…attempting to think outside the box in all aspects of life

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For all you music lovers

I love music. I don’t play an instrument, I don’t know everything about music, I can sort of sing but ultimately I just appreciate good music. The thing I love about music is that while there are certain aspects of the music industry that are universally accepted as being great, there are  just as many that are all about personal tastes. I personally have a very broad range of musical interests and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

One of my favorite bands is Showbread, they are a Christian band with incredibly interesting and powerful lyrics with a sound that can only be described as RAW. They have been together for a lot longer than the 5 or so  years that I have been a fan and I am incredibly glad that they are still around putting out music that is unique and unashamedly made to honor God. If their lyrics weren’t enough to convince me that they  really did put God first in their music they went and did something crazy for their most recent album. They signed with a new label called Come&Live! which is a really bold move.

Come&Live!
Basically Come&Live! is a non profit record label that will only work with bands that are willing to give away their albums digitally for free. The goal is to not let price be a deciding factor in whether or not people can get their hands on all of this music that glorifies God. In a world where most artists are focused solely on how to further their career and make more money these bands are giving all that up and fund their albums by generous donations of fan and selling exclusive merchandise.

If you love music, especially music that is focused on spreading the good news of Jesus, you should really check out Come&Live! and all of the awesome artists who choose to share their music this way.
-Kyle-

Posted by  |  March 1, 2011 | Categories: Life | Tags: , , , | Leave A Comment »

Life of a gym member

I’m sore…

I am in relatively good shape, at least I like to think so. At 5’9 and 135lbs some would even call me scrawny, but I have never really been bothered to get buff. At 25 though I know it is only a matter of time before my super fast metabolism slows significantly and I start seeing the signs of  it. I have no intention or desire to ever become part of the overweight/obese population in america so finally it was to look into regular exercising.

I don’t like lifting weights and I am not a huge running fan. Really I would love to just get my exercise from playing sports, but I know I should be doing more than that so I decided maybe swimming was for me. My reasons for this decision were threefold:
1) Swimming is fun
2) Swimming is a near total body workout
3) Unlike running it is low impact.

I had found a few gyms in the area that had pools and after checking them out I ended up joining one! I never in my life thought I would be a person that would join a gym, but now I am actually pretty excited about working out. I am sure that once the novelty of being a gym member wears off that it will get harder to get excited about working out, but last night I went to the gym at 10pm stretched a little then jogged a half mile. After that I went down to the gym showered and changed to go swim some laps. It was great I had my waterproof case and headphones for my iPod and just played some music and swam until my arms felt like jello. Next I went back and jogged/walked 3/4 of a mile then went in the dry sauna for about 10 minutes and showered and went home. Somewhere in there I also spent a good ten minutes in the jacuzzi, it was great.

My takeaways from my first official gym visit are as follows:

- Swimming is hard work and works muscles that you would not expect.

- Running on a treadmill is strange but not nearly as bad as I had anticipated

- Working out in general is pretty nice and if you go at the right time of day the meat heads don’t give you too many dirty looks

So in conclusion join a gym… and don’t be obese

Kyle

Posted by  |  February 11, 2011 | Categories: Life | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

I’m to old for this S…tuff

Well first of all I am not doing so hot at this post a week business… I already missed a week or two, but I will make it up with multiple uber quality posts in the upcoming weeks.

As for the title of this post it stems mainly from one of my favorite episodes of How I Met Your Mother (lets be real they are actually all my favorite episodes) where they talk about the “Murtaugh list” it is basically inspired by Lethal Weapon and they have several things on the list that they are to old for. It is sad that at 25 my body is already starting to make me feel old.

I recently joined an indoor soccer team and we had our first game this past friday and while I didn’t exactly feel exhausted I did feel like my body was breaking down, more specifically my shin muscles felt like there were so tight they were going to pop! I love sports and so far I have been very blessed to have never really had any major sports related injuries (or injuries in general really), but this experience with my shin muscles was painful enough that it really had me worried. It was really disappointing to go through this because I had really wanted to do well for my team, but instead we lost in a big way.

It is odd to occasionally feel so old at only 25 but there are many things that I wouldn’t want to do now that I probably would have done in a heartbeat a few years ago. I can’t really decide if I am getting more sensible or more boring, but whatever it is I think I am ok with it.

