First off, I want to say congratulations to this year’s graduates. Whether you’re graduating from high school, college or graduate school, your perseverance through these years of schooling will have finally paid off when you walk across the stage to get your diploma. As you hear various graduation speeches in the coming weeks, you’ll no doubt hear talk about how this is a new beginning, or about what you and your class have achieved and accomplished or how your class was better than everyone else before yours. You’ll be told stories of what you’ve been through and hear talk of the past as well of talk of the future. In addition to all this, you’ll most likely also forget what all of them said the moment you walk away, just as you’ll likely forget what is said here tonight.

With that in mind, I just want to share with you two things that hopefully will encourage and guide you. The first and most important thing that I want to share is that you should seek after God and put your faith in Christ. Every one of us has a future that we look forward to. Dreams that we want to pursue, or goals that we want to achieve. However, without God in the picture, our goals, our dreams are meaningless. Hebrews 11:6 says “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” We need to put our faith in God to earnestly seek after Him in all that we do as we live our lives. It is only through this act that we will be able to fulfill God’s purpose for us. A purpose that will bring us joy as stated in the first part of Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.”

Standing here today and being able to look back on the past 10 years since I’ve graduated (from high school), I can definitely see the grace of God in my life and how God’s plan has developed for me. As I was applying to colleges, I had big dreams of going to the ivy leagues. However, God had other plans for me. After a handful of rejections, he brought me to the University of Illinois, a school that I had barely thought about before applying, but was a school that allowed me to go to one of the better engineering schools in the country, even better than the Ivy League schools that I had wanted to get in to.

When I arrived at Illinois, one of the first things I did was to become involved in a fellowship group. Though it took me a couple of years to find the right one, I made it a point to continue to seek after God. It is through this fellowship group that God continued to bless me with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and He continued to teach me through His word. It says in Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Along with my parents who encouraged me to trust in God and to seek after Him, it is through my years in college that God taught me to really put my faith in him. While being able to graduate with a degree was nice, it was more important that God taught me to trust in him completely.

To those who are graduating high school, college is a time where you will really put your faith to the test. You will find yourself with all sorts of freedom, not having anyone around to tell you what to do. No one will be around to make you go to church, or even your classes. But tonight, I want to encourage you as you go off to college to get yourself involved in a fellowship group and to make good friends. Proverbs 13:20 says “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.” So don’t be a fool! Also in college, you may find yourself tempted, and unsure of what to do in various situations. However in these times, remember what Jesus said when he was being tempted by Satan in Matthew 4:10, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Though I had my own ideas and plans, God knew of something even better. God brought me to Illinois, taught me to really put my faith in Him, and along the way allowed me to meet Mazie. While I’m a pretty laid back person by nature, one event in grad school at SUNY Buffalo taught me that with faith in God, there’s no need to worry. As I was driving to class one evening towards the end of the semester to give my final presentation, I got into a car accident, where by the grace of God I was uninjured. Now, most would say that if one were to get into a car accident roughly 30 minutes before they needed to give a final presentation that that would be a perfect time to start worrying. However, I was able to get the car towed away, find a ride to campus, and give my presentation to get an A for the class. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Jesus states in Luke 12:25. So even in the most difficult of situations, put your faith in the Lord and give your worries to Him.

For those of you graduating college now and are unsure of your futures, I want to encourage you to give your future over to God and place your trust in Him. You may not know what lies ahead of you, but God does. If you are walking with God, and seeking after Him, He will guide you and set your paths straight. In 10 years, you’ll be able to look back and see exactly what God was doing and how each event in your life brought you to the next. Romans 8:28 says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

The second point I wanted to share with you tonight is that as you graduate, to live life with a smile. Too many times we walk about in this world with indifference on our faces. People see us and simply move on never having given another thought to who they walked by. However, if we can walk around with a smile, we’d have a good chance at being able to brighten someone else’s day. Not only does it help others to see us with a smile on, it can help ourselves since if we’re smiling we’re more likely to have a brighter outlook on life. We should also be smiling because we should be content with what God has given us like Paul said in Philippians 4:12-13 “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

So as you graduate in a few weeks, remember to seek after God in all that you do. Whether it’s finding a fellowship group or church to be a part of in the next stage of your life, or finding a job for yourself or even trying to find a future spouse, seek after God and His will for you in your life, emphasis on His will. As well as seeking after God, walk away tonight with a smile. A smile for your achievements and accomplishments in graduating, a smile for your neighbor to let them know that you care, and a smile for your faith in God and the good things that He has in store for you. Congratulations again on your graduation!

