Archive by Topic

The Official Launch of the "Archive by Topic" Pages.

By: Goo.

This little blurb is being written to highlight the official release of the first "Archive by Topic" page. The first one is (drum roll please) "Mountainboarding." Don't tell me you didn't see that coming. Mountainboarding is the natural choice because

A: The majority of Randomer material deals with mountainboarding.
B: It is the only one done.
C: It is the only one started

It is also my intention that all of the Archive by topic pages be visitable by a direct external link. So it'll be:
www.randomer.sphosting.com/[insert name of topic here]
So for the mountainboarding one, it is:
www.randomer.sphosting.com/mountainboarding

Oh yes, I almost forgot, the main access point for these pages will be from the archive page. As you well know, you can visit the Archive page by clicking on the link to the left. If you go there, you will notice that all the "Archive by Topic's" are at the top, and that the normal "Comprehensive Archive" is below that. (The comprehensive archive will continue to be updated monthly.

Feel free to post any feedback about this website update.

P.S.
The next archive by topic section will probably have something to do with all the fictitious stories published on Randomer.

The Future

By Goo

5-12-06

I’m writing to tell you the path computers will take in the future, at least as it relates to schools and students.

In the immediate future, students (and even adults) will carry around some sort of external hard drive, with at least a terabyte of capacity with them wherever they go. Prior to this everyone will have been carrying laptops around highschools, but people will have realized how impractical it is to carry a laptop to all your classes, to the public library after school, maybe to work, and then home, to your friends house... No, it just won’t be convenient. So they will all take to carrying a terabit hard drive with them wherever they go. For highschoolers, the computers will be built straight into the desks. But they won’t have anything on them. Instead, the student will plug in their external harddrive, and all the students files, programs, and even their operating system of choice will automatically boot off of their hard drive. The only storage built into the actual computers will be just enough to house the program that boots the hard drive, and the rest will be RAM. It is even possible, probably probable, that the students will just be able to keep their HD’s in their pockets, and then just flick a switch to “transmit,” so that it transmits wirelessly from their pocket. Then, they’ll boot up the computer, choose from a list of nearby hard drives the one that is theirs, and log in with a user name and password. This will effectively eliminate the need to have to plug it in each time. You could just keep it in your wallet or something, and go from computer to computer with out even thinking about it!

Of course, this is before everything goes holographic. Once that happens, this will all be obsolete.

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Thoughts from a cliff top

Thoughts From a Cliff Top


By Goo

5-5-06

Well here I am, taking a break from mountainboarding and sitting on top of a good sized cliff. The clouds cleared up pretty good about 15 minutes ago, and now the sun's just a blazing down.

I love mountainboarding. You can go from adrenaline pumping action to relative solitude in seconds. If it wasn't for all the noise from highway 95, it would be like totally quiet.

But it isn't.

No wonder my fear of heights has diminished so much over the years. I do random stuff like this all the time. I've kinda confronted my fears and overcome them.

For a bit there I was just lying down with my head over the edge. That felt cool. Mainly, because this a big ole cliff, and most of the section that I am sitting on juts out away from the main cliff. So if you look over the edge, you can't see the bottom of the cliff. It's pretty eerie. But an extremely cool feeling.

I wonder if I should go back to riding? Nah, its just perfect up here! Yeah, the clouds are really dispersing nicely, now. It was so gloomy when I got out here!

Ha! The clouds are just about right to make cloud shadows. You know what I'm talking about: when you can look out over the landscape and see darkened areas where the clouds are blocking out most of the sunlight. Hey! There's a big one right next to me!

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Hello Shadow (old)

Hello Shadow

Taken By Goo



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Turkey Vulture (old)

A Hawk

Taken By Goo



This is a shot I took of a hawk soaring over Levis Mound whilst I was mountainboarding.

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Why Aren’t There More Mountainboarders?

By Goo

Written 4-23-06

I cannot understand why there aren’t more mountainboarders in this world. I mean, to me, its just such an appealing sport. You challenge yourself continually by trying new runs and tricks and such, and when you succeed, you receive such a gratifying surge of satisfaction that there is nothing that I can relate to you that will effectively translate the feeling in words unless you have mountainboarded before. (Its really neat, because you don’t even have to be good to get that feeling. Just bettering yourself is awesome!) And, to top that off, there is the thrill of speed and/or the thrill of weightlessness, coupled with the possibility of serious bodily injury at any moment! It is such a rush!

