I now believe in miracles

So, every morning before I head to work to mow lawns and stuff, I go jogging. I usually try to run at about 6:30, but today my boss told me I was not working today. He was going to train the new guy, and then I would do the rest of the training tomorrow.

I love this.

Soo, I end up having a nice breakfast and everything. So I go running at 6:50, twenty minutes late. A guy that was walking across the street runs over to me, so of course I brace for a fight.

I've always wanted to go to a MMA fight. Haven't been able to yet.

A quick eye over reveals he has no visible bulges from concealing a weapon. I do note that he is sporting clothes that I would associate with a 'thug' or 'gangster' in Detroit.

Kind of what he looked like. Except not as much dirt, clothes more rugged, he had a purple and black heavy cotton button up shirt slung over his shoulder (it was fraying), and a Detroit hat with holes in it. Oh, and he had his hair in a ponytail beneath his hat.

The man starts talking to me and explains that he and some friends got drunk last night, and for some reason he can't remember, he parked in a street and a friend took him. At 5 o clock in the morning his friend kicked him out of his car and told him to walk back to his own truck.

Well, so much for this guy to walk anywhere...

He also tells me he's been walking about for what seems like two hours and that his car is a Ranger and is the color Gold.

This was what his car looked like.

My brain kept repeatedly telling me to run back into the house. But then I figured, "I'm a black belt, I'll be fine no matter what happens."

Exactly what my brain was telling me to do.

While walking he told me he drove into the neighborhood and turned and 'stuff'. Very descriptive (in case you have absolutely no sense of sarcasm, he was not at all!).

Reminds me of Mr. Gullible from the Amanda Show.

I logically think about which street he'd probably turn onto and the street called 'Wesley' comes to my head. So we head over to Wesley. Before we say the corner I say a quick prayer. Not even ten seconds after I finished, teh dude says in disbelief, "That's my car." and then yelled, "That's my car!" He ran toward his truck, and then back towards me.

What if I told you this same hand model was the model for the Allstate insurance company 'your in good hands' slogan...

He shakes my hand and says, "Man... Thank you. People just don't offer help anymore. It's just so unlikely... Thank you!"

Google search for the word 'unlikely' comes up with TONS of these types of images.

I stand there, and I watch him rev off into the distance. With a happy smirk on my face I turn around and start my jog.

Not quite as epic as the scene in Oceans Eleven, but good enough for the moment.

Influence

Sooo I was listening to this song titled The Little Things Give You Away by Linkin Park earlier today, and started thinking about influence...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EmcOli28U

You can take tons of messages from their songs.

Lyrics:

Don't want to reach for me, do you?

I mean nothing to you,

The little things give you away,

And now there will be no mistaking,

The levees are breaking,

All you've ever wanted,

Was someone to truly look up to you,

And six feet underwater, I do...

Six feet underwater... and ground.

You never know where your influence starts and stops. Which is one reason why a good teacher is invaluable.

It's legit.

Your influence, whether for good or bad, spreaads to each person you meet. Whether it's just a little or a lot.

Spreads just like a good ol' deadly contagious disease.

All of those little things you do, whether it's as simple as picking up trash that was left on the ground, organizing some project, being a great example to others, or giving hope and inspiration to someone. Most of the time, you won't know your influencing anybody.

There is always hope.

Some people may look up to you, others down, and of course some will be indifferent. But no matter what, you always are affecting someone (even if it's in subtle ways).

Ha ha, I had quite an inappropriate picture here before... it was subtle. Good thing I caught it...

With this in mind, I would like to thank all of those people that have pushed me down throughout my life, and even those who have kicked me back down as I was attempting to stand up. Physically, metaphorically, spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically.

One of my friends wants protesters at his funeral, with police having to hold them back.

And on the flip side of the coin, I would like to thank those who I look up to, no matter who or where you are. Those who have given me hope, and rekindled my belief in humanity. You have all influenced me in profound ways in which I will never be able to re-pay you.

Loved this videogame. Fantastic game, it was quite creative. The picture is here, because a city called Flipside is in one of it's sequels... but I liked the first one better.

Smile

Two blog posts?! Yeah, I'm crazy. I've saved these pictures and wanted to use them so here we go!

He has a lot of good quotes.

Heehee, pardon the language.

Neil Patrick Harris.

Snow Patrol.

 Yuppers.

AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH!

Haha, like my dentist... except he's seriously hilarious, really, he doesn't just force the smile. He somehow makes it come out naturally which is odd, since your at the dentist...

Good sweatshirt.

Who'd want to be a copy? More people than you'd think.

 So I should be able to fly. YES!

 Creative.

 That's quite a few ways you got there Tom...

No comment.

Certainty? 

I like reading handwritten ones much more than those 'blocky' fonts...

Failure and Ficklyness

Humans are fickle and petty. Pretend they both have the same definition. I'm using fickle, as it rhymes with pickle. Which is a completely obvious and irrelevant fact.

Hmm.

What is relevant however, are baseball games. Yes, I was at a friends house a while ago, and my friends lil' bro had just lost a baseball game! Oh the horror!

Charlay! Ouch! Charlay bit my finger!..... That really hurt,

He started recounting all the tales of the terrible things that happened during the game. Such as the referee not calling fouls on the other team, how the referee was related to the coach... He went on and on...

Always whispered into your ear...

Thing is, he was crying the whole time. I was thinking, "Really? He's crying over that?" Then I realized I cried during a pet-abuse commercial, but in my defense, there was a Sarah McLachlan song playing in the background. Anywho, the kids only eleven. In this case, it was failure that hit him. On us adults, it usually doesn't phase us too much, but kids... parents always want the best for their kids. But what is best for the kid and what the parent thinks is best for the kid can be two different things.

