Washers and interns and plays oh my!

WOO HOOOO IT'S LATEEEEEEEE!!!!

Did you get that? That was late with EIGHT E's after it!




That's a lot of E's. :-) So, today was kinda interesting and I thought, "Hey, what should I do about my interesting day?" Well, the answer is, of course, BLOG ABOUT IT! Not THAT interesting, don't get too excited. Also, remember how many E's there were. This may be completely incoherent, so ignore that part.

Let's start with yesterday and pretend like it is part of today. One of my requirements for my final semester of school ever in the whole world in all of time ever is that I complete an internship in a writing field. Well, this has been kind of a thorn in my side for a number of reasons. 1. I don't have time to go looking around for an internship. 2. The internships on the university's list do nothing to excite me. 3. Let's face it, I hate school and am having trouble caring. I realize how that sounds, but BAH! That's how I feel.

YOU CAN TAKE MY FOOD, YOU CAN TAKE MY HOME, BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE MY FEELINGS.



I don't know either.

Anyway, the internship has been threatening to stress me out for a while now. Yesterday, one of my classmates walked into the room and immediately commandeered my help to fix her website which was due last week :-) Sadly, all of her pictures had disappeared. Eh...it happens. Anyway, it turns out that she has a friend who works for a local newspaper and had been telling him how much I had been helping her with her website. Now, the professional half of my new site has been completed (well...ALMOST completed) for a few weeks so she showed it to him (And yes, you may go look at it too. www.jasonhunt.us/professional). Apparently he was impressed because he told her to give me his e-mail address because he has an internship in graphic design for me.

Um........I don't want to oversell this but HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!?!?!? That's right, ladies and gentleman, I am in high demand!


You may now demand me.


Go ahead, I'll wait.


:-) So, that was a bit of good news. TODAY....Today, I went to see "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller at the university. The only one of Miller's plays that I have seen is "Death of a Salesman" and I was not impressed but this one was GREAT!! Plus, the lead actress was so cute!


OOps, did I write that out loud? May just have to look her up.....

Anyway, after it was over, I didn't really want to go home so I took off for Starbucks, ordered me an eggnog latte, or, as it is known in intelligent circles, Christmas-in-a-cup, and drove around for a while listening to Christmas music. Oh, who am I kidding. I was JAMMING to Christmas music! I really can't wait until I fix the new music player because I have some GOOD stuff to show you! When I got home, I played a little Xbox since my workload tomorrow is light and was just on my way to bed......when IT happened.

I happened to glance up at the washer/dryer because it's little folding door was open and noticed that it is not the same shape as it was this morning. And that ain't good. It looks like somebody took out the linebacker pads (that's a real thing, right?) and smashed into the front of it as hard as they could. Now, I know that I didn't do it. And both roommates claim to be innocent, but there hasn't been anyone else in our apartment today.....so I think that one of them is LYING! DUN Dun dunnnnn....



My money's on the albino one. Although it could have been the normal one, you never know. He could be crafty underneath all that.....I don't really know what the end of the sentence was supposed to be. I told you, lots of E's.


Hmmm....as I am typing this, I recall that I DID hear a loud noise in the living room today, so maybe it DID happen on its own. I just don't see how that's possible. Either way, I AIN'T PAYING FOR A NEW ONE!!!!!!!






That is all.

If I could get a little deep on your bahinds...

Today, Tim posted a new blog (which you should check out if you haven't) in which he finally spells out some of the reasons his family won't be performing in Branson after next year. It's a great post because it's honest and insightful in its own right, but I was struck this evening by something that Shanna (fancy that) wrote in her comment on the post. It reminded me of a quote that I posted YEARS ago by Gil Bailie. The quote goes something like this:

"Do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is men who have come alive."

I think this is my favorite quote in the entire world because it addresses something often forgotten. It is very easy in our fast-paced, stressful world to get bogged down by the obligations we feel toward any number of things. There are so many things that we have been told by people throughout our lives that we MUST do...You MUST go to college, you MUST get a sensible, stable job, you MUST get married and start a family, you MUST grow up to be like everyone else. Forcing ourselves into that mold is one of the major things that is poisoning our society.

Have you ever met one of those people who is so extraordinarily passionate about life that it's contagious? You know the type. After spending 10 minutes with them, you feel like you could conquer the world on a whim. These are the people who stared at the world around them and said, "No. I refuse to allow you to define who I am." These are the people who decided that they were going to be part of the few who never let common sense stifle their dreams.

Do not ask what the world needs. In doing so, you lose sight of the things that make you who you are. Ask what makes you come alive, be it outlandish, insane, uncommon, or frightening, and go do that. Because what the world needs MOST are PEOPLE who have come ALIVE.

Happy Day after Thanksgiving, everybody!!

Maybe I should write "Happy Leftover Day!" ;-) Did you all have splendiferous Thanksgivings? Do you have lots of interesting tales? One of the best parts of family holidays like this is the sheer number of stories that are vaulted into posterity each year. What stunts did YOUR family pull?

