An Explosive Saturday

I did a lot on Saturday. I even woke up early...which for a Saturday is anytime before 10am. When I woke up, I began furiously writing blogs as I was behind by a couple of days. After that, I ventured out to Lake Arlington for a very lame 2mile run that I almost pooped out on. Gotta build up the endurance again and shave off some time to my mile splits so when I run the "Bucktown" in September, I can get a PR(personal record). Before I went to the lake, I went to Ritz camera on Rand and Arlington Heights Rd because I needed them to develop one of my photos to give to a friend for their b-day and also for a sale that I just made with a REALTOR. It's kinda a tradition of mine now to give a photo I personally took to friends on special occasions. The Burkett's, Revoredo's, Eric, Jene't, Jonathon Bueno, Dot, etc...all have a Ramona Ruskuls original. I've got another friend who I owe a picture to who just had a major b-day about a month ago. Now I'm going to add to this list, not by choice, but because Ritz doesn't understand how to print out an enlargement properly. If you want the details of this horrific event, please ask as to disclose them in this article would take up a lot of space. Ritz screwed up before, but I believe in 2nd chances. Now they took advantage of that and ruined the integrity of one of my favorite pictures because they couldn't understand and follow through on simple instructions and develop a photo properly. Needless to say, I am planning on dealing with them on Monday or Tuesday and will have an update as soon as I follow through. The rest of the evening went well as I attended church services again on Saturday night. Dr. Stowell focused on Psalm 73, where David cries out...why do good things happen to bad people? After that, I chatted with Joel and Mark about work and college. Then I had Joel carpool me to the Harris Bank lot where I met up with Julie, Steve, and Jason. We jumped into Steve's Blazer and headed down to Harry Caray's in Chicago to celebrate Jason's 27th b-day. Liam and Christina Burkett were there and gave Jason a lovely glow necklace. Perfect attire suitable for all the rave dancing he has been doing lately;) We enjoyed a very tasty meal of big prices but of big portions too so we had enough to take home and eat for another meal. I'd like to go back and take a tour of the place next time and really look at all the articles and memorabilia that was on the wall. Jody joined us for a little bit as well but had to leave as she wasn't feeling so good. I wish she could have been well enough to give us her Harry Caray impersonation which is priceless! On the way home trying to get onto the expressway we ran past the "singles" block party and forgot to drop Jason off. I don't know why we didn't just park the car. All of us could have attended and gotten married to someone at the party all in one night! As we continued on our way home, I tried to teach Jason some techno dance moves with the glowstick and Steve let us listen to various radio programming as he drove. Julie followed me home and spent the night at my casa to prepare for the early 5:30am wake up call to go out on a water skiing adventure the next day. Despite Ritz camera, the day turned out quite well wouldn't you say?

Krystal Waters in Chicago

Last night was such a GORGEOUS evening! The weather was perfect for a night in Chicago. I traveled into the city because my friend Krystal drove in from Grand Haven, MI to visit some Chicago friends for a day. I met Krystal through Kim Klotz-Webster. Kim was a camp counselor at Lutheran Summer Music camps and Krystal was one of her campers. Kim eventually recruited Krystal to go to Valpo and pursure her Bachelors in Music- specifically, Vocal Performance. She is a girl after my own heart as she is not a chirpy sorprano voice but a nice, rich, mezzo maybe even really a contralto. This girl is good when it comes to singing and it really stunk that her senior recital was on the worst day of weather in my entire lifetime! Now I just need to wait until she is singing on stage with the Lyric Opera. It was awesome to see Krystal and walk around downtown. We stopped by the Summerdance festival and listened to some live swing music and watched some great dancers cut the concrete in grant park. I took some pictures which turned out okay, but would have been a lot better if i had a digital SLR with mega zoom on it and at least 10 mega pixels:) From there, we hiked it up to the Grand Lux Cafe which Krystal had surprisingly never been to before. We had great conversations about our future career direction, relationships with boys/girls, Chorale, etc. Then Michael Beaver arrived to the scene to join us. He is a friend of Krystal's who also went to Valpo. The conversation got really good then as I heard stories of how the Phi Delts are now kicked off campus and the Phi Mu Alpha's were under probation. I miss college:) Krystal had to leave unfortunately and return back to Grand Haven where many Harry Potter parties were raging strong as the new JK Rowling book was released last night. I returned to the "el" but made a few stops along the way to take some night time snap shots of the theater district. I got on the blue line at Randolph at the Daley center and then had to get off at Clark and Lake which was the next stop. Because of construction, part of the service is down so all those who needed to go in the direction of O'Hare had to take a shuttle bus from Clark and Lake to get back on the blue line at Western and Milwaukee. So my typical 30 minute train ride turned into a 5 min ride to a 7 min walk and wait to a 10 min bus ride to a 40 min train ride to a 15 min car ride. Needless to say, i returned home at about 1:30am. Despite the commute home, the night was fantastic and I am so blessed to have Krystal as a friend:)

