there is something comforting about eating mediocre burger king fast food in the hometown after a week of fine dining and trying all of colorado’s native favorite spots. continuing the trend of it being difficult to find free wifi… anderson college has apparently shut off their wireless signal to the dorm across the street from THE 220™… most likely for the rest of the summer. annoying. what do you people expect me to do? PAY to use the internet? not a chance.

and now we’re back in the right time zone. back in detroit. back to greedy people still trying to charge me to use their wireless signal. people are funny. airports are the best people-watching environment ever. paying attention to the various baggage is almost as interesting as watching the people who are carrying it. seeing the “seasoned” travelers, who almost have it down to a science… two bags, both small… effortlessly cruising through the concourse… and then seeing the dude that’s sweating and breathing heavy… with the uncomfortably large duffle bag that’s duct taped on one side and has a strap that’s cutting a canyon into his shoulder. you sort of feel for the second guy… if only a little.

by the way, lucky us, we’ve batted 4 for 4 on screaming babies sitting near us on the flight. when i have kids… i will do my best to never allow them on an airplane until they are well past the freaking out stage. if only for the sanity of everyone else on the flight.

we’ve got late-night setup for church tonight… a lovely 10:00PM-er. perfect timing for me and MCD… i suppose when vacation ends, it ends with a quickness.

sitting in the denver airport… they have free wireless… only it won’t let me on the network. AT&T apparently hates my macintosh. i even tried calling their “care team” 800 number. the dude was clueless… apparently they don’t “care” about mac-users. oh well, i suppose free wireless that doesn’t work is still, in theory at least, better than charging me for it like detroit tries to do. brand new airport… and they can’t spare some wifi? i mean seriously… do they have to charge you for everything? they already rape you on food prices once they have you trapped waiting for your (delayed) flight… the least they could do is let you check your email without charging you for it. $7 for 24 hours of wifi… OR i could just hate detroit. i’ll go with door #2. whatever the case… i’m just typing this now to post later.

i’m tired… but rested. tired only in the sense that i could use a little bit of sleep because we were up late last night after josh and amanda BENEDICT’s wedding reception and then up early to get to the airport. (by the way… the denver security checkpoint system is horrible… a lesson in inefficiency.) but i am rested. this vacation has been as close to perfect as anything i’m involved with could be. i’m really excited to get back to SC and work. to change a few things. i’ve had much time to think, clearly and objectively… and filter through some wise counsel from expected (and unexpected) places during the week. things i’ve decided:

1.) time to start saving for a new vehicle. i love the trooper and all… but i can’t drive anywhere outside of anderson without thinking it will break down/overheat/blow up. time to really start saving. (being in colorado for almost a week… land of vehicles for folks like me, definitely put it in my head.)

2.) time to finally join the gym again. i’m tired of being self conscious about my body. it’s a waste of time and energy…

3.) organize, organize, organize at work. granted, organization is my weakness… everybody who knows me has to know that… if they pay attention. so it’s also time to ask for help and stop being so stubbornly prideful about doing everything myself.

4.) i have a to-do list… now i need a stop-doing list. there are things that are draining my energy and taking my attention and focus away from what i do best… i need to ditch those things… quickly.

not bad for a week of thinking and relaxing. i’ll take it.

what… an… awesome… wedding…

MCD and i opted to take another drive up the mountains today. yesterday, when we went driving, we only got about 20 miles in before we headed back. after some local counsel, we found out that road eventually does wind it’s way back into fort collins. with Otis in tow, we went on the most beautiful 60 miles drive i’ve ever been on in my life. i did take pics… but i’ll never be able to capture how gorgeous this place is… you really just need to come here. our drive on 37 led us through the mountains (where all of yesterday’s unexpected snow was melting), into quite a few open range cattle ranches, and, eventually, into the Rist Canyon… wow… i’m small… i mean really small. the drive out of the canyon put us on highway 14, which runs parallel to the Poudre River (pronounced “pooter” by the locals… i kid you not) for miles. absolutely amazing.

