Ithaca Brew Fest

I need a job so that I can earn money so that I can spend it and go to this.

http://www.ithacabrewfest.com/

Taughannock and the Western Lake Drive.

I decided I needed a change of pace today. After a couple weeks of sitting in the apartment job searching, playing video games, watching tv and generally being bored, I decided to go outside. I headed west out of Ithaca on HWY 89 and made my way to Taughannock Falls State Park. Being the cheap, make that poor, man that I am, I bypassed paid entry and made my way to the scenic drives around the park. After finding a place to park at the far south end of the falls, I started hiking the gorge rim trail. To say this area is beautiful is a complete understatement.
















Just a hundred feet down the path I found a bridge overlooking one of the smaller falls leading up to Taughannock.



















The gorge rim trail was pretty sweet. I only saw one other person in the hour I was walking, and it was incredibly peaceful. Here are some other views from the trail.






















The best view of the falls came from the opposite side of the gorge. After my hike along the eastern rim, I drove back along the western rim to take a few pictures of the actual falls.




























































After leaving Taughannock, I decided to continue further north west along the side of the lake. In approximately 20 miles of driving I saw 5 wineries, a cidery and a creamery. On my way back to Ithaca I decided to stop at the Bell Weather Cidery. I felt a little pathetic as the other people there were younger married couples and I was by myself. That being said, for a buck I was able to sample 7 of their different ciders. Everything from sparkling, to cherry, to a black currant. I ended up leaving with a semi-dry Heritage that I am hoping Brianna will like.

All in all, it was a good day.

Where exactly do I live?

Brianna and I are beginning to seriously wonder if we moved to Seattle rather than upstate NY. Maybe it is the fact that we have lived in MN our whole lives, but seriously, it hasn't hit 80 in over a week and it has rained almost every day. The forcast keeps giving me hope that I will see some sunlight, but it only really lasts for a couple minutes. Here's to hoping this weekend will be better.

Job Searching

I hate looking for jobs. Plain and simple, no excuses, it ranks up there with my least favorite things in life. I have yet to hear back from the coffee shop down the street, although I did notice they reposted their job openings on Craigslist today.
The biggest problem with the whole finding a job thing is that I have no clue what I want to do. Ok, I take that back, I know what I want to do, there just aren't any job openings doing it. That aside, I have been a mechanic, a carpenter and a janitor. All things considered, those weren't bad jobs and I even enjoyed them at times, but try as I might there are really any jobs that I can find out here that fit into those categories. So here is the question: do I go into retail? I ask, because it scares and annoys me. I don't know if I can handle retail. It is like the scary thing I never really contemplated until this point in life, but I am starting to get desparate here.
The problem with considering retail is, where do you even start? Should I go with the flow and try to be one of the crazy used car salesmen that I keep seeing in TV commercials? Ok, won't even go there. Book stores are cool, but my wife kinda has that one under wraps. Guitar shops are hard to come by. Kohls is hiring, but once again, scary.
I am at a loss. Apparantly I should have gone into sales or business or something cause there sure doesn't seem to be any job postings looking for a Music/Theology grad. If only I could get paid for sitting around and talking about music and discussing theology, that would be great. Now that I think about it, aside from scrubbing a couple toilets, that's about all I ever did at Bethel. Funny how that works.

Disc in Ithaca: Part 1

I played my first round of disc here in Ithaca on Saturday. Thanks to my lovely wife, I found out that there is actually a course in town. Upon further research I found out that Ithaca has its own disc golf club. (discithaca.com) From their website I found out about a temporary couse on the Cornell Campus. I printed off a map of the course and headed out, interested to see what a course would look like in an area with so many trees and hills.
The course was not really what I expected. I will admit that I only played six of the holes because I got lost trying to find holes 6, 7 and 8. That being said, the course didn't really incorporate one technical shot. Every hole was long, open and did I mention, LOOOONG. After six holes I felt like my arm was ready to fall off. It might have something to do with the fact that it was the first round I had played in almost three weeks and the fact that each hole required nearly two full power drives.
The only things that were remotely technical were pin approaches when the pin was placed right on the edge of dense woods. Other than that, wide open.
All that said, I enjoyed the opportunity to get out and play again. I have met a couple of guys at church who are in to disc and I think they are going to take me out to the course at T3 in the next couple weeks. Rumor is, this is a pretty serious course, like, Kaposia/North Valley style. I will hold out hope.

Church in Ithaca

This morning was our second week at the Vineyard Church of Ithaca (http://www.ithacavineyard.org/). It is interesting that given all the different churches I have been to, before last week I had never been to a Vineyard church. The thing that struck me from the start was the welcoming nature of congregation. By the time we left the first week we had already been invited to a small group, met a girl who graduated from Bethel and another girl who knew some of our college friends. To top it all off, a girl who works in the HR department at Cornell told me she would keep and eye open for any job openings I might be interested in.
That being said, it has been reaffirmed to me what an amazing an unique opportunity we had in the Twin Cities in The House of Mercy and The Mercy Seat. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, maybe it is out there, but for the life of me I have not been able to locate a church in this area that remotely comes close the nature of those two churches. I find myself longing for a sermon I disagree with, that makes me uncomfortable and leaves me asking questions that there are no easy answers for. It is a hard adjustment to get a Willow Creek sermon series followed by action steps for the week ahead.
It may be that I have simply stepped out of the evangelical realm for too long and just need to readjust. I admit that many times at Crosswinds I should have been forced to deal with these issues, but I was always able to get by it through the justification that it was my job. I could always look forward to going to House in the evening.
I am not sure where this leaves me at this point. I am really excited to get to know the people at the Vineyard, they seem genuinely cool and interested in getting to know us. Maybe I just have to mine the sermon archives on the House website.

Rant- Part 2

After five and half hours of waiting, and an hour of watching the cable guy get confused, I kinda have cable. Good times.

Rant

I have been waiting four and a half hours for the cable guy to come and hook up our cable. They were supposed to be here at 10. He called me at 12 to say they would be here at 1. It is now 2:20. I am bored. And annoyed. End rant.

Buttermilk Falls

I have only lived in Ithaca for two weeks but I have already been to Buttermilk Falls State Park twice. The first time was with my parents on the day they left NY to head back to Edgerton. The second was with Brianna's parents last Saturday while they were here visiting. Buttermilk Falls SP is located at the southern end of Ithaca, the entrance is right at the edge of the new development along HWY 13. This location leads to some fun visuals as you climb up the gorge. The nice view of the waterfalls going down into the valley, the hills rising up on the other side of the valley and Home Depot in the middle of the valley.
That being said, here are some pictures.

A Disclaimer

I have never written a blog before. I tried to keep a journal once, I sucked at it. That being said, I am going to attempt to make this whole blogging thing something of a routine in my life. Hopefully, this will give my friends the chance to have some semblance of an idea of what is going on in my life and allow me to try to make sense of the crazy new place I find myself in. So, here goes.