Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Day 50 Update

My goals have become a very significant part of my life. I have been trying to acomplish as many as possible as as quickly as possible. So far I have only accomplished 7 of the 101. From the perspective of accomplishing a certain number of goals per day I am still ahead of schedule. Though there is a certain since that I am mostly accomplishing the goals that are easiest to acomplish. Plus I am not even doing all of the easy to acomplish ones that quickly. So as time progresses we will see how things go.

I feel that I will be a completely different person at the end of the 1001 days. From one perspective it seems totally natural because 1001 days is a long time. Though it seems like it is more significant than that. I think the goals are a coming of age process. It feels like I am becoming a man through these goals. Which may seem weird since I am already 30 but like some other men I know I don't fully feel like I have become an adult yet. It may be do to the fact that I don't have kids but it also seems to be a lack of accomplishment. I think of the quote from Braveheart, "All men die but not all men truly live." It seems like seeing God help me acomplish my goals and striving to do great things is helping me to live like a man.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Invite 300 people in one day to come to my church

The LORD is such an awesome and wonderful God. He is truly able to acomplish anything, there is nothing he can not do. I was thinking I would devote all of today to inviting people to come to my church. But in turned out that I was not able to the whole day like I had wished. I was thinking I would compromise and start the night before and go for 24 hours. But I ended up not doing that so when I woke up this morning I was thinking that I might not have time to invite 300 people to church. Though God worked powerfully and even though a few people told me there would not be enough people at College of the Canyons on Friday for me to invite 300 people. I was able to talk to well over 300 people and it did not take as long a time as I thought it would.

Plus I was able to invite most of the members of the COC football team who seemed genuinely interested in coming to our Bible Talk on Tuesday nights. Hopefully the football team will start coming and we will see some of the get saved.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

2 Dates, Wicked and Some Wicked Traffic


So this weekend was a weekend greatly consumed by dates and a 15 big rig pile up on the 5 freeway. The first thing I heard about on Saturday morning was a big accident on the Freeway and how part of it might have collapsed. All day that was the major topic of conversation everywhere I went. The traffic prevented met from helping my friend Rob move and made caused major delays most everywhere I tried to go. It took about 35 or 40 minutes to drive 5 miles. It was extremely frustrating to me until I realized that God would take care of it all and in the end everything worked out.

It also caused some major changes in my plans for my date on Saturday. But it seemed like God must have had other plans then mine because every thing work out great, even though from my perspective things got messes up. We ended up going to this amazing Indian food place and then we drove down to the Valley. We ended up just walking around but I felt very taken care of by God and I had a lot of fun with my date. I got to Chat with here which can be weird for me but it was cool. Plus we went over to borders which is fun for me because I love books and words.

Then Sunday we where still suffering from some traffic problems, but we made pretty good time to get down to meet with my buddy Charles in North Hollywood after church. Once we got to North Hollywood Charles drove. His plan was that we take the subway to Hollywood then go to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles before we saw Wicked. Which turned out to be one of Tabitha's(my date's) favorite places to eat. It is a great soul food place that has some fantastic Waffles. The one in Pasadena also has fantastic Red Beans and Rice but the where only ok at the Hollywood location.

After that we walked around Hollywood for a while. We went to Ameboa and then went to the Lottery at wicked. It was kind of tense for me because I didn't bring my ID so I was worried we would not win. Though it worked out cool because Stephanie won to Tickets for her and Charles then Tabitha and myself where able to buy some tickets on the side for a reduced price. Though I felt kind of embarrassed because the side tickets where $40 more than the front row seats so Charles and I didn't have enough money so we had to borrow some from the girls. Which help me to be humble and ask for help.

While we where walking around and waiting for the Lottery I had a lot of time to talk to my Tabitha and learn about her. We have gone to church together for several years but I hadn't really hung out with her too much so it was cool to learn about her and her family better. I had a great time making a better friend which is the whole reason for the 100 dates goal. Plus it is fun to get out of the house.

So it was really one of the most amazing weekends and it helped me to get closer to the 100 dates, helped me to get closer to God and to be able to cross seeing Wicked off my list of goals.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Around the World in 80 days

So today was a crazy day. It was the first time I had to work more than 41/2 hours at Starbucks so it left me kind of tired then I am about to go on a date and I hear my date yelling at one of my best friends to shut up. So it was a tad weird.