But maybe some people don’t get pleasure from that type of thing, I don’t know, because otherwise there would be tons more riders all over the place!

I think the biggest reason that there aren’t loads of mountainboarders ripping around all over the place is because I’m just weird. (Well, not just because I’m weird... more like every mountainboarder.) I guess I (mountainboarders) must be weird to get a kick out of intentionally throwing myself in harm’s way. I’ve heard the term “Adrenaline Junky” used to characterize such people as myself. Maybe that’s just it, maybe I’m an adrenaline addict, and like no one else is. Yeah, that kinda makes sense, because the massive bunch of drug addicts outweigh the adrenaline addicts by a ton. But what do you do with the stoners who are adrenaline junkies, too? Wow, now we have a quandry. Sounds like laundry. Oh well, move on. Maybe not move on, because I’m pretty much done and wrapped up. Hoorah!

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About Randomer

By Gregory Heil

4-20-06

Note: This was written as the intro for the "Randomer "In Print" Volume 1" publication.

You may have just pulled this publication out of your mail box and gone “Hey, this is from Greg Heil! But what the heck is Randomer? I remember when he used to publish the Clark County Gazette, but that was ages ago.” Well let me tell you that all of your questions will be paired with answers in just a short bit.

Now, to get everyone on the same page:
In case you did not know, for quite a few years when I was a kid, I published a “newspaper” of sorts which was basically comprised of my writings and other random stuff. Well, I eventually kinda grew out of that stage, and pretty much stopped writing altogether. I think it happened about the time I started going to public school, which may have been to blame. Yeah let’s blame the rotten public school system, hoorah! (I wonder how many teachers are going to read this. That will be a laugh!) Well my life changed dramatically, a lot for the better, some for the worse, who can tell. But anyhow I arrived in English class last year. That is where the beginnings of the idea of Randomer first started forming in a dark recess in the back of my skull, but it took a while to become something. Basically, Mr. Worachek and his stringent rules/guidelines pissed the living hell out of me. It makes me really mad, really really mad, when someone tells me how and how not to write. But for the moment I was just really pissed off at English class. Then, in American History and Biology, we did this project on the Monkey trials of 1920 something, which was basically a whole evolution deally bob. Anyhow, there were several different roles you could do, and one was journalist. I was like “Hey, I know how to do that, that’ll be easy, I’ll shoot for that.” So I decided to do a special edition of the Clark County Gazette for this school project, and it was mostly rubbish articles about the mock up trial etc. etc. But, there were some articles outlining the past of the CCG, and some of the views that I have expressed earlier in this massive paragraph. Now we are getting really hot, because that was it. I started seriously thinking about writing again. I came up with the actual concept of Randomer, where I right about any random thing. The beauty of the name being that it is not actually a word, showing my flagrant disrespect for English class etc. and any laws that come along with it such as random things that prohibit run on sentences even though they can be so cool to use because they are so absolutely random that no one would even know what had hit them once they got done reading said sentence because it had strayed so far from the original topic that they couldn’t even remember where it started so they will have to go back to the beginning just to remind themselves because I’m going to be mean and not tell them where it started so ha. Another part of the original Randomer concept was to do it online, because about the time I quit writing I took up website design, so I decided to combine the two passions into one.

Let's start a new paragraph, just for the fun of it. That basically brings us up to the start of Randomer. The first news update on the site was May 5th, and I’m aiming this newsletter thingamajobby to be complete just about then. Also turns out that May 5th is El Cinco de Mayo, which is pretty random. How neat. So this is the one year anniversary of Randomer, the Randomer “In Print” issue.

So in case you haven’t caught it yet, what Randomer essentially is, well it’s a website. And it is updated many times a month. The URL is www.randomer.sphosting.com so please go, check it out, and enjoy. But Randomer is not just a website; it's an idea, actually more of an ideal. But I’ll talk about that a bit later.

As for what is actually on the website, you will find:
-Writings by me
-Writings by Ben
-Many pictures by many people
-And even some videos

If you’re interested in contributing, let me know.

