A Jack of all Trades, a Master of None
There are so many things at which I have learned how to do none of which do I feel I have mastered. I've wanted to write a post similar to this for some time and call it "stuff you didn't know I could do" or "Random Facts about Me", but I'm settling with the current title.
My current "trade" is teaching to which I have two years of on the job training and no more. I really enjoy it and have been told I am a natural teacher.
Other trades that I have been involved in...
I was a car prep at Enterprise Rent-a-Car and did a whole lot more than that.
I worked the grill and fryers at McDonald's and as well as helped assemble the burgers. (Anyone who knows me well, know I hate McDonald's.
I have worked as a Janitor in high school cleaning classrooms and bathrooms.
Those are the employed things I have done in my love. The longest of those jobs that I had was Enterprise where I work for 2 and 1/2 years. The shortest was McDonald's where I was there for 3 to 4 months.
How ever this is not the end of my know-how. Lets move on to my volunteer service.
I spent 3 high school summers working at Camp Ironwood, A Christian Camp in the Mojave Desert. During which time I:
Dug many ditches
Trimmed Shrubs,
Ran a cash register
Ran errands
Learn How to Edit Videos
Learn How to drive stick
Ran Plumbing
Did Inventory
Counted to 1000
Touched an Electric Fence
Counsel as Camp Counselor
Did Dishes in the Dish Palace
Take apart a Transmission
And did anything else they asked me to do.
I also learned a lot of other things too.
Now there are even more things to which I have learned how to do, that I don't necessarily remember where I learned them they go as follows:
How to frame a wall
Run and attach Electrical wire
Laid Tile
Laid Carpet.
There are things which I have been taught at home.
How to mow a lawn
How to take an engine out of a car (it never got put back)
Rebuild a lawn mower
Cross-stitch
Bake (real baking from scratch)
Cook
Bar-B-Que
Paint
Other Completely Random Things
I can solve a Rubik cube in 2 minutes
I can make a scorpion wire sculpture
I cam make a handful of origami
I make some awesome paper airplanes
I design website
I've played baseball, soccer, and basketball.
I've played the trumpet and tuba.
I've flown a plane,
I've acted in dramatic productions
I've been a puppeteer
I've preached in church
I've won debates in competition.
I'm not even sure this list is extensive or complete.
But I Don't want to get to the end of this post and say, look at all the things that I have done in my short life, I want to look at this list and say, "Thank You, God, for giving me a healthy life, where I have been given an opportunity to have learned and have been involved in so many things. As I don't know how many more days that I may have on this earth, teach me to use these things I have learned and to use them for your honor and will. May the talents you have given to me not be buried, but let them be multiplied and used to help others."
Why I’m not a Blogger!
Welcome to 2010 and as I promised a blog post. A few months ago I began to realize that I am not a blogger, although I still have a few who faithfully check to see if I post I will no longer promise to blog often. I am not getting rid of my unlinked media site but I will in no way try to keep it up to date with content. I will share most of the reasoning behind it and leave it at that.
- I feel I am too concise. I have never been a wordy writer. If I can explain something in a sentence I'll do it in a sentence. I don't like long explanations.
- To me blogging was a fad. A friend of mine started a blog about the same time that I did, and for a while we were the only two people I knew who had them it made checking other peoples post really easy. Since then at least a dozen or two people that I know have set up blogs, some post daily, while others only once. For a while it felt cool being a trend-setter, but it didn't make me want to blog more often, in fact it became a hassle to read everyone else's blogs and then comment on them, and the more I stopped reading them the less I posted.
- Web Designer. Part of what interested me in blogging was the hacking of the themes and the personalization that I was able to get out of it. And then helping others do the same thing. My wife, brother, Tim. I began to focus more on the themes and less on the content. In the past 3 months I have undertaken a new project of building a website from scratch for Bethel. I spend a lot of my free time working on that, (in fact if I wasn't blogging right now I'd be working on it. I wish I could send you all the link to give you the sneak peek but it's far from done and I can't show it off to the masses quite yet. I foresee that project taking another 3 or 4 months depending on how much free time I have to work on it, but when it is done I'll send word and the link. On a side note if you are someone I know personally and are wanting more control over you blog and less restrictions let me know and I discuss options that I can offer you.
