"The best way to measure a tree is when it's down"

Sunday night is the final college group of the year, it's the annual senior night. I was asked to speak on whatever I wanted for a few minutes. Today I took some time to gather my thoughts the best way I know how, to just write stuff down and see what comes out. I went to a great coffee shoppe and got a cold water extract (one of my favorite summer treats!) and headed out to a park. I found a wonderful shade tree and sat at the base with plenty of sun, fresh cut grass, coffee and my thoughts. Here is a transparent un-eddited entry into my journal. My purpose in writing was to figure out what the heck to speak on. I hope you enjoy, and please forgive the scattered thoughts and poor writing technique.

"4 years in Eugene Or now over. I've earned a degree and changed in more ways than I would have ever guessed! I spent 2 years in AO and 2 years out. Friends have come and gone, classes are done. I came here with Katy on my heart and mind and that too ended.

College is a crazy time of change, excitement and growth. How can I take my time here and relate some wisdom to CCF in 5-10 minutes? What do I have to say that is of worth or value?

Maybe I should spend my time speaking to summers since that seems pertinent. I think what I can share must come from what makes me uniquely me. I think I have a great ability to endure and conquer change. I want to share some of my life full of change so I can help CCF to learn how to transition and change.

Last week Dan and I talked about how important adaptability and endurance are to life. It helped me think through my childhood and life and I can see how I have been groomed for change. I moved every 4.5 years on average only counting substantial moves. On top of that I had about 5 small moves. One of the results of all those moves is no long term friendships or stability. It shook my confidence and has shaped my personality greatly. I am tentative to build close relationships and fiercely devoted to any I do have. Every where I go I have to build a new family to fill the void I've had for so long.

With my childhood our family of 4 was always all the family I knew and we had to band together to endure the trials of change. Extended family was marred with a distance. Now I see this modeled in how I build friendships and my "family".

With all the trials and difficulties that came with change I've learned some things that can strengthen any one in view of change.
1st: Change is taught, admit it and move on
2nd: Persistence and dedication are the most important keys
3rd: don't expect change to look like your past, or like you envisioned
4th: Build a family wherever you go and be devoted like a family
5th: No matter what changes, God is the same...BUT!! - When you change, God may appear in a new, different and difficult way. But don't give up, be devoted to Him and continue to get to know Him, He is my ultimate family!

What a jumbled mess of thoughts! I don't know how I ever worked things out without a pen and journal. I am so blessed to have such a great family and so many pseudo families wherever I go. God is good!"

I thought Cheveron was spendy!

The past ten days have flown by and boy has it been eventful! One of the biggest events of the week came last Thursday with a call from by my mentor and boss of the last 2 years offering me a new job. In my last post I said I had no job leads and at that point I was not expecting to return to my job I've had for 2 years as school allowed and during the summers. The company I've worked for is called Synergy Air. It is a training and building assistance facility for experimental home built aircraft by Vans Aircraft. I've worked through the stages of simple grunt work and quickly gained skills and knowledge and most recently have been hands on through entire builds with an emphasis on finish work, which is primarily fiberglass work.

This has been the best job I've ever had, we only have 3 employees, my boss Wally Anderson who has been a mentor to me for three years now, also a great guy Phil who can do anything you can think of and myslef. It's been really fun to work so close with such skilled and hard working guys and we all work real well together, and are lucky to be brothers in Christ. It has been a very demanding job but so rewarding. One of the best things is to litterally put blood and sweat on a plane and later see that plane win world class awards. Here is a picture of the first RV-7 Amphib plane ever, that we fully custom built with the Owner. It won Grand Champion float plane at the Oshkosh Airshow a few years ago and recently made the cover of a few magazines and the EAA yearly calender.All that to give you a bit of a glimpse into what my job has been and update you on employment. The job I'll have will be different from what I've had but still building planes. I don't know a bunch of details as of yet but I'll fill you in as I can, so far I've started working as I can and will pick up to full time when summer hits. I am so thankful to have this job again and excited to see what new opportunities it will bring!