A Chilly Night on the Racetrack

It was cold on the racetrack tonight! But it didn't keep all of our students from staying home. I got the opportunity to substitute teach for a level 1 Beginners class as both tutor had previous commitments. It was great working with Rodrigo, Oscar, Ilda, and Guadalupe. They are willing to take risks and learn lots. The most memorable part of the evening was the comment that Natalie and Shawn made as i was getting their parking pass from them. "I Love this!" She exclaimed! They didn't want to leave the track. God has definitely blessed me with an amazing group of tutors who don't complain, who are obedient, and whose love and joy for the Lord is always expressed in their actions and shining upon their faces.

A Trip to Wisconsin

On Wednesday afternoon, I treked it up to Gurnee, IL to visit my best friend Marisol Garcia along with her sister Sophie. I've know this boricua since the second grade! So I hopped onto 294 and all its glory and booked it up North through a mild coverage of rush hour traffic. Apon my arrival, we exchanged quick greetings and then began our journey to Oak Creek, WI. Not a bad drive as we took Waukegan Ave. aka Hwy 41 to meet up with 294 to avoid the tolls. It took us about 30 mins to meet our destination which was the Oak Creek Assembly of God...the church that the Garcia's attend. The reason for my visit this evening other than to spend quality time with Mari and Sophie, was to help Mari figure out whether or not she should be a part of the "singles impact" ministry or the "crossroads" ministry. We decided to check out Singles Impact because if its the equivalent to HBC's version of SAM, she will need to have a friend there for back-up. Sophie headed into Crossroads which is geared towards those 18-25 years old. I knew Mari would rather go to Crossroads after the worship team started to play. Or maybe that was me:) They weren't horrible and we certainly were able to worship God. Their interpretations of some of the modern worship tunes was very interesting. Like the "bosa nova" version of "How Great is Our God." It was a challenge to accept it and not be jealous of the Hillsongs-like praise going on at the Crossroads ministry. Pastor Laurie of the Singles Impact ministry gave a message about making excuses which really tugged at a lot of our hearts. She used the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, when God tells Moses that he will bring the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses is like, wait up God, who am I that I should do such a thing. How many times has God asked us to do something we don't think we can do? Our tendency is to be like Moses and just come up with excuses, reasons why we aren't qualified or why we shouldn't do something He asks of us. As the story continues in Exodus, Moses continues to question God about approaching the Israelites, what if they don't believe me...I can't speak in front of people...I'm no eloquent speaker...How many times have I said that to God in the last year? LOTS! But somehow, I managed to realize its better when God asks us to do things we "think" we can't do. This allows God to truly show us how BIG He is. God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called. As our evening ended, i think Mari made the decision to check out Crossroads next week as she would like to develope friendships with Christians in her age group so she can have some hang out buddies as well as accountability partners and such. Since the weather wasn't so great, I spent the night and when I woke up the next morning, I had a great conversation with Mari's mom, Lillian. She loves being a bilingual teacher! She was telling me this heartfelt story about a student, Humberto, who she recently had in her class this past year. He suffers from seizures. He just came to America and had never been in a school before. She had to start from ground zero with him and teach him just about behaving properly in school really before academics came in. It was a touching story to hear how God used her to minister to this child. The other teachers knew there was something different about the way she teaches. Praise God for her and for her love of the Lord which she shared with little Umberto.