- My Life is not an Open Book. Some blogger share way too much information in their blog posts. I am not a person who feels it is necessary to do that. I could fill my blog with funny stories that might happen throughout my day but those stories would generally be of students from my class. And with as plugged in as my students are to the internet it could be pretty easy for one of them to find out that I was talking about one of them, which is something that I feel would not be beneficial. So I don't publish stories of my students.
- Because.
The list is not extensive, but those are my reasons. I hope I don't crush the feelings of the faithful unlinkedmedians. I hope you have a Happy New Year.
- hold nothing back
New Post Coming Soon
I am working up a new post entitled "Why I am not a Blogger". Post release date is scheduled for early 2010. I hope you will look forward to reading it.
It’s Up To You!
So I've been working on my blog and I found a theme that I want to use. the one your looking at. however I have come upon a problem. None of my other themes that I used in prior times, had a place for a tagline and if it did it looked nasty so I would delete it. The theme I'm using now does have a good place for a taglines to go that I like, however I don't know what my tagline should be. So it's up to you. I would like you, the readers to create a tagline for my blog. All you have to do is leave a comment with your best idea or ideas (feel free to leave as many as you want). I'll choose a tagline that is well liked by the readers and myself.
Summer is near its end
It has been a fast summer. I'm not sure where to begin. It's been a while since I've posted anything at all and a lot has happened I doubt I'll be able to recall everything. Nor is everything that has happened worth recalling. As you may gave noticed if you visit my sight on a regular basis that the look has had a slight makeover. I am not completely finished tweeking with it because I need to spend several hours working on that and I'm not sure when I'll have time for that. Well maybe tomorrow after all it is Labor Day and I have the day off so maybe tomorrow will be a great day to work in it but I'm not making any promises.
I apologize to anybody who takes the time daily, weekly, or even monthly to check my site to see if I have posted. Becuase I have gotten away from my own habbit of looking at all your blogs. I will generally write more often when I'm reading what other people write.
Summer was fun. I work at bethel for eight week inthe summer school program working from eight to noon. The half days were really nice. Renae did not work during the summer so our afternoons were free to hang out and enjoy each others company. Near the end of July we took a week for vacation to Deleware with Renae's parents to go visit Renae's sister Rebekah and her husband Matt. The time away was very enjoyable. We went to the Deleware State Fair and to Washington DC and to Rehoboth Beach. We spent some time relaxing at their house and just spending time with everyone. After we came back for Delewarr Renae went to Oregon to go to my cousin Leroy's wedding. She spent the week with my family andcame back to southern California with Ruth and Daniel. Daniel then spent the weekend with us, we spent that Monday down in san Diego and were able to go make it to a padre game.
Two weeks ago my truck was broken into in our parking garage at the apartment complex the passenger door lock was broken and our gps was taken. It could have been a lot worse the door lock is about fifty bucks to replace and I could switch it out myself do I dint have to pay someone else to do it; and the gps was given to us. The truck was still there and nothing else was taken so we are thankful.
Two weeks ago in-service started here at bethel and school started last Monday. I am once again teaching fifth grade and yearbook but I am now teaching an intro to computers class. The yearbook class and the intro to computer class are 0 period classes this year. That means class starts at 7:05 and goes until 7:50. That's the hour before school starts. Yearbook meets three days a week and the computer class meets twice. So Monday through Friday at bethel from 7:00 to nearly 4:00. But I do enjoy it. My fifth grade class now has sixteen students nine girls and seven boys. Judging by the first week they are hard workers and great learners. I am looking forward to a great school year with them. Yesterday Renae and I spent the afternoon with her parents they came down and visited us they also brought dinner too. We had barbequed hamburgers and baked beans and fruit salad. I had made some snickerdoodle cookies earlier in afternoon so we ate them for desserts.
Tomorrow is labor day if you have the day off, enjoy it. If you have to work, I'm sorry that you do. I hope eveyone has a great day.
*this post was typed on my iPhone so please let me know if I have any major mistakes so I can fix them.
-hold nothing back
-let God have control
Owner of an iPhone
So last night I was asked to go talked to pastor Matt. When I did he said he wanted to give me his first generation iPhone. I was excited and speechless. So I am now an iPhone user. In fact, I am writing this post on my iPhone since I don't currently have Internet at my new apartment.
