The Zone of Zakness

C&B

2009-08-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for a creative idea and something interesting regarding music, check this out.

http://www.cansandboxes.com

My buddy, Mark Hand, and a couple of his dudes came up with the idea for the project. Each month, the projectees are given lyrics and have to make a song from those lyrics. At the end of the month all of the songs are submitted and posted to the site so people can listen and rank each song.

The end result is awesome. Right now we have about 9 people who are involved so that means we have 9 totally different songs with the same lyrics. Brilliant idea. I also love how there's a rating system - it gives a little friendly competition and makes me become a little more creative.

If you're a musician or a lyricist/poem writer, you should try to get involved!

Beautiful Contrast

2009-05-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting revelation tonight while riding with Kris. It was nothing groundbreaking or anything innovative but a rather common thing.

I was thinking about Moses when he was in the cave and God was telling him that he would go to Pharaoh to command God's people be freed. Of course Moses totally dodged it and thought God had the wrong guy because he stuttered when he spoke.

I've always identified myself with Moses and where I am now - leading worship. When I'm around people, I freeze up/shut down and pretend to be doing something the whole time to avoid conversation and talking in general. My freshman year of college, I think I said 4 words. So I find it weird that God chose me to get up and sing and lead in front of people. Moses went on to free God's people, write some books that ended up in the Bible and changed history - all because God called Moses to overcome his weakness. And I believe that throughout his life, Moses found strength in his weaknesses.

That's the way our God works - in a beautiful contrast. It's His thumbprint, His copyright, His design, His creation, His workmanship. He chose scrawny little David to defeat 9'11" Goliath. He chose Peter, who denied following Jesus 3 times in a row to be the "rock" of the church. He chose Abraham to be a "Father of many nations" when his wife was barren. He chose to save us by becoming us, humanizing Himself in ultimate vulnerability. And He did it with strength and valor. He rids darkness with light. This is His M.O.

God is an artist as much as he is a warrior. He is a forgiving God, but carries out His wrath and vengeance. He gives us strength in our weakness. He died so we could live. This is how I see God in my everyday life.

This is our God.

Blindside

2009-04-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

I've followed the band "Blindside" for a few years now. They're a hardcore Christian band from Sweden and they sing in English - their second language. I've also had the privilege of seeing them live a few times. It blows me away when I hear the singer's thick accent and his broken English as he's telling the crowd about hunger problems in Africa and sharing deep spiritual thoughts.

The biggest reason why I LOVE Blindside is their lyrics. As stated earlier, their second language is English and somehow they write the most beautifully deep and meaningful lyrics I've ever come across. A lot of their songs have taught me lessons that I still hold to today and I can point back to a Blindside song's lyrics.

Anyway, you take them having English as a second language, screaming wails, four passionate Swedes, skinny jeans before they were big and you get pure beauty.

As I recall with my stomach turning
I was hiding away from myself, away from you
Like nothing, though something was terribly wrong
And I admit that I was only waiting for the right time
Night time, the right moment for you to look away
Though you never did, I pretended for a while
So I could walk where I dont belong

And I remember every word you said
Come back in time, come back
And I remember I would soon be dead
Now so pitiful, so pitiful

But I know, as I hammered those nails into your beautiful hands
Your eyes still try to search for mine, but I look away
Now your eyes are the only thing that can save me
Im still so afraid of them piercing
Youre breaking into my prison,
Just pretended for a while
My soul is dying
I wont look away

Sunday Best

2009-04-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

Today kind of started out with a laugh. I met up with Christin to go to the 8:30am Easter celebration at church because we wanted to go together. While I was getting ready this morning by putting on my jeans and Napoleon Dynamite t-shirt, I packed clothes for our Easter get togethers happening later in the day. Then I found myself in an ironic situation:

I was going to church dressed in my yellow "holey" shoes/jeans/napoleon dynamite t-shirt and then upon leaving church was going to change into dress shoes/khakis/collared shirt.

