2 things.

I recently discovered how to look at the different websites that refer people to my blog. I found that three lucky people have come across it running an internet search for the following topics:

"Todd Agnew" – probably not what they were looking for.
“Worship in the rain”
"Animal Rights Activists" – definitely not what they were looking for.

and i smoked another mole the other day.

I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS!!!! WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE SEE THAT?!!!??!

It’s kinda funny talking to someone who’s read my blog. Its a bit of a collision of worlds, my internet persona colliding with the real world me (the biggest difference is i try to use bigger words online. chicks dig it.). Most of the time the person will tilt their head down, turn it slightly to the left, look up (actually, not many people look up...) at me smiling and say, “so, how’re the moles?”, which is slightly disturbing. I try to write about world exploits, poetry, engineering thought processes (pronounced pro-sess-ees) and other aspects of everyday life to provide the general public with a well rounded understanding of what goes on in my head and my life. its aimed to arouse the curiosity of the reader; to cause them to not only question who i am and what makes me tick, but to take a long hard look at themselves, search deep within their own hearts to find the person that God and psychiatrists love. and all they can ask me about is moles.

which brings me to my next topic. The updated score:

Moles: 4

Brian: 5

yup, thats right, i had a recent streak of 3 “points” (for the animal rights activists reading this, by point i mean the slow, painful, trapping of harmless mammals peacefully residing on my property. for everyone else, we’ll keep calling them points.) catapulting me into the lead of this game in which i am the only player capable of conscious thought, and therefore the only player aware of the current match. But instead of me recounting the booty shake i performed on my lawn to the amazement of my neighbors dog, which was expressed by rhythmic barking, consequently producing a more intense/rewarding booty shake, i’m going to do what every good Christian homeowner should do. i’m going to spiritualize the whole thing.

First, lets define the roles. I want to say i get to be God, but i’m a bit uncomfortable with that. I think i might make my property me. we’ll call the moles sin, the and the traps the Bible. in case you’re wondering, i do find equating God’s Word with a chunk of metal in this situation appropriate only because these traps are the sweetest contraptions i own, as i have said before. I’ll introduce more characters later as necessary.

As stated before, since i am my property, and my property has moles which are sin, by the property of communicability (i think), i have sin. This sin, while hidden from most of the world, is most definitely present and active on my property. i may try to put on a good front by mowing, trimming, keeping up my lawn, but the moles remain nonetheless, often without my knowledge. its only by the evidence of the moles that i become aware of their presence, as their telltale signatures left behind give them away. Also, when left unattended, these moles will spread to the neighbors through their underground network.

After starting, i think the roles need to be changed slightly. I (the homeowner) get to be God after all. My house/land is still me, but i think i might call the traps the Holy Spirit. And maybe i’ll call my shovel Jesus. (its actually a pretty sweet shovel) This means, since i believe in a triune God, that the homeowner has become a man w/ a shovel for one arm and a mole trap for the other. all analogies fall apart i guess.

**Side note. Please don’t be offended by my analogy. that’s it**

Alright, on with the spiritual growth. Obviously the homeowner is aware of the moles, since he’s the one that has to look at the piles of dirt on his lawn. Now his shovel serves a couple purposes. On one hand, (pun intended...) it can clear away the evidence from the lawn to leave lush and beautiful grass free to grow, whereas before it would have been smothered and malnourished. Also, the land becomes useful to the homeowner, providing him a premium return on his investment. [not that a) God would sell us or b) God only wants us for our resale value] So, this displays how Jesus can take the most sin-ridden human and clear away the debris and eyesores that we have, and present it to the Father (homeowner) as spotless.

Obviously the moles remain. So the second purpose of the shovel is to provide a means to remove the moles. For anyone that has trapped moles before, the process involves finding a main pathway, digging it up, and placing the trap. When the mole senses that there’s a breach in his/her network, they’re drawn to the open air to seal the previously nonexistent fissure in the tunnel system. With a properly placed trap, the mole crawls through the claws, trips the mechanism and gets creamed like last weeks corn. Parallel: Jesus is the means by which the Holy Spirit is able to enter us and weed out the sin. By continually allowing the Spirit to live in and through us, he is able to draw the sin out into the light and eliminate it.

Also, this demonstrates the interactions and separate but necessary ministries of the three persons of God. Without the trap, the moles would run free, regardless of what the lawn looked like. Without the shovel, the trap couldn’t be planted. Without the homeowner, the hole wouldn’t be dug, nor would the trap be set.

God rocks, especially since if he wanted to he could manifest himself as a guy w/ a shovel and a mole trap for arms.

See? there’s more to this than moles, dangit.

Engineers thought of the day

Yesterday i was driving in my car and i thought to myself, "losing weight totally makes sense. you'd probably save some money on gas milage."

F=MA. the next jenny craig marketing blitz.

