can you feel the love?

me and los are all kinds of wrong right now. we are sitting "listening" to john ortberg. i'm sure he's a great speaker and author, but i just don't really care anymore. the stripe shirt you see before you is the man who turned around and busted me and los stating, "we can hear everything you're saying", oh, sorry sir. we retreated back to note passing and typing on our blogs. now los is trying to break this guy like he's really into the sermon, "come on, come on", "preach it, preach it". i can't stop laughing! seriously it's like being back in jr. high sunday school and i'm about to get bumped out of the room by the teacher. at least we're having fun.

it's late and everything is funny

At the PDWC

Day 2 of PDWC. I'm about to head off to Los' blogging and podcasting session, so if you're from Peoples, get ready. I'm about to step up your digital lives. everyone needs to blog. Maybe I'll have time tonight to talk more about what's been going on here. Last night we hit the premiere of superman at downtown disney, so i only caught three hours of sleep. tonight, we are doing dinner with a group of the blog community that is here at the conference. until later...

on my way

well, i'm off to the purpose driven worship conference @ Saddleback. leaving at 5am tomorrow to make it to Carlos' house before 10am. i'll be away from the blog unless i get internet access at the hotel we're stayin' at. talk to you later with all the details. i got 3 new cd's to keep me company. 1. Starfield 2. Jason Morant 3. Brenton Brown along with an iPod full of my favorite toons. i'm trying to pack light, so no ibook, but i know that los will have his powermac pro. c-ya.

The Good Life

Me and all my friends in high school were huge weezer fans. we even had a special handshake. you say dork, i say, heck yeah! but, i never had cable or mtv to see the videos. last weekend for father's day i was looking through my brother's DVD collection and alas, what do i see, but the weezer video collection. i put it on this morning while jacinda was getting ready for her baby shower, kiara and i danced, and then i saw her. it the music video for "the good life" off of their pinkerton album. chloe from 24. i looked all over for a picture of her in the video, but couldn't find it. you'll have to take my word for it. if you can remember, she was a pizza delivery girl and playing her typical pouty and geeky Chloe. I just thought that was hilarious. well, i'm a bachelor today, so i'm going to go eat some greasy mexican food and watch a comic book movie!

Getting Excited

i know i haven't posted in awhile. i've just been enjoying reading everyone else's blogs. i have been super busy at work this week, working on a couple of big deals. i will warn you that depending on the situation, i might not be posting next week. i will be going to the purpose driven worship conference and will be staying with los and his crew in someone's house. i am really hoping for it to now only be an educational experience, but just a flat out worship experience. as parents and someone who works too hard, you could probably relate to me not ever having enough time for anything, so i'm looking forward to the 4 days next week where i somewhat get to dictate my own schedule. i will miss my girls, but they will be having fun and i'll be back before they know it. do you ever just get in a slump spiritually? man, i feel like i've been in a funk for the last couple weeks. i feel that i'm getting pulled in every direction, and they're not all bad things. they are things i want to do. like, hang out with my family, work hard, hang out with good friends, go to church, or go to the bathroom. i wish i could do it all, but it's coming to that point where jacinda and i just say "no" to things. last weekend we went to sunday school but not church, but it was father's day. but, yesterday was truly a good day. at lunch, i went home, relaxed on the couch for a bit, then popped United into my CD player for the drive back to work. their energy and the lyrics just lifted me right up, and with the relaxing night i had last night with my family, i'm doing good. i just needed a little worship time. so, hopefully next week will be like going into the cocoon pool.

Bloggers Unite!

So, here is Los. he is one of my best friends and he needs your help. he has been given the great honor of teaching at the purpose driven worship conference this year at saddleback church. this is the church of rick warren who wrote "a purpose driven life". love him or hate him, this church is freaking huge, and the conference brings the best from all over the world to teach, lead, and mentor. I will actually be attending this 4-day conference for the first time this year and can't wait to learn and chill with my boy. So, check out this link, and answer his simple poll question for his research. thanks! Ragamuffin Soul

Quote of the Day!