I found it a bit ironic because usually you put on your "Sunday Best" for church, not after church. Regardless, it left me with a fun feeling the rest of the day knowing that I felt completely natural doing it (or something like that).

p.s. - That's what I'm going to look like on my wedding day. Holla atcha boi.

in case you haven't seen it/greatness....

2009-03-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

Jam

2009-03-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

On an average Friday night growing up, you would find me in my basement with my brother making music. For a good 5 or 6 years, we basically locked ourselves in the basement jamming away, creating new songs every night and recording them on our Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. The end result was about 80 cassettes filled with jams, ideas and complete overdubbed songs. We would have friends over and begin with a bass line, or a guitar riff, or a drumbeat, or noise on the casio sampling keyboard, and then jam for about 5 hours straight. But time kind of changes things after a while. People grow up, and their time is called to other things. This past weekend, I experienced that old feeling of freedom in music.

Every Sunday at church, we have two services; one at 10am and one at 11:40pm. So after the 10am, there is about 40 minutes of down time. This past Sunday, I was going to head over to the main building because I didn't have breakfast yet but decided to hop on drums and bang a little bit. After a second, our bass player came up and started playing. Then, after another 30 seconds or so, my good buddy Mark came up on keyboard and vocals and we started jamming. We just started playing random stuff and fit it to each other. It probably lasted about 5 minutes. It was great. After we finished the "song", I got up and decided to go get food.

After taking about 2 steps into the hallway (and finding out that CC couldn't bring me food), I turned around to go back and jam some more. Our drummer had hopped on the drums so I just stepped over to the microphone. Mark started with a keyboard part, then the bass player did some weird sounds with his effects and the drummer filled in as well. I started doing repetitive "oh" chants and "ah" chants. The music would start small, get huge and loud, then back down. Mark would harmonize with me on chants and it was glorious. During the jam, I rediscovered that this is what moves me and how I truly worship God. I find music a beautiful creation from and toward God. For a while there, I had my eyes closed and was in a totally different world, beyond that room. Nope, no drugs were involved haha. But, I felt like I had once again discovered and experienced a beauty not too commonly seen by your average person - and it was because I took the time to look for it.

It was beauty. Music is a language I can understand. It may be something else for another person, but this is my soul's language.

I signed

2009-02-26T11:17:00.001-08:00

a 1 year contract with fitworks. Worked out a deal with a family add-on and joined with dad and sister. First scheduled workout scheduled 7:30pm tonight.

Here it goes.

Winter Weight Gain

2009-02-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

As you can see, according to Wii Fit, I've gained almost 20 pounds since October 2008. That's four months. That's 20 pounds. That's a lot.

As a result of this weight gain, I've decided that a good step to take is to join a fitness place and get fit. I rarely exercise and am aware that losing weight takes more than just exercising, but it's a good step. I've already decreased my junk food intake and have chosen salads for lunch, so I'm feeling good about this. I'm really excited too because I'm getting married in July and want to be fit for it. As for a goal, I've decided to shoot for 215 lbs. Wii says my normal weight should be 202, but I'm comfortable with 215. Bring it on, cheeseburger!

I want to elaborate more, but can't find any more things that are interesting to say. Perhaps I'll make a facebook group about my campaign for weight loss. That seems normal nowadays. Sarcasm.

P's out.

OUR Wedding, Not Yours!

2009-01-20T09:46:00.001-08:00

A while back, my mother shared some wisdom with me about planning your own birthday party. She said, "Even though it's your party, you have to accommodate for everyone else to make them happy." Now, my mom's not being pessimistic, it's true. This slice of wisdom has stayed with me and recently resurfaced in the midst of wedding plans. Christin and I are doing pretty well with planning and it's crazy how much goes into accommodating guests - which is totally necessary. But I've always been a person that likes to break the mold and explore.