But it was all up from there. My date and Charles got changed into purple and green and we went to pick up Charles' date and wonderful times ensued. We came back to my amazing house and made dinner it was just some frozen food but it was good. We had some salad while the main course was cooking. The we had some shrimp and linguine which was followed up with some cheese ravioli and with a pesto sauce. Then for dessert coffee and some lemon sorbet by the fire. Well almost the girls thought it too cold to eat the sorbet out side and it was windy so the fire was a bit crazy so being outside didn't last too long.

After dessert we watched Around the World in 80 Days another good academy award winner. It was totally a classic movie. They really don't make movies that way any more. The only problem with the movie is that certain scene where needlessly long. The movie is over 3 hours and while it is a great movie it could have easily lost 45 minutes. Though when the process of watching all of the best picture Oscar winners is done I may have great feelings about the Academy Awards.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

The Joy of Acomplishment

Today is day 31st day of my 1001 day project. Things are moving right along. The main thing that I am getting out of this project is the knowledge that it feels wonderful to be accomplishing things.

A lot of times I can look back at years past and think not a lot has happened. So often I will settle for spending my time watching TV and surfing the internet for hours and hours. Not really doing any thing very fun or productive. It seems like even when I am spending time with my friends life is kind of just wasting away, like sand through an hour glass. Even at work, being in sales, there is never a point when you are done. Even when you are having a great month and are doing way better than your goal you still need to sell more.

So it is nice to have these clear cut goals, where once they get crossed off the list (or even when just part is done) I get a great feeling of accomplishment. Today I spent some time trying to catch up on my bible reading and when I was able to update the blog from 8 days completed to 11 it was amazing.

That said I am hoping to get a lot done in the next few days. I want to have my room cleaned today and start the process of keeping it clean for a month. Plus I am going to walk for 90 minutes today so today may be the first day of crossing everything off of my To Do list. I also want to try and watch 3 of the Academy Award Best Pictures Winners(AABPW) by Sunday night. Speaking of that I have 2 of my 100 dates scheduled for this weekend one of witch involves watching an AABPW. So I will write about how the dates went on Monday. Plus I want to have my board game and CD collection lists done by tomorrow afternoon. So hopefully the "Goals Done or In Progress" section of my blog will be much longer in a few days.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Walk 90 minutes per day for 120 days

Out of the last four days I have walked for 90 minutes twice. I don't get any credit toward my goals unless I walk 90 minutes per day for 120 days in a row. So it takes a lot of discipline. This is a goal I really want to acomplish, though the reasons have slightly changed since I have taken a few stabs at trying to accomplish it.

I put it on the list because I know that walking is a great way to louse weight. Plus it takes discipline to devote that much time during the day to walking. Though I have realized that there are some psychological and spiritual benefits to walking that I hadn't thought of. Ever since I was in Middle School I have always done my best thinking while walking.

Todays walk was awesome. I prayed for the first 20 or Thirty minutes which was great. It was wonderful to get some things off my chest. I have been trying to come to grips with my uncertainty about this woman I like and have been trying to grow in my faith that God will take care of it.

Many times I don't believe that God will answer certain prays I pray. Like to get married or for my car to not run out of gas. So it was great to think about Gods love for me and think about how as my father he wants to provide for me and how he is able to do immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine.

So today walk was great, I really hope that will inspire me to make the time to walk for the next 119 days.

[Update I was not able to make time to walk on Tuesday so I am back to needing 120 days.]

Film/ Edit 5 Weddings

I have been talking about the goals a lot lately. It has been very helpful in accomplishing them. People have offered to help me, plus talking about them has helped me to think about my goals . It also creates opportunities to acomplish my goals.

Like the other day I was talking with some friends about my goals and I realized they are going to get married in December. So I asked them if I could create their wedding video. They where very excited to give me the opportunity, and even offered to pay me. But I felt that it would be better to do it for free. It will save the some money which I am sure they are tight on and it help me start my portfolio. Since filming 5 weddings is kind of a longer term goal it was good to get this one wedding set up.