Martin, who are you now?

Remember that Hot Dog/Home Depot idea that once existed? It still exists (legally on paper), but was abandoned about 3 months and 2 fortnights ago. I had to swallow my pride and ditch the plan because I realized I didn't want to spend 3 or 2 years investing in something that could only provide money, but not a real future. I have yet to be brave enough to tell the blog world of this fact for fear of getting the question "so martin, what are you doing now?" Which my answer up until today would have been "daily push-ups (orange sherbet flavored) " or "occasionally substitute teaching for middle schoolers that thought I was the coolest guy ever solely because I wasn't someone's mom". In other words, nothing. But finally I can answer that question with dignity: I am working for Penske Truck Rental. Now when I meet a stranger, I have something to define me, I have an identity. Although I sorta like the "I'm Martin the Management major at UGA" identity better... ('martin, the kindergartener who was good at kick ball' was the all-time best)

Ah, what the heck

Let me set the scene:
Friday night. My roommate was gone for the weekend. So I'm alone in my apartment. I was feeling like a loser for random reasons. Not depressed though. I had a "I'm really in the mood to sin" attitude. So I decided I would get incredibly drunk by myself.

Yeah, pathetic. Most intoxicated I've ever been. Regardless how the demeanor of this post may seem, I am not proud of this. But I do believe it brought to mind things worth talking about. The thoughts I had while drunk, I jotted them down just in case I would forget them in the morning:

-I thought how ashamed I'd be if certain people saw me.
Mainly I was thinking of if I were a father and my kids saw me....how scared and disappointed they'd be.

-How i could see why people enjoy drunkenness so much b/c it gives you this 'don't worry, be happy' attitude.
We Christians often say “The world only gets drunk so they can forget their miserable lives.” YES YOU ARE CORRECT! Stop acting like they're so guilty in comparison and realize you would be the same if you did not have the hope of Christ. This should make us long for others to know Christ so that alcohol would no longer be the savior of their problems but rather the transforming person of Jesus. I just hate that we act so above this as if we don't have any problems we want to suppress and would never do such a thing (often not because of anything to do with God but because of how other people would view us).

-How this is like a glimpse of heaven.
woah martin, explain yourself. Drunkenness allows you to lose your inhibitions, not being scared of what people think, being in an incredible mood where you laugh all the time. This doesn’t mean we should get drunk, but I know that when we truly grasp the Gospel, our identity in Christ, and God’s love for us (which may not be until heaven), we will have similar experiences.

- How badly I wished someone could share this liberation and enjoyment with me like my future wife or my good buddies or even my brothers.

- How people reading this would think much less of me and how much I would actually enjoy that....how that would just make me want to show you more of my filth so that i'd have zero self-image and righteousness of my own left to cling to which would force me to cling to Christ and His value being my value because that's all I'd have left. A part of me wants that to happen b/c life would be easier if I didn’t have to spend time worrying about and protecting my image of having all my ducks in a row.

- How the last of the mohicans' theme song is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard

-How amazing meeting Jesus will be and how he himself will wipe the tears from our eyes (rev. 21:4)


The reason I share this with you, the reason this personal stuff gets on my blog instead of a journal, is because I long to be open and not afraid of what other Christians will think. I long for life where Christians are not shocked by each others’ sin, but drawn to it with compassion and understanding. I long for Christians to view each other as “he/she belongs to Jesus” instead of being defined as “he/she has this or that problem or this or that virtue”. Another reason, maybe this will help rid people of the deep seeded belief that real Christians, even though they say they are sinners, don't commit real sins. I’m not telling you this to brag about my sin. I am trying to take this story of depravity and redeem it by making it beneficial to others. I hope you will forgive me for my drunkenness, my self-pity, and this blog post. Maybe more importantly, I hope you will be comforted that other Christians are just as messed up or more messed up than you, so maybe you will be encouraged to hide less, be transparent more.

She was awesome in Walk the Line

I've spent who knows how many hours in the library and the bathroom studying and thinking about the following topic. Here's what I've found.

The experience had while watching the movie Legally Blond 2 is diversely metrosexually proportional to the circumstances surrounding the viewing. Here's the data:

Watching it in the theater: Hell
Watching it with guys: Awkward
Watching it with a date: Tolerable
Watching it with a buddy
and Killians Irish Red: Funniest movie of the year

Here I go again...attempting to make a profound point

I hate rules, especially when they come from the church. I hate how Christians make up rules that aren't in the Bible and then enforce these rules and judge others for not living up to them. 'Legalism' is the Christian buzz word for this (ex: No smoking, no drinking, no listening to heavy metal music, no watching R rated movies, no eating meat, no mo-hawks, no poop jokes or pooping in general, and no being friends with people who do these things).

HOWEVER.... I want to make a rule.