So there have been a few times that I've said to Christin, "This is OUR wedding. When did it start revolving around the guests?" I figure if the reason you invite people is because you really care for them and you think they care about you, then they are going to come to support you. So why not make it "our" thing? A wedding is something that has really changed throughout the past several decades. Human Nature seems to always want to get bigger and better (or maybe the "American Way") and in the midst of that, we lose our initial reason for even doing that thing in the first place. We're bringing wedding back. It's fun to dream up crazy things. Christin is pretty open to new ideas and has some of her own as well. I'm really digging it too! We came up with an idea together yesterday and I'm super pumped about it! But I can't spoil it.

Who would have thought that I'd enjoy wedding planning? Ha!

STATUS CHANGE

2009-01-07T13:17:00.001-08:00

I've been dating Christin since August 2007 and we've been inching closer to the big M word for quite some time. So I waited for the perfect opportunity to make it a surprise - rather than predictable or expected.

ALL of her family lives in Florida. Every Christmas, her family drives down there to spend the season with family. I figured this would be a GREAT surprise to go down there and surprise her! Her parents were kind enough to offer a plane ticket down there after I told them I was driving! So here's the story:

Her family took her out on Monday, Dec 22, in the downtown area to walk around and enjoy the weather. Her dad had to leave to "see a man about a dog" which is code in their family to do something secret. Christin just thought he was picking up a Christmas present, but actually it was me. Her dad had arranged to meet them at the bandstand later (pictured below).

Her dad met up with them while I hid behind a hut. The family kept walking around the lake past the bandstand. Then I snuck up behind them (her whole family knew I was there) and whistled the song that I wrote her to ask her out to get her attention. She kind of stopped and turned around.

She was shocked!

She started laughing and crying at the same time and said, "Zak, why are you here?!" After she didn't move for about 5 seconds, I went up and hugged her to say hello. Her mom snapped these GREAT pictures. We then took a walk around the lake to find a bench. She knew what I was up to and started looking for benches herself! We finally found a spot and I gave her the gift. There was a trail that went around the lake so there were all kinds of people jogging, walking, and taking pictures. She waited for it to clear before she was going to open up the ring and we both looked back and forth for about a minute. I have to say that it was the most awkward/anxious minute of my life. Finally, I said "whatever, I'm doing it" and got on my knee and asked Christin Marie Carrell to marry me. She responded by saying, "THANK YOUUUUUUU! I LOOOOOOOVE YOUUUUUUU!" So we hugged and I asked her if she even said "yes" and she responded with a "YEEEEEEEEEEEEES!". It was perfect. We asked a guy to take our picture!

Now I get to spend the rest of my life with the beautiful Christin Carrell! It's exciting!

THAT'S THE STORY!

muZAK

2008-12-05T12:53:00.000-08:00

In my personal songwriting, I've been branching out from my solo acoustic stuff lately (80s and modern pop). It's been fun. Although, listening to Jon Foreman is bringing me back to the beauty of simplicity - an acoustic guitar.

There are a couple of songs by him that are straight out of the Psalms. Although a bit "risky" for christian music, it's dark and honest stuff. I can respect that. My buddy, Matt, and I talked about making an acoustic album writing songs from the perspective of Bible people. It was a good idea and I think I'm going to do it.

In other forms of music, I've decided that one of my life goals is to compose a symphony. I've composed a few things in life whether it's been on the computer or for a quartet and have played myself. It would be a dream to compose a symphony and watch it being performed. That's a big dream.

My friend, Alton, once said, "Music is the language of your soul."

i would like to speak fluently in that language.

Transparency

2008-11-20T10:18:00.000-08:00

Throughout the past couple of months, I've discovered something about myself that was totally different from what I've thought. I remember at an early age and remember the specific event that caused me to be who I am. I had two neighborhood friends that I hung out with separately. One day, all three of us were going to hang out and it was then that I realized that I was a different person when hanging out with them in a one-on-one situation. When they both hang out with me, I could only be one person.