A little bit about the contents of this publication:
None of this was written specifically to antagonize anyone. Or maybe it was. I’m never quite sure. Oh well. So if you do end up taking offense to anything written herein, well then it must really suck to be you because you’re one of those people who take offense at every fricking thing someone says to you. But if you feel the need to voice your opinion, I totally am down with that and there is a message board section on the website (http://randomer.sphosting.com) where you can do just that and say whatever you want. See, that’s one of the founding principles/ideas behind Randomer:
We should all have the freedom to express our opinions and beliefs how we want to, and not have to conform to someone else’s rules or standards. So use the message board to write whatever you want, and maybe I’ll publish it if I really like it, who knows.

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How it Feels to Be Obsessed Like Me

By: Goo

I am extremely obsessed with several different things. My winter obsession of choice is skiing. To me, skiing is not just a pastime that I take part in once a month. No, obsession is the correct word. Every single chance that I have to go skiing is pursued with the utmost priority. There are very few things that can divert me from my snow-plans. Work? No! School? No! But there is one thing that comes between me and skiing. The one person, the one being, the one focus of an activity that can consistently persuade me to not go skiing is God. But second to God, skiing reigns supreme!

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I Wish

By: Goo

Written 4-12-06

I wish I was one of those inspired writers who can just go and write... and write lots. Writers who can just go and put down a story in ink. Me, I haven’t written a coherent fictional story since Worachek forced me to write one. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that he effectively disemboweled any chance of creativity. It had to be done just so, created along the lines of his demented infrastructure.

I really think that has left my capability to transfer my imagined situations to paper scarred and damaged. Hopefully it is not beyond repair.

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Breaking Trail

By Goo.

I’ve never had so much trouble climbing a hill.

The thought flashed across my cranium and I regarded it as truth without even the slightest examination. Immediately following that thought, another one came:

I must be doing something wrong.

That one lingered for a while. I must be doing something wrong. All summer long I climb hills and mountainboard back down them without the aid of a lift, and here I am, exhausted on this comparatively short hike. I was breathing as if I had just run a marathon, but it hadn’t been more than a couple hundred feet. Breathing... that’s it! I’m simply not used to this type of strenuous exercise at this high of an elevation! Well, onward then.

Five minutes later, and nothing was better. What else is inhibiting my ascent? Then I subconsciously settle upon what the problem was: the snow. With every step, I would sink in well past the knee and have to unbury that leg a step later. “Well,” I reasoned, “that’s why I’m hiking this slope, isn’t it: it’s covered in virtually untouched, deep powder!” But what I wouldn’t give for a pair of touring bindings and skins. Onward it was.

Should I turn back?

I was immediately repulsed by this preposterous thought. Turn back? Me? I hike up hills and go back down them at high speeds. That’s what I love to do! Now, I’ve decided to hike up this hill and destroy the powder on my way back down so that’s what I’m going to do.

Eventually I reached the top, and after a short break to enjoy the view, made all of the toil very much worth-while.

When I reached the bottom, I realized that I understood several concepts that relate to big-mountain skiing that I never before had the ability to grasp:

The term "bottomless powder." Not that I have already experienced it, but soon... sometime soon.

Why some people spend hours skinning up a mountain for 1 run down.

But the one thing that I had always wondered about and now understood best of all: The term “Breaking Trail.”

Me, after reaching the top.	My tracks, going along the top of the hill.
Looking down the hill.	Looking down the hill.
My gear at the top of the hill after the hike up.	A stump at the top.

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Mountainboarding

Mountainboarding


4/9/06

By Goo

Nathan, Brent, and I went mountainboarding today. AJ tagged along and streetboarded some. But today wasn’t just any old day spent screaming down a hill on a board.

We had been riding 5th Street near the school, and it is quite a nice hill. Probably one of the best hills in Neillsville, and you can really get a good head of speed up. Well this guy was driving along and he was like “How fast do you go on those things?”

I responded, “I dunno. You wanna clock me?”

And he was like “Sure!.”

So I bombed straight down at about as high of a speed as I could muster and he followed me down, and turns out that I got up to about 30 miles per hour by the time I hit the bottom of the hill. That’s not too shabby! But the thing of it was, I didn’t even feel like I was going too stinking fast. I bet I can go faster!

Our riding came to a premature end when a cop pulled up beside us. He talked really quiet, so I couldn’t hear what he was saying. But I think I got the gist of it: “Some loser called in a complaint, right during the middle of my afternoon nap. Now I had to drive down here and yell at you punks. Now scram.” (told you I couldn’t quite hear him, so I had to paraphrase. I dought he was really napping, although that would have been hilarious.)

