breathe every breath

You've been living life like it's a sequel
and your already bored with the plot
as if the cast and the score
are more money than before
But the script and the backdrop are stock

We've got the rest of our lives to regret
All the words that were said here tonight
but i bet that the morning, in the morning
You'll find us in bloom

So C'mon C'mon C'mon
Let's not be our parents
Oh C'mon C'mon C'mon
Let's follow this trough
Oh C'mon C'mon C'mon
Everything's waiting


Ever size up with summer sun?
Let these songs awaken the dawn
Let us breathe every breath
like a breath to be kept
Let us breathe it all in till it's gone

We've got the rest of our lives to live out
All these dreams we stay up tonight talking about
In the morning, start hoping, to not be too soon

Switchfoot - C'mon C'mon

flip-flop

i feel like it used to be that when a young person graduated from highschool they either married off (female) and became a wife, or they started working full time at the farm or whatever they'd been doing on the side while they learned to 'read and write'. only very rarely did a young person come home and say, "i'm going to college!". boy, but when they did! it was quite the big deal. especially when they succeeded! they sure made the family proud! heck, the whole town was proud! i'm sure that many more wanted to than actually did go to college, however, it just wasn't for every one. those that never went probably assumed that they'd fail if they tried, so they stayed home where they were expected. eventually they took over father's farm and were burried next to their parents out by the barn... of course leaving the farm to their own kids...

i could be wrong about that, but that is my perception.

it seems now that a bit of a flip-flop has occured.

now college has become the thing that is expected and for everyone and succeeding at the alternative has become something for the adventurous. is it just me or is college not really challenging? i mean everyone does it! people just mindlessly go because it's what's expected. after second grade, there's fourth grade, and after high school, there's college. when i used to bravely say, "i don't want to go to college!" i had many many people tell me, "well it's possible. look at so and so. and so and so else doesn't have a degree either... but those people are extremely gifted and talented people, jacob."

so for the rest of us... there's college. we'll pay our dues because it's what's expected. we'll put thousands upon thousands of dollars and years and years into something we'll only use a percentage of. not that we don't dream of other things. but we'll settle for the safe route. the guarantee. why should we take a risk when there's an easy standard to kind of fall into? right?


(i guess i like to re-check my motives everyonce in a while... make myself think)

there go the olympics...

and there goes everything that keeps me occupied all day right along with it.

...now what am i gonna do?

bright horizon

looks like the sun is rising over there.

i have (almost) nothing but excitement for the future. there's some good things coming up here. i think i always get this way around this time of year. new things are happening, i love new things.

my birthday is next month on the 22nd... and i'll be 22. this means that this upcoming year is my golden year. pretty cool!

all this cool stuff is just out of reach into the future. what about the present jacob? what about right now? don't miss the moments!

weather predictions?

plans change just like the weather! surprised? no. it seems like every time i make plans they get changed at least once, most of the time more than that.

of course i'm referring to my backpacking trip. it was initially made up of two separate legs, both along the pacific crest trail. as it turned out most of that trail was still snow covered so we went to plan b for the first leg, which went through a dozen changes all it's own. we ended up doing plan n which involved two separate trips. the first a three night four day in out trip and a two night three day trip which started the day we got out, all in the olympic mountains.

it was beautiful.

the second part has gone through change after change due to more trail condition problems like trees blown down making passage almost impossible. it looks like we're going to do about 5 nights six days in the okanogan national forest, just me and my brother. i'm fairly excited. not as much as i'd expect myself to be though. i think i'm just tired.

the beckoning

the mountains are calling my name again. and while they're calling for me using something other than words, i've come up with a new set of words for them: "my heavenly" (i got that from a jars of clay song)

i'm about to embark on the longest hike i've ever done. 17 days, 170 miles of trail. from snoqualmie pass to the north side of lake chelan. my mother will resupply us at stevens pass which is seventy miles into it.

i have weird feelings at this point in time. there is a great sense of anticipation in a positive way combined with a negative.

my dad commented, "you won't be the same people when you come out!"  as crazy as this sounds, it's true to a degree. after all, i have been referring to this trip as epic in all my descriptions of it, and in a weird way i hope this trip will be monumental in my life. i have these dreams of shrinking! i think the truth is that deep down i hope that the comment by my dad turns out to be truer than he or i had imagined.

something eerie beckons me from those mountains. i can't quite grasp it.

jehovah jireh

so there i was, 6 a.m. wednesday morning, loading my car up quickly but quietly, in a moderate hurry to leave on time. finally i got everything loaded up and i drove to pick up ricky. when he was all loaded up we took off for campmeeting. as soon as we entered the freeway, we both heard a disturbing clunking sound coming from what sounded like the top of my car. we looked at each other, then in the rearview mirror and discovered that my laptop was flying through the air like a piece of cardboard. we immediately stopped the car, and ran back to the computer like excited children running towards a soccer ball. we discovered that the thing still worked except for a little less than half of the lcd. so i kept it. who wouldn't?

then we arrived here at campmeeting and within hours i found out that there were a bunch of old computer monitors sitting by the main auditorium with 'free' signs on them.

so here i sit with my laptop and a huge bulky monitor typing away, taking care of business. so my laptop still works perfectly, it just got a bit bigger.

this story inspires this phrase:

JEHOVAH JIREH! - the lord will provide!