That situation was a moment of enlightening in my life and from that day on, I lived as one person - the same around EVERYONE - and I became who I am now - Zak. Along with that virtue I developed back then, I decided that there was nothing to hide behind and nothing I should hide from anyone, so I've always been 100% open and trusting. Transparently True.

As I said, within the last couple months, I've discovered that I am not super transparent - not on my part, but on other's part of getting to know me. It has been bothering me because my top value is for someone to look at me and know exactly who I am and what kind of person I am. I've been meeting all kinds of new people lately and I've been told that it takes a while to get to know me. That doesn't really sit well considering it is one of my highest values in life.

I think with most of these cases, it's spiritual depth that they see later. But still, it kind of confuses me a bit. I don't think it's a problem, but it just doesn't sit right with me. Alrighty rooni.

My Friend, Matt

2008-11-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

ROAAAAAAAAAAR!

This weekend, I had to say goodbye to my best friend, Matt McCoy. He got a worship job in Chicago and this past weekend was his last time doing worship at the VSU. Matt's been a GREAT friend in all areas of life for the past couple years and it was sad to see him go, but I'm super happy for him! He's got a great opportunity. It has been a privilege worshipping with him and working with him. He will be missed!

Here's some footage from a conference we did in Texas back in July 08.

Check out his stuff at www.mattmccoymusic.com!

Can you copyright someone's name?

2008-10-17T08:29:00.001-07:00

Captain Copyright

I've had a page on myspace where I share my music that I write. It's just for fun and I've never really "marketed" it or pushed it for anything serious. Well, on 4 May 2007 I got this message from another musician named Kaz (which is my name backwards aka my music page):

I like your music. I have a question. As you can see my name is also KAZ. The only difference is I actually legally own the trade name "KAZ" for music. Plus the law is clear on first use. I have been know in music by KAZ professionally and legally since 1990. I have over 7 CD's that I have either produced or performed on, and actually have a new 14 trk CD coming in the next few weeks.

I am the owner of KazMusic.com (since 2000) and see that you have the KazMusic on My space. I am wondering if you would be interested in turning that url address over to me.

I know what I am asking might sound crazy but, you would being doing a great thing and I would forever appriciate it. Also legally speaking there is no real way for 2 KAZ's to be in music. This would be too confusing to the market place. It would be like have 2 Sting's or 2 Seal's. It just doesn't work.

Well I realize at this point you don't have to do anything, but I am asking for you to consider it.

Thank you and keep up the great music.

Kaz

I ignored it because I do have people I communicate to and that like my music. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I receive another message - which was a bit more threatening:

LEGAL NOTICE – IMPORTANT

KAZ® THE TRADEMARK “KAZ” IS FEDERALLY REGISTERED IN THE UNITED STATES REGISTERED IN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND USED IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD AND IS THE SOLE PROPERTY OF THE ARTIST KAZ WHO WORKS IN ASSOCIATION WITH ROCKINBIRD RECORDS, INC. THIS MARK SHALL NOT BE REPRODUCED OR USED WITHOUT THE EXPRESSED WRITTEN CONSENT OF KAZ.

- WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO BE DELETED

- YOU HAVE LESS THAN 7 DAYS OR WE WILL BE FORCED TO REPORT YOUR PROFILE(S). YOUR URL BEEN FLAGGED AND FILED.

PLEASE EDIT / CHANGE ALL PROFILE(S) HERE ON MYSPACE AND ALL OTHER WEBSITES INCLUDING FACEBOOK ETC. WHERE YOU USE the trademark “KAZ®” in relation to music of ALL GENRE…

PLEASE Go To: www. MySpace. com/Kaz for more complete information immediately! “You Are Now Officially Notified”

THANK YOU KINDLY

Then he links me to another page that has about 53347 pages of text about copyrighting the name "KAZ".

Haha. It seems that I've been threatened. I'm still not going to do anything because myspace is a free web hosting site that is public. I'd be surprised if they deleted me because I don't represent anyone but myself, but it's funny how some people get all worked up about this stuff and make threats over online messaging and make themselves seem like they're from the government.

