to try and sell my blood, had to go back for more ID, biked back, spent 2 hours getting injected, inspected, detected, neglected, and all KINDS o' mean, nasty things... then got refused because i've had acupuncture. spent another hour at the community college trying to get into the EMT program, only to encounter the meanest, least helpfullest woman ever and told that since i already have a degree i can't get any more funding. then i biked to the library to print off pamphlets for my new gutter-cleaning service, and the printer refused to work! oh, the other people could still print, no probalo. just not me! then i went to bible study and ANOTHER potluck, where i met Fred and re-met Erin, who are 2 of my new favorite humans ever. so it ended well.

i'm gonna go see if i can print those pamphlets again. it's wednesday. is this much fun legal?

LET'S RUN!

NASA BOMBS THE MOON! (and other stuff you didn't [want to] know).

http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/impact.htm

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5049867/

Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

“This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.”

http://www.azultralights.com/MIAC_Strategic_Report_2-20-09_8_Pages.pdf

http://www.constitution.org/y2k/megiddo.pdf

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,80968,00.html

"The Insurrection Act empowers the president, either upon his own initiative or at the request of a governor to use federal troops to address a variety of civil disturbances that could be provoked by a major terrorist attack. Sections 332 and 333 make it clear that it is up to the president to determine when and where to use federal troops to enforce the laws."

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.645.IH:

SEC. 3. DESIGNATION OF MILITARY INSTALLATIONS AS NATIONAL EMERGENCY CENTERS.

(a) In General- Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall designate not fewer than 6 military installations as sites for the establishment of national emergency centers.

(b) Minimum Requirements- A site designated as a national emergency center shall be--

(1) capable of meeting for an extended period of time the housing, health, transportation, education, public works, humanitarian and other transition needs of a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster;

(2) environmentally safe and shall not pose a health risk to individuals who may use the center;

(3) capable of being scaled up or down to accommodate major disaster preparedness and response drills, operations, and procedures;

(4) capable of housing existing permanent structures necessary to meet training and first responders coordination requirements during nondisaster periods;

(5) capable of hosting the infrastructure necessary to rapidly adjust to temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance needs;

(6) required to consist of a complete operations command center, including 2 state-of-the art command and control centers that will comprise a 24/7 operations watch center as follows:

(A) one of the command and control centers shall be in full ready mode; and

(B) the other shall be used daily for training; and

(7) easily accessible at all times and be able to facilitate handicapped and medical facilities, including during an emergency or major disaster.

yum...roundup

http://www.rense.com/politics6/gms.htm

http://www.monsanto.com/products/default.asp

http://www.monsantoindia.com/monsanto/layout/default.asp

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto_in_India

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fcn/fcnNavigation.cfm?rpt=bioListing

http://www.thecampaign.org/

http://www.newswithviews.com/Smith/jeffrey.htm

hard rain, etc.

Currently The Shack By William P. Young see related

the world as best as i can remember it

EDIT: Joyful and Dave are not homeless- they are indoors. praise the Lord.

It seems Christmas has become my annual “take stock of where you are at this point in your life and summarize” season. I don’t know which is cause and which is effect, but I usually find myself melancholy, reserved, and introspective during this season. Either way, I don’t feel I have much to be proud of, and I’m tired of inescapably using the pronouns “I” “me” “my” and “mine”. This is my 8^th night of 11 third shifts in a row, and coupled with excruciating physical pain, it’s taking a real toll. This is the last sentence I hope to offer a complaint: my “new year’s resolution” is to “be content with such things as you have” and to quit my incessant whining. I must be the luckiest loser I’ve ever met.

Several people in the past few weeks who are dear to me have taken me to task and demanded to know in no uncertain terms what the hell is wrong with me and when am I ever going to get my act together. I have brazenly and arrogantly replied with the most painful personal attacks I could muster, leaving everyone hurt and disappointed. I wish I could tell them to not invest in me- to leave me for a hopeless case and go on to better things. Stick with people like my siblings, who are going somewhere. This is not a complaint- it’s just how things are right now.

How many people have I invested in and hoped for who have given me no reason to believe they will ever come to good? This is Christ’s perspective: every lost sheep is worth scouring the hills for until found and returned to the fold. Of all the principles of spiritual power, none is more important or inescapable than that of sacrifice. I just finished watching “The Prestige” for the 5^th or 6^th time, and the subject is fresh on my mind. The successful exchange of energy- the triumph of a sacrifice- never lessens the pain of what is given in the exchange. If it doesn’t hurt, it wasn’t a sacrifice. The pain does not mean there was a failure, but the success does not abate the pain. Unfortunately, the pain does not guarantee a success.

I have been used by God to introduce many people to the fold for the first time, to save lives, to deliver people from demonic oppression, and to heal people’s minds and bodies. On two occasions I’ve prayed all night for a person only to find out in the following days that it saved their life. On two another two occasions I’ve felt heart-rending pain for no apparent reason only to find in the days following that I had lost someone in a very irrevocable way when I would do anything to have them back. This has taught me that I am not “the decider” (and neither is George Bush, for that matter), but that I am a part of something much much much larger and more complex than myself. You’d think I’d be more humble.

This week I keep repeating a sentence that is unquestionably true, however it may be interpreted as to value: “I still love every woman I have ever loved”. They carry a part of me, and I have not lost it. They are welcome to keep the part of me I gave them- I will not ask for it back. All those threads woven in the human stories that I have touched deeply seem to be the saddest and most disappointing threads- but who has the perspective large enough to judge the worth of my pain? Only the Most High. Joyful and Dave are at last check homeless in the harsh snow of northern New Mexico with no possessions or form of identification. Janis would say “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”. Remember “the least of these” in your world- remember that your Lord, your God, your Messiah who accomplished the most successful sacrifice of all; the most powerful being in the universe was once a crisis pregnancy laying in a box full of hay with no health insurance, soon to be running for his life from the government’s army. He knows “what it’s like”.

I’ve been madly in love with the same woman for 9 months now. We’ve been sharing the same house with a third sister for 3 months. We barely pay the bills, we’ve each held 3 jobs this year, I gained a car and lost a car, we are castigated by loved ones on a regular basis, we have absolutely ZERO assurance of anything in the future, and we’re often sad and confused. But we live indoors, eat wonderful homecooked meals, are part of a family of brothers and sisters who help each other through the hard times, our loved ones forgive us on a regular basis, we have clean criminal records, we’re not addicted to any substances, and boy oh boy are we in love. I must be the luckiest loser I’ve ever met.

This is all the advice I can think of at 25 years old (and I mean old). Give yourself away. Pray for mercy daily. Cry on a regular basis. Don’t fear the future. Cook your meals from scratch when you can. Don’t give your allegiance to any creation of humans. You know more “facts” now than you ever will. You will never be surer of yourself than you are now. The only thing you can really grow in is humility and faith, so get started on those early- “figuring things out” is for kids, and is largely a waste of time. Wise old people don’t know anything, and that’s why they’re worth listening to. You’re going to spend most of your life working to make money: make sure you don’t hate every minute of it or feel that you are being used or wasting your time. Pay your bills, but do it with peace.

Blessings to all of you! I wish we could all be together spatially. Let’s try to be together in spirit. Hold me in your arms when you talk to God, and I will hold you in mine. Don’t give up on me or on you! God hasn’t, and I don’t think he’s crazy…