Energy Drink Roundup – Red Bull

Red Bull

Ian: Uh, tastes oddly a lot like the previous AMP drink. Not bad, but not as good in my opinion.

Elsa: Ew!

Sara: Better…it would wake me up in the morning.

Up Next: Monster

Energy Drink Roundup – AMP “Cherry Hit”

An AMP energy drink can ready for the recycle bin

So, the local grocery store happened to be having a big sale on energy drinks. My Dad decided to go on a spree. Neither of us having tried energy drinks before, now seemed like a good as time as any! We got about six different brands, including Monster, Red Bull, AMP, Rockstar, and two others whose names escape me at the moment. First to be reviewed is AMP, flavor “Cherry Hit.” Check out the reactions of myself, Dad and sisters who (reluctantly after much prodding) participated below:

Ian’s verdict: They aren’t joking when they label it “Cherry Hit.” It has a pretty sharp, yet slightly bitter cherry flavor. I like it, though I’d put it under “acquired taste.”

Dad’s verdict: Tastes like it has an herbal undertone to the cherry flavor

Elsa’s verdict: Tastes like a really bad Lollipop

Sara’s verdict: Bleh!

Up Next: Red Bull

The Day I'll Never Forget - A Poem

Dark was that day

The one I'll never forget

When they killed that Hebrew Man

The "King of the Jews" it was said

 

I watched them as they dragged Him

Laid Him on a tree

They drove a nail through each hand

One through His feet

 

I watched them gamble for His clothes

The mocks and jeers they made

Telling Him to save Himself

If He truly was so great

 

I watched Him bleed

A river of red it poured down

His breathing began to slow

There was no stopping death now

 

I began to turn away

My heart unmoved

By the dying Man on the tree

Until His eyes met my own

And He whispered "It all was for thee"

 

His spirit He gave up

A soldier came and pierced His side

To this day I remember that look

Those loving and tearful eyes

I may never understand

Or comprehend why

He loved my wandering soul enough,

To suffer, bleed and die

The Night Hours

Cheerio to whoever may be reading this blog right now! It's been a while since I've posted here. I haven't exactly been bursting with new ideas for poems and other writings. My idea pool has been pretty dry as of late. So I thought I'd just make a random post about life.

Lately I've been going through this interesting thing where I'm really restless at night and procrastinate going to bed. Sometimes there is a logical reason in life why, but many times it still happens for no real serious reason at all. It's a subtle anxious feeling, as if I'm hesitant to let the day end and begin the next. Often it leaves me baffled and restless up till midnight. I'm sure the medical community has some fancy classification for this condition. For me though, my medication has been an older CD called Can You Hear Us? by one of my favorite bands, the David Crowder*Band. On this CD are some beautiful songs, among the  best I've ever heard. These lyrics from one song in particular, Obsession, really captures the longing I feel on so many of those nights. 

"And I’m so filthy with my sin
I carry pride like a disease
You know I’m stubborn, Lord, and I’m longing to be close
Your burn me deeper than I know
And I feel lonely without hope
And I feel desperate
Without vision
You wrap around me like a winter coat
You come and free me like a bird..."

There have been so many days where I've felt filthy and beaten down in my own mistakes. And so many days when I struggled with feelings and thoughts of all sorts that I didn't even always understand myself. It does leave me in a state of desperation, that leaves me to look to God every time. There are plenty of other sources that I've sometimes tried to look to for comfort, whether it was plunging my mind into the story of a movie or perhaps some new technical article on the latest digital cinema camera. But it never really works. God's been patiently teaching me in this time of life how to rest in Him and find my peace in His presence. And even though it can be a testing process, especially with a fidgety guy like me, we thankfully have the most loving and patient of teachers in Him.

The Way My Feelings Flow - A Poem

How can I understand?

Is it possible to know

How feelings truly flow

They bend and they twist

They fly and they fall

I can’t always tell where they will go

Some days it seems certain they will burst

Like a dam giving way to a storm

Others it feels as if they’ve left me alone

Like the sun in the winter cold

Why does my mind like to disagree?

With the way my feelings go

Why do my thoughts like to clash

With the way my feelings flow

Can one really describe

What I truly feel inside

"Black and Gray" - A Poem

Walking through this world I’m in

My vision full of black and gray

A subtle dark perpetrates everything I seem to think and say

How did I get here, and why do I stay?

