Moose's Scattered Brain

Learning lessons

2007-01-14T04:55:00.000-08:00

I've been reflecting on the past year and the decisions I've made and I can say that I'm pretty disappointed with myself. I'm only going to share one of them though because I think it's worth putting out there to other people my age to hopefully lead them in not making the same mistakes as I did.
Last year around this time we had just sold the house in Kingsland and I was reenlisting. A lot of money was coming my way. Did I do something smart with my money? Nope. I went and bought a Jeep and a Suzuki Hayabusa. Hindsight being 20/20 if I had only bought one of them I probably would have been fine with the financial situation. I didn't anticipate the mortgage payment here in Charleston and when I calculated the budget I wasn't happy with where we stood after the bills were paid.
So I made one good decision for the year. I got rid of both the jeep and the motorcycle. Most of the people who know me thought I had taken drugs or something. They(including my wife) couldn't believe that I had given up the things I loved. But God was working on my heart.

1st John 2:15-17
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

I read this scripture just a couple of days after I had gotten rid of my jeep and my motorcycle and got a Volkswagen jetta and it affirmed the feelings I was having. I felt I was becoming too attached to the things I had and that is a dangerous road to travel.
There are a myriad of reasons why I did what I did(having people pull out in front of me while I was riding my bike, gas for a jeep that gets 13 mpg and insurance for a sportbike were a few of the big ones). But I really feel that God put it on my heart first that I was headed the wrong way. I think most of us know that if your heart is telling you to do something, it's hard to do anything but that which your heart is telling you to do.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is this: If you stop to listen to God, He'll let you know what you need to do in your life.

God bless

Almost Finished

2006-12-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

Worked some more today on the welding bench. Just a little bit more work to do. It's coming right along though. I was slightly off on the price, so far I'm at $240. The 1/4" plate that I used for the top ended up costing me more than I thougt it would.

Give

2006-12-07T19:00:00.000-08:00

I've had some things put on my heart lately about God. Recently I've been spending a lot more time in God's word, serving the Church, and contemplating His will for my life. One conclusion I've come to is that we need to give to the Church. No, I'm not asking for money or anything like that. I'm talking about your life man!

Check this out: "For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
Sound familiar?
Jesus, the creator of everything, gave his life for us.

No greater love hath any man than he who lays down his life for a friend.

Jesus showed the greatest love of all because he gave.

Why should we do anything less than give our lives to Him? When you foot the bill for a meal. When you give someone a hug because they're feeling bad. When you tell someone you appreciate them(especially your spouse, love ya Doonae). When you impart some knowledge to someone else. When you volunteer to be a stage hand/security for a concert and end up not getting home til 2 a.m. when you have to be at work in the morning. When someone needs help moving and you show up for them. You are giving.

There is no better way to love than to give of yourself to someone that needs you, especially if they can't pay you back.

The Creator gave His life for us....there is no way we could ever do enough to repay that.

So, here's my challenge to you(and myself); try to out give God. See what happens in your life when you do. I guarantee that God can out give you.

Are we gonna mess up? You bet your butt. I know I do, but that's the cool thing about God. He knows we're gonna screw up. But if we truly give our lives to Him, He'll forgive us a million times over for our mistakes.

God bless you all.
Mark

Weekend Project

2006-12-03T12:38:00.000-08:00

Here is the beginning of my welding bench. Just the frame so far. Pretty soon I'm gonna put a plywood shelf on the lower portion on which I will place tools and such and then I'm gonna get a piece of 1/4 inch plate for the bench section to mount my vise and so I can weld on it. I'm also gonna put a smaller shelf on the back(that's why its so tall) and put pegboard on it too so I can hang my tools up. It's gonna cost me around $200 but I figure the same bench, were I to buy it, would be over $400.

The Little Things

2006-11-14T05:02:00.000-08:00

It amazes me how close God can be to us. This morning I woke up with a song in my head(Sometimes in Step). Shortly after I turned on my Launchcast Radio the song played. I think it was God's way of saying to me, "hey buddy, I'm still here and I haven't forgotten about you". It may sound sappy and cheesy but I bet I'll have a much better attitude today all because of a song that came on my computer at random. I know in these trying times it's easy to think that God has stopped caring and He's just letting us blunder around down here without any direction. Don't count him out just yet. He may be just around the corner.

Have a wonderful day!