If you've ever worked as a waiter/waitress, you know that everyone hates to work Sundays at lunch time because you get all the church people who never tip. I was eating lunch w/ my good friend Joseph Hatcher after church the other day. We made sure we tipped very generously to try to prove the stereotype wrong. As we were discussing the tragedy of religious people being cheap, Joseph made the comment "If you're at a restaurant, and you pray before the meal, you better tip at least 20%." The more I thought about it, the more I thought how much that should be the case. So here it is, my new rule: If you pray before a meal, you must tip 20% (unless it's horrible service, i guess). Any time we are put in a situation where we are representing Christ and His followers, we should do every thing we can to avoid turning people off to the God we claim to know (even though it's bound to happen). And maybe we should even act in a way that might make someone think "God is better than I thought he was" (a.k.a. tipping 21%).

Party like we've been redeemed

Anthony Bradley wrote:
So if the kingdom is real, if creation is all good, if life is not suppose to suck, if God is renewing all things to himself through Christ, if you are united to Jesus and standing before God forgiven, then why is your social life so boring? Why are you not either at a party or throwing a party every weekend? Why are you not inviting people into your community of celebration? (the rest of this)


Touche Anthony, touche. I've never been one to throw parties. But now I want to. My ideal party:

- *Amazing home-brewed beer put into a keg (costs the same as normal keg, but 5 times as good as any beer you could possibly buy at a gas station)
- Live Bluegrass band
- Hoe-down
- In the middle of the room, there's 10,000 6 ft long graduation tassels strung from the ceiling. B/c how cool would that be to run and dance through those.

*actually pursuing what I need to do this

Fellow fans of that beautiful gender

In the past week, I've seen these occurrences:

Situation 1:
3 guys, 2 girls chattin' about people.
Guy 1: "That girl Ashley from summer camp, she was easily a 9."
Guy 2: "I'd even say she was a rare 10."

Situation 2:
1 couple (so 1 guy, 1 girl) and 1 extra girl, 1 extra guy.
Guy in relationship comments "No doubt, I would marry Jessica Simpson if she asked right now."

Guys do this all the time... we talk about hot girls while other girls are in the room. I do this too...I'm guilty of making hot-girl-comments on my blog. What's wrong with all this? From what I've been told and what I've witnessed, this makes girls feel like crap at most, and is disrespectful to them at least. You'd be hesitant to talk about how amazing a speaker Pastor X is while Pastor Y is in the room b/c it sorta implies that the pastor Y is not as amazing a speaker. Likewise, talking about how hot other girls are can make them feel insecure. Because most girls will at least compare herself to the girl you are complimenting and think of herself as lacking (regardless of the truth). I'm just saying, girls' image of themselves is already lower than it should be, for the most part; so I wish we would man up and watch our comments.

Weirdest conversation ever

Anyone ever watched THE KID with Bruce Willis? Of course not. There's a part in the movie where he is back in time and he is sitting there chillin' with his 9yr-old self. It got me thinking how interesting it would be if the 23yr-old Martin got to hang out and talk to the 9yr-old Martin. Although honestly, I'd rather hang out with the 4yr-old Martin, he was much cuter, much cooler. Anyways, this is seriously what I would make sure I said to the 9yr-old Martin if we were to ever hang out:

1) When you get to high school, try to care more about individuals than about your social status, you'll be glad you did later.
2) Take vitamins so your growth is not stunted
3) Try to be less of a parent, more of a friend to your brothers
4) Make Mom pay for you to get guitar lessons
5) Invest in Google stock
6) I promise, everything is going to be alright

then i'd tickle him (me)

Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Beall

Two of my best friends got engaged yesterday. Everything is now right with the world.


(photo taken moments after he proposed)
(just kidding)

Top Fears: Public Speaking, Death, Toll Booths

I drove down to Florida this past week to visit my relatives whom I only get to see 30 minutes a year. The one problem about driving down there is the toll booths. The 'problem' with toll booths is not that they cost money and slow you down, the problem is how much I suck at making it through there without being embarrassed. You got two types of toll booths: one with an attendant there to give you change, and the unattended one where they have a basket-funnel-like thing for you to throw your quarters in. The past 3 times I've encountered the basket-funnel-like booth, I've thrown my quarters and missed. I'm forced to get out of my car, look at the traffic behind me, find the quarters, and try to dunk them back in the basket before the horns start honking.

So as I'm driving up to my first toll booth, I'm thinking of my history with them, how I need to concentrate, and how I will later blog about this ridiculous quirk of mine. This particular toll requires $.75. Sure enough, after siking myself up, I launch the quarters in the air into the basket...two make it, one misses. Hating myself, life, and toll booths, I get out of the car to retrieve the quarter. As I'm outside of my car, I could have sworn that I heard some guy call out from a distant car behind me "It's all in your head!"
But the more I think about it, I probably just 'thought' I heard it.

At the next two toll booths, I pulled up as close as possible to the basket, and actually reached my arm into the basket to place the quarters. So that doesn't really count. I have yet to conquer the toll booth.