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TheSpiritThatGuidesUs
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Birthday: 3/7/1982
Gender: Male
Interests: God. Theology. Philosophy. Music. TV. Movies. The Hipster Scene. Being Indie and Cool. Video Games. Science Fiction. Physics. Space. Insert nerdish tendencies here.
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
8/31/2004
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| Greetings Family and Friends, As our move comes
to a close, Beth and I just wanted to send out a quick email thanking
all of you for the support you have shown over the last few years. It
has been a pleasure hanging out with you, talking with you, and getting
to know those of you we may not have known before. Speaking for myself
in this capacity, I know that we may not outwardly show exactly how
much we enjoy being with all of you, but we most definitely do, and
that is something we will definitely be missing as we move.
Just to confirm what exactly we will be doing, as some of you
may not be fully aware that we are moving, here are the details. I
accepted a job offer to teach Middle School Science at
Berean Christian School
in West Palm Beach, FL. We will be moving from the oft changing, never
satisfying climate of central Ohio, to the constant sunny shores of the
Atlantic Ocean. For that we are not sad to be moving. I will have 5
classes my first year, 3 seventh grade classes and 2 eight grade
classes, so at least the administration is taking it easy on me for the
first year. But seeing as the students will most likely not be taking
it easy on me, that would be a request for prayer, both for my sanity,
and their safety :) Beth will be initially taking a job as a teacher's
aide in the elementary school, and will be going back to school to
hopefully finish up an art degree. The school itself is a great
opportunity, and a very stable school. It has projected 900 kids in
the K-12, with numerous sports programs, of which I should be coaching
in some capacity. But, other than assistant coaching Varsity Soccer,
nothing has been confirmed yet in that area. Also, the school is under
the umbrella of Grace Fellowship Church,
a larger church with an amazing ministry and lots of opportunities for
us to serve and be served, so we are definitely thankful for being so
lucky as to have a great church right in our backyard. We will be
living in an apartment for at least the first year, and who knows what
we will be doing after that, given the extremely high price of living
in that area. So, we are finishing up the final touches of packing up our
place currently, and picking up the U-haul tomorrow. If anybody wants
to, and by all means I am begging anybody :), we will be loading up at
5:00 p.m. Wednesday. We honestly do not have that much stuff, so it
really shouldn't take hardly any time at all to pack up...but if you
would like to stop over and help for a little bit, there will be food
to eat while you are here, and there will always be our smiling
faces!! If you would like to help, please just email me back and let
me know, as well as ask for directions if you do not know where we
live.
Finally, our apartment is a larger 2 bedroom apartment, with a
lovely extra bedroom and spacious bathroom, just designed to have
people staying in it for a couple of days or longer. So, seeing as we
are located about 10 minutes from the spectacular beaches of West Palm
Beach, if anybody (and we truly mean this) wants to come down to get
away for a bit...we would be more than happy to have you stay with us.
Seriously. Don't feel like you would be intruding...our door will
always be open.
Our contact information will stay the exact same. Phone
numbers and email address will not change. If you need those again
(obviously you have mine since I am sending it from that address) just
let me know. Our address will be this: **Email me for the new address**.
Again, we will try to stay in touch as much as possible, feel
free to send us emails just to remind us to keep in touch, as we would
love to keep updated as to what is happening in your lives as well.
Thank you again for all of your support, and if you know of anybody
that would like to read this email, that I have not attached onto this,
please forward this to them. We love you all.
Nate and Beth
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| Man do I feel like I'm back in high school. I have just finished listening to the new Smashing Pumpkins cd: Zeitgeist (when you have to double check 5 times to make sure the spelling is correct, you know you are typing about Billy Corgan's music).
So, I fell in love with the Pumpkins best known work, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The epic 2cd set that I dare you to stay awake through the entire 2 hours of music. I just loved the "grunge" minimilist approach to wierd music...it just stuck with me and nothing they released after that matched what they managed to accomplish with that release.
Many ego trips, bad side bands, girly breakups, and non-recognicion years later, they are back at it with some new members to pay off the bills they have racked up over the last 10 years (by the way, I had no idea how popular they really were...Mellon Collie sold 9 million albums...goodness...that's a lot of depressed teenagers). But regardless, they are back....and they are back. I loved this cd. It has the same stylings as their classic music...but a bit heavier and with a modern touch. I can't say much about they lyrics because I wasn't really focusing on those, and let's be honest, half the lyrics nobody could understand anyway, but musically this is what I have been waiting to hear. It's a solid, consistent, modern mid-90's album, which you should listen to if for no other reason than to feel like you are a teenager again. Pick it up...
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| ok...now that i have calmed down and pretended to sleep...i want to share a tidbit of information about a certain trailer that showed during transformers. (http://www.xanga.com/SaltintheWound states a review and a teaser for the trailer much more coherently than i did in my ramblings) apparently this movie is being held under tight secret...which means it will probably be about 2 weeks that we know everything. not sure if i like the "monster" concept seeing as the last scene reminded everyone of planet of the apes and what not...but here's what we know so far...
Right now, JJ Abrams is gearing up on his STAR TREK movie. But not
exclusively... there is another film that’s also getting some of his
attention, and for a little while, it was creating some real confusion
about what was going on over there.
So what is CLOVERFIELD? Well, word from inside the company is that
CLOVERFIELD is a giant monster movie, featuring something that's being
referred to internally as "The Parasite," and we’re going to see a
trailer for it very soon that’s been designed and shot even as we
speak. I’m not sure if it’s going to be attached to TRANSFORMERS or if
we’ll see it later in the summer, but it’s definitely coming soon. And
the end of it should feature one of those iconic images that makes
people talk about a trailer for months.