i could live here. with ease. if i’m ever gracefully led away from south carolina to pursue something… i certainly hope i end up somewhere in the state of colorado. i feel alive here…

in other news: the new pixar flick the incredibles looks like it will make november a great month to go see a movie. (i mean… samuel l… as a cartoon? …whatde?) i’m fairly convinced pixar can do no wrong.

tonight… has been one of the best nights of my life.

seeing two friends, who i love so dearly, getting ready to be married… sitting in a room with 30 or so of their closest friends and family, listening to all of us go one by one telling them, basically, why we’re so freaking happy that they’re our friends. i’ve never been this excited to see two of my people get married… to see what God is going to do in their lives… to see where He’s taking them. weddings are generally not my favorite thing… but this one? so… so… happy.

afterwards, MCD and i had some ice cream, wisdom, and conversation with one carl cartee. he had many great things to say, as usual, and i am amazed at how God continues to use so many different things and conversations to reinforce things i’m learning… like how much more important simply being obediant to God is than trying to figure out what in the heck His Will™ is… i swear we get so wrapped up in looking for it that it becomes a commodity. i just want to know God and listen to Him enough that i can follow Him where He’s already going.

sidenote: we’re currently watching once upon a time in mexico… a hysterical little gem of a movie… johnny depp is too much in this movie. love, love, love him. and as i watching antonio banderas get chased by some random mexican cartel, i thought that if carl ever gets a street team to help him out, he should call it the Carl Cartee Cartel™ hopefully, MCD, and possibly me, will be able to get up to nashville to see carl sometime soon. a return to the nash would be nice.

i’m sitting in an absolutely beautiful little old church in downtown fort collins (watching MCD sound check with a hammered dulcimer player for the wedding)… on wireless internet i’m most likely pilfering from some college kid across the street. this building has really great architecture… amazing stained glass… and some woodwork that a carpenter probably spent months laboring over in the late 1800′s. if there’s one thing my father has taught me (and there’s plenty more than one thing, i assure you) it’s been the appreciation for craftsmanship… in everything… but especially in carpentry. i spent the first 30 minutes i was in the building just exploring and, of course, taking pictures. my friends are going to have an awesome wedding tomorrow… low stress, much joy. they make me happy.

we’ve been staying with the melby family in fort collins since monday. they’re awesome. friends of the bride-to-be. (MCD and i are in colorado for a wedding… did you know that? i don’t know if, in the midst of my desperate attempts to get out of south carolina, i ever actually told you why i was coming here.) nonetheless, they let me dry my laundry when i got here monday night… i ran out of day and never got around to drying the clothes i was bringing… so my checked-luggage bag contained a trash bag of damp clothes. who brings wet clothes on a trip?

they also have wireless internet, which has been a blessing. you can basically thank the melby’s for being able to read the majority of posts from the past few days. (i can’t wait for the day when wireless internet is like radio… and it’s pretty much everywhere that you go. i give it 8 years… tops… before it’s reality.)

we had breakfast at the bride-to-be’s casa this morning with the wedding party and family and friends. very fun. it’s strange to put a face to all the names and stories i’ve heard about amanda’s friends and josh’s family. and for lunch (do you ever notice how the timeline of vacations are defined by where you eat?) we finally did find the best burger in fort collins… c.b. & something or other… a bar near colorado state’s campus. our waitress was nice and actually had a personality… odd.

this afternoon we managed to get intentionally lost in the foothills and the mountains. it’s been rainy and overcast today in fort collins, but as we deftly manuevered the little ninja up past the reservoir that overlooks the city… it was snowing. about 20 miles up state road 37… just beautiful. like something out of the Lord of the Rings. 40 feet of sheer rock on one side of the road… massive mountain views on the other… snow everywhere. we’re on vacation in MAY and we were stopping the car every five minutes to take pictures of snow-covered mountains… i love my life.