Yes that's right we have moved to a new place, this time in costa Mesa. If you need my new address just e-mail me and I'll get it to you. We are saving a couple hundred bucks a month by getting a slightly smaller space but it's totally worth it. My Internet should be turned on later today.
Also more news, I am teaching summer school starting today. I have a class of 10 second and third graders that I am instructing in math and reading. The teaching only goes till noon so I will still have most of my summer's days to be with Renae. Well I hope this new tool may enable me to write more often but we will see.
Famous Dave’s Field Trip… and more
I know the what more important is the "and more" so I'll start there. About 8:45 this morning I was told I needed to call my father at home. In my mind I immediately knew what I was going to be told. My Grandmother was just recently diagnosed with Lung Cancer and had been under some chemo which helped. About a month ago her doctors told that there wasn't much more they could do, and gave her about a year. My parent had seen them on Saturday; they enjoyed the time. So I called my father and my dad told me that she had passed away last night in her sleep. They think the cause of death was a heart attack, however since she was a sleep the hospice nurse said she probably didn't feel a thing. I went and found Renae and relay the news, and then talked with Pastor Davidson who was very comforting.
This afternoon, I had planned to take my yearbook class to Famous Dave's in celebration of finishing the yearbook. None of my five students had ever been so we were in for a treat. The food was GREAT! the student's loved it. I had the 2 meat combo with the beef brisket and a hot sausage link, with the sides of potato wedges and mashed potatoes, along with the cornbread and corn that always come with it. Here is some pics. Not going to do a restaurant review here, sorry.
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- Famous Dave’s Long Beach
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- Menu
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- Decor
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- Renae’s Brisket Sandwich
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- My Two Meat Combo
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- Tim’s brisket
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- Bryant and Tim’s Brisket
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- David’s Devil Spit Burger
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- Thalia’s ribs and chicken combo
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- Pokey’s Hot Wings
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- Enjoying the ribs…
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- David eyeing his burger.
-hold nothing back
-praise God because He's active
Entirely Way Too Long
It has been a long time since the last time I blogged, especially since I said I was going to blog the day after my previous post. I guess I should make promises I cannot keep. I will admit I have been working on redoing Bethel's website. Although the final version still maybe upwards of a month away.
Iron Chef was fun. The secret ingredient was cocoa powder. The game plan ended up to make stuff shell noodles with a spinach, cream cheese, ricotta cheese, and cocoa powder for the main dish. It turn out pretty descent. Our appetizer was cocoa biscuits, nasty things... we didn't have baking powder and the girl helping out substituted it with baking soda nasty nasty nasty. For dessert we picked a winner going with a chocolate pizza... Topped with chocolate cream cheese, and chocolate chips and peanut butter chips, drizzled with chocolate. My group got second place.... oh well. if it weren't for the nastybiscuits...
Everything else is going well. I've been able to keep up with the giants more this year than previous years, I have been listening to games on the radio which in great. they are doingok, 14-13 today. Second place in their division.... That means everyone else in the division with the exception of the blue team is doing horrible. The giants are 6.0 games back and have a 3 games series in LA this weekend... BEAT LA!!! BEAT LA!!!! Sweep the series and we'll be only 3 games back. Which brings up an interesting topic. Manny... that's rightManny Ramirez suspended for 50 games for taking a banded substance. Now is the time for any team in the NL West to capitalize on the blue team losing their star player. LET'S GO GIANTS!!!!! LET'S GO GIANTS!!!!!
To Jay, This next Tuesday afternoon I'm heading with my yearbook class to Famous Dave's Restaurant in Long Beach. Totally looking forward to it.
To Everyone: Don't forget to wish your mom a "Happy Mother's Day" this Sunday!