Well well it looks like the cops have finally taken the time to tell us off for mountainboarding. Looks like the way we look at street riding has changed forever. Dang Neillsville is so stupid. “Lets make a law banning skateboarding over the entire town. If anyone wants to skateboard, let them do it at the skatepark.” What a way to make the average kid hate authority. Wait how about the law banning any kid from loitering near downtown? How is that for senile? I vote we put some people into public office whose brains can be seen without using a microscope.

But then if you look at most people, they enojy watching us mountainboard around town. I talked to an elderly lady who was really nice who had lived on top of that hill all her life, and she came out to talk to us and see what we were up to, and she told me about how she used to sled down that hill when she was a kid. And then there's that dude in the truck, who was more than willing to take time out of his life to clock my speed. So why is this lame ordinance even in existence? It is totally bogus!

I guess we'll just have to avoid capture. Who can say dreamboarding?

Post a comment on this rant here.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4
Sir Shakka’s New Sword

By: Ben

Shakka shook Krysta’s hand and offered it to Byshakka, but the boy only looked at it with contempt.

“Sorry about that,” Krysta said. “My bro’s not very friendly. We’re two of the children of Lord Akka. Our brother, Kayrn, told us he would send more help after we got here, but none ever came.”

“The bastard’s trying to kill us,” Byshakka growled. “He never sends help. Not that we need it. This is the first time we’ve had to fight something with a magic shield. And why do you wear an apprentice’s robe?” he asked Cortan.

“You don’t believe I am an apprentice mage?” Cortan asked.

“If you can cast a dispel of that strength there’s no way you’re an apprentice!”

“All right, I’m a master mage, but I’m pretending to be weaker than I really am in order to fool people.

As they were talking, Shakka picked up the fallen Grikto’s weapon. The Big Sword, one of the legendary indestructible weapons, was 7 feet tall. Shakka picked it up and carried it back.

“Since you two killed the goblin, you should take this,” he offered the blade to the siblings.

“Why the hell would I want that thing?!” Byshakka exclaimed. “It’s at least 2 feet taller than me!”

“And I don’t need it either,” Krysta said, transforming her arm into a sword. “As you can see, I am a powersteel warrior.”

Powersteel warriors were rare. They were born as normal humans are, but are composed entirely of a strange metal, known as powersteel. At the age of 15, a powersteel warrior must go to the powersteel citadel, where they join the army. Most noted of their abilities is the inability to die. A mortal wound causes them to freeze in their fully metal form until they can be repaired.

“If you would come back to Whiterock with us for a while, we will give you food and thank you for your help,” Krysta told the two foreigners.

“And keep the sword,” Byshakka told them.

The four set off for the capital of the Stone Kingdom.

Near the remains of Clearrock, on the Diamond side of the border, was an army. A cloaked man rode up to the general of the army.

“My lord Zain,” he said, dismounting and bowing. “The young children of Akka killed all of the goblins, even Grikto. Not one goblin lives in this world any longer.”

“And the Big Sword?” the general asked.

“A silver knight took it,” the spy said.

“Dammit,” Zain hissed. “But it was a small price to pay to capture this wide swath of the Stone Kingdom.”

“May I have my payment, lord Zain?” the spy asked.

“But of course.” As the general spoke, a wind blew his cloak back, revealing his full body armor to be made entirely of bone. His skin was pale in contrast to his short dark hair. Zain uttered a spell-“REND”- and the spy fell dead. Then Zain spoke a second spell-“RISE”-and the spy stood up and walked into the ranks of the undead army.

“And now,” Zain roared. “To claim the goblins for our undefeatable army!”

The few living soldiers cheered as the Diamond army moved to claim a part of the Stone Kingdom.

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Randomer photography on FOBMI.org

By: Goo

Some Randomer photography has cropped up on the friend's of Bruce Mound website, fobmi.org

To check it out, click on these links:
The Card Board Derby (All pictures on this page.)
The "Snow BMX" section of this page.

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The Periodic Table of the Elements

By: Goo

Parchment. Ink. Letters. Words. The Fundamental elements of writing. Ideas. Thoughts. Feelings. Emotions. These are the Elaborate elements of writing. Therefore, Writing: Is the expression of the Elaborate elements, By the means of the Fundamental elements.