tonight, we’ve got wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. actually, i’m not in the wedding, so i just get to eat. i think i’m going to take the car out for some more thrift shopping while they rehearse. it’s gotten a little cold, so maybe i’ll go find a nice suit jacket for the wedding… ah, the joy of having nothing to do.

we just watched the 2-hour episode of The Bachelor…

i am more stupid now than i was 2 hours ago… just from being in the same room.

makes me remember why i don’t have a TV.

four words… GO SEE MEAN GIRLS. freaking hysterical movie. so well written. (and it reminds me of 80′s cult classic heathers.) saturday night live’s only high point of the past few years, tina fey, wrote it… and it shows. smart, smart comedy. she’s my hero for the day. (and, admittedly, i have the slightest of crushes on girl-next-door-ish lindsay lohan now…)

MCD and i got majorly lost today… fun times. our little ninja of a rental car… going down a random colorado dirt road… in the rain… all in the quest to find the best burger joint in fort collins. we were instructed to hit up Red Robin. i was unimpressed. you win some, you lose some… you’re still on vacation in colorado.

we’ve also managed to find some decent (and by “decent” i mean “not a complete waste of time”) thrift stores (yay for coming home with some quality colorado thrift t-shirts) and, for lunch, some great pizza at beau jo’s… a high recommend for your future colorado travels.

i don’t know if you could call it sleeping in, but i “slept in” until 8:30 this morning. i’m thinking my body still isn’t quite used to this colorado time zone. nonetheless, i woke up rested… so all is well.

last night, after dinner with ben, he drew us a nice little ghetto map of downtown denver (on the VIP diner comment card, no less) and instructed us on places to go for food, jazz, and all-around culture. downtown denver? gets the big thumbs up. that is a city that cares about what it looks like. i know i’m fairly obssessed with making all-things-beautiful… which is why i love this city so much now. (atlanta should take notes.)

downtown has this lovely stretch of road called the 16th street mall… which runs for 16 blocks of shopping/eating goodness. no traffic, just free buses that run up and down 16th and drop you wherever you need to go. (again… big cities, take notes… you want to get people downtown… how about offering free transport? i’d love to see my tax money go to something that i got tangiable benefit from like that.) everything was so clean, i felt like i could roll around on the street and not even get dirty. there were quite a few jazz clubs (particularly a cuban jazz club) that looked mighty inviting, but the dynamic duo decided our t-shirts, flip flops and jeans might not be the best attire for such festivities. no matter… i will come back to denver. it has won my heart.

there was also an awesome (and by “awesome” i mean “totally sweet”) bookstore called The Tattered Cover that was all hardwood floors, great vibe, and good selection. we could have spent hours just walking around in there.

and then… there was cheesecake. as in the Cheesecake Factory. as in “oh my dang… this is the best piece of food i have ever had.” a lovely dessert stop, made even more hysterical by MCD and i sitting in between a table with two asian girls speaking a mile a minute in japanese(?) and a table with a whole hispanic family… complete with a 3 year old wearing shoes, a t-shirt… and a diaper. yep… no pants… in the Cheesecake Factory… no pants. too funny. (i recommend the chocolate peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake… just in case you were wondering.)

sidenote, but semi-related to the half-naked hispanic kid… girls in colorado don’t wear many clothes. coloradoan clevage… almost as prominent as the mountains. they’re killing me… not in a good way.

if you’re easily offended… or have no sense of humor… or are prudish in your tendencies… then this post is over for you. if not; if you enjoy a little “saucy” with your daily reading, i give you this:

we saw truck nuts in action last night. we had heard about them, even seen “pictures”… but has essentially written them off as a figment of some compensating male’s internet imagination. and then… on the way from denver back to fort collins… we saw truck nuts… on a huge (shocker) black dodge pickup truck… red truck nuts. MCD, of course, freaked out. i, of course, attempted to take pictures. mr. compensation, of course, did not apprently enjoy us tailing him and trying to take pictures of his truck nuts… so at one point he starts flashing us with his little mag-lite flashlight… and then later on, he and a buddy did their best to run us into a closed lane full of traffic cones. road rage, anyone? (then again… the type of person who would have the audacity to put truck nuts on their vehicle and actually drive in public… is probably a road rager at heart anyway.)