"Friends are like butt-cheeks. Crap separates them, but they always come back together."

The Ocean-Dome!!

Supposedly this ocean-dome is in Japan somewhere and it costs about $50 a day. the volcano explodes every hour and the wave machine pumps out a couple sets of waves. completely regulated temperature, wind, and humidity for a perfect day at the beach. Also, check out the links on the right, i added some new friends to the list!

a facade

I thought this picture was hilarious. but isn't it so true of the way the church portrays Jesus? in my town at least it is. i had lunch with a good friend yesterday and we talked about how the Church has created this monster of people trying to be all perfect and clean, while it just makes people hide who they really are. we need to break the status quo and chad johnson, our high school pastor, did a great job of this on sunday. people are so surprised when i tell them about a recent interview i saw with katie couric and billy graham where rev. graham tells katie that he is a democrat. ahhh! he said that not many people know his political views because he didn't believe his personal views had anything to do with his ministry. powerful statement, one i wish some of these celebrities would heed. sean penn, sir, i don't really give a rip what you have to say. you are a decent actor, which basically means you can read some words and recite them with feeling, and that is it. please stop talking. wow! tangent. so, back to my point. check out these lyrics that are from derek webb's new songs called, "a king and a kingdom": "there are two great lies that i’ve heard: “the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die” and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him" What seems to be extremes of good vs. evil has come together in our journey towards holiness. we are now taught that if we are christians then we need to sit up, clean up, vote republican, and be perfect. Brennan Manning talks about the "myth of conversion": "There is a myth flourishing in the church today that has caused incalculable harm--once converted, fully converted. in other words, once i accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, an irreversible, sinless future beckons. discipleship will be an untarnished success story; life will be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness." not that we need to rebel against the church, but change it. from the inside out. we need to start the movement. it's going to be a rough road, but i'm tired of seeing the fallout of my brothers and sisters. "For by the grace given me i say to every one of you: do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you" -Romans 12:3

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, select start!

For all you geeks who know what i'm talking about in the title, you'll love this VIDEO.

another baby, i thought kiara was a baby.

so, as you guys probably know, my daughter Melania will be here on august 7th and i'm getting a little freaked out about having another baby around the house, but then i realized, kiara's not a baby anymore. when did my little baby go from this: and this, to this! I am getting really excited about having a little baby to hold again. plus, i'm a major home-body, so that let's me stay home more.

taking it all in

I try to cherish the little things. sometimes life gets so out of control that by the end of the day, you just can't wait to go to bed. but i think it is important for our spiritual and mental health to just soak in the good things in life. since i work with investments, i try to get to work by 6:30 which is when the stock market opens on the east coast. i hate getting up this early and it still isn't natural to me, but nothing beats driving with the windows down and the cool air waking you up, all while the sun is peaking over the sierra-nevada mountains. sometimes i get to work even earlier and can watch the sunrise out of our 4th floor windows. so, i try to let those moments effect me, to change me, to start my day off right. I understand that i'm an emotional guy. i always tell people that i cry at commercials if they're done right. sometimes life just gets going and stuff happens and after awhile you don't want to care anymore. i don't want to reach out. i don't want to worry about other people all the time. i don't want to feel like i need to be involved, but then God gives me a sunrise or a song, or a child's "i love you daddy", or my wife grab's my hand in the car...i break. i think it's important. i read this quote today: "not to be accessible to the greatness of the Holy, is always the mark of a certain mediocrity of soul." we need those moments where, as my buddy always says, God just "filets" open our heart and rips it to shreds. we need to have a broken and contrite heart like in Psalm 51. So, I pray that God shows us each how to respond to those that we don't know how to care for and that He will show Himself in the little things or as David Crowder says, "finding God in everything from Sunsets to Sushi"

