Climbing

The other day we went to Inner Peaks climbing center in Monroe. It was the first time I'd been climbing in three years or so. I had a blast, but my arms were almost too sore to ride my bike home afterwards. Here's a couple of pictures.

Home for Christmas

School is over for real now. Grad went well, but was pretty cold. An outside 2-hour graduation at the end of December. Great... After that was all over, Trevor, Travis, Tim, and I went to see the USS Yorktown. That was cool. I have never been over there before. It is definitely worth seeing. We drove back up that night, got home around 2200, and then I had to be up next morning to go pick Tabitha and Matthew up from the airport. They had been planning a surprise arrival here for a couple of months. Mom or Dad didnt' know they were coming for Christmas and everyone was surprised. So now it's Christmas Eve, and things are kind of settled. Derrick Nissley and Ruth Gossner are here for Christmas, too. Sort of a normal holiday time for my family. All the family is here plus a few other 'family' members who aren't actually related. I'm glad my family is so open with their home.

Here's a picture of us guys before we left to head back home on Thursday, and one of Bucky messing around in my 'Dixie Cup', or white hat.

I'm DONE!!!

School is over. Finally. We took Comp yesterday, and that was the last of it. Now it's just paper work, grad practice, stuff like that. We don't get Comp scores until this afternoon, but I think I did alright. It was a really, really tough exam. A lot harder than I was expecting. I think a lot of people failed. We'll see though. People that fail Comp have to stay here for an extra week (right through Christmas) to study and take a re-Comp. That would be miserable. Hopefully not as many people failed as it seems like right now.

I get to see my family in two days, too. I can't wait!

Pictures

Here they are:

My last view before leaving my room in the barracks.















My room:















Curt's room, aka the living room















My first attempt at making bread in quite a while

Weekend... finally

Well, it's the weekend. The last weekend here at NNPTC. All my stuff is moved out, my barracks room is clean and inspected, and all I have to do now is take Comp on Monday, and I'm done. Grad is on Thursday morning at 9:00. After that, Trevor, Travis, Tim and I are going to go tour the USS Yorktown here in Charleston, and then head up to Waxhaw on Friday morning for Christmas.

All moved in... sort of

I finally got all my stuff moved out of the barracks. The last stuff came over with me after school today. Tomorrow at lunch I'm going to vacuum, scrub and dust, and then hopefully get my checkout inspection tomorrow afternoon, and then I will be officially moved out. As for moving in, all my stuff is here now, but it'll take some sorting and unpacking and stuff before I can really say I'm 'moved in'.

I put in 14 hours at school today. 5:00AM to 7:00PM. What a day. Tomorrow is our last subject final exam, which is three hours and a lot of points. Then we have a weekend to study, and Monday is the four hour, 400 point big, big exam. It covers the last 12 months of school, 11 different subjects, and lots and lots of material. But then I'll be done!!! I can't wait. I'll post pictures of my apartment as soon as I unpack that little doohickey that lets me get the pictures from my camera to my computer.

New Church

I went to a different church this morning. Since I'm going to be moving to Mt. Pleasant, I figured I'd try to find a good church down there so I'm not driving 30 miles to church. The one I went to this morning is called Lighthouse, and it's a sister church to East Cooper Baptist. It'll be about 5 minutes from my apartment, when I finally get to move in. I got there a little bit late and missed some of the worship time, but I liked what I heard. Lots of 'Soul Purpose'-type singing. It's not a big church like Faith Assembly is. I think I like this better. It's about the size of Cumberland County Community. The preacher is good... he used to be a lawyer, and he delivered the entire message today without looking at his notes, including quoting all the Bible references he was referencing. He spoke about serving and using the talents and gifts God has given us. It was a good service, and a church I'll probably be going back to. Thank you God for directing me there!

As for other stuff... They are in the middle of painting our apartment, so we can't move in until Wednesday, but we'll probably just end up waiting to next weekend to move in. But they did approve us for it, and all we have to do is sign the lease. Jensik and Kropczynski are who I'll be living with. Both of them are nukes like me, but they're ET's (Electronics Technicians), not EM's. Not that it makes a difference to schedules or schools or anything.

Night pictures

I went out last night to try to get some pictures of the new Cooper River Bridge. It looks really cool at night with the lights and stuff. Out of the 15 or so pictures I took, only one of them turned out halfway decent. To make the lights show up, I had to set the shutter time longer, and then I had a hard time keeping the camera steady enough. Maybe a tripod would have helped, but I don't have one, nor do I feel like buying one just for one picture... :)


And one of my bike sitting under the streetlight, too.

