Arboreal

Oil your chain.

A bike works best when maintained with care. While putting effort into maintenance doesn't guarantee you won't crash, it reduces your odds of a flat tire.

Relationships are a lot like that. It takes some work to make them run smoothly. This work is always worthwhile. I have never regretted spending extra time with a friend, but I often regret not doing so. Who wants a friendship with a flat tire of neglect? 

"But anyone who remains in the teaching of Christ has a relationship with both the Father and the Son." (II John 1:9).

Slow down a bit.

There's a hot shower waiting back home. But my goal isn't to get there as quickly as possible. I'm riding because I enjoy it. Yes, the feeling of speed is wonderful – but so is the reward of picking a clean line.


Better to do the right thing slowly rather than anything else quickly.

Don't hang on so tight.

The best way to get through a rough, steep spot is to let off the brakes, loosen your grip on the handlebars, and let the bike bounce around beneath you. A slippery root will always grab your back wheels and sling it sideways. But this isn't so bad unless you were expecting to go straight.

"'I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord" (Jer. 29:11). He knows his plans, and I don't. I should be ready to accept the occasional redirection from my anticipated path.

One of my favorite coincidences, if such a thing exists, occurs when driving: to arrive at the destination at the same moment as a song ends.

I am intrigued by the general consensus about the speed of time.  Out of our varied lives, we can all arrive at the office on a Monday morning and decide collectively,  that was a fast weekend.  For all I know, I could go to sleep tonight, have a strange dream, and wake up in 2043 groggy- and everyone would seem to agree, yes, the past thirty-one years did pass quickly.  That's funny.

Job applications via email are not worth it.

Winter tires are worth it.

Never buy a car at night, or in a hurry.

Show your friends and family that you value them.

A little bit of grace covers a lot of mistakes.

If possible, don't make mistakes.  Some people don't understand grace, and everyone is watching you.

God will provide, if you ask him to.

I graduated from college one year ago today.

It's been a while since I've written anything, but I find myself in the airport with free wifi and nothing else to do.  How about another roll call of things I am currently thankful for?  I might have done this before.

Topping the list: watching the moon set through the fog as I blasted down the Guide Meridian and I-5 very early this morning.  Regina Spektor on repeat and completely empty roads until halfway to Seattle.  Nothing but win.

Another cool thing: bacon.  Everybody knows bacon is good- how about a whole pack for breakfast?  I'd  rate that well beyond good.  Four guys, four packs of bacon, much of it flame-roasted over the campfire.  And no backyard campfire, mind you: it was at Murray lake, at the top of the Coquihalla.  We were living the dream, and it was an excellent dream.

Also very nice: pancakes for supper, with fresh blueberries.  How about an after supper walk with Tank the dog and blackberries on the side of the road? I told that pug, "You know these things are edible!?"  He just looked at me.  Blue- and blackberries in the space of an hour!

And you know what else I appreciate?  My car is still running.  I bought it for under a thousand dollars in January with well over 400 000 kilometers on it.  It's still going, remarkably.  A trend that I hope continues.

I'm going to fly to Toronto now.  See some friends get married.  Good stuff. Peace out!

I could have had no idea what being an RA would mean for my junior year. 

keep reading >>

For my second year, I got to move in with some of the best friends I had made the previous year…

keep reading >>

Welcome to a four-post series on my college experience. This is pure nostalgia, so don't read it if you aren't already bored.  Also, there will be a whole lot of lingo that only Dordt people will understand.  Anyways, let's start with freshman year...

keep reading >>

A Brief Commentary on Photography, and Art vs. Craft

keep reading >>

After seeing the images and stories coming out of Japan this morning, I want to respond.  I have no words, so I'll just re-post this simple graphic from Arturo Torres.

I spent high school and college learning how to hate writing.  I worked hard to write as little as possible, though I never replaced all the periods in any of my Times New Roman, 12 pt., double-spaced oeuvres with 14 pt. periods.  I have, I'll admit, browsed the thesaurus looking for longer synonyms to get a paragraph onto the next page.  It was easier than forming another sentence at one o'clock in the morning.

And now?  I just feel like writing something every once in a while.  On Sarah's blog (which is a good read, by the way), she added this quotation under her profile picture:

I am desperate to write. I am crazy to write. I want to write. (A.P.)