I'm not sure. I usually can't see my face when I cry.

Parents don't want their kids to experience failure. But, it is a necessary thing. In fourth grade, the soccer team I was on didn't score one goal the entire season. We even had the goalie come out and try to help us out during our last game! It didn't work. Yet, for some reason our team got trophy's. Trophy's! I felt accomplished... but I didn't do anything. It would have helped me later in life to cope with the other team getting trophy's and me getting none, than to get that dangable trophy which I threw away last week.

What the heck is this dog looking at? Must be something really really terrible. I mean, his eyes!

I'm just trying to say, failure is a good thing. To really hit success, you need to know failure. The fear of failure makes us stop doing what we want to do. Take a moment and be honest with yourself, what are your dreams and desires? Those things that if they happened, you would just LOVE it? But for some odd reason we are terrified of this failure. We need to follow the actors and actresses - don't look for validation. Look at the motto at the top of my blog...

Founder of DISNEY! 'Nuff said.

As to my topic of humans being fickle and petty, yes. Obviously little kids are, as he cried after losing a baseball game. But us adults worry over the most petty and fickle things too. I shouldn't have to mention anything there. Just think of what you were worrying of yesterday, "What should I wear?" Ya know that doesn't really matter much. You matter.

Best picture ever.

But, everybody is fickle and petty in their own way. It's a part of being human. We just have to deal with it in both ourselves, and others. And try to not take little things too seriously, that's always a good motto :)

Yuppers.

The fence

Ah yes. The proverbial fence that sits between good and evil, yet another thing we've all heard about.

You could also think of it as a highway. Like ACDC's 'Highway To Hell' Song.

But, there is a problem with it. It doesn't exist.

Hahahaha, know I have a huge sense of humor :)

No matter what in life, you are either on the good side, or the bad side. You may unintentionally be on the wrong side, however, as the saying goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Good ol Wizard of Oz

But you know which side your sitting on. The dead grass, or the alive grass.

See, the grass really is greener on the good side of the fence! And it's well kept :)

...But, as usual, there is always a 'gray area'. Take for example, James Roday's character, Shawn Spencer, in the TV show Psych. He lies all the time, which is usually considered a bad thing, but how I'm looking at it... to what end is he doing it?

Love this show, it gets so ridiculous at times xD

The gray area is called a gray area for a reason. But, he is clearly on one side of that proverbial fence. The green grass side, as he's catching criminals using his 'psychic powers'. He may be lying to the average person, but that however, is something that will eventually have to be reconciled... probably in Season 7... At least I want him to tell his girlfriend that in Season 7... He's still on a slippery slope however no matter what happens.

There's a gray area

But it also goes the other way around. You can do bad things for a good reason, but you can also do good things for the wrong reasons. But no matter what, your on one side of the fence.

In this TV show they do bad things to bad people for good reasons. It's a fantastic show.

P.S. Don't get this confused with the saying, "Good, better, best.", as that saying is all on the 'good' side.

I've always wanted one of these clear boards. Someday I'll get one.

Sin

There are so many ways I could cover this topic. I may have covered this topic already, but if I did then I am going to go ahead and cover it again.

I love these things. It says two things, one in the other.

So today one of my friends brought me to one of his father's neighbors...and they had both a pool and a trampoline.

Kind of like this, but not as beautiful. And with a trampoline.

Yeah. Not too many people had both. Annndddd their pool was all of ELEVEN feet deep! To add even more, their entire backyard was designed awesomely. Even with a full length basketball court (I would have preferred a volleyball court however). What also astounded me was their immaculately kept lawn and all their pets. They had three dogs, three birds, two bunnies, and lots of fish.

Two of their dogs looked like this... except one of the two was really huge.

One of their birds however was not a parakeet. That disappointed me, I'm gonna get one at some point in my life and teach it how to talk, sing, and play the piano. But they had two birds of some African variety, and a white cockatoo that kept trying to bite me! Lucky he never got me ah ha!

Cockatoo, their bite can hurt.

Anyways, to the topic of sin. One of their three dogs, Walter aka Wally, absolutely hates the water. It's believed that before he was rescued by these people that his previous owners had attempted to drown him. So, when I got on the diving board he just went stark-raving yoinks (figure out where I got that vocabulary from haha).

Some people are this abusive to their pets. Hard to believe, but it happens. He's now in a good home though.

Wally is passionately concerned for anyone whom he thinks might get into the water. So he barks like crazy. Anyways, later I was splashing my friend, Alex, and Wally started biting some of the water in the air. So I decided I'd play a game with him. I started splashing up the water toward him and he'd bite it. I did that for around twenty minutes attempting to get him into the water by slowly backing up, making him have to reach out farther.

If they wanted to get Wally in the water, this is what they would have to do. But then he would be barking the whole time.

It was only then that I realized if he fell in he would bite me and his outrageously long fangs would pierce my skin. It was almost too late. He nearly fell in but caught a leg still up and somehow stayed up...it confuzzled me but then at that point I decided I was done playing that game. Might as well stop playing while I'm winning, well really when I'm still fine and not in the hospital for a 'stab wound'.

I feel so sorry for this kid. But the memes they put in front of him are soo funny...

That's how Satan gets you. He slowly lures you in. Just do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and before you know it...your completely immersed in the water.

No worries, there will be no drowning on my watch. I'm a certified lifeguard.