If I do get deleted, I'm looking forward to starting up a new artist page called "Zak Stegman". If I get legally hassled for that one, well, I quit.

Here's the link to my music

What Is Engineering?

2008-09-30T09:27:00.001-07:00

My teacher asked that question last night in the middle of the lecture. The class was silent and dumbfounded. We are upperclassmen (and women for those politically correct people), and all "engineering students". I found it comforting and it also made me feel uneasy at the same time. We've been studying engineering for years and can't even define it.

It was a wow moment. It's kind of ironic how we get caught up in the action of something and after a while forget the reason we even started it. I also can apply that toward holding grudges. I remember times in my life where I've been "mad" at a person and after time couldn't even remember why.

Blindside captured it perfectly in one of their songs. The singer writes about his faith in Christ becoming a game and forgetting the foundation of his faith. Here's the line:

"I fell in love with the game but I forgot Your name."

Don't forget why you do what you do. Do everything with reason and purpose. Even if it's a chore to start at the bottom and going over the reasons behind your motions, do it so your meaning does not get lost in the midst of going and doing.

Dreams Are Weird

2008-09-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

Since January, I've been documenting my dreams as much as I possibly can. I just read over some old ones and laugh at how outlandish and crazy they are.

I've really enjoyed doing this and kind of re-experience the dreams as I read them. It's weird and fun.

Here's the latter part of a dream that I had back May 15th.

I went inside to talk with mom and she was holding Zoey and cars were flying by and I told her to get up and move right away. She said she was fine and then a car came and ran over her and cut her in half at the waist and neck. She was embarrassed and ran upstairs - just her torso and legs. She had a spare body she reattached. (Apparently my head got cut off recently and I did the same thing). Then she came back down and was looking for her old head. I reached under the couch and felt some hair. She grabbed it and said, "Don't look." and took it away.

BLACKOUT

2008-09-18T10:32:00.001-07:00

On Sunday the midwest had a huge windstorm that did some serious damage. Cincinnati had a huge blackout and my sister and I are one of hundreds-of-thousands without power. Our power is still out and will probably not return until Sunday (according to Duke).

I've kind of liked it, honestly. My sister was telling me that God has a way to slow people down and this is one of them. She also asked me if this was the end of the world though...

Anyway, I have felt like I live in the movie of "I Am Legend" with Will Smith. Everyday, since the power was out everywhere, I'd just roam around and try desperately to find something to do and then fold in at night. It's a good movie, but it has felt like my life the past 4 days.

Lonely. But a good lonely.

OPERATION: ZAK

2008-08-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

Quick update before the video:

1) The camera was covered by its drop insurance. PTL. I was deemed a brand new one and they stopped making that model, so they gave me the next one up. Woot woot, Best Buy.
2) The Computer was not covered by Apple Care warranty, but the dude totally hooked me up with a brand new computer. Seriously? Yes. PTL.
3) The iPOD. Well. No good news with this one.

And the moment we've all been waiting for:

The Human Body: Zak

Electronics hate me.

2008-08-04T08:39:00.000-07:00

One. Two. Three. That's right. Three. It's the magic number and I don't know if it's the last. I've had three electronics losses in the past week.

First.

I take my camera everywhere I go just in case there is a Kodak moment. I like having it. However, it has taken a few spills within the past 5 months. Two times in a row, I set the timer on top of a flight of stairs and ran to get in the picture and sure enough, it fell down an entire flight of stairs. But it still worked. Past a few drops, it decided to not work the other day when my girlfriend and I were at Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park in Hamilton, OH - prime photo opps. Fortunately, she had her camera with her too. Fortunately also, I bought a "Drop Warranty" and Best Buy is taking care of it for free. Woot woot.

Second.