I don't know who A.P. is and I don't share this level of passion.  But I do want to be a very good communicator, and that's more than listening well and speaking clearly.  Outside of direct interaction, writing still holds the gold standard for communication.  Unlike video, its only real competitor (as per Neil Postman), the written word doesn't disappear after you read it.  And though a well-executed graphic design achieves its effect through the visceral, text is still its backbone.

As a designer, I must not only know how to make words look good, but how to make good words.  I want to write.

I've learned that there's beauty everywhere.  During my time in Sioux Center, I enjoyed Iowa's magnificent sunsets, spacious plains, blizzards, double rainbows, even the fearsome power of a tornado funnel.  On trips to Kenya and the Philippines, I had my breath taken away by the mind-boggling Rift Valley, the lush greenery of the Filipino mountains, and one epic moonset.  Road trips within this continent have shown me the allure of an empty moonlit highway, the unceasing thunder of Niagara Falls, and the surreal Mount St. Helens devastation.

The past few years have brought an incredible, wide variety of experiences in almost every sort of scenery, and for that I'm thankful!  However, when I wake up to a view like this, it makes all the hassle of moving back to Canada seem worthwhile.  It just feels like home.

Agassiz, BC

I'm in Chicago for Thanksgiving break with my roommate, and it's interesting being back in a city.  One thing that really stands out to me is the car culture here, which is much more vibrant than that of small-town Iowa.  There's a wider variety of cars on the road, and people care more about them.

As a tourist, the aspect you see most of a city is its roads, and the cars on them.  You're surrounded by hundreds of people on the freeway, but because there's no interaction with them, you know them as their cars.  There's the jerkface Audi that cut you off a mile back.  There's a mint, classic Volvo wagon– what a beauty!  There's a lumbering Bonneville in the left lane with one tire half-flat, followed too closely by a big work truck.  Losers.

I'm a relatively new car owner, so I'm still processing how it becomes a huge part of one's identity.  I'd love to be able to claim it hasn't been that way for me, but honestly I'm far too proud of that beater in the parking lot.  Today a friend and I went to a nearby Ford dealer to check out the new Fiesta, discovered that we knew more about the car than the salesman did, and had a lot of fun pretending to be impressed by the wheel options and seven airbags.  We're going back tomorrow to see if we can get a test drive.  I don't want a $15k Ford – if you gave me one I'd sell it – but it sure is fun playing these war games with the salesman. 

Is this who I've become?

Tonight when I got off work early at 10:00, I thought I'd spend the $20 Walmart gift card I'd been given.  It's cold now, so I drove with the engine barely off idle, letting the car warm up at her own pace.  Thanks to the expensive repairs scheduled for next week, I'm not taking LaFawnduh the Honda for granted right now.

When I got there, I went straight to the clearance aisle, hoping to find something random and fun.  Nothing.  Why would anybody buy this stuff?  Checked the automotive aisles, thinking I could score some cheap gadget for the high-maintenance lump sitting in the parking lot.  Nothing.

Perused the toys, feeling very self-conscious as I looked at the Hot Wheels (hey, those things are actually cool)!  Nothing.  High school girls walking this way.  Moving right along…  looked at the cds.  Radiohead?  Not in the mood.  Saosin?  Meh.  Brad Paisley?  Much rather have nothing.  Went through the men's clothing, tried on a jacket, but realized I was already wearing one.

It was getting lonely at Walmart.  And I didn't want for anything.

Defeated and a little depressed, five bucks less in my wallet and a $25 iTunes gift card in the passenger seat, I didn't drive quite as gingerly on the way back.  But neither did I want for anything.

Photographs captivate me because they capture a moment in time like no other medium can. It's my ambition to achieve control over my camera as if it were an extension of my body: eyes, hands, aperture and shutter working together to capture the decisive moment, or perhaps express it– for to photograph is as much to design as to capture.

I don't know why I wrote all these fragments down but I'm sure I'll enjoy reading them in the future.
11:00 pm in the 55th Ave.

keep reading >>

This weekend, it was a real pleasure to enjoy a sammich with my grandparents and sister at The Fruited Plain.  The older I get, the more I appreciate them.  Because they're a big part of who I am.

Parents' Weekend here at Dordt was a fun opportunity to meet a lot of other students' parents- and learn a little more about who they are.