Croatia trip. Entry 2

I found the group of people living with Tim and Sara and Croatia to be a pretty well adjusted, fun, and welcoming crowd. For the most part. I was accepted almost immediately into their mini-america, and included in almost everything. I think I even got a ‘good game’ (aka slap on the can) from either pete or john within the first day….I was a real missionary. Unfortunately, my true standing was revealed during the ping-pong tournament where the comment “we can’t let an outsider beat the tigers” or something to that effect was either muttered under the breath by one of the more discreet team members, or bluntly stated to my face by one possessing less tact. I don’t hold grudges. I just gossip. Maliciously. Taylor’s boy crazy. There, I said it.

Anyway, here’s a couple pictures to go through. The manikins in Croatia are great. When most people see this one they either shake their heads in shame for knowing me, or ask, ‘why are you playing dead?’ We observed that the manikin in the window looked shocked and appalled at something on the ground in front of her. We just gave her something to be shocked at.

And these guys are just flat out sweet. The guy on the left graduated from the university of awesome. With honors. You may need to zoom in on his face just to realize how rad he is…he’s obviously looking in some sort of a mirror and thinking to himself, ‘deeeeeeeeeeeaaaaamn!’ The other guy is only allowed to hang w/ the big dog b/c he’s got some sweet facial hair.








So Tim grabbed my camera. I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I’d put this on the internet. Obviously his immaturity is surpassed only by my own.

Check this guy out. The billboard, not me. His picture is everywhere, with his hand jammed prominently down his pants. I wonder what his mother thinks when she sees that. Seriously though, while I am male, and I don’t offer any evidence that I have a great understanding of the female psyche, I am pretty sure chicks don’t dig dudes that walk around like that. Then again, I don’t walk around like that, and am currently single. I have no credibility.

Yes Tim, the fun does start there.













This one’s for the ballerina turned engineer wannabe blog addict Alexis. Since she was a ballerina prevoisly in life, Tim and I thought that she might appreciate it. Even more so if I tried to duplicate it. Anyway, we found this statue in Opatija, which is the touristy town across the bay from Rijeka. So I said to Tim, count to three and take the picture, b/c unlike the more limber readers present, I can’t hold this pose for very long. In fact, if you look closely, its pretty apparent that I’m on my way down. So, Tim counts to three, takes the picture, I fall on my tucus. All of the sudden a small burst of laughter comes from a bunch of old german ladies touring the area at that exact moment. Tim said that a couple of them were acthing the scene out for one another and laughing about it, but I was too busy trying to salvage what was left of my tightly guarded dignity (see first photo). As we passed them later on the trail, one lady acted it out AGAIN either in an effort to remind me that no, I am not a ballerina, or to assist me in realizing how much of a dope I looked like. She accomplished both.

That’s it for now. This is fun, so I should have another set of pictures up soon.

How can you NOT like Todd Agnew?!? Let me count the ways.

So recently a friend asked me to do some music in his wedding, which happened last weekend. When I signed up for the gig (that’s how those of us in the music industry refer to venues where our musical genius is often underappreciated by drunken hordes of young professionals excited to have a valid id and enough cash to make use of it) the groom mentioned that I would be playing, “a couple Chris Tomlin songs, and maybe a Todd Agnew song.”

At this statement, my head began to spin. Over the past year or two, I’ve become annoyed, intolerant even, of the musical style of the tortured male singer expressing his angst by not clearing is throat to show how sensitive yet angry he can be. Which brings me back to the spinning head. So I say to the groom, “sure, of course I’d do it!” all the while thinking, *I’ll sing Todd Agnew, as long as it’s not ‘grace like rain’*. (As a side note, I have yet to share these feelings with the happy couple, so if you’re reading this guys, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you before your wedding. Love you. Mean it.) I don’t know what it is about that song. the lyrics are great, sure, but all that is wrong about the “I’ve got a bit of a sore throat and mom left all my Ricola in Kansas” music genre that Mr. Agnew heads up to me is exemplified in this one song. I think I may actually damage my car radio one day from changing the station too violently. I just want to hear as little of that song as is humanly possible.

So, as luck would have it, 6 weeks later the bride sends me the sheet music, with grace like rain placed at the top of the suite, taking the place of honor, causing my excitement to wane. And wane it did. I practiced the other two songs. Had them nailed down pat, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go through grace like rain. Toddy boy ruined it for me.

Fast forward to the wedding day. Upon arrival I learned that the ceremony would be held in the great outdoors, underneath the big sky that I was raised under. Which would’ve been grand had it not been raining. Not enough rain to move indoors mind you, just enough to let us think that it might clear up by the time the vows rolled around. anyway, my moment of glory rolls around where all eyes are on me, where people reluctantly take their attention from the bride and place all of it directly on my shoulders, where finally I am recognized and the brilliant, breathtaking, and ridiculously good looking man God has raised me to be. I get up to lead worship. In the rain. If you skipped directly to this portion of the entry, I’ll remind you that I’m singing grace like rain.

Naturally the irony of the situation brought a smile to my face. actually a little bit later I let a giggle out while singing (I’m not sure if anybody heard it, but it sounded more like dolly parton’s vibrato than anything, which again, made me laugh a bit more). Luckily I didn’t allow myself to be caught up in laughing fits, and made it through.

So after everything, one woman approached me and said, “I just love how you smile when you lead worship.”

I smiled again.