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Do the Dew

By: Goo
1-25-06

For about the past week my watch has been dead. My battery croaked, and about 5 minutes has elapsed in the past 10 days. So, I decided that tonight would be the night that I would replace my watch battery. I just couldn’t wait any longer... my watch just needed a battery. “What’s so special about this watch?” my Mom asked more than once. Well let me tell you this is no ordinary watch. This is a limited edition Mountain Dew pocket watch that I got in the Dew U promotion a couple years ago. So this watch is special. I also acquired a sweet chain to go along with it. And, to top it all off, it has a neat flip up cover with a sneaky release button on the side. It is the coolest thing. You know those little things/habits that you just do when you’re bored? One of mine is opening and shutting my pocket watch. So anyway, I asked Nathan if he wanted to go on the expedition with me. He was game. We went up to the service counter in Pamida, and I asked the lady if she had a screw driver that I could use to open my watch up and find out what size battery I needed. “No, I don’t think we have anythingthat small,” was her reply. (Of course those weren’t her exact words, how am I supposed to remember that?) But here’s the kicker: she didn’t even look for one! How’s that for service, I tell ya. I work at a grocery store, and I alwayslook (unless I just got done looking for that item or something.)

Well then, obviously I’d ask for the next best thing: a knife. Right after the words came out of my mouth I decided that that was a rather odd question to be asking the store clerk, so it was back out to the van to look for something else that I could use for my purposes. Unfortunately, we came up dry.

I spotted Scott and Jamie going out to their cars, so I hailed them and asked them if they had anything that could be of use. No luck there.

Then it occurred to me to go look for a tiny screw driver in the hardware section. With Kevin’s (a person who works there) (I’m 60% sure that’s his name) help we located what I wanted. It was pretty nifty: a little plastic case with about 6 various little screwdrivers... could be very useful in the future.

After I purchased that, Nathan and I went out into the entrance way to disassemble my watch. Oddly enough, the flattest surface to work on was a stack of Miller Light.

There were people coming and going and Nathan kinda giggled. I was like “What’s so funny?”

“We must look pretty funny right now!” he responded. I realized that he was right; it did look pretty odd. Eventually we managed to extricate the battery, and with Kevin’s help (again), I managed to find a viable replacement.

Watch reassembled, time adjusted, and at the moment it is still working. And, I got several edbd (ask Mr. Volkman(hint: sound it out)) screw drivers out of the deal!

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Hangtime Photography (Old)

Hangtime: Photography

Taken By: Shmeges, AJ, Goo, or Nathan.
















He just finished with his hangtime, so this picture still counts!

For printer friendly version, click on the image in question.

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Brent Skiing (Old)

Brent, Skiing

By: Goo






For the picture above and below this, I told Brent to "do something interesting." Well, it is interesting.

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The Majesty of God

By: Goo
Written: 1-9-06

Author’s note:
This is something of a mental image that I had while I listened to Francis Chan preach from Revelations 4. It is not like a vision I had or a dream or anything, but it is just kind of what I envisioned in my brain. But it is written from the first person view as if it actually happened.

I saw what looked like a molten glob of rock, a ways off in the distance. It looked like a rock, but it wasn’t. It appeared to pulse with life. It was mostly colored ruby red, but the red surface was broken up by a spiral of a diamond colored material which ran throughout the object. It floated above a colossal golden throne, which was flanked by two semi-circle ranks of 12 thrones each. Those thrones were also gold, but they were just puny play things compared to the might of the central seat. Upon each one of the lesser seats sat a human, each well advanced in age, and all crowned with gold. The entire area in which the throne resided was shrouded in an emerald-green light. From the central throne lightning spiked upward into the sky, lighting up the clouds and illuminating the whole scene. Accompanying each flash was a resounding “crash-boom.”

As I stated, the throne was a ways off, but visible. In between where I stood and the origin of the lightning there was a vast expanse of open area, a perfect mirror reflecting all the goings on in the sky. A light wind gently swept across my line of vision, and ripples appeared on the “mirror.” It is a good thing I didn’t step onto it. Hovering above the rather odd “water,” immediately in front of the throne, were seven bonfires of flame, which ascended into the sky. They also appeared to descend infinitely into the depths of the silvery expanse.