The biggest one for us this year is the fault of my father. He waltzed into the living room two nights ago (Well, not waltzed. My dad doesn't really do dancing) and announced that he had invited a guest to Thanksgiving dinner. The invited gentleman's wife was going to be out of town, so my dad asked him if would like to eat with us.

Oh, stop Awwwwing my dad. Let me tell you why this was, despite the initial appearance, a STUPID idea! Oh, I am not that heartless, stop judging me!!!!

Reason #1: Do not, after your wife and mother-in-law have spent the entire day cooking, tell her that you have spontaneously decided that she will have to find enough food for someone else. Do not TELL her these things. You may, most certainly, call before offering the invitation and make sure it is okay, but do not issue orders. People don't like orders.

Reason #2: Do NOT invite someone over that is disliked intensely by the rest of your family, no matter how much you like him!

We didn't think it was going to matter anyway, since he called and cancelled early in the day. Life went on as usual. None of us were mad at this poor guy....it wasn't his fault he was invited, so we couldn't really feel badly toward him....until he called in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and said that he had changed his mind. Then my extremely sensitive father said, "Sure! Come on down."


We were thrilled. Once visitor arrived at our house, he promptly told us that his wife would be back in town shortly, he just didn't want to turn down a free meal.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA. He's got moxy, I'll give him that, but can you understand why he is not my favorite person? -)

My heart isn't really into blogging at the moment, I just wanted to write SOMETHING......maybe I'll give you a fun video to watch...

How about my FAVORITE Christmas commercial EVER! Holidays are comin', holidays are comin', holidays are comin'...

The One With...

...no more "The One Withs"

That's right, they're going away. A thing of the past! I had several goals for this newest incarnation of my website, but I had no intention of putting them into practice until January. Hahahahaha. That changed tonight. You'll notice that the music player at the top of the page doesn't exactly...well, it doesn't work. I think I am having issues with a server setting that I cannot find. I still don't have it figured out yet. Anyway, one of my goals was to migrate the entire blog from BlogSpot (Blogger's hosting site) to my own website and that happened tonight in an attempt to fix the playlist. So, no music yet, but an even bigger obstacle out of the way! I'll keep working on it as often as I can because I have some GREAT music for you!!

I hope that you all had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving and are geared up for the Christmas season!

The One With Thanksgiving

Wow. I don't think I realized just how STRESSFUL this semester has been until I pulled out of my apartment parking lot and headed for my parents' house for Thanksgiving. I mean, I got in the car and all of a sudden angels descended from above and began dancing and praising on the hood of my truck before four very astonished eyes. Yes, I wrote four. Me and Bear; you didn't think I left him all alone for Thanksgiving, did you?

You probably don't believe the angel bit, do you? Well, it's true. I have the foot indentions all over my truck to prove it, so there!!!

Okay, I made that up. There are no foot indentions, but there are feathers in the radiator! M.S. It keeps highlighting the word "indentions" to tell me that it is misspelled. Which it is not. Which means I must have made up a new word. Congratulations to me.

Yes, I made that up too. You're kinda stepping on my point, you know?

Anyway, I was practically glowing with prospective vacation as I drove away from Waco. Gosh, I despise that little town. Hahahahaha. It's true! There are many people who will extol the virtues of Waco, but I had them thrown into the luny bin so now the whole of the population sings the truth: WACO STINKS!! Hmmm....that was kinda mean. And definitely does NOT sound very thankful. So nevermind, don't read that.

Tomorrow I have a big old bundle of homework to do since I am taking Thanksgiving itself COMPLETELY off, but it somehow seems less daunting away from Waco. Will it get done? Well, it's all due the day I get back, so it HAS to. But to answer my question, no, it will not get done. :-) I love being me.

Just the same, I hope that you have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving and don't let this now empty site depress you. I may have to postpone to launch of the full site for a few weeks, so how about a nice Christmas theme for the blog? With snazzy new Christmas music? Sound good? Good! Because you don't really have any say in the matter........

P.S. M.S. stands for Mid-Script. I couldn't very well write P.S. in the MIDDLE of a blog, now could I? That wouldn't be very POST, would it?

P.P.S. If you search Google for kixarse.blogspot.com (which is Tim's blog address), my blog shows up first. BWA HAHAHAHAHAHA. With this power, I could RULE THE WORLD!!!

Important Notice

Howdy there, WORLD!! Fair warning for you folks out there in cyber space! Over the next few weeks, you may notice a few glitches while we update the site. For instance, very soon the music player will no longer work (You're sad, aren't you? You really enjoyed listening to the same 12 songs for 6 months, didn't you?) and links to download files may be broken. If you come across one of these broken links, PLEASE drop me a line so that I can make sure it is fixed when the new site launches over Thanksgiving. MUCHAS!!