Cool Background

2006-11-09T16:50:00.000-08:00

Busy life and a Soapbox

2006-11-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

Wow!
At the rate I'm going I'm only going to post something once a month. It seems that I've been staying really busy every day. Between work, volunteering to help the CSU marching band and singing in the Summit Church praise band, all of my time is taken up. Somehow I feel that doing all of this can be dangerous for my psyche. Going and going all the time without detaching and taking some time for myself makes me feel a little burnt out. Luckily there isn't a football game to volunteer at this weekend so my wife and I will have a whole day to spend together. That hasn't happened in a few weeks so we're really looking forward to it.

And now for my thoughts...

Since becoming a Christian my views have changed a lot about what it takes to be a Christian. I used to be pretty stuck in my ways and thought that that was the only way to be. Since then I've done a lot of reading and studying and come to the conclusion that maybe there are many different ways to be a Christian. For example(I'm not bashing the Church of Christ this is just my own personal belief), the C of C believes that instrumental worship is not set forth as a method of worship in the New Testament so therefore we shouldn't use instruments and we should only sing. No where in the New Testament say that we can't use instruments. What if a person can't carry a tune in a bucket as far as singing goes but has an amazing talent for playing the guitar or the piano or the drums. If that is the talent that God gave them, shouldn't they use that talent to praise Him? The Bible says that ,"true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."(John 4:23) Not everyone is talented at singing and there are many parts to the body of the church. Not everyone can be a voice box, we need hands and feet and noses too.
What if we all used our given talents to worship God?
I guarantee the world would be a much noisier place because we would all be worshiping with our true "voice". So here's what I'm really trying to sayto all Christians...Take whatever makes you come alive, whatever fires you up(within the confines of good judgement and morality of course), and use it for the glory of the Father. That to me is true worship.

It's not how you worship that matters, it's that you worship.

Camping and Headaches

2006-10-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

Been a while since I posted. Last weekend I was up in NC camping with my father-in-law and a bunch of the guys from his church. I'm certain that I grew a lot as a Christian because of the other men there and I hope that by my presence someone else did too.
Not only did we get to have good fellowship but we got to go hiking and go to a car show that just happened to be going on when we were driving to Chimney Rock. (Dave, sorry buddy, but you can't say no one goes to car shows with you any more.)
Since then I've been on swing shift and I've seen my wife a total of about 3 hours this whole week. So even though I'm on shore duty, there's still a lot of time that we're apart because of each of our schedules. (I bought her a rose and an "I Miss You" card about half-way through the week...man did that score me a lot of good husband points!!) I'm now doing the job that I came to do(teach baby nukes) and I'm getting to actually teach now that I'm qualified. It feels like I'm already connecting with the students and getting them to think how they need to to operate. It sure can give you a headache, though, when students don't prepare or have a gross misunderstanding of something in the plant. Then you have to teach a whole lot more.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I got a tenor sax after we got home from the camping trip so I can get back into playing. I have a feeling that getting my chops back will take some time and pain but I think it's a small price to pay to play such a cool instrument.
Well, it's almost 2 a.m. and I'm going to church tomorrow so I need to get to bed.

We don't exist to dig up the past, we exist because of the past.

Find an old friend you lost touch with, you might be surprised what you discover.

Wow

2006-09-30T19:15:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how much stuff can happen in just a few days and how much of a roller coaster of emotions life can throw at you.
A few days ago, after 5 years of operating without flaw, I made the first operational mistake that I have ever made while operating a nuclear power plant(no I didn't cause a reactor meltdown, I just dropped a non vital electrical bus, so Green Peace, take a hike). It's not an uncommon thing when drills are being run. They put me on a remedial program and disqualified me from standing watch(a bit excessive if you ask me, we all make mistakes, it's what makes us human). I can see where they're coming from now that the anger and frustration are worn off, though. They're just trying to motivate people to be better operators, however, I'm not sure fear is the best motivator.
Hence, the reason I haven't posted in a while. But, life goes on, the world is still spinning and orbiting around the sun, and I'm moving on and trying to stay motivated to requalify.
Sometimes I have trouble reminding myself that,"This too shall pass."
On the up side, though, my LPO wanted to get rid of a piano that he and his wife have been moving with them from duty station to duty station and were tired of lugging it around. So I said, heck yeah, I'll take a free piano even if it looks like it's a hundred years old and needs a lot of work(we haven't gotten a chance to look up the numbers on it but I wouldn't doubt if it was around a hundred years old). So now I have another project that will keep me busy for hours on end.
Well, I need to get to bed.
Oh, by the way, thank you to all who support me during my rough times. I'm sure I'm about as cuddly as a rattlesnake when you try and help me but I do appreciate all the encouragement.
Keep it rubber side down.
Mark

