The End of an Era...

Ah last night marked the end of an era in my small group.

Last night was the final evening that my current 8th graders would be in my small group. They are now moving on to bigger and better things, namely high school. This was a banner year for 8th graders from my group too because this is the first batch of kids that have been with me since the beginning. John and Kevin were my faithful two that have been with my during all three years of my time on staff. They were consistant in being there every week, they were the ones who encouraged me and others in the group, and they were the ones I have the most memories with. I have spent several camps with John and Kevin, specifically, and have seen them really change over the years. I got to be there when John was saved at summer camp, I got to be there when Kevin grew out of wearing Zelda shirts everyday. I got be there when Kevin had his first girlfriend and then realized that it was totally selfish and stupid to have a girlfriend in 8th grade so he dumped her. So many things we have done and seen and experienced together, and now its all over.

I have more than just John and Kevin though. I have like 8 8th graders in all. Christian, Austin, and Luke were all transplants from another group after their leader stepped down. They made their home in my group after being passed around from several leaders who stepped down. They have all been a joy to have in my group since they joined last summer. I will miss them all.

Carter, Dillion, Zack, and Dylan were also part of my group. Even though they were not there often becasue of sports or other activites, they were still part of the group. They are moving on to bigger things now too.

To all my eighth graders, I pray everyday that you will continue to pursue Jesus with all of your hearts. All of you have made an impact in my life and I hope I have in yours! Thanks for having fun with me and letting me be your leader for a while. Have fun in High School, you are in good hands!

My new guitar setup rocks!

Ladies and Gents,

I promised you a blog about my new guitar stuff and here it is.


I present to you, my setup

Isn't it B-E-A-utiful? Let me give you all the specs here.


First the head, this is the part that generates the noise. I have an Orange Rockerverb 50 head. This thing is 50 watts of pure awesomeness. I can do everything with this head. Classic rock? You got it. Blues? You got it. Super leads and awesome rhythms? Again, Yes. Scooped out NuMetal tones? Deaf-inetly. This is one of the most versatile and sweet sounding heads I have ever played. It was definetly worth the price!

On to the cab(the big black thing). Its a Mesa Engineering Rectifier Cab loaded with Celetion Vintage 30 speakers. These are arguably the best speakers on the market in terms of sound and affordablity. They handle the head like a dream, classic mids, great highs, and nothing beats Mesa's cabs in terms of lows. These things handle the bass like it was nothing. Nothing at all.

Now my guitars. I have had both of my electric guitars for some time now. The first, with the awesome crackle finish is my Epiphone Les Paul "Nuclear Edition." A great guitar all around. All mahogany body, great action, super tone. If I didn't know better I would think it was a real LP and not a knock off. Although, Epiphones are the best knock-offs around. The second one, in totally awesome black satin finish is my Gibson SG Standard. This thing is so my favorite guitar so far. The neck on this thing is so wide, I love it. The action is fast and it sounds amazing. This is the guitar that launched a million great classic guitar riffs. AC-DC, Deep Purple, and many many modern guitar players use SG's to put out that classic crunch.

I have a pedal board too that I am using, too many different ones to get into but they are all awesome. Only Boss and Line 6 for me!

The other thing that this setup reminds me of is how great my God is. He has blessed me with not only the ability to play guitar, but the funds in which to buy expensive gear so that my guitar sounds totally awesome. I have always wanted to use my gift of music to glorify his name and got a small chance to a few years ago with my band Exodus Falling. I would readily welcome another chance to do this either for a church or with an original project. My heart's longing and prayer is that whatever I do I do it for God's glory and not my own. To whom much is given much is expected. This applies not only with our money, but our gifts and abilities as well.

Still rocking in the free world,

- JJ The Coolest

Congratz Dave, on being less lame

Everyone give David Culver a huge round of applause, he has successfully demonstrated his ability to consistently blog, therefore he had been moved off my "Friends who don't update their blog so you might be wasting your time list."

So go read his blog. Its pretty cool.

On another note, they just annouced that Guitar Hero is going to have a sequel. Guitar Hero was possibly the coolest game ever released, other than WoW of course. So watch for Guitar Hero II in stores this fall. It would make a great christmas present for the rock 'n roller in your family.