Motorcycle Maintenance Day

That's what my Saturday was... about 5 hours of work on my bike. Nothing really major, just lots of little tune-ups, preventative maintenance, changing the gearing a little bit... I had fun doing it. The bike runs nicer now, and I feel better having done a lot of the routine maintenance stuff.


Here's a couple of pictures.

The Motorcycle

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, here's my KLR. I've had it for about two months now, and have just over 3300 miles on it. I love it so far... should be a great bike if I can get stationed in Guam

Home again

I just got back from a great Thanksgiving weekend with my family. My friend Curt from school here went up with me, too. We both rode our motorcycles up, which was a nice ride up there on Thursday morning, but pretty cold and a bit wet coming back today. We had fun, though. Thanksgiving dinner was excellent. Much better than last years... galley food at boot camp.

Curt got a few good pictures on his camera of our time up there. Mostly of the fishing we did with Trevor and Travis. I'll post them as soon as he gets back to his room and I can borrow his camera.

Update:

Soon to be house hunting

It's about the time for me to start looking for a place to live during Prototype. I've been tossing around a couple of ideas. Either rent an apartment with a few guys from school, or try to find a family around here who has a spare room and wants a boarder for six months. Anybody know anybody in the North Charleston area that has space for a 21 year old Christian guy to live?

Home for the weekend

I just got back from a wonderful weekend with my family. We had a long weekend from school, so I headed up to Waxhaw Friday morning. It was a nice relaxing weekend, and it was good to see everyone. I took advantage of all Dad's tools and got some work done on my bike, too. I've got 2600 miles on it now, and it was in need of some tune-up stuff. A great weekend... now for another week and a half of school before Thanksgiving and another trip home.



Lord, thank you for my family, for the great home I was raised in. Thank you for my parents who taught me about You, who read Your word to me, and who are always an encougagement to me no matter where I am. Thank you for my brothers and sisters, Lord. I am blessed with a wonderful family, and I praise You for them. I love You, Lord.

School, school, school

An exam this morning, and one on Wednesday. And one last Thursday. Crazy, crazy stuff. I'm still enjoying it, though. This weekend is a long one though, for Veteran's Day. My plan at the moment is to grab a tent, sleeping bag, and my Bible and head off for a couple of days alone with the Lord. It's hard to focus sometimes with all the pressures of school, leadership responsibilities, and general Navy 'stuff-to-do' that always seems to crop up. I'd like to head up to Short Stay, a lake-side campground that the Navy runs about 30 miles from here. Hopefully I can fit everything on my bike.


Lord, let me be sensitive to Your voice and to Your leading. Give me Your insight when I read Your word, and speak to me through it. I praise You, Father, for the blessings in my life. You are awesome, my Lord. I love You.

Living in a swamp

This picture is from the walkway going out to the parking lots here at NNPTC. It looks nice and green and beautiful, but what you can't see is the swamp underneath that makes a raised walkway necessary. NWS Charleston is pretty much all built on a swamp. Which means that there are mosquitos. Lots of them. I got bit up this afternoon playing football... right when the sun starts to go down, they get really bad. Hopefully soon when it starts to get colder they'll go away. Hopefully.

Praise and worship... and doing laundry

My original plans for tonight were to finish up with my schoolwork and studying, and then head over to church. The college and career group there was having a praise and worship night, and I really wanted to go. But long story short, God changed my plans for the evening and I felt lead to help out a friend who is really struggling in school prepare for a big exam tomorrow. Since he wasn't going to be ready to study until around 6:30, I headed back to my room to do some laundry. I was pretty disappointed about not going to church, even though I felt that I was making the right decision in not going.

But God taught me something tonight. We don't need a church or a worship band or a group of fellow believers to praise God. It can be anywhere, and at any time. For me, it ended up being in my room while ironing my uniforms. It was an awesome time. Just me, God, and some good Christian music. In the past few weeks, I have found a lot of comfort, strength, and peace in listening to the music of Keith Green, Third Day, Delirious?, and Hillsongs, just to name a few. It helps me to focus on God, and to quiet my heart and listen to Him speak to me. Anywhere, any time, in any situation. Even while ironing my summer whites.