When the grass starts to grow, these paths will be somewhat harder to see, with the grass covering most everything up. However, with the grass still somewhat dead, you can clearly see the paths that the voles created. I thought I was able to get rid of the voles last year, but I guess I was wrong as they’re still around. Looks like I’ll have to try even more stuff to kill off the voles. Below’s a picture where I drew along the paths in the grass. If anyone has any good ideas on how to kill off the voles, let me know!

If I had a mean streak in me, I could play Safety as I found a couple of players listed at roughly 6’2″ and 190lbs.

If I added more muscle, I have decent height to play WR as there were a few wide receivers listed around 6’2″ and usually 210lbs. Also if I couldn’t catch anything, I’d also have a good height/weight for a cornerback.

I would also be able to play my favorite position of quarterback. Most of the prospective players were around 6’2″ to 6’4″ and usually around 200lbs. Even Drew Brees who’ll be playing in the super bowl tomorrow is listed at 6’0″, so I have a good height for a QB though maybe a tad on the shorter end.

Running back is also possible but most of the listed RB’s were a little shorter and a bit heavier (more muscle).

So it looks like the NFL could be in my future! Too bad I’d probably get killed the first time someone attempted to tackle me.

I think I’ve taken over 20,000 photos in the past few years, so there had to be some good ones to hang up. One issue is that a large majority of my photos are typically of people, specifically of the YG. It might be a little weird for someone to walk into our house and see a huge portrait of a YG kid. So anyways, after sorting through a ton of photos, we decided to start by printing and framing the following photos.

So we printed these three photos to start with and hung them up. They actually came out looking pretty good printed in black and white. Nothing too spectacular, but we enjoy them nonetheless.

So when I got to the county courthouse, I found out the details of what would be going on. I would be going through jury selection on a civil trial. Fortunately, I had also brought a book that day since I was doing a lot of waiting. When our group was finally called into the courtroom, the judge, attorneys, and their clients were all there and the judge described the case to us.

There were about 40 or so potential jurors also seated in the room waiting to see what would happen next. The clerk went and randomly drew names to see which 18 I believe would be seated. The case was related to a car accident that occurred over two years ago. The plaintiff was basically suing the defendants over the accident. The defendants were already found liable, so I’m guessing they got a police ticket at the accident.

After the 18 jurors were seated, the lawyers for both sides went through the process of questioning the jurors about the case. They asked all sorts of questions were even the smallest detail could relate to the case. Whether a person knew the doctors who performed surgery, whether a person had been treated at the same hospital, and so on. This went on for around an hour before the lawyers went to the back to select the eight jurors to listen to the case.

One thing that I thought was interesting was the purpose of the jury was to basically determine how much money the plaintiff would receive in the end. The jury would be putting a monetary value to what they believed was the price that the plaintiff paid in pain and suffering. The amount that the jury could come up with could be anything since it was completely up to the jury to decide. Maybe the plaintiff’s pain and suffering was only worth $100, or maybe it was worth $1 million. It would’ve been interesting to have been a juror on the trial to be one that decides how much someone’s pain and suffering is worth. Not only do you control how much is paid, but the jury can possibly put the defendant into bankruptcy with a large enough number. Since I wasn’t seated/selected, I have no clue how the case ended, whether the selected jury came up with a big number, or a small number.

I’m not quite sure I agree with all the litigation that’s involved in the country nowadays where people sue others left and right to try and make a quick dollar. However, this could easily change if I were involved in a situation where I need to sue someone else. Is someone’s pain and suffering really worth a huge amount of money? Hard to say. What if the jury came up with a small value, would their pain and suffering be any less than if the jury had ended up with a large number? Maybe I should’ve been a lawyer instead of an engineer, especially since I didn’t think the defendant’s lawyer was really doing that good of a job from what I could tell.

So seeing how I took the liberty to edit my own picture, what do you think about such touch ups in general for photos? One could easily remove blemishes, change how people look, or even make people look better all through editing of the photo. Is this wrong to do? Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

In one article, the topic was on height and happiness, basically talking about how on average people who are taller are generally happier. This was attributed to taller people generally earning more money than their shorter peers, as well as on average being better educated than their shorter peers. Also, being tall can help with the self-esteem someone who’s tall is more likely to command the attention of others than someone shorter.