And what makes this different than any other giant monster movie?
Well, as I understand it, most of the film is going to be shot using
home video cameras, as if from the point of view of real people who are
experiencing an attack on New York. It’s designed as a fairly small
picture, all things considered, and right now, they’re working to make
sure the script is going to deliver some wild thrills (like an
earthquake that levels Manhattan or an oil tanker flipping over by the
Statue of Liberty), but that it’s not suddenly going to turn into a
giant $150 million movie. It’s a tricky balance, and if they pull off
everything they’re trying to do, CLOVERFIELD could be something really
groovy. Not a man in suit in sight.
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| holy frickin crappin flying junk...
we just got back from seeing transformers (not sure how they could show it monday night...but they did, and we saw it) and oh my goodness. i cannot describe to you right now the glory that is the transformers. i am just to giddy and too jacked up still from it. the graphics are seamless. for once, michael bay didn't screw something up. the fight scenes were incredibe. and when all of the robots show up for the first time in the asteroids.....wow...i left a bit of a present on those seats. and the movie is frickin funny...genuinely laugh out loud funny and it doesn't take away from the balls-to-the-wall action.
i could describe for hours about this movie, but that time is much better served just watching it again.
if you are breathing...see this movie now.. NOW!!!!
Autobots...attack!
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| So, last night, I finally watched a film I had been wanting to see for years, when I first heard it was in development. The newest film by Darren Aronofsky (one of my favorite directors...pi...requiem for a dream) who had finally been given a "big" budget and was going to make a film that he had been wanting to make since he became a director. This film got extremely mixed reviews, but the only way that I see that this film could be reviewed negatively is by people who love no one but themselves, and who have no souls or imaginations (which in retrospect is the majority of hollywood). This film is an absolute work of art...an amazingly incredible historical science fiction fantasy love story. I loved it so much I will try to describe it briefly and maybe whet your appetite for those that haven't seen it yet.
This is a film about the questions that nobody has answers for. It’s about the cycle of life, death, love and the infinite.
In The Fountain, the characters played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz are not deeply defined, they’re not fully explained. We meet them at the crucial point of the relationship. We don’t need to know how they met, why they fell in love or any of the history of the relationship, because what is important is she’s dying and he’s desperate and obsessive about saving her, prolonging her life, giving him one more minute with her. He’s a man of science, a man that doesn’t deal with the maybes of the hereafter, the happiness of the afterlife – he doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to stand over her grave. He doesn’t want to lose the one thing in this world he loves.
As a result, in these final days before Izzi's death – he’s obsessing in the lab, trying exotic formulas, innovative – perhaps inhumane experiments. Doing everything but spending what time he has left with Izzi.
This film takes place over the course of probably 1000 years. There is the present story of the lab experiments and the walks in the snow. There is story of 500 years ago, which is from the book that Izzi has written – a fictional book written by a woman that loves her husband and wants him to be her conquistador – questing for his queen to win eternal life and defeat the eventuality of death. Izzi wanted Tommy to read her book, a fictional account about Tomas questing for Queen Isabel. She knew she wouldn’t be saved and that the quest to save her would consume and take Tommy’s life, she wanted him to understand that it wasn’t his fault, that death was natural, that it was peaceful and is nothing to be afraid of, but to be embraced.
Izzi asks Tommy to finish the book and this is where the final story comes in, 500 years in the future, in space. There are ways to intepret this, some see this as fictional as well, but to me, I choose to believe this actually happened. That because of his experimental work, he found a way to live forever, till science could take him to that nebula where Izzi believed her soul would go and be waiting for him, and he would be reunited.
The flashback where Tommy remembers Izzy asking him to go for a walk in the first new snow of the year, the final walk in the first new snow. In Tommy’s mind, he finally fantasizes that he took that walk, that he spent what time he had with Izzi. That science can't give him one more moment, but that caring and paying attention would have given him months of time that he spent obsessing at the lab. That instead of a trying to finish perfectly a book about a questing conquistador – he’d have had memories of going to galleries, museums, shows – of loving her and her loving him. Instead all he has are bittersweet memories of a chase.
That’s what I believe. I am more masochistic than most, so since I believe that the future scenes are real, that makes the end so much more heartbreaking and poetic. That Hugh has lived for 500 years on a quest to die in the spot he knew Izzi believed she would be. That makes this film an incredible science fiction story of obsessive compulsive self-destruction.
But at the final moment, he finally realizes his mistakes, misses Izzi and realizes that the here and now was the most important thing. That his wife’s death was natural and that his talents could have saved future lives, but that Izzi will live forever in his memories of her and in his own natural death, he’ll be rejoined.
But that’s my interpretation of what happened. Aronofsky has made a work of art, one that can be interpretated in a varied amount of ways. It is beautiful, loaded with symbols and stunning colors. The characters are cyphers for us to place ourselves in. Asking each of us how we would deal with the dying of a loved one. And the message I take away from this film is this… I will love my loved ones while I can, as long as I can, for the rest of my life – however long that may or may not be.
This is a film where you do not want to leave. I sat on the couch not moving, not thinking during the haunting credits. I did not want to come back to reality. I could have laid there for hours, immersed in the universe Aronofsky created. This is honestly one of the most moving, beautiful movies ever made. Even if you don't appreciate movies like this, you need to see it, for no other reason than your soul needs to experience it. It is wierd, but beautiful. Give it a chance. | | |
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