Throughout the last week I've been super busy working on school, and meeting with people to build a team of Home group leaders for my job with the Church. That job will also bring about some challenging and exciting things as well. I'm in the process of figuring out how these two jobs will work together and how to best distribute my time. I am so thankful that I only have to throw school in there for the first 3 months. It will certainly be a busy summer!

This weekend I took a short road trip with my friend Dan. We jumped into the car with the intention of going to Bend OR, a town in the center of the state just over the cascade range that is full of outdoor things and fun in the sun. As we got on the road we started dreaming bigger and decided to go to Bend only for lunch and then continue on. Over lunch we weighed our realistic options for a 2 day trip and decided on heading south. Our first destination was Crater Lake National Park. I've never been and was far overdue. It is Oregon's only state park and an amazingly beautiful place. The lake is 6 miles wide and formed on the top of a mountain from a series of Volcanic eruptions, the oldest being 6,000 years ago. The result is a huge, very deep, clear, high altitude lake amongst the Cascade Mountain range. We forgot a camera so here is a shot very similar to what we saw. The lake is still surrounded by 10 feet of snow but melitng fast at this point. On the way out we realized we were at least 35 miles from a gas station (turned out to be more like 60) and were below E. We had to ask the rangers for some gas and learned that "The government charges $8 a gallon to deter people from doing this" but we had no choice. The ranger escorted us to a pump and we payed for 2 gallons with $14 which was all we had, he filled us up and then kindly placed our money in his pocket... Quite the tip for him I'm sure.

Next we headed south and camped in a small town that night. The next day we headed south into California and weaved our way over to the coast. A short drive north braught us to Redwood National Park. I had been here before but this time I explored it much more. This forest is truly stunning! The average redwood tree spans 12 feet at the trunk, and the forrest is jam packed full of these monsters. It is a weird feeling to walk inside a tree and realize just how small we are. Since it's a national park the Elk know they can't get shot so as we entered the park were greeted by 9 Elk just hanging out enjoying some rays and salad :) Once again since we forgot a camera I borrowed a shot from the internet to give you a glimpse into the trip.
The rest of the trip was a beautiful drive up the smith river and the 5. It was a great little retreat from life and a great reminder of why I love the outdoors so much! That makes eight national parks this year, I'm on a roll!

Coffee and Yoopers

My view this afternoon is of a fresh French Press of my favorite coffee right now, my journal, bible, laptop, and my front porch. I find myself more and more satisfied in the smaller things in life such as porch time with coffee and my thoughts. Today is one of the most beautiful days this year, low 70's calm breeze and not a cloud in sight. However with all of the beauty of Eugene comes pollen and the wonders that accompany it. A small price to pay for me.
Last weekend I enjoyed an entire weekend by myself at home and frolicked in my clean house with no roommates to clean up after. It was such a great feeling to come home to a house just as I left it, but it was nice to have people back come monday.
This week brought a welcomed change of pace and kept me going strong. I started some of the work for my job next year. I began to recruit a team of leaders for small groups next year with had great success thus far. I would like to have a minimum of 6 groups next year and would love to see up to 10. That translates into a team of 12-20 people I was awaiting the go ahead to talk to people for some time and finally got the thumbs up on Sunday. I spend my entire day Wednesday meeting with people. I had 8 meetings and all but two were at coffee shoppes leaving me quite jittery but got 4 commitments and 4 maybe's so it was a great day! You can be praying that I can get committed and passionate leaders on board for next year, my time frame is by the first week of June.
Yesterday I enjoyed another day of meetings and fun in the sun, and topped the afternoon off with some house hunting for next year. My friend Dan and I walked around an area of town we are interested in moving to and really liked the area but found no leads as of yet. I'm still working through what I want to do for next year, so I'll just keep on until I find some direction. After our walk we joined up with some friends for a free show of 4 local bands and had a great time! I even got a free CD, Woohoo!
Perhaps the best part of the show came when I ran into a guy I met at the start of the year and hadn't seen since. His name is Neal and is a Yooper (a person from the Upper Penninsula of Michigan) here with Green Peace, and the only other true hockey fan I've met here. What a joy it was to have someone tap me on the shoulder and say "how 'bout them wings eh?" I think I giggled a bit. We took the all important step of phone number swapping and I'll have some great company for the next few weeks as the NHL playoffs continue. There is something surreal about meeting people from former homes of mine. It was so fun to chat about things like Makinak Island, Bells Brewery, Traverse City, and foreign concepts to most people like lake effect snow, wind chills, or playoff beards.
Recently I've realized just how much I am connected to every place I've lived and want to retrace my steps in the near future and revisit. I am thinking of a trip back to MI to see family at the end of the summer as a start. I have not been back to Michigan since I moved in 1998 and haven't seen anyone from there since 2005 when my Grandma came to my High School graduation, so I'm well over due! I'll keep you posted as I find out more details of the trip.