The second article was related to better athletes being taller, slender, and heavier. The article mentioned atheletes such as Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt and how they’re taller than most of their competition. The researchers tracked world record track runners and how their size had been increasing over time, with Usain Bolt standing a tall 6 feet 4 inches. Michael Phelps himself is also 6 feet 4 inches tall.

In other news, there was a study that came out saying that organic food was no healthier than non-organic food. So no need to spend the extra money on the organic stuff!

Just some more fun articles on the benefits of height

1. You spend more time and money taking care of your home than you do yourself. Since owning a home, I now find myself spending more time and money for my home than I do for myself. When you’re young, you want to spend money on primarily yourself. You don’t have to worry about maintence for your home since your parents always took care of that. However, when you get older and get your own place, you begin to have to spend both time and money to keep things in order. Getting your yard to look nice becomes weekly event that constantly needs attention. You don’t want to be the only neighbor to have brown grass and weeds as high as your knees.

2. A Night out on the town ends at 9 instead of starting at 9. When you’re in college, nothing really starts until after 9PM at night. However, the older you get, the more you find yourself ending your night early so that you can get yourself to sleep. I’ve also found that I also can no longer sleep in, and that I naturally wake up earlier and earlier. On the rare occasion that I do end up staying up past midnight, I find myself really tired and just waiting to go back home to go to sleep.

3. Loud music and noises begin to annoy you. This one I find myself more and more being annoyed with. It begins to really bother me when there’s a loud noise/music going on in the same room that I’m in. When I was younger, this wasn’t such a big deal, however nowadays I just enjoy my peace and quiet.

4. You begin to realize that you’re now older than the sports stars you cheer for. When you’re young, you look up to sports stars because they’re a star! However, when you get older, you begin to realize that “Hey, I’m older than Lebron James and can’t play basketball for the life of me” This is when you get sad and realize that you’re old. Instead of thinking “I’ll be a football star when I’m older” you start thinking, “If my back and knees were better I could do what they do” This can also apply to movie or music stars, take your pick.

5. You realize you have no idea who’s “popular” on the music scene. I was never really big on music. Never having really bought any CDs. Even so, I was still at least current on who was considered “Big” at the time when I was growing up. Nowadays, I’ll turn on the radio and have no idea who’s even singing the song. This one time, while I was watching American Idol, they had Flo Rider on as a singer. Not knowing who he was, I thought his name was pronounced “Florida” only to find out that it was “Flow Rider”… oops

6. It takes longer for your body to recover. When I was younger, I used to play soccer and have no problems playing 3 or 4 games during a weekend. I could run around and not get sore, and not have to worry about any health issues. Now as I’m older, I get sore just trying to pull weeds out of the ground. I also have to watch out how I lift things so as to not hurt my back. Maybe I should try to get back into shape…

7. You keep saying “When I was younger…” In working with a youth group of kids ranging from 12-18, I find myself constantly saying phrases that reference how old I am now. I’ll tell them about how things used to be when I was younger, or how I used to do things when I was younger. The phrase just comes out more and more, and I’m only 27! You definitely know you’re old when you start telling others about what you were doing when you were younger.

Well, here are 7 signs that you’re getting old! I find myself going through all of these. While I know I’m not that old yet, I’ve already passed the quarter century mark. I’ll definitely know I’m old when I find myself having spent more years out of school than in school. I still have a few more years before that becomes true.

If anyone suggests anything worthwhile, we may just put that on the wall!

This got me thinking how people will say that they like change, yet when that change affects them, they’re completely against it. For the most part, I’d say the majority of people are simply against change because it’s different from what they’re used to. Take Facebook for instance, with their recently updated look, you have people complaining left and right about how they don’t like the new look. Maybe this just goes to show how addicted people are to facebook since they’re complaining as if it has a negative impact on their lives.

I saw another article recently that had surveyed people regarding government spending verses taxes. The conclusion that the article gave was that people were ok with government spending as long as it didn’t cause their taxes to go higher. They would be ok taxing other people though, just not themselves. Again, this shows the double standard people have with change. As long as it doesn’t cause things in their own lives to change, people are generally happy.

In my opinion, if people simply learned to accept that things will change, then they’d be able to be happier instead of constantly being upset when something they were accustomed to changed. I’ve heard a saying that said “Hell is where nothing changes.” Life would be pretty boring if nothing changed. So stop complaining and change!