Sometimes I use my Apple computer as a drummer at church. It keeps better time than all of our drummers and is good for backups when 3 drummers fall out (I like them better than my computer though!). So I set my computer up on stage and tightened the music stand as tight as I could. Then I ventured to the closet to get some cables and I heard it. "Smack. Crunch. Topple." I didn't move for about 2 minutes because I knew what had happened. Sorry, less drama. I went to check out what happened and saw that my computer not only fell off the music stand, but fell past the stage onto the concrete ground. The screen was busted. The metal casing was bent and broken. But for some reason, I felt like this was a great moment to be an example to students and didn't really make it a huge deal. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The computer was on still so I grabbed a monitor from my office and hooked it up and no data was harmed. Just physical damage. After the weekend, I took it in to the Apple Store and discovered that it was not covered by the warranty that I had. So the dude walks in the back room for 8 minutes. He comes out and told me that the same thing happened to him at his church and he decided to fix it for FREE. That is some serious grace! I felt weird praying for God's help, but I guess God knows what He's doing.

Third.

I just got back from a wedding in Colorado. During the driving of the trip, I offered my iPod for music in the car. The next day we all got Gatorades and the driver thought he closed the lid and put his Gatorade in the console on its side and a few minutes later, we realize that Lake Gatorade has formed and "Rico", my iPod, was going for a swim. Not cool. It does not respond to anything now. Not sure what the status is on this one.

My friends, that is why electronics hate me.

OPERATION SLINGSHOT

2008-07-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

OPERATION ROBOCUT

2008-07-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Pennies add up...and so do quarters!

2008-07-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

Can you guess how much is in this picture?

I emptied out my coin jar and a little change from my truck and rolled it all with Mom and Kris yesterday. I banked. It's amazing how much saving change can get you.

I made $105.50 from putting spare change in a jar every night for 8 months. Wow.

Makin Vids

2008-07-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I, or the Stegman family have released a good production. I used to make a lot of films for fun but haven't made any recently because my camera was stolen. It's kind of hard to use my Mac as a video camera but it worked for STEGMAN SNOW.

Anyway, random people that I don't really know have been coming up to me from church telling me how they love all my videos. Kinda Scary? Yes. But kinda cool? Yes. Two people on Sunday mentioned it to me.

There are plans. Technological Heartbreak Music Video and a couple of stupid ones probably. If you'd like to send me a script, go for it.

Also, if you want to be part of the Technological Heartbreak Music Video, let me know. We are going to have a huge choreography scene like High School Musical. Tell your grandma.

-Zakness

Worship in Texas!

2008-06-30T22:27:00.001-07:00

I'm in Texas with my dude, Matt McCoy and we're providing worship for hundreds of thousands of students. Actually about 426.3 students. Tonight was opening night and I decided to sneak in some recording action. Enjoy!

SOS IS OVER

2008-06-24T06:12:00.000-07:00

What a week. Again, after this year, I am totally amazed at how God works in such mysterious and powerful ways. It was weird on Tuesday night. Alton spoke and all of a sudden, it got all "spiritual" in the room. Part of me woke up and was like, "oh, this is a spiritual week". I totally forgot about the ministry times at night where we pray for each other and all that cool stuff. I felt like a dummy and irresponsible. But after seeing kids handing their lives over to Jesus, I was on track to what God was doing. What a great week.

I also was privileged to play electric guitar in the evening band this year. My brother and I always used to play in our basement and I remember loving to play electric guitar. Up until this week, I also forgot how much I missed it. What a blast!

Here are a couple of pics:

ALSO: I don't think anyone knows/knew but we are releasing a live worship CD from SOS 08. I listened to a couple of the tracks and they're great! Be on the lookout!

Weird Humble-izing

2008-06-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

I think it's all sinking in now. We had practice yesterday. I get to play with a great group of kids. They're very talented, creative, and well-shaped people. So it sunk in. I think I'm now getting "officially" excited about SOS.

The theme for the youth conference this year is entitled "Revelation Generation". That means the stage, t-shirts, lanyards, programs, signs, talks and everything will be labeled as "Revelation Generation". I was telling my girlfriend last night about it because I have one of the keychain lanyards that 825+ teenagers will be wearing all week and it hit me. This weird humbling.