some pictures that i promised

This weekend created many great memories for me. just hanging out on the boat friday night and cruising the harbor was really great. i got a chance to connect with my friends and made some new ones. it was so relaxing and was just one of those moments that you are thankful for. So here is what we were experiencing. dolphins. hundreds and hundreds. just imagine the same amount of dolphins, but spread out over hundreds of yards. it was like God put out a net and when he pulled it up, all the dolphins in the ocean were right there in our little circle. amazing. happy birthday to heather! you can see the expression on jacinda's face that she is completely freaking out. that's a total jacinda look when she is really excited. love you babe. and, last but not least, i couldn't leave you hanging without a picture of how my trip really looked. i'm just glad that i didn't eat more than a denver omelet!

I'm Sailing! I'm Sailing!

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifThis weekend has been all about experiences. Jacinda's best friend, , who is married to Los had her birthday party this weekend. i went into work on Friday morning to finish a couple things, then took off a little after 9. Jacinda and I were getting the baby room painted this weekend so i had to take apart the baby crib (for painting) and take the blinds off the window. So we took off just before 11 trying to be down in Riverside by 2. yeah right! I drove like a mad man. the traffic was unbelievable! It took us almost an hour and 45 minutes to get to Bakersfield, but then I made up some time keepin it in third on the grapevine. i love driving fast there because it feels like a video game. needless to say, whether i'm going 65 or 85, it still takes me 4 hours and 15 minutes to get to their house. we get to their house, pack up some more stuff and take off for another hour drive to Newport Beach. you know you're in newport when all the cars go from chevy's and honda's to porsche's, bmw's, and ferrari's. we actually drove by a dealership for ferrari, maserati, and rolls royce. we then got on our 44" foot yacht for the weekend. This thing has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a "living room" and a full kitchen. topside (that's boater talk for the top of the boat) there was room sit tons of people, plus you could just chill out on the front of the boat. we took a harbor cruise with a whole bunch of heather's good friends. it was really great and jacinda and I met some really cool new people. after the cruise, we docked up and we all went and saw the breakup with vince vaughn and jennifer aniston. i laughed really hard, but the end left me a bitter taste in my mouth. los, heather, jacinda and i went back to boat and spent the night there in the harbor. saturday morning, the brown's, christopher's, and albee's joined us for our trip down to laguna beach. it started great, jacinda started feeling the movement and the heat. then we anchored at laguna and it all began. i hurled. then again. and again. and again. whew. i jump into the cold water and float there for awhile. i get back on the boat. hurl. lay down for awhile. then the most awesome thing ever happened. dolphins. hundreds. maybe a thousand. all around us, for hundreds of yards around us. black and white dolphins. it was like the beginning of an ironman triathlon where all those people are splashing in the water together. amazing. eventually they were gone then, i hurled. again. again. again. it was terrible. i tried to sleep the rest of the way and as soon as we got back into the harbor, i started feeling better. so, needless to say, i'm never doing the sailing thing again. we then drove to huntington beach for dinner and back to riverside where i almost immediately crashed on the couch. so, off to sandals for church, then back to fresno to pick up our little girl. can't wait to see her.

The Zoo

Jacinda and the MOMS group at church took all the kids to the zoo this week. I hate missing stuff like this. Kiara was so excited, it was all she could talk about for weeks before. She got to feed a giraffe, pet a sheep and goat, see elephants taking a bath, and monkeys swinging in the trees. believe me, when she says it, it'll melt your heart. i asked her the other day, "kiara, who's your best buddy?" she replied, "etan". Ladies and Gentleman, meet Ethan, my future son-in-law. His parents, who are our good friends, Joe and Mamie, and us arranged the marriage almost from birth. These two are so cute together. We make them hug and kiss while we take pictures, they play together, and they are just good little buddies. Hopefully, they will grow up together and get married. I mean, how cool would it be if you could be good friends with the parents of your kid's spouse? So, Ethan, I bless the relationship, but keep looking over your shoulder boy, cuz I've got my eye on you!