Jesus Rocks on the Racetrack

God did some amazing things tonight on the Racetrack! Numero uno...He kept the skies clear so we could meet with our groups outside. Numero dos...ONE OF THE STUDENTS ACCEPTED CHRIST!!!! How coolio is that? At about 8:30pm we all gathered into the racetrack auditorium and Terri, one of my tutors, shared her testimony as Ernesto, the racetrack chaplain, translated for her. At the end, he asked if anyone had any questions or if anyone wanted to accept Christ. One of our students, Luis, spoke up and said he would like to pray to receive Christ. And so, Terri prayed with Luis while Ernesto translated. It was very awesome to see God use Terri as she was feeling a little inadequate in her abilities to give a powerful testimony. This just shows you how God will use you as a messenger when you least expect it. You need to have a weak moment so that the true strength of God can be seen! Soli Deo Gloria! To God alone be the Glory!

A very late night ride

Directly following Thornhill Fest Day 7, Jody, Julie, and I threw 3 bikes on the back of Julie's car and rushed off to Chicago for the annual L.A.T.E. ride. The LATE ride is a 25 mile bike trip that starts off by Buckingham Fountain and travels west to Foster Ave before making it's way back north long the lakeshore bike path. Yes 25 miles of fun! And at 2am! Woo hoo:) In order to prepare myself for this trip, I made sure to jook up on as much caffeine as humanly possible. So by the time we got downtown, I was wired but it seemed to wear off quickly. Seeking free parking, we parked the car and unloaded the bikes on Lake street over near May St in the West loop. Jody guided us to our meeting spot where we were to join Alex Neukom and Todd Ackland. I almost got killed on the way as there was a car that missed hitting me by a foot. Safely reaching our rondevous point, we gathered the rest of the "registered" crew and headed to our start point to wait some more. Me and the 2 "J's" saved some cash by not registering for the ride. It wasn't a race so we really didn't feel the need to pay $40 for the t-shirt we weren't going to wear and the breakfast we didn't want to eat. We started biking at about 2am heading up roosevelt up to Elston Ave in Greek Town. As I tried to change gears on one of the hills, my chain came off so I had to pull over. Luckily, Todd and Julie called me on the cell and I was able to reunite with my fellow bikers. There were about 10,000 people biking so the streets were swarming with huffy's, treks, and schwinn's. At the 7 mile marker, we stopped at a 24 hour CVS to buy some caffeine and jook up some more. At about mile 10, Todd asked me to lead the group in a sing-a-long of "Bohemium Rhapsody." Others ended up joining us in our sing-a-long and strangely enough as we started to sing..."mama just killed a man, put a gun against his head...." we heard gun fire in the distant or at least what sounded like gunfire. At the 12 mile mark, we stop at the rest stop which looked like another Mecca for bikes. There were thousands and thousands of bikes. Lots were decorated with christmas lights, glow sticks, banners, pinwheels etc....The last leg of the trip was the best because there was at least a 1-2 mile gap of open space to ride at a more appropriate speed. The challenge of the ride was trying to ride your bike amongst 10,000 bikes on the narrow city streets. We all had to share the right lane together. On top of that, you had young kids weaving in and out and slow slow SLOW bikers all around you. It was AMAZING at 4:30am when the sun started to peak up over lake michigan. If I wasn't so tired, I would have stopped my bike to get a better look. I'm saving those "sunrise" moments to share with someone special:) While I reached the museum campus, a guy looked over at me and said "you aren't singing anymore...i really enjoyed the singing." I'm glad that me and my biking crew were able to meet the needs of one of our fellow bikers and provide some entertainment along the way. We finally finished 3 hours later at 5am. At this point, me and the 2 "J's"hobbled back on our bikes and slowly rode off into the sunrise. Despite the back and butt pain I'm feeling right now I would so want to do something like this again!

Thornhill' Fest Day 7

Twas' the seventh day of Thornhill Fest and all through the yard...
All the Yammers were chatting about the hair clippers on guard...
The "regulars" returned, one more round of croquet was played...
Our stomachs were happy as another Eric Wang trifle was made...
On the seventh day of Thornhill Fest a great sight did we see...
Mr. Patrick with a mowhawk, a handsome look we all agree...
So ends a stellar time, another chapter of Thornhill Fest...
The 2007 edition will go down in history, me thinks it's the best!
Detox from BBQ, back to work, back to reality, back to the routine we all fear...
Don't you fret, the Fest will return bigger,better,louder, can't wait til next year!