Or for me...

BTW, Level 40 this weekend. Oh yeah I'm cool!

Updates

OK, so here is a fly-by update of my life right now.

God is still good, I'm almost to 40 on WoW(mounts will be so awesome), I bought a new guitar amp and am getting a cab this week(so awesome sounding, check for blog on it later this week) and my good friend Scott Nelson is maybe gonna move back from Texas.

Yep, all good!

Multiculturism at its finest

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Multiculturalism has reared its ugly head again folks. Welcome to the suburbs of Denver, Longmont CO to be specific. It is now against a certain high school's rules to have an American flag in any form. You can't bring one to school, have one on your car, have one on your shirt, etc. Why? Because of some tempers flaring during some "protests" started by illegal immigrants. Then taken to the schools by students that think that they need to demonstrate their allegiance to a country that their parents fled just quickly enough so they would be born where and aren't illegal. Apparently, especially in Colorado, there have been a bunch of High School students walking out of classrooms to "protest" some of the legislation that is in the US congress right now.

Now I was a High school student once and if I got wind of a walk out because of a protest, I wouldn't care what they were protesting, I would just walk out of school. If I wanted to take a day off, I would just claim I was protesting. "I am protesting the unfair system of grading in this school. I can't believe that they would fail someone who doesn't do homework and never attends class. It’s not fair; they just want a better life for their kids." Now this sounds ridiculous, at least I hope it does, but this is the same thing as kids walking out of school because of them protesting legislation to make illegal immigration a crime.

Now, if you are an American citizen you have certain unalienable rights. If you want to wave a Mexican flag, you can, if you want to wave an American Flag, you can. That is your civil right to do so in a peaceable manner. I don’t know why you would want to wave a Mexican flag instead of an American flag, because aren’t we in America? Isn’t the reason you can to America to become an American and enjoy the freedom in the most prosperous nation in the world? It isn’t? You mean you traveled all this way just work in a near slave labor environment and then demand welfare and other rights of citizens while slowly bleeding a stalwart economy dry? Wow. (While this may not be the intent or heart’s desire of an illegal, it is effectually the effect of their actions.)

This is the problem with many of the illegal and their “protests” in general. First off, an illegal immigrant has no right to assemble peaceably and protest government actions. Why? Because they aren’t citizens. Second, by waving a Mexican flag, you aren’t showing that you want to be part of the American system and be a productive member of society. You are saying, I want free healthcare, money from a system I don’t contribute to, and maybe I will devalue myself by working for someone who mistreats me, pays me too little for my work, and treats me like a slave. Isn’t the purpose of schooling and education in America to have children learn how the system works and become productive members of society? Isn’t the purpose of education to prepare for life in the real world and to teach them they are responsible for their actions? What are we telling our youth if we say, “Ya know, what you did by walking out of school was wrong, but we realize it’s because you were being oppressed by the system. So we aren’t going to hold you responsible by suspending anyone who walked out. We are going to ban any display of patriotism by any individual. We are going to punish everyone for some people’s mistake.” Welcome to Red China.

Multiculturalism is a product of liberalism, and liberalism is a plague. I have met so few liberals that actually believe in their ideology and will politely disagree with you. The, even though they disagree with your viewpoint, will allow you to have your own viewpoint. In fact, my friend at work, Matt Ekstrom is the only one I’ve ever met. I disagree with Matt on politics almost 100% of the time, but deep down inside, he’s a nice guy

What is happening in CO is wrong. Students should never be allowed to walk out of school without suspension. There could be exceptions but I think not. What is even more wrong is to punish all of the students for the behavior of some. If I am a legal American citizen and I want to have a flag on my car, be it Mexican, American, Polish, or English, I should be able to. It’s when the system (which in this case happens to be liberal) tells me I can’t there are issues.

Oh and it’s ridiculous to compare these movements to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. The main difference between them was that the African-Americans were citizens, therefore they had the rights and they were being denied. Illegal immigrants have no rights (under the American system), which is why people can treat them like slaves.

On a completely unrelated and much more positive side note, Tom’s message was uber-encouraging this Lord’s Day. Reminding me of a lot of reasons why we do what we do. It’s definitely worth a download.