i just ate a half a chicken… dinner was fantastic. if you’re ever in the old city section of colorado springs… eat at jack & telly’s. greek food served up right. (and if you’re a wine lover, we were informed they’re rated one of the top 100 restaurants in america for matching great wine and great food for great meals.) again, eating outside at a restaurant is always enjoyable for me… actually, just being outside is preferable for anything… but eating outside is even better.

ben pasley… how i love him so. such an infectious personality. the funny highlight was in response to the “what’s it like to be married?” question.

ben: “man… make it hard on God to find you a wife. don’t settle for an ugly girl who loves the Lord. if she ain’t hot…”

us: [insert uncontrollable laughter here]

he then went on to say that robin is hotter now, after ten years of marriage, then she was when they met. that, my friends, is something i can only say “amen” to. i look forward to that.

we also talked a lot about really embracing the idea that God wants you to do what you want to do… not necessarily what you think you ought to do. doesn’t that fly in the face of everything we learn as believers? yes… it does. and that’s why i love it. and that’s why it’s comforting to me… i’m no good at doing what i “ought to.” (ok… i’m no good at most things, but we all know i’m not fooling anyone into thinking i am.) so much of the lives of the christians i see are wasted trying to conform to a standard that has nothing to do with Christ. save me from being an idiot…

so now i just have to figure out what i want to do…

the maintainence guys at the air force academy drive these adorable little daihatsu mini-trucks.

three words… i want one…

MCD and i were referred to as “gorgeous” by some random scantily clad coloradoan who took that last picture while we were sight-seeing at the Garden of the Gods outside of colorado springs today. heh. yeah we are.

we had lunch with josh (aka the haunches/aka the groom-to-be) at big city burrito in fort collins. fun times… it’s been too long since i’ve seen him. much laughter… much thankfulness for wonderful friends. (and we got the amateur wrestling chest slapping game started early… like two minutes after we met up with him. i left a handprint on his chest that was so nasty it looked like he had contracted a contagious skin disease… no really. i don’t know why men feel the need to inflict pain on one another… but we’re bonding… back off.) it will be nice to spend some more time with josh this week… so thankful.

we stopped by the air force academy on the way to colorado springs too. the chapel? oh my dang. i’ve been taking pictures like crazy since i’ve been here…

currently sitting in a parking lot at jake & telly’s bar in old colorado city (on the internet? what? go wireless…) waiting on ben pasley for dinner and wisdom. i haven’t seen ben in years, so it will be nice to have a conversation that doesn’t involve a huge phone bill.

i can see pike’s peak from here if i get out of the car… amazing.

you should come to colorado.

everything in this part of colorado is blue and green… beautiful.

we’re somewhere over the midwest, in route to colorado by way of a short layover in detroit rock city. (which, as MCD so aptly put it when we landed, “reminds me of texas… flat and ugly.”) the sunset right now is gorgeous… pulled out sideways like you’d stretch bread dough…. one of those rare sunsets that feels like it wraps around you completely. i’d snap a few pics… but i couldn’t capture it anyway. so, lucky me, God wastes that beauty on the few people on this flight… most of which are too asleep or busy to notice. but that’s how everyday is, right?

i am relaxed. i don’t think i’ve been relaxed in three months. i can say with all integrity that the last two weeks of my life have been the busiest, most restless, most stressful weeks of my life. i don’t remember what rest feels like. between moving in to THE 220™ and getting things going with painting and various home repairs (and fixing all my landlord’s inept attempts at various home repairs) and work at New Spring… i somehow have managed to forget how to rest. (you know, like going to the office on your day off… even a few minutes at the office ends up sucking the life out of my day.) and now i have a week of rest to enjoy… to really enjoy.