-Jason

The One With the Choirs

Well, it is now 49 in the morning and I CANNOT SLEEP! I hate when this happens. Invariably, I am awake almost all night long onlyt to sleepwalk through my school day doing things like conversing with trash cans or taking notes with chalk or sitting on thin air. It's not good.

Oh well. :-) I am awake NOW!!! So I thought I would drop by and say hello. I had a couple of deep things that I wanted to write yesterday, but I ain't feeling so deep at the moment, so we'll just skip it. In place of those deep things, I think I'll share some humorous performances... Let's go YouTubin', everyone!

You may have seen this before, but it's worth sharing anyway. It makes me laugh almost uncontrollably! Well, not really. But I did laugh. Tetris is the best.



So anyway, that video is very funny and I'm glad I found it, but I what I was REALLY looking for was a video of a complaints choir for my American Folk Music classmates. Yes, we do know how to have fun. So, here is the complaints choir too. HYSTERICAL! I think I'm gonna start one...



And I leave you with one final thought. It's the happiest thought in the whole world...

The One About Waiting on God

Shanna, one of our newest readers (you can read through some of her comments on previous posts), sent me an e-mail last week from a guy named Micah Parker. He is an inspirational speaker who had something very insightful to say about waiting on God. I think that the most inspiring things we hear are those that are common sense, but often overlooked. This story falls into that category so I wanted to share it with you. SOOOOO mad props to SHANNA for bringing it to my attention. Enjoy!

Picture an 8th grade boy sitting in McDonalds with his basketball team. The team had just finished 3rd in a tournament and the boy was distraught because he felt responsible for losing a game. He finished his meal, left his ice cream cone on the table, warned his friends not to “mess with it” and went to the bathroom. He was surprised to see that the restaurant was basically empty when he came back. Where did the team go? They were probably hiding around the corner waiting to jump out and scare him or maybe they were sitting on the bus waiting for him. He saw his cone still sitting there and after checking it for salt, ran outside to get on the bus before his coach would get upset for him being late, but there was no bus. He searched the parking lot quickly and noticed the bus had just left and was slowly pulling away so he took off in hot pursuit, jumping over landscaping and cutting through the parking lot to actually pull up to the side of the bus. His short little legs kept up for about 10 steps until the bus pulled away. In desperation, the little guy threw his ice cream cone at the bus and it hit the back window, but the bus kept on going. The boy stood in the street waiting for the red brake lights to come on and one of his friends to hang his head out the window laughing, but it didn’t happen. Maybe he threw his cone at a different bus? Maybe his team had moved the bus and was waiting for him on the other side of the restaurant as a joke. When he checked and the parking lot was empty, the boy walked back into the McDonalds, sat down and wondered what he should do. Their home town was about an hour away. “I’ll just sit and wait, they’ll figure out I’m not there and come back for me,” thought the boy.

After 30 minutes, the manager of the store came out and asked if I was ok. He could tell by my expression that I was either lost or in trouble. I told him what happened but that they’d be back any time now to get me. They let me call my parents who initially didn’t believe me because people were laughing in the backgroundJ. Eventually, someone came and got me, but that was a LONG wait.

This was the first time in my life I experienced what it felt like to “wait upon the Lord.” At first, I wasn’t worried, but as time went by, I started to think I had been abandoned. Time goes so slowly when you are waiting. Whether it’s for a red light or for something more serious like test results from a doctor’s exam, it's tough to wait. One of my favorite songs right now starts out by repeating “strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, as we wait upon the Lord.” This is a great phrase because so often we do the opposite – our strength falls as we wait. This is where God comes in. As our strength falls, He calls us to lean on Him so His strength can be revealed through your waiting.

I’ve been going 100 MPH in my life for the past 17 years as a basketball coach. Recently, God forced me to sit and wait – wait for a job, wait for direction, wait for patience. Initially this was very difficult to do because I wasn’t “waiting on the Lord”; I was trying to make something happen immediately. Through lots of prayer and time spent in the word, I was given peace about where God wants to use me next. Waiting is tough, but it can bring about peace, trust, and wisdom as GOD’S plan is revealed.

One of the greatest “waiters” in the Bible was Daniel. I can’t imagine how LONG it must have felt like WAITING in the Lions den for someone to come get him out. Sometimes God won’t deliver you from your lions den, but he’ll deliver you in your lions den. Sometimes being forced to wait out a difficult situation is better for us in the long run and God’s plan for you is better revealed by allowing you to wait rather than sparing you from the wait. I encourage you to read the book of Daniel and that God’s “strength will rise as you wait upon the Lord.”

The One With Tim's Blog

Howdy there, Haygoods!


Whoops, wrong site. :-) But since I've already mentioned the Haygoods in this post...

The oldest of the Haygood clan, Tim, decided recently that he wants to tell it like it is concerning his family, the business, and his DECISIVELY far from normal life and figured that a BLOG would be the best way to do it!

He's new to the whole blogging bit, so give him some time to really get things up and running. In the meantime, however, surf on over to kixarse.blogspot.com and check it out!