Christmas... What's it all about?

Boy oh Boy... i am not looking forward to Christmas shopping... i am looking forward to giving gifts but i hate all the crowds and shopping and commercialization of Christmas these days... i swear there are decorations out in July these days... its insane... whatever happened to the true meaning of Christmas?... i guarantee that if you ask any kid what the holiday is all about they would say, "Getting Presents, Santa, Raindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Big Trees!"... i personally wouldn't consider Christmas my favorite holiday... its just way to big and grand... i like family and friends... Thanksgiving takes the cake in my book... I still haven't done any shopping and there is only like 2 weeks left until Christmas day... not even... i guess i will have to compete with the other million people sharing the roadways, parking spots, and store isles this last couple of weeks to get all of my shopping done... But i guess that's what you get for waiting... Oh well... I'll survive I'm sure...

What's up Sam and Mike?...

Work

So today sums up the week from hell at work... i worked just about every day and i put in about 48 hours... i am beat and i am looking forward to having tomorrow off... i could use a good day of rest... alright well this is all i really wanna write... something new for all of the devoted readers to read... so sam if you are at the inn tomorrow moring you'll prolly read this... lol... ok... later...

Band Of Brothers

Tonight at 7:30 pm, six or seven guys will meet in the upstairs of the Dutch Village Inn to talk about community and money, both topics from Donald Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz. After the meeting we will head to andrews house more than likely and drink coffee and smoke pipes/ cigars. We will have a lot of deep conversation or maybe not... who knows... we usually do... but the thing is, we are what we say we are... a Band Of Brothers... what happens there stays there... and this is my every Tuesday night... i love it and would consider it my church for the week... i get more out of it than i ever did at my last church... and we always say that what we do is what church was in Jesus' times... just a meeting... a Bible study... a Band Of Brothers... here you go Sam... something read while you wait for us and drink your coffee... lol... see you in a bit...

Evan

Tonight on November 6th I said goodbye to a friend of mine named Evan... he is in the NAVY and has already completed boot camp and A- School with flying colors... he came home on leave for 2 weeks and we have hung out just about every chance we have had... you see, Evan is like my brother... i am glad to be able to say that he is one of my best friends... I honestly love him like a brother... it's tough knowing that he is going to be gone for a year to Bahrain in the middle east... ya he'll get leave and all but i am moving to Minneapolis in about 6 months... what then?. And in all cases with the military in our extremely unstable world today, he is going to be in danger alot of the time... My friend Sam wrote a blog recently about the fact that Evan's chances of dying "trump all of ours by 1000%."... that hit home when i read it last night while Evan was sitting by me updating his myspace... i hate to say it but tonight very well could be the last time i ever see Evan... i know it's a morbid depressing thought but what if?... so this leaves me thinking what would life be like without one of the best friends i have ever had or anyone could have for that matter... SAD... tonight as i left his house, pulled out of his driveway and drove home i prayed for him... but i found myself praying very selfishly that God would protect Evan so i wouldn't lose my close friend... suddenly i looked at it from Evan's parents' point of view... What will tomorrow be like watching the little boy who grew up in their house for all of these years go put himself in the line of fire for our freedom?... SAD... Much more sad than i could ever know... the truth is anything could happen... as i wrote this i found myself crying much of the time... i am going to miss Evan alot and i hope to be in contact with him... So i guess thats all i have to say is that i am going to miss him... and i will probably find myself continuing to pray selfishly that God will protect my good friend... but i will also pray that He will protect Craig and Margaret's son and a protector of our country and more importantly our country's freedom... i said goodbye to a friend, a brother, part of my family... and its hard... but this happened and presented me with something to write about... something to spill onto a cyber scrap of paper for thousands to read if they please... here you go Sam... something new to read...

-Bradford-

A Trip To Minneapolis

About a year ago a friend of mine who has been my best friend since about 5th grade decided he was going to go to a recording school in Minneapolis... so he, his girlfriend,myself, and a friend of mine decided we were going to move westwardly in July of 07'... we also decided to take a trip out to check out his school and a couple of other schools... we took the L Dog's younger sister with us... we left at about 12 at night and hit the road for Minneapolis... it was a long drive accompanied with humor and interesting sights, like 8 bikers on route 80 at 3 in the morning and i almost hit a couple of family pets who ran out in front of me at a rest stop... i drove the first leg of the trip which was from northeast ohio to just outside of chicago... it is a long drive but it went by quickly... i actually didnt sleep but only about 30 minutes during the whole drive... we finally got to Minneapolis at about 3pm where we were greeted by an hour and a half traffic jam... we found the hotel, all took showers and i slept for about another half an hour... later that evening L dog's uncle met us at the hotel... we decided to go to a Twins' game... awesome... also andrew found out how hard it is to park a mini van in stadium parking...lol., after the game at which we had terrible but fun seats we went back to the hotel and crashed for a few hours... we got up early and hit the world famous, Mall of America... awesome, i call this place "Hot Chick World", because as you could figure there are thousands of beutiful girls here... we rode the metro that afternoon and went to the wearhouse district which at night is a hoppin' party if you know what i mean... it was awesome. we stayed at a different hotel that night, which was a suite and it rocked... let me go back a bit... before we left, Lindsay and Leah wrote honk for man tatas on all sides of the van with cheap wal-mart glass chalk... that night we tried to get it off and realised the mistake... it wouldnt come off until we scrubbed it with glass cleaner and about 2 roles of paper towels... crappy idea... the next day we hung out in the city for a while and then we left for home... i drove the second shift this time on very little sleep at all the whole weekend... i dorve through chicago which isnt even tempting to fall asleep... but ill tell you that once we hit Indiana, i was all over the road and decided about half way through that i couldnt drive anymore... we finally got home about 9am and i slept all day... it was an awesome trip... i now know why they call Minneapolis, "Minneapolis Nice"... the people are really nice... i am pumped about moving there except for the raging snow storms... its gonna be wild and i hate winter so we'll see how that goes over... so that is the story of me and 4 friends going westwardly and having an awesome time.

Thank You

I would like to thank Kyle Wetherald for helping me put that pic on my blog page... Thanks Buddy.

Check This Out

So I just started this thing and i dont know much about it but i think it can be cool once i get things rolling... We'll see how it all goes... hopefully awesome.