Why does the world suddenly look so bleak and gray

There is no great crisis, none this day

Yet my soul seems to almost groan, as if in pain

Perhaps the storms of life have caused a wrongful change

For they did rock me, and still sometimes come

In their wake they leave me weary,

My mind in confusion, my feelings spun

Yet all of it combined cannot stay the rise of the shining sun

For there is too much blessing, too much love for this gray to last

Like rain His love pours, His blessings shower down

With it the love of my family, my friends, also rains down

In this gentle rain the black and gray is soon washed away

And afterwards, a beautiful rainbow shines in its place.

"Burn" - A Poem

I fight day after day

Every time it seems I lose

I gird my sword, I march to war

I try to focus on what is true

Yet my thoughts so easily fly away

They drift like a ship, broken by the sea

Shifting from wave to wave aimlessly

I wander to and fro, in the mist and the fog

Struggling to see the light, to keep to what is right

Yet so easily I seem to fall away

To search after what I think I want

Yet always come up empty

Father, I am lost, help me see

Help me remember all that You are to me

Without you I will fall and fade away with time

Take my weakness, take my frailty

Take all that would hold me back

Set me on fire, make be burn

With passion like never before

Make me run, make me race,

And never stop until I see

You there waiting, waiting for me…

Goodbye: An Essay on the Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good-by, proud world, I'm going home,
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine;
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.
Good-by to Flattery's fawning face,
To Grandeur, with his wise grimace,
To upstart Wealth's averted eye,
To supple Office low and high,
To crowded halls, to court, and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,
Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.
I'm going to my own hearth-stone
Bosomed in yon green hills, alone,
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green the livelong day
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet.

In the poem “Goodbye” Ralph Waldo Emerson writes that all the glories and knowledge of man mean nothing because a man can meet the God of the universe in a bush. This core belief is that man can know God through his heart and own soul rather than through thought and knowledge.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited as one of the leading intellectuals and developers of the philosophy of American transcendentalism. He believed that God could only be known through nature and the personal experience and intuition of a human being, rather than religious tradition and orthodoxy. This was a significant departure from the thought of his time, as many in the 19^th century, including his own denomination the Unitarian church, believed that experiencing God and a person’s spirituality in general were tied to institution of the church, rather than the individual. It was also a departure from the “rational thought” and more materialistic thinking that personified the age of enlightenment.

But is it possible to know God through nothing but our individual experience and revelation? I believe that one can experience God’s presence and glory through His creation, that we can experience His presence anywhere, not just exclusively in the church. The problem with pure transcendentalism is that there is no solidity. It speaks of experiencing God through nature, but gives no indication of just who God is and what He’s like. There are no absolutes or concretes; therefore its foundation is a shaky and uncertain one. At the same time we must be careful of the other extreme. If we rely only on knowledge, our minds, religious tradition and orthodoxies alone and reject the heart then we don’t know God, we simply know about God.

So what is the answer? How are we to know God? I believe Jesus Christ summed it up in Mark 12:30. “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.” We can’t simply rely on our own heart and soul alone to guide us into knowing the true God. Neither can we rely exclusively on the mind. In order to know God, we must first believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior and the Son of God. He is the only way to the Father. Then we must love God with everything we have, our strength, our heart, our soul and our mind. When we do that we will experience God’s presence and love in our hearts and souls, and also in our minds be secure in the knowledge of who God is and His infinite love for us.

The Boeing Museum of Flight

This Saturday morning I went out with the family to take a look inside the Boeing Museum of flight. It's one of the biggest, most renowned flight museums in the country and I certainly thought it lived up to it's reputation. Being a history buff, I really enjoyed the WWI and WWII floors where they had many replicas of planes from that era, along with dozens of artifacts, videos and plane simulators where you could attempt to land a virtual plane. Here are some photos from the trip.

Me and my siblings in a replica of the International Space Station interior

First post! *Cymbals Clash*

Hello everyone out there in cyberspace! So this is my first blog post. With all the other hundreds of thousands of other blogs out there it can seem like an insignificant thing, yet it's still feels pretty cool. Here you will find posts about random events in my life, perhaps some of my poetry, maybe some comments on some music I have been listening to, and I guess just whatever else I may feel like writing in the spur of the moment. I hope you get some enjoyment out of it all.