-hold nothing back
here are some iron chef activity pics
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- Simeon mixing the shell’s filling
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- discussing the buscuit recipe
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- some waiting time
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- stuffed shells prior to the sauce
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- with the sauce
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- anna
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- drizzling the chocolate sauce on the pizza
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- nasty nasty buscuits
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- using a double boiler method to melt our own choclate
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- baked stuffed shells
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- shells topped with cheese and basil
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- other team’s strawberries
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- other team’s pudding thingy
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- other team’s chocolate breaded chicken
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- other team’s mini croissant
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- other team’s crepes
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- matt with the other team’s pudding thingy
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- other team’s rice dusted with cocoa powder and cinnamon
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- evaluation form for the judging
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- other team’s choclate steak
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- other team’s choclate drink
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- the table with the creations
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- everyone
Spring Break
So this week has been spring break. A chance to just relax before the last 8 weeks of school, yes it's coming to an end quickly. Monday Renae and I picked her brother Tim up from the airport, and then hung out with her parents for the evening and had coffee with ruth a little bit later that evening. Tuesday morning I got up and went in to Bethel to work on the new youth ministry room. I was going to hang a shelf but things weren't going quite right so after a few hours of frustration I went home and spent some time with Renae. Tuesday night Renae and I spent back at Bethel doing some work on the computer and helping Spencer work on his weddding invitations. Wednesday we ran errands and prepared for the Beach Blast that the youth group was having. Some plans changed we still had the activity but becuase it was so cold and windy we didn't stay the whole time. This morning I went back to Bethel and sucessfully finished hanging the shelf and set of speakers. This evening holds a quiet evening at home with my beautiful loving wife; I'm going to cook her dinner too. Tomorrow evening I have a youth leaders meeting, that i'm excited about. I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow morning, we'll see.
On a side note this is post number 100. My first post, published on March 7, 2007. With is exactly 770 days ago. That was slightly before I purchased the domain. I have averaged a post about every week. that's not to bad. I'll have to try a bit harder to fill you in on some more stuff, we'll see. Maybe I'll put some more recipes up... hmm....
Have a great day.
hold nothing back.
Strawberry Chocolate Pizza
So this last Saturday Renae and I were going to a get together with several other young married couples from our church. It was going to be a potluck were everyone brought a separate course of the meal. I was given the responsibility of bringing the dessert. This is quite the challenge, I make some pretty good desserts if I can say so myself, but there was an expectation given that I was going to bring something amazing. So I put my thinking cap on and the dessert pizza crossed my mind. I've never made a dessert pizza before and so I went in search of a few recipes. Many of them looked the same, some added different things or another. I finally found a simple recipe that had what looked like interesting flavors from Diana's Desserts: a Strawberry Dessert Pizza. Here is her recipe:
For Crust:
1/2 pound (2 sticks/1 cup/8 oz/226 g) unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flourFor Topping:
8 oz. package cream cheese
1/4 cup strawberry puree (about 4 fresh very large strawberries pureed in a blender)
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 pints fresh strawberries (medium to large size strawberries)
Basically what you do is cream the butter with the sugar, (works best if the butter is already at room temperature). Then blend in the other ingredient saving the flour until last, to make the crust; make sure the batter is smooth. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes to let the batter thicken. Place the batter on a greased cookie sheet or pizza pan. Get your hands dirty and make it looks like a pizza crust. Not super thick but not cracker thin either. Place it in a pre-heated oven at 350 F for about 20 minutes the crust should be golden brownish. Now you have made a giant sugar cookie for the pizza crust.
Now the filling,put the cream cheese, pureed strawberries, sugar and honey and blend until smooth. Don't spread it on the crust until that has had time to cool off. Slice the strawberries to get them ready as well. Once the crust has cooled spread the filling all over the crust (evenly please), then cover with the sliced strawberries. Now this is were I veered from the reciped
I rarely follow the recipe to the "t". In fact improvisation in cooking like my favorite pasttime. I wanted some chocolate on my strawberry pizza so I found a recipe for a chocolate glaze in one of my at home cook books. It wanted 4 oz. of melted chocolate (melted with 3 tbls of butter), 1 1/2 cup of powdered sugar, and 2 tbls of hot water. Mixed until drizzling consistency. (If necessary add a little bit more hot water. (do this right before you are ready to use it other wise it will harden and not drizzle correctly).
So I had the pizza all ready to go, snapped a picture and took it to the get together. We had salad, bread, enchilada, and lasagna. all of which were amazingly delicious. After dinner we had a bible study and then it was time for the dessert. There were 10 people there and everyone enjoyed it, There was none left over for me to take home even. It tasted delicious. The crust was a little on the hard side as we cut it but we really didn't notice that once we started to eat it. It was an an awesome recipe, that I found; and I considering trying other stuff with it too.