It was February of 2006 when my buddy Matt McCoy and I decided to write a song based upon our church's vision of building a youth center (which is now the Student Union). During the time, "I had a revelation of a generation singing loud"... And now, those two words will be dangling from 825+ teenagers' necks.

It is a weird humbling, I guess. But overall, who cares? It should be a great and powerful week. I'm excited.

GPS

2008-05-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

I was hanging out with my English friend today and someone was coming to pick him up. He was coming from Columbus and insisted that he knew how to get here because he had a GPS. Later on, we get a call and he's lost and won't tell us where he's at. I tried to ask him what exit he took and he absolutely refused to tell me anything and asked for an exact address. So I gave it to him and he then was on his way and he made it here fine.

I made a sly comment to my English friend about how people don't want help nowadays. I sounded like an old man, but it makes me wonder. We have all these inventions and new innovations coming out to make life easier. It definitely contributes to the "me" lifestyle - selfish living. But I'm beginning to realize that it's also contributing to the self sustenance lifestyle - which is even worse in my opinion. The minute we think that we can do everything ourselves is the very first step away from trusting in the Lord. I feel too tired to elaborate. So, unpackage it yourself.

I'm getting a GPS system. By the way, you have a huge plank in your eye.

Sabbath2

2008-05-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

This monday was a bit different than my past sabbaths. Since it was Memorial Day, my girlfriend and I went up to Columbus for a day away and also to meet one of her best friends from college. Since this was happening, I took it into high consideration to break my sabbath using this trip as an excuse. I was tempted to use hair stuff so I looked nice and to turn the radio on because it was a 4 hour trip there and back. I did turn on the cd player to listen to one song - but it was a special moment.

I actually forgot on my way to pick her up that it was sabbath day and had the cd player on for a good 25 minutes (she lives 40 minutes away). So Tuesday, I left the system off for the whole day. On the way home ALPHA at church, I realized that I should probably pray since that's kind of the point. So I prayed for a couple of kids that I "mentor" and it was great and deep, and then I prayed for some coworkers and wow. I got this detailed vision of a scenario and I started to get a bit misty. It was true sweetness. So I sent the person an e-mail immediately describing what God showed me. Splendid.

Learn to sabbath. Opening time opens your heart, mind and soul.

Sabbath

2008-05-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

Sabbath.

A couple of months ago, I really felt led by God to take 1 day a week as a "sabbath" day. I decided to make it Mondays due to church work on weekends. During these past couple of months, I've been eliminating things here and there and really tried to change things.

One of the first things I really felt led to give up on Mondays was hair-care stuff. That makes me feel extremely lame because I never really used to use hairspray or that junk, but it was a genuine feeling. Next, I felt like the next thing God wanted me to sabbath was car stereo. No car stereo on Mondays.

Another thing that I was really challenging myself to give up was Mountain Dew. I averaged about two Mountain Dews a day. It was mostly something that I always "wanted" to do but thought it was impossible. Then, it happened. On April 21st, I had two Mountain Dews. I haven't had any form of soda since that day. Zero headaches. One temptation. Amazing.

However, I think this is all just the very beginning of what it means to sabbath. And I think I like using it as a verb. I haven't even implemented the spiritual focus of sabbath so I'm starting to get excited to see what God's calling me to next.

Blogging

2008-05-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

I might give this a shot. Maybe weekly, maybe not.

I'm already doubting that I'll like it.

My New Friend - Freedrick

2007-07-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hey Friends! I have a new friend named Freedrick. We made a video of us hanging out and welcoming him to our family. We went longboarding, surfed online, jammed in Steg Studios and tackled each other. I hope you have fun just as we did hanging out!

The first is BlipTV and the second is YouTube. Watch whatever you prefer!

Click To Play

ACTIVATE!

2007-07-05T09:57:00.001-07:00

This blog is now activated!

Here's a sample video!