But as I gazed into the mirror the fascinating events unfolding there caught my eye. I looked up to the sky. And my jaw dropped. There were four creatures soaring through the skies above the glassy expanse. But all four of them were entirely comprised of optical orbs, that is, eyes. One resembled a lion, one resembled an eagle, one looked like a human, and one looked like a cow (of all things.) They each had six wings, with two they covered up their faces, another pair covered their feet, and the other two provided power for flight.

As they flew, they cried out “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come. The whole earth is full of His glory!”

“Who is this God?” I cried out to them.

“I Am,” came a deep voice which resonated from the powerful presence of the golden throne.

The flying lion swooped down and offered me a ride to the throne. The beating of its wings created ripples in the water as it waited for me to hop aboard its back. As we traveled across, the presence upon the throne seemed to grow and grow as we approached. I realized that it, or rather He, was further away than I had thought. At last we passed between the columns of fire, penetrated the green haze, and stopped at the foot of God’s throne. Immediately after my foot touched the stone I fell on my face, prostrate in his presence. The words “unworthy, dirty, filthy” ran through my head.

“I’m not worthy!” I screamed in despair and self-loathing. “I can’t approach You!”

But then, out from behind the throne stepped a man. He walked over to me and lifted up my head. I noticed that there were holes bored straight through his hands.

“You can approach me,” He said, “and I’ll pass whatever you say on to My Father.”

We went for a long walk down a street paved with gold and talked for hours. I’ve never met anyone like him.

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Life is Such a Complicated Matter

By Gregory Heil

Life is such a complicated matter. I have spent a good portion of my life pondering what to do with the rest of it, what to do with it at the present time, why I did what I did with it in the past, and so on and so forth. When you ask someone what their philosophy of life is, it is not a question that can be posed to that individual lightly. It takes some thought. But now, I will do my best to divulge to you, the reader, the principles and ideas that embody my “philosophy of life.” In its simplest form, I am here to serve God and glorify Him.

Primarily, I believe that I was put on this planet for a purpose, which as I stated is to serve God and glorify Him. What greater purpose is there than to honor the One who created you? There is none! All glory and power be His! In a nutshell, that is what I am supposed to do with my life. But how we go about that is up to interpretation.

Now, to expand on that thought. I sincerely believe that God has granted all of us special gifts, talents, and unique abilities that are specifically suited for us. I hope to spend the rest of my life discovering the identities of all of my gifts, and using the ones I know of to glorify God as best I can.

If its specifics you seek, then you’re in luck. I have an immense love for adrenaline sports. By that I mean sports such as skiing, mountainboarding, mountainbiking, wakeboarding, and snowboarding. I just feel drawn to ski and mountainboard whenever I can. I practice whenever I can, and I am trying to develop those areas of my life as much as possible so that I will be a well-maintained tool when God reaches into his tool box to pull out someone to do his bidding. I will be the sharpest instrument at his disposal. There are many other areas of my life which I feel compelled to pursue, but these are the most unambiguous examples that I could think of.

In conclusion, my singular purpose in life is to glorify God and do his bidding, whatever it may be. It is to listen to God’s call, and respond. And that, is my philosophy of life.

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Jesus Christ, the Son of God

By: Goo
Written: November 2005

Author's note:
This was written as an English Unit Project, and the theme was "What People you would like to be together with in the afterlife." And it was really cool because I got to get up in front of class and talk about it for a little bit, so that was great!

When I started thinking about “…what people I would like to be together with in the afterlife,” I realized that it was not so much who I would like to be with, but who I know I’m going to be with. Then it hit me that there is really only one person that matters. That person is Jesus Christ. I am looking forward with certainty to spending eternity with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Why do I want to spend eternity praising him? Firstly, his love for us and his amazing grace are limitless. So limitless that he was crucified to atone for our sins: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 NIV) Secondly, heaven is a whole lot better than hell.

Now, the question you would pose is this: “Gregory, how do you know for certain that you’re going up and not down?” It’s simple: I have accepted Jesus Christ into my life as my Lord and Savior. How did I do that? The answer: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9 NIV) Why did I need to be “saved”? Romans explains it: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23 NIV) “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 NIV) If you are wondering how you can get this salvation too, the Message version of the Bible explains it well: “Say the welcoming word to God -- ‘Jesus is my Master’ -- embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the Dead. That’s it. You’re not ‘doing’ anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting Him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: ‘God has set everything right between Him and me!’”

In conclusion, I am eagerly looking forward to spending eternity with Jesus Christ. Death really isn’t such a bad thing after all.

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