"It is good to praise the Lord
and to make music to your name, O Most High,
to proclaim your love in the morning
and your faithfulness at night,"
-(Psalm 92:1, 2)

Thank you Lord for listening to us anytime, anywhere we are. I praise you with all my heart, Lord. You are worthy of all my praise. Lord, please use me to show your hope and life to the people around me every day. Father, please let Your light shine through me. I want to be a living testimony for You. Convict me of the sin in my life, Lord. Never let me become comfortable. Change me, mold me, shape me to be more and more like You every day, Lord. I will praise You forever, for You alone are worthy of my praise. I love you, Lord.

Parked on the side of the road...

This is not an uncommon sight where I live. Drive down any of the roads over near the docks, and you're likely to see tanks, camoflaged bulldozers, humvees, crates of ammunition... all waiting to be loaded up on one of the MSC (Military Sealift Command) ships and hauled over to the middle east. I thought this pair of M109A6 Paladin howitzers made a neat picture just sitting in the parking lot off the side of the road. Click on the picture to see a larger version...

These thousand hills

These thousand hills roll ever on
Footprints of a mighty God
They bring me to my knees in praise
Amazing love, amazing grace

Was on a hill my Savior died
A broken heart, a bleeding side
Hill of the skull, mount Calvary
The blood He shed, He shed for me

When heaven's hills at last I roam
Forever settled in my home
I'll join the saints around Your throne
Your kingdom, Lord, rolls ever on

These thousand hills roll ever on
Ripples of a coming storm
The morning star precedes the dawn
These thousand hills roll ever on

-These Thousand Hills (Third Day)

Thank you, Lord for good Christian musicians and the gifts and talents you have given them.

Temptation

"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
-(1 Corinthians 10:12-13)

Thank you God for Your amazing wisdom. You have not promised that we will never be tempted, or else how would we grow in our walk with You? You do not allow us to be tempted beyond what You give us strength to resist, or else how could ever hope to be more like You? You use our temptations as a growing time in our lives. You allow us to experience situations in which we have to make a choice: for You, or against You. When these times come, You offer us all the strength that we need to make the right choice, and then wait to see what we will choose. How it must break Your heart when when we dishonor You with our sinful choices, even though You give us the strength to resist. We have no excuse. We can't claim that the temptation was too great; only that we chose not to respond to it as You want us to. It is only through our deliberate disobedience that we fall into sin.

Father, please forgive me for all the times I choose to dishonor You with my choices. I praise you for the strength you give me to make the right decisions. I pray that as I grow closer to You, I would focus less on my own desires, and more on Your will for my life. I love you, Lord.

The admiral's house

I was exploring around the old navy base down here in Charleston a couple weeks back, and I love the old buildings there. The base closed down in 1995 after the BRAC decision in 1994 that it was no longer cost-efficient to keep it open. Although you can't really tell from the picture, most of the buildings, including this beautiful old house, are deteriorating pretty badly. It's a shame that they have just been left to rot. Certain parts of the base, mostly the industrial sector, have been purchased by private companies and are in use now, but other parts, like most of the old officer housing area, are just abandoned and left to the elements. It does make for an interesting afternoon exploring, though.

Beautiful Sunday afternoon

What a beautiful day. It is warm for the first time in a week or so, and it was nice to be able to ride without needing a heavy jacket. I rode out to church this morning, and stopped by Barnes & Noble for a coffee afterwards. I went to the church in Northwoods instead of Summerville because it's a lot closer, and I got a late start this morning.

The picture is taken from the balcony of my room, looking towards the galley. The green and orange objects are decommed torpedoes.

The message in church this morning was about Job. The pastor spoke on how we as Christians are so quick to judge others sometimes. Job's wife and friends quickly decided that Job must have sinned against the Lord. They figured God must be punishing Job for something. But Job remained faithful to God, maintained his integrity, and humbled himself before God. God used that experience to develop Job's character and build him into the man God wanted him to be. Then God turns to the so-called friends, and reprimands them. He commands them to offer a sacrifice and ask Job to pray for them. When Job interceded on behalf of his friends who had been so judgemental and cruel towards him, God forgave the friends. At the same time, He restored to Job everything he had lost. When people hurt us, or falsely accuse us, God wants us pray for them.

It was a good message. It was also good to be back in church. I haven't been in a while. The worship time was good, with lots of songs that I actually knew. Going with the right attitude, and not out of some sense of duty, definitely makes it so much more worthwhile.

"I'm coming back to the heart of worship,
And it's all about You; all about You, Jesus
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it
When it's all about You; all about You, Jesus

King of endless worth, no one could express
How much you deserve
Though I'm weak and poor, all I have is yours
Every single breath"

What a song... and what a promise to God. All I am, all I do, everything about me, Lord, is yours. Use me. Lord, this is my prayer to You today.

