The Right to Read

I was just directed to this essay and have been thinking about it. It really brought my attention to what has been happening over the last decade. This was published 9 years ago, and back then it might have seemed ridiculous, but now it really scares me. This isn't even really a slippery slope arugment that he presents here, it is the outcome of combining many laws that are being enacted today. I am glad that you can get many (older) books for free still on the internet at Project Gutenberg. I guess we will see what the future holds.

The story has a happy ending, so to all of you: amore and viva la revolucion.

I have to ask myself, why?

So it occurred to me that what is happening to me and my life may be interesting to a small number of people (perhaps my mother), but everyone else might want something more. To that end I intend to have more then just updates of my life here. Rest assured I will still talk about myself as often as possible, but there should be more here too.

I am going on a trip to Israel next Tuesday. To that end I have decided that I should practice with my camera so that I can get some good photos. To the right here is a photo of my back yard and house from the southeast. If anyone has any tips on photography, digital or otherwise, feel free to share.

I also invested in two tripods for better picture taking. One is the Promaster D1 the other is this funky gorillapod that I will probably take along because it is so much smaller. The gorillapod is cool because it can hang or stand pretty much anywhere, but it seems like it will take some work to get pictures that are pointed where I want and at the correct angle.

And over to the left is a picture I took of my niece when I was out in Burbank, CA over Easter. I mean, really, too cute for words. I really like my camera because it is so small and light. I know that if it was too large I would not take it anywhere.

So recently I have been thinking about what I am doing next in my life. There are one or two things I have always had something on my plate. Like graduating from college or getting my post-college job. Now that those are out of the way I have so many options now that it is a little staggering.

There are things I want to do in my spare time like learn a musical instrument or two. Perhaps actually get good at a foreign language. Perhaps co-found a successful technical company (hey I can dream can't I?) And, you know, other things.

I now have a link on the blog to what is essentially my mom's blog. She started it to talk about my dad's health and current situation, but she keeps updating it for now.

Well I guess that if life is a road I am still just traveling down it. At least I have a road atlas to life to rely on and give me some direction. There I went and talked about myself the whole post, but I did include some pictures and links to at least give you some more content.

Graduated!

On Sunday the 14th (aka Mother's Day) I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science. Wow. It has been a great four years in Urbana. Just yesterday I moved about 90% of my things out of Brown House, my home for the last four years. I am sad that I will not see all of my friends from school very often, but I am glad to be done with classes. College would be great if it wasn't for all those pesky classes. I think I am gonna have to spend some more time on AIM to keep up with everyone who is now farther away.

Last night I spent some time with some high school friends and my friend Drew is 22 today. We will be celebrating his birthday tonight with some food and hopefully some games.

So here I am writing from my parents house in St. Louis with all my things stacked in the hallway. It reminds me of a book I once saw where a photographer traveled the world and had taken pictures of familes with all their possessions stacked in front of their house.

I can now start the countdown to my trip to Israel on May 23 (one week from today... eek). I will be going with my parents and my brother-in-law Josh. I am a little apprehensive about the unrest over there right now, but our lives will be in God's hands.

I am not sure if anyone is even reading this, please leave a comment if you get the chance.

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

Seeing as I will soon be graduating from the University of Illinois and moving away, I have decided to start this blog. We will see if I have will take the time to actually keep this thing updated.

Thursday night was my first ISU bible study, and most probably my only one in the foreseeable future. The message was about lukewarmness and it was excellent. Afterword we headed over to The Dollhouse for snacks and fun. I played telephone-pictionary for the first time, and it is perhaps one of the best party games I have ever played.

Yesterday was of course cinco de mayo, and following my personal tradition I went out for a mexican lunch. I invited everyone in the Chambana AC young group for lunch, but only my roomates showed up. That ment that one more person had cinco de mayo lunch with me then usual.

Later I headed over to the driving range with Andy and BAM to test out my new clubs. It was BAM's first time out and he made some improvement. Just a few hours ago Caleb, Bob, BAM, Andy, Martin, Alyssa and I learned how to play the card game "Bang!" and it was a blast. If you ever want to play I can really recommend you try it out. Feel free to ask me to play.

I am just winding down the semester and have 3 finals to take before being done with college. I am excited to get my degree and be finished with school for now. I will miss the college experience, but I won't missing going to classes anymore. I feel that this last year has been a great time of learning and fun, but we all have to move on sometime. It will be interesting to see what God has planned for me in the future.