i’ve read half of Customer Culture since MCD and i left the Greenville airport 4 hours ago. i can already tell i’m not stressed simply because i’m into the book completely and understanding the concepts and taking them to heart. i haven’t finished a book in months… started plenty… remember none essentially. so… actually getting this book is refreshing.

being away from work… having a real break of contact… my head is clear enough to finally see things a little bit objectively. to think of ways to improve the systems of how we do things in the areas i’m involved in. to think of what my motivations are (or, more than likely, aren’t) for doing anything in regards to my job. what motivates me? anything? i’ve got to figure it out before i destroy myself and take my area of ministry down with it.

i feel like i’m on the edge of something. do you ever feel that way? something big and beyond you… but just out of reach, with no real bearing as to what the next step is. i hate that. and i love it. i hate it because i want to be in control… and realize i have neither the capacity nor the real desire to be in control. and i love it because i feel something… i get stressed… and i get numb. i think that’s one of the main reasons i long for a relationship… just to feel something again. i go and see a movie like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, that portrays all the ups and downs and wonderful and messy parts of human relationships… and i walk away just wanting to feel something. anything. (although, admittedly, i’ve felt enough heartbreak in college to last me for a long time. should the opportunity ever present itself again, i’ll take the relatively heartbreak-free pill, thank you very much.) but i guess that’s the point. it’s all a package deal. you want love? you might (will) get hurt. you want God’s presence? it’s not safe. (to paraphrase C.S. Lewis… it’s good… but it’s rarely safe.) you want a meaningful workplace? you get to be under authority and work with people… neither of which are appealing options on some days.

but that tension is where we live. it’s reality. anything that paints a “balanced” picture is lying to you. “the man who fears God avoids all extremes” solomon says… but even in that in-between… you’re aware of the extremes surrounding you. you’re in constant battle with it… and that’s ok. i’ll embrace reality and truth over comfort. (in theory) but it’s just hard work sometimes.

thankfully… we get to rest from working hard… every once in awhile.

so… tired…

only three more major things to do prior to leaving… in two and a half hours… plus laundry. i feel like i’m running a marathon and the prize is getting on a plane headed for colorado… and collapsing.

i might write a real update… post-collapse.

my new laptop is awesome. i have yet to name him. but he is a sexy titanium beast…

3 more days and i am colorado-bound. when that occurs, the semi-daily posting will re-commence i think. for now… work, work, work. before i leave i have to make sure two series worth of print work, cd packaging, web announcements, and stage design are completely done. fun… only completely not. i’m still tired from the something corporate show at the 40 watt in athens last night. that… was some great piano rock and a fantastic show. (you can get a run-down on one of the not-so-great openers here… from one concerned concert-go-er to another…)

i am retreating back to design world now.

my dad stopped by the office the other day and somehow his rock and roll construction lifestyle had netted him a 400lb piece of melted aluminum that he was taking to the scrapyard.

me: um… you mind if i take some pictures of that?

dad: …[pause]… ok?

yes, he said “ok” as a question. casey made a desktop wallpaper for me the other day (inspired by a conversation about how i take random pictures of downtown buildings and plywood and brick walls… and 400lb pieces of aluminum) that said “i take pictures of bricks.” it made me laugh.

sidenote: why am i up this early? does my body hate me?

i probably won’t get to post much this week (i know, i know, you’re crushed… you plan your day around reading this site… or something) because i have so much work to get done prior to leaving for colorado on monday for a week’s vacation… and i want to be able to leave work and not worry about work… which means much of the working in advance. nonetheless, in the oven is a pretty substantial from-the-ground-up redesign for michaela that i’m 80% done with (stupid internet explorer….) so… check out her old site while you can, ’cause it’s getting a facelift pretty soon.

also… i’m playing guitar at THE 220™ tonight with chris carter. i’m not sure if two people with lower voices have ever been in the same room together… the universe may implode. if you feel something… weird… around 7:00 eastern standard tonight… you’ll know what’s up. fun times. i never get to “jam.” oh crap… what if i suck at jamming?