-Old man yelling at clouds-

Posted by  |  January 23, 2011 | Categories: Life | Tags: , , , | Leave A Comment »

Growing up sucks

I went to college for 4 and half years putting myself in copious amounts of debt, yet here I am a year after graduation with no job related to my degree and working toward something in a loosely related field. I sometimes find myself wondering where it all went wrong. I can’t help but feel like most of the careers I am thinking about are things that I would be “settling” for rather than truly enjoying.

If I had it my way I would be working for a formula 1 race team or in the dream world being a formula 1 racing driver. It is just hard for me to give up the dream of what I would love to do even though I know that it isn’t possible.

I am starting an alternative teacher certification program tomorrow to hopefully become a middle school math teacher. In theory this is a great job for me because I really like working with teens and I am a little bit of a math geek, I don’t sit around doing it for fun or anything but when I do it I actually like it. It is hard to be motivated though because in the back of my mind I still have these hopes for some incredible dream job.

I am 25 and I just hoped that these seemingly childish things would be behind me and I would be ready to settle down and be a grown up, but I am starting to realize that maybe I am going to hold on to that imaginative part of me forever. It really isn’t so bad to dream, but at the same time I should be able to also focus on and enjoy a career that I will potentially excel at.

So in 2011 I plan on growing up enough to enjoy my chosen career path, but staying young enough to keep the dreams alive.

Old Man Kyle

Posted by  |  January 7, 2011 | Categories: Life | Tags: , , , | Leave A Comment »

Post a week for 2011

I am aware that not many people read my Blog, and i’m mostly fine with that, but I have decided for my own creative purposes that I will Post at least 1 Blog post per week for all of 2011.

To me this is a great way to focus some of my energy, get me off my butt and out of my apartment to seek out new aspects of life and hopefully share my experiences here. I hope to not get to sappy or depressing but I make no promises in that regard either.

If you come here each week or read and enjoy a post of mine please feel free to like the post or comment, it really is helpful motivation to continue.

Also I am done with my old boring signoff ( -Kyle-) and will be trying out many others over the course of these next 52 (at a minimum) posts.

 

 

Posted by  |  January 5, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | Leave A Comment »

The iPhone 4 camera is really nice

I love taking pictures but a lot of times I don’t have my DSLR with me, nor would I want to carry it everywhere. Several years ago I would keep a point and shoot with me, but after a while I got sick of even that. So I just started using my phones camera to snap things if the opportunity came up.

Over the years the cameras have gotten a little better which was great because to start out they had been pretty awful. I just got the new iPhone 4 and I have been incredibly impressed with the pictures that I have gotten from it. I am going to try and do a photo 365 type project (don’t worry I wont be posting each of them), but I thought I would share a few of the shots I have taken in the short time since I received it.

So far the phone overall has been great and for what I would use a point and shoot for it is the perfect replacement for me. I bet it would make a good replacement for a lot of people as well.

more pictures later.

-Kyle-

Posted by  |  August 3, 2010 | Categories: Photography | Tags: , , | Leave A Comment »

Transformation

Wow its been a while and actually it has just taken me quite a while to finally post this (i’ve been done for a couple weeks now)

Anyway the scooter had gotten to the point where I could not see the end of the project, especially not in the limited timeframe I had left. I started to panic a little because my only option was to pay some guys from www.totalruckus.com to finish it up for me. I got in touch with them and one of them agreed to do it and said we could even finish it in one day! ONE DAY! what on earth it took me almost a month to do what would have taken this guy a couple hours, it was a humbling experience to say the least.

He showed up as promised and got right to work on tearing stuff down and getting everything ready to finish up. It was neat that I got to help out with little things here and there (Also went on several parts runs) but I pretty much let him do what he needed without getting in the way. He got started at 1pm and it seemed like we were making good time. In reality we probably were, but the hours ticked away so quickly that next thing you know it was after midnight we had been there for at least 12 hours but it was starting to look like a scooter again.

Just being able to watch was incredible for me because I got to learn a lot about what did what and what was important to remember. I just hoped that some of that info would stick (and that we werent there to much longer). Even though he was working like crazy we didn’t end up finishing until 6am! but hey at 6am I was ready to ride it right then and there and it was an incredible thing to have watched it transform so quickly!