I wanna do what You want me to

"Make my life a prayer to You,
I want to do what You want me to
No empty words and no white lies
No token prayers, no compromise"

These words, penned by Keith Green four years before his death in an airplane crash in 1982, kept running through my head last Sunday. I was heading back home after Tabitha's wedding, and had a lot of spare time while sitting in the airport terminal sipping a coffee. God used that time to convict me of those words in the first verse. Looking at my life in the past year, I realized just how far away from God I had drifted. "Make my life a prayer to You"... I had hardly even talked to Him in months. "I want to do what You want me to"... I couldn't remember the last time I had asked God what He wanted me to be doing. "No empty words and no white lies"... that was exactly what my walk with Jesus had become; an empty relationship, broken by lies to myself and others about how I was doing spiritually. "No token prayers, no compromise"... my entire life had been compromised by my willingness to accept what the world had to offer while distancing myself from the love and discipline of God.

God had been building up to this the whole weekend. Watching my sister get married, I was struck by what a lucky man Matthew was to be marrying such a Godly woman. Watching Mom and Dad interact with each other and with the rest of the family, I realized how richly I was blessed by growing up in a home so in tune with God. I thought about how far I had distanced myself from that. Surrounded by my family, I felt like an outsider. They had something I didn't. They had joy, contentment, and peace. I had all the worries, shame, and anger that I had kept to myself and not shared with God.

I cried out to God that day. I talked to Him for the first time in weeks. I poured out my heart to Him, and confessed my sin, and prayed for His forgiveness. I talked with Him about the things that were weighing me down. I praised Him for the blessings He has given me that I had not recognized or appreciated. I surrendered to Him, and He washed me clean.

And then I started listening. I listened as God began to convict me about the areas in my life where I was not right with Him. There were a lot of them. I prayed that he would show me each behavior, each habit that kept me from drawing closer to Him. It was hard. It still is. But He promises:

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" - (1 John 1:9)

It is an ongoing process. Every hour, every day I find I need Him even more than ever. So many areas of my life need to be cleaned up, brought back in line with God's perfect plan. I pray that I will never get comfortable with who I am or where I am at in my walk with Him. Thank you, God, for not giving up on me, even when I turned my back on You. Take my life, Lord, and let it be dedicated only to You, that I might glorify You in everything I say and do. Let Your light shine through me so that I can be an example to the world of Your forgiveness and redemption.

Tabitha's Wedding

I went up to NJ last weekend for my sister's wedding. She married Mathew Berryman, who was in my graduating class in Ukarumpa. I didn't take too many pictures on my camera, but there's more at my family's website. [wysite.org] It was a great weekend, despite being rather rushed. I love my sister so much, and I'm really happy for her.

Playing in mud

This is from a couple of months ago now, but it's worth posting anyway. I got a call from a couple of buddies one Sunday afternoon asking me if I could come get them 'unstuck.' They were offroading a couple miles off base, in two-wheel drive trucks, and had both gotten too deep in mud. I drove over to help them out, but no sooner than they were back on dry, solid ground, than Curt, who had come out to watch, decided to try it too. As you can see, he got in a little deeper than he had planned. What would have been a half an hour pulling two mildly-stuck vehicles out turned into four hours of work pulling Curt's Toyota out of a four foot deep mudhole. You can see that he burried it up to the headlights, but what you can't see is that directly behind his truck is another mudhole, making it rather difficult to find a dry spot from which to pull him out. We ended up buying 30 feet of chain to get him out. What an afternoon.

More pictures here

Charleston area marina

I was out on my motorcycle the other morning, just cruising around with nothing to do, and snapped this and a couple other pictures around the downtown Charleston area. This is a marina on the Ashley River on the south side of Charleston. I'd like to get downtown again sometime and take some pictures of some of the older houses down there. I've got a couple here, but I'd like to take more.

Seawolf Barracks, 2nd Deck, Room 207

This is it. My home for the last four months, and the next two. Once I graduated NFAS (Nuclear Field A-School) I got to move into single-man rooms instead of the two-man rooms I started with here. I still have to share the shower and toilet with a suite-mate, but it's not that bad. The room is definitely small, but for the small amount of time I spend here, it's more than adequate. And I don't have to pay anything to live here. I have to keep it clean enough to pass room inspections, but Mom gave me pretty good practice for that growing up anyway. I have a microwave, fridge/freezer, sink, walk-in closet, and everything else you can see in the picture. Oh, and a TV cabinet that is filled with books instead. More room pictures here.