Until next time,
~B

first things first

When faced with the reality that I'm nearing the end of my undergraduate studies, the topic of graduation entered my thoughts. One of the greatest questions surrounding graduation was if I should send invitations and if so to whom? Since the closest family to me are the Gotts in Las Vegas and then all the way to Michigan, it was apparent that no one would be making a trip to watch a stale celebration of my career at the UO. With a tight budget and the understanding that people weren't going to make the trip out I decided not to send formal invitations but I needed to at least fill people in on my life. Inspired by the many blogs I follow daily and the response to my sister's blog I realized the best way to reach out to friends and family was to start my own. I wanted to open my life to the people that I care about, and care about me. So forget the transparent papers and ornamental embossments of typical graduation invitations, and open this invitation; join with me in a journey through life found in the pages of this blog.

I feel I should start with an apology for sporadic or in many cases non-existent communication over many years. My passion for independence and the distance that separates us led me to withdraw from family and friends but that was a monumental mistake! I am blessed to have a wonderful and patient mother who had kept many of you informed of my life but even my mother received few details at times. Over the last year however, I've realized the great importance and value of family and I am more than ready to rebuild and form the family I've slowly let slip away. So lets start afresh starting with my commitment to keep you up to date on the daily dribbles of my life, what do you say?

Ok to start things off I'll give you a short glimpse into my life and the few details I have of my future. As far as the basics of who I am I'll keep it fairly short. I love bicycles and am always building or repairing them, I also love riding and currently have but 3 bikes, I'm sure you'll hear plenty of bike stories on these pages. The northwest gives new meaning to the idea of a coffee addict, and I further that idea daily. The picture is of my favorite mug that never leaves my side! My parents can attest to my coffee love and snobbery but unfortunately as a Ross that passion follows through most food and drink, oh I love it all! I'm also a big music buff and I have a particular interest in Jazz. I love the outdoors and traveling, and follow hockey religiously, go Wings!

I don't look too far ahead in my life but here's what I do know so far:) I'm walking this June 13th in the University of Oregon History department graduation ceremony. I've earned a history degree with a thesis and focus on US medical history, and also earned a business minor. I have one Spanish class to take during the summer and will remain here after graduation. This last Wednesday I officially tool a position with my church for the next year organizing and establishing small groups within the college area and working alongside the church small group ministry. This is a big passion of mine and I'm real excited to see what the Lord can do through me. The details of the job are still unraveling so stay tuned. Unfortunately the position pays VERY little so I need to find another job to make ends meet, no leads yet other than friends at coffee shops. I am currently deciding what my housing situation will look like and I'll keep you up to date as I know more. I live with 3 guys in a great colonial house a few miles from school and it's been great but I think I may be ready to be a 'real boy' and live with just one roommate.

Thanks for jumping on board with me through life!
~B

Set it off

The time has come for me to set up a blog. With family and friends spread all over the planet this is the best way to keep updated and plugged in. I'll do my best to get used to this but be patient with me.
~B