Anyway here is the before and afters for you

And one more from my most recent photoshoot :)

Thanks for following along it was a pretty crazy trip! Next up purchase a house… that should be interesting…

-Kyle-

UPDATE: I apparently have project ADD because after riding this around for a few months once it was finished I sold it.

Posted by  |  May 12, 2010 | Categories: Life | Tags: , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

My First Michael Moore Movie

So for those of you that know me possibly know that I really couldn’t care less about political matters. I vote, I watch some debates or get some decent info so I can get an idea of who to vote for, but beyond that I have never been bothered with it.

When I saw the preview for Michael Moore’s movie Capitalism: A Love Story it was incredibly interesting to me. Seeing the headlines regarding the stock market issues and the eventual bailout of huge companies I really didn’t know what was going on beyond catching the occasional news broadcast, but I did wonder why billions of dollars were being given to these huge companies. So when I saw this movie available at Netflix I got it right away.

By now most people have heard of michael Moore he is certainly known for some controversial movies that are typically “documentaries”. I place quotes around that word because I see documentaries as programs that are primarily based in facts (although I am not naive enough to believe that documentaries don’t have a bias). Some of his biggest films include Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and now of course Capitalism: A Love Story.

I will say that from the opening of the movie I could tell that I was going to be entertained. The first scene is an old movie about the fall of Rome and it was equating it to modern day in the US. This didn’t have anything to do with how factual the movie might be, but at least it wouldn’t be boring.

I won’t recap the whole movie as this post is already going to be plenty long but suffice it to say that I would encourage any open minded person to check it out and here’s why:

- No matter how much Moore may try to direct you to some belief he does also provide interesting information

- For me it actually piqued my interest in politics in general. Some of the more interesting things that he talked about in the movie could have been completely made up, but at least it got me interested enough to decide that I really do want to know more about and be more involved in what our leaders are doing on my behalf.

- It is entertaining. Seriously as I said earlier it whether or not it is true or fair it was fun to watch and I laughed out loud several times.

- Greed, greed, greed…. This movie really helped me to see how greed really effects us and hinders us in our daily lives. We become so caught up in ourselves and making sure we are living the way that we want that we don’t care what is happening in the lives of others. This hits me on a real level and I know that often I am very greedy in my own life looking out for only myself. The film itself really shows just how much greed has to do with the state of capitalism in america today. The horrible things these people and companies are willing to do for the almighty dollar is disgusting. While watching the movie I physically became nauseated on certain parts just thinking about how greedy and soulless some of the decisions these people are making to benefit themselves and ultimately destroy a nation.

It is always fun to experience new things and challenge what you believe in or have heard before. I would say check it out for sure!

-Kyle-

P.s. more ruckus work updates will be coming it has just stalled for the moment

Posted by  |  April 10, 2010 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Just in time

So I needed a place to paint and I decided hey why don’t I just make it a visit home to the family and I will use their garage. The only problem that came up was I decided this on monday and this was the best weekend to go so that meant by tonight I had to get it torn apart so I could load it up for my friday trip.

As I said in my last post I had a little victory and that really gave me the confidence to just rip right into it so today I walked to the storage unit and just started getting after it determined to get it stripped to the bare frame. About 30 minutes after I showed up I got it to this point…

That was a big confidence builder so next I started tearing apart the wiring and took off the front wheel so I made it just in time. I would love to make it seem like everything went smoothly and that it was the easiest thing I have ever done, but that would be a fat lie.

So my tip for the day is don’t try and unbolt things in the dark in tight spaces with crappy tools :)

-Kyle-

Posted by  |  April 1, 2010 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Little things

So there I sat staring at this stupid scooter with no idea what I should do next. I felt useless and I was ready to call it quits….

I started telling myself things like “ill do projects like this when I get a house with a garage” and “I don’t need to know how to this kind of stuff maybe I can come up with the money to pay someone to do it”

It wasn’t looking to hot… but just then I had a breakthrough I decided to try to get the gas tank out. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal and really now it wasn’t, but I had done everything I could without being nervous about getting it back together. Any step past where I was would be like when your kid brother takes apart a radio or a clock or something to see how it works but can’t get it back together to save their life.

The gas tank came out fine and it was the only thing I did that day, but it gave me the courage to just tear that sucker apart and I will do my best to not leave this clock/radio/scooter in pieces…

-Kyle-

Posted by  |  March 31, 2010 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , | Leave A Comment »

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