My Hayabusa

2006-09-09T21:04:00.000-08:00

As most of my friends know, I have a 2006 Suzuki Hayabusa. Most in the motorcycle world would call me crazy for wanting one. The cruiser guys say,"Why would you want anything that fast, do you have a death wish?" The sport bike guys say,"Why would you want that, it handles like a bus." You know what I say. To hell with you guys, I love this bike. It has gobs of power and it handles just fine for me. This is my fourth bike and I like this one the most out of all of them.
My first was a 1983 Honda Nighthawk. I took everyone's advice and bought a cheap bike for my first one that way if I laid it down, I wouldn't be out thousands of dollars. I highly recommend doing this. You can find a good used starter bike for $1000 to $1500 easily.
(By the way, to date(knock on wood), I have never laid a bike down while I was riding it. My bikes have been knocked over many times and it gets a little frustrating.)
My second bike was a 1990 Suzuki Katana. I enjoyed this bike but at the time I was also in the process of fixing up a 1974 Ford F-100 and my wife told me I had to get rid of one of them. So I made the mistake of keeping the truck and selling the bike. What a money pit that was and then when I got it almost done I couldn't afford to drive it(4 mpg is not good for a daily driver/weekend warrior).
My third bike was a 2004 Suzuki Volusia. This bike was fine for just cruising around town but got pretty buzzy at highway/interstate speeds(gearing too high for my tastes) and it wasn't quick enough off the line. So I gave that one to my dad.
Then I went to the opposite extreme. At the time I bought it, the Hayabusa was the fastest production motorcycle made....Period. Putting around 150 hp and around 100 lb-Ft of torque to the rear wheel on something that only weighs 500 lbs is a little bit crazy, I guess that's why I like it. Since then, Kawasaki has come out with the ZX-14 and surpassed the busa in quickness(however, I hear the ergo's on the busa are better). Both are capable of sub 10 second quarter miles right out of the box and I have pulled the front wheel off the ground in first without popping the clutch or bouncing. Just a crank on the throttle at around 3500 rpm and up it comes. (I still haven't perfected the wheelie yet and my nuts have taken the brunt of it on a couple of occasions when I came off of it.)
Basically what I'm trying to say here is that when it comes to motorcycles, ride what you like and not what all your friends think is cool. Yeah, the busa may not be as comfortable as a cruiser and I may not be able to keep up in the twisties with the GSX-R's but the road has to straighten out some time.
(Also, don't buy a busa if you are not prepared to exercise extreme restraint on your throttle hand.)
Peace out

My Father's Word

2006-09-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

Today I received the highest compliment that I believe anyone can receive from their earthly father. Today my father shook my hand and said this:

"You are a good man."

I am writing this with tears of joy running down my face. These five little words meant more to me than any amount of success, money or fame could mean to me. I am a good man in my father's eyes.
I hold my father to be a great man of God and a man of unquestionable honor. My father didn't just tell me how to be a man, he lived it. My father showed me the easiest way isn't always the right way and that family comes first( after God of course ).
I have tried to live my entire life based on what my fathers, heavenly and earthly, have directed me to do. If my earthly father is this proud of me, how infinitely much more God can be proud of me. I cannot fathom it. I have been brought to my knees by five simple words of praise given to me by a good man. I am blessed infinitely more than I deserve and my hope above all is that one day I can give the same feeling of joy to my children.

Have a wonderful day.

Restless Sleep

2006-09-03T03:51:00.000-08:00

I didn't sleep very well last night because my mind kept wandering. I've been wanting to buy a tenor sax for a while now and it seems that now I'm obsessing about it. We don't have television right now and I can't spend all of my spare time working out and reading(I've been reading Le Miserables, an amazing book, but an extremely slow read due to the incredible detail Victor Hugo goes into about the various parts of the story). It seems that this is how my brain works. I have a notion about something I want to do and it consumes me to the point that I lose sleep until I do something about it. I have a feeling that this will either inspire me to do colossal things in my life or it will drive me into ruin and obscurity. I believe there is little difference between insanity and genius and I believe the difference is this: that we have a purpose and a means to accomplish the object of our obsession. Too often for people the limitation is money which requires patience. However, when something has become an obsession, patience is usually thrown out the window and only action remains.
Well, there are my thoughts for the morning. Hope you all enjoy.

Still plays in mud puddles

2006-08-27T13:09:00.000-08:00

Succumbing to peer pressure

2006-08-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm finally doing it. Everyone else seems to be doing it so I might as well be a lemming and start a blog of my own. I won't pretend to be interesting but maybe my thoughts will help someone in